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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
Service for June 1 Seventh Sunday of Easter
Sermon for June 1, 2025 Seventh Sunday of Easter
Jesus Prayed For You
Friends in Christ, Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God, our Father and the Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Our Gospel lesson today is from Jesus’ high priestly prayer for his disciples. As we read or listen to these words today, I think it is helpful to go back to the time in which Jesus prayed for his disciples and imagine us being there in that time, for we are Jesus’ disciples too.
The word disciple means learner or student, not one who understands everything, one who is learning. A student, one who studies.
These words were said before Jesus was crucified, not after the resurrection, so we might be surprised to find them on the 7th Sunday of Easter when we celebrated Jesus risen from the dead 7 Sundays ago. These words are a legacy Jesus is leaving to his disciples, his students, learners, but I think it is a safe bet that those gathered to hear them that first time only understood a tiny fraction of what he was saying, even if that.
The procession into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday had just happened. People were excited. Jesus had come, riding a donkey, the ancient sign of a king’s entry. In chapters 13-17, in a lot of words and actions, Jesus teaches his disciples, washes their feet, fingers Judas as his betrayer, though that hasn’t happened yet, predicts Peter’s denial of his Lord, and prays for his disciples and for those whom the disciples, his students, will touch with the good news of Jesus, all those words were spoken before he was crucified.
What would his disciples have felt hearing these words? Confusion and dread about what this going to the Father might mean? Disbelief from Peter when his denial was predicted? And then reassurance that Jesus prayed for them, prayed for their protection, prayed that others might believe through them and that all those might be one with him, just as the Father is in Jesus and Jesus is in the Father. And how did they remember to write it down, so long after the fact of it’s happening, when the Gospel was written? How did they remember those words when they did not understand them?
Maybe the remembering part was something like this: Some of you know that I am an author as well as a long- distance hiker. So I understand at least a little bit, about writing things. When I wrote my second book, I sent it to a friend to read and make comments, hopefully to make the book better. Now, any author has a fairly big ego to think they have anything important enough to write about. And it is difficult for me, or anyone really, to take criticism, even constructive criticism we ask for. She sent me her criticisms, carefully thought out, and I stewed, mentally and internally for a couple of weeks over the comments she sent me about my writing. What should I do with them? And then, what were just the right memories from my past history flooded into my brain and I knew what to do and what to write. My book became much better for the criticism, and my resurrected memories put my words in context, though I had not thought about those memories for years. Sometimes criticism brings out the best in us, in spite of us.
I think the Gospels are a little like that. They were not written for years after the time when the events took place. Jesus’ disciples did not get it, at least not at the time the words were spoken. But then, years later, after Jesus’ death and resurrection and a lot of study of their scriptures and stewing about what had happened, which seemed impossible, then they remembered, and wrote those words down.
This high priestly prayer of Jesus before the crucifixion is passed down to us, to you and to me, for we are learners too. We don’t always get it right the first time we hear or read scripture. But we also are Jesus’ dear ones. He prayed for us, included us in this prayer.
Think about that. The work of Father, Son and Holy Sprit did not stop with creation. It did not stop with kings and prophets in the Old Testament. It did not stop with Jesus’ death, nor even with the appearance of the resurrected Jesus. The work of God did not stop with one disciple leaving to go his own way, as some translations say about Judas. The work of God does not stop between regularly called pastors. The work of God keeps going. Even going to you and me and through you and me.
The work of God kept going through Saul in our first reading, Saul, who tried to destroy early followers of the way of Jesus, and yet became Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, which included you and me. The work of God and the promise of Jesus’ presence, even when it seemed impossible, kept going through early persecutions and the death of those who followed the way of Jesus, whose robes were washed in blood as our second reading says. The Gospel of God’s love and the oneness that we know in Jesus Christ came over centuries through countless billions of people to you and to me.
Jesus did not just pray for the disciples that lived in his time and were with him in that upper room. He prayed for us that we may be one, that Jesus lives in you and in me and in those we will touch with his dear love as well. The Easter stories do not stop though this is the last Sunday in the Easter season. The Easter stories blend into the work of the Holy Spirit over thousands of years until now and on into forever.
