Category: Faith

[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.

After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, singing, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” I said to him, “Sir, you are the one that knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

Revelation 7:9-17

My sermon from All Saints’ Day (November 1, 2020) on Revelation 7:9-17.

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A few weeks ago, during my weekly bible study with other Lutheran pastors in our area, the conversation somehow turned to graphic novels. Now, if you’ve heard me preach before, you know talking about the bible and comic books is pretty on brand for me. But sometimes I even surprise myself at how nerdy I can be. The graphic novel we were discussing was about the life of Martin Luther. We dug deep into its plot, the art, and who might enjoy receiving the book as a gift. All of that is pretty basic stuff but then I took the conversation one step further by pointing out how text and the art interacted on the page. One of the neat things about comic books is that you get to physically see the choices the writer and artist made to tell their story. And sometimes the written words are more important than anything else. Every character in every panel is required to say, out loud, exactly what they’re doing and thinking. And in those comics, you don’t even need pictures to fully understand what’s going on. But other comics let the art tell the story. Instead of using a mountain of words to control how we experience it, they let our imagination do the work. The art invites us to step into the story and discover what it’s all about. When the book of Revelation appeared 1900 years ago, graphic novels didn’t exist. But we can use our experience of reading comics as a way to dig deeper into the book itself. If we chose to read Revelation as if it’s a comic book using a mountain of words to control our experience of it, then maybe it really is some strange roadmap describing the end of the world. But if we let the words in Revelation create an art focused graphic novel in our heads – then we might connect with the book in a different way. Revelation isn’t, I believe, a chronological step-by-step guide to the end of the world. Rather, it’s a series of intersecting images, spiraling into one another, so that we see hope during a difficult time. 

Today’s reading from Revelation takes place during a very specific cycle in the book. The Lamb, aka Jesus, has begun to break open a series of seven seals on a very large scroll. When the first seal was broken, a horseman appeared wielding a bow and riding a white horse. We’re told they were given a crown and commanded to conquer. The second, third, and forth seals brought even more horsemen of the apocalypse. The author only used a few words to describe who they were – such as identifying their weapons, the color of their horses, and what their missions are in the world. Each one was invited to disrupt the world through war, violence, uncertainty, disease, and economic suffering. The very thin outline we’re given is enough for our minds to fill in the rest. And the picture we form of them would fit in any elaborate Halloween display or next to the fiery eyed horse statue that welcomes you to Denver International Airport. As we create this page of our graphic novel in our heads, we might find ourselves filled with different kinds of emotions. We might feel anxious, worried, and maybe concerned because we know there’s three more seals to go. The book of Revelation moves quickly and when the fifth seal was broken, we got to see everyone who was martyred for their faith. If that wasn’t emotionally charged enough, the six seal really lets our imagination run wild. We’re told that a great earthquake shook the entire world and the sun turned black. The moon became like blood and the stars fell from the sky. So with that terrifying page of the graphic novel we’re creating in our heads finally done – we’re asked to do an anxiety inducing thing. We’re told to turn the page and see what the breaking of the seventh seal might bring. 

But before that happens – the story is interrupted by our reading today. The violence violence, destruction, and dread from the previous page has been replaced by a heavenly choir that’s so large, it can’t be counted. Every nation, tribe, race, and gender  is gathered in that space. And unlike the four horsemen that were released earlier, the choir wears merely their baptismal gowns and a palm branch as their swords. The terrifying images we just heard are met by a mass of humanity that’s busy singing in a place where hunger, thirst, worry, and tears are no more. This isn’t the page we expect to see. We were ready for more death and destruction because we’re full of uncertainty since we don’t know what the breaking of the seventh seal would bring. But what we get, instead, is an image of what it’s like to be with God. The page of doom and gloom is side-by-side with the page of love and peace. We might want to act as if we can stay on one page rather than on the other. Yet we can’t because the seventh seal will be broken. The uncertainty rooted in that doom and gloom is met by this truth of who we are. In Christ, through faith, and in our baptism – we are always beloved children of God. And in the face of whatever might come – God’s promise doesn’t change. 

