Truth and Consequences (Sermon)

Texts: Acts 5:55-60; John 14:1-14

I have been in a lot of conversations around the theme of forgiveness recently. It’s not just in Bible study, but also in individual exchanges as well. One thing that I’ve noticed in these discussions is that there seems to be a cultural expectation that if a person who has been harmed forgives, then the consequences will go away. 

That is not how forgiveness works. 

 

To forgive because of what has been done to us or to others is important work. It is not fast. It is not easy. It is, however, essential because it affects our relationship with God and our relationship with the work to which we are called. 

 

Forgiveness, because it is on a vertical plane, may not actually alter anything on the horizontal plane. Things between people may remain broken because forgiveness does not eliminate the consequences of harmful actions. Forgiveness is not a magic eraser or strong coat of paint.  

 

We actually see an example of a harmful action that can never be undone in today’s reading from Acts. When we read the story of the stoning of Stephen, particularly with his speech that directly precedes it, we have a sense of awe at his faith and an understanding of the grief of his martyrdom. 

 

We get a tiny mention here of something else, though. There is a description of a young man named Saul, standing with the coats of those who killed Stephen. This is the very end of ch. 7 of Acts and ch. 8 begins with this verse, “And Saul approved of the killing of Stephen.” Remember that when Luke wrote this, there were no chapters and verses. The words about Saul’s approval would have immediately followed the death of Stephen and his words of forgiveness. 

Saul, you may or may not know, goes on to become Paul, the one we sometimes call the Apostle Paul. He has a powerful encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, when he (Paul) is on the way to commit more persecutions against Jesus’ followers. Jesus speaks to Saul, blinding him temporarily, until his mind is opened and his heart is softened through the work of the Spirit and the teaching of Ananis and others. 

 

We don’t have a good timeline for Acts, so we don’t have an accurate idea of how close in time the events are between Stephen’s stoning and the road to Damascus event. It’s likely between 2-4 years apart. 

 

After his encounter with Jesus, Paul spends time in Damascus and parts of Arabia. He is learning about what it means to be a follower of the Christ. As best we can tell, he comes back to Jerusalem three years later, so between 5-7 years after Stephen’s death. Acts 9 tells us that the believers in Jerusalem did not trust him and were afraid of him. Barnabas takes up Paul’s cause and tells of Paul’s witness in Damascus. 

 

Even with Barnabas facilitating reconciliation, it is not really possible for Paul to remain in Jerusalem. Part of it is his personality: he’s strong-willed and ends up in a lot of arguments. The other issue is that people still struggle with trusting him. The community is full of people who remember Stephen- their friend and co-worker in the Lord, maybe even their relative. 

 

Eventually, Paul’s friends move him out of the area. A major reason that Paul’s mission becomes to the Gentiles of Asia Minor is not purely because God called him to that. Paul is called to that work because his behavior prevents him from being anywhere else. His watching and approving of the death of Stephen closes the door on his ability to be part of God’s mission anywhere except to people who do not already know him. (And who aren’t yet annoyed with him.) 

 

The believers in Jerusalem can have God’s help in letting go of their anger and grief, but that does not mean that they have the human capacity to welcome Paul back into their company- at table, in worship, through prayer. Their forgiveness means they can commend Paul to God and understand God to work in him and through him, but just not near them. There is too much pain on the horizontal level, within the human relationships, for there to be trust and community. 

This is what I mean when I say that forgiveness, between us and God, does not remove consequences. Human relationships are not Legos. They can’t come apart and then just snap back together. Sometimes things that have been broken can be mended, but sometimes they stay broken. 

 

The harm is too great. The grief is too deep. The wound may scab, but the scar remains. 

 

When we think of Jesus proclaiming that He is the way, the truth, and the life, part of what we are called to consider is how following in His way and living in his truth is meant to guide us into lives of care and compassion. It is his life, death, and resurrection that helps us to comprehend the fullness of God’s grace and mercy. 

 

In living like Jesus, however, we acknowledge that we are still in this life wherein actions have reactions and consequences. We must make every effort not to stand by, watching the coats and approving of harm that is done to anyone. What happened to Stephen was legal, but not moral. That can happen in our own time and the converse as well, illegal actions that are moral. 

 

As people who are called and equipped to live in the way of Jesus, we can help one another with forgiveness - relief and healing in our relationship with God. We can also live the truth of faithful community, acknowledging that sometimes people may not be able to be welcomed back to a space where they caused harm, but perhaps they can be received in God’s name elsewhere.

We cannot treat grace cheaply, allowing it to cover a multitude of sins without acknowledging pain. We can handle grace with generosity. We can support those who have been hurt and recall that our Savior bore his own scars in his resurrected body. 

 

Hope and healing are real. They can happen; they do happen. Reconciliation between people can happen as well, but sometimes on-going relationship is no longer possible. Even so, the grace and love of Jesus remains and the promise of all things being made new in the life of the world to come is still true. For Stephen and Saul, for Barnabas and Paul. And for us and all people. 

 

Amen. 

 

 

A Political Gospel (Sermon)

Transfiguration Sunday: Year A: Exodus 24:12-18; Psalm 99; 2 Peter 1:16-21; Matthew 17:1-9

I know, and you know, that people do not like sermons they perceive to be "political." Many come to church hoping for a break from the endless news cycle and its doom, gloom, and overwhelming encroachment on peace of mind. Desperate for good news, they implore the pastor: "Stay away from politics... just preach the gospel."

But what is that gospel, exactly? Does it mean hearing the story of Jesus on the mountain today as a mere special effects show, with no assessment of why the Law and the Prophets—represented by Moses and Elijah—stand there with him?

We know that when people say "the sermon was too political," they often mean "I heard something that made me uncomfortable." The reality of biblical preaching is a focus on people and the situations that affect them. We cannot avoid how the written word of God has life and breath and shapes the world.