I think back to those first disciples, those who heard Jesus’ high priestly prayer in person and those who believed the stories they heard from them, from the earliest witnesses to the resurrection, that Jesus and the Father were one and they also were one with them.
The strongest argument for the resurrection, it has always seemed to me, is the witness and change that came over the disciples who had seen Jesus raised. They were not a particularly brave bunch of folks. They had often misunderstood what Jesus said to them. They probably did not understand much in this prayer at the time Jesus prayed it. But they remembered it.
And after the resurrection, they lived it. Those words guided their actions. They became incredibly brave. They became fearless. The threat of death could not stop them from sharing the good news of Christ Jesus with others around them. Nothing much explains that change in their lives and attitudes and actions, except the resurrection and the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. They became on fire with the Gospel, the good news that God loved them, loved Jesus, through death and beyond. And they and we are one with Jesus and the Father. Jesus said so, prayed so.
These scriptures fit for the 7th Sunday of Easter. The resurrection is celebrated in the lives of disciples, learners, those who do not get it right away, those for whom Jesus prayed, his dear ones, numbering like myriads of stars over time until today, including you and me. So, what do we do now?
Since I retired, I have walked up and down America three times and all the way across America coast to coast on long distance trails, sometimes praying, listening, even preaching, as the occasion arose. And I have written books of my observations. My books are not how to hike books although there is a lot of how to do it in the books. There is also some of my faith and a sprinkling of theology, meant for those who are a bit allergic to talking about faith. I wrote, hoping to hoodwink my readers into considering faith along with hiking.
And you, what are you called to do? You have a mission to share God’s love for all people, with all people and the Holy Spirit is still here to lead you. Times have changed since Jesus’ prayer, but Jesus and the prayer have not changed. God is not finished being one with you. You are Jesus’ witnesses, dearly beloved disciples, who will call someone to guide you past your past to look to where your future leads you.
Easter does not stop. Jesus lives. New life is before you. Jesus prayed for you and those whom you will touch with God’s own love to tell them that they are Jesus’ dear ones too. May Jesus and the Father live in you and you in them. May your joy and the joy of Jesus multiply and be complete now and forever.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Service for May 18 Fifth Sunday of Easter
Sermon for May 18, 2025 Fifth Sunday of Easter
Today is the fifth Sunday of the Easter season; five weeks since that initial shock that death does not have the last word; that resurrection, new life out of death is possible. In these weeks, in the aftermath of that event that is no less profound today than it was 2000 years ago, we continue to explore what it means that the resurrection was not just a one-time event but that it is also for us and for all humanity and that resurrection life begins now as we live this deep intimacy with God that Jesus’ death made possible.
Resurrection life beginning now! What does that mean? What does that look like? Jesus left clues for us like the one we heard in the reading from John. Jesus was with his disciples for their last night together, when no one but Jesus knew that it was the last time they would all be together.
Jesus wanted to give them a model of what this new life he was giving could be like. Jesus wanted them to have a reminder, of all of their time together: every person Jesus had healed, every meal they had shared with outcasts, every word of his teaching – all of it - to show the disciples what love looks like in this world, in these human bodies, in a life shared centered in him. And so to encapsulate it all Jesus gives them a new commandment: love one another as I have loved you. “As I have loved you.” That’s the hard part!
There are other places Jesus tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves; that loving our neighbor is how we are to show our love for God. But, here, in this one particular event, at this one meal, Jesus says, “Love one another as I have loved you.” It’s a commandment naming the expectation that those who follow Jesus will live differently than the rest of the culture. We who follow Jesus should live in relationship so loving, so self-giving, so God-centered that it would be a shining example for everyone to see, drawing others in to experience and be a part of this extreme love.
This is so much more than being nice and it has nothing to do with always agreeing with each other about everything. This love does not mean we are cookie cutter versions of each other. On the contrary, we see example after example of the truth that Jesus and God love diversity; that actually, the world thrives on diversity. This is really hard for us to understand, always has been.