If we were, right now, to name every uncertainty in our life – this sermon would probably be pretty long. There’s a lot of things about the future we don’t know – and much of that is rooted in a worsening pandemic that we’re all living through. There’s also the upcoming election and the concerns about what might happen in the days and weeks to come. And there’s all those other concerns – like, can our school stay open? Can we visit family during the holidays? Will our job ever come back or will we be employed come December? That’s a lot to hold on top of all the other struggles we deal with that most people know nothing about. I think each one of us would love some positive interruptions to our story that would make all the uncertainties feel way more sure. There are days when the doom and gloom of those six opened seals feels a tad more real than the image of a choir singing around the throne. And that might be why – when things seem the most uncertain – God chose to interrupt the story so that you could remember who you are. You are, right now, loved. And you are already with God. No matter what comes – and no matter what will come – your spot in the heavenly choir is already rooted in the one who lived, died, and rose for you.

Now if that promise from God is a little difficult to hear today, I then invite you to remember those in your life who were embraced by that promise and make sure to light a candle for them today. The promise of love; the promise of justice; the promise of mercy and the gift of the Holy Spirit inspired every special person who made a difference in your lives. Their inclusion in God’s eternal choir is what helped them, in their own broken and holy ways, to let that page of love and peace speak a word of grace into that page of gloom. Even if our time with them was too short and even if there were uncertainties that were left unsettled, they will always be our saints because Jesus never left them. They, with God’s help, offered us a different kind of story that took seriously everything life brings and showed us what God’s love is all about. The saints of our lives have a place in God’s choir. And when you build the graphic novel of the book of Revelation in your mind – make sure you picture them in that choir. Pay attention to the song they’re singing because God kept singing through every one of their uncertainties. And once you’ve added them to that paeg in your graphic novel – make sure to take one long good look at that scene. Because – whether you realize it or not – you’re singing with them too. 

Amen.

Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’ But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests. “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.”

Matthew 22:1-14

My sermon from the 18th Sunday after Pentecost (October 11, 2020) on Matthew 22:1-14

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The General Theological Seminary, where I graduated with my Masters of Divinity degree, is located on 22nd street between 9th and 10th avenues in Manhattan. In the late 1800s, it was rebuilt and expanded so that it would resemble the kind of university you might find in England. The dorms, classrooms, and even the chapel create a brick wall around the entire city block. But if you peered through the first story windows on 22nd street or through the old iron fence on 21st street, you’d notice a large park, full of trees, right in the middle of the seminary. That green space looks inviting, exclusive, and something that fits better in the magical world of Harry Potter rather than New York City. Which is why tv shows and entertainment companies like to rent that space often. For example, if you’ve watched the tv series Law and Order, you’ve seen the seminary’s green space when the show visited the fictional “Hudson University.” And if you happen to be a big fan of the 2014-2016 showtime tv series Penny Dreadful, you would have seen the seminary campus as the backdrop for the red carpet series’ premiere and party. I was a week away from graduating when I suddenly noticed contractors and entertainment companies turning the seminary’s ground into that red carpet event. There was a lot of hustling and bustling as they built special plywood platforms to hold all the fancy lighting equipment needed to take photos of all the celebrities who would be there. Instead of studying for my last few finals, I sat outside and watched them lay down a literal red carpet in front of the chapel where I worshipped and occasionally preached. It wasn’t long before my friends and I gave up pretending to study and instead gossiped about which celebrities might be there. We also started scheming different ways we could sneak onto the red carpet because it was literally happening out our front doors. But before our scheming could get very far, we received an email from the seminary telling us that all students were invited to attend Penny Dreadful’s premiere party. We would get to hang out in a trendy hotel’s ballroom next to our campus and enjoy everything that the A list celebrities experienced. We no longer needed to figure out a way to get onto the red carpet because we were invited to be part of it. And when that happened, we had a new and overriding concern dominating finals week: what would we, the future pastors and priests of Jesus’s church, actually wear to an event that was really out of our league? 

