The Message
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Service for October 19 Nineteenth Sunday of Pentecost
Sermon for October 19, 2025 Nineteenth Sunday of Pentecost
In the Hebrew language names are never just names. Names have meaning that tell us something about the person who carries that name. Jacob, which means literally, "heel" -- is no exception. Even as he and his twin brother Esau were born, Jacob was grasping Esau’s heel. He's been grasping ever since -- living by his wits and cunning, trusting no one and proving himself untrustworthy every step of the way.
Throughout his life he’s done whatever it took to get what he wanted. But now God has told him it’s time to return home to the land promised to his ancestors. It’s time to face up to what he’s done and take his place among his family and so he will have to contend with the brother he wronged so long ago. After sending a servant to tell Esau that he was returning home, Jacob’s servant reports back that Esau is coming out to meet him along with 400 men. We don’t know Esau’s intent in bringing all those men, but Jacob fears the worst. It seems that when you live your life getting ahead by questionable means you expect the same behavior from everyone else.
Within sight of home, Jacob gets his family and all his possessions, livestock, wives, slaves, all of it over to safety but then for some reason he returns across the river to spend the night alone. He’s at a crossroads in his life: the consequences of his past are rushing to meet him. Now, Jacob, one who gets ahead by trickery and scheming, must face the reality of who he is and what he has done,
In that night at the crossroads between the past and the future, Jacob wrestles. We’re told he wrestles with a man, with an angel in some translations and in the end Jacob understands that it was God he was locked in combat with. We can understand this to be a dark night of the soul for Jacob. At this turning point in his life, Jacob wrestles with all of his defining relationships. He wrestles with himself – who he was, his past, his treachery, his character that always needed to have advantage over others, AND he wrestles with God; God who is determined to keep God’s covenant with humanity given to Jacob’s ancestor Abraham; God who, importantly, does not overwhelm Jacob or force him into submission.
This story does not allow us to see God as caricature. This is not God as vengeful and angry judge. But neither is God benevolent but aloof parent. This story shows us God who is willing to engage, literally wrestling with this chosen, but very flawed human being; not forcing his will upon Jacob but truly engaging with this very strong and determined man. God values Jacob as he truly is. He wants to continue the work of blessing and redeeming the world through this chosen family, but he does not require that Jacob is perfect before he can use him to do that work of blessing and redeeming.
God seems to value Jacob as the whole human that he is; complete with good and admirable traits as well as those qualities that hurt others and take advantage of them. God does not condone those traits but simply accepts them as part of the package, part of the truth of who Jacob is.
God and Jacob wrestle through the night until the light of dawn threatens not God but Jacob since no human can see the face of God and live. But just before the dawn when it becomes clear that Jacob is not going to be defeated, he is injured so that he can no longer hold his own in the match. And even then, Jacob refuses to release the man/God until he receives a blessing. In response the man/God asks Jacob his name, much as we might say, “Who do you think you are?” Who do you think you are to ask a blessing of me?
Jacob must account for himself. He must name the truth of who he has always been, since birth, grabbing for what is not his; using any means necessary to get what he has no right to claim… and succeeding! It seems before he can return home to the land of promise he must acknowledge the truth of who he is and what he has done. He must acknowledge it to this man/god; but first he must acknowledge it to himself.
Frederick Buechner imagines Jacob at the point when man/God asks him, "Who are you?"
And Jacob thinks, “There was mud in my eyes, my ears and nostrils, my hair.
My name tasted of mud when I spoke it. "Jacob,” I said. "My name is Jacob:'
"It is Jacob no longer;' the man/God said. "Now you are Israel. You have wrestled with God and with men. You have prevailed. That is the meaning of the name Israel.”
Once he has named himself, confessed his past and all that he is, for good and for bad, he is then able to receive the new name God offers him: Israel.
Jacob wrestled with himself, faced the truth of what he had done and of who he was; who he had proven to be again and again throughout his life: trickster, schemer, conniver and for that man/God does not strike him down or even ask him to repent. He is given a new name as if to say, “Yes, you have been that person and now that is the past. Now you are Israel. All your striving, your wrestling with God and with man has brought you to this point where you are ready to face the future; where you are ready to be used by God.
Buechner goes on to say, “a part of the lesson, luckily for Jacob, is that God doesn’t love people because of who they are but because of who [God] is. It’s on the house is one way of saying it and it’s by grace is another, just as it was by grace that it was Jacob of all people who became not only the father of the twelve tribes of Israel but the many time great grandfather of Jesus of Nazareth and just as it was by grace that Jesus of Nazareth was born into this world at all.”1
This story of one of the ancestors of the faith, like all the other ancestral stories, centers on God's promises. In all of the stories, all of the fathers and mothers in our long line of faith ancestors are dysfunctional; dysfunctional people in one way or another and all from dysfunctional families AND at the same time God is able to work in and through them to bring God’s redeeming love to the whole world.
This story invites us to tell the truth about who we are; what we have done, what we have thought; all the good, the bad and the ugly that makes us who we are. We are invited to wrestle with that, seeing it for the truth that it is. We’re invited to offer God the name that has defined us to ourselves and to the world, to break its power over us by revealing it to the light of day.
Take a moment to ask yourself:
What are the names that have defined me?
What is the truth about myself that holds me captive to the past?
When we offer that name to the light of day and to God, it loses its power over us. In the naming we are freed to receive whole heartedly a “second truth about ourselves; a truth bigger and more expansive and far more gracious” than we can imagine, “a second truth that creates an open future and sustains us with the hope and courage to embrace it.”2
We are invited to name the truth of ourselves and our world and when we have done that, we are invited to cling even more tightly to the truth of who we are in Christ, God’s beloved. We are invited to accept, and live into our primary name, Christian, sinner and saint, beloved child of God. That name frees us to leave all other names in the past and leads us into the future, with courage no matter what it may hold.
Amen.
1 Peculiar Treasures by Frederick Buechner
2 In the Meantime by David Lose
Service for October 12 Eighteenth Sunday of Pentecost
Sermon for October 12, 2025 Eighteenth Sunday of Pentecost
Jesus is traveling in the region between Samaria and Galilee again, an area between the known and the unknown; the familiar and the unfamiliar for the little band of followers of Jesus. Jesus calls the one who returns to give thanks, a “foreigner.” The Greek word for foreigner used here is the root word for our word “genes” and for genesis. In the minds of those listening to Jesus, the foreigner, the Samaritan is so different that he has different ‘genes’; he has a different ‘genesis’ or origin.
I think a little history lesson at this point sheds light on the deeper meaning of this story. This story gives us a glimpse of someone thoroughly foreign to Jesus and his little band of Jews. They were foreign because Samaritans were a reminder of the split that happened when the Babylonians conquered the land. The Babylonians hauled 3/4th of the Israelites off to live as slaves in Babylon, leaving only a 1/4th of the people behind to survive as best they could in the wreckage of their homeland after the siege.
The exiles were slaves in Babylon for 100s of years, long enough for generations to be born and die there. Long enough that Israelites only remembered their homeland through the stories passed down by their elders before they died. Eventually the Babylonians released the Israelites to return to their homeland if they wanted to. Some had assimilated and stayed in Babylon. But, those who returned to Israel from Babylon claimed to bring with them the true faith, the faith as written in the writings of what we know as the old testament. They returned to their homeland to find those who had remained had adapted to the surrounding culture of Samaria, a culture that the ‘true believers’, those who had been exiled thought was pagan. But the Samaritans probably thought the same thing about the strangers returning from the east who had lived so long in the midst of the Babylonians, they each now lived within a very different culture, with a very different religion.
It would be like all of us with heritage of a different country returning to the land of our great grandparents. We may have some customs or favorite foods that remind us of our heritage. But those foods and customs are not necessarily still favorites in the old country. The people who stayed behind in those countries have not been frozen in time. They’ve moved on as have we. Each group may look upon the other with confusion; wondering about each other’s traditions and beliefs.
I once heard a foreign exchange student from Norway say that her host family here in the U.S. was more Norwegian than her family who had never left Norway. Americans of Norwegian descent and resident Norwegians may all have been the same family at one time, but after much time and distance we’re so different we can hardly find any common cultural ground.
That was the situation between the Jews and the Samaritans. They didn’t trust each other. They didn’t understand each other. They ate different foods, cherished different traditions. For Jesus’ disciples it was unimaginable that there could be a good, or trustworthy or decent Samaritan, not because they were so different in any fundamental way. But because time and circumstance had created differences in custom and behavior, stories had grown up emphasizing the differences between them until they were exaggerated into demonization. But in all the ways that truly matter, in their basic humanity there was no difference.
Jesus travels in this borderland between the known and the unknown – with the claim of the right religion a matter of perspective. In this case, which religion is ‘right’ depends upon whether your family was dragged off to slavery or was left behind to survive in a destroyed, war-ravaged country.
Some people describe such border lands as ‘thin places’ places where the veil between heaven and earth; between God and humans gets very thin; even the distinction between holy and unholy, sacred and profane are blurred. Jesus often chose those places to travel, to bring healing, to the others who travel in the in-between places. In these thin places surprising things can happen.
In this borderland Jesus encounters 10 men with a skin disease that required them to keep their distance from everyone else. They were supposed to call out from afar “unclean”, “unclean” so that no one would accidentally come in contact with them and they would be blamed for corrupting another person. So, from a distance, Jesus instructs them to go to the priests and show themselves, healed of the skin disease. Nine of them do just that but one returns and throws himself at Jesus’ feet and gives thanks.
Much has been about the importance of gratitude from this brief story. And that’s not a bad lesson to take away. We know gratitude is important. We have a lot of research that points to all the benefits of living a grateful life: health benefits, relationship benefits; even longer lives. But if all Jesus is saying is “Be Grateful” he didn’t need to drag in the foreign Samaritan to do it. He didn’t need to travel to the borderlands. There are simpler stories that could have made that point.
I think Jesus is asking us to look for goodness, even faithfulness in unexpected places. Maybe Jesus is saying that not only the people we call family, or the ones we’re comfortable with, those who are like us, are good, are capable of being grateful, or joyful, or humble, or angry, all of the emotions we find ‘normal’ when they’re expressed by someone who is like us! Jesus is saying that not only a select few are worthy of God’s blessings, God’s healing and wholeness. Those gifts are for all people without distinction.
As I worked on this sermon this week I was captivated by a question asked by one commentator. This one question made me rethink this short story and wonder at how our Biblical stories so often reflect ourselves more than God.
The question asked, paraphrasing verse 17, “The other nine, where are they?” The writer who posed this question went on to say, “What a wonderful question? Where did they go? With whom did they reunite to celebrate the amazing healing that God had worked in them?” “What if we hear Jesus speaking with a sense of wonder instead of with an angry, judgmental voice?
We never want to twist scripture to fit our own agenda, but I think it’s possible that this particular scripture has a history of being twisted.
Let’s look at it more closely. Everyone in this story has done everything right, they’ve acted according to their own character and they’ve followed the rules of the culture they lived in.
The lepers, or people with a skin disease were in that borderland where they were forced to live to maintain the purity sensibilities of the culture. They obeyed the law that said they must keep their distance from those who were healthy. If anyone got too near, they were supposed to call out a warning and they did just that.
When Jesus healed them, he instructed them to go show themselves to the priests as was required by law so that everyone would know that they had been healed; they were no longer a threat to the community; they could be accepted back into regular life with their family and friends. They could again work and marry and live normally.
If they continued to act according to their character, which they had up until that point in the story, then they would have followed Jesus’ instruction to go show themselves to the priest at the temple. They didn’t come back to thank Jesus because they were doing what Jesus told them to do. After that, acting according to the custom of their culture they would have given thanks at the temple. That’s where faithful Jews went to give thanks. Then, who knows what they would have done: found their families? Hugged and kissed them? Danced for joy? Joined in a celebration feast?
And the one who was not a Jew would also have done what was in keeping with his character. He would not have followed Jesus command to show himself to the priests at the temple, because that was not HIS temple. That was not his faith. He returned to thank the one most directly involved in his healing. He was a foreigner to Jesus but in this borderland, Jesus had met him and saw that he too was valuable, that he was worthy of being restored to life and so he returned to throw himself at Jesus feet in thanks! He acted in keeping with his character and what his culture expected of him at that time, in that place.
So, what about Jesus? Jesus ventures into that borderland as he so often did and wherever he went, he brought healing. He brought love, God’s love, God’s all-powerful love for all people. Time and time again, he spoke out against the religious authorities who were oppressing the people and he spoke out against the dominating power that was making all their lives miserable. Jesus consistently acts and speaks with God’s love for all people, not condoning the oppressors acts, but showing people how to live to overcome that oppression with love.
Jesus commands the 10 afflicted with skin disease to “Go, show themselves to the priests.” So, why do we think it reasonable that now, after they have done what he told them to do that he would condemn them? Why do we hear Jesus in this passage as speaking with an “angry voice”? Maybe Jesus was speaking in amazement and curiosity, wondering where they were now and what kind of rejoicing and reunion they were now enjoying?
It’s an old saying that we don’t read the Bible. The Bible reads us! Well, I think our interpretation of this passage as one of Jesus angrily denouncing the 9 people who did not return, reveals more about us than it does about Jesus. It reveals our tendency to think that God is like us, only more so; more powerful, more everything; even more judgmental.
So, maybe the writer of this passage was a little guilty of that too. Maybe the translators of the original Greek were guilty of that at times as well. Modern commentators have certainly taken this approach although many are beginning to question the lens through which we have seen Jesus’ words. And of course, we have to ask how we have been guilty of that?
I wonder what other passages we have been hearing through the voice of our own tendencies to be angry, judgmental, or self-serving? What would happen if as we read the Bible we keep in mind the character of God we know to be loving, compassionate and forgiving of all people? How would it change how we hear the words and how they might affect our lives and the lives of those we touch in the world?
All of this leads me to say, I invite you and encourage you to join with me and others as we gather after worship and other times throughout the week to study Scripture, and to talk about how what is happening in our world can be understood through Scripture and what God is calling us to do and to be at this time in this place.
The good news is that God is love and God’s grace and compassion and restoration and hope is for ALL people and the inspired word of God, in the Bible but especially in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh reveals God’s true character: love, compassion, forgiveness, GRACE! We give thanks for those gifts and we ask God to guide us in living that love, compassion, forgiveness and Grace in our own lives. Amen
Service for September 28 Sixteenth Sunday of Pentecost
Sermon for September 28, 2025 Sixteenth Sunday of Pentecost
Talk of money is everywhere these days. The gap between rich and poor gets wider; the number of billionaires increases while the number of people who are homeless jumps and money to feed and shelter those people plummets. There is another looming deadline for congress to pass a budget or the government will shut down causing a ripple of hardship for the whole country. Poverty appears to be worsening and with government funding disappearing it’s probably going to get worse before it gets better. So many people are struggling with higher grocery prices, higher housing costs and utilities while incomes drop.
Sometimes, we in the church are reluctant to talk about money. I’ve even known people who left the church entirely because they felt as if they were asked for money too often. The thing is, money and faith are connected. God, who loves us beyond all measure, who cares not only about our eternal life but this life too, has something to say about money and our relationship with it as people who follow in the way of Jesus.
When you talk to people about how money and faith are related, some common themes come to the fore: many people talk about having feelings of guilt when they read parables like the one we heard today. The guilt takes several forms: Guilt at not doing more for people in need; guilt at not giving more money to the church and other agencies who serve the poor. No matter how much people give they describe feeling as if they can never give enough. Some people described how those feelings of guilt can turn into anger: anger at feeling as if their financial security requires an apology.
Those are all valid feelings, of course, and ones I bet many of us share when we’re being honest. That tendency to move from guilt to anger happens in lots of situations when we’re talking about complicated things that hit close to home. I’m right there with you in these feelings. I share your discomfort at what Jesus is saying.
It’s helpful to remember two things when we’re feeling that messy mish mash of anger and guilt: Jesus’ point is not to criticize the rich for being rich, in this parable or in any of his teaching. We know that wealthy women supported Jesus. We know that wealthy people supported the church in Paul’s time and in the middle ages and still do so today. Jesus’ point is not to bash the rich.
The second thing is, wealth is not inherently evil, but it's definitely dangerous. Jesus says, “No one can serve God and wealth.” Jesus says, “It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” And “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.’ And on and on and on. Jesus tells story after story about people who are offered relationship with Jesus but for some reason, usually having to do with their wealth, they cannot accept that gift, even when it is Jesus, himself offering it. They are clinging so tightly to: whatever it may be for them: security, life as they know it; their understanding of how things should be; whatever it is.
It's good for us to remember that while Jesus offers comfort to those in pain or grief or illness, for the most part, that comfort that Jesus offers does not come from relying on ourselves, on our own efforts, our own smarts, our own hard work, or luck or our family or _____ (whatever); fill in the blank as you see fit. The comfort Jesus offers is in the form of relationship; relationship with him, with God’s people, with our neighbors walking this path of life with us.
