Comfort and Care

Comfort and Care

April 26, 2026

Birdie Cunningham, Director of Congregational Care

Reading: 2 Corinthians 1:3-7

Download a printable PDF of this sermon here.

“3 Praise be to the God, God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the God of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 5 For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. 6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. 7 And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.”

May this blessing continue to provide a center for us, for these are the words of our ancient tradition.

On this Congregational Care Sunday, I begin with two stories of the care I carry on my heart.

Story One

As an undergrad in college, with very limited money, I started babysitting for a family. Over the year, I grew a bit closer to them, and the mom and I got to know each other a bit more. And one night she said, “Birdie, why don’t you come to church with the girls and me on Sunday morning?” I paused, and she said, “We will stop for donuts on the way.”

Over those many months she saw not only how much I enjoyed her kids, but she also got to know all the struggles, unknowns, pain, and pure deep sadness that swelled inside me.

She didn’t try to fix me or cure it; instead she just opened a door to more care. For I, in the midst of trying to understand what was happening with my mother, who was in her early 50s and in the throes of early onset dementia, I was, in every moment, moving away from my role of daughter into the role of caregiver. Our family structure was becoming frayed because it was no longer held together by that momma love, that momma glue.

Every Sunday I came to Plymouth. Plymouth became, more and more, a container and a source of compassion during this time. Often Plymouth, as a container, held the tears that it didn’t always make sense to release in a college dorm or when hanging out with my peers.

Often, I would be alone in the pew. But I was not lonely. There was something about being able to be alone and able to release my emotions, and yet, feel comforted and cared for by all those sitting around me.

During those years, sneaking in and out of service without mingling is all I could handle. I was often depleted, yet somehow also nourished, by the end of service.

However, a few pews in front of me, not too far away, sat a women who I had briefly met and for a while, each Sunday, she said hello. Over time she became my one Plymouth friend. She slowly invited me out for walks, meals, and coffee, and she cared for me. For years.

She didn’t have the magical answer to the whole unraveling of my life. Instead, she was the steady presence of someone walking along side me—listening, encouraging, sharing a bit of wisdom—but mostly giving comfort and care, as this story within my life unfolded.

Now, so many many decades later, our friendship remains rooted in care. She is now an elder, and the care between us has shifted a bit.

When I think about it, it brings to my mind an image of a big, beautiful circle of care. Captured within it is a continuous cycle of care moving between the two of us—the giver and receiver—in continuous reciprocal motion. In recent years, I may be more the giver, but she may ask a question and in an instant, I become the receiver.

There is a fluidity of love and compassion always circulating between us.

And the Second Story

In 2024, on Wednesday, November 5th, my 15-year-old daughter woke me up with a panic energy that zapped between us and a look on her face that I had never seen as she said, “He won, and I am worried.” I pulled her into a hug, and we laid there in silence. I didn’t have words, and I don’t tell my children helpful lies or little fibs like, “Oh, no, Chucky Cheese is closed today.” So, I couldn’t say, “It’s going to be ok.”

I had nothing but silence in this half-awake state comforting my teenager. And the silence lingered a long time. Tears rolled down my face for her heartbreak, and mine.

As I searched inside my head for an answer—a word, a plan, anything—nothing came; everything was shifting. I took a breath and wondered where solid ground might be found. And amongst the very few things that remained solid, I thought of Plymouth.

At other points in life when it was falling apart, Plymouth had been that solid ground. I was reminded in that moment that I don’t need to carry this alone. My daughter’s grief, sadness, fear and anxiety do not, will not, and cannot be carried by me alone.

This community has been a source of care, of trying to make sense of what is happening, and a source of justice and love among and within all of it.

I thought of the saying, “Put one foot in front of the other” and how our own saying would become, “Keep coming Sunday after Sunday.”

Looking back, that is what we did and what we continue to do. And the care received and given, and the comfort of knowing she was part of a community doing justice work has been a lifeline for my daughter.

Our Scripture today reminds us that God is in both of these stories.

When I think of God in the center of the big beautiful circle of care I have, and in the center of the congregational care given to my daughter, it is both life affirming and spiritually affirming.

There is a trusting—a knowing—that Paul tells us: The God of comfort and compassion is with us—feels with us. We are not alone; Got is with us.

And because we trust and know God is with us in our suffering and provides comfort, we can trust in the knowing God is with us as we comfort others.

God is in the spaces of the care and comfort we give one another. Even if the name of God is never spoken aloud, God is present.

There is a sacredness rooted in knowing God is among our acts of care. God is present for both the caregiver and the care receiver.

Trusting and knowing this, we are opening and co-creating with God—creating a way of being in the world that gives space to and for God’s compassion and comfort.

You have experienced these moments—these co-creating moments of care with God when God’s compassion and comfort are flowing—I know you have. It is one of the honors and privileges I have, being in my role—to witness, time and time again, these sacred moments of care I see each of you giving and receiving to and from one another.

They happen when there is no ego. There is instead, just you and the other person, and what is happening between you in the moment is being created. It’s being held by God and allowing God’s compassion and comfort to come into and through the moment. And these moments sometimes get strung together, and at other times, they are gone after just a moment or two.

I know you have felt them happen. Sometimes it is in the hello or among the buzz of sharing peace, and at other times it is in our quietest conversations.

Knowing God is present in our moments releases our ego, our self-doubt—it relaxes our inner problem solver and advice giver and allows us to tune in to the wisdom God offers, allowing us to feel God’s comfort and compassion.

The heartbeat of this congregation is the care you have for one another, for our community, and for the broader community. Sharing in the knowing that God is present in our care and the co-creating of care amongst our community, I believe teaches, allows, or opens our hearts wider to offer care beyond us.

The stories I told are not unique.

The care given here is both on the personal, one-to-one level like I received, and it is broadly woven into our church by the way in which the congregation supports each other, like the care you offer my daughter, and the care we offer to one another as a whole.

Care and comfort are not done by only a trained group of people. That group is one of the many layers of care knitted into the fabric of Plymouth. For me it wasn’t just the member who cared for me:

• It was the babysitting mom who opened the door to this caring community.
• It was the person on the far end of the pew who got to know my name through the friendship pad and was wise enough to know all I needed (and could handle) was, “It’s good to see you Birdie.” Our shared thankfulness for seeing each other each Sunday had care inside it.
• It was the choir that sang and opened inside me the river of swelling emotions.
• It was the people on the Board of Outreach that, when I was ready to join and give back, welcomed me and the gifts I brought.

To be in this place is to always be a care receiver and a caregiver. And that, my friends, is the precious gift of love and belonging.

We are a congregation of care. Let us be reminders for one another that we are not alone in our suffering or in our care, whether it be given or received. As our hymn states, we share each other’s woes, each other’s burdens bear, our fears, our hopes, our aims are one, our comforts and our cares, for blest be the tie that binds us.

May we continue to be bound by God’s love that continues to lead us and is with us in our care for one another.

May it be so.

Amen.