Category: Faith

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”
A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

John 20:19-31

My sermon from the 2nd Sunday of Easter (April 11, 2021) on John 20:19-31.

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The Sunday after Easter is typically considered a “low” Sunday at the church. And, if you think about it, that makes sense. Our Easter celebration was full of fresh flowers, special music, fancy hats, and Easter baskets buried in way too many chocolate bunnies. It takes a lot of energy, work, and effort to make Easter joyous especially in the midst of a pandemic. The musicians, the choir, the office staff, the volunteers, and everyone who worshiped online or outdoors – we – whether we realized it or not – gave a lot of ourselves to help each other re-experience the gift of Easter. So it’s totally okay if we feel like we need to take a breath after such a big event. And our attention might be drawn towards other things happening in our life right now. Maybe we have a lot of cleaning to do since we spent the last year mostly at home. Or maybe there’s a giant pile of mulch sitting in our driveway begging us to spread it around the house. Those are a few of the things we get to do during the season of Spring. Yet there might be other things happening in our life making it hard to breathe. There’s that health scare, leaving us and our family feeling incredibly anxious and scared. There’s that ongoing conflict we’re enduring with our loved ones because change is something we all do. And then there’s the reality that we live in communities filled with people who don’t look at the world in the same way. When you add up all life brings and then throw in an ongoing pandemic, it’s sort of amazing any of us has the energy to sit with God. Worship takes effort – and there are times when life gets in the way. So a low Sunday is not an abnormal Sunday. Rather, it is a sign we all have lives to live – and we don’t always have the energy to worship in-person or to open up the church’s facebook page at 10 am on a Sunday. That doesn’t mean being with God isn’t important or that we shouldn’t make worship a priority or that I’m giving you an out when you choose not to be with your faith community. Instead, I’m acknowledging it takes effort to worship and that all of you are a sign of what that effort looks like. But there are days when we are drawn elsewhere – and that’s something Jesus understands very well. 

Because as we heard in our reading from the gospel according to John, Thomas wasn’t there when Jesus visited the disciples the evening after the tomb was emptied. In John’s version of the Easter story, Mary Magdalene was the first to see that the stone blocking the tomb had rolled away. She ran and told Peter and the beloved disciple what she saw. They came and confirmed Jesus’ body wasn’t there. Both of them returned to the place where they were staying but Mary stayed. Jesus then revealed himself to her – and she, at first, thought he was a gardener. Yet when he called her by name, she saw what God had done. Jesus gave her a message to share with all the other disciples and so that’s exactly what she did. But Jesus didn’t say he was going to visit them that evening. All they knew was that Mary had seen the Lord and I bet they wished they had seen him too. So when Jesus showed up – that moment must have been bonkers. They had all seen Jesus arrested and killed. They had, in the midst of terror, fled from his side. They witnessed the authorities in this world try to end Jesus’ story. Yet there Jesus was – and their grief, wonder, confusion, and joy must have spilled out all at once. They saw Jesus’ hands and side still wounded – which meant the fullness of Jesus’ story still mattered. It meant their experiences of pain, loss, guilt, and anxiety – were valued – but wouldn’t be the end to their story. Each disciple, in that moment, knew that everything they had gone through was now wrapped up in hope. The text tells us they rejoiced but that word is way too small to describe what they experienced. God’s story would continue – and with the giving of the Holy Spirit through the breath of Jesus – each of them would carry that story into the world. 

So I wonder what it felt like to be Thomas when he met up with the disciples after all that happened. We don’t know why he wasn’t there when Jesus showed up but I think scripture gives us space to add in any reason we want. Maybe he had an errand to run or a family member who needed his help. Maybe he was at the doctor, getting something checked out or he was off taking his kid to their next big sporting event. Or, since it was the first day of the week, Thomas might have been at work. I want you to think about the last time you were unable to gather for worship. Think about your reason – and then give that reason to Thomas. His response to his friends, then, makes sense. All he wanted was their experience – which included more than just a visit from Jesus. He also wanted the chance to be there when Jesus showed up. And that meant he needed the opportunity to keep all his attention on God. Every other responsibility and need would have to be taken care of so that he could be where Jesus promised to be. But he, as an individual, couldn’t make that happen. What he needed was a community willing to take care of him so that he could experience Jesus in an intentional and life giving way. 

And that brings me back to the quote from bell hooks I mentioned last week. When she was asked to define love, she said “Love is a combination of six ingredients: care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect and trust.” Care can look like many things but it can also be our giving others the opportunity to be in the place they need to be. We all are pulled by many things drawing our attention away from what matters most. You each have your own health, housing, food, and financial needs that need to be met. And we all live in a culture that measures our value based on the amount of things we produce. You might not have the time, energy, or resources to create an intentional meeting with God. But what might help you do that is if a group of people took it on themselves to make that happen. They could cook a meal for you so that you didn’t need to go to the store. They might mow your lawn, pick up your laundry, or schedule a vaccine appointment when those become available in the middle of the night. A community can use its resources – including people and money – to help each other have that kind of energy and time. And I think that might have happened the week after the very first Easter. Because, unlike the previous week, Thomas was there. He still hadn’t seen Jesus nor did he have the experiences all the other disciples had. Yet the community did not hold that against him. He was part of a faith community big enough to hold a lot of different experiences of God. Mary’s meeting of Jesus at the tomb did not mean she was more valued than him. Rather, Jesus had gathered them together to care for one another – no matter what. They might have taken it upon themselves to help Thomas be in the place where Jesus was the week before. And so when Jesus did show up, Thomas was able to do something no one else had done up to that point. He declared that Jesus was not only the Lord and not only God – but that he was also “my Lord and my God.” By making sure the people within the community had the time and the energy to be with God – they witnessed a new vision of who Jesus was for the world. 

So a low Sunday is never really a low Sunday. Rather, it’s an opportunity to experience Jesus and a chance to recommit ourselves to caring for one another. We get to ask what we can do to help others worship and wonder what might need to change so that everyone has the opportunity to see the love God has for them. That can sound scary because we were able to worship today. We probably would have been in that room on the first Easter evening 2000 years ago. But could we, would we, and might we realize that because Jesus has claimed us as his own – we then are called to look for the Thomas’ in our midst – and do our part to make sure they get to spend time with God too? 

Amen.

Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.” For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.” After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.