Now today’s parable from the gospel according to Matthew is one of the more violent parables he chose to share with us. It includes war, violence, armies, and even one of Matthew’s favorite phrases: the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. The over-the-top violence in this story is not pleasant to hear especially since it’s coming from the lips of Jesus. Our first instinct might be to downplay that violence or act as if Jesus was kidding. But a better way to handle this story might be to allow it to make us uncomfortable. Sometimes, the stories Jesus told were designed to stir up our emotions. Because he is God-incarnate – God-living-a-human-life and that includes everything that comes with being human. As we listened to these words, we might have found ourselves squirming in our seats because everything within it feels so excessive. The story began during one of the biggest parties that might happen in our lives – a wedding. And it continued with an over-the-top kind of rejection where every originally invited guest told the king to go away. In response, the King went overboard and used an excessive amount of violence to harm those who said no. But that excessive violence was also equally matched by invitation that invited people into a party they had no right to attend. There’s a bigness to this story that has to be part of its point. Jesus wanted us to recognize that the kingdom of God – God’s grace, love, and presence in our lives and in our world – is above and beyond what our everyday life is all about. When we’re invited into a life with God – we are no longer asked to live only according to our very human view of the world. Instead, God’s invitation introduced us into a vision of life that becomes our vision too. And that way of life means that hope, mercy, justice, and forgiveness should become our excessive response to a God who loves us in a very excessive way. 

So in the handful hours before the party began at General Seminary, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I wanted to wear. I’m not a celebrity and although I think I’m pretty fancy, I don’t have a team of people available to help me look my best. I think I tried on half-a-dozen outfits before giving up and heading to some trendy stores nearby. I went from store to store, trying to find that shirt, hat, or pair of pants that was appropriate for the occasion. My goal wasn’t to pretend as if I hang out with A-list celebrities all the time. But I did want to wear something that said I knew how fun and unique this party would be. I knew this would be the only time I would ever be at a tv red carpet premiere so I wanted to make the most of it. I wanted to let myself and the people around me know that I, in my own way, belong; that I knew I was invited; and that I understood how weird it was for me to be there. But even though I couldn’t, on my own, earn a spot to be on that red carpet – I could, once I got there, dance and twirl and enjoy the night away. I could live out that special moment fully and deeply – because I had been invited to live a sliver of my life in a different kind of way. 

Now, through Jesus, we have been invited to know a central truth about our lives: that we already belong. We belong to a God who is above us, beyond us, and who loves us in an excessive way that knows no bounds. Because when you, like Bodhi, were baptized and publicly declared as a beloved child of God, that gift wasn’t given to you because you were perfect, wonderful, and that would never screw up. Instead, you were grafted into a body of Christ that knew you needed to be there. This body could not be what Jesus wanted it to be without you being a part of it. And that the faith you were given was a faith big enough to hold all your sorrow, your fears, your mistakes, and all the ways we’ve lived our lives in a self-centered way. But your invitation into this life with Jesus was more than just having your name on the guestlist. You were given a Savior who made a promise to push you into a deeper experience of what life is all about. You weren’t just invited to follow Christ but you were also given a faith that can help you do it. That faith, of course, will not always be strong. And there will be times when we will have experiences that no one deserves because we did everything right but we’re still heartbroken and full of grief. Those kinds of experiences are a little excessive and they seem to happen a little too often. But you also have a God who has an excessive amount of love for you – and whose promise of a deeper life also means that Jesus will never let you go. That promise was made real today for Bodhi in his baptism – and it’s a promise Jesus renews with you everytime we worship, or pray, and even just eat at his holy table. And since that promise was already given to us in the little bit of water poured over our heads – we get to live that promise out in lives that are also different. We get to be part of a community of faith; to read the scriptures; to spend time in prayer. We get to trust God; to share Jesus’ love with others; and to work for justice and peace. We get to live in this world as if love, not power or greed or sin, is what everything should be about. And we get to metaphorically and spiritually dress like we truly belong to the kingdom of God. Bodhi, you now get to know that Jesus loves you; that Jesus died for you; and that you will never be alone. And we, together, as the body of Christ in this world, get to live lives that show how God’s inclusive invitation is rooted in an excessive amount of love – a love that actually makes a difference in the here and now. 

Amen.

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Philippians 2:1-13

My sermon from the 17th Sunday after Pentecost (September 27, 2020) on Philippians 2:1-13.