So, Jesus gives us a visual aid, an enactment of that love in action. Taking a towel, Jesus gets on his knees and washes each person’s feet: dirty, smelly, calloused feet. A job only a servant would do, Jesus moves from one person to the next, washing, gently holding this precious body, lovingly washing, humbly filling this simple need.
And when Peter thinks he is beyond this act of love, claiming humility, that he is not worthy of Jesus’ care, Jesus teaches that only when we can in all humility receive the care, and love of others, only then can we truly love. We can serve others rightly only when we allow ourselves to be served. If we hold back, if we refuse to be so vulnerable as to allow ourselves to be served, we are not loving as Jesus loved. If we cannot enter into the vulnerability of being served, we are putting our needs ahead of the needs of those we are called to serve.
What does that look like? Well, there are so many ways! We humans are really good at fooling ourselves that we’re being loving when really, we’re putting our needs ahead of those we want to serve.
It may look like offering food to the hungry but expecting them to express their gratitude sufficiently. It’s not uncommon when serving at a meal for the unhorsed to hear someone serving complaining that the people don’t say thank you or that they’re being too picky, maybe asking for white bread instead of wheat. Sometimes we hear the comment, “Beggars can’t be choosers.” That’s an expression of that need to put a barrier between ourselves and others instead of understanding that there is absolutely no difference between the person who has the food to share and the one in need. Each one is God’s precious, dearly loved child. And we all have the need to make choices, we all have preferences and there’s nothing wrong with that, even if you are hungry, even if you have to accept a handout. We love truly when we give unconditionally; loving the person in front of us in the giving.
We are holding on to our need to serve rather than being served when we insist that others are truly welcome, without exception to our worship but we don’t provide accommodations for their needs or we welcome them as long as they don’t smell bad or they don’t act inappropriately. We welcome everyone but ask them to be like us, and resist changing or or adapt for them. This shows up in how we resist changing things in worship, repeating those 7 deadly words: “That’s the way we’ve always done it!” Even though, loving our neighbor, our neighbor who may be young or may never have been in a Lutheran worship service before may not understand or relate in any way to what we are saying or doing! Could we love them better by adapting our words, or songs, or style to be more inclusive? Could we be open to experimenting with doing things in a new way for the sake of putting the needs of others ahead of our own?
How do we serve with vulnerability and humility? We think of the other person first! How do we serve people who live on the streets? We understand them for who they are: many without access to dental care, so having few if any teeth, and so we make sure there are soft foods for them. We understand that if you don’t know when you’ll get your next meal, you may take more when it’s in front of you than what you can eat in one meal to save some for later. We understand that what we think of as “healthy and economical” food may not be what is needed. Many people don’t want canned foods when they live on the street or in their car. They may not have a can opener. They may not have a way to heat the food. Don’t judge the mother who leaves the dried beans and rice on the shelf at the food pantry and instead asks for microwaveable Mac and cheese. You don’t know her life. It may be that microwaveable food is what her children can make for themselves while she is working the night shift at her second or third job to keep the roof over their heads and prevent them losing their apartment.
Those are just simple examples. You’ve probably experienced times when someone says they want to help but their help is not really all that helpful. There was a time for me when I was struggling with going to school and paying bills and trying to keep our girls fed and clothed. A friend wanted to be helpful so she got me a gift certificate for a few hours at a spa to get my nails polished and a massage. That may have been helpful and even a loving act for someone else. But to me it said, she didn’t really know me. I would have loved an hour of her time to watch the kids while I went for a walk or even a simple meal dropped off so I didn’t have to cook one night. I was not ungrateful for her effort but it said more about her and her need to be helpful than about her taking the time to know me and what I really needed.
I’m sure you all have experienced times when you wanted to help but didn’t know how. We all try our best to do that and most of us need to work on accepting help from others, being vulnerable enough to ask for help and for the help we really need. It’s hard and it’s a muscle we all need to exercise to strengthen. Because, in the end, we all must be served. We came into the world in need of care and we will all leave the world needing the care of others and that is right and good. That is how it should be.