Consider our reading from Exodus 24. In that text, Moses isn't just taking a hike; he is entering a cloud of glory that looks like a "devouring fire" to the people below. He is there to receive the Law—the very blueprint for how a liberated people should treat one another, how they should handle property, and how they should protect the vulnerable. The very cloud that is the "glory of the Lord" is delivering the "justice of the Lord"—affecting not only the freed Israelites but also anyone else who lives with or near them.

Psalm 99 reiterates the theme. The psalmist declares that our God is holy, yes, but also specifically praises a ruler who "loves justice" and has "established equity." To praise the holiness of the Divine while ignoring the Divine demand for equity is to read only half the page.

When people ask for an "apolitical" gospel, they are often asking for a safe, spiritualized myth. But in 2 Peter 1, the apostle is adamant: "We did not follow cleverly devised myths." He is talking about the Transfiguration. He’s saying, "I was there. I heard the voice from the Majestic Glory." Peter insists on the reliability of this message. Why? Because the early Christians were living in an Empire that claimed the Emperor was the "Son of God." For Peter to stand up and say, "No, I saw the real King on a mountain, and his name is Jesus," was the most politically subversive thing he could do. It was a declaration that the current power structures were not ultimate.

In Matthew 17, we see Jesus transfigured—his face shining like the sun. But look at who is with him: Moses, who stood up to Pharaoh, and Elijah, who stood up to King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. They are not talking about "spiritual" abstractions. In the broader context of the Transfiguration story, they are discussing his "exodus"—his departure which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.

The original Exodus story featured a despotic ruler, a hardened heart, and a struggle for freedom. By standing with Moses and Elijah, Jesus is signaling that his mission is a similar type of exodus. He is focused on the freedom that comes from being in relationship with the God of released captives. To appreciate the fullness of the Incarnation, we must recognize that Jesus pursued justice throughout his life. The truth that makes us free is political because it affects people. We cannot ignore it.

If we are to pretend there are no politics in scripture, we must ignore the cloud that overshadows Peter, James, and John. We must ignore the fact that Peter’s first instinct was to build "dwellings"—to institutionalize the moment, to stay safe on the mountain.

But the voice from the cloud interrupts him: "Listen to him!"

Listening to Jesus means following him down the mountain. It means following him into the valleys where people are sick, where children are afraid, and where the "powers that be" are crushing those without the power or platform to be heard. To strip the Transfiguration of its political implication, we must water down the command to "Listen to him" into a mere suggestion for private meditation.

Here we stand on Transfiguration Sunday, about to enter Lent. We are on a mountain peak with Jesus, and while we can see the empty cross from here, we are compelled by the Holy Spirit to proceed into a season of reflection and repentance.

In the Christmas carol O Little Town of Bethlehem, we sing about the will of God becoming flesh and resting in a manger. We sing: "The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight"—"thee" being both the town and the infant Jesus.

Those hopes and fears are not just "spiritual" anxieties; they are the concrete fears of people living under occupation, the hopes of those who hunger for justice. They were the realities for the people of the first Exodus, the Temple congregation singing the psalm, the crowds who followed Jesus, and the people who received the epistle from Peter in hope.

Our faith cannot be untangled from the political realities of our day, nor from our prayer that God’s "will be done on earth as in heaven." Each time we say those words, we are asking God for the courage to be part of accomplishing that will.

Let it be our hearts and minds which are transfigured today. Let it be our spirits which shed the fear of "being political" in favor of the courage to be biblical. Let it be our lives, transformed by the grace which has met all our hopes and fears, that compel others to seek a Divine will of love and justice—in the mundane and in the political.

Amen.

 

Look up and Live (Sermon)

A Sermon for Holy Cross Day 
(Numbers 21;4b-9; 1 Corinthians 1:18-24; John 3:13-17)

Look up! Moses says to the snake bitten children of God. 
Look up and live! 

You are being poisoned by a false memory. The scars of the lashes of slavery are still with you, yet you want to remember the grimaces and call them smiles. 
Look up, cries Moses, look up at the truth. 
The truth of God’s provision, the truth of walking in freedom, the truth of hope – these truths are indeed a new landscape, but your eyes can adjust. Your body can adjust. Your breath can adjust. 
But for these truths to do their healing work, you must look up. 
Lift your eyes to the one who heals you, past the medicine in its curious form. Look to the One whose power is over you, whose love is around you, whose Divine desire is for your healing. 
Tell them to look up, says the Lord to Moses, to look up from their pain, to turn away from lies, to want healing as much as I, the Lord, want to heal. 

Look up! Moses says to the snake bitten children of God. 
Look up and live! 
 
Look up, says Jesus to the Pharisee Nicodemus, who crept in under the cover of darkness.
Look up and live! 

Like your ancestors, you are wandering, absorbed in memory of when things were better. A memory can deceive you, but the God who was with you then and is with you now will not. 
Look up, says Jesus, look up and see the Spirit, the breath of God. Perceive how the wind moves, even when you cannot see the force itself. 
Look up and be born again into a new hope, a renewed hope, a hope that demonstrates how God is still speaking. 
Your first birth brought you screaming into brightness. Look up, says the Christ, and know that the second birth, through water and Word, brings you into the brightness of eternal love. 
God so loves. God so loves. God so loves. The world, the cosmos, the height and depth and breadth, Nicodemus. God. So. Loves. 

Look up, says Jesus to the Pharisee who crept in under the cover of darkness. 
Look up and live! 
 
Look up, says Paul to the divided Corinthians, look up to the shape of your salvation. 
Look up and live. 

