Category: Faith

²⁶ Then they arrived at the region of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. ²⁷ As he stepped out on shore, a man from the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had not worn any clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. ²⁸ When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him, shouting, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me,” ²⁹ for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) ³⁰ Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” He said, “Legion,” for many demons had entered him. ³¹ They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.

³² Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding, and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. ³³ Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd stampeded down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.

³⁴ When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. ³⁵ Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they became frightened. ³⁶ Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. ³⁷ Then the whole throng of people of the surrounding region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. ³⁸ The man from whom the demons had gone out begged that he might be with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, ³⁹ “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.

Luke 8:26-39

My sermon from 2nd Sunday after Pentecost (June 22, 2025) on Luke 8:26-39.

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So what do we do with all those pigs? 

I’ll admit it’s sort of strange that the One who could feed thousands with a few loaves of bread and calm storms with just a word agreed to send a bunch of supernatural beings into a herd of hogs who then jumped over a cliff. Theologians, priests, pastors, and kids sitting in the pews have wondered what made Jesus so against bacon. And while we might try to explain away Jesus’ actions by pointing out his Jewish identity and how kosher food laws disliked pigs immensely, we tend to experience Jesus as the One who gives life and rather than participating in its destruction. This story is “taylor ham” made to draw all our attention to all those hogs rolling around in mud on a hot and humid day. I wonder, though, if keeping our attention on what seems strange to us actually causes us to miss noticing what is going on. And instead of focusing on what happened to the pigs, we should wonder why Jesus was around pigs in the first place. 

Now pigs have been a part of the history of all different kinds of communities for thousands of years. Yet those that accepted them and those who rejected them can often help archaeologists identify who might have called certain areas their home. In the ancient Near East, a place without pig bones might reveal a place where those who followed the Jewish kosher food laws actually lived. We’d expect Jesus, a Jewish religious leader who followed the kosher rules, to spend most of his time in the towns where he and his friends could easily find a bite to eat. But here he was, in the middle of ministry, visiting a place full of pigs. The pigs Luke described, though, weren’t hanging out in small farms for only specific families to use. The herd on the hillside took a lot of money, time, energy, and resources to build and maintain. Its owners were incredibly wealthy, serving as the center for a business empire that included a number of employees and other businesses supporting their work. The presence of these pigs not only shows Jesus being in a non-Jewish place his disciples didn’t expect him to be. It also points to him being in an economically accessible place necessary for the life of the community. Jesus had crossed the Sea of Galilee, leaving where his ministry began, to explore a mixed, diverse, and non-Jesus environment. And it’s there when Jesus met a man from the tombs. 

We could, I think, choose to give our attention to what seems shocking about this man. We’re told he came to Jesus dirty, unkept, and without any clothing. This man, though, wasn’t naked since broken chains around his wrists and shackles around his ankles were the only jewelry he would wear. The scars and wounds all over his body would have made him look like one of the bodies lying in the tombs. If we spend all our initial energy on what he looked like and the so-called spirits tearing at his soul, we can quickly lose track of the story by coming up with some kind of mental illness or situation that explains away what he was going through. But before we rush to make everything about this lonely and isolated man understandable, we should also realize he wasn’t living on his own. He wasn’t the one putting chains on himself as a way to keep him from running off into the wilderness. The community, those who filled the place he called home, had placed him under guard and built this kind of life for him. Jesus wasn’t only in an unexpected place full of people who followed kosher food laws and those who didn’t. He also stepped off the boat and found a community who walled themselves off from one of their own. They probably did so because they assumed this was the only way to keep the man and themselves safe from whatever was attacking his soul. Yet what they created actually reinforced what those spirits wanted to do in the first place. The stories in our Bible about unclean spirits or demons weren’t simply stories about people living with mental illnesses they hadn’t yet properly diagnosed. The Bible recognizes these spiritual struggles as real; and they were trying to do two specific things. First, the spirits wanted these individuals to harm themselves as a way to interfere with their ability to care, love, and serve those around them. A person who is fleeing away from others is one who can’t pray or be with those in need. Secondly, as a way to keep breaking that sense of community, these spirits always try to isolate the people from one another. The driving of this man into the wilderness or to the shore of the Sea of Galilee was to make him assume he’s always alone. Harm and isolation are the two hallmarks of what these demonic spirits are always up-to. And the throng of people who kept this man under guard created the kind of community to reinforce what the unclean spirits were already up to. So before the man could speak, before the unclean spirits who recognized Jesus could tell him to go away, Jesus – in words we do not hear but with a clarity that caused the spirits to tremble in fear – ordered everything keeping this man and the community apart to leave and never come back. 

We assume Jesus’ words were primarily directed towards the spirits consuming the man living in the tombs. Yet I can’t help but notice how Jesus’ words were also for those who tried to chain them there. Over and over again, what’s demonic in our Bible is whatever breaks the relationships between God and the people. And while those forces are sometimes spiritual, cosmic, and over-the-top, people are also very good at creating these kinds of forces themselves. Jesus did more than simply heal this one man and destroy an almost comical amount of bacon. Jesus changed the sacred, spiritual, and physical connections at the heart of the community. The community who had isolated him assumed they were keeping everyone safe and secure but would discover how that division might not be holy and true. Our instinct might be to assume the man was now like everyone else. But the fact they isolated him and his first response wasn’t to isolate them shows how something new took place. Jesus took a place of difference, of tombs and cities, of relationships and isolation, of Gentiles and Jews, and created a space of healing, connection, love, and hope. And while that sounds pretty awesome, what Jesus does will always scare everyone. The demons who realized what happened were given the chance to do something other than separating people from their God. Their response to this holy invitation, though, was to destroy even more of God’s creation. The people also weren’t sure what to do so they asked Jesus to go somewhere else. Yet whatever Jesus chooses to do, always remains.  The opportunity to build a different kind of community rooted in something holy, loving, empathetic, and relational doesn’t go away. Now there are times when we assume that walling ourselves off from one another is what we’re supposed to do. And while that might make sense in individual cases, when communities choose to define themselves by the walls they build, who God has made us to be begins to break down. There are times when the hard work of creating a new kind of community seems like it’s too much so we shouldn’t even try. Yet the One who has already gone into the tombs we build whenever God’s love shows up – promises to be with you – and he will bring you through. 

Amen. 

¹² “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. ¹³ When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. ¹⁴ He will glorify me because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. ¹⁵ All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

John 16:12-15

My sermon from Trinity Sunday (June 15, 2025) on John 16:12-15.

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When you hear the word “glory” or “glorify,” what immediately comes to mind? 

Now the first thing that pops into my head when I hear the word “glory” is the film from 1989. It tells the story of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment who served during the Civil War. The 54th was one of the earliest units filled with African-American soldiers. And these brave patriots served, and died, while fighting against those who rebelled against the US as an attempt to keep all black people enslaved. The word “glory” is also associated with the American flag which seems appropriate since yesterday was flag day. An old sea captain in the early 19th century named the one that flew over his ship “old glory” and it became famous when those who rebelled against the United States tried to take it from him. His neighbors in Nashville, Tennessee tried to rip it from his hands when they left the Union. But when the United States finally liberated the city, he took it out of hiding and ran it up the flagpole on the top of the Capitol itself. These stories, I think, reflect a little bit of what  “glory” might be. It’s what we often reserve for the stuff of the past that feels momentous, bold, and full of might. Yet it’s also a word that shows up in our hymns, songs, prayers, and the Bible itself. We hope that in all we do we’re “Glorifying God” or “Giving God the Glory.” But if asked to explain to someone else what actually means, our answers would be varied and different. The church has, historically, manifested this glory by building massive cathedrals, endowing hospitals and universities, and starting all kinds of groups to take care of those we push aside. We’ve also, though, started reformations that have torn down these big buildings and said we glorify God primarily through our worship and by what we claim to believe. The neat – and confusing thing – about God’s glory is that our Bible is full of verses supporting each of these different interpretations. I wonder if our words today from the gospel according to John might give us a roadmap of what glorifying God looks like in our lives and in our world. 

Now, to do that well, we need to remember what Jesus wasn’t doing when he said these words. He wasn’t in the Holy Temple arguing with other religious leaders. Nor was he in the home of a Roman Centurion, telling the soldier there’s more to life than forcing others to do your will. Jesus was, instead, in the middle of what we call the “Farewell Discourse” – the last words he shared before his betrayal and arrest. For almost three years, Jesus and his friends had eaten together, laughed together, prayed together, and discovered what it looks like when God’s kingdom comes near. These disciples, in the words of Rev. Chelsea Yarborough, had a teacher and a companion they trusted enough to lay down the life they knew and pick up one that was both mysterious and new. The community they formed was rooted in a relationship that was as deep as it was holy. And if you asked them what they thought glory meant, they’d point to the miracles Jesus did and the powerful, strong, and notable thing they were participating in. But just as the community felt as if this might last forever, Jesus told them many times in a long speech he was about to leave. I’m sure the disciples did their best to change Jesus’ mind. Most of the words they muttered, though, remained stuck in their throats. Jesus, the one who could calm storms, feed thousands, cast out demons, and raise the dead – couldn’t also be the One who would leave them behind. What the disciples needed was the assurance their time with Jesus actually mattered. And I’m not sure if we’d describe the pleading, worry, and anxiety they embodied as what it means to truly glorify God. 

I wonder if the reason why we can’t do that is because we carry within us a split screen of what we assume glory must be about. On one side, glory and strength are the same. Whatever makes us feel or look strong has to be the glory God demands. And so we act as if winning, striving, and being on top is what it means to honor God. This vision of glory, though, feels small since there are plenty of times when this kind of strength fails us and what seems mighty causes incredible hurt and harm. When our focus is only on that one side of glory, our response to failure assumes we or others or even our God, somehow, got it wrong. Yet there’s another side of that split screen that, when we pay attention, shows a different kind of glory rooted in Jesus himself. We have a Jesus who had the strength to stand up to the bullies and was man enough to shed tears at the death of a friend. We have a Jesus who, in the face of pain and suffering, offered healing to those who believed and those who didn’t. And when this farewell discourse began, Jesus took on the form of a slave, washing the feet of his faithful friends and the one who would betray him. Glory, when it comes to the gospel according to John, is not what we assume is mighty, strong, and notable. The glory of God – and our glorifying of God – is manifested in the ways God is made visible in our world. And while that visibility might involve a miracle or two, God chooses to have glory lived out in the love and care we, as the body of Christ, reveal to everyone around us. 

I’ll admit it is a little strange we are the ones God chooses to make God’s glory known. We know, whether we realize it or not, we are imperfect and Christians have a habit of harming people in the name of God. When we try to do what we assume God wants us to do as a sign of God’s strength, might, and power, that’s when sin gets in the way. Our good intentions will never outweigh the results and it’s not our job to become defensive when accountability comes. What we need, then, is help – something stirring with, and in, and through us – so we can love like God loves. And that is, I think, why we have a Trinity. We need God to animate us through the promises given to us in Jesus Christ. The words Jesus shared with his disciples during the Farewell discourse – this promise it’s never goodbye – are also the words God shares with you everyday. The Spirit is the manifestation you are not forgotten; that your worst day won’t be the only day that defines you; and that you really are part of the glory of God being made real in the world. And while our sin might make these promises to feed our ego and pride, God’s love will always bear the Cross rather than placing others on it instead. That is what makes following Christ so amazing and so hard all at the same time. It invites us to be more than simply strong; we have to be kind, hopeful, persistence, human, and willing to live out the grittiest parts of life. Yet the promise at the heart of the Trinity is the promise you won’t go through this alone. You, through baptism and faith, are part of what God is up to. And we, together, can embrace the glory of God by showing what God’s love always does. 

Amen.

Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. ² And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. ³ And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and fire them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone and bitumen for mortar. ⁴ Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” ⁵ The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built. ⁶ And the Lord said, “Look, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. ⁷ Come, let us go down and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” ⁸ So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. ⁹ Therefore it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth, and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

Genesis 11:1-9

My sermon from Pentecost (June 8, 2025) on Genesis 11:1-9.

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So instead of focusing today’s sermon on the story of Pentecost itself – one of the primary Jewish religious festivals that is a little bit different here in the church – I wonder if the story of the so-called “tower of Babel” might reveal something about all those tongues of fire. Now I’ve heard Pentecost described as God fixing Babel – bringing together, in Christ, people who are often divided by culture and language. The community who once had the audacity to build a tower to challenge heaven itself is, through the Holy Spirit, united and given a different purpose. This unity, though, isn’t complete since talking to each other can still be difficult and hard. Diversity, then, is a problem to be solved but that phrase “the same words” might reveal how this interpretation actually misses the mark. Rabbi Shai Held, who is the president and dean of the Hadar Institute which helps people connect deeper with the Bible and their God, wrote a series of essays a few years ago about the different biblical stories that appear in the lectionary used by our Jewish friends and neighbors. He traced God’s story through the first five books of the Bible, inviting us to ask deeper questions about texts we assume we already know. It isn’t always easy giving the Bible permission to point out something we haven’t seen before. But when we focus more on the text itself rather than the tower overshadowing our imagination, what we assumed to be humanity’s punishment might actually be God’s plan all along. 

And to see that, we begin by noticing how this reading from Genesis began with movement. A group of people – all people – went on a journey before stumbling onto an uninhabited plain. Who those people were, though, isn’t entirely clear. If we jump back a few pages, we run into a long genealogy of Noah’s family after they left the ark. This long list points to a world full of people – who built cities along the Mediterranean Sea and even created Egypt and the Assyrian empire itself. Yet when we get to Genesis 11, that distinctiveness is no longer there. What we get instead is a mass of humanity who are completely nameless. We don’t know who they’re related to. We’re not told who their ancestors were. All we get is a people who all speak the same language and only use the same words. That vagueness is a little difficult to sit with and we might assume any group speaking the same language already speaks the same words. Yet the Bible goes out of its way to say that this is what sets the people apart. A community who can easily communicate with one another feels like a united people. But I’ve watched enough Star Trek to know how the sameness of voice can lead to an environment where only one set of thoughts and one set of opinions is claimed to be holy and true. On one level, this sameness leads to an environment that feels extremely safe and completely comfortable since everyone looks and sounds like them. Scripture, though, tells us that these people felt anything but secure. We focus, I think, on the tower since it’s big and mighty, reminding us of the skyscrapers just across the Hudson River. But what they’re really doing is building a city. They speak with one voice and one set of words to create something that will give them a sense of purpose, identity, and maybe even a name. They are, however, the only people in this world. And there’s no one else but God who could marvel at what they were up to. So the people keep building; the people keep marking bricks; and the people keep trying to earn something they cannot seem to give themselves. This building, though, isn’t only to make them feel more important than they felt like before. We’re told they did this because they’re primarily afraid. These nameless people who build and work and stick together – are terrified of being scattered across the earth. They erect not only a tower high enough to possibly keep watch at all who are stirring below; they also give this city walls not to keep people out but to keep themselves in. The city gives them a sense of safety, comfort, and control. Yet it comes with an immense price. Their sameness strips away any uniqueness they could possibly have. And we know, based on our own experience of social media and our world, being anonymous and losing our identity does not always bring us peace. When we assume we can’t be known or that no one deserves to stand out, we fall into the trap of enforcing this anonymity through insults, bullying, and all kinds of physical harm. The nameless people chose to build a nameless city while staying away from a world they were too afraid to actually live in. And it wasn’t long before the only one who could notice them gave them all the attention they sought. But rather than marvel or celebrate or comfort give them a giant thumbs up, God scattered them – far and wide. 

At first glance, God’s response does feel like a kind of punishment. Humanity was all together – until God pushed them apart. It’s important, however, to insert this text back into scripture to really see what God is up to. And when we do that, we discover the promise God gave them over and over again that they refused to live out. Way back in chapter 1, after God sang the world and the universe into being, God blessed the people – telling them “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” As time went on and God witnessed how wonderful – and awful – we can be to one another, God hit a reset button through the flood. When the waters receded, and the dove returned with an olive branch before finding a new home to build a nest, God blessed Noah and his descendants by telling him, once again, to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” But when humanity was given the opportunity to do exactly that – the people hunkered down, built a city, and refused to let themselves, or anyone else, go out. What the people feared was one of the things God wanted for them the most. And so when humanity refused to move, God stepped in to show what our future is meant to be about. The fact humanity is full of all different kinds of people speaking all kinds of languages is not, I think, a punishment from God. It is, instead, a vision of what God’s kingdom should be about. God knows that our diversity will always be a strength since it forces us to do the hard work of living into the fullness of a name we’ve already been. And that’s because when God’s imagination stirred us into being, the name we were given was deeply connected to God’s own since we were made in the image of God. It’s an image known not for its sameness but for the ways it is like a kaleidoscope – reflecting the holy light at the heart of it all. The beauty of our world; the complicated and rich variety of what it means to be a human being; and the opportunity to live with our God in the entirety of what God has made isn’t something we’re supposed to wall ourselves away from. Rather we get to do the hard work of learning who we are and, through the relationships we intentionally built, discover how our neighbors are too. And while this work can be difficult since it requires us to admit that our story isn’t the only story that matters or has value – it’s through this God given diversity where we realize how much God loves you. And that’s because when the disciples generations later, after bearing witness to the length God was willing to go through to reveal the future God was already building for you and for the world; this God gathered people in a different kind of city full of pilgrims and visitors, migrants and strangers, those who had lived there their entire lives and those who were at the very start of making that named city – that city of Jerusalem – their home; the gift God gave them wasn’t one language that everyone could suddenly speak and understand. Instead, the words they heard proclaiming they matter, they belong, and how Jesus lived, died, and rose for them – were in the multitude of words their parents and their loved ones uttered over them when they were first named; when they were first held in someone’s arms; and when they finally knew what being loved was all about. 

Amen.

One day as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a female slave who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling. While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.” She kept doing this for many days. But Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour. But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities. When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said, “These men, these Jews, are disturbing our city and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us, being Romans, to adopt or observe.” The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods. After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks. About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was an earthquake so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened. When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted in a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them outside and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They answered, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. He brought them up into the house and set food before them, and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God. 

Acts 16:16-34 

My sermon from the Seventh Sunday of Easter (June 1, 2025) on Acts 16:16-34.

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So I wonder what it was like for the enslaved woman when she realized a spirit of divination had been taken from her. This spirit was, most likely, seen as a kind of power allowing her to show others what their future might be. And while that might have been a kind of psychic prediction, she also had the power to reveal what was happening right in front of us. It’s not easy, I think, for us to realize how normal this kind of stuff was in Paul’s day. We tend to design our relationship with the divine in a compartmentalized kind of way, only reaching out of it when we want something or need the assurance there really is something more to come. The divine is what we do on Sunday morning or what we say in our heads or out loud while sitting next to a hospital bed. And if someone we knew claimed they could predict the future or were seeing spirits or started having dreams where the boundary between what’s real and what’s not broke completely down – we would, rightly, wonder if they needed some kind of psychiatric help. These symptoms can point to the need for a mental health intervention so we can live the kind of life we want to. But the Bible doesn’t limit these “spirits” to what we describe through biology, culture, and psychology. In Paul’s world, it was assumed that the spiritual was always present, always active, and was something we could regularly interact with. Spiritual and divine forces were real and they were part of reality itself. These experiences could be positive – like we’ll hear next week when tongues of fire appeared over the heads of the disciples so they could make Jesus’ story understandable to everyone around them. But spirits could also be harmful, hurting people while isolating them from their family and friends. The spiritual and material world were not so compartmentalized when the book of Acts was first written. And we shouldn’t reduce these so-called spirits to merely being another word for mental illness. The enslaved woman Paul met in Philippi carried with her a spiritual force that had the power to proclaim who Paul was. And when Paul couldn’t get her to be quiet, he emptied her of something that shaped who she got to be in the world. 

But that isn’t the only thing that makes this passage hard. We also don’t really know what to do with how nonchalant Paul was when it came to slavery itself. Paul – as well as Jesus – never outwardly condemned the practice of slavery which seems the very opposite of who Jesus was meant to be. We often try to give him and the disciples an out, claiming that enslavement in the ancient world wasn’t as bad as it once was in the United States. And while it’s true ancient slavery wasn’t race based, it was still one of the worst things we could do to each other. According to Professor F. Mira Green, the role of the ancient slave was to cater to nearly all aspects of a free Romans’ life. What they did and who they were was an extension of whoever enslaved them. Even though they could be field-hands, shepherds, construction workers, miners, doctors, midwives, entertainers, and even gladiators; slaves were treated as pieces of property and tools to further the needs and wants of those who owned them. Slaves had no control over what happened to their bodies and no say in whatever kind of violence was done to them. They weren’t allowed to own property and didn’t have any legal relationship to any of their kin. That meant their spouses, their children, and their sense of being connected to some kind of hope filled future always belonged to someone else. And if that wasn’t enough, some archaeologists have noticed how places within the homes slaved would be in, such as a kitchen, were specifically designed to force those enslaved to hunch over while they cut vegetables, handled the pots, and baked the bread. The world they lived in was built to remind them of their low status within the community. And while we have no idea when this woman became enslaved or if she was young, old, or how often violence was inflicted upon her; we do get a sense that her body, her soul, her entire life – and even the spirit she might have thought of as a curse or a gift – she existed to be consumed by everyone around. 

And so, I wonder, when the spirit was taken from her, what did she say or think? Did it feel as if a part of her was suddenly gone or did she feel liberated from one of the many things oppressing her? Acts, sadly, doesn’t follow-up on her story, choosing to focus on Paul instead. Yet there’s a possibility that this moment served as a kind of seed for Paul’s own development as a faithful follower of Jesus. We know, based on our reading last week, that Paul had no qualms welcoming Lydia, a woman who was rich and free, into the body of Christ. The slave, though, was left bound and without the special status her enslavers might have given her. But when the community inflicted on Paul a little of what life was like for the woman who was enslaved, his response to another experience of the divine – an earthquake literally breaking the chains out on his wrists and his ankles – he refused to continue the cycle of exploitation and violence. He didn’t seek revenge against those who harmed him or put the jailer into the hands of those who might try to hurt him. Instead, the open doors served as a physical manifestation of what life with Jesus is meant to be about. He is the invitation for us to enter a new future where we are freed not only from what consumes us but from all the ways we choose to exploit and harm one another. And while Paul didn’t extend this kind of life to the woman who followed him in the street, he did spend the rest of his life noticing how Jesus’ presence really does change everything. He would, in a letter to those living in the region of Turkey known as Galatia, inform them that, in Christ, there is no Jew or Gentile, slave or free. Then, in the city of Corinth, when the wealthy showed up to the weekly communal meal and consumed everything before the working class and the enslaved got there, Paul called them out as unfaithful and unChristian. Later, in the only letter we have from Paul addressed to a single person, he asked the enslaver Philemon to welcome back a runaway slave as a brother, challenging the community’s assumption that he could only be seen as a piece of property. The early Christian churches dotting the Mediterranean were at their best when enslavers were forced to see those they enslaved as spiritual equals. And while they would try their best to compartmentalize what they did in church as something other than what was meant for the rest of their week, the freedom they found in Christ was a freedom meant for all. Paul’s response to the woman wasn’t necessarily faithful or holy since her behavior simply annoyed him. But I do believe he grew to realize that the violence Jesus went through wasn’t something we should ask other people to go through too. Instead of exploiting one another for our own benefit and gain, we should be for each other instead. And while we don’t always realize how fundamental consuming others is to our way of life, the connection we already have to the divine and to one another through Jesus shows how we get to live a different way. 

Amen.

During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.

We therefore set sail from Troas and took a straight course to Samothrace, the following day to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We remained in this city for some days. On the Sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there. A certain woman named Lydia, a worshiper of God, was listening to us; she was from the city of Thyatira and a dealer in purple cloth. The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul. When she and her household were baptized, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home.” And she prevailed upon us.

Acts 16:9-15

My sermon from the Sixth Sunday of Easter (May 25, 2025) on Acts 16:9-15.

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Pastor Marc’s sermon for the 6th Sunday of Easter on Acts 16:9-15

So I know Star Wars day was earlier this month but something I recently heard relates a little bit to our reading today from the book of Acts. Now I first experienced the original trilogy on VHS and I remember as a young kid being completely lost in a universe filled with all kinds of creatures and starships. The special effects and expansive views of desert planets and forested moons were amazing. But all the computers, software, and green screen processes we use to create summer blockbuster movies today didn’t exist in 1977. The original movies needed to use a lot of models, stop motion, and physical camera tricks to bring George Lucas’ story to life. But not every detail of the story could be fully displayed. So instead of watching X wings close up as they took off from the rebel base on Yavin 4 to destroy the first death star, what we saw instead were small specks of light flying in the distance. This wasn’t, however, necessarily a bad thing since our imagination could fill in all those details instead. What made Star Wars work so well was the way it invited us to co-participate in its own creation. And when Paul went on one of his early missionary journeys, God pushed the limits of his own imagination to discover just how expansive the good news of Jesus Christ always is. 

Now Paul, at this point in the book of Acts, had begun his regular habit of traveling all around the Mediterranean Sea. He had just completed his first short journey from Antioch, a Roman city located near the border of modern day Turkey and Syria, to visit Cyprus and other nearby towns. He spent his time visiting small Christian congregations, preaching in the local synagogue, and talking to all kinds of people while occasionally earning money as a leatherworker. Paul had no issue engaging in conversation with those who shared his Jewish identity or who believed in God but hadn’t fully converted or those who were comfortable with their own religious and cultural beliefs. And I wonder if all those experiences strengthened his sense that Gentiles – those who were not-Jewish – might have a place in God’s community too. In the chapter immediately before the one we just heard, Paul pushed the rest of the apostles to expand their definition of the church to include those whose ethnicity, background, and identity differed from the very first followers of Jesus. With that conversation now behind him, Paul went on a second journey up the coast of modern-day Turkey and into Europe itself. Without his prior experience of participating in a church whose diversity was beginning to grow, I’m not sure Paul would have been completely open to the vision he received from God. Paul’s imagination, though, had begun to expand – and so he, along with his companions, crossed the Turkish straits and ended up at the city of Philippi in what is now northwestern Greece. 

Philippi, at the time, was an important city within the Roman Empire due to the large gold mines located nearby. Philippi’s unique economic status meant that the emperor cared a lot about what happened in the city and so he installed military officers to be its leaders. Philippi’s compact size as well as its strategic location along a major trade route meant it was very prosperous and packed full of all kinds of soldiers, merchants, traders, and even slaves. A woman who made a living trading in purple cloth – an expensive material that only the very wealthy or those who ruled were allowed to wear – could easily make a city like Philippi their home. Now even though the town was under the tight control of Rome, it was also a place where people could live their life in unexpected ways. A woman from somewhere else running her own business in a world that’s even more patriarchal than our own wasn’t a strange sight in Philippi’s marketplace. Lydia was very familiar with what it’s like to be a stranger in a strange place and she probably had lots of people regularly questioning her way of life entirely based on her gender. The wider culture’s imagination was sometimes too rigid to see the fullness of what the people could be. Yet the person she met along that river just outside the city walls was someone whose imagination had already begun to grow. I’ll admit that I wish Acts gave us more details about the conversation Paul and Lydia had so we might learn what we could say to let others know the love God already has for them. But what we get instead is a little tidbit that Lydia’s open heart allowed her to extend hospitality to a stranger who was visiting the city for the very first time. The relationship they formed together along the riverbank and that was strengthened while Paul and his companions found refuge within the household Lydia had created was the environment where the fullness of who Jesus is could easily be shared with one another. Acts doesn’t provide all the details behind what Paul was able to say. Instead, we’re invited to notice how the openness at the heart of Paul and Lydia’s imagination changed them into something more. 

When Star Wars first came out, the limits of technology forced the story to rely on our imagination to discover just how deep it could be. But as time went on, the remastered versions of the films – as well as the prequels, sequels, and tv shows – became incredibly full. The screens in the theater or the ones we hold in our hands are now filled with cities, starships, battles, explosions, and armies that leave very little to our imaginations. When George Lucas and others finally had the opportunity to flesh out how big the Star Wars universe was, they chose to keep adding details to show how real their story was meant to be. I wonder, though, if the story lost something when it no longer invited us to fully use our imagination as co-participant in what Star War might truly be about. Rather than spending all our energy on the rigid details of what should be, staying open to what can be is how our faith and our life grows and thrives. When we notice ourselves trying way too hard at defining what the limits of our world can be, we should wonder if we’re getting in the way of our own imagination. It’s possible our fears, biases, worries, and the other voices we choose to give authority over us – might get in the way of us noticing what God is up to. Staying connected to this kind of sacred imagination truly matters because it’s God’s imagination that we, in faith, through baptism, and because of the Cross, have been brought into God’s holy family. And if God’s imagination is big enough for people like us – people from all kinds of places, with all kinds of identities, and full all kinds of hopes and dreams – to be part of what God is up to, then we can use our imaginations to co-participate in the expansive kingdom God is already bringing about.   

Amen. 

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

“See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them and be their God;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.”

And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.

Revelation 21:1-6

My sermon from the Fifth Sunday of Easter (May 18, 2025) on Revelation 21:1-6.

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Last Monday, the NJ Synod Candidacy Committee had its Spring meeting. And as the candidacy coordinator for NJ, it’s our responsibility to work with people wondering if being an ordained deacon or pastor is one of God’s calling for their lives. The work to become ordained involves a lot of prayer, conversation, paperwork, education, and growth as they navigate the various requirements to be this kind of leader in the church. It can sound as if we want people to jump through a bunch of hoops before they put a stole around their neck. The process, though, is much more intentional as we discern, together, if their following Jesus involves developing the robust theological and practical skills needed to serve in this particular way. At the moment, each candidate goes through an individually designed process meeting their needs. And while there are many different flavors of Christianity full of strong and faithful leaders, we want to make sure to raise up pastors and deacons who are awesome Lutheran Christians. Knowing the Bible, listening to Jesus, staying connected to the Spirit, and living in love – that’s at the core of every Christian life. Yet today’s reading from the book of Revelation can help us see how the distinctive Lutheran emphasis on God’s work rather than our own helps us live into the fullness of who God chooses to be. 

Now like I said last week, Revelation is a graphic novel. Its author, John of Patmos, received a vision from God that he then described to seven churches in what is now modern-day Turkey. The words he used painted pictures in the minds of those who needed to be challenged, inspired, and filled with hope. It’s focus on soldiers, horse riders, beasts, dragons, queens, and kings, can make Revelation seem like something out of The Lord of the Rings. But those who first heard these words recognized how they described the political, economic, and cultural realities of their day. We last saw John taking a break from watching the moon turn into blood by visiting God’s heavenly throne room. And it was there, at the center of it all, he – we – met a lamb who was slain. That space was filled with the divine beings we’d expect – angels, archangels, and all kinds of mystical creatures. Yet the crowd John focused on was a multitude of people wearing their baptismal garments. It wasn’t generals, ministers, commentators, and PR people who were at the foot of God. Instead, those around the throne were from everywhere and spoke every language. This throne room, on one level, is a picture of what it’s like to dwell with God. And we can see how it’s exactly as peaceful, joyful, overwhelming, and awe inspiring we’d expect. But where, and how, that experience comes into being in our own lives can be a little tricky to figure out. We assume that such a blessing must be a gift from God that’s inserted into our life. It’s difficult, though, to accept that this gift is something we’re given rather than something we have to earn for ourselves. There were, for example, quite a few chapters from the throne room in chapter 7 to this passage in chapter 21. And if we took the time to read all those verses, we see all kinds of people doing all kinds of things while dragons with seven heads and ten horns, broken seals, bowls of wrath, and even Armageddon rage across the world. All that doing – and the ordeal people went through – would easily fit into who we’d expect to find around God’s heavenly throne. This view also matches what we assume life is all about since what we do – or what others claim we do – is the cover we use to proclaim who has value and who doesn’t. All this doing bleeds into our experience of what it means to be the church together since we are the ones in worship, prayer, song, service, welcome, inclusion, and in this community – are doing a lot to create what this community of faith is meant to be about. Saying “we believe” while living a life that doesn’t look much different from not following Jesus at all isn’t, necessarily, holy and true. Yet a faith rooted in what we do is also a faith limiting who our God chooses to be. 

And we know that’s true because life is full of moments when doing isn’t possible. We can, for example, be at the start of life –  still learning that our loved ones don’t disappear when they cover their eyes during peekaboo. Or maybe we’ve gotten to the point where our bodies and minds have started to slow down and the question “why am I still here?” is less a search for purpose and more a heart wrenching prayer. Our love of doing might try to pretend as if God only cares about certain moments in our lives. But when we act as if God only cares about those slivers, we ignore how God chose to live a life where even Jesus, at times, couldn’t do. That might be why, near the end of Revelation, John painted for us an image that doesn’t depend on what we do at all. Rather than inviting us to see one room God built; we get to witness the entire city of God. The image we make in our heads for this heavenly city probably resembles the cities we build with our machines and our hands. God’s city, though, is entirely different since the cosmos – the heavens and the earth – have become new. What John witnessed could only be best described by poets, artists, musicians, and comic book creators. And that’s because what’s painted was more than a place; it’s the future God chooses to create. The creator of this universe who is fully divine, fully present, and who will always be – wants you to be part of that future too. This image of the heavenly city, though, isn’t only about what comes next. It’s also a reminder how dwelling with us is what our God always does. From the act of creation itself; to the Exodus out of Egypt; to the Holy of Holies in the Temple in Jerusalem; to Jesus’ birth, ministry, life, and beyond; and to the ongoing gift of the Holy Spirit – it’s the work of God choosing to be that always changes everything. We do have a responsibility to love, serve, and live as if Jesus truly matters. But it’s not up to us to determine where God dwells. The love God has for you isn’t something you earn nor can be something you, at every moment of your life, easily choose. It is, instead, a gift given to you because that’s simply who God chooses to be. And that, I think, is one of our Lutheran nuances when it comes to the Christian faith. We keep ourselves focused on what God chooses to do because the good news of Jesus cannot apply to only one kind of person or to one specific moment in our lives. The gospel really is that because of Jesus – every moment of your life is meaningful and has value. Now a faith centered in what we do feels fruitful, inspiring, and hopeful since it fills us with a sense of purpose and identity. But when we make faith centered on us rather than on what God had chosen – and continues to do – for you; we create a faith that isn’t big enough to meet us as an infant or carry us through illness and old age. The kingdom of God does not depend on us. It is, instead, an invitation to notice the vision God has for our world. And while life can be very full with joys and sorrows that change who we know ourselves to be, the Jesus in the throne room, the Jesus in the holy city, the Jesus in the manger, and the Jesus on the Cross has a hold on you – and he will never let you go. 

Amen.