What does it really mean when we invite someone in and say, "Make yourself at home"? Is it a sterile, performative greeting where we guard the decorative towels and point out the drink coasters, or is it a true welcome where guests know they can open the refrigerator without asking?On this Second Sunday of Lent, Rev. Dr. Charissa Clark Howe continues the "Tell Me Something Good" series by exploring the inseparable loop of loving God and loving our neighbor. Looking at the story of Simon the Pharisee and the woman with the alabaster jar (Luke 7), alongside Jesus's ultimate mandate to care for "the least of these" (Matthew 25), we are challenged to examine our own hospitality.We can't literally crash a first-century dinner party to wash Jesus's feet with costly perfume. But as we discover in this episode, when we abandon performative religion and offer true, messy, uncurated welcome to the hungry, the stranger, and the outcast, we are breaking open the alabaster jar right at the feet of Christ himself.

We often treat our faith and our institutions like a perfectly manicured lawn—exhausting ourselves to keep everything orderly, respectable, and predictable. But what happens when the wine runs out and our carefully cultivated resources fail?.On this First Sunday of Lent, Rev. Dr. Charissa Clark Howe explores the surprising nature of God’s Kingdom through the Wedding at Cana and the Parable of the Mustard Seed. Jesus completely flips our expectations of power and order. Instead of a majestic Cedar of Lebanon or rigid jars of purification, he brings 180 gallons of extravagant joy and plants an invasive, scrappy weed that grows into a sanctuary for the vulnerable.Listen in to discover why the Good News catches us by surprise, why we don't need to be a pristine lawn, and why the church does its most profound work when it embraces being the "scrappy underdog".

On this Ash Wednesday, Rev. Dr. Charissa Clark Howe reflects on the Parable of the Great Dinner in Luke 14:15–24. When the comfortable and secure make excuses to avoid the feast, the host doesn't cancel the party—he expands the guest list to the streets and alleys. Too often, the modern church expends its energy fretting over empty pews and courting those who are already safe and full. But what if our true calling is to fill our sanctuary with those who actually need a sanctuary—the vulnerable, the fearful, and the neighbors pushed to the edges by the "wolves" of our world?

Listen in as we explore what radical, protective welcome looks like, and how the ashes we wear today level the playing field, destroying worldly hierarchies by reminding us that whether we are an "insider" or an "outsider," we are all made of the exact same dust.