When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

My sermon from Maundy Thursday (April 1, 2021) on John 13:1-17, 31b-35.

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So on Monday, I was running about ten minutes late to my first COVID vaccine appointment. During the rush to get my three kids out the door, I forgot to pack some snacks for my two year old. I quickly grabbed a pear, some veggie straws, and a Super Mario Brother water bottle and made a quick detour to daycare. I then headed towards the vaccination center run by Valley Health in Paramus. I had no trouble getting a parking spot near the door and there was literally no line to get in. The only thing I was asked to do before I checked-in was to squirt some sanitizer on my hands and have my temperature checked by a tablet that could tell I was wearing a facemask. On the floor were big blue circles letting me know where I could stand – like a real life version of the board game Candy Land. The circles snaked around the room, inviting me to hop, skip, and jump to the check-in desk. On the desk was a large packet of papers stapled together. I couldn’t read the pages but I assumed it was a long list of everyone who had an appointment. They asked for my name and started flipping through the document in their hands. Some of the pages were covered in yellow highlighter while others were mostly white. They flipped the pages one way, then the other, and then back the other way again. Eventually, they found me – and they added a new row of yellow highlighter to the page. But I was surprised by how much white was around my name. I figured with my lateness, that I’d be one of the last people that checked-in for that timespot. Yet at this time when securing an appointment for a vaccine is still not easy, there were a lot of people who hadn’t checked-in. After getting my name highlighted, I then moved into another CandyLand esque line. And while standing there, I found myself wondering: what was the story of the person who had an appointment but happened to be later than me? 

Now, there’s a lot of different reasons why they might be late. Since we live in New Jersey, there’s always the problem of traffic or missing your exit on the Parkway. Or maybe their story was a bit like mine since you rarely get time off being a parent. Nor do you really get much time off as a kid – and it might have taken longer than expected for an elderly parent to safely leave their home and get in their car. Or maybe they were just late because a successful schedule has to navigate everyone else’s schedule too. Those were the kinds of stories that seem the most comfortable to dream up but other stories were possible too. Maybe the person who booked the appointment did it on behalf of someone else who already received their vaccine elsewhere. Or maybe it was for a person working from home who planned to take an extended break but got stuck on a meeting over Zoom that could have really been settled in an email. There’s also the parent or teacher or parent/teacher who was supposed to be covered while teaching in their school but had to make every virtual due to rising virus cases in our area. And then there’s the person who’s unemployment benefits ran out – or hadn’t started – and they need to choose between visiting a food pantry or getting the vaccine. The more I wondered, the more I noticed how simply getting an appointment might not be enough. What was truly needed was a support network able to step into our lives for an hour so we didn’t feel like we had to throw away our shot. Getting the appointment was hard but getting to the appointment could be harder. Caring for each other is often a team sport – and it’s not easy to love one another when you don’t get the support you need, too. 

Later on in worship, we’ll participate in a ritual we do every Maundy Thursday. After we bring all our concerns up to God and after we celebrate the Lord’s Supper and wash each other’s feet or hands – the altar – the table Jesus has already prepared for us – will be stripped bare. Every candle, parament, and even the plastic we keep under the altar cloth in case I spill some wine, will be removed. Now, since we’re worshipping online, what you’ll see is a video of me doing that in the sanctuary. And while I weave in and out of your screen, you’ll listen to a reading from the gospel according to John. And those verses are actually ones we skipped in the reading right before this sermon. We heard Peter deny Jesus by telling him to not wash his feet. And we heard Jesus give us a new commandment to love one another. Yet sandwiched between those two passages is the one where Judas left Jesus’ table and told the local authorities where he was. We often approach this passage from John in a piecemeal manner by focusing on either Peter’s freakout about Jesus touching his feet or by zeroing in on Jesus’ commandment to love one another. But I wonder what these words sound like if we keep the story whole? What does it mean to hear Peter’s denial, to know what Judas was about to do, and yet see Jesus wash their feet anyways? And how do we hold the truth of that denial and betrayal while listening to Jesus command us to love everyone in a brand new way? When we put the whole story together – the parts that strip ourselves bare and those bits that invite us to wonder – Jesus’ commandment feels different. It has heft and weight and might even be a little scary. Because Jesus didn’t tell us to only love those who are easy to love. Rather, he said we needed to wash the feet of those who do not like us and those who cannot stand us. Now, this wasn’t Jesus telling us to put-up with abuse or to accept a kind of love within our personal relationships that harms who we are. But it does invite a kind of self-reflection looking at the ways we love one another. And even though I can’t see you right now – I know that you, even on your bad days, do your best to share the grace of God everyday. It’s a grace that even surprises  you – like when you’re way more patient than you usually are or when you take a moment to offer a true listening ear to a friend. I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard for you to list all the ways you haven’t loved fully or deeply or as widely as you wanted. Yet I believe you keep loving others anyways because Christ has already made you his own. I know it doesn’t always feel like that but in your baptism and in your faith – the Spirit of God is with you – which means the love of God is with you too. And that kind of love isn’t a love of sentimentality or merely a feeling that would look good on a card from Hallmark. Rather, it’s a love willing to do hard things – giving even the hopeless, hope. Yet the responsibility to love is not one that falls on individuals alone. Because Jesus didn’t pull Peter aside after his denial and tell him to go wash other people’s feet. Rather, he did this among a group of everyone who he gathered around his table. We are given, as a community, the responsibility to help each other love. And that’s not always an easy thing to do. We might find ourselves having to take on a bit more work than we expected or to even listen to a person we’re in conflict with. We might have to learn how to be vulnerable, willing to share the ugly bits of our own story so that those around us realize they’re not going through their pain alone. We get to do the hard work of helping each other love the people around them. How that looks is going to change depending on the situation and circumstance. Yet if we lean on love – and in every situation work hard to do the most loving thing in that moment – we’re doing more than being good people. We’re being Christ’s people – because that’s who you already are. So let’s commit ourselves to help one other love. And may our most reverent best guess centered in mercy, forgiveness, and hope be the sign of how our God chooses to go all-in for us all. 

Amen.

[Jesus said:] “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

John 3:14-21

My sermon from the Fourth Sunday in Lent (March 14, 2021) on John 3:14-21.

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So for today’s sermon, I want to begin with a question that I’ve been sitting with for awhile: how do we hold the fullness of the past while still living into the future?

You might know that I didn’t grow up in Northern New Jersey. And if I wanted to visit my childhood home, I’d need to drive about 1,792 miles west. My hometown of Littleton, Colorado, was once the southern boundary of the Denver Metropolitan area. But over time, suburban sprawl pushed the boundary outwards. And new cities with hundreds of thousands of people now exist in places where I once watched antelope graze. Now, my high school was Arapahoe High School and it was larger than Pascack Valley and Pascack Hills combined. The school was known for its academics and it has a pretty good soccer team. It probably wouldn’t surprise you to know that I was one of the more nerdy kids while there. And while high school was definitely not perfect, they at least didn’t want our 4 years there to be the peak of our lives. A few years before I attended Arapahoe, there was a bit of a controversy. For decades, their mascot was the Warrior – which could have been very generic. But since the high school was named after one of the Native American tribes that once called the area home, the decision was made to make the mascot a caricature of what white Americans imagined indian warriors to be. The mascot was typically depicted as a face turned to its side. He had piercing anger filled eyes, a high forehead, strong nose, and a mohawk on top. He also wore feathers and other accessories that were actually part of Eastern Native American cultures rather than anything out West. No effort was made to have the mascot fit the Arapaho nation. And for decades, that mascot told a story that remembered why it was called Arapahoe but one that wasn’t interested in looking past its founding. And that’s because the Arapaho nation had been forcibly removed from the area in the late 1870s after the United States broke treaty after treaty it signed with the tribe. Some of its members were eventually moved 500 miles north, to the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. But sometime in the late 1980s, members of the student body, some alumni, and administrators decided to dig deeper into its story. They dug deeper into a vision of history bigger than just the students who ever called Arapahoe High School home. That journey eventually led to the Northern Arapaho Tribe and Arapahoe High School forming a relationship. The relationship included a kind of truth telling, where the school reflected on how the mascot wasn’t telling the full story of its past. It had appropriated a version of an identity while ignoring everything that made that identity what it was. The Tribe told the school they could continue using the Warrior as its mascot but the tribe would teach them what a warrior was all about. A new logo was designed by a member of the tribe, Wilbur Antelope, and was a portrait of their tribal elder, Anthony Sitting Eagle. The two communities promised to visit each other every-other-year, sharing their stories, traditional dances, celebrating accomplishments, and mourning together when crisis struck. Each year, the tribe provided a scholarship for the valedictorian of the high school even though Arapahoe High School is in a very affluent area and the Northern Arapaho Tribe suffers with generational poverty. In the words of Lone Bear, “To [the Northern Arapaho Tribe], being a warrior means going to battle for what’s right, taking care of your family, and passing on knowledge.” And what’s passed on is a full story that does not sugar coat, romanticize, or ignore how the past forms our present and our future. Rather, it faces who we are so that we can become something more. 

Today’s reading from John is part of a conversation Jesus had with a man named Nicodemus. The conversation took place at night and I like to imagine it beginning with Jesus sitting alone in a room. The glow from a small oil lamp illuminated his face and he was trying to wind down after a busy day of preaching and teaching. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door and instead of blowing out the lamp and pretending he wasn’t there, Jesus opened the door and Nicodemus walked in. The conversation began with Nicodemus making one of those statements that was really a bit of a question. He said he recognized Jesus’ connection to God because “no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Now that affirmed a little of Jesus’ own identity but it might also have been an attempt by Nicodemus to get Jesus to do what we all love to do: and that’s talk about ourselves. By affirming his connection to God, Nicodemus might have wanted some more backstory of how that was possible. Jesus could have then shared his story like we share ours: making himself look a little more faithful; a little smarter; and definitely a lot cooler than he actually was. But he could probably have done something we can’t do: step outside the bounds of history and see how different actions by different people over different time periods formed the complex reality we’re just trying to live in. We’re not always good at holding together the parts of our story we are active participants in and the other bits we are given: like our culture, our background, our opportunities, and those things we assume are just how things are. Nicodemus might have expected Jesus to do the same – to tell a cherry picked version of what it means to be the Son of God. But if Jesus had done that, he wouldn’t have been able to tell his full story – one that was going to include the Cross. So instead of talking about himself, Jesus instead turned the conversation around. He poke and prodded at Nicodemus until Nicodemus suddenly found himself in a fuller version of God’s story; one that wasn’t over quite yet. Because Jesus’ ministry wasn’t only centered on where he was from but, rather, on where he was going. What mastered wasn’t that Jesus was part of the Trinity or that he was there when creation came into being. What made Jesus’ story Jesus’ story was that God entered our lives and our world because God’s love couldn’t do anything less. God wouldn’t let the partial stories of our past, our present, and what we imagine our future to be – to limit what God knows we can be. The story of God’s love can hold the truths of our past and the reality of our present while propelling us into a future that is full of hope. 

As followers of Jesus, we sometimes struggle with the fullness of our story. When we examine bits and pieces of our history – the parts that are personal and the parts that include the people who came before us – we’re not always ready to celebrate its true beauty or admit how harsh it actually was. We tend to add a buffer to the story so that we can be isolated ourselves from history. Yet we seem to know how interconnected our stories actually are because we take personally any judgment leveled against the past. It’s okay to be proud or sad or indifferent or excited about the story of who we are and the story we tell about ourselves. But that story of our past was never meant to justify the future God already has in mind for us. Because when you were baptized and graced with faith in God – you were given a promise that your yesterday and your today will not be the limit of your tomorrow. Rather, the love of God would be gifted to you and the Son of God – Jesus Christ himself – would be a companion with you through whatever life brings your way. No longer are you limited to the story you tell about yourself. You are wrapped up in the story of God who sent Jesus not to condemn the world but to save it. And that future doesn’t begin tomorrow – it begins today. We get to tell a fuller story of who we are; where we’ve come from; and how we inherited things beyond our control. Yet we don’t need to be limited by what the past says we can be; instead, we can embrace the future as God declares it will be. And that future is full of love; full of welcome; full of inclusion; full of new life; and full of people just like you – those who have sometimes made bad choices; sometimes denied the dignity of others; sometimes failed to see the image of God in their neighbor; and – at our best – have loved complete strangers just like Jesus loves us. We get to be oriented towards God’s future rather than by our limited view of our past. And we get to live that way right now – because your eternal life has already started. 

Amen.

Then [Jesus] began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

Mark 8:31-38

My sermon from First Sunday in Lent (February 28, 2021) on Mark 8:31-38.

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One of the easiest ways to cause a problem in your relationship is to speak up in a very public setting. For example, let’s say you’re out with friends and everyone was having fun. One of your friends made a light hearted comment and then you, without thinking, turned that comment into a joke at their expense. Or maybe your coworker was telling a story but left out something that’s a little embarrassing. That little detail had no bearing on the outcome of the story but you couldn’t help to speak up and reveal what they didn’t want you to share. Or maybe you and your loved one were having an argument. It was simmering for a while and it wasn’t resolved. You were starting to feel a little bit resentful and while staying up way too late scrolling through social media, you made a post, turning your private conflict into one that’s now very public. Not everything in our relationships is designed for public consumption. And I know, personally, how easy it is to create drama by inadvertently crossing that line. We don’t always mean to call attention to our friends in a way that makes them defensive. But it’s sometimes easier doing that than telling them, “we need to talk.” What we need to do is own up to the truth that these kinds of one-on-one conversations are really hard. They aren’t always easy but they can be the one thing we’re supposed to do. So I wonder if Peter, in our reading today from the gospel according to Mark, was trying to do a hard thing. I know he usually gets a bad wrap when we read this passage because it takes a certain amount of gumption to messiah-splain to the Son of God. Yet if Peter really wanted to call out Jesus in an unintentional or difficult way, I imagine he would have done so in front of all the disciples. Instead Peter waited for an opportunity to pull Jesus aside and say, “hey, we need to talk.” Peter did the hard thing – and Jesus responded by doing everything you’re not supposed to do when tending to a relationship. 

Now before we go too deep into Jesus’ actions, it’s important to set the stage of what’s happening in our reading. Jesus and his followers were approaching the city of Caesarea Philippi. Caesarea was founded by Herod the Great’s son – Herod Philip – and his kingdom included parts of Galilee, Syria, and Jordan. Caesarea Philippi became the administrative center of his little empire which is why he named it after himself. But Herod Philip also decided to use the name of the city to flatter the person who gave him his power. Caesarea was named after Caesar – aka the Roman Emperor. Herod Philip ruled the area because the Roman Empire, which controlled the region, let him rule. Without their authority and power, Herod was nothing. So he filled the city with Roman imagery, Roman statues, and they even built a temple honoring the Roman Emperors outside the city. As Jesus and his disciples neared this very Roman looking city, Peter confessed that Jesus was the Messiah. Peter’s confession was more than just a theological or spiritual statement. It was also a political one – because if Jesus is Lord – that means the Emperor – and those who supported him – were not. By saying Jesus was the Messiah, Peter was proclaiming that the structure of power in our world was about to change. Jesus’ ministry wasn’t only only about taking care of people’s souls; he was also going to take care of their bodies, their ideologies, and the ways they live with one another. Jesus’ good news for the poor was literally that – good news for the marginalized; the pushed aside; and those without power. But any good news for them was also anything but for those who enjoyed power in the here and now. Peter couldn’t wait to see God’s compassion for the marginalized realized in his lifetime. But when Jesus started talking about suffering, pain, and this…thing used by the Roman Empire to maintain their power and control – Peter felt compelled to say to Jesus: “hey, we need to talk.” Peter wasn’t being malicious but he couldn’t imagine God’s love bringing about a kind of conflict where the Empire, rather than Jesus, would win. 

Now, I don’t know what Peter expected when he pulled Jesus aside – but he probably didn’t plan for his private conversation to become very public. Not only did Jesus bring their conversation back to the disciples – he then included the entire crowd. In fact, we’re still reading about Jesus calling Peter “Satan” 2000 years later – which is usually not really a great way to keep a relationship with each other. Peter, after witnessing Jesus’ fame grow and after experiencing Jesus’ power, assumed Jesus would install himself into a position of authority that held power over others. Jesus would become a kind of benevolent emperor – a kinder version of the type of ruler they had all grown up with. But Jesus, as the Son of God, didn’t need to be installed in to power. He already had it. The difference, however, was that he wasn’t interested in what we imagine power to be all about. What he wanted – what he practiced – and what he taught – was a power with others and one that would heal the world. It’s why he ate meals with sinners and hung out with the poor rather than the rich. It’s why he healed people on the sabbath – not letting people suffer even one day more. And it’s why he wouldn’t allow the maintaining of the status quo interfere with the giving – and sharing – of life. In the words of Ira Digger, “Mark is saying that the Son of God will not dial down his ministry to spare his own life, or even to ease his suffering. His commitment to the healing of humanity literally knows no limits.” The power Jesus lived out was a power meant to help others – regardless of their social status, their identities, their genders, their ages, or their wealth – to thrive. His mission in the world was, by default, going to disrupt the world. And so that’s why the world’s response to that kind of disruption – is always the Cross. 

Now it’s a bit strange to talk about Jesus’ ministry of healing in the midst of an ongoing pandemic. I know too many people who’ve been infected by COVID-19 in just the last few weeks. If there’s anything I want right now, it’s Jesus’ healing of the world. But I’m also mindful of how I want that healing to just be a return to how things were. We all want this disruption to end but that doesn’t mean we’re always open to the kind of disruption Jesus’ healing actually brings. We want a return to normal but Jesus was never in the business of letting things remain the same. God always comes to us in love and that’s why we try to resist it. We want Jesus to move in our world but only on our terms. We are fine with God’s love as long as we don’t have to give up our ideas of freedom, of power, of position, or our points of view. We’re okay with Jesus as long as Jesus doesn’t ask us and our  communities to change too much. And we assume that good news can only be good if it caters to us. Yet God won’t let us get in the way of a love and a hope and a way of being in the world that lets God be God and lets let’s life, not the Cross, be what we share with all. There is a cost to being a disciple of Jesus – and that means we are called to give up ways we resist what God is doing in our world. We need to give up limiting who deserves love and who doesn’t; we need to give up limiting our attention to only people who are like us; we need to give up the ways our social status and power requires others to make adjustments for us; and we need to lean into relationships with all people instead of only a chosen few. We need – in a way – to be like Peter and Jesus. We need to refuse to give up on one another. Because even when Peter thought Jesus got it wrong and when Jesus called out Peter for all time – they doubled down their commitment to each other. Even when we get our relationship wrong; even when we say something we shouldn’t; and even when something private becomes way too public; we can commit ourselves to being Jesus’ good news in our world. And this is something we can do because in your baptism, in your faith, and in this very moment – Jesus has already made the promise to never give up on you. 

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 (February 17, 2021) on Matthew 6:1-6,16-21.

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So I’d like to start tonight’s sermon with a little experiment. Take a look at everyone who surrounds you. If you’re by yourself, think about a few neighbors or family members or friends. Take a moment to really focus on everything that makes them who they are. Examine their clothes, the features of their face, the way they laugh, and the opinions they hold. Make sure your entire focus is directed at them. And then – once you feel as if you are totally absorbing who they are – make a detailed list of everyone of their sins. 

Now, if your eyes just grew wide, know that mine did too. And the truth is that I don’t actually want you to make such a list – especially since I want the rest of your night with your spouse, your children, and your friends to be peaceful. But I do wonder what your reaction was to that request. Did your eyes, like mine, get big? Were you surprised to be asked to make such a list on the first day of Lent? Or did you notice that you already had such a list in mind? You might have found yourself, in a split second, feeling full of judgement. You started criticizing their choice in jeans, the ways they eat, and how you’re always the one who makes plans to connect with family and friends. Your list could have included things you’ve brought up before or maybe only things you’ve kept to yourself. And it might have been surprising to see how many minor annoyances we automatically label as sins. Not everything that bugs us is necessarily a sin but we all struggle to live as if God’s kingdom has come near. Every day, we have to do the hard work of living with the fact that not everyone in the world thinks or acts like us. But we are pretty good at identifying other people’s problems. That doesn’t mean we’re actually right in the conclusions we draw, but we’re really efficient when it comes to seeing what we imagine to be other people’s sins. I wonder if we do that because human beings can be very outward focus. Our eyes look outside of us and our ears are tuned to listen to what’s around us. Even the voice we speak sounds much different from the voice we hear in our heads. In some ways, we are designed to be outward facing at all times. And it can take work to shift our focus towards ourselves. 

So what if I asked you to make a different kind of list. Instead of asking you to name the sins other people have – what would it be like to make a detailed list of your own? What would it take to name all the ways you act as if you are the center of the world and how hard it is to believe that we’re not? Our initial list might feel pretty general but I bet we could make it be as detailed as the list we made about others. This list wouldn’t be a tool we use to harm our sense of self – to enhance the lies the world – or our selves – tell us. Rather, it would simply be an attempt to list the truths we refuse to hide. And it would be a list that God already knows. A shift from looking outwards and cultivating what’s inside of us – is one of the things, I think, Jesus is getting at in our reading from the gospel according to Matthew. 

Now this passage is one we read every Ash Wednesday and it comes from the middle of Jesus’ great sermon on the mount. Matthew placed that sermon at the start of Jesus’ ministry – an attempt, I think, to try and describe what fueled the inner life of Christ. For Matthew, the presence of God was fleshed out not only in the reality of Jesus but also in his preaching and teaching. He wanted to give us a sense of what fueled Jesus and helped him change the lives of so many people who were outside of him. And that interplay between who we are, whose we are, and how that impacts the world around us – was something Jesus touched on often. He knew that faith and God’s love took seriously who we really are. That includes not only what we do but also what we think, what we believe, and what we feel. He was mindful of every relationship that we have and how outward focus we can be. Yet everything we live through and everything we do is experienced, expressed, and generated by our body and our mind. When we focus on what outsides of us, that focus still comes from somewhere. And Jesus wanted us to be mindful of who we are so that we can become the people God knows we can be. 

So when we listen to Jesus’ words about hypocrites, we shouldn’t just blankly dismiss the people he talked about. They – like us – were people practicing their faith. They prayed. They fasted. They made financial gifts to their faith communities and those who are in need. They took time to nurture their relationship with God – and yet Jesus was aware of how easy the life of faith can become so outwardly focused, it forgets where that focus comes from. And if the fuel for our faith relies primarily on the attention others give us, then our faith actually becomes unsustainable. Because there will be times when the attention we receive will be harmful or non-existent. And there will be moments when grief, sadness, pain, and suffering make it too hard to believe. We might even find ourselves too busy for God or having so much joy in our life that we end up acting as if we do need any more God. What sustains our faith cannot depend on what others – or ourselves – give to us. Rather, we need God and the promise that Jesus will never let us go. 

So what is a practice of faith that keeps Jesus close to us and helps us hold onto the fuel for the life we actually live? Well, one answer to that question comes from the verses we didn’t hear today. In the gap between verses 6 and 16 – Matthew included this: 

“Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

Those verses probably sound familiar and that’s because they’re Matthew’s version of the Lord’s Prayer. And that prayer is more than just something we recite because Jesus told us too. Rather, he knew that these words serve as a kind of corrective when we default to an outward focused identity. When we pray the Lord’s prayer – we are reminding ourselves that there is a God – and that we’re not it. We hold tight to the truth that God’s kingdom will come; that our food, clothing, shelter, and wealth are gifts; and that God is leading us even when we are too busy to notice Jesus in our life. This prayer reminds us that God’s forgiveness is what helps us forgive others. And that the gift of faith is sustained not by what we do, or what we read, or what we are taught. But that faith itself is a gift from God – and the fuel for the life we are called to live. When we tend to ourselves, we are taking care of what God uses to love the world. The Lord’s prayer is just one of the gifts God gave us to cultivate a faithful inner life. God also gave us the gift of therapy, the gift medication, and the gift that each one of us can learn to truly listen to the people around us. And that might be one way we can lean into this season of Lent. We can take these 40 days and 6 Sundays as an opportunity to tend to what fuels us. Because the list of sins – the one we make for other people and the one we make ourselves – is not the sum of what the life of faith is all about. Rather, in your baptism and in your faith – you are  given the gifts of hope, peace, love, and Jesus himself – to fuel who you truly are. Jesus expects those who follow him to practice their faith – which is why he said “when” rather than “if” all over this passage. So that’s something we can do – in church, in our homes, with our families, and even on our own. We can tend to ourselves so that the true treasures of heaven can be expressed in our lives, in our loves, and in the hope God gifts to the world.

Amen.

[Jesus said:] “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around, and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received a denarius. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’^[a] So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

Matthew 20:1-16 (NRSVue)

My sermon from the 16th Sunday after Pentecost (September 20, 2020) on Matthew 20:1-16.

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One thing you might not know about me is that I was a high school athlete – for exactly one semester. I played lacrosse because a friend of mine was on the team and you didn’t really have to try out to play. I wasn’t very good but I enjoyed cradling the ball, stick checking other people, and learning how to brace myself when someone body checked me. I enjoyed most of my time playing lacrosse but one thing I didn’t like was all the running. Now during practice, one thing my coaches liked to do was have everyone run a team relay race. We would be broken into groups of four and told to sprint around the track. They imagined, I think, that having us compete against each other would somehow improve our skills. But when you’re already the slowest person on your team, running a team based race doesn’t always help. My teammates always had a look on their face when I lined up behind them. And I know, if they had the choice to pick their teams, I would have been picked last. But since they couldn’t, the look on their face told me they were trying to figure out how to work around me. Because if they wanted to win team bragging rights, my slowness would have to be something they endured. 

Today’s reading from the gospel according to Matthew is a continuation of a conversation Jesus and his disciples started in chapter 19. A young person came to Jesus and asked: “what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” Jesus responded by telling them to follow the commandments, sell everything they own, give all their wealth to the poor, and then follow him. That young person left sad because no one wants to give up the things they feel they’ve earned and that they’re entitled to. Now the disciples watched this whole conversation go down – and the Bible tells us they were astounded. They asked Jesus – who could be saved – and what was the kingdom of God all about? As they talked, the disciple Peter pointed out that they had already done what the young person couldn’t and wanted to know what their giving up would earn them in return. And so it’s during this back and forth between Jesus and the disciples when we get this parable about a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for their vineyard. 

Now, as you listened to the text being read out loud, which group of laborers did you identify with? We sometimes, I think, focus most of our attention on those who were picked first. They were, after all, the group that’s really busy in the story. They negotiate with the landowner for how much they would get paid and they spend all day working in the vineyard. When it’s time to be paid, the only reaction we hear is from the first group laborers as they watch everyone else get paid. And when the landowner addressed them with the last two sentences in the story, we never get their response – and so everything is left open ended. It makes sense that we focus on those who were first. But what if we choose to do something different? What if, instead of focusing on those picked first, we paid attention to those who came last? 

I wonder what their day would have been like. And I wonder what they felt while they watched others get picked first. They, like all the laborers, had woken early and assembled in the marketplace before dawn. Each one of them was willing to do the work because they needed money to buy the food and to take care of their families. When the landowner first showed up, each person was ready to be picked. But, for some reason, only a few were initially chosen – and they were the ones allowed to negotiate their liveable wage. The ones who weren’t picked had to endure watching their friends be given the opportunity to earn enough to eat. After a few hours, the landowner came back to hire more workers. Once again everyone was willing to work but only a few were chosen. But unlike the first group, these new laborers weren’t allowed to negotiate their wage. The landowner told them they would need to accept what they were paid. They headed to the vineyard not knowing if they would earn enough to support their families. And that became a pattern – because the landowner returned to the marketplace several more times. As it got close to evening, the ones who were still not picked – were probably worn out, tired, and exhausted. They had spent the day watching others receive the opportunity to earn money while standing in the marketplace. As they waited, they heard business being done.  They saw food being bought and eaten. They witnessed wealth being generated and being spent. They saw people participating in the activity of life but they weren’t able to join in. All they could do was wait for an opportunity that they knew might never come. They had to endure watching others living their lives while they waited for the chance to live theirs. 

That opportunity, though, eventually. And the ones who had endured worked only about an hour. With the day over, all the workers gathered together again. They knew who had worked all day and who had worked for an hour. I imagine there was a lot of anxiety and uncertainty in that moment. They weren’t sure what the future would bring. And when the manager came to those picked last to offer them their wage, they probably expected to receive only a tiny fraction of what the others did. But that’s not what they got. They received a full day’s wage – and that changed the thinking of everyone else in the group. Those who worked longer started to shift their expectations. They assumed they were entitled to more. No one could really believe how much the last group got paid. And when it was time for those who got picked first to be paid – no one could believe what they got paid either. It didn’t seem fair that those who didn’t do what they did – and who didn’t have the opportunities they had – could still somehow receive everything they did. It didn’t make sense that those who were last were valued as much as those who were first. 

And we, I think, struggle with that too. We identify with those who were picked first because we like to imagine that’s who we are too. We tell ourselves we work hard, that we’ve earned everything that we’ve got, and that we’re entitled to the goodness that life has given to us. We live our lives as if we were the ones picked first because we don’t want to endure being picked last. But when we only focus on the work done in the story – we actually miss what this parable is all about. The kingdom of heaven isn’t a vineyard that we’re invited to toil in. Instead, the kingdom of heaven – God’s presence – and God’s vision of what life is all about – is a landowner who sees us as we are and chooses to give. The landowner saw the laborers as they were and the system of so-called fairness and competition that was part of their lives. The landowner knew how idolized the idea of earning – and instead, gave them generosity. Life with God is not something that we earn. You cannot make God love you anymore than God already does. Jesus is with you because Jesus is with you – and in your baptism and through your faith – God has already made you God’s own. You have already been chosen; already been picked; already accepted; and you are already loved because you are worth more than just what you do. You have a Jesus that sees you; knows you; and has been with you every time you were picked first and every time you were picked last. The love that God gives you every day – is a love that knows what it’s like to endure. And when we start to grumble and start identifying with those who were picked first, that’s when we should stop and imagine how things might be different if we see ourselves who came last. When we do that, we stop turning everything in this world into a competition over what we think we’re entitled to. Instead, we realize that God’s kingdom, in the words of Pablo Jimenez, is really about generosity, mercy, and love. And since that is what God’s kingdom is all about – we, as the current and latest followers of Jesus Christ, are called to make our lives and our communities that generous too. 

Amen.

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist but others Elijah and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

Matthew 16:13-20 (NRSVue)

My sermon from the 12th Sunday after Pentecost Sunday (August 23, 2020) on Matthew 14:13-21.

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What was the last thing you day dreamed about where everything happened in slow motion? 

Now, if I’m honest, it’s probably been a while since I imagined anything happening in slow motion. But when I was younger, my overactive imagination was very good at creating vivid worlds in my mind. I, of course, was the hero of every story. I was always the Jedi fighting Darth Vader, the superhero saving my hometown from Doctor Doom, and was the star quarterback playing in the Super Bowl with my team down by 5 and with 3 seconds left on the clock. As I lived into those new identities I picked for myself, I made sure that when great things were about to happen, the world slowed down. Slow motion is meant for those moments that make or break the story. It’s why every sport highlight is broadcast in slow motion a million times because we want to see how it happened. We rarely, if ever, use slow motion to focus on the mundane or usual parts of the game. Instead, we’re excited to get a zoomed in look at the action – that moves so slowly, we can see sweat as it forms on the forehead. Slow motion is how we highlight the drama of the moment so that we can linger in it for a little while. Slow motion helps make transformational moments simmer in hearts, our minds, and our souls. And going slow motion through our Biblical stories – is one of the ways we can discover what the good news is all about. 

So let’s do that. Let’s go through this passage from the gospel according to Matthew in slow motion. And we’ll start at the very beginning. Jesus and his small band of followers have arrived in the district of Caesarea Philippi. Now that name might jump out at you because it doesn’t sound like the names of other cities in the ancient near east. Instead, it sounds a bit like Caesar – which was the title for the Roman Emperor. Roughly 20 years before Jesus’ birth, King Herod renamed an existing town in ancient Israel to Caesarea in honor of the Roman Emperor Augustus. Near the town was a small mountain filled with religious shrines. Herod, as a way to gain favor with the empire that occupied the land, built a temple there and dedicated it to the Emperors. In that space and on that mountain, the leaders of Rome were venerated like gods. People made sacrifices to them, laid gifts of gold and precious items on their altars, and turned to them in their times of need. The city and its temples turned the area into a place where different beliefs, cultures, political affiliations, and ways of life swirled around each other. And it’s there when Jesus turned to his disciples and asked them what people had to say about him. 

This moment, then, is filled with a kind of tension. Jesus had already made a name for himself as a bit of a healer, prophet, and rabble rouser. He stood there in the presence of the Romans and their enablers who said that they were the true masters of the world. And it must have felt weird to talk about Jesus in that space. The disciples began by sharing that some though Jesus was John the Baptist reincarnated. John was recently killed because he refused to stay quiet when he saw political power abused. Many of these leaders, including one of King Herod’s sons, saw Jesus in this way. Others, however, imagined Jesus to be Elijah – a prophet who, according to scripture, never died but was taken up to heaven by God. As Christians, we describe John the Baptist’s ministry as being Elijah returned. But non-followers of Jesus were hoping for Elijah to come in a rather potent – and powerful – kind of way. And along the same lines as Elijah, some thought Jesus was a prophet – an heir to the long line of men and women who were God’s mouthpieces on earth. They regularly challenged those in power to trust God and to make a difference in the lives of the marginalized and poor. It wasn’t only the city of Caesarea Philippi that was viewed as a swirling focal point of beliefs and points of view. Jesus, himself, was defined in the very same way. The physical space – and its statues – was how the community elevated the status and symbols of everything Rome stood for. And the words people used to describe Jesus – showed how everyone was using their personal stories and the stories of their people to try and identify who exactly Jesus was. The swirling experience of Jesus and the city exemplified just how much our lives and our world are made up of conflicting identities and views. And so, after his disciples spoke, Jesus butted in. He asked – point blank – “but who do you say that I am?” 

That question is worthy of a slow motion moment. And we should use our imagination to imagine what that moment felt like. I can see the disciples, clustered together, and maybe walking with Jesus on the way. In the distance is the city, its temples, and all the possibilities of political might. They noticed the city and they turned to look at one another. Some probably made eye contact with who they thought should speak up while others just kept their heads down. They had experienced so much since Jesus called them by name yet there was something about him that words couldn’t adequately explain. As the slow motion silence lingered, they finally looked at the One who had the audacity to feed thousands of people with a few bits of bread and fish, who walked on water during a storm, and who proclaimed that mercy, love, and forgiveness as what encountering God was all about. If the disciples were anything like me, this slow motion moment would have left their minds feeling blank and kept their mouths silent. But one of them finally spoke. And Peter, with a word, not only summed up what his experience of Jesus was but also imagined what a future with Jesus might look like. I wonder if Jesus’ mouth, as Peter spoke, broke into a slight smile. He heard Peter declare what is one of the foundational parts of who we are as Christians. Jesus is more than just a historical person with a story filled with miracles and powerful moral teachings. Rather, Jesus is an encounter of God’s love face-to-face. And it’s through Him where we, the imperfect people that we are, are claimed as God’s own. 

It took a slow motion moment for Peter to affirm Jesus’ identity and for Jesus to reaffirm Peter’s identity too. In the words of Paul Roberts, “of the innumerable miracles Jesus performed during his earthly ministry, perhaps none was greater than the miracle of inviting twelve poor, pigeonholed, imprudent persons into community and empowering them to live into a new identity.” Peter’s confession of who Jesus is – was made after Peter had already spent time living and being with his Lord. Peter’s identity as belonging to Christ began the moment when Jesus claimed him as his own – and told him to follow me. When we affirm who Jesus is – and when we, like the disciples, wrestle with who we say Jesus is – we are, together, affirming that Jesus is already part of our lives. In your baptism – and through your faith – Jesus already decided that you are his. And that you, of course, means YOU. It doesn’t mean the person you think you are or the person you want to become. Jesus claimed you – even those who remain silent during all the important slow motion moments. He promised to walk with you; to be present to you; and to always be for you even when you are not for yourself. It’s not always easy to let the identity God gives us be the one that informs everything else about us. We too often look to other things – especially our culture and our concepts of power – as ways to shape our thoughts about Jesus rather than the other way around. But Jesus doesn’t let those thoughts limit what’s possible with his story. Instead, he moves forward – into the otherside of our slow motions moments. Because Peter – and the other disciples – needed to see that God would be willing to go to the Cross. And we, like those first followers, need to discover just how far God will go – to make us into the people God promises we can be. 

Amen.

Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed from that moment.

Matthew 15:21-28 (NRSVue)

My sermon from the 11th Sunday after Pentecost Sunday (August 16, 2026) on Matthew 15:21-28.

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What was the last thing you brought to God that God initially answered with silence? 

Now I know, when I think about that question, I don’t, at first, think about anything good. I don’t pause and reflect on all those times when silence was exactly what I needed to get in deeper touch with myself and with God. Instead, I immediately think about all those moments in my life when I brought something hard to God – and didn’t really hear anything in response. It might have been a prayer, a cry for healing, or even just a blank stare because I didn’t have the words or the energy to say anything out loud. I, as best I could, leaned on God – and when I wanted an answer, I heard nothing. That silent response from God didn’t feel loving or caring at all. 

I wonder if the Canaanite woman, in our reading from the gospel according to Matthew, felt that same way when Jesus responded to her with silence. She had come to him with a request. She needed mercy. And when she shared with Jesus the hard thing that was in her life – Jesus didn’t answer at all. That, for her, must have been extremely emotionally hard – because, as we see in the words she used to address Jesus, she had understood him to be exactly who he was. And that, in itself, is kind of odd because she wasn’t Jewish and Jesus was no longer in Jewish lands. He, after making a name for himself all across Galilee and other parts of ancient Israel, chose to leave the land filled with people like him and enter some place new. The territory centered around the cities of Tyre and Sidon were once ancient kingdoms that competed with Israel. They fought wars, haggled over trade routes, and struggled with their religious differences. Even though ancient Israel and Tyre and Sidon were now occupied by the Roman Empire, the cultural and religious barriers between those two communities had not broken down. The Canaanite woman did not belong to the same group as Jesus did and Jesus didn’t really belong to her group either. Yet he chose to cross the border between their two communities and when he did, she came to him. She spoke with a loud and strong voice – admitting her need and declaring who she knew Jesus to be. She called him, at first, Lord – showing him the respect a rabbi expected while also affirming that she, as a foregin woman, wasn’t supposed to really be talking to him at all. She then named him as the Son of David – a term that had value and meaning for Jews but wasn’t really applicable to gentiles like herself. Yet her word choice was strategic because in the genealogy that appeared way back in chapter one, three of the four women named as Jesus’ ancestors were Canaanite women like herself. In the words of Professor Mitzi J. Smith, “the anonymous woman’s foremothers are Jesus’ kinfolk,” and so she believed that the cultural barriers between them weren’t necessarily as large as others might say. The Canaanite woman then told him, without reservation, the hard thing in her life. Her daughter was ill. Her daughter was suffering. And all the Canaanite woman asked for was mercy. 

So Jesus responded by not saying anything at all. 

His silence was more than just a “no.” Jesus, for a moment, basically refused to acknowledge her at all. He was the one who initiated the cross-cultural movement that created the opportunity for the Canaanite woman to come to him. But when she did – Jesus’ silence could have stopped her cold. If he had at least said “no” – then we could claim that he had initially seen and heard her. But Jesus acted like she wasn’t even there. That kind of silence hurts. It hurts because she, in a moment of desperation, revealed how vulnerable, scared, and hopeful she was. The Canaanite woman was willing to shed all the emotions, history, and cultural baggage that told her not to talk to a Jewish rabbi because she needed mercy. She – it seemed – was able to do something that even Jesus found hard to do. 

We don’t usually like to imagine Jesus, the Son of God, struggling with hard things. We don’t mind if he holds our heavy emotions – but, in today’s story, the hard thing he needed to do was change. Change isn’t an attribute we typically give to God. We want our God to be holy, all-powerful, and steadfast – firm and unmovable because we, unlike God, have to live through change all the time. A God who is love and a Jesus who is always Jesus – is a comfort in times of uncertainty and fear. Yet this immovable God is One who made the choice to experience change. When Jesus entered the world, he didn’t come out of Mary’s womb fully formed with sandals, robes, and a tight group of friends. He started as a newborn – one who would grow up and experience all the change that happens in our lives. That means he knew what it was like to be cared for and to cry real tears. And, I think, Jesus also knew what it meant to carry all the cultural, religious, ethnic, and other identities that we are given by the culture we grow up in. Jesus didn’t transcend all the baggage that comes with being human. He, instead, found a way to live through it. 

And so did the Canaanite woman. She refused to let Jesus’ silence change who she knew Jesus to be. She, in a way, created the opportunity for Jesus’ ministry to expand and change. Jesus had already done the work of crossing the boundary between what he knew and what else was out there. So she pushed him to affirm the ministry he was already doing. She kept shouting, knelt before him, and simply said “Lord, help me.” In that moment of extreme vulnerability, Jesus responded with a hard word – calling her a dog. Yet her identity as a gentile allowed her to use the cultural difference between them to help Jesus see so much more. Dogs, in the community Jesus grew up in, were typically kept away from the family. But for the Canaanite woman, dogs were more “endeared as household pets” and they would have been fed under the table. There was no binary choice between who gets to experience God’s love and who doesn’t. Instead, all can be fed. 

And that’s when, I think, Jesus faced his own silence. In the moment after the woman spoke but before he responded, something changed. Matthew doesn’t tell us Jesus’ internal monologue – nor does he describe how the disciples acted after she spoke. But I like to imagine that there was a kind of pause where even Jesus was confronted by silence. It was a silence full of everything he had experienced up to that moment – and the truth that God’s kingdom is as inclusive, loving, and diverse as God’s creation. The silence might not have lasted very long but it was created by a persistent woman who wouldn’t let Jesus be anything else but God.  

The silence we experience during our hard moments won’t always turn out the way we hope. There will be times when our need for mercy won’t lead to our loved one being healed. Our hearts will be broken and that silence will be louder than we expect. Yet the silence we live through is not a silence that Jesus doesn’t know. He experienced it when a woman refused to let him be anything else but himself. And he felt its crushing effect when he cried out to God on the Cross – and heard the jeer of Roman soldiers in response. We are called to be, like that woman, persistent despite the silence. We are called to raise up, in prayer or in a blank stare, everything that is hard. We, like her, should call God to account – and to not be afraid to ask for mercy, grace, or hope. And we can, also, I think – be a little like Jesus. We can give ourselves the chance to be changed and to assume that whatever and whoever you are right now – is all that you can possibly be. The silence that surrounds you is not what determines your worth or your purpose. You are and you always will be a beloved child of God. Even when your faith feels small and in those moments when you wonder if you actually believe anything at all – Jesus is right there with you. The silence he originally expressed – is a silence he’s lived through. And you – with him and in him – will live through your silences too. 

Amen.