Author: MASadmin

Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’s feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” (He said this not because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

John 12:1-8

My sermon from the Fifth Sunday in Lent (April 6, 2025) on John 12:1-8.

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I want to start today’s sermon with a question: what’s your go-to meal when you’re stressed and don’t have the energy to decide what to eat? The meal I’m thinking about isn’t one you get delivered or order at a fast food place. It’s what you consume when all you can do is eat over your sink. It might be a bowl of cereal, some apples and crackers, or an entire family-sized box of macaroni and cheese. My go-to in these situations has always been an entire party bag of Tostitos corn chips with – or without – salsa. It’s difficult to call these experiences meals at all since they’re mostly about finding fuel to carry us through. The stress we’re feeling might be a good kind of stress – such as being the primary point person for a multi-family vacation filled with way too many kids under the age of 12. But I’ve found that when we eat this way, we’re doing so because life has become way too hard. What we need during those kinds of moments is some kind of intervention reminding us that today isn’t all that’s meant to be. And in our reading today from the gospel according to John, we sit with Jesus at a moment in life when the anxiety, worry, and fear that causes us to eat over the sink was something he and his friends were living through.

Now one of the things I do when we get a reading from the Bible that is a story is to put that text back into scripture itself. I want to know what came before and after this part of God’s story. Jesus, in John’s version of Jesus’ life, visited the city of Jerusalem during Passover for three years in a row. And when he visited the city, he often caused problems for those visiting the marketplaces and the Holy Temple. The city during this holy festival tripled in size which made Jesus’ actions frustrating to everyone in charge. And while we often think of Jesus as a peaceful leader, he regularly pushed back against those – including his own disciples – who got in the way of His way of love, welcome, and care. It was during his round about third journey towards the holy city to commemorate a moment of liberation in a meal when two sisters let him know that their brother, Lazarus was ill. Jesus, in the chapter right before what we just heard, went to see them but by the time he got there, Lazarus had died. In one of John’s most vivid descriptions of what happens when God’s kingdom comes near, Mary and Martha were completely honest about their frustration, anger, and confusion with God while God’s Son sat next to the tomb and cried. When Jesus, in response to the fullness of the life we live, decided to write a new chapter for his friend Lazarus, those in power decided it was finally time to deal with this traveling preacher from Galilee. Jesus’ willingness to share a meal with all kinds of people annoyed those who wanted to control who had value and who had worth. There were also some, including his disciples, who believed Jesus would soon reestablish the ancient kingdom of Israel itself. Jesus would then be the excuse the Roman Empire would use to violently crack down on the Jewish people. Jesus and his friends heard what was up and so quickly relocated to a town on the edge of the wilderness. Their time there was fairly uneventful but I imagine laying low, finding a place to stay and enough food to eat was pretty hard. That, along with the knowledge those in charge were trying to kill them, tainted every meal with all kinds of anxiety. It’s difficult to taste the food and enjoy one another’s company when terror, confusion, and fear are also sitting there at the table. The disciples hoped their time out there would turn down the heat on them. Those in the city, though, knew how dangerous Jesus’ return would be. Folks expected him to take a year off from his usual shenanigans at Passover. But when the holy festival day drew near, Jesus left the unsettled safety at the edge of the wilderness to return to the village of Bethany which was only 2 miles from the Holy Temple.

Now when he showed up, Lazarus’ home was pretty busy. The influx of pilgrims heading towards Jerusalem had filled the roadways and marketplaces with hundreds of people. Martha, Mary, and everyone in their village were doing their everyday things while preparing for a holiday filled with meals. When Jesus and his large entourage showed up, Martha and her team paused everything to welcome him. This was, I think, the first time Jesus had seen Lazarus since he raised him from the dead. And while the joy of that moment lingered in the air, fear, anxiety, and worry surged into that space too. The mixture of emotions at that table – the eating with the one who had died and the one who others wanted to die – would have been a lot. The stress of that moment, even if they were relatively safe, would have matched what we feel when we’re eating over the sink. Yet in the midst of a vibe that mentally, physically, and spiritually exhausted everyone in that space, Mary took a bottle of costly oil and poured it over Jesus’ feet. We don’t know where the bottle came from or why Mary had such an expensive item in the first place. But I wonder if the nard was originally purchased to anoint their brother’s body just a few weeks before. Once she opened the bottle, the smell in the house would have filled every nook and cranny. Lazarus, her sisters, and the disciples would have been instantly brought back to what had been – and how, in the midst of the sorrow, life would still be found. The promise at the heart of Jesus’ words and mission would have wrapped itself around all the fear and anxiety they carried with them. Nothing about Mary’s actions ignored the current moment or pretended as if things weren’t scary as they truly were. Yet Jesus’ presence – and Mary’s trust – refused to let what they carried be the limit of what their tomorrow would be. Those at the table could have let everything around them, especially the anxiety imposed by those in power and with authority, be the focus of their life. But what Jesus chose to do was to have a holy meal with those he loved. Jesus, whose public ministry was running out of time, took time to tend to those whose worry and fear would grow in the days and weeks ahead. And when Judas tried to revitalize the anxiety sitting at their table, Jesus’ response wasn’t meant to be an excuse we use to limit the support we offer to those in need. The smells Mary put into the air were, instead, a reminder that no matter what we’re living through, living out love and hope is something we can always do. Now what that love looks like, though, will always vary since there are times when eating dinner over the sink is all we can do. But when we feel as if right now is what the rest of our life might always be, we can trust the One who’s already claimed us as His own has written a new chapter we’ll get to live through. The sights, sounds, and experiences that make life hard are not the stuff we’re meant to push aside or ignore. Rather, the Jesus who lived our life and went through the Cross has already shown us what our future is meant to be. It’s this holy love from God which will guide us even when eating at the sink feels like the only thing we can do. And while that love was made tangible through Mary’s actions while Jesus sat around Lazarus’ table nearly 2000 years ago, I trust – and believe – that God’s love surrounds you right now – and wants you to know you will make it through.

Amen.

¹ At that very time there were some present who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.² [Jesus] asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?³ No, I tell you, but unless you repent you will all perish as they did. ⁴ Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the other people living in Jerusalem? ⁵ No, I tell you, but unless you repent you will all perish just as they did.”
  ⁶ Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. ⁷ So he said to the man working the vineyard, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ ⁸ He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. ⁹ If it bears fruit next year, well and good, but if not, you can cut it down.’ ”

Luke 13:1-9

My sermon from the Third Sunday in Lent (March 23, 2025) on Luke 13:1-9.

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One of the ways our faith is manifested in the world is through ordinary things – which is sort of amazing and strange all at the same time. We expect the divine to be a bit over-the-top, the kind of miracles that defy the laws of physics while bringing us an other-worldly sense of calm and peace. When we enter a holy place and feel that warm spiritual hug around our shoulders, we remember we are already part of something so much bigger than ourselves. I think it’s pretty reasonable to expect the Creator of Everything to show up every once in a while to break through the sameness of our every day while also pushing us through our anxiety and fear. But when we actually get down to doing the god-stuff in worship, in bible study, or whenever we gather as part of the Christ, what we use is the ordinary stuff of words and voices, pauses and silences, and a little bread and drink to embody who our God is. The Jesus we meet in the gospels often does the kind of big stuff we want for our lives – especially when things feel really hard. Yet our God has a habit of showing up in very ordinary things, even as every day as a tree, to point to what life with our God can be. 

Now finding fig trees in our area isn’t an everyday thing. But when Jesus journeyed through Israel, Galilee, Syria, and beyond nearly 2000 years ago, the fig tree was a very ordinary thing. These trees were outside people’s doors, hanging out in cities, and cultivated in large orchards. A fig tree could provide shade from the noon day sun to a weary traveler and its fruit was nourishing to those who were hungry and thirsty. Fig trees and their fruit were literally everywhere and, over time, began to show up as a symbolic image throughout our Bible. In commentary about today’s reading from the gospel according to Luke, Professor Peter Hawkins showed me just how often fig trees appear in our sacred scripture. “In the opening of Genesis the fig [tree] grows in Eden’s lush garden along with ‘every tree that is good to the sight and good for food.’” The fig tree is meant to be climbed, sat under, and its fruit eaten while the tree of knowledge of good and evil which was right next door, was to be avoided. When Adam and Eve ate what they shouldn’t and experienced shame for the very first time, they used the leaves from the tree that cared for them to cover their bodies. The abundance of the fig tree represented what the kingdom of God is meant to be about. And we should imagine the great feasts described in the prophets as a sign of God’s grace as one covered in grapes, wine, pomegranates, and figs. This vivid description of what love can be extended even in the passionate intimacy described in the Song of Songs which used the fruit from the fig tree as the “harbinger [for new life] and … unabashed love.” The flourishing of the fig tree represents, I think, God’s imagination for what life should be. And since God imagines it, we should consider that the baseline for what is ordinary in all of creation. But we also know how often we let things other than grace, mercy, and care flourish instead. So when the community assumed that their strength, might, and what they assumed they were entitled to would keep them safe, the prophet Joel used the image of a fig tree stripped of its bark as a sign of how life-less that way of being truly is. The ordinary stuff of life is simply what a fig tree does. And while we often want that kind of flourishing only for ourselves or those like us, the prophet Micah imagined a more holy future where “all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid.” When we realize the myriad of ways a fig tree connects to its environment and how accessible its fruit is meant to be – we get a glimpse of how God’s ordinary is what makes our world, and our lives, thrive. 

This, though, can make the story Jesus told a bit difficult to follow if we choose to identify the landowner as the only stand-in for God. We expect the one who owns the land and the trees should have a vision, a will, a plan for what those trees should do. A fig tree that fails to bear fruit is a tree refusing to be what it’s meant to be. And a tree that isn’t efficient or productive or good or whatever terminology we use to define its value and worth – is a tree we can justify being tossed aside. This way of thinking, though, is pretty dangerous especially if we then make the claim that those who didn’t understand God in the first place have already had their year – their chance – to get it right. The fruit they were meant to grow should reflect the curated kind of life that includes what we believe flourishing looks like. And while we might say that flourishing with faith includes a little bit of kindness, some patience, and an appropriate care that covers ourselves, our family, and then our neighbors in that exact order – the fruit we often elevate is, instead, selfishness and fear, anger and grievance, and a demand for others to show us the kind of grace we will never share with them. We assume we know what a fig tree looks like and what a fig tree looks is what thriving is all about. But a fig tree is more than what it looks; a fig tree is, in God’s eyes, primarily defined by what it does. And so rather than seeing God as only a landowner casting a vision of what we are supposed to be; it’s possible we’re the landowner who needs a gardener to show us what life can be. The God who made the fig tree, the earth, the air, and the water it relies on is the same God who chooses to be the gardener too. And the kind of care Jesus described is the same kind of care Jesus invites us to share too. Now we might not be able to grow leaves and provide shade from the sun at high noon but we can invite a stranger inside, turn on the AC, and give them a cup of cool water that reflects the fullness of who we declared our God to be. We can, through the gifts God has given us – the talent to listen; to pray; to show up; to wonder; to dream; and to see the Christ in everyone – to use these gifts as the fruit that feeds those around us. That doesn’t mean we’ll always get this right since our ego, our lack of imagination, and our assumptions about what the “good” life truly is often becomes the fruit that harms those who God loves. But when we trust that what’s ordinary to God is what makes us, through baptism and faith, as the extraordinary bearers of God’s love into the world, we move beyond seeing ourselves as landlords but as trees and gardeners for the world. God didn’t simply create the world; God also lives in it. And the acts that are ordinary to God – such as mercy, care, support, and love – is how we grow into our own identity as the very ordinary people that live out the kingdom of God. 

Amen.

¹After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” ²But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” ³And Abram said, “You have given me no offspring, so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.” ⁴But the word of the Lord came to him, “This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.” ⁵He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” ⁶And he believed the Lord, and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.

⁷Then he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess.” ⁸But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” ⁹He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” ¹⁰He brought him all these and cut them in two, laying each half over against the other, but he did not cut the birds in two. ¹¹And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

¹²As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him.
¹⁷When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. ¹⁸On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates.”

Genesis 15:1-12,17-18

My sermon from the Second Sunday in Lent (March 16, 2025) on Genesis 15:1-12,17-18.

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What do you do with your phone when you’re watching a movie or a tv show? 

Now I’m assuming most of us keep it relatively hidden when we’re out in public. But when we’re home, there’s a good chance that when the big screen is on, our little one is too. It’s possible we’re spending that moment looking up the name of the actor on the big screen that looks very familiar. Yet there’s also a pretty good chance we’re mostly responding to the texts, posts, and whatever else we receive from our friends who are doing the exact same thing. The phenomenon of splitting our attention in this way is called “the second screen experience” but I wonder if we’ve been doing something like this forever. I’m sure that even in Abram’s day, people assumed splitting their attention was perfectly fine as they tried to do what they needed to do in a world that often consumes all the time that we have. Now after a long day at work and after taking care of everything life has thrown our way, binge watching a show while sitting on the couch can be exactly what we need. But while that story on the big screen washes over us, the ads, the tweets, the images, and the group chats in our hand devour our focus, attention, and shift our view of the world and our lives. We assume we can keep track of a lot of things at once and that it wouldn’t impact what we think or feel. Yet in today’s first reading from the book of Genesis, we witnessed God change Abram’s focus so that he could live into the future God was already bringing about. 

Abram’s story – whose name will eventually be changed to Abraham – is one I need to relearn every time he shows up in the three year cycle of readings we use for worship. We first met him just in chapter 12 when he was, according to the Bible, 75 years old and living in modern day Iraq. God called Abram and told him to leave all he knew behind and become a nomad in what is now Israel and Palestine. His initial household was small, just a few family members and some flocks of goats and sheep. But it wasn’t too long before his wealth grew and he was treated as his own kind of kingdom full of animals, workers, and slaves. As a nomad, he regularly negotiated with the cities, villages, and kingdoms in the area over access to water, grazing land, and emergency relief during a famine. The politics would sometimes turn violent and his household would become an army all on its own. In the chapter immediately before this one, Abram led a military campaign to rescue his nephew Lot  from an alliance of city states and kings. And after routing his opponents, their camp, resources, and gold was up for the taking. But instead of grabbing it, he left it behind so that no one could say his wealth came from anyone but God. Refusing to hoard what we believe we deserve or earned was as counter-cultural in Abram’s day as it is in ours. Yet it was his way, I think, trying to keep his attention off his own strength and onto God alone. We shouldn’t assume, however, that Abram was full of faith, righteousness, and counted his blessings everyday. Even after things had gone his way, he couldn’t help but complain. 

And his complaint seems odd since God has been his strength and shield. But, in the words of Professor Timothy McNinch, “our world is generally more individualistic than the world of ancient Israel. For them, the only wealth that mattered was the kind that could stay with the family in perpetuity. Without children, Abram ask[ed] God to explain why he should trust in God” at all. This doesn’t mean Abram didn’t have other options when it came to choosing his family since he could (and would) impregnate his slaves against their will as well as appoint other heirs. We shouldn’t give him a pass for what he did nor act as if someone’s chosen family can’t be more holy and faithful than one that shares flesh and blood. Abram’s attention, however, seemed entirely focused on his Sarai becoming a very specific kind of mom. And since God’s call to them came when they were fairly old, it was perfectly reasonable for Abram to question whether their future would be anything else. So God, in response, reset Abram’s attention. God pushed Abram out of his own head, got him to touch grass, and then looked up into the night sky. And what he saw was something we can’t see since all the light pollution limits the limitlessness of the stars. The heavens for Abram sparkled and shimmered with a countless number of lights, inviting Abram to see how his lack of a future would become an endless one. This nomad who had everything but assumed it was nothing would even receive the property he could only pass through. This was God’s way of pushing Abram’s attention to embrace what he would never see in his own lifetime. And while we’re told the wonder and awe inspired Abram to believe, he still had the courage to be who he always was. The doubt Abram articulated didn’t mean he wasn’t faithful. Rather, what he wanted was something tangible, something physical, some kind of experience to help him cling to the unknowable future. God could, at that moment, have asked why Abram’s attention was on human things rather than divine things. But God chose to build the experience Abram needed. What they did is, to us, a bit strange since we don’t typically arrange bloody carcasses split in two in the form of a gauntlet whenever we sign a contract for a house or to start a job. That ritual, though, was pretty common when people, communities, or nations in Abram’s day signed a covenant – a list of shared promises – together. God called on Abram to find the animals, slaughter them, and even shoo the vultures away if they tried to sneak a quick meal. But when Abram expected for him and God – the two parties in this covenant – to walk through the gauntlet to signify their commitment to each other, God – manifested as smoke and fire – went through on their own. Abram participated in the promise but God was the one who unilaterally solidified it. No longer would Abram’s attention and focus be only on what he could do. Instead, the God who acted, the God who promised, the God of everything would be the One to lead him through. 

This doesn’t mean, however, that Abram’s attention for the rest of his story was always on God. A lot of what follows included his focus being way too small and scattered. He was often too focused on his own needs, wants, fears, and expectations. But whenever his vision became too small, God pushed him towards the future God was already bringing about. That future wasn’t Abram’s responsibility to create but it was one he was called to live into. Now the struggle for our attention and our focus is as relevant today as it was in Abram’s day. And what we choose to pay attention to while we constantly split our attention actually shapes our lives in ways we don’t always realize. When we give others the opportunity to push us into a future that isn’t as abundant or as welcoming or as vast as the diverse kaleidoscope of stars and planets that make up our night sky, we fail to embrace our responsibility to keep our eyes on the One whose arms on the Cross were open to us – and to all. The future God is building is a future where everyone gets to be their own kind of Abram: invited to trust and to believe while able to doubt and question. This attention keeping is more than just remembering to say our prayers or saying grace before our meals. It’s knowing that the future doesn’t depend on us and choosing to live, today, as if God’s future is always true. And when we do this well, our own attention will shift away from what we consume and more towards what God chooses to focus on: which is you and your family, your friends and our communities, the poor, the young, the old, the unwanted, the marginalize, and those the rest of us try to hide or despise. When we keep our attention focused on God, on the Cross, and on what God is up to, we’re doing more being faithful Christians. We’re also showing everyone how shifting our attention from what consumes us and towards what gives us life is what we get to do with our God. 

Amen.

¹ Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, ² where for forty days he was tested by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over he was famished. ³ The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” ⁴ Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’ ”

  ⁵ Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. ⁶ And the devil said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. ⁷ If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” ⁸ Jesus answered him, “It is written,
 ‘Worship the Lord your God,
  and serve only him.’ ”
  ⁹ Then the devil led him to Jerusalem and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, ¹⁰ for it is written,
 ‘He will command his angels concerning you,
  to protect you,’
¹¹ and
 ‘On their hands they will bear you up,
  so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’ ”
¹² Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ” ¹³ When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.

Luke 4:1-13

My sermon from the First Sunday in Lent (March 9, 2025) on Luke 4:1-13.

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Kenny Meyers is an entrepreneur, a techie, and a comic book evangelist who wants to make it easier for you to discover the next great comic you’ll fall in love with. Now I’m pretty sure only a few of us gathered today have even imagined that there might be a comic book we’d want to read. But I do think most of us can recognize when someone – or even ourselves – are so passionate about what they love, they want you and others to discover that same kind of love too. And it’s the type of energy we experience when someone can’t help but share with us that new restaurant or recipe or book or vacation spot or even a new idea that they believe will help us become more of who we already are. It isn’t about, necessarily, persuading us to think or be or take on positions of stuff we never really cared about before. Rather, they have taken the time to know us, to love us, and to be with us in ways that are life-giving and true. And they can recognize a part of us that needs a little something else to help shape us into who we want to be. Kenny, as a comic book fan working in the comic book ecosystem, is trying to do exactly that. He has intentionally been working on developing different ways for people to find comic book shops that actually cater to their wants and needs, as well as helping those who read comics discover that next book they’ll share with all their friends. Helping others discover more about what makes them who they are is one of the greatest gifts we can offer our family, our friends, and every one of our communities. And in today’s reading from the gospel according to Luke, we discover just how human Jesus – and we – get to be. 

Now it is a tradition to begin the season of Lent with this specific story from Jesus’ life. Jesus, after being baptized in the River Jordan by John, was immediately compelled by the Spirit to travel even deeper into the wilderness. This movement was more than trying to form a spiritual connection with Creation by visiting a place untouched by human hands. The wilderness Jesus went to was full of danger, terror, and fear. Every wilderness in our Bible is where our attempts at having any sense of control completely break down. It’s a wilderness we cannot prepare for nor make our own way through. The wilderness is a moment in life when all we can do is lean on God. Those experiences, for us, can be pretty frightening because wanting control is the one thing that guides us through. Yet for the  Son of God to be pushed into that kind of place feels a bit odd since his relationship with the divinity is a little more tangible than our own. Jesus, as we proclaim, was there when the entire universe was made and his identity as part of the Holy Trinity makes his reality a bit different than our own. But his choice to also be 100% human; to discover what it was like to grow up, to be cared for, and to be in relationship with people who have their own stories, experiences, challenges, and joys; makes me wonder if Jesus also discovered the very human desire to be something else. There are times in our life when being us doesn’t seem like it’s enough. We want to be smarter or kinder or richer or willing to take the risks that love invites us to. We desire the power to right every wrong we see and reverse the pain and suffering that our loved ones go through. Having the opportunity to change our situation into whatever feels comfortable and safe – that’s something we would do all the time. And while there are plenty of songs, hymns, poems, podcasts, and self-help books inviting us to celebrate our humanity while doing what we can to maximize our life right now – a sudden illness, a tragic accident, or an experience challenging our own sense of self, worth, and value can make us want to be anybody else. Jesus, who is one of us, might have discovered how non-human we sometimes want to become. And if there’s anyone who could transcend the messiness of life, it would definitely be the One who is always 100% divine too. 

And so, I wonder if Jesus’ temptations were something more than being tempted with the power, authority, and invulnerability we want for ourselves. His time in the wilderness might also have been a kind of test to see if he was so human, he would turn his back on his humanity when things got too hard. When the evil one mocked Jesus by telling him to turn some stones into bread, the temptation was to push beyond the limits of our createdness. Next, when the devil showed Jesus the multitude of ways we wield power over others to control our world, our lives, and our neighbors – Jesus’ very subtle response revealed how being with, rather than dominating over, is what true power always looks like. The Hebrew words underneath the phrase “the Lord our God” are actually two different words for God. One of those names points to one of the primary attributes of God which is always mercy while the other name shows how justice is what makes our God, God. God isn’t in the business of lording over creation to keep everything in line. God, instead, chooses to live with all that God loves while showing that love through mercy, compassion, and hope. And, finally, when the evil one wondered if Jesus would prefer a life free from all restraints, free from our reality; and in the words of Professor Richard Swason – “to be absolutely… invulnerable,” Jesus proclaimed that He would hold onto his humanity because God’s love couldn’t do anything less. 

Jesus, after hearing a heavenly voice proclaim his identity as God’s son at his Baptism, then immediately went into that moment where being human isn’t usually enough. He had, from Christmas to this moment, discovered what it means to be one of us. Jesus had learned to cry, to laugh, to question, to wonder, and argue about who gets to go first while playing with his friends in the marketplace. And when his public ministry was about to begin, his first challenge was to do the very human thing of leaving his humanity behind. Would he succumb to the desire to be something other than who we are? Would he be the One wielding power over creation rather than living with all our wants and needs? Would the Son of God embrace the attributes of God that we often want for only ourselves? Or would this Son of God and this Son of Humankind help all of us discover just how human we can become? Rather than clinging to our desire to be anyone else, we can – like Jesus – embrace who we already are. We can own our fragility, our humanity, and how hard being human truly is. We can, at the same time, learn to love ourselves – the fullest version of our humanity – even if those around us act as if we can’t be who God has made us to be. And, through it all, we can trust that the Jesus who sealed His love on us through the Cross, will transform us into more of who we are. That doesn’t mean there won’t be times we will do everything we can to be something other than who we are. But instead of hoping that our journey with Jesus will take us on a path out of this world, maybe we can see how our time with Jesus is what shows us how truly human we get to be. 

Amen.

Jesus said: “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. “So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
“And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
“And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Matthew 6:1-6,16-21

My sermon from Ash Wednesday (March 5, 2025) on Matthew 6:1-6,16-21.

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Dr. Vivek Murthy recently stepped down after serving as the U.S. Surgeon General for the second time. His work across three different administrations included combating the opioid epidemic, inviting everyone to see prevention as vital to our well-being, and challenging all the misinformation often associated with caring for our bodies. Dr. Murthy traveled all over the country meeting with doctors, health professionals, and patients while engaging with some of the health crises that define our time. Yet through it all, he noticed a different kind of crisis impacting everyone. What he saw and witnessed was a rise in suffering caused by social isolation and loneliness. Being alone does more than simply impact our emotional and mental state. When we’re lonely, our physical health suffers too. Loneliness increases the risks associated with heart disease, stroke, and dementia. Making friends, especially when we’re older, is hard. And the communities that created opportunities for us to create relationships with one another are slowly fading away. The communities we build are often limited to folks who we’re either related to or that we only plan to be part of for a short time. Having places where we can learn, grow, care for others, and be cared for by others can be very hard to find. The reasons why we’re lonely are very personal and associated with what our culture deems as the people who are worth getting to know in the first place. Dr. Murthy, when he visited young people in high schools and on college campuses would often ask them: “How do you define success?” Now this is a bit of a trick question because what he was really wondering was what all of us – our society – showed them what a successful life looks like. And their answers to that question were the sort of things we might expect. Success was defined in terms of wealth, importance, and even being famous. This success, though, couldn’t only be defined by themselves. Success also meant that others would choose to post, share, and write down their entire story. Being successful wasn’t merely having enough or feeling good about their lives. Success also meant they had to be noticed and seen. But the more they talked, the more Dr. Murthy noticed a little doubt in their words. The youth wondered if all this success would really make them happy. And while they had heard the stories we like to tell about integrity, character, and self-worth, they also didn’t want to be left behind while all their friends chased after the success that only a few could ever get. This success would give them a sense of purpose, identity, and the opportunity to never be lonely. When we’re seen and when others know us, we’re finally told that we truly matter. But what if there was another, another voice, we could listen to instead? 

Tonight’s reading from the gospel according to Matthew is a short selection from the middle of his sermon on the mount. Jesus, after getting known as someone who shows what happens when God’s kingdom comes near, invited his disciples and a gigantic crowd to take a seat on the side of a mountain. It might seem a little off to ask a community of people who wanted to be healed to wait and listen to a few words. Yet Jesus’ actions were also about letting this mixed community of all genders, all ages, all abilities, as well as the sick, the poor, the rich, the hungry, those with faith, and those with none to already see themselves as a disciple. Being invited to sit at a religious teacher’s feet was typically only open to those society thought worthy of being one. Jesus, though, on a side of a mountain, declared who was already a part of His holy family. It wasn’t those who knew the right words, prayed the right prayers, or who seemed like the kind of people who a successful religious teacher would invite into their clan. God’s story, God’s community, and what God was up to would include those who never saw themselves as a follower in the first place. As Jesus talked, he kept returning to the idea that our rule’s aren’t God’s rules and our limits on who is loved will not limit what God will do. What we’ve been taught or learned or even assume is simply “common sense” might not be the same thing as the word of God. We have agency and the opportunity to pay attention to how we talk, how we listen, and how we show care. Doing this, though, isn’t always easy because we don’t often realize how often we give permission to various traditions, voices, opinions, interpreters, and authorities to tell us what we should do. And we assume we already know what it means to be faithful; to be good; to be happy and successful. Success, even today, looks a lot like those Jesus called out in this part of the sermon on the mount. The people he described giving alms, praying in the middle of the community, looking completely sombre when they fast, and hoarding wealth for themselves and no one else – they needed to be noticed while doing it. It wasn’t enough to have, to give, or to be; they needed others to see them too. There are times in our lives when we wish we had the wealth, the opportunity, and the ability to be so generous we could get other people’s attention. Yet success as described in this text – and taught to our kids – doesn’t exist unless it is known. This kind of attention, then, is how we imagine we’ll never be lost in a crowd since we act as if our purpose and identity are rooted in what other people say, and think, about us. We do, however, like to tell a lot of other stories claiming that success is really about things like having integrity, making a positive difference, service, and cultivating a sense of personal wealth and self-esteem. But the other vision of success that relies on the attention other people give has already convinced us that none of that is true. 

Letting those around us define our sense of fulfillment, purpose, and identity is a word that doesn’t last. Any successful life that depends on others is a vision of success that is fickle, dependent, and prone to causing harm for ourselves and others. Some can gather wealth, attention, and fame in this way and we watch them gain this kind of success through the various social media apps on our phone. Yet the road to this kind of success is full of everyone else who failed. What we need is, I think, a different kind of word that is a bit more permanent, a bit less fickle, and one that doesn’t act as if being noticed and being known are the exact same thing. You, as you are, have value. You, in this life you’re actually living, truly matter. You are not defined by your success or failures or only by what you have done or by what has happened to you. And God has not deemed you, through baptism and faith, as necessary for what God is doing in the world because of all the success you’ve found in life. No, you are loved and the life God created for us can be more than chasing after the kind of success that will never love us back in the end. Success shouldn’t be the goal because it ends up limiting just how fulfilling, generous, rooted, and loving life can be. And if God is willing to love, care, and be with us no matter the number of failures that come, we can be the kind of people who love just like Jesus does. That is one of the ways we break through our loneliness by being individuals and a community that chooses to be for – and with – one another. We won’t always get this right and we will still sometimes act as if success should determine who we should pay attention to. Yet we have a God who has decided that out of everything in the universe, you are worth being known. And if you’re worth being known, we’re worth getting to know each other as the real human beings God made us to be.

Amen.