It’s terrifying to think that Jesus expects us to love as he loved, to the point of giving everything even life in the name of love. But, here’s the thing! That is how much WE have been loved. Jesus gave everything out of love for us, for you and for me! And in return, in thankfulness and praise for that love, we GET TO love others in the same way, to the best of our ability! We GET TO try and try again to put the needs of others first, not being a doormat. There is nothing loving about letting someone use you or hurt you Each of us is worthy of love and out of that we love we love; we give; we respond to the needs of people around us.
And when it seems too hard to that we remember the words of the writer of 1st John, “There is no fear in love”… perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.” Perfect love, which none of us is capable of, perfect love is what is required so that we can love like Jesus loves. This is, of course, impossible…unless… we are not the ones required to do the loving. Unless…God is doing a new thing through Jesus, loving the world as Jesus loves the world through us. May it be so here and now and more everyday as we encourage one another in loving as we have been loved. Amen.
Service for May 4 Third Sunday of Easter
Sermon for May 4, 2025 Third Sunday of Easter Pastor Val Metropoulos
The disciples, at this point in the Easter story have already seen the risen Jesus but we get the sense that they didn’t know what to do with that experience. They had no way to integrate the Jesus they had seen die on a cross with the Jesus who appeared to them in a locked room. They had no framework that could accommodate both of those events into anything that made sense.
From all they had seen, they expected Jesus would conquer their enemies in a spectacular way, “the coming of a comet”: the mighty empire Rome defeated, and the faith of Abraham, Isaac and Moses redeemed for all the world to see. But what they got was Jesus, the one who had died, now apparently alive again. Not a god of power, not even a man of steel. Jesus is a man marked by his suffering, bearing the scars of the nails in his hands and feet and the piercing of his side. He is alive but he is flesh and bone: changed, now able to appear in a locked room, but still much the same as the Jesus they knew.
They were floundering and so they return to what they know. They go fishing.
And Jesus meets them there on the seashore, on the beach, offering some fishing advice, cooking up the fish they caught thanks to his encouragement. He serves them and he shows them the way forward. He offers them truth not triumph. Hope not the hallelujahs of the crowds.
Following Jesus, for those first disciples and for us, there will be no military victories. There will be food enough for everyone. With Jesus as our teacher there will be time with each other. There will be real conversation that does not ignore past pain. Conversation that strengthens relationships that had been damaged.
Peter who betrayed Jesus three times is given three chances to proclaim his loyalty to Jesus. Peter was already forgiven. Jesus had accomplished that on the cross. But now Peter knows it, deeply. He was lost but now he’s found. He was broken and now he’s whole. The church that still follows Jesus to this day, began then and there on that quiet beach.
We might think that forgiveness for Peter’s sin was not that big a deal. But, that “real” sinners, people who have committed crimes, or maybe even for us, if we admit our own sins, surely God requires real repentance, proof of regret, before real sinners can be forgiven?
I return again and again to the Biblical story and find reasons to trust it, not only because it is a beautiful story about God’s love for humanity and for all of creation – which it is! What won’t let me go, what I find compelling is the truth it tells about humanity, the truth that the Biblical story tells about me. That truth-telling compels me to return to it again and again and to trust it.
Before we give in to the temptation to think some people’s sins require greater repentance than others, we return to this truth-telling book that gives us the story of Saul, transformed as we heard in the first reading today into Paul. But, remember that wasn’t the first time we heard of Saul. Earlier on in the book of Acts we heard that Saul was hunting down Christians, dedicated to keeping the purity of his Jewish faith intact when he comes upon Stephen who has been speaking truth to the powerful Jewish leaders, forcing them to face the truth of how badly they had been leading the people.
Let’s hear a bit of that story from the book of Acts:
When the [Jewish leaders] heard [Stephen saying] these things, they became enraged and ground their teeth at Stephen.[j] 55 But filled with the Holy Spirit, he [Stephen] gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56 “Look,” he said, “I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” 57 But they covered their ears, and with a loud shout all rushed together against him. 58 Then they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him; and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. (Saul, the one who organized the mob to hunt down the Jesus followers!)
59 While they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” 60 Then he knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he died.”
Now, Saul is on his way to Damascus to hunt down more Christians, when the forgiveness that Stephen prayed for is realizedin the “sudden appearance of a light from heaven” around Saul. Even this man, Saul, who was responsible for the torture and death of so many people who were guilty only of following Jesus, even this man is forgiven before he even thinks to ask for forgiveness! Robert Wall says, “The real climax of the story is not Saul’s conversion from moral morass to virtuous living or from Judaism to Christianity; … Saul’s turn to Jesus rights him for a future scripted by God as “a chosen instrument to bring [Jesus’] name to the Gentiles and .. the people of Israel…” (9: 15-16).
Saul becomes Paul and spreads the message of Jesus across 10,000 miles before dying a martyr's death in Rome. He experienced Jesus in a flash of light and a voice, and his life was changed so that he could tell the story of God’s love in Jesus and that changed the world, all without a word of repentance from Saul.
Those fishermen after eating breakfast on the beach with Jesus, will never go back to their old lives. The resurrection of Jesus was their resurrection as well, a resurrection from a life of desperation, fear, and hopelessness to one of abundance: abundant hope, abundant community, abundant grace. They had experienced a conversion, a turning from the old way of life and toward the abundance and grace of God’s love. Like Saul, the disciples turn toward Jesus who “rights them for a future scripted by God as a chosen instrument to bring” God’s name wherever it is needed.
Here on the beach around a few fish and a charcoal fire Jesus shows them how to live. Jesus uses words and actions to tell them: “Don’t try to do it on your own. I am with you. Ask for my help and I will help you find what you seek. Begin where you are with what is right in front of you: Your friends are hungry so feed them. The sheep are wandering, so guide them home. There is shame and disappointment over past mistakes. Face it head on to restore that relationship. Then eat, and laugh and relish the goodness of life.”
Those fishermen will go out and tell the world about Jesus, one small group at a time, always beginning with one person just as we tell the story one person at a time. You tell your story. Your conversion, your understanding that you are God’s beloved that you have been forgiven of everything; that you are worthy and beautiful just as you are, no matter what you have done or left undone; all of that is for a purpose. God’s love is for a purpose! Each of us is beloved and saved not just for ourselves; but “for a future scripted by God as a chosen instrument to bring” God’s name wherever it is needed.
This is hard work! Forgiveness is hard work! In her poem, Phase One, Dilruba Ahmed writes, “forgiving myself is the “first phase” of spiritual maturity. It’s a necessary beginning. Compassion towards myself liberates me to love others.” In the last four lines of her poem, Ahmed even forgives herself for not forgiving herself. She writes, I forgive you “For being unable / to forgive yourself first so you / could then forgive others and / at last find a way to become / the love that you want in this world.”
You’ve probably heard about the Japanese technique of Kitsugi, where damaged pottery is repaired by fusing the pieces together with gold. In kintsugi, instead of hiding the flaw in a piece of broken pottery, the artist highlights and even celebrates the damage by repairing it with gold. The restoration is more beautiful than the original precisely because of, rather than in spite of, its repaired brokenness.
Kintsugi is a philosophy that understands that breakage and repair are normal parts of life. Instead of denying or hiding our faults and failures, we embrace our imperfections. We tell the truth that the wear, and tear, and damage are marks of beauty to treasure and honor, not a reason to discard what is broken.
Kitsugi is truth telling that gives us life. Like a gold-dusted piece of repaired pottery, like Saul and Peter, and every other human being, we learn that there can be beauty in brokenness. We are already forgiven. We are already loved.
As those who love Jesus, we have been forgiven and given our purpose in this life just as he gave it to Peter: feed, tend, follow. Feed the hungry. Tend to the needy. Follow Jesus in Jesus’ way for the sake of a future scripted by God. Amen.