Looking up, without looking down

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Sermon for August 31, 2025

Readings:

Sirach 10:12-18
Psalm 112 
Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
Luke 14:1, 7-14

In 1885, when this church was founded, it was founded to be a free church. What that means, is that it was the intention of our founding families that this church would not charge pew rents, but instead would rely on the voluntary donations and pledges of the congregation. Many of you are aware that there was a period of time, especially during the 1700s and early 1800s, when churches had box pews with little doors that were rented. It’s how churches paid the bills. A lot of you have “your pew” that you always sit in now, but back then your pew really was your pew. You paid for it and nobody else could sit there. And of course, just like going to a Broadway show, the best seats cost you more. So if you wanted to sit down front where you could see and be seen, you would pay a premium for it. There were usually some free seats, but they were in the balcony or in the back. If you visit many historic colonial churches, you will find just this setup. 

It really was a disgraceful practice, especially in the light of the plain reading of the gospel, but for so many years it was so common that it really was unquestioned. You just assumed that the fancy, rich folks in church got to sit up front, and the poor folks would sit in back. One of the later reforms that came out of the Oxford Movement, which was a church reform movement in the early 19th century that was started by my hero, John Keble, was the movement away from this pew rental system. Our founders were influenced by that. I think that we may justifiably be proud of our parish, and our founders, for wanting to abandon this pew rent practice. It is a good thing to be proud of. The bible has lots of warnings about pride, but we need to remember that there is good pride and there is bad pride. There is a pride that is born out of love and gratitude, and there is a pride that is born out of self-righteousness and disdain. We can embrace one, hut we need to be very careful of the other.

It is good to be proud of our parish and our founders for wanting to abolish pew rents, but in being proud we need to remember that we weren’t the first parish to try that, not by a long shot. We weren’t the first; we weren’t the only ones; and there were times when we seriously considered implementing pew rents because finances were so tight. So, we can be proud of what our founders did accomplish while at the same time recognizing that they weren’t perfect. We can love our parish without having to feel that it is necessarily superior to every other parish that ever existed. That is healthy pride, good pride. That is pride that is born out of love. And I think that all humans need that sort of pride. It is a pride that makes you raise your head and look up. You raise your head and look up to people who might be a little better at this thing called life than you are. You raise your head and look up to elders, and heroes. You raise your head to recognize superior skill, superior values, and superior wisdom. You raise your head to recognize something superior to yourself. Healthy pride involves looking up, not looking down, and to look up you need to be able to recognize that there must always be someone or something above you. And if you can’t do that, then you can’t know God. That is when the other kind of pride gets in the way.

Negative pride, pride that is born out of self-righteousness and disdain, looks down. Negative pride is about feeling superior to others. This unhealthy type of pride is presumptuous, it takes the high seat at the table. It assumes that it must be the best, the greatest, the wisest, and therefore does not strive to be better than it is. That is why this type of pride is so deadly. It alienates you from God above and from everyone else below. You have no need for anything above you and you are too good for anything beneath you. Negative, unhealthy pride is isolating and it leads to destruction. That is the type of pride that the scriptures are talking about in the first reading this morning:

The beginning of human pride is to forsake the Lord;
the heart has withdrawn from its Maker. 

For the beginning of pride is sin,
and the one who clings to it pours out abominations. 

Therefore the Lord brings upon them unheard-of calamities,
and destroys them completely. 

The Lord overthrows the thrones of rulers,
and enthrones the lowly in their place.

Be very careful if you think the throne is yours or if you think the best seat in the house belongs to you. You may just find yourself turned out of your pew when the true owner of the house arrives. Take the lower seat our Lord advises. Assume that there are others that are better than you. Look up and show respect. Remember that you still have things to learn. We may think that charging rent for pews is a totally abhorrent idea that is contrary to the gospel, but 100 years from now there may be some practices that we simply ignore or take for granted that future generations may be scandalized by. We can be proud of our ancestors, we can look up to them, but we needn’t be self-righteous in doing so. We can look up, without looking down, if you know what I mean. 

The funny think about learning to always look up to those above you, is that in doing so you learn to hold your own head a little higher. Learning to respect others goes hand in hand with learning to respect yourself. So healthy pride, pride that is born out of love, pride that is born out of admiration for that which is good walks hand in hand with humility. We can be proud of ourselves and our accomplishments, we can be proud of our children and our families, we can be proud of our church, our country, our heroes, and we can be proud of our cultures. We can be proud of all these things and we can love them without thinking that they are superior to all others or completely faultless. Humility isn’t about looking down in shame; it is about looking up in admiration. When we learn to look up to others, our own status rises as well. Those who exalt themselves will be humbled, but those who humble themselves will be exalted. 

Keep Holy the Sabbath Day

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Sermon for August 24, 2025

Readings:

Isaiah 58:9b-14
Psalm 103:1-8
Hebrews 12:18-29
Luke 13:10-17

Jesus was in the synagogue on the sabbath day, which should come as no surprise to anyone. Jesus was an observant Jew who took God’s laws very seriously. Jesus said he didn’t come to abolish God’s laws, he came to fulfill them. God’s commandments matter to Jesus. And in the fourth commandment we are told “remember that thou keep holy the sabbath day.” The Book of Exodus goes on to say: “six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it.”

The Book of Deuteronomy adds an extra little verse to this and says: “And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out hence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day.”

The sabbath day is a day of rest. The sabbath day is a day of freedom. The sabbath day is a commandment. Resting is a commandment of God. It is one of the top ten. When people talk about sin, they like to talk about the exciting things: adultery, murder, stealing, bearing false witness, but listed among those commandments is the commandment to keep the sabbath day holy and to rest. And freedom is a gift from God. God does not want us to be slaves to the powers of this world. God does not want us to be slaves to productivity. God does not want us to be slaves to the almighty dollar, or to the office, or to email, or to drudgery. God wants us to rest and God wants us to remember his promises of freedom. God wants us to remember the grace that we have been shown. So, work is prohibited on the sabbath, but worship is not; the study of his word is not. And Jesus is in the synagogue worshipping God, and reading and reflecting on his word. Jesus is obeying the commandment. 

And as Jesus is talking, he looks out on the congregation and notices a woman there. It’s amazing that Jesus saw her at all because we are told that she was bent over double. She couldn’t stand up straight. And what is more we are told that this woman has been afflicted this way for eighteen years. I want to focus on this unnamed woman for a minute this morning, because I think it is too easy to focus on the conflict between Jesus and the leader of the synagogue and not notice the incredible faith that she was demonstrating. This woman has been bent over for eighteen years. We can assume that she was probably an older woman if she has been sick that long. Now those of you out there that suffer from back pain, mobility issues, or know what it feels like to sit behind the wheel of a car for too long, or have been hunched over as desk for too long, those of you who know the pain that can come from bad posture…I think I have probably covered most of y’all at this point. Think about being doubled over in pain for eighteen years. Now let’s go back to a time before Ibuprofen, or hot baths, before there was air conditioning or sliced bread or any modern convenience that makes life easier, because that is the time that this woman is living in. Think about the pain and discomfort that she must have been in.

And she showed up in church that day anyways. She showed up to worship God. This woman had every reason to stay home in bed and nobody would have faulted her for it. She was sick. If I had been her pastor I probably would have told her to stay home; it’s fine. But she showed up. Somehow, she made it to the synagogue, got inside, managed to deal with people bumping into her because they couldn’t see her hunched over. And of course, you know most people in synagogue in those days didn’t get a seat. Those pews may be hard, but at least your sitting down. If she wanted to sit, she would have had to sit on the floor. She probably just had to stand though. But she showed up. Why? There are other stories in the gospel where people seek out Jesus for healing, but that’s not the case with this story. She doesn’t call out to him or ask him for anything. As far as we know, she doesn’t know who Jesus is and didn’t know he would be there. She asks for nothing. But her presence there on that sabbath day says something more than her words ever could. 

This is a woman of faith and she is not going to let anything keep her from worshipping her God and honoring and keeping holy the sabbath day. She is sick and in pain, but she showed up, not because she thought that she would be healed, but because she loved God and respected his commandments and intended to keep them as best she could. She didn’t come to get something; she came to give something. Jesus sees her. He sees her faith and without being asked, he sets her free from her affliction. 

And the leader of the synagogue…who would have had a nice comfy place to sit by the way…became indignant because Jesus supposedly did work by curing her on the sabbath. And Jesus calls him out and says “you wouldn’t treat your donkey that way!”

Jesus takes God’s commandment’s seriously. He isn’t dispensing with God’s laws; he is interpreting them in the light of God’s love. Our gospel today begins with Jesus worshipping God in the synagogue on the sabbath day as we would expect. He encounters many people there obeying the fourth commandment, but two stand out in this story: one is a woman who has suffered incredible pain and inconvenience to be there that morning and the only thing on her lips is praise for God; the other person is a man, an important man, the leader of the synagogue, a person with honor and position (and a chair), and all he can do is criticize an act of mercy. Which one of those two do you think did a better job of keeping the sabbath day holy? 

A matter of perspective

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Sermon for August 17, 2025

Readings:

Jeremiah 23:23-29
Psalm 82
Hebrews 11:29-12:2
Luke 12:49-56

I remember one time when I was a little boy, we were traveling through the sugarcane fields of South Florida. If you go inland, away from the beaches, in the region around Lake Okeechobee, you will find miles and miles of sugarcane plantations. Or at least you could when I was little. I don’t know what it is like there now. If you have never seen sugarcane growing, it looks a lot like bamboo: thick growths of big, tall stalks that can be 10 feet high or more. When you are driving through it, it’s like there is a wall on either side of you that you can’t see through. 

Anyways, I can remember driving past these sugarcane fields, when I noticed that some of the fields were on fire. And I remember thinking, “that’s terrible! those poor farmers! All that sugarcane is lost!” And then, as we drove a little further, I was even more upset when I noticed some people walking alongside the fields with torches in their hands, actually setting fire to the sugarcane! How horrible. This wasn’t just an accident; this was intentional destruction. Well, at some point I expressed my dismay about all this, and someone in my family explained to me that they weren’t destroying the sugarcane; they were preparing it for the harvest. 

What I learned that day, was that THAT was the traditional way that sugarcane had been harvested for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. There are new harvester machines that do it differently now, but the traditional way is that once the cane is fully grown and ready to be harvested, you set fire to it. And the fire burns through the field, and burns away all the leaves, and the dead grass, and along the way it drives off all the snakes and other nasty creatures that might be living in there, and what it leaves behind is just the pure sugarcane stalk, ready to be harvested. The sugarcane itself, and the sugar within it, is unharmed. It’s all the bad stuff that gets burned away. 

I saw smoke rising from the field and thought it meant destruction; someone wiser than me knew that it meant it was harvest time. 

The image of those fields burning came to my mind this week as I was reflecting on this gospel. Jesus said that he came to bring fire to the earth. Jesus said that he came to bring division. To hear Jesus say those things, it really rubs against the popular image of Jesus the nice teacher. We are told that Jesus is the Prince of Peace, and that he is all about love and forgiveness, and living abundantly and sharing and being kind and caring, and Jesus IS all of those things, but he is also more. Our situation as humans is more complex than we sometimes want to imagine. We need more than just a nice teacher. We need more than good advice and a helping hand. We need a savior. We need rebirth and transformation. There is much good growing within all of us. God put it there. It is his image. But there is a lot of dead stuff clinging to all of us too. And there are snakes in God’s field as well. If we are ever going to have peace; if we are ever going to know true love and forgiveness; it we ever hope to live in God’s kingdom, then some of the stuff that is growing in us, around us, or on us has to go. There are things that we need to be divided from. I will say that again, there are things that we need to be divided from. There may be people that we need to be divided from. There may be attitudes that we need to be divided from. There may be substances that we need to be divided from. You might even need to be divided from your money and your material possessions. Division can be a good thing. Fire can be a good thing. And the bible often associates fire with God. There was the fiery pillar in the desert, and the burning bush on the mountain, then there was the fire of Pentecost. Fire is powerful. It can be uncontrollable. But fire is transformative. It can destroy things, but it can also make new things. Fire transforms, and God transforms, and we need to be transformed. There are things in this world, there are sins, that need to be burned away in order for God to gather us in and make us into something better than we currently are. We need God’s fire to change us and Jesus said that he came to bring fire to the earth. You can see that as bad news, or good news, it’s a matter of perspective.

If you are a snake in the grass, it is definitely bad news. If you desperately want to cling to old dead things in your life: material things, bad habits, old grudges, past hurts…it might be bad news. If you are content with this world as it is and don’t feel any need to change, or grow, or be transformed into something better…then God’s fire is probably bad news. But if you are ready to be transformed, ready to let go of some things, ready to be gathered into God’s arms in God’s kingdom, ready to let that which is sweet within you be divided from that which is bitter, then God’s fire is good news. 

You can see God’s fire and think that it means destruction, or you can see it and recognize it as a sign of God transforming a field and preparing it for the harvest. Again, it is a matter of perspective.

Mr. McBeevey

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Sermon for August 10, 2025

Readings:

Genesis 15:1-6
Psalm 33:12-22 
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
Luke 12:32-40

Many of you know that the Andy Griffith Show is one of my favorite shows of all time. I have preached about it several times. If you are a younger person and don’t know the show, go and watch it. You can stream it online. If you are an older person and grew up with it, it is worth watching again. The show is an intentional throwback to a different time and place, it is idealized and sanitized, but it is nonetheless a reminder of personal qualities and values that could use a revival. 

I think my favorite episode of the show is called Mr. McBeevey. Opie is out playing in the woods and he comes back to the sheriff’s office all full of stories to share with his dad, Andy, and deputy Barney Fife. He tells them that he met this man named Mr. McBeevey, who spends all day up in the trees, wears a fancy metal hat, jingles when he walks, and can make smoke come out of his ears. Andy and Barney naturally assume that Opie is telling a fantastic tale about a made-up friend as children sometimes do. And then Opie says, “and he gave me this quarter.” And as Opie holds up a real quarter, Andy’s demeanor changes. It is one thing to make up a make-believe story, but it is another thing to tell an outright lie, and Opie seems to be crossing the line. When Opie insists that he is telling the truth, Andy drives out to the woods with him to find this Mr. McBeevey, but of course there is no sign of him. Opie refuses to change his story though. Mr. McBeevey is real. Andy and Opie drive home and now Andy is getting very cross. Make-believe is one thing and that’s fine, but Opie needs to understand the difference between the truth and a lie. Andy is resolved that he is going to have to punish Opie. 

So Andy goes to Opie’s room for a father-son talk which is just one of the best scenes ever. He explains to him the difference between the truth and a lie and he tells him what the consequences will be if Opie persists with this Mr. McBeevey story. But Opie says (crying), but Mr. McBeevey is real, and if I said he wasn’t I would be telling a lie. Don’t you believe me pa? And you see this change come over Andy’s face. Before he had looked stern and disappointed, and now you could just see this sense of bewilderment and love. So Andy goes back downstairs. And Barney, who is always a little too eager to act in every situation, says to Andy: well, aren’t you going to punish him? And Andy says, no. Barney replies, you don’t mean to tell me that you actually believe in this Mr. McBeevey do you? And Andy says, no….but I do believe in Opie. No, but I do believe in Opie. 

I love that scene so much. Andy cannot comprehend the story that Opie is telling. It seems magical, nonsensical, unbelievable. Andy has serious doubts or questions about this Mr. McBeevey, what he doesn’t doubt though, is his son. Andy’s relationship with Opie and love for Opie his him the strength and the courage to say, I don’t understand this, I don’t know how this can be true, but I am going to trust you. My friends, that is faith right there. That is how faith works. Faith is not about certainty. Faith is not about seeing is believing. Faith is not about understanding. Faith is not as much an act of the mind as it is an act of the heart. Faith is a response to a relationship. It is an act of love. 

Our second reading this morning is the eleventh chapter of the Book of Hebrews. I remember once when I was in college I met a guy who had memorized the entire chapter and would perform it and I supposed if you are going to memorize a chapter of scripture this is an excellent choice, because it is all about faith. The passage talks about the faith of Abraham and Sarah, believing that God would do the impossible for them. There are a few verses missing there this morning that also talk about Abel and Enoch and Noah, and later we hear about Issac and Jacob. And we are told that “All of these died in faith, without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them.” The great patriarchs and matriarchs of our faith, they had to trust in God and in their relationship with God, more than they trusted in themselves. Abraham and Sarah had doubts about where or not they would ever have a child, I assure you, but they trusted in God anyways. To be a person of faith means to be able to believe in things that you cannot yet see. To be a person of faith means to lean on love more than you lean on understanding or your own perceptions of things. 

You do not have to understand the meaning of everything Jesus ever said in order to love and follow him as the son of God. You don’t have to have a clear blueprint of heaven in order to believe in it. You don’t need to comprehend every single article of the creed in order to stand and say it will all of us every week. You don’t need to be able to explain why bad things happen to good people, or why good things happen to bad people. You ought to read the bible and pray, but you don’t need to be some great theologian to be a great person of faith. All you really need to be a person of faith is love. You need to love God and the more you are able to love God, the easier it will be for you to believe and trust in the promises that God makes to you. Love God, love Jesus, love whoever it was that first shared their faith with you. You don’t have to wait for a miracle or a sign to start loving God. You don’t have to see in order to believe, you have to love. When we stand every week and say the creed, we are not proclaiming things that we ourselves have seen: we weren’t there when God created the earth, we weren’t there when Jesus was born or when he suffered and died; we weren’t there when he rose from the grave; we may have encounters with the Holy Spirit, but we weren’t there when it spoke through the prophets, and so far none of us have seen Jesus come again to judge the quick and the dead, we have not experienced the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come. Most of the things we proclaim in the creed have nothing to do with our own personal experience of God. It is the accumulated experiences and witness of countless generations of faithful people that have loved God, and experienced God’s love in return. The creed is a witness to the God we love and worship. We worship a God who creates. We worship a God who sacrifices and suffers. We worship a God who inspires and warns. We worship a God who judges, forgives and redeems. 

Living in relationship with this God means learning to use your heart as well as your mind. Sometimes love and relationship can open your heart to believe things that your mind cannot comprehend. At least, that is what happened to Andy when he decided that while he struggled to believe Opie’s story, he still believe in Opie. 

I guess I should add that at the end of that episode, Andy is wandering around in the woods trying to figure all this out, when he just utters the name “Mr. McBeevey.” Suddenly a voice from above says “Hello? Is someone calling me” Andy is completely startled and he looks up and down from the pole beside him climbs a telephone repairman with a metal helmet, and tools dangling from his belt that jingled when he walked. Andy was never happier to meet a telephone repair man in his whole life. Mr. McBeevey was real, and yes…he even had a trick to make smoke come out of his ears. 

I was busy

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Sermon for July 20th, 2025

Readings:

Genesis 18:1-10a
Psalm 15 
Colossians 1:15-28
Luke 10:38-42

I didn’t have time to write a sermon this week. I’m sure most of y’all won’t mind.

I was busy. A church doesn’t just run itself you know. There is a lot to do. There were about three different contractors in and out this week working on one thing or another. There should have been four, but one stood me up. I had several administrative meetings. I was making plans for next year. I had another meeting about several folks who feel called to the priesthood. I spent some time sorting through some of the fair stuff on the stage. Updated the website. Lots of stuff. There’s always just stuff to do. I was busy.

I meant to read the bible this week and study the lessons for this morning. I had the texts all laid out beside me, but everytime I looked at my computer there was another email I needed to answer. Or worse, there was a very carefully worded email that I needed to send. You know. Who has time to write a sermon when you have to think of ways to politely tell someone off? I was busy. 

Yes, I prayed this week. I always pray, but sometimes my prayers are just another window open on my desktop if you know what I mean. It’s going on in the background. I’m praying while I’m doing something else. I’ll think “Lord help this person,” or “Lord heal that person,” while I’m driving or running around. Or I might remember to pray as a last resort when everything else I have tried fails. I know better than to do that, I should always pray first, but sometimes even I forget. There is just so much to distract me, so much to keep me busy, so much to do. I wish I would have taken the time to pray more this week, I could have prayed for help with writing this sermon, but I was busy. 

And of course, I’m a human, and a husband and a father, and a child, and a brother, and lots of things to lots of people, so I have a life of stuff outside of this place too. That keeps me busy. And speaking of praying when everything else fails….nobody ever told me how hard it would be to potty train a toddler. All I have ever had experience with is dogs and cats and I assure you…it’s not the same. This is so much harder. Do you know how hard it is to write a sermon when you and squatting down next to a toilet and praying “Go! Just Go!”? Well neither do I actually, cause I didn’t write a sermon. I didn’t have time. I was busy. Busy cooking, busy shopping, busy cleaning, busy working, busy living. Just busy. I was busy. 

Now if I had had time to come up with a sermon, if I were preaching, I know I would be preaching to the choir this morning, because y’all are busy too. Work, kids, sports. I know how busy y’all are. Those of you who are from an older generation may remember when work was mostly a 9-5 sort of deal. Clock in, clock out, go home. But it’s not that way anymore. We all carry our office in our pockets now. Email, text, phone, work is always right there at our side begging for attention. You can’t get away from it. This is the world we live in now. And I gather from those of you that are retired, that it’s not that much better for you either, because I watch and y’all are always up to something, or going somewhere, or doing something. Y’all are busy too. All of you. We are busy people.

And we are busy doing important things. Not everything is important, to be sure, but lots of things are. People need to eat. Dishes need cleaning. Bills need paying. And the church does important work too. Keeping ministries going is important. Keeping the business side of church going is important. We all have important things to do. I’m not special in that regard. We all have such full lives that it can be very hard sometimes to know what has to come first. What needs to happen and what can wait? In a world full of important things, what things are the most important? That’s what I would like to know. That’s what I would fine helpful, not just in some philosophical sort of way, but in my day-to-day life. This is one of those areas where we could really use some guidance from God. Tell us Lord. Give us a sign.

I mean, if God wanted us to take time off to rest on a regular basis (like every seven days or so), I would expect him to tell us so. Is that so much to ask? God, if taking a day off every week to just pray and worship and be with our families is important, please just tell us. Don’t make us wonder. Better yet Lord, give us a little list of behaviors just to remind us what sort of things we should and should not do. That would be so helpful. Some of y’all may be mourning the Late Show this week. I must confess that I never really watched it, but I seem to recall that once upon a time it was famous for having top 10 lists. Well if God could just give us a top 10 list, that would be great. Think of how helpful it would be. I mean, if you had a list that said something like “don’t commit adultery” then you wouldn’t have to worry about getting caught on the kiss cam with your mistress at the Coldplay concert? Am I right? Wouldn’t that kind of guidance make life easier? Help us out Lord.

As I said, I didn’t have time to write a sermon this week. I was busy. But if I had written a sermon, I probably would have poured over the bible looking for some guidance from God on what things are more important than others. I would have looked for examples in the Old Testament of patriarchs like Abraham just stopping what they were doing and paying attention to something. People in the ancient world never left the office either. There was always work to do. Grain to grind and sheep to shear and Lord knows what else. What made people like Abraham stop what they were doing and pay attention? If just being in the presence of God was truly important for our ancestors, then I am sure that there must be an example somewhere in the bible, of someone like Abraham just stopping…putting the busyness aside and spending time with God. If I had had time to look for it, I think that kind of story or example would have been helpful.

And if not in the Old Testament, then surely in the New Testament I would have found help. I believe that Jesus is God, the creator of the universe, in the flesh. I am sure that he has powerful, wonderful things to say about which things are more important than others. I didn’t write a sermon this week, I was busy. But if I had written a sermon, I would have poured over Jesus’s words to see what he had to say about all this stuff that we have to do. Maybe there is a concrete example there of someone just working and working and working and along the way losing sight of what the work was all about. That sort of story, that kind of guidance might be helpful for people living in this day and age. I know I would find it helpful. 

If I had written a sermon this week, if I had had the time, I would have looked for an example of someone who could, at least for a moment, push their busyness aside and just be in the presence of the Lord, listening to his words, without guilt and without the shame of being unproductive. I would have looked for someone who understood that there is a difference between doing things for God, and spending time with God, and that one is actually more important than the other. I would have looked for permission to stop, permission to rest, permission to just let things go now and then. Anyways, that is probably what I would have preached on if I had had time to read the lessons this week, or study the scriptures, but as I said, I was busy.  

Don’t waste a good miracle

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Sermon for Easter Sunday 2025

Readings:

There is a wonderful scene in the biblical book of Job, where Job, who is a righteous man that is suffering mightily, starts to question God’s justice and God’s goodness. Job is also getting some bad advice from his friends as he is trying to figure out how God works. So, Job demands an answer from God, and God gives him one. Incidentally, you should be careful when you ask God questions, because sometimes you do get answers. Only you may not like what God has to say. 

Anyways, God answers Job and says:

Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
    Tell me, if you have understanding.
5 Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
    Or who stretched the line upon it?
6 On what were its bases sunk,
    or who laid its cornerstone
7 when the morning stars sang together
    and all the heavenly beings[a] shouted for joy?

Where were you?

‘Have you commanded the morning since your days began,
    and caused the dawn to know its place,

‘Have you entered into the springs of the sea,
    or walked in the recesses of the deep?
17 Have the gates of death been revealed to you,
    or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?
18 Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?
    Declare, if you know all this.

Where were you?

Do you know the ordinances of the heavens?
    Can you establish their rule on the earth?

34 ‘Can you lift up your voice to the clouds,
    so that a flood of waters may cover you?
35 Can you send forth lightnings, so that they may go
    and say to you, “Here we are”?
36 Who has put wisdom in the inward parts,[c]
    or given understanding to the mind?[d]
37 Who has the wisdom to number the clouds?
    Or who can tilt the waterskins of the heavens,
38 when the dust runs into a mass
    and the clods cling together?

Where we you? Where were you when I created the earth? God asks. God encourages Job to take a look at the world around him and he says to him: you had nothing to do with this. You did not create this. 

I love that scene, because although it is perfectly fine and natural to question God about the mysteries of the universe, we always need to do so with great humility. And we humans, even the best of us, are not good at sustained humility. Sooner or later we all are prone to thinking a little too highly of our own ideas and our own actions. We like to think we are all-powerful. We like to think it’s all up to us. So, we humans need a good, loving smackdown from our creator now and then. We need to be right-sized. We need to be reminded that we are not in complete control of the universe. We need to be reminded that we did not create this beautiful world that we are living in. We didn’t even create our own lives. Every single one of us in this room was created by someone else. And there is no such thing as a self-made man. We didn’t call ourselves into existence. And most of the beautiful things in this world are not the work of human hands. 

I love that scene in Job, because it is sharp reminder that in the beginning, God did marvelous things without any help from us. 

Now I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. God cares about what we do, and how we live our lives and how we treat each other. That is abundantly clear across all of sacred scripture. Our actions are not meaningless. God gives us commands about how to live in both the Old Testament and the New, so how we live matters. But this is still our Father’s world. God always has the last word. The next time you are worried about something, remember that. You don’t need to wait for God to shake you up and speak to you out of the whirlwind like he did with Job. Our scripture and our tradition are filled with stories to remind you that God is in control. Your actions matter; God care about your actions, but God is always in ultimate control. It is his world. God gives us wisdom and advice for living, that’s true, but God also works miracles without any help from us. Remember that the next time you are feeling anxious, or tired, or broken. God can work a miracle without your help. And don’t let God’s miracles go to waste. It is amazing to me how prone we are to doing just that: wasting God’s miracles. God shows us his love and faithfulness and power in the most astounding of ways, and we still can’t take it in or believe it, or we won’t believe it. We still want to think that our actions are more important than God’s actions. We still want to think that it is up to us to save ourselves.

Think about the Passover story. God spared the Children of Israel from the plagues in Egypt, he led them with clouds and a fiery pillar, he splits the sea for them, destroys Pharoah’s army, feeds them with miraculous food, makes water to come out of rocks, saves them from poisonous snakes, makes them victorious in battle and leads them through the desert to a land flowing with milk and honey and all along the way what did the people say?

You know, it wasn’t so bad in Egypt was it? Sure, we were enslaved and treated harshly, but we had melons and cucumbers and a little meat now and then, so it wasn’t so bad, was it? I wonder if we can find our way back. Let’s turn around and head back there.

I can just see God scratching his head, if God had a head, and wondering, did I just waste all those miracles on you people? Did you think that I would bring you this far and just leave you here? Did you split the sea or make the water come out of the rock? No. I did that! Why are you so convinced that I am going to abandon you now? 

But this is what we think sometimes, isn’t it? Not just the Israelites wandering in the wilderness, but all of us. We all are inclined to think that God has abandoned us to our own devices. That it is up to us. God has done whatever God has done, now the rest is up to us. That’s the voice we hear. But I don’t think it is the voice of God telling us that. Time and time again, God has shown us in the most miraculous ways that we are not abandoned and that he is still in control and will have the last word. God has given us miracles to remind us of his love and faithfulness. We don’t want to waste those miracles do we? A good miracle is a terrible thing to waste, especially the miracle of Easter.

Who helped Jesus get out of the grave early on Easter Sunday morning? Was it Mary Magdalene that rolled the stone away? Did all of the women get behind the stone and say “alright, on the count of three, push!”? No. God didn’t need our help to get out of that grave. Nobody moved his body. It’s funny, I can tell you with 100% certainty that there were a lot of clergy staring at blank computer screens last night trying to figure out how they are going to get Jesus out of the grave again this year. What a waste of a miracle. Jesus doesn’t need any help getting out of the grave. God has shown us that he has the power to do that without our help. But we like to think he needs us. Clergy can be terrible about this, myself included, we can be terrible about thinking that God needs us to make Easter happen. Well, if that were the case, Easter would never have happened. Easter was a miracle to remind us that God has the final say in all things, including life and death. Jesus did not need help getting out of the grave Easter Sunday morning. It was not our superior faith, our correct opinions, our education, our wisdom, or our abilities that restored breath to his lifeless body. It was the power of God alone. Nobody moved Jesus’s body. It got up on its own. And the women didn’t roll the stone away. God’s angels did that. And why did they do that? Was it so that Jesus could get out? Was that stone holding him back?

In next Sunday’s gospel reading a curious thing happens. Here’s a preview: the risen Jesus appears to the disciples who are hiding in a locked room. Nobody unlocked the door for him. He just showed up. His resurrected body is real flesh and blood, but it has different powers. Jesus can get through a locked door, so I have to believe that he could also get out of a sealed tomb. That rock wasn’t holding him back. So why was the stone rolled away? Was it so Jesus could get out? NO. It was so that we could look in and see that the tomb was empty. The stone wasn’t rolled away for Jesus, it was rolled away for us. We are the ones who need to see God’s power at work. Jesus doesn’t need any help getting out of the tomb. The stone was rolled away for us. We are the ones who needed to see that God was still in control and that God has the final say in this world. Don’t let that miracle go to waste. 

Don’t waste Easter. Don’t waste this miracle. Don’t waste the free grace that God has shown us by leaving this place worrying about how you are going to save the world. It isn’t all up to you. God made the world without your help. You weren’t there when God created the world. And God raised Jesus from the dead without your help. The women weren’t there when it happened, and you weren’t there either. You didn’t roll the stone away. You didn’t breathe life back into his body. God can work miracles without your help, don’t forget that. We can rejoice in God’s power today without being focused on our own power, whether we have it or don’t have it. Witnessing God’s miracles, witnessing God’s power, can and should inspire you to live differently. God obviously cares about what we do, but God is not waiting on humans to start living right before he works his purposes out in his world. God isn’t waiting for you to get it together before he starts loving you, and saving you. Don’t go home today more anxious than when you came. God is giving you a gift this morning. God’s miracle is offering you hope. If a dead body coming back to life doesn’t give you hope, then I don’t know what will. Celebrate that hope. Celebrate that love. Feel the joy in this story. Share this joy with others. Don’t waste Easter. Don’t waste a good miracle.

Shoes

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Sermon for March 23, 2025

Readings:

A friend of mine once said, “If you buy Cole Hann shoes, they will last you a lifetime. If you put them on your credit card, that is about how long you will be paying for them.” I have to admit that over the years that has been one of my preferred brand of shoes, not just because they are comfortable and fashionable, but largely because they are durable, and I do a lot of walking. So they aren’t cheap, but sometimes you get what you pay for. Anyways, this is a sermon and not a commercial. 

I bring up shoes, because it occurred to me this week that they really are a piece of ancient technology. I don’t usually think of shoes as being technology, as they aren’t mechanical or electronic. I think of them as being an object of fashion at best, or an everyday necessity at least, but I don’t usually think of them as being a technological advancement. But that is what they are. They are one of the most basic human inventions, that allow us to travel great distances. They give us freedom, they give us protection, they make us feel less vulnerable. They are technology, but I hadn’t really thought of them much in that way until I was reading our Exodus passage this week.

In our Exodus passage this morning we hear the story of Moses’s first encounter with God speaking to him from the burning bush. It is important to note that this is the first time Moses meets God. This is long before the encounter when Moses receives the Ten Commandments, which we recited a few minutes ago. That meeting happens after the exodus from Egypt, but this one is before. Moses’s first meeting with God.

And the thing about this meeting that I find fascinating is that the first thing that God asks Moses to do is to take his shoes off. Why does God do this? He says that the place Moses is standing is Holy Ground, but that doesn’t really answer the question. What is it about shoes that God finds to be unholy or inappropriate for this place or this encounter? What is wrong with Moses’s shoes? That is the question that I have been pondering this week. So, I began to wonder, “what is a shoe really?” Well, it is a piece of technology. A human creation that makes us feel less vulnerable. Shoes protect your feet so that you can travel great distances. Without shoes Moses would have had a much harder time trekking across the desert to meet God. They serve a good purpose, but like any piece of technology they can mask our true vulnerability and weakness as humans. As simple as they are, they make us feel stronger and more independent than we actually are. Don’t believe me? Those of you who commute into the city, think of what your life would be like if you had to do that barefooted every week? Still don’t believe me? Then I would just point out that I put out a sign-up sheet several weeks ago looking for twelve volunteers to get their feet washed on Maundy Thursday and I am still a name short. Shoes make us feel less vulnerable, and on most of our walks in life that is a good thing, but not on our walk with God. With God, we need to be vulnerable. With God, we need to first understand how weak and helpless we really are. 

That is where Moses begins with God: barefooted. God is almighty and there is nothing that Moses can do, but just bow down before him. But then God has work for Moses to do. God is going to send Moses back to Egypt, back to Pharoah, and through Moses God is going to set his people free and lead them out of slavery into a new land. God is going to use Moses to save his people, and then after God saves his people, after he spares them from the plagues, and from thirst and starvation, and after they walk through the sea, then God is going to call them back to this holy mountain and then he is going to give them the law, the instructions on how they are to live their lives in this world. But he saves them first.

The first time that Moses encounters God on the mountain, he has to learn about his own weakness and vulnerability and dependence on God and God’s love for salvation. That comes first. Then, the second time that Moses encounters God on the mountain, then he is given practical rules and laws that he can live by that will make his life and the lives of others better on earth. The children of Israel aren’t saved because they adhere to the law; they adhere to the law because they are saved. God saved them before he ever gave them the law. God saved them simply because he loved them. It was his power that saved them; not their own. It wasn’t their shoes that parted the Red sea.

One of the things we encountered in our study of Deuteronomy this week, was Moses saying to the Israelites before they entered the promised land that they were not here because they were more righteous than other nations. In fact, he says, you are stubborn. But God loves you. That is why God has brought you here. And the commandments that God has given you, they are for your benefit. They will make your life, and the life of the world better, if you keep them, and teach your children to keep them. This is not about earning God’s love; it is about responding to God’s love. Yes, you will fail in some way, we all do, but you can always come back to them. That is what repentance means. It doesn’t have to be a shameful thing. It shouldn’t be shameful at all. It is about rediscovering something wonderful: God’s love. That is what repentance really is, rediscovering God’s love and rejoicing in it again. 

When Jesus talks about repentance in the gospel this morning he is really talking about it as a way of life. Not a one-time thing of telling God you are sorry, but a continual returning to God as the source of all that is good in your life. Our faith really is about trusting in God’s goodness more than we trust in anything else, including and especially ourselves and the works of our own hands. No piece of technology, no matter how insignificant should ever come between us and God. We can’t put our faith in them. In the gospel, some people came up to Jesus and asked him about two things: a horrible act of cruelty that Pontius Pilate had done, and a terrible disaster where many people were killed by a building’s collapse. Right away Jesus dismisses the idea that those disasters were in any way God’s punishment for sin. No, he says. It doesn’t work that way. Disasters happen. Humans do despicable things. Technology fails. Bad things happen to innocent people. The world has always been this way. Don’t try to blame the victims for being sinners and don’t try to blame God for punishing sin. That is not what is going on here. But repent anyways Jesus says. Repent. Turn back to God. Rediscover God’s love and rejoice in it, because the world is unpredictable. No amount of technology is going to give you complete control over the world around you or the people in it. So first of all, live in the knowledge and light of God’s love. But if you do believe in and trust the saving power of God’s love, then listen when God is telling you to do something, or not to do something. We should rejoice in God’s salvation which is not something we earn, but we should also rejoice in God’s wisdom and law and exercise it to the best of our ability. It is not a choice between belief and action. It is both. Belief and trust first, then action. 

First, we must learn what we cannot do, then we must learn what we can do. That seems to be how God’s salvation works. It is a two-step process. First, we must be completely vulnerable with God, and recognize our own weakness and frailty as human beings; then we must listen to God and choose to follow in the way he has shown us. God does give us commandments; he gives us examples; he sends us out into the world with work to do, and we should do that and do it boldly, but only as people who have first humbled themselves, and know, truly know, that everything ultimately depends on God and not on us. That is at least why I think that God makes Moses take his shoes off first, before he sends him on an incredible journey.

Remember

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Sermon for March 9, 2025

Readings:

“After his baptism, Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.” 

On the first Sunday of Lent, the church’s season of fasting and penitence, we hear the familiar story of Jesus being tempted by Satan in the desert.

 He is tempted to turn stones into bread. That is the temptation of gluttony or lust. The temptation to serve the flesh. 

He is tempted with worldly goods and power if he will only serve the devil. That is the temptation of greed. 

He is tempted to publicly display his own power and divine status by throwing himself off the temple to see if angels catch him. That is the temptation to pride. 

These are familiar temptations, because we all suffer from them. 

We overindulge our bodies. 

We chase after things. 

We are controlled by pride and vanity. 

Jesus’s temptations are not unique to Jesus; they are temptations that we all must contend with. The reason that Lent focuses on the spiritual disciplines of fasting, almsgiving, and prayer, is that each of those is a weapon against one of those temptations. 

You don’t want to be controlled by your stomach? Then try fasting.

You don’t want your life to be focused on acquiring more stuff? They trying giving some of your stuff away to those who have less.

You don’t want to be so utterly self-centered all the time? Then try praying and focusing your mental energy on a power much greater than you. Try remembering that you didn’t give birth to yourself. Try remembering how much you have needed God in order to be who and what you are. 

That’s not what the devil wants. The devil wants you to forget. But God wants you to remember. If you think about those temptations of Jesus for a moment; we say there are three temptations, but they are all really just variations on one big temptation. The temptation to forget God. 

Forget about God. You can make your own food and feed yourself. You don’t need him.

Forget about God. You don’t need to serve him. There are easier ways to get power and money in this world.

Forget about God. You are the one who is powerful and special. You don’t need to heed his warnings. You have control over your own destiny. 

The devil thinks that he can drive a wedge between Jesus and God. The devil thinks that he can make Jesus forget about God. He fails with Jesus, and that’s what makes Jesus special. Jesus does not fall for Satan’s tricks, but we often do. Jesus does not forget God, but we do. That is why our scriptures are littered with divine commands to remember. The devil tempts us to forget, but God commands us to remember. And God commands us to remember for our sakes, not for his. 

The Book of Deuteronomy, which we hear this morning, and which we are going to start studying this week, is really all about the command to remember. Moses is commanding the Israelites to remember their story. To remember where they have come from. To remember what their God has done for them. And this memory is for their sakes, not for God’s. Their success as a nation will hinge on their capacity to remember. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, who I mentioned in my sermon on Wednesday, in his book on Deuteronomy, notes that the Israelites, who have wandered for forty years in the wilderness, have more hard times ahead of them in the Promised Land than they do behind them in the desert. He says, “The real challenge is not poverty, but affluence, not slavery, but freedom, not homelessness, but home. Many nations have been lifted to great heights when they faced difficulty and danger. They fought battles and won. They came through crises – droughts, plagues, recessions, defeats – and were toughened by them. When times are hard, people grow. They bury their differences. There is a sense of community and solidarity, of neighbors and strangers pulling together. Many people who have lived through a war remember it as the most vivid time of their life. The real test of a nation is not if it can survive a crisis but if it can survive a lack of a crisis. Can it stay strong during times of ease and plenty, power and prestige? That is the challenge that has defeated every civilization known to history. Let it not, says Moses, defeat you.”

The real challenge is not poverty but affluence. The real test of a nation is not if it can survive a crisis, but if it can survive a lack of a crisis. Nations crumble when they forget. When they forget their history; when they forget their values; when they forget their God. When they become comfortable and powerful and well-fed and well-respected, that is when a nation is really put to the test. That is when it is tempted. With stability, and affluence, and power comes the overwhelming temptation to forget. Moses does not want his people to forget, so not only does he remind them of their history but he also gives them specific instructions on how and when to remember. In our passage this morning he says to them, AFTER you have taken possession of the promised land and are settled, and AFTER you can collected the first fruits of your harvest, THEN you must take an offering to the priest and recite this: 

A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous. When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.

This is what the Israelites were supposed to say after they entered the promised land and collected the harvest. Not before, but after. It is one thing to pray for something when you don’t have it, but it is another thing to remember to give thanks once you have what you want. That is when it is easy to forget. Earlier in Deuteronomy there is a verse where Moses says “When you have eaten and are satisfied, bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.” The instruction is to give thanks AFTER your belly is full. Most of us I would argue are used to saying grace before a meal, but here Moses wants folks to say one after, because that is when it means more. That is when you are most likely to forget. It is easy to forget when your stomach is full that not very long ago you were hungry. 

It is amazing how quickly we humans can forget things. We don’t just forget phone numbers and car keys. We forget God. We forget our own stories. We forget history. We forget values. We forget who we are and how we got here. Forgetting is a temptation, perhaps THE temptation of the devil. But God commands us to remember. Over and over God commands us to remember, and he does it for our sakes, not for his.

What’s Jesus Doing?

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Sermon for March 2, 2025

Readings:

My son has recently become fixated on Jesus. His parents, as they are both priests, are delighted with this, as you can imagine. He knows lots of Jesus songs, and because Jesus is usually depicted in similar ways, even in cartoons and children’s picture books, he can easily recognize the image of Jesus. We sometimes argue about Moses, Noah, and Abraham, but Jesus he correctly recognizes. It is all very heartwarming and encouraging.

But several times this week, my son has looked at me and said “What’s Jesus doing?” Now, because he wasn’t looking at a cartoon or a picture book, it wasn’t a question about what is happening in this story. It was more of an existential question; at least an existential question for a two-and-a-half-year-old. “What’s Jesus doing?” And the only honest answer that I could give, at least this week, was “I don’t know, son. I just don’t know.” I could easily tell him all about the things that Jesus did. I could tell him about my hope for what Jesus is going to do. But when it comes to here and now, in this moment in history, in this time in which we are living, at times I find myself struggling to understand what God is up to. What is Jesus doing? 

Of course, my son doesn’t read the news yet, so I know that the things that I find distressing or crazy-making, he isn’t even aware of. He doesn’t know about politics or world affairs; He’s just being a curious toddler. His question really revealed more about my own day to day faith than it did in his. Because I can tell you all about what Jesus said and did while he walked the earth. I know the gospel stories. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t read something that Jesus said. And I do have faith that ultimately the salvation of the world is in his hands. I do believe in those things that I say I believe every week. What Jesus is going to do. I believe that he will come again to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the resurrection of the dead and life everlasting. Where I struggle, and where I think many people struggle, is wondering what Jesus is up to right now. Doesn’t he see all the sin and hypocrisy? Doesn’t he see war and death? Does he see lies and misinformation? Doesn’t he know what a mess the world is? I would so love to have perfect clarity in knowing what God is up to at all times, but that is not something that my faith affords me. I may have occasional visions and moments of revelation, but they pass and I am forced to get on with everyday life just like everyone else. Sometimes the only honest answer I can give when asked what God is up to is to say, “I don’t know.”

So, I am very sympathetic to Peter in today’s gospel story. I am sympathetic because when he has this wondrous vision on the mountain of who Jesus is and what he is up to, Peter says to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here. Let’s build some houses and just stay here.” Peter wants to stay right there in that moment. Peter can see a transfigured Jesus. God’s glory is just shining out from him. There is little room for doubt about Jesus’s identity in this moment. You have all the special effects: the light, and the clouds, and the booming voice from above saying “this is my son. Listen to him!” It’s all there. Its spectacular. There is little room for doubt. And then you have the figures of Moses and Elijah on each side of Jesus talking to him. They are a revelation too. They reveal that this Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. The law from Moses and Elijah the greatest of the prophets. And they are talking to Jesus about his departure. That’s another revelation, because the word for “departure” in the text there is exodos, which means exactly what you think it means. His exodus. God makes clear to Peter and James and John in this moment that there is a link between what Moses did and what Jesus is doing. Both figures represent divine liberation from slavery into freedom. Both represent a journey from an old way of living, according to the rules and laws of this world; rules that are focused on power and who has it; into a new way of living with rules and laws that are focused on love and where it must be shown. This is a revelation to Peter; it is a glorious vision. So, I can understand why Peter would want to just live in that space. Who wouldn’t?

But no sooner does Peter say that, and the vision is gone, and he and James and John and Jesus are headed back down the mountain and into the messiness of everyday living. I don’t think it is an accident that our gospel goes from a glorious vision of who Jesus is and what he is doing immediately into a personal encounter between Jesus and one sick individual. There is a whole crowd of people that want to see Jesus, that need his help. But one father shouts out above them all that his son is sick. And what makes matters worse, is that this man has gone to Jesus’s followers for help and has gotten no relief. When Jesus comes down the mountain he seems to be pretty disappointed in what he finds in his disciples. Why? It seems like he calls them and their whole generation faithless and perverse? Well, maybe they had the power to alleviate this person’s suffering and they just didn’t do it. Or, maybe they didn’t understand that they could call upon God and God’s power to fight evil. Maybe they didn’t realize that God’s power wasn’t just for fighting globalized and glorified evil like images of Armageddon or the devil running around with a pitchfork, but also mundane evil. The evil of sickness. The evil of pain and loneliness. The evil of despair. The evil of callous disregard. The little evils of everyday life. Gods power can be called on to fight that evil too. God’s power can set people free, and Jesus has given his disciples access to that power. But Jesus comes down the mountain and finds people in bondage to the evils that he was trying to set them free from. Sort of reminds you of Moses coming down the mountain. He came down to discover that while he was away the Israelites had constructed a golden calf to worship, an Egyptian God, not the God who was setting them free. Exoduses don’t always go easy. The people want to turn back. They wonder where they are going and fear that they may be lost. So it was with Moses, and so it is with Jesus too. The disciples are not faultless in following Jesus. They don’t always get it and they often try and turn back to idols and the ways of the world. But as at the foot at mount Sinai, so also at the foot of the mount of the Transfiguration, God shows himself to be faithful, even when his closest followers are not. 

The challenge of being a follower of this God and of his son Jesus Christ, is translating that vision of God on the mountaintop into the God of everyday life. Peter and James and John have a vision of Christ’s glory, but God doesn’t let them stay there. They have to go back down the mountain, to people who are suffering and lost and in despair and find God and God’s power there too. They have to put God’s power to work. They need to see God’s power at work. It is so easy to get overwhelmed by trying to figure out what God is doing globally, that we can’t see God at work when it is right in front of us. It is also so easy to be so overwhelmed by all the suffering and evil in the world that we think there is absolutely nothing we can do to make life better for anyone. But there are things that we can do. We may not have the power to save the world, Jesus does that, but he has given us power, his power, to fight evil and sin and hard-heartedness, sometimes in very simple, little and small ways.

Yesterday, March 1st was the Feast of Saint David, the patron saint of Wales. He is actually where our son gets his middle name. Saint David was famous for his last words to his followers “Be joyful, and keep your faith and your creed, and do the little things.” Do the little things. Little acts of compassion. Little moments of grace. Little prayers to God asking for helping with either speaking up or shutting up, whichever the case may be. Little moments of remembering who our God is can help you a lot when you aren’t sure where you are going. Peter and James and John had this awe-inspiring vision of Christ on the mountain, but then they came down the mountain and saw Christ’s power at work in the life of one ordinary sick person that needed help. What is Jesus doing? Well he is setting that person free, and that person free, and that person free. That is what Jesus is doing. We just can’t see it all at once. That is why it is easy to doubt sometimes, or to wonder like I do at times, what is Jesus doing? Well, we may wonder sometimes what Jesus is up to, and that’s ok, but we know who Jesus is. And that is far more important. 

I didn’t have a ready-made answer for my son when he asked me “what’s Jesus doing?” mostly because I just didn’t expect the question. But at one point this week, he sat down next to me on the couch with his little play computer, and he said to me Jesus loves me. And I said “that’s right buddy” and I looked down and I realized that he had typed it. Correctly. And then he did it again. I think he answered his own question. It was a better answer than I could give. What’s Jesus doing? Jesus is loving you. That’s what he’s doing.

On loving your enemies

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Sermon for February 23, 2025

Readings:

I have to admit this morning that I kind of feel that preaching on this gospel passage is a little above my pay grade. Everything that Jesus has to say is important, but these words are extremely important. These words are the foundation stone of Christian morality and ethics. They are simultaneously the most often quoted words of Jesus, and the most often ignored. It is hard for me to preach on this passage, because I struggle with this too. Just this week I found out about something bad happening to someone that I would consider an enemy, someone I intensely dislike, and you know what it felt good. It felt really good for a minute, when I thought YES, this person is getting what he deserves. Karma! But then the gospel reminds me that God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Jesus says to “be merciful, just as your father is merciful.” Jesus doesn’t offer us any exemptions on loving our enemies and praying for them. This morning’s gospel is familiar, but very, very hard. It tells us to do things that are unfair and that we don’t want to do. So I am turning to someone else for help this morning, one of my favorite authors, C. S. Lewis. What he has to say on this is better than anything that I could come up with. He writes:

Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive, as we had during the war. And then, to mention the subject at all is to be greeted with howls of anger. It is not that people think this too high and difficult a virtue: it is that they think it hateful and contemptible. ‘That sort of talk makes us sick,’ they say.

But right in the middle of Christianity, I find ‘Forgive us our sins as we forgive those that sin against us.’ There is no slightest suggestion that we are offered forgiveness on any other terms. It is made perfectly clear that if we do not forgive we shall not be forgiven. There are no two ways about it. What are we to do? We might make it easier by trying to understand exactly what loving your neighbour as yourself means. I have to love him as I love myself. Well, how exactly do I love myself?

Now that I come to think of it, I don’t exactly have a feeling of fondness for myself. So apparently ‘Love your neighbour’ does not mean ‘feel fond of him’. I ought to have seen that before, because, of course, you cannot feel fond of a person by trying. Do I think well of myself, think myself a nice chap? Well, I am afraid I sometimes do (and those are, no doubt, my worst moments) but that is not why I love myself. In fact it is the other way round: my self-love makes me think myself nice, but thinking myself nice is not why I love myself. So loving my enemies does not apparently mean thinking them nice either. 

That is an enormous relief. For a good many people imagine that forgiving your enemies means making out that they are really not such bad fellows after all, when it is quite plain that they are. Go a step further. In my most clear-sighted moments not only do I not think myself a nice man, but I know that I am a very nasty one. I can look at some of the things I have done with horror and loathing. So apparently I am allowed to loathe and hate some of the things my enemies do. Now that I come to think of it, I remember Christian teachers telling me long ago that I must hate a bad person’s actions, but not hate the bad person: or, as they would say, hate the sin but not the sinner.

For a long time I used to think this a silly, straw-splitting distinction: how could you hate what a person did and not hate the person? But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life—namely myself. However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. In fact the very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the person. Just because I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things. Consequently, Christianity does not want us to reduce by one atom the hatred we feel for cruelty and treachery. We ought to hate them. But it does want us to hate them in the same way in which we hate things in ourselves: being sorry that the person should have done such things, and hoping, if it is anyway possible, that somehow, sometime, somewhere they can be cured.

Lewis goes on here to point out that sometimes we are disappointed to find out that someone isn’t quite as bad as we had hoped. It isn’t just that we hate our enemies; it’s that we want to hate them. We find a perverse joy in hating them. So we are determined to cling to that hatred, even against evidence. Lewis also says that it is perfectly fine to punish your enemies, and to fight them even to death if necessary, so long as what is motivating you is the good of another and not simply this perverse desire to “get ones own back.” To love your enemies, does not require you to become a doormat. It doesn’t require you to turn evil into good. It requires you to look at your enemies the way you look at yourself. To wish them well, even if they aren’t. He concludes talking about the need for Christians to suppress hatred:

I do not mean that anyone can decide this moment that they will never feel it anymore. That is not how things happen. I mean that every time it bobs its head up, day after day, year after year, all our lives long, we must hit it on the head. It is hard work, but the attempt is not impossible. Even while we punish we must try to feel about the enemy as we feel about ourselves—to wish that he were not bad, to hope that he may, in this world or another, be cured: in fact, to wish his good. That is what is meant in the Bible by loving him: wishing his good, not feeling fond of him nor saying he is nice when he is not.

Looking at Christian love the way C. S. Lewis does makes it seem a bit less daunting to me. I don’t have to try and muster affection for people who have done harm to me. I don’t have to ignore any damage or pain caused. I simply need to wish his or her good. It isn’t affection. It isn’t the same thing as the natural love we feel toward our friends and families. It is a supernatural love that teaches us to love the way that God loves. It requires grace. It is about always desiring good, even in the face of evil, and not succumbing to the evil itself.