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One of the things that we, as followers of Jesus Christ, should be thankful for is – conflict. And I know that’s a weird thing to say especially during worship. As we gather together as Christ’s body in the world, what we’re doing right now isn’t supposed to be filled with conflict. Instead, we’re yearning to experience peace, love, and hope in the place where Jesus promises to be. That doesn’t mean we won’t find Jesus’ words convicting as they reveal the truth about ourselves and about our world. But we also want this moment to be a refuge from all the other conflicts around us. Our time together – either online, over the phone, or in-person, is – in some ways – an opportunity for us to step away from the world and spend a few moments sitting in the love of Jesus. But the oddball thing about conflict is that it sort of lingers with us – wherever we go. It sort of lives rent free in our heads – and even when we’re spending time with God, it can pop up and we’re suddenly spending worship reliving the entire experience. Conflict happens because people happen. And when we have relationships with other people, we’re not always going to see everything eye-to-eye. We might do our best to avoid conflict but without it – without people struggling over what it means to do this following Jesus thing together – our Bible would be a lot thinner. And one of the things we wouldn’t have in a conflict free world is today’s letter from Paul that he sent to the Christian community in the city of Philippi. 

Now Philippi was an old city, founded by the father of Alexander the Great in what is now Northern Greece. In Paul’s day, the city was very Roman – populated by the descendants of Roman soldiers who were settled there after an earlier war. The city was an important hub for the flow of soldiers, goods, and resources from one of the empire to the other. And that constant flow of things into and out of the city made Philippi into a place that was constantly changing and probably used to conflict. Every new idea, belief, technology, or point of view that entered the city probably led to arguments, distrust, disagreements, and struggle. If you lived in that city, you might have woken up every day wondering what new thing was going to show up and annoy you. But that movement of stuff, of unknown people and ideas and things – of all that otherness – into the city also created an opportunity for new things to be built. And so Paul went to the city and built a Christian community that grew even after he left. As was Paul’s custom, he and that community probably wrote to each other often. During an exchange of letters and information, Paul found out that a conflict was brewing in the  church. Now, we don’t know what that conflict was all about but it did center around two women – who were obviously leaders in that community. They were , for some reason, in disagreement and my hunch is that it was about what it meant to follow Jesus. I imagine that the conflict was serious enough that members of that community began to choose sides and someone might have asked Paul which side was right. Now, Paul usually had no problem picking a side in any conflict. But what was unusual in this letter isn’t he chose not to. Instead of focusing on the substance of their disagreement, Paul spent time wondering what it’s like for followers of Jesus to live faithfully together while experiencing conflict. He knew quite well that we are called to be in unity with one another. But he also believed – as we read today – that unity doesn’t mean we’re all supposed to be the same. 

If we had to name a united community, an easy example might be the fandom of any sports team. Most fans root for their team every day, wear their colors on game day, know when they win and lose, and are experts at coaching their teams even while sitting hundreds of miles away in their living rooms. In the pre-pandemic era, fans sat in stadiums wearing team jerseys that swallowed up their individuality while giving them the identity of the group. Together, that united community is filled with the experience of watching their teams win, and lose – and lose some more. And when it comes to fandom, that image of uniformity is a good symbol of what it means to be united together. But when we take that vision of a united community and push it into all the other places where communities are formed – that’s when trouble begins. We start to assume that being united looks like everyone wearing the same kind of team jersey. That jersey is never well fitting because it’s not designed to highlight what makes us different. Instead, it sort of covers us up – and ends up limiting who we’re allowed to be. The value and experiences of that community begin to look a little self-centered and there ends up being a push for everything to sort of be the same. When something different finally shows up, we get really possessive over what we think our community is all about. We create and perpetuate conflict while blaming others unless they become exactly who we want them to be. And in that process, we make unity into uniformity – and we become the default of what we want everyone else to become. 

And that’s why, I think, Paul chose to push back on our idea of unity. If we only read chapter 2, verses 1 and 2, our making of unity into uniformity might be what the Christian community is all about. But, the truth is, that Paul kept writing – and there’s also verