Go to Bed. Get Up. Show Up!
John 1:1-18/I Corinthians 13
St. Andrew’s Church, Toronto - September 21, 2025
Sermon by Rev. Dr. Trygve Johnson at the Installation of Rev. Jaylynn Byassee
I.
Jaylynn Congratulations. St. Andrews, Congratulations. Today you are being installed as a pastor of this storied congregation. You all know this, but to find a pastor—a pastor who is for you—who will love you—is a rare gift. Tonight—you are installing a true pastor. I congratulate all!
For our time together, I’m directing this sermon to you, Jaylynn. As for the rest of you—relax. You have permission to simply listen in. So breathe easy, pop an Altoid or a Life Saver, and let Jaylynn take the hot seat for the next seventeen minutes.
***
J, this may be overstated. But you have moved a lot! At least compared to me! Texas. North Carolina (both among the triangle elite in the East, and the mountain folk in the western Blue Ridge mountains. Chicago. Vancouver, B.C., now Toronto. You have moved. There is no moss on your rolling stone.
I may be wrong, but I may be one of the handful of friends who has visited you—seen—and had meals in 90% of all your homes. Wheaton, Durham, Boone, Vancouver (house #1), Vancouver (house #2), I missed house (3) due to Covid! Now, Toronto house #1 and now house #2. The only difference is now, we live a mile rather than one thousand miles apart! For that gift, I am grateful.
I’m also grateful to be here tonight, invited to offer a Word—as feeble as it might be for the weight of the moment. I’m excited for you and thrilled for St. Andrews. But why are we here? We are here because God has called you—Jaylynn, personally and by name—to share the life and love of Jesus Christ in this place, among these beloved people.
As your friend Will Willimon, the namesake of your third son: “To know that we are here, in ministry, because God wills us to be here — this is great grace.”[1]
Tonight – we are here –to participate in a great grace!
I have prayed and pondered: what word can be spoken at a friend’s installation that has not already been voiced? How does one speak to a seasoned shepherd—marked by scars and stories that would earn a free pint with honors at any pastoral pub? I do not claim to know. But I will try.
I want to speak from a text both familiar and forgotten—a passage so well-worn that even those who’ve never opened a Bible may know it. Its wisdom stretches imagination, bends reason, and pushes us past the cul-de-sacs of our lives, and onto the narrow trail that leads into the wide-open country Jesus called the Kingdom of God.
II. Scripture
The text is 1 Corinthians 13—the one you just heard. This a text that is read at weddings so often it’s basically the ‘O Canada’ of ceremonies, sung before the puck ever drops. So, what’s it doing here, crashing a pastor’s installation service? Well, let me explain—but first—let’s listen again to the book we love, the bush that burns and is never consumed. And yes—even you, working that Altoid like it’s a lozenge of wisdom—have permission to eavesdrop.
If I speak in the tongue of morals and of angels, but do not have love….
And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
III. Focus
I need to hear this wisdom again and again. I don’t know if there’s a better description of love in the English language than Paul’s words here. They name the kind of wisdom that can save a marriage: Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.
They offer the discernment that redirects our disordered desires: Love does not insist on its own way…it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. They challenge and inspire us to train the muscles of the soul—as love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. And they hold out the foresight that reshapes our perspective and enlarges our horizon: Love never ends.
For me, this cuts to the heart—pulling me back from the precipice of my worst instincts, calling me down from my selfish indulgence and calling out my self-justifications.
Out of Paul’s theo-poetic diatribe, I want to invite you to focus—like a magnifying glass—on the last verse, verse 13: ‘And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.’
Jaylynn, this is the Word will serve as a compass as you help St. Andrew’s navigate the wild waters and unpredictable wonders of God’s expansive geography in Toronto. This verse—so often quoted, yet so rarely lived—is my word for you as you’re installed as a pastor of Word and Sacrament in this beloved sanctuary: ‘And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.’
But what does this mean? How do we take faith, hope, and love—lofty words that sound like Platonic ideals—and actually embody them in the gritty, dull, and everyday chores of ministry? That’s what I want to explore with you tonight: a way of living this verse that might guide you and sustain your ministry at St. Andrew’s.
I know we’re Presbyterians here—and like you, I come from an intellectualized spirituality where 99% of revelation is earned through perspiration. But let’s try something different. Let’s be a little playful. For you, Jaylynn, who was planted and flourished in the holiness soil of Methodism—where experimentation and playfulness are second nature—you’ll feel right at home.
I want to change verse 13: And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.’ To…
“Go to bed. Get up. Show up. These three.
And the greatest of these—the most courageous, the most faithful, the most loving—is simply this: to show up.”
IV. Go To Bed
Jaylynn—you need to go to bed. Every day. At the end of it. No matter what’s behind you: go to bed. It’s a simple, nearly universal practice, but for a pastor it’s essential.
I don’t mean only good sleep hygiene—though that matters—I mean this: sleep is the daily refusal of the illusion that we are limitless. Our age is built on the false assumption that overcoming limits is always a human virtue. We created electricity to overcome the night; we created boats, trains, planes, and automobiles to overcome the limits of travel; we’ve created computers so that we can overcome the limits of working only in one place; and now, what’s coming, we are creating AI to overcome the limits of our reason. Our default assumption is that any limit is a problem to be solved.
But what if some limits are a gift? What Going to bed is is an embodied way of embracing our finitude. It says, I am a creature who needs restoration. Going to bed says this ministry is for, but I do not pretend to be God.
As a pastor, some people may unwittingly ask you to be their heroic savior—to be someone they can count on to fix everything. Boy, doesn’t that feel good when they do – when we can be God’s problem solver! When this happens, however, it’s tempting to believe we are essential—so we have to keep working—because if I don’t do it, who will?
But going to bed resists that temptation. It reminds you—and everyone who depends on you—that God’s work is not confined to your waking hours—and God’s work does not require you.
This is the temptation Eugene Peterson names in his great essay Teach Us to Care and Not to Care. He writes: ‘What we learn not to do is just as important as what we learn to do. A major contributing cause to this deterioration of care that we are all part of is the widespread refusal to learn not to care by accepting limits and respecting boundaries.’ [2]
That’s the pastoral temptation: to think that our caring means overcoming every limit, ignoring every boundary, never sleeping because problems never sleep. But that kind of help can hurt.
So here’s my encouragement, Jaylynn: Go to bed. (Not without supper—eat something first!) This is not punishment; it is freedom. Go to bed because God’s ministry does not depend on you. Sleep is a daily reminder that even when we are not working, God is at work. When you rest, the Triune God—who never slumbers nor sleeps—has you, your family, your people, all of us.
Here’s the crux: going to bed means trusting God to be God. Be the pastor who witnesses to that trust—not in yourself, but in the living God. Trust that while your body is restored in deep sleep, God is weaving dreams of the Kingdom into waking reality. Going to bed is an act of trust. Another word for this kind of trust is faith.
And faith, Jaylynn, is what you are called to give these upright and fallen, polished and broken, baptized saints at St. Andrew’s.
So, go to bed. Let your sleep be a daily Sabbath, where you release your work and rest in the arms of the God who loves you enough to tuck you in each night.
V. Get Up
But then… after you go to bed, there comes a moment, when your alarm goes off, as the sun rises out of a black east, signaling the commencement of a new dawn; and its light, begins to race across the landscape, as swiftly as a Gretzky no look pass, making the darkness so confounded, so overwhelmed, its defense can do nothing but retreat. And in this moment, your eyes open, and you waken from your sleeps, and you are forced to make the first decision of the day – “Do I hit the snooze, keep sleeping, or… do I…get up!”
Jaylynn, get up! Get up because the Son has risen—He has risen indeed! Get up because God’s Light is even now overwhelming the darkness and spreading across the city. Get up because in this Light you will see there are things for you to do!
Getting up is a daily decision to practice hope! It is the hope that reminds us life has purpose, and that purpose is larger than us. We get up, because while you were sleeping, God has been busy, setting the table, and a place for you, and for others, to feast and communion with him!
Getting up is the hopeful anticipation that even when we consider all the facts, even when we consider the sufferings of the present time, it is not worth comparing to a life that is called to share in and give witness to God’s glory.
It is said, each day, creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God! Jaylynn, that is you! You are the child of God creation wants! Creation is longing for you to get up, wipe the cobwebs from your eyes, stretch, put yourself together, drink some coffee, eat some eggs, with a little butter scratched over sourdough toast, and then head out the door and join the action—God’s action!
Getting up means you arise in hope to join a story that is so overwhelming, significant, exciting and gripping, that even the rocks can’t but help to stand to their feet and cry out with an eternal Amen! So—when the alarm rings—and the sun rises in the east—don’t hesitate—get up—for this is your first act of hope!
VI. Show Up
As you get up and walk into the dawn of a new day, there remains one more thing—the most important thing. You go to bed. You get up. But then—you must show up. Of the three, it is showing up that matters most.
Show up. Show up physically. Show up emotionally. Show up mentally. Show up with all of who you are. Show up for this church. For this city. For the Kingdom of God.
Jaylynn, it is your presence—not the precision of your programs—that will matter most. You are the gift God is calling here. Paul was right: you can have every spiritual gift, every degree, every insight, every book deal, even the faith to believe the Maple Leafs will again one day win the Stanley Cup—but if you don’t show up, in person, for these people, it means nothing.
Your work is simple: show up. Show up in the pain. Show up in the celebrations. Show up for worship. For the hospital visit. For the graveside tears. For the birth pains. For the graduation honors. For the broken and bruised relationships. For the ones who doesn’t speak the language.
Show up for the skeptic and angry as well as for the choir who sings the old songs we forget at our peril. Jaylynn, just show up.
Because showing up is how you embody love. And love is what these people need from you most.
Why is showing up so important? The reason is a simple, as it is mysterious. Showing up is what the God the Father, in Jesus Christ, does, and through the Holy Spirit, is still doing.
The Christian faith and hope is about a God—a God who takes the time to show up in the flesh. It’s about a God who gets dirty, and takes on scars. It is the story of a God who is relentless for us. It is the drama of a God who is running after us—even when we run away and hide. And through the mystery of the Holy Spirit this same God, the God who was incarnate in Jesus, continues to show up for you—for them—for the world he so loves!
John says it best: ‘The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.’
God showed up in Jesus Christ to take on our humanity, to redeem it, and to give our fully humanity back to us as healed as a gift of his cruciform glory. It happened—and the good news is—it’s still happening.
Every time you show up, you remind people of the God who shows up for them.
And here’s the grace Jaylynn: you don’t have to show up alone. You do it with these people.
***
St. Andrew’s, God is asking you to show up with Jaylynn. Not as consumers of programs, not as spectators of the sacred, but as partners in God’s purpose to show up for a world he so loves. Peterson said it well: ‘Before anything else, the church is a place where a person is named and greeted in Jesus’s name. A place where dignity is conferred.’
So show up. Show up so that others who come here may receive the dignity of being received in Jesus’ name! And show not just here. What happens here—is not meant to stay here!
Show up—at work, in the board and faculty meetings; show up at your schools, in your friendships, your marriages, and parenting; show up in the neighborhood, your apartment building, and grocery store. Wherever you go show up—and be fully there—and let the God who shows up—bring through you the faith, hope, and love others have always longed to know.
It's true—we see dimly, as in a mirror. But soon we will see face to face. For now, we know only in part. But soon we will know fully, even as we are fully known.
So Jaylynn (and St. Andrews) after you leave here tonight:
Go to bed. Get up. Show up. These three.
And the greatest of these—the most courageous, the most faithful, the most loving—is simply this: to show up -
Again, and again, and again.
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] Willimon, Pastor: The Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry, 326.
[2] Peterson, Subversive Spirituality, 163.