Jesus keeps challenging us just as he did those first century disciples because he loves us too much to let us fool ourselves. Jesus loves us too much to let us settle for a life half-lived with “wealth” at its center, where God belongs. Jesus loves us and so he asks us time and time again to look at our relationship with money. Because Jesus loves us, we put up with that uncomfortable anger/guilt mish mash, knowing that it’s there to teach us something; to teach us that ultimately, we can only rely on God’s free gift of grace; God’s total and complete love of us that frees us from having to find validation or acceptance or self-worth in anything outside of our identity as God’s beloved children.
And here’s the other side of this danger that relying on wealth holds. God loves you too much to let you fool yourself into thinking anything can be relied upon but God. But God also loves Lazarus and all the Lazarus’s of the world too much to let us fool ourselves into thinking we’re alone in this life; as if our choices have no consequences!
Remember that this is a parable and parables give us a glimpse into the kingdom of God. Parables show how God’s logic works, which is always surprising because we expect God’s logic to be our logic and it’s NOT. So, we might understand Jesus’ parables better if we remember that this parable is NOT trying to explain how to get to heaven. It’s explaining how our lives should be lived here and now. It invites us to look at the people around us -- right here, right now -- from God’s perspective.
God’s unrelenting care and compassion for you is also God’s unrelenting care and compassion for the person sitting next to you this morning. AND it’s also God’s unrelenting care and compassion for the poor and the vulnerable; those down at the Salvation Army; those who slept under in a car last night; those who will hold their child as it dies for lack of food today; those caught in the middle of powerful nations fighting over land or honor. God’s care and compassion, are for everyone, especially for the powerless, the weak, those we’d rather overlook.
This parable is our message from beyond death given to us by the only one that death could not hold. This is a reminder that all of Scripture shows us God’s demand that the poor be cared for; that care for the poor is intertwined with our relationship with God. It sends us the message that St. Theresa of Avila was telling us when she wrote:
Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Ours are the hands, ours are the feet,
Ours are the eyes. We are his body.
Ultimately this parable is not only about money. It is about the cost of letting anything get in the way of us knowing God’s love. It is about what can get in the way of all of the Lazarus’ of the world knowing God’s love. None of us knows God’s love apart from how it is experienced in the world. We learn God’s love by how we experience love, grace, forgiveness from PEOPLE in the world.
This parable is not told so that we worry about details about how much to give and how much to keep. It is told so that no one, not Lazarus, not you or me or ANYONE will be unable to know God’s love because they are too hungry or thirsty or sick to think about God. This parable is told so that no one thinks God is dead or at least uncaring because God’s people overlook their suffering.
None of us wants to be guilty of contributing to making a hell on earth for anyone. Jesus tells this stark parable so that we will open our eyes to see those we would rather not see, to see the ways in which we are trusting our wealth instead of God; to see how placing our trust in that wealth hurts not only ourselves but contributes to a hell that prevents others from knowing God’s love.
Franciscan Blessing
May God bless you with discomfort; discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart. Amen.
May God bless you with anger; anger at injustice, oppression and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace. Amen.
May God bless you with tears; tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their pain into joy. Amen.
May God bless you with foolishness; enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done. Amen.
And the blessing of God, who creates, redeems and sanctifies, be upon you and all you love and pray for this day, and forever more. Amen.
Service for September 21 Fifteenth Sunday of Pentecost
Sermon for September 21, 2025 Fifteenth Sunday of Pentecost
This might be the most baffling parable Jesus told. But Jesus’ message for us is meant to be accessible. If we feel like we have to do interpretation somersaults to squeeze Jesus into something we can understand, maybe we’re on the wrong track.
Lutherans have a long tradition of reading the Bible in its own context, respecting that it was written in a very different culture, that language has evolved over the millennia, that recent archaeological discoveries shed light on what the words themselves meant then so that we can better apply them to today. We value learning so we listen to people who dedicate their lives to understanding what the Bible says and how the time in which it was written was very different than today.
So, this story of a “manager” and a “rich man” comes immediately after three stories in the gospel of Luke that Jesus tells about being lost and being found. We heard two of them last week, one about a lost sheep and another about a lost coin. The story that immediately follows those two is about the lost son; the “prodigal son.” We won’t hear that one in this year’s cycle of readings. But we will hear it next year.
So, looking at all of these stories, it’s pretty clear that what is lost in each of them: the coin, the sheep and the son all represent people who have strayed away from trusting God. And the one who does the finding in the stories is God. We see how God rejoices and throws a party when what was lost has been found. Being found, being brought back into the fold; being reunited with God is important. And no one rejoices more than God when we are found.
In today’s story, the manager is the one who is lost. As the story is told, it sounds as if the shock of realizing he’s about to lose his job has shaken him to his core. It may even have realigned his whole perspective of what is right and wrong; what is important and what is trivial, as huge shake-ups in our lives can do!
The manager has been working for a wealthy man and in his work the parable says he’s been “squandering” the man’s money. It’s not a good idea to speculate about scripture. But we also have to be careful that we don’t bring our own modern biases to the story. We shouldn’t read something into the story that isn’t there.
But, seen from the perspective, not of our relative comfort and wealth in the world, but from the perspective of people more like those Jesus was speaking to in his day: the poor and the marginalized, if we listen with their ears, wouldn’t this story make MORE sense if the “squandering” that was happening was only squandering from the perspective of the WEALTHY MAN? Maybe what the wealthy man called squandering is actually just being 'fair’ to those in debt to the wealthy man. What if what the wealthy man wanted the manager to charge too much, we’d say he was charging what the market would bear. But maybe the manager was just charging the people what was fair. Not what the market would bear, but what the people could bear? He may have been a go-between, getting the wealthy man’s product sold but at a price that kept the people out of poverty.
But now the manager realizes the whole thing is falling apart. His job, his position, his standing in the eyes of his boss, his ability to help people; it’s all crashing down around him. So, seeing the situation for what it is, with the clear-eyed certainty that comes when we realize we’re about to lose everything, he sees clearly that the wealthy man doesn’t really care about him or anyone but himself. He cares only for his people and his profit. The manager realizes that the wealthy man only cares about him as far as he is useful to the landowner; that with a sentence the wealthy man can destroy him and all those who depend on him. So, when the manager sees the reality of his position, he understands who his real friends are. And he throws his lot in with the people who live not for profit, but who live for relationship.
The wealthy man recognizes the shrewdness of his managers actions. He doesn’t approve of it, but he sees the wisdom of the manager’s actions for his own survival.
A friend made a comparison that I think is helpful here. He compared the “dishonest wealth” Jesus mentions to the fate of the Confederate currency near the end of the Civil War. As it became clear that the Confederate army was not going to win, Confederate money became increasingly worthless. So, those with confederate money spent it freely, hoping to purchase something of value, before their money was totally worthless.
Maybe the “dishonest wealth” of the parable is like that. It is the wealth of a kingdom that is in fact in decline and will ultimately fail. The kingdom built on profit at the expense of people will only last until the people no longer support it. One person suggested that instead of dishonest wealth it should be called “the wealth of unrighteousness” – the wealth, that is, of the kingdom of the world that is in decline and that will not ultimately be victorious.
I’m not crazy about that term: ‘wealth of unrighteousness.’. It makes it sound as if it’s about ‘holiness’ or something not related to our everyday lives. Jesus was as “down to earth” as it gets. When Jesus talked about the lostness of the sheep or the lostness of the coin that was found, he didn’t say they were found because of their holiness or righteousness or anything they did or anything at all having to do with the coin or the sheep itself.
The coin was important in itself. The sheep was important in itself. When they were found, the rejoicing was simply because they had returned not because they could do anything for God who found them. They were loved simply because they existed; simply because God is love and God loved them.
Instead of “wealth of righteousness or unrighteousness” maybe we should call it the wealth of relationship as opposed to the wealth of individualism. God’s kingdom, God’s dream for humanity is always one of relationships and interdependence, not individuals looking out for themselves or their own interests alone.
When all hell breaks loose, when life gets really real and all our plans and maneuvering are put into perspective, it’s relationships that matter. That has always been true and it has always been God’s dream for humanity, that we would live in healthy relationship with each other, with creation and with God. So, Jesus ends this parable saying, “No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”
Serving God means living in right relationship with those around us, our family, our friends, those we are in business with, those we interact with every day. Jesus tells us that we should be as shrewd in all in all our day-to-day interactions in our relationships as the so-called “dishonest manager” was. “Shrewd” in the sense that we keep in the forefront of our minds what is truly important; what is right and how we can live as people of integrity and act accordingly.
We should act in every interaction as if the battle we’re in is about to end and the currency we’ve been accumulating, like the confederate dollars that southerners relied on, like the system of slavery that the south relied on is coming to an end, and we better divest ourselves of that currency and put our hopes in the currency of God’s dream: relationships. Another way to say all of this of course is, “Love your neighbor.” “Love God and express that love, as Jesus said, by loving your neighbor.”
May we have the wisdom, the courage and the strong relationships we need to support us to live that way in each moment and may God help us! Amen.
Service for August 24 Eleventh Sunday of Pentecost
Sermon for August 24, 2025 Eleventh Sunday of Pentecost
The Sabbath in Four Movements
Eleventh Sunday of Pentecost
Isaiah 58:9b-14; Psalm 103:1-8; Hebrews 12:18-29; Luke 13:10-27
When I graduated college, it was with a degree in music, Bachelor of Music. I wanted to be a performer. I loved music and I loved to perform and conduct. Life takes us on journeys sometimes that we neither plan nor expect. So, I stand before you today as a pastor who loves music. I say this to explain how I have structured this message.
Though I love almost all forms of music, my favorite is the symphony. Symphonic music is the fullest and richest in sound and expression in my opinion. The Symphony is a form for full orchestra, usually in four movements, though I confess that my favorite symphony is Mahler’s Second, called the Resurrection, and is in five movements and takes nearly two hours. I can’t help by cry at the climax of the fifth movement.
I any case, each movement is different in style, orchestration, tempo, etc. But the final movement is the grand conclusion interweaving all that has come before in the first three. With this in mind, I have titled this sermon The Sabbath in four movements which will become evident as we work through the four passages. I have great regard for the use of a lectionary in the church. Through most of my career I had to choose a different text on which to preach, which was not easy. The lectionary, though, works off of the Church Calendar and selects passages that corollate with the season. Moreover, there are usually four passages chosen as lessons together: Old Testament, Psalm, New Testament, and Gospel. Therefore, today I present a symphony on the Sabbath.
First Movement: Isaiah 58:9b-14
If you were listening when Isaiah was read, you would have notices the number of conditional statements in this passage: If…Then… “If you remove the yoke among you, the pointing finger, the speaking evil…” this is a call to Israel to stop doing these things. “If you offer food to the hungry and satisfy the need of the afflicted…” a call to begin doing this. “Then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday…” the promise of God for fulfilling these conditions. Most notable in this passage are the last two verses: “If you refrain from trampling the sabbath, from pursuing your own interests on my holy day; if you call the sabbath a delight and the holy day of the LORD honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs; then you shall take delight in the LORD, and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of your ancestor Jacob, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” (Isaiah 58:13–14, NRSV) Abuse of the Sabbath was prevalent in Isaiah’s day, and as we shall see, also in Jesus’ day.
We can all go home with this passage and judge ourselves whether we too abuse the Sabbath. However, you may notice that Israel was incapable of stopping their abuses and starting to live righteously. So too, we cannot fulfill the conditions of God no matter how hard we try.
Second Movement: Psalm 103:1-8
It is true that we are incapable of making ourselves righteous. However, the psalm answers this dilemma: “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits— who forgives all your sins (iniquity), who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the grave (Pit), who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,” (Psalm 103:2–4, NRSV). Israel cannot cleanse themselves and neither can we, but God can and does. This psalm demonstrates that God fulfills both promise and condition. Only he can transform the lives of his people.
Third Movement: Hebrews 12:18-29
The book of Hebrews is God’s gift to the church explaining the meaning of the Old Testament. We often limit our reading of the Old Testament to the familiar stories and skip over much of the instruction of the Law (that is beyond the 10 Commandments). How many of us have waded through the legal details at the end of Exodus and throughout Leviticus. The Law of God is cumbersome to most Christians today. We say, “we are not under law but under grace.” Sadly, though, the Grace of God does not negate the Law of God. Paul speaks of the Law as a tutor demonstrating our inability to live a holy and righteous life. The Law forces us to rely on the Grace of God in Jesus Christ for our righteousness.
The author of Hebrews points out that the material of the Old Testament is what was to drive Israel to the spiritual. “You have not come to something that can be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that not another word be spoken to them. (For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even an animal touches the mountain, it shall be stoned to death.” Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.”) But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering,” (Hebrews 12:18–22, NRSV).
Mount Zion is not a literal mountain as Mount Sinai was. Mount Zion is an image used for the New Jerusalem, the Eternal Kingdom of God, or even what many call Heaven. This Third Movement brings clarity to the first two. The worship Israel offered God through the Tabernacle, then the Temple, was so focused on material ritual and, getting that precisely correct, that the truth of the ritual often overlooked the spiritual truth to which these rituals pointed. This explains how Jesus Christ could be crucified on the cross for Israel never made the connection between that sacrifice and the sacrifice of bulls, goats, or birds.
Those sacraments of the Old Testament are not really different from our Sacraments of Baptism and Communion. Each of our Sacraments are holy signposts of the reality to which they point: the washing of our sins and the presence of Christ with us. These signs are important because in their physical application, the spiritual reality is impressed upon us in a tangible way.
The Fourth Movement: Luke 13:10-17
The Gospel this morning presents a story from the life of Christ Jesus that is the culmination and climax of the first three movements or lessons. Jesus was teaching in the Synagogue on a Sabbath day. A crippled woman, bent over by a spirit for eighteen years entered the synagogue where Jesus was teaching. She said nothing. She did not ask for anything. We have no reason to believe she was there for any reason other than to hear the teaching that Sabbath. “If you refrain from trampling the sabbath, from pursuing your own interests on my holy day; if you call the sabbath a delight and the holy day of the LORD honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs; then you shall take delight in the LORD…” (Isaiah 58:13–14, NRSV).
If the woman did not ask for healing, then she was not looking after her own needs. Jesus did not think of himself or the supposed rules of the Sabbath, but he felt compassion for this crippled woman. It is safe to say that Jesus really shook things up when he told the woman she was healed and applied his word by laying his hands on her. What he did was probably not a problem except for the fact that the woman stood up and began praising God. Horror of horrors, Jesus healed a woman on the Sabbath. “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks, by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe;” (Hebrews 12:28, NRSV).
So here come the leaders: “You can’t do that on the Sabbath. What’s wrong with you, don’t you know that no one can work on the Sabbath? Tell this crippled woman to go away and come back on one of the six days you can heal her legally!” Jesus continues his teaching more pointedly, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?”” (Luke 13:15–16, NRSV)
Personally, I love the way Jesus calls them out. I would love to talk that way to some people if I were not such a hypocrite myself! The point Jesus makes is simple, it was “legal” on the Sabbath to go to you oxen and goats, untie them from their stalls and take them out to get water. But it was not legal to simply speak a word of healing for a crippled woman, a daughter of Abraham at that!
At this point I must leave you all to wrestle within yourselves with God who is the composer of our Symphony. As for me, I have a lot of inward reflection to do, and a lot of confessing to do. However, I leave you with the wisdom of St. Augustine, “The whole human race, like this woman, was bent over and bowed down to the ground. Someone already understands these enemies. He cries out against them and says to God, “They have bowed my soul down.” The devil and his angels have bowed the souls of men and women down to the ground. He has bent them forward to be intent on temporary and earthly things and has stopped them from seeking the things that are above.”[1]
Remember the good news: Our backs have or can be straightened trough baptism and we remain upright in order to look above our earthly lives to heavenly things by our fellowship with Christ in the bread and wine of the Supper.
[1] Arthur A. Just, Ed., Luke, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005), 225–226.
Service for August 17 Tenth Sunday of Pentecost
Sermon for August 17, 2025 Tenth Sunday of Pentecost
What happens when God’s dream meets Human nature!
Listen to the reading with an open mind and open heart. Listen for one thing that seems to speak to you, personally today!
But before you do that I want to clarify 2 things: 1st Fire is not always destructive. In the Bible, sometimes fire is used to purify, to burn away what is impure and to refine what is left.
And 2nd: There is a difference between a Bible passage that is descriptive and one that is prescriptive; a difference between saying, “This is the way it is” – that’s DE-scriptive and saying “This is the way it should be.” That’s PRE-scriptive. In this passage Jesus is being descriptive not prescriptive. He is saying, “This is the way the world is when confronted with the good news of God’s love for all people”. He is not saying, “This is the way the world SHOULD be.”
Ok, again, listen to the reading with an open mind and an open heart. Listen for one thing that seems to speak to you, personally today.
MESSAGE VERSION
Some of you may remember the “me” decade. That was the name given to a whole generation of people who were adults and especially young adults during the 1970s. They were called the “Me” Generation because it seemed they were only concerned with themselves. It’s an oversimplification, of course. But they thought that the generation, for the most part, embraced entertainment and consumer culture and focused mostly on satisfying themselves. Some people think there are some real similarities between that generation and the youngish generations of today.
They say that social media has amplified the focus on personal image, and self-promotion, and that it encourages people to focus on curating their life for display to the world rather than living a meaningful life. Technology has extended the focus on the self to a new level, so this generation has been called the “MeMeMe” generation.
That might be accurate in some ways and another oversimplification in others. But I think maybe a better name for this time we’re in might be the “Us against Them” decade. Not only in the U.S. but around the world, everything seems to be divisive. Politics is polarized. Religious lines are being drawn between conservative and progressive. Families are divided based on who they voted for in the last election. The gap between wealthy and poor is sharper than ever.
Division is the order of the day. And so people come to church not to be further divided but to be comforted. We don’t want division or disruption at church. We ask pastors to not be political. They probably mean partisan, not political. Jesus was political: addressing the concerns of the day. So pastor’s sometimes sound political. But, pastors, at least in the ELCA try not to be partisan.
It’s been 16 years since the ELCA decision to ordain gay and lesbian people in committed relationships. 16 years since the church decided that risking division for the sake of the message of God’s unconditional love for all people was worth the risk.
Despite the best efforts of the folks who worked for decades researching the Biblical basis for the 2009 decision, despite that they asked us all to do as the apostle Paul advised and “bear one another’s burdens” that we strive to understand each other and live together in love and agree that our love for each other and God’s love for us is more important than the details of anyone’s sexual preferences, despite that, real and painful division occurred. In some cases, whole congregations left the ELCA. in other cases individuals were drawn to ELCA churches because of the clear message of acceptance that the decision demonstrated.
In my opinion the ELCA is stronger than ever. Some of the churches that remained in the ELCA have grown, welcoming folks who long for Jesus’ message of love to be the dominant voice that we bring to the world, rejecting the false gospel of judgment based on human, cultural standards.
In 2009, the ELCA risked division for the sake of being a strong, true voice of God’s love and Christ’s salvation for the whole world.
Some wise Lutheran writer said, “Every time we draw a line between us and others, Jesus is always on the other side of that line.” EVERY time WE draw a line between us and others Jesus is always on the other side of it.
Jesus offers us all; promises us all: peace, freedom, hope. But, the peace, the freedom and the hope that Jesus offers everyone are the peace, the freedom and the hope that put an end to death. They are the peace, the freedom and the hope that end all division forever, bringing all people, all creation over to the side that Jesus is on until there is no “other” side. Jesus does not offer us an easy peace or an easy freedom or an easy hope. We can make an easy peace, an easy freedom and hope on our own. We can pretend that everything is all right; that despite what we see around us: homelessness, war, hate, violence in the name of Jesus. We can pretend that that is being faithful! We don’t need Jesus for that!
But, pretending that everything is all right. Looking the other way from injustice so that our sense of peace remains intact; keeping our mouth shut so that we don’t disrupt the calm in our family, or our neighborhood, our town or our country only maintains the power of the strong to oppress the weak. Our aversion to conflict maintains the status quo that is killing our planet. Our desire to avoid controversy keeps the systems in place that allow guns to continue to take the freedom to pursue life, liberty and happiness away from an average of 46,000 people each year from gun-related injuries.
Our desire to get along has allowed racism to grow until now the number of African American men being killed or incarcerated is out of control and “Christian Nationalism” is on the rise.
Our desire not to rock the boat has allowed young girls to be raped, with no consequences to the rapists because the girl’s testimony is not believed. Instead we wait on a “list” to verify the facts freely available to us if we trusted women.
It is into just such a mess as this, that Jesus says, 49 “I came to cast fire upon the earth. How I wish that it was already ablaze! 50 I have a baptism I must experience. How I am distressed until it’s completed! 51 Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, I have come instead to bring division.”
Not all fire is destructive, deadly fire. But, for Jesus fire is always about judgment. Luke told us earlier in his gospel through the story of John the Baptist, that Jesus is coming with a fire of purification and refinement.
Of course, Jesus bring fire. It’s the fire that burns away all that is unrighteous, all that is idolatry and injustice. That is God’s judgment: that God’s righteousness, justice and holiness is for our sake and for the sake of our neighbor.
The fire Jesus wants to kindle is a fire of change, the fire of God’s active presence in the world. No wonder Jesus is so eager to strike the match.
Jesus wants to burn away all that gets in the way of us living truly free, with real peace and the hope that gives life abundant and joyful.
We should remember that Jesus grew up in his mother’s home, learning at her side, undoubtedly listening as she sang her Magnificat! (She must have sung it many times over the years instilling it deep in Jesus heart)
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48 for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
50 His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
51 He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
52 He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
53 he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
Anyone: Jesus, Martin Luther King, Jr., Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Bishop Oscar Romero, Bishop Desmond Tutu, Daniel Berrigan, you or me, anyone who tells the truth about the unconditional love of God as shown in Jesus for ALL people, radical love not only in word but in a life lived enacting that love- when we, the church names that truth boldly, division will be created.
There will be people who cannot imagine that Jesus is asking them to welcome those who they feel don’t deserve God’s grace. There will be people who cannot abide sitting in the same pews with people who cannot kick their addiction or who keep sliding back into their old ways; those whose work is considered shameful or immoral or those who say one thing and do another. In other words, many of us have a hard time accepting people who are ‘human,’ conveniently forgetting that we too are human. We too have fallen short of the glory of God.
Jesus yearns for “the kingdom of God” to become reality in this world. The transformations and justice that Jesus’ mother imagined are the things that Jesus wants, too. But, for that to be true, for the lowly to be lifted up, for the hungry to be fed means that the powerful cannot remain powerful, the rich cannot remain obscenely rich. Oppression has to end. Greed must end. Idolatry in all its forms must end. And so must all exploitation, dehumanization, narcissism, and any other evils you can name that prevent all people and all creation from flourishing. All of those things that prevent God’s love from transforming our world – those things must end.
That is what the church is about. Not a peace that pretends not to see injustice. But, a church that unflinching sees and names injustice. A church that walks over to the side of those suffering the injustice and stands with them until the injustice ends.
The church is here to do just that: stand with the oppressed until the oppression ends. Stand with the hungry until everyone is fed. Stand with the marginalized until the margins are erased.
This is a hard message from Jesus that causes division because Jesus is always on the other side of all divisions! So, just when we think we’ve got it figured out: we decide we will work to end hunger, work to end oppression, care for the earth and all people – we get there at what sounds like a pretty comprehensive understanding of what it means to “Love God and love neighbor” and then we remember… Jesus is always on the other side of all division.
So, we identify the perpetrator, the oppressor, the culprit, the wealthy corporate CEO or the powerful politician who is the cause of oppression, injustice, and death and then we must remember that Jesus is on their side as well! Make no mistake, scripture is clear, beginning to end, God is against oppression and poverty and everything that dehumanizes even one person; anything that goes against God’s truth that every single person is created in God’s image and worthy of love; that everyone is God’s beloved AND Jesus is also standing with the oppressor, the white supremacist, the rapist even, the sex worker and the one who solicits sex.
God does not condone the things that hurt others, but God recognizes the deep wound at the heart of every oppressor that allows them to treat people as less than human. God recognizes the pain and isolation and dehumanization that lead the white supremacist to look for someone else to inflict pain upon. God sees the heart of the one who kills because the capacity for human connection was killed in him as a child.
God looks at all of humanity and sees belovedness! Every one of us is God’s dearly beloved. And Jesus asks us to see that truth in each other; to live that truth with our lives; to continue to reach out to those on the other side until there is only one side and we are all there together with Jesus. Amen.
Service for July 27 Seventh Sunday of Pentecost
Sermon for July 27, 2025 Seventh Sunday of Pentecost
Both readings today place a heavy emphasis on death and how knowing that death is a part of our lives can help us live a life that is full of meaning and gratitude. A deep understanding of our own mortality can help us to organize our lives in a way that aligns with our values. The passage from Colossians tells us that as Christians we have died to the old life and way of living and thinking and being and that our new way of life does not recognize insiders and outsiders, masters and inferiors. We use the language of baptism, of being drowned in the waters of baptism with Christ so that we are raised to new life in Christ. As God’s new creation we see only Christ in each other. We see that we are part of the body that lives for us and dies with us, just as we live and die for each of them. We have no time or reason to lie and scheme as we did in the old life.
The story of the rich fool gives us a negative example of a person who is very much still engaged in the old life. He thinks only of himself as an individual, a self-made man, with no one to thank for his success and responsible to no one in using his wealth. He talks to himself, not even thinking to discuss his ideas with anyone else and so he is caught in a cycle of self-perpetuating delusion. He doesn’t think to give thanks for the abundance the land produced. He doesn’t think to acknowledge the people who came before him that made his success possible or the people who worked for him or those who will come after him. He thinks only of himself: “What should I do? With my crops? I will do this. I will do that.”
But, the truth of all life, that there is death, gives the man the only answer that matters! It all ends today for you because you are alone in your world. You did not see the community of which you are a part whether you acknowledge it or not. You did not see the abundance and fruitfulness of creation that made your bounty possible. You did not see the people who made your wealth possible: those who prepared you and your place, those whose labor benefitted you, those around you with less support and possibility who are also your siblings. This isn’t God’s punishment. This is the order of the universe. It is reality for us all.
Jesus’ parable reminds us that death helps us live. It gives us the boundaries within which we can live well, in which we can live “rich toward God.”
Paul Kalanithi, is a neurosurgeon and author who lived just a few years after his diagnosis with incurable cancer. In that short period of time, he at one point went into remission and gained back much of his strength. His oncologist suggested he go back to working as a neurosurgeon. When Kalanithi reminded his doctor he was dying, she responded, “True. But you’re not dying today.”
Knowing there is an end makes every moment precious. It puts all things in proper perspective: all of life. It gives us the space we need to remember one of the essential elements of a life well-lived: gratitude, that we are not the author of life; that everything is gift. And that is possibly the essence of a life lived “rich towards God.”
Recently, our son-in-law, John, sent us a video of he and Eloise putting the finishing touches on the bookshelf John made in their home. Eloise was squeezing the trigger on the staple gun while John held the trim in place. In the video John says, “Don’t pull the trigger until I’m ready, Eloise.” And immediately Eloise quietly asks “Are you ready?” John answers, “I’m ready.” And Eloise pulls the trigger. Then John immediately says, “Oh, I wish that piece of wood was a little longer.” To which Eloise replied, “Maybe you could pretend that it’s longer?” To which, of course there really is no reply.
In the real world, we can’t just pretend that a piece of wood is longer than it really is. It is what it is and if it’s not long enough it might not work right! Some things have to be faced as they are at least by adults.
But, in another sense, I love the wisdom of a three-year-old. We don’t have to see something that is less than perfect as a disaster. We can see the world as it is and be thankful for it, with all of its imperfections, realizing that perfection is not the most important thing. The attitude with which we respond is more important. Of course, we want to build a sturdy and reliable world. But it will never be perfect and “pretending that it is good enough” or another way to say that could be “seeing through the eyes of gratitude” for what we have and for the relationships that made that good moment possible may be the best way to live rich toward God.
When we remember that everything we are and everything we have is thanks to someone else and that ultimately, it’s all thanks to God’s gracious gift of creation and unconditional love, we are freed to live a whole life fueled by gratitude. That is the proper center of a life lived in Christ and with the community of Christ.
May we be empowered by the Holy Spirit and encouraged within this community of siblings in Christ to live a life that is rich toward God. Amen.
Service for July 13 Fifth Sunday of Pentecost
Sermon for July 13, 2025 Fifth Sunday of Pentecost
There’s a meme going around on the socials that says, “The test of Christianity is not loving Jesus, it’s loving Judas.” Of course, there are no ‘tests’ we need to pass to receive God’s love and forgiveness. We are saved because God is love and in love God sent Jesus to put an end to the power of death and evil. Full stop. But we who follow Jesus have a harder road to follow than the average person who’s just trying to be ‘good.’ We are called to follow Jesus who tells us not only to love those who are easy to love, but to love our enemies.
“The test of Christianity is not loving Jesus, it’s loving Judas.” It’s more of a self-check, than a test. A way for us to check in with ourselves to make sure we’re on the right path. We should ask ourselves, “How am I doing at loving Jesus? How am I doing at loving Judas! Am I loving those who are kind and agreeable but failing to love the unlovely and loveable?”
The lawyer, in the reading questioning Jesus is an expert in Biblical law. That’s what being a ‘lawyer’ in Biblical terms meant. So when he asks Jesus, hoping to wiggle out of any responsibility, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus asks him, “What is written in the law?” What is written in the Torah, that part of the Bible that attempts to order our life together? Jesus invites the lawyer to refer to his own Scripture, the compass for his life. The “law” or Torah that is also our Scripture says that we are to love God completely with our whole being and we are to love our neighbor as ourselves (Leviticus 19:18) Jesus reiterated that that was to be our guide and even intensified the command for those who follow him when he said, “I say to you who are listening: Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you.” (Luke 6)
The lawyer knew the law but “wanted to justify himself;” He was looking for some wiggle room and so he asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?”
In answer, Jesus tells the story of the “Good Samaritan.” Of course, for those hearing Jesus that day and for the people of the time it was the commonly held perception that there were NO good Samaritans. It was an impossible idea, an oxymoron, that a Samaritan could be “good.” Jesus turns the lawyer’s question around and asks him, “Which of the three who encountered the desperate man acted as a neighbor to him? And the lawyer cannot deflect any longer. He answers, “The one who showed him mercy.” The good Samaritan!
The moral of the story is obvious, “Be like the Good Samaritan. Help everyone.” A moral that sends us on our way feeling good about ourselves as we think of all the ways we ‘help’ those in need and are determined to do even more.
But parables as Jesus used them are never a morality tale. Parables are meant to turn our ideas of right and wrong upside down. They are meant to leave us feeling unsettled. They are meant to leave us feeling seen for who we truly are, with our deepest selves revealed to God and to ourselves because it’s only in that exposed state that we are able to see ourselves clearly and perhaps to change.
Amy-Jill Levine is a Jewish scholar who says the real point of the parable is that the disciples who first heard it “would have identified more with the victim in the ditch than the Samaritan.” She says, “For the perspective of the man in the ditch, Jewish listeners might balk at the idea of receiving Samaritan aid. They might have thought, “I’d rather die than acknowledge that someone from that group saved me”; “I do not want to acknowledge that a rapist has a human face”; or “I do not recognize that a murderer will be the one to rescue me.”
Again, Diana Butler Bass, says it so well, “That’s what the Jews in Jesus’ day thought of the Samaritans — that they were descended from rapists and murderers, collaborators with rulers who oppressed God’s people and who worshiped at a corrupt Temple. That’s who showed up as the hero in the story, the person who administered mercy — their enemy.” “Who is my neighbor?” asked the lawyer. The answer? The very worst person you can imagine, Jesus responds. Your enemy.”1
That “worst person you can imagine” is the one you are called to love, to help and maybe most difficult of all, that worst person you can imagine, is the one you are called to accept help from. That is who you are called to acknowledge your dependence upon.
We have all experienced a time when we saw someone in need and gave them real help. We helped an elderly person who dropped their groceries as they walked out of the grocery store, or we helped a stranger change a flat tire, maybe even when it was inconvenient to do so, maybe we loaned money knowing it would probably not be repaid.
But have you ever been in desperate need of help yourself? Were you ever the one in the ditch? If you found yourself beaten up and robbed, could you accept help from a murderer or a rapist? Or a white supremacist or an undocumented immigrant? Or a homeless person? Would you accept help from a MAGA follower or a self-avowed socialist, or Hamas member?
Diana Butler Bass tells the story of crossing a street in Alexandria Virginia, outside of Washington DC where she lives. She says, “I tripped, landing spread eagle in the crosswalk. My purse flew one direction, my glasses another. My hands were scuffed and bleeding from my feeble attempt to break the fall. And my knee was hurt. Dazed, I looked up, and saw that the crosswalk signal was about to change. I couldn’t pull myself together in time to get out of the road before the light turned green. I started to cry, searched for my glasses, and hoped for help.
A car stopped, and a woman opened the driver’s side door. I felt relieved — someone was going to assist me. Instead of helping, however, she began to yell at me: “What’s wrong with you? Get up! You’re blocking traffic!” When I didn’t answer, she shouted, “Are you deaf?” and she leaned on her car horn. I crawled across the street to the far corner. “Idiot,” she shouted as she drove away. I sat on the curb sobbing. No one asked me how I was; no one helped. Several people walked by without comment, turning their gaze away from the rattled woman on the sidewalk.”
And then Butler Bass says, “that’s the thing about this parable. Occasionally, you get to be the Samaritan. But sometimes you’re the one in the ditch.”1 Sometimes you are seen not as the person you know yourself to be but as the enemy, one to be ridiculed or ignored.
That’s a hard thing for us to fathom, we who live most of our lives in relative stability and safety and comfort. Eventually we’ll all be the one in the ditch. For some of us the ditch is an accident, or loss of a job or a devastating illness or falling into the depths of addiction. Maybe it’s just growing old that puts us at the mercy of others making decisions about our lives. Sooner or later all of us face the end of our lives when no one can save us. And God is with us then and always has been. Because we were the ones in the ditch all along, God sent Jesus to show us how to live and how to love each other, how to be neighbor to each other, even our enemies.
In the meantime, in this life we’re given, Jesus asks us, “To whom are you being a good neighbor?” The question is not, who do we have to help but who am I being neighbor to, who am I helping? Am I fulfilling God’s commandment to love God and love my neighbor, even when that neighbor is my enemy? And when I’m the one in the ditch, am I willing to receive help and love? Am I willing to be in relationship with one who does not look like my idea of neighbor and may even appear to be an enemy?
The Samaritan was no better than the priest or the Levite. When the person from Samaria saw the man, beaten and bleeding he was probably just as afraid for his own safety and annoyed at the diversion of his time as the other two who encountered the man. The difference between the people is in the question they asked of themselves. Instead of trying to justify themselves to God or anyone else, the man from Samaria asked what difference his help would make to the man in need.
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “…the first question that the priest asked -- the first question that the Levite asked was, "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"3
That is a huge leap for most of us mere mortals, to move from counting the cost to ourselves to putting the needs of the other ahead of our own. We often make this complicated, asking all sorts of “reasonable” questions when applying it to our everyday lives. We ask, “Shouldn’t we take care of ourselves, and our own families first? Is it wise to put ourselves at risk interacting with someone who may be mentally ill or under the influence of drugs?
Today, we see reports of masked men, we’re told their ICE agents grabbing men, women, and children out of farm fields, off street corners, out of offices where they have shown up for their regularly scheduled immigration meetings. Do we assume that because the agents have the power of the government behind them that they are doing what is right and that the person they are grabbing must have done something to deserve this treatment? Do we justify sending people identified simply because of their race or country of origin to camps in a swamp or a foreign country where we know the conditions are subhuman because someone in authority has told us that they are violent criminals with no proof offered, no opportunity for due process? Or can we imagine that something has gone terribly wrong with this logic and the person with no power, no say, no proof that they have done anything wrong is actually the victim of state sanctioned violence and they deserve our loud and vehement response? Can we imagine that in defending this person who maybe speaks a different language, or originally came from a different country, who has arrived in this land of the free and home of the brave, came here for reasons we cannot fathom, facing adversity we hope never to experience; can we imagine that “loving our neighbor” may require defending them? Can we put ourselves in their shoes and ask how we might want to be treated if the tables were turned?
The message of the parable of the Good Samaritan is stunningly simple “The one who shows kindness is acting as neighbor and sometimes our neighbor is disguised as someone we’re afraid of, maybe even as our enemy.”
We desperately need to internalize this message today when empathy is so often absent from our daily lives; in a world where caring for the vulnerable is seen as weak or woke; in this world driven by competition, consumerism, greed and individualism, kindness is the balm our collective souls need.
The writer Kurt Vonnegut was once asked by a young man in Pittsburgh, “Please tell me it will all be okay.” Vonnegut, who has written so many stories filled with cynicism and displaying the weaknesses of humanity, was being asked to offer hope to this young person! And what was his answer?
Vonnegut said, “Welcome to earth, young man. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside Joe, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of: Goddamn it, Joe, you’ve got to be kind.”
What might it mean for our relationships individually and for our community or even for the world if we listened to the voice whispering to each of us, “For God’s sake, Christian, be kind!”3 For God’s sake, love even your enemy for you too will be in the ditch someday.
1 https://dianabutlerbass.substack.com
2 Amy Jill Levine, Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi.
3 Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love
3 Kurt Vonnegut, A Man without a Country.
Service for July 6 Fourth Sunday of Pentecost
The link may indicate that it is from July 13, but it really is from the 6th. We will try to correct the date.
Service for June 15 Holy Trinity Sunday
Those words of Jesus haunt me: I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” Reading the news, I have to wonder what it is that we still do not understand. What truth are we missing that allows the mess of violence and hatred and disregard for life to continue. If the Spirit of Truth has declared to us what Jesus knew that we needed to hear, why are things still in such a mess?
I don’t have all the answers. But I’ll offer some thoughts that I hope are helpful. The Trinity is a uniquely Christian concept: God as Father, Son and Spirit; or another way of naming the persons of the Trinity is as Creator, Redeemer, and Advocate, or Lover - Beloved - and Love. That God is three in one tells us that God creates (along with the son and the Spirit.) The son, Jesus comes to humanity as one of us to show us what God wants us to know about God. And the Spirit – will be with us “always to the end of the age.” Because, when the Spirit is present, teaching, comforting, advocating so is Jesus and so is the Father. When Jesus is present so is the Creator and so is the Advocate. When God is creating the Son and Spirit are there creating right alongside God. All three are involved in everything. It is WE who experience them in different ways.
It can get very confusing really quickly. And for many of us the question quickly becomes, “So what?” What difference does this make? Is this something that only scholars care about, people more concerned with ideas than the real world around them? It does matter so let’s look at two ways of trying to understand the Trinity.
The first is as mystery. There is a sense in which we will never understand God fully and so we must leave room for mystery, not just some loose ends we’ll figure out eventually, but the mystery of God who is completely different than anything we’re capable of knowing.
I think N.T. Wright’s understanding of this mystery is helpful. Here’s what he has to say. “… the doctrine of the Trinity, properly understood, is as much a way of saying ‘we don’t know’ as of saying ‘we do know.’ …The Trinity is not something that the clever theologian comes up with as a result of hours spent in the theological laboratory, after which he or she can return to announce that they’ve got God worked out now, the analysis is complete, and here is God neatly laid out on a slab. The only time they laid God out on a slab he rose again three days afterwards.
On the contrary: the doctrine of the Trinity is, if you like, a signpost pointing ahead into the dark, saying: ‘Trust me; follow me; my love will keep you safe.’ Or, perhaps better, the doctrine of the Trinity is a signpost pointing into a light which gets brighter and brighter until we are dazzled and blinded, but which says: ‘Come, and I will make you children of light.’ The doctrine of the Trinity affirms the rightness, the propriety, of speaking intelligently that the true God must always transcend our grasp of him, even our most intelligent grasp of him.”
Another way to think about the doctrine of the Trinity is to look at why it is necessary; why this doctrine deserves our attention and why we continue to pray the creeds that attempt to describe what we mean by a Trinitarian God.
Believe it or not, in the first few centuries of the Christian faith, people died and wars were fought over what it meant that God was three and, at the same time, that God was one. The Nicene creed we’ll pray together in a few minutes was developed in the 400s as a way to put the arguments to rest and to set a solid, foundation for what we mean when we say we are Christians.
It is important because when we get it wrong, people get hurt and our faith is used in ways that were never intended.
Robert Ratcliff says that in order to understand why the Trinity is so important and why it’s so important that we get it right, we have to look to the Old Testament. (And I must comment that I don’t think it’s possible for us to understand Jesus and the New Testament if we don’t read the Old Testament as well. It’s essential that we read the whole thing. It must all be read in light of its context: the place and time and the historical events happening when it was written. And remember, Jesus himself read and understood as inspired much of what we call the Old Testament: the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms.)
Ratcliff asks, “What’s the one sin that comes up again and again in the Old Testament, that keeps getting the Israelites in trouble? It’s idolatry. As any Old Testament prophet can tell you, we always want a God who acts and thinks like, well, us. The temptation to remake God in our own image is as seductive as it is universal.”
It's tempting to think of God as the one with absolute power: you know the One described by the three “omnis”: Omnipotence, Omniscience, and Omnipresence: All -powerful, All knowing, and Present everywhere. Humans like this idea of God. We’d like to think that God as creator is all we need to know about God: Mighty, powerful, able to create and destroy, to know absolutely what is right and what is wrong in every moment.
The problem is that human nature inevitably twists every idea to what we see as our advantage. It’s a short leap from understanding God as all-powerful to thinking that we too should use our power to do what we’re certain God wants done. We think we’re justified in using power because whatever we’re doing, we’re doing it in faithfulness to God. At least that’s our reasoning.
Do you know how many wars have been fought, how many indigenous peoples have been slaughtered around the world because Christians were certain that they knew what God wanted and were willing to use force to get it? The estimate is that over about 100 years 56 million indigenous people were killed just in South, Central and North America. This idea of God’s power rubber stamping humanity’s use of power is behind the dehumanization and murder of thousands of people who just happened to be in the Americas before Christians arrived here. And that same thing happened in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Everywhere Christians have gone, some of them have justified taking what we wanted, regardless of the cost to others by invoking God’s will and using the power they saw as God’s power given for them to use as they saw fit.
Robert Ratcliffe again says, “To speak of God mostly in terms of God’s power is to imply that human power is a form of godliness, and that those with the most power are the most like God. Isn’t that what kings and despots throughout the centuries have said? “You have to listen to me because God wants order around here, and God has empowered me to make sure you stay in line.”1
So, NO! understanding the Trinity properly is not just an abstract, mental exercise done by people with nothing better to do.
Because God is Three and God is One, we cannot look only to God the creator to understand our relationship with God and with each other. We must also look at the role of Jesus and the role of the Spirit. Each one is necessary to understand who God is and what it means that humanity is created in the image of God.
Because we can’t help but define the word “God” in terms of power, God comes in the flesh to show us what and who God really is. God shows us in Jesus what God has decided is essential that we know about God! In Jesus we see that for God, power means the power of self-sacrificial love. And because Jesus is God; the story of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection is the final, truest definition of the word, “God.”
But even that is not the whole picture of who God is! Jesus has always called those who follow him to go out and change the world: Go and make disciples of all nations! And how do we make disciples? By baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit AND teaching them to obey everything that Jesus commanded.
We are to teach what Jesus has commanded us: that to be faithful is to center our lives on Love! We are to teach the Love of God and love of neighbor.
We know how difficult that is since we tend to interpret everything through our own weaknesses and our tendency to idolatry! We know because the world around us gives us example after example of the ways we have gotten it wrong. There is evidence that the man who murdered a member of the Minnesota legislature and her husband yesterday was motivated by his Christian faith to do so.
Nevertheless, Jesus entrusts us with this work that changes the world, that HEALS the world. Jesus can entrust this healing work to us because the Advocate, the Holy spirit is with us always, even to the end of the age! Jesus promised his continued presence so that we would not be orphaned; so that we would always have an advocate, a comforter, a guide leading us in the paths of the true God.
Matthew Myers-Bolton says, “the doctrine [of the Trinity] is ultimately about a world saturated with divine presence, and a God “in whom we live, and move, and have our being.” This is not a pointless exercise for academics disconnected from our world. The doctrine of the Trinity is a guide for faithful people so that we are “in the world” in the way that God intended us to be in the world, humbly, loving for the sake of the other.
May we live in such a way that the love of the Trinity shines forth from our lives. Amen.
Service for June 8 Pentecost
Sermon for June 8, 2025 Pentecost
In the Gospel reading today, we’re in the upper room with Jesus again as he is about to go to his suffering and death. In this moment he tells those who love him, disciples of all times and places, to show our love for him by keeping his commandments. And the only commandment Jesus gave in John’s gospel is to love; love God and love all people and all creation, a task that we know all too well, is nearly impossible.
We’re committed to loving. We long to love as we have been loved by God. And yet, we are so frail, so weak. We try to love, and we fail… out of fear, out of lack of support; maybe we have poor role models. We fail for so many reasons: misplaced effort or good intentions going wrong. And, of course, Jesus knew us. He knew how difficult loving would be for us and so he promised that we would not be alone in that struggle. We would have “another advocate,” the Holy Spirit, who would lead us into all truth, guide us in the paths we should follow, comfort us when we fail and inspire us to love again.
Jesus, knew our need and our condition and promised to never leave us orphaned and so the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the people on that first Pentecost day and we long for that Spirit still to be stirred within us, among us to give us that comfort that despite what we see around us, the rising hopelessness and despair, the odds so great against the flourishing of our children and grandchildren, so much hate and uncertainty; despite all that we long for the Spirit to come again and again, here among us.
Today we celebrate Pentecost, that pouring out of the Holy Spirit onto ALL people as described in the Acts reading. Like so much of theology, in trying to make God and God’s ways understandable to all people, that mystery of God as Trinity, has been simplified into neat sound bytes like “the birthday of the Church.” The mystery of God sharing God’s self with humanity, giving access to God’s self in the Holy Spirit is a mystery and a gift so immense that we dare not simplify it like that.
In Acts Peter quoted the prophet Joel saying that God would pour out God’s Spirit on ALL people. On the day of Pentecost ALL people and even ALL FLESH has been touched by God’s Spirit. Not all people choose to embrace that Spirit of love so beautifully emobied in Jesus’ life. But all people have that Spirit within them, available to them. The early church was not an attempt to separate the Spirit -filled from the Spirit -less. It was and IS a gathering of people who recognize the gift they’ve been given of God’s Spirit and commit to living together, animated by that Spirit, letting that Spirit of love that Jesus commanded be our way of life, guide us, as the gospel writer John says, “Into all Truth.”
Pastor Clint Schneckloth writes, “…what does this Spirit do? It groans. That is the verb given us by Paul in Romans, groanings too deep for words. Not to be confused with sighs. Not merely yearning. But a kind of wordless convulsion in the heart of the world. The Spirit does not fill us so that we might feel full. The Spirit empties us …so that the voice of the Other might speak. So that the voices of those long silenced might erupt, tongues of fire dancing on their heads.”
The most often used image of the Spirit is of fire tells which tells us that this God who has come to dwell in and among us comes not passively and sweetly but this Spirit comes to disrupt, to move us out of our complacency and comfort. The Holy Spirit always moves us out into places of pain and suffering to bring that hope, that peace, that love of God to the people and places where they are most needed – to the desperate so that they too may know God’s love is for them!
The Spirit of God is active in our world, even and maybe most clearly in the most desperate situations. We see the Spirit of God moving among the people who risk their lives, to go into war zones like Gaza and Ukraine, bringing food and medicine. We see the Spirit of God stirring people to speak out against the powerful abusing the trust of the people as they amass obscene fortunes while others starve, while children die of preventable diseases. We see the Spirit of God in far away places and we see God moving us as we see the face of Jesus in the mother who flees an abusive relationship doing her best to provide for children while a car is their only home. We see her with the love of Jesus and we respond by working with others to provide a place to safely park that car. The Spirit allows us to see and to act; to feel that sense of injustice and to respond with love not judgement.
We see the Holy Spirit enlivening this congregation as people choose to live together, striving every day to empty themselves of pride and self concern, choosing instead to come together to encourage one another in a life of humility and service.
That is the gift of the Spirit poured out upon “all flesh” as the prophet Joel said and the apostle Peter preached. In THESE last days, the days that were initiated in Christ’s life and death and resurrection and continue until God perfects God’s creation, Jesus promises we are not orphans, we are not alone. We are not comforted by the Spirit holding our hands as we ignorantly live our comfortable lives. We are comforted by that Spirit that life is so much more than certainty and the illusions of wealth and power. We have received and continue to receive the Holy Spirit, our advocate, our comforter who wipes away our tears and guides us, moves us, even SHOVES us out the door and into a better tomorrow. We pray that the Spirit is stirred up among us again and again, empowering us to love far beyond our ability to do so and so we pray:
Come, Holy Spirit.
“Come, Holy Spirit, witness to us [also] in our many languages.
Speak in the language of our need. Let us hear how our deepest hungers, desires, and aspirations can be fulfilled by your goodness.
Speak in the language of our fear. Let us hear how our worries about the future, about each other, and about ourselves, can find rest in your care.
Speak in the language of our gratitude. Let us hear how our honest thanks relates us, not only to those with whom we live, but also to you, the Lord and Giver of life, and, indeed, to the whole world. Speak to us in the language of hope. Let us hear how our deepest yearning and our expectations are not just wishful thinking, but responses to your promise.”1 Amen. 1 Prof. Tyler Mayfield