I know, my beloveds, writes the Apostle, that you long to seem wise. You want to be able to debate with clarity and rhetoric. What good is the gift of salvation, if you cannot shout down every opponent and watch their efforts burn with holy fire, like Elijah and the prophets of Baal. 
Look up to the cross, my Corinthian friends. The joy of our salvation does not lie in proof-texted arguments and quick comebacks, so valued by the powers of this world. The cross turns the world and its “wisdom” upside down. 
If the cross finds meaning in our boasting of our self-righteousness and superior claims to understanding, says Paul, then it has no meaning at all. 
Look up and remember the One who called down forgiveness, who welcomed sinners to paradise, who committed his life to the hands of the Father. Look up and see that it stands empty because neither God’s will nor God’s grace nor God’s plan for redemption can be nailed down and forced to conform to the expectations of this world. 

Look up, says Paul to the divided Corinthians, look up to the shape of your salvation. 
Look up and live. 
 
Look up, says the pastor to the weary soul, look up at the cross of Christ and remember that it is not your own. 
Look up and live. 

Like our siblings in the wilderness, we are snake-bit by false memories and misinformation. We callback a time of glory that never really was only because it wasn’t glorious for everyone. The gospel is only good news when it is good news for the whole creation. 
Look up, says the pastor, look up and learn from our human history, so that all may have cups that runneth over and tables prepared - not in the presence of enemies, but in the company of friends. 
Caught like Nicodemus in trying to sort out Jesus’ confusing words, we sometimes forget the clearest commands of our Savior. Look up, says the preacher, and remember the blessing that comes from peacemaking. Remember how the Savior is met in the hungry, sick, and lonely. Remember how to show mercy to your neighbor and go and do likewise. 
Look up and recall how God so loves and how the Son was sent not to condemn, but to rescue.
Look up, says the preacher, from the same news stories told the same way over and over, stirring up frustration that has nowhere productive to go. Look up from what you use to distract yourself- the thing that in the dark of the night makes you wish you spent your time or your money or your strength differently. 

Look up and consider that when Paul told the Corinthians to stop trying to do things in the way of the world, he then told them that the way of discipleship was one of love- patient, kind, not boastful or rude, no jealousy and no record-keeping of wrongs. 
Look up to the world of the Good Shepherd around you, the blessings of your Creator, the consolation and encouragement of the Holy Spirit. 
Look up and sing again the words of “Amazing Grace”. 
Look up and remember that when we say, “God so loves”- this means you. For you. For you. For you. 
Look up and know that nothing is inevitable except the grace of God. No powers of this world, no spiritual forces, no human mistakes can derail God’s ultimate desire for reformation, restoration, and resurrection. Look up and know that nothing is inevitable except the grace of God.

You have been equipped for living a life of hope amidst doubt, possibility amidst fear, and love amidst violence, for unity amidst division. 

You have been equipped for living for Christ, living abundantly. 

Look up, says the pastor to the weary soul, look up at the cross of Christ and remember that it is not your own. 
Look up and live. 
 

The Constancy of Christ

 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. - Hebrews 13:8

In every conversation about societal change, people who seek wisdom from the Bible turn to this phrase. Maybe not every person, but these words show up in each argument. 

Once this phrase appears, the person using it has shut down. They’re no longer open to holy imagination, reason, or even (eyeroll) the devil’s advocate. They’re done. 

Bear in mind, please, that people used these words to justify the chattel slave trade, the subjugation of women, the forcible removal and attempted extermination of Native peoples, the right to “subdue” the land without thought for renewal or regeneration. 

The sameness of Christ has been invoked to support antisemitism, racism, LGBTQ+ shaming and harm, marginalization of those with mental illness, harm to neurodivergent folks, people who are divorced, people with physical illnesses, and the list goes on and on. 

There is no one reading this who hasn’t been harmed by these arguments, directly or indirectly. 

If the constancy of the nature of the Divine, especially in Jesus Christ, is thrown down to show that Jesus dislikes the behavior that I dislike, I might as well allot time in my week to polish the golden calf I’ve made of my own understanding, my own comfort, and my own expectations. 

If Jesus hates who I hate and loves who I love… then the message of Jesus is not good news for me or anyone else. 

Since our faith tradition firmly asserts the mercy of God in Christ as gospel (good news) for all people, then the living out of that faith means examining what we’ve been taught and how I show up in the world. Are our words and deeds showing forth Christ’s love and grace, inclusion and hope, mercy and justice? 

“But Jesus would never want people to continue in sin.” This is true. It is also true, however, that the only sinner I am able to correct is myself. Herein lies the consolation of the constancy of Christ. I am going to sin through things done and left undone, what is said and left unsaid. The sameness of Christ from day to day means the consistent truth of forgiveness, guidance, and connection to the Creator. My sins do not create a chasm of varying depth and breadth, depending on how much I am forgiven and claimed. Jesus’ consistent and gracious presence eliminates those things and, by His example, leads me to better behavior. 

If or when we use the verse, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” as a way to shut down conversation, then the words are no longer good news. They have become a weapon we are using to shape the world the way we want it. This way leads to death- death of the conversation, death of relationships, death of community, death of the hope of God’s will being done on earth as in heaven through our hands, feet, mouths, and ears. 

When we invoke the constancy of Jesus, God’s son, to say, “This is how it is”, we are no better than the folks in the parable who sit themselves right down next to the host, at the top of the table, in the place of honor. (Luke 14) Jesus warns that kind of thinking will lead to shame when a person is asked to move on down to a less prominent seat. It can happen to me, to you, to any of us. 

The humility that is needed in our time, the humbleness of heart that can end bullying, division, all the “isms”, and the taking of God’s name in vain by asserting zeal God would not own… that softness of heart comes in considering the constancy and consistency of Christ to be a comfort and tool for hope, not a weapon or a punctuation mark on an argument. 

 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. This is not an invitation for us to harden our hearts or close our minds. It is meant to be the everlasting arms that surround and guide us into new growth, new understanding, and new life every day. For the gospel to be good news for us, it has to be good news for everyone. And the constancy of Christ is definitely good news in a world desperate for it. Let us bear it in truth with soft hearts, open minds, and deep faith. 

 

Amen. 

Some thoughts on rewriting a sermon on Saturday night because of current events

 Isaiah 65:1-9; Psalm 22:19-28; Galatians 3:23-29; Luke 8:26-3

 

Goodbye well-crafted words based on the Galatians text of the day. Reflections on unity in the early church, of social sacrifice, and mutual care across social and racial lines will have to wait for another day. Another time, God willing, we will return to Paul’s words regarding the disciplined Divine love in the law and the matching compassionate grace to be found in Christ, the inheritance of the descendants of Abraham, the children of God.

 

Farewell to thoughts on Isaiah- musings on people who sought power in the wrong ways and worshipped their own understanding, rather than the mystery and awesomeness of God. Delete, delete, delete over sentences regarding what it might mean for a people to follow their own certainties to such an extent that they miss the providence and guidance of God right before them. The prophet speaks of God’s impatience, but the people do not see it and we will not spend time with that truth today. 

 

The laments of Psalm 22 are not ours for discussion at this service. A man feeling forsaken, a people who feel unheard, any understanding that dominion belongs to the Lord…. Those words are all sermons in themselves, if we pray with humility to hear them.

 

Erased too are the thoughts on the suffering of a man who suffered the effects of a mob of demons. The pain of isolation, of mental and physical torment, the grief of feeling out of control. No time today to discuss both the real spiritual, physical, and psychological aspects of being ill- and how we should consider all of those as equally important. 

Here I am deleting the Flannery O’Conner quote, “All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful.” Contemplation on why the folks asked Jesus to leave town after such a powerful healing. The restoration of a man to wholeness cost at least some of them their livelihoods in the form of the pigs. They had to consider how to relate to the healed man in a new way. It was too much, too fast and change is painful. And grace both requires and facilitates change.

 

In light of the bombs dropped on Iran, based on what I know on Saturday night, looking at my computer at 10 pm and knowing the outline I memorized will not be the words I deliver, this is what I believe we must consider today. 

 

We must think about this in the light of being followers of Christ- people called and equipped to give glory to God in word and deed, to imitate Christ, and to share his love. 

 

It is easy to listen to this story from Luke and to think its first hearers would have kind of been glad about the death of a herd of pigs. They didn’t eat pork. Why should they care? 

 

It is easy to listen to this story and to think about Acts and the early church learning about the wideness in God’s mercy and considering what it truly means not to call something or someone whom God has made unclean. 

 

But the pigs aren’t just dead pigs. They don’t just represent lost livelihood. The pigs are the collateral damage of evil. 

 

The demons did not wish to be cast into the abyss- a permanent destruction that the first century hearers of the story would have recognized as the end location of conquered evil spiritual forces. 

 

The demons beg to be sent into another host; they want to live. Evil does not go quietly into the night. It fights and fights and it takes down everything it possibly can on its way. Spiritual evil. The powers and principalities of this world that oppose the Divine will. The evil of human brokenness in sin. 

 

Jesus knows the consequences of letting evil have its way, but he permits the demons to enter the pigs. And the pigs respond by rushing down the steep bank and drowning, which effectively sends the demons into the abyss, permanently, anyway. Evil is destructive and, ultimately, self-destructive. It will not win, and it doesn’t actually care who or what it takes down on the way to the abyss. 

 

It is far too reductive, too simplistic, to read today’s story and say, “Sometimes some pigs have to die for someone to be free.” That is never the conclusion of the gospel. 

 

Jesus came upon a scene of despair, pain, and torment, which had occurred through years of evil at work in the form of the demons and complicity with evil in the form of how the man had been treated through isolation, force, and domination. It was not inevitable that the pigs had to die. There is more than one way to combat and reject evil. 

 

Almost everyone in this room has a different idea of what exactly is evil in our present circumstances in the world. And we could fight about that all day. Our call, however, is not for arguing about evil, but living together for the good will of a gracious God. And that is why this sermon had to be rewritten on Saturday night. 

 

Followers of Christ do not accept that evil is inevitable. We renounce it. 

Followers of Christ do not accept that isolation, force, and domination make for safety. We renounce it. 

Followers of Christ do not accept that sometimes the pigs just have to die. We renounce it. 

 

In this world, in a time in need of hope and peace, followers of Christ are called to believe, attest to, and live out the only thing we truly believe is inevitable- the grace of God. And that’s the sermon. 

 

 

 

Prayer of the Day: O Lord God, we bring before you the cries of a sorrowing world. In your mercy set us free from the chains that bind us, and defend us from everything that is evil, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.

 

 

 

 

Top Ten Things to Learn from the book of Job

Readings: Job 1:1-22; Job 38:1-11; Luke 8: 22-25

10. Job contradicts Proverbs.  The writer of Proverbs offers the hope and consolation that people who live wisely and faithfully, according to the will of God, will flourish and prosper. The very first chapter of Job says: it ain’t necessarily so. You may well live righteously and with great integrity and, still, terrible things may happen. A faithful life is not an automatic buffer to calamity. Due to this contradiction between the books, both of which are categorized as wisdom literature, we are reminded of all those who have gone before us who tried to make the Bible speak with one voice. It doesn’t. The Bible has many voices, some of which are quite dissonant together, but they sing one song about the presence and providence of God. 

9. Job is an old story, but a young book, relatively speaking. Since Job doesn’t mention Abraham or Moses or the laws or the Temple, some interpreters have considered it the oldest story in the Bible. Not, of course, older than the creation story, but a story that predates the famous men of the Hebrew scripture because otherwise they would surely be mentioned. The story of human suffering is timeless, but vocabulary isn’t. We can tell from the written forms of Job- its style and word choices that it is probably from after the exile (post-exilic), between the years 540-330 BCE, in the Persian period. 

Discerning why bad things happen to good people would have been a significant item of contemplation following both Assyrian and Babylonian exiles, even though there were many prophets who explained to the people what the consequences of their choices would be. Innocent people suffered alongside those who committed wrongdoing. 

8. In Job, the Satan is not who you think it is. At the time of writing, Satan was not a proper name, it was a title- Ha Satan. The first chapter of the book tells us about the being who hold the title, ha Satan, or the Adversary. In the first chapter, the Satan functions like a prosecutor or challenger, perhaps to people and to God. Job gives us a complicated, and indigestion-inducing, picture of the Satan as a member of God’s heavenly council, with an advisory role. This does not line up with later images or understandings we have regarding the forces that oppose God. The role of the Satan here is upsetting and frustrating. Why don’t we know more about this character? The Bible gives us what we need, and it does not give what we do not need. We do not need to know more about the Satan than they are the adversary. That’s all we need to know for interpreting Job and, frankly, all we need to know for our daily lives. Where people and actions oppose the will of God, the adversary is likely at work- sometimes actively and sometimes passively. The Satan is active in causing Job’s suffering. The Satan is passive in watching humans make bad choices all by themselves, which lead to situations of grief, suffering, and destruction. 

7. We don’t have a good answer as to why bad things happen to good people. Why would God enter into a bargain with the adversary? How do you know God did? There is no heavenly court reporter who sends down transcripts of holy shorthand for people to interpret and know for certain what happens in the heavenly realms. The celestial scenes of Job come from someone’s holy imagination. The writer cannot say that God caused the suffering of God’s own accord because that violates what will be revealed in the end about the nature of God. The writer cannot imply God does not know about the suffering. The best the writer of Job can do is imply that God permits but pays close attention. This is still somewhat unsatisfactory, but the best of the available options. 

6. Don’t be a bad friend. Job has 42 chapters. Chapters 1-2 are the prologue and set up what happens to Job. God starts talk to Job in chapter 38. Chapters 3-37, so thirty-four chapters, have a very specific aim. These chapters teach how not to be a bad friend in a time of suffering. Job’s friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, start out well- sitting with him in his grief. This is the right thing to do. Then they start to talk. Eliphaz is certain that Job must have sinned, since God is always righteous. Job has brought his suffering upon himself, according to Eliphaz, and if he confesses, things will improve. 
Bildad thinks similarly but tells Job that divine justice is always clear. If one suffers, says Bildad, God’s retribution is obvious. Bildad notes that Job’s children must have sinned and so had Job. 
Zophar tells Job that his suffering is less that what he deserves since God is righteous, justice-minded, AND merciful. Zophar urges Job to repent before the suffering becomes worse because why should God hold back forever. 
When God eventually speaks, God excoriates these three friends for talking about what they do not know. So not only did they increase Job’s pain, but they also weren’t even right. In your friend’s time of suffering, show up and shut up. Do not speak about what you do not know. Do not make it worse. 

5. A lot of wise-sounding words and quoting of Bible passages can still be wrong. After the three friends, a young man, Elihu, comes. Elihu does not believe Job's suffering is necessarily punishment for sin, but rather a way for God to correct, teach, and purify the soul. He asserts that God is not obligated to explain His actions to humans and that suffering can be a means of spiritual growth. When someone is suffering, they do not want to learn about how their soul might be being corrected. They need casseroles, coffee, and company- not philosophical reflections. God says Elihu also was speaking out of his… elbow (not the place of wisdom). 

4. God cares about the fullness of creation. When God finally addresses Job, God points to the wide spectrum of all that is and tells Job that everything that exists is part of the Divine awareness. There are not small things happening in the depths of the sea or in the crevices of mountains about which God does not know. Not only is God aware of all these things, but God also cares about them. Job has not languished outside of God’s compassion. God provides for all of creation, including the long-suffering Job. God does not delight in pain, but in the ordered functioning of everything the Holy has put into place. God’s on-going work within all of creation is to restore order where disorder has occurred because of the adversary, because of sin, because of the forces of this world that oppose God’s designs and will. 

3. God does not create drama in order to be a hero. Even with Job in hand, as disciples of Christ, our clearest revelation of God’s way of being in the world is through Jesus. If we are unsure about how God operates, we look to the life of Christ for clarity. If we believe that God creates suffering in order to heal it, then we would say that Jesus made the storm in order to calm it. Remember Jesus is God. Would you ever say that Jesus made people hungry in order to feed them? Let their bodies be broken in order to heal them? Let demons run rampant just to exorcise them? Regardless of human interpretation through the ages, it does not make sense for God to create pain in order to reveal holiness like a superhero. Jesus shows forth God’s power and compassion, mercy and inclusion, justice and peace. If Jesus wouldn’t, God doesn’t. If Jesus did, God does.

2. Lament and honest prayer help. Job grieves. Job gets angry with God. Job is frustrated. Job prays everything he feels. He is not punished for his honesty. The most obvious tools can be the most helpful. Do not neglect them. 

1.  If you don’t know, admit it, but when you do know, speak up. Many times, people have told me, “I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything.” It is indeed better to remain silent than to turn out to be one of Job’s friends and to speak wrongly about God. There are many things, however, that can be said that we trust are true about God- what has been shown forth in creation, through the healing words of the prophets, through Jesus, through the Spirit’s sustaining of the community of Christ, through faithful people today. You will not be a bad friend to someone or to Jesus when you speak of God’s love (1 John 4:8), God’s mercy (Psalm 103:8), God’s inclusion (Galatians 3:28), God’s provision (Matthew 6:26), God’s power (all the resurrection stories), and God’s abiding presence (Romans 8:38-39). God’s words to Job remind us that God’s knowledge and ways are not our knowledge and ways, which is a blessing for everyone. 
Job is a wisdom book, not necessarily giving us tidbits for how to live or how to be smarter, but granting us a bigger picture of a God who knows more than we can imagine and is present in height and depth and breadth greater than our comprehension. This was the good news for Job, even before the restoration of his life, and it is the good news for us and all people. May our words and our lives reflect our faith in this truth. Amen. 

Everything We Need Fits in the Manger

Everything we need fits in the manger. 

Everything we need as people… whoever we are, no matter our age, our location, our vocation, our gender, our race, our diagnoses, our political affiliation, our preferred sports team, our griefs, our joys… everything we need fits in the manger. 

This year has been a difficult year for most of us in this room. Almost no family in this community has been untouched by loss. Tight finances, family tensions, unexpected changes, instability in the world, and even random complications in routine procedures have affected all of us. With that level of complexity, we come here on Christmas Eve, wanting the familiar and the comfortable. 

It's also possible that many of us look at the simplicity of the manger and appreciate it only for this moment, an hour or so out of “regular” time, because otherwise, there’s no way it can meet the challenges of our everyday lives. 

Here’s the thing, though. You know me. I have been with you at the funerals this year. Our kids have been playing together. I sat through the same tens of thousands of political ads you did. I prayed for rain, fire suppression, protection of rescue workers, safety, and for healing in the same situations you did. So, I have no reason now to pretend or to lie to you when I need the same good news you do. You’re getting the Christmas message that I need to hear just as much as you- everything I need fits in the manger. 

The manger isn’t just a historical detail in an ancient story – it is a powerful metaphor for how God chooses to meet our deepest human needs. That wooden feedbox, whatever its original size was, holds the infant Christ who reveals God’s presence, provision, and peace. 

First, presence. In the Christmas story, we see God choosing to become present with humanity in the most intimate way possible – by becoming one of us. The manger represents God's desire to meet us where we are, in our messiness and vulnerability. Nothing is more vulnerable or messy than childbirth or, afterward, the baby. 

The reality of God coming into the world as an infant is a powerful reminder that we don't need to clean ourselves up or achieve some level of perfection before we can experience God's presence. God comes to us as we are, where we are. In the manger, we find Christ- God with us- in the same humble state in which we all entered the world. 

God’s willingness to take on the vulnerability of human infancy and the aches and pains of human growth is a witness to how God keeps all the divine promises. A God who is willing to show up like this will always be present in other unexpected and humble ways. The presence of God in the manger is the promise of the presence of God everywhere there is need- in a hospital room, at a dinner table, in the cab of a truck, in a classroom, or in the grocery store.

The manger shows us that God is not uninterested in our lives; God is intimately involved in them. Christ is not far off or distant, but close—close in our suffering, close in our joy, close in our loneliness, and close in our hope.

Now, let's talk about provision. At first glance, a manger might seem like a symbol of lack, not a fancy cradle or even a real bed. In that humble feeding trough, however, lay everything humanity truly needed – a Savior who would provide not just for our physical needs, but for our deepest spiritual longings. The manger teaches us that true provision often comes in unexpected packages and that sometimes, less isn’t really more. Less can be enough.

The manger tells us that God will provide what we need, not necessarily what we want. In the gift of Jesus, God gives us everything we need for life and salvation: the forgiveness of sins, the promise of eternal life, and the hope of a restored relationship with our Creator. In and through Christ, we have everything necessary to live a life of faith, to endure trials, and to be part of how God’s will is done on earth as in heaven.

Jesus is the answer to our deepest hungers—our hunger for purpose, our hunger for peace, our hunger for love. When we focus on how we have to do things for ourselves, we often miss the ways that God does provide for us- people around us who are glad to help, open doors and windows that create opportunities, the ability to focus on one day at a time and see blessings around us. 

Understanding God’s provision does not mean we won’t ever suffer or struggle. I am certain Mary didn’t imagine laying her firstborn child on a bed of straw in a strange house. God’s provision, though, meant that she had a safe place to give birth and revelation of God’s presence in clear and tangible ways through the location, the hospitality, and then the witness of the angels to the shepherds. The same God shows up for us in clear and tangible ways, providing for our needs. 

Finally, the manger reveals God’s peace. Peace isn’t merely the absence of conflict. The original manger was located in an occupied territory of the Roman Empire, whose emperor kept peace by squashing rebellions rather violently. Shortly after Jesus’ birth, Joseph and Mary will have to flee with the infant to Egypt in order to keep him safe from Herod’s slaughter of innocents. 

The peace that comes to us in the manger is a peace for our hearts and minds. In a world constantly clamoring for our attention, bombarding us with messages about what we need to buy, achieve, or become to find happiness, the manger offers a radical alternative. It whispers to us that peace is not found in external circumstances or accomplishments, but in recognizing and embracing the presence of God in our lives.

This peace reminds us that we have been made by God and we are loved by God. This is a truth not only for us, but for all people. When we see the infant prince of peace in the manger, the Spirit stirs us to hear an echo, “With God as our Father, we are family”. With that sense of an enlarged family, we see peace on earth beginning here and continuing through us in words and deeds. 

Pope Francis said, “God never gives someone a gift they are not capable of receiving. If he gives us the gift of Christmas, it is because we all have the ability to understand and receive it.” 

Everything we need fits in the manger and God has made us capable of receiving the gifts that have been provided in love.  

This Christmas, let us ask for our hearts to be opened so that we might receive the peace, provision, and presence that God offers through Jesus. And may the joy of knowing that everything we need can be found in the manger fill us with all hope, joy, and love as we celebrate His birth. 

May God’s peace, provision, and presence be with you always. And when any of those seems far away, no matter the time of year, return to the manger. It all fits right here. Amen.

 

What is Best (Sermon)

Pentecost 15 (Year A) 
Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9; Psalm 15; James 1:17-27;  Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

I recently read a novel set in a post-pandemic, apocalyptic world. In the book, people were working to re-establish pockets of society. A traveling symphony moved from town to town in caravans- performing music and works of Shakespeare. Early in their travels, they had tried other plays, but people only wanted to see Shakespearean works. One of the symphony members commented on the desire for Shakespeare, "People want what was best about the world."

As I read and since I finished the book, I kept thinking about that phrase.  People want what was best about the world. People want what was best about the world. That is true even when we’re not in a cataclysmic re-working of what we’ve always known. The very idea of nostalgia, of longing for what once was, is about wanting what was best about the world or what seemed like the best to us. One of the massive tensions between people right now is how differently we may remember the past from how our neighbor remembers it. We’re sure our recollection about what was best, true, and right is correct and they’re sure their memory is more accurate than ours. 

We may not agree on what is or was best about the world in general, but as people of God, as people of faith, we have been drawn together by the Holy Spirit to live according to a different “best”. Today’s readings point us to how we have been called to live so that our way of being reflects best on the One who made, saved, and loves us. 

All four texts today present a way of living that requires dedication and discipline. In Deuteronomy, Moses reminds the people that the laws they’ve been given are meant to do two things. First, the laws will help the people live in community with one another in the new land to which God has brought them. Second, the laws will act as a light to other nations, showing how the people of God live righteously and in so doing, they flourish. The flourishing isn’t a blessing for doing the right thing; it flows from the communal choice to value whom and what God values and to turn away from things that are not of God. 

In the psalm, the writer wonders who may be worthy to enter the temple to worship the Lord. Worthiness does not come from physical perfection or even from the most valuable offering, but instead from holy living. Such living avoids gossip, rejects wickedness, does not cheat others, and pursues justice. The person whose life reflects these choices is worthy to enter the temple. 

In Mark, the author of the gospel is explaining Jewish customs to the Gentile audience who is hearing the gospel story. Even as Mark writes that all Jewish people wash their hands before eating, this can’t be completely true because the disciples and Jesus were all Jewish. The passage shows the tension within the early Christian community, which was trying to understand how Jewish traditions might apply to them (and the word tradition is different from the word law). We see this same struggle within many of Paul’s letters as well. 

Jesus speaks to those who hold tightly to the traditions and cautions them about misplaced priorities. Human traditions are not unimportant to Jesus, but he is concerned about placing a higher value on the ways of people than on the ways of God. The most important behaviors are the ones that show kindness, love mercy, pursue justice, and reveal the presence and providence of God in the world. Habits, traditions, and behaviors that get in the way of those things must necessarily take second or third place or even be eliminated. 

James agrees with Jesus. True religion has nothing to do with how faithful you appear to be or how correctly you can explain what you believe. It has to do with how you live. This explanation becomes a fine line to walk because many people have assumed over the years that right behavior earns God’s favor. That’s not what is being said in this passage. Right behavior flows from God’s favor. It is because we understand and trust in all God has done for us and for all people that we are free and welcomed into service and sharing for the sake of Christ in the world. Because God so loves, then we do too. 

For James, if there is evident suffering in the world, if there is pain, if there is injustice, if orphans and widows are being disregarded and languishing in terror and pain, then there must not be any religious people around. True faithfulness is a response to all that God has done and carries God’s peace and mercy into the world. Even if it’s not what the world values, the truly faithful person doesn’t care. The faithful pray in word and deed for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. 

This brings me back to the phrase from the beginning, “People want what was best about the world.” Are our lives, individually and communally, reflecting what is best about God’s care and compassion for the cosmos? As one old hymn says, “The love of God is broader than the measure of our minds”. The measuring tape the world has to understand the broadness of that love is the lives of the people of God.

When we think of what’s best about us as a church, as a people of God, as a denomination, and as a community with other Christians- we must assess our actions – with our building, with our time, with our people, with our money. Are we part of what’s best about God’s work in the world? Do people, would people, will people associate us with the accomplishing of the Divine Will?

In these turbulent times, amid unrest, violence, economic tension, and just, plain exhaustion, we cannot abandon what it means to be truly faithful. We cannot draw in and wait for a better time, a calmer time, a more stable time. It is for such a time as this that we have been given the gift of faith, that we have been baptized, for which we have taken communion again and again. 

There is a world longing for the best and we have it, the story, the light, the love, and the very presence of a crucified and risen Christ. We don’t have to have all the answers before we go out to meet even the most basic of the questions. Faithfulness is revealed in the doing- God’s faithfulness to us and then our responsive faithfulness to God. 

People want what is best about the world. Through the Holy Spirit, that can and should include the people whose cups overflow with gratitude because of God’s amazing grace. That is us. 

 

Amen.  

 

Chapter, Verse, and Jesus

John 3:14-21

Let’s talk for a moment about chapter and verse. None of the books of the Bible were written with chapters and verses, neither the epistles (letters), the histories, the prophets, or the gospels. Each work was a scroll or set of papyri that flowed. Not only were there not chapters and verses, but neither biblical Hebrew nor biblical Greek have capital letters or punctuation. Better still, biblical Hebrew doesn’t have vowels. 

No capital letters, no punctuation, and sometimes no vowels. This means that when the Holy Spirit guided the first person who wrote down the stories that were circulating orally, they knew what they meant. And the people around them did as well, but after 2-3 generations translators, readers, and copiers are making their best educated guess. Line breaks were used after the scriptures were codified to make reading easier, but a line break was still a guide and an interpretation.

Chapter separations that we would recognize came into being in the very early 1200s, with the purposes being to set the passages to be read aloud to gatherings of monks and nuns (and others). This is why the informal gathering space (as opposed to the sanctuary) in many European cathedrals is called the chapter house. 

The Wycliffe Bible of 1382 used these chapter divisions and so did most Bible afterward. This means that the Bibles of Martin Luther’s childhood, in the late 1400s and early 1500s, most likely had chapter divisions. (These Bibles were, of course, still written in Latin.) 

In the mid-1400s, a rabbi named Nathan created verse divisions for the Hebrew Bible, or what we sometimes call the Old Testament. In the 1550s, a Swiss printer named Robert Estienne created a numbering system for the New Testament. In Estienne’s printed Bibles, both in Latin and in the local languages, the rabbi’s numbering system and his own were combined to produce scriptures with chapter and verse divisions. 

