I preached this sermon on Sunday, June 7, 2026 at St. Anne Episcopal Church, West Chester, OH. The lectionary texts cited are Hosea 5:15-6:6, Romans 4:13-25, and Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26. This Sunday was also the occasion of a large parish celebration for the upcoming wedding of myself and my partner, Matt.
This day has been a long time coming. But you know, I think that the extra-long wait has taught me something really important. Something I hope you will take away, too: it’s never too late.
It is never too late for love. It is never too late to give love and it is never too late to live a life shaped by love.
And yes, I suppose that applies to me as a now 42 year old groom-to-be with more than a few grays in his beard who took a little longer than some to find his partner in life. But that’s not all I am getting at when I say it’s never too late.
Because I think many of us, in all states of life, have at some time grappled with the sense that it is too late for us in one way or another. That we have waited too long to chase our dreams. Or we’ve let a broken relationship remain broken for too many years to fix it. Or we’ve made too many mistakes to be forgiven, or too many bad decisions to start fresh. That life is like a big party that we somehow missed by a couple of hours.
But you know what? It’s never too late. It is never too late for love to find us, and change us, and help us begin again. And it is never too late to try and repair what is broken. Things may not always go the way we expect—they usually don’t—but it is never too late to try.
And I think we need that reminder, maybe more often than we receive it, because the world around us seems to have a vested interest in making us always feel behind, feel a bit lost, feel not quite enough.
But as I said last week at the Pride Service we offered at St. Anne, God has a different message for us. God says you, whoever you are, are already enough. You are already beloved and you already belong. There is no such thing as being too late when you realize that love is, indeed, patient, and kind, and all of those other things that love is. From God’s perspective, whenever you choose love, you are right on time.
We might even say that the Good News of Jesus is predicated on this premise of it never being too late. Because you can imagine, when Jesus came into the world (a lot like now, actually) that people were on the brink of despair. They’d been beaten down and battered, subjugated and subsumed into violence. They had made their own fair share of mistakes, too, over the years—all those things the prophets talk about.
And so I suspect that, on a very large scale, some of the anxiety and agitation of Jesus’ time was due to a pervasive sense that it was too late to fix things. Too late to find the good again. Too long since people had walked with God in the wilderness and lived closely and gently with one another.
But Jesus came and said: not only is it not too late, friends, but we are just getting started. I, your God, I am just getting started. Creation is beginning again. Follow me, and see how the sun can still rise on your biggest dreams and your deepest hopes. Whatever has gone before is gone. Let it be. Open your arms again like a child and receive the good news of this new day.
I tell you all of this not just because I am feeling particularly grateful for new beginnings this week, but because I think this idea of “never too late” is what holds together our Scripture readings today.
Although Hosea sounds rather dire, as he often does, he is not telling Israel that it is too late for them. He simply needs them to understand that true hope is found in a love of constancy, of care, and not in fickle, performative gestures. You have been very good at those, he says to Israel. You have been very good at making grand gestures of sacrifice for God. But God just wants your heart—your simple, steadfast heart. And God wants you to know that its never too late to give it. Even when you’ve lost the plot and lost your way, it’s never too late to make your way back home to real love.
And Paul, writing to the church at Rome, has a similar message. It’s not too late to become part of the family of God, he is saying. You Gentiles who did not grow up under the Law—guess what, neither did Abraham! He just ran into the desert with stars in his eyes and trust in his heart. And any of us can do the same thing. Any of us, right where we are, can start being exactly who God made us to be, and not just the lowest common denominator of ourselves.
And then, finally, there’s Matthew. Poor Matthew, sitting at his tax collector table. I think he must have been a rather sad figure there—estranged from his neighbors due to his profession, estranged from himself, wondering how on earth he got here with only coins for companions.
But here comes Jesus, Son of Love itself, patient and kind, his voice piercing the veil of a thousand regrets. Follow me, he says. That’s it. Follow me.
But what he’s really saying to Matthew is this: It’s not too late, my brother. It’s not too late, my child. I know you think it is. I know you think the sun has set on you; that the world is nothing but ledgers and uncounted costs; but hear me when I say: It’s never too late for love. It’s never too late to give love. It’s never too late to live a life shaped by love. So follow me, and see what else your life can be.
St. Anne, as happy as today is, I know many folks are going through a lot these days—some of us have lost loved ones, or maybe gotten a scary test result, or are facing big transitions in the near future. Maybe we’re not feeling so sure how to handle whatever comes next in our life, in our society. Maybe we’re afraid we’re long past some point of no return.
But look around you. Look at the people sitting next to you who love you, or who would love to love you if you get to know them better. Look at the party prepared in the other room—not just for a wedding, but as a sign of the deep and abiding love that this community is founded upon. Look at the way we raise the Pride flag and open doors to the marginalized and the doubtful and go out from those doors and serve. Look at the beauty of the songs we sing and the music we make. Look at the God who, in all of this, gives himself to us without reservation.
And if these things tell you nothing else about yourself or life or God, let them tell you this: it is never too late for love. Because love is here. It is here for you, for me, for everyone. And as long as there is love to be found and built upon, like there is at St. Anne….then you story is not over yet. And the story of this world is not over either. Not by a long shot.
Just ask that old tax collector Matthew who jumped up from that table, all his coins and compromises scattering to the ground, as he ran headlong into the light of that new day. He never looked back.
I don’t know about you, but I’m done with feeling like it’s too late. I’m ready to follow Jesus and see where it goes. I am ready to leave behind regret and simply rejoice in the love that is all around us.
If you’re ready too, I have very good news for you: there’s a big party waiting for us in the other room. And far from being too late, I’d say that we are right on time.
By Another Road 