You all know that I like to give you a little history, but you would be entirely within your rights to be wondering why I’m telling you all this. Why does this matter? Why should you care? You ask such good questions. 

The reason this matters is because, if we consider Christianity to be almost two thousand years old, not only did it take a long time for the scriptures to be translated into common language, but chapters and verses happened even after that. This means that no one who we consider critical to the formation of the early church, or the spread of the gospel had any concept of John 3:16. While they were adept at quoting parts of scripture, they had a strong sense of that quote being part of a whole larger point, as opposed to one small point that stood on its own. Drawing a tiny scriptural point away from its context would not have made sense as a tool for evangelism, debate perhaps, but not as a way to draw people to the love and presence of God. 

Thus, for most of Christian history, what we consider one of the most famous verses in scripture didn’t stand alone. For God so loved the world that He gave the only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life was part of a whole story. This line comes in the middle of a conversation Jesus is having with a Pharisee. Nicodemus, the Jewish leader, comes to Jesus at night, under cover of the shadows, to ask questions about what Jesus is teaching. 

Jesus explains the concept of the Holy Spirit and of a spiritual rebirth. He speaks of how we see the movement of the wind and its work, even when we don’t see the wind itself. (This is a concept easily understood by people in Montana.) As Nicodemus continues to ask questions, Jesus draws Nicodemus’s attention away from his internal confusion and concern to a view beyond himself. He will never understand enough if he keeps looking inside, but must let his eyes be drawn to the One in front of him, the one who whose very life, and then resurrection and ascension, drew eyes toward God. 

Jesus reminds Nicodemus when people in the desert were being bitten by snakes. God instructed Moses to wrap a snake on a pole. When people were bitten, they were to look up from their wounds, their pain, and their confusion to this sign- sent from the One who had brought them into freedom and was leading them with promise. Looking up, with hope and trust, gave them healing. 

While chapters and verses are helpful for references, they come with the same dangers as the biting snakes and paralyzing doubts. (Not all doubts are paralyzing, just some.) Chapters and verses draw our attention down, to small points, taken out of context, with very little to no sense of the whole story. And the whole story matters because it is the story of God. The story of God and creation. The story of God and other spiritual beings. The story of God and people. The story of God in Jesus. The story of what God has done, is doing, and will do. The whole of the story matters. 

Part of the reason that John 3:16 is popular is because, for many people, it gives an essence of the whole story. I get that. You probably understand that. John 3:16 is meaningful to us because we already have a sense of the whole story, but for the person seeing a John 3:16 sign at a football game or on a billboard or a bumper sticker, if they don’t know what it means already, looking it up doesn’t actually give them any information. 

Almost all of you have been in church for years and yet I know most of you are hesitant to ask questions. And you’re for sure hesitant to answer questions because you don’t like to feel or appear like you don’t know the answer. How much more do you think that applies to someone who finally decides to look up John 3:16? 

For God so loved the world- who is this God? Where is this God from? What does this God’s love look like? What world? Just the people? Everything I can see? What about space? 

He sent his Son- Where did this Son come from? Is he like a comic book hero? What are the Son’s powers? 

That whoever believes in him- What does it mean to believe? What if I have more questions? What if I can’t believe? Does God wait until I believe to do the God-things? Is God’s love dependent on me believing? 

Shall not perish but have everlasting life- Does that mean “not die”? Doesn’t everyone die? What is everlasting life? Would I wander the planet getting older and older? 

Those are all the questions that only come from one verse, if you are a person who has truly never encountered the verse before. And let me be clear, there is not a flaw in a that verse. The flaw is in the idea of a single verse as an evangelism strategy. Even worse, the flaw is in the idea of a single verse, without context or relationship, as an evangelism strategy. 

Jesus doesn’t leave Nicodemus in the dark with a notecard with a verse citation. He talks with him. He listens to his questions. He uses references from the natural world and recalls stories that Nicodemus knows. An understanding of the saving love of God comes not from the specific words, but from the Living Word in the person of Jesus. 

This is exactly how we are called to share the love God has for the world, the love that is so great that it brought the Son into the world, not for condemnation, but so the world might be preserved, might have hope, might flourish through him. 

We don’t draw people from the ways of shadows, as described in this passage, by threats of hell. The Spirit draws them into the brightness of living in God through the light of God’s love shining within the people who are actively choosing daily trust in Christ. 

Perishing, in the context of John, isn’t about death the way we think of it. John’s most common phrase, used in 16/21 chapters, is “abide”- to remain or stay. Jesus, in John, is constantly inviting people into the brightness of God by asking them to abide with him, to stay with him, to remain with him- trusting his words, following his commandments, living according to his teaching. Perishing, then, is the opposite of abiding. It is the reality of feeling separated from the brightness of God, to feel a cloud between oneself and heavenly sunshine. 

The reality of this whole section of John is Jesus explaining to Nicodemus, and then John explaining to us, that perishing is not required. It does not have to be. If we are willing to look up, look to the One who is guiding us, who made us, who so loves the world- we will not perish. We will abide. Forever. 

Looking for that answer within ourselves, trying to make it happen for ourselves, will never work. Single verses and words give us an illusion of control- of the word and of God. The human desire for control makes us addicted to perishing, not because we love the idea of separation, but because we do not trust what we cannot see or prove. 

But you, like Nicodemus, can see what the wind can do. 

How much more can God, the source of all good things, the one who is revealed in the Son, the one who so loves the world, … How much more can God save us from perishing, providing with a place of abiding peace, consolation, and strength that we might be a part of the Divine will for healing the world? 

You know God will do it. You know God has done it. You know God is doing it. 

Psalm 107 says, “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so!” 

(This is your chance to call out a hearty “Amen”.)

Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. 

And how do we know we’re in that number? How do we know that God does indeed so love? How do we trust in such mercy, such grace, and such redemption. 

We trust it is so, beloved, because we’ve been told it. Again, and again. Chapter and verse and beyond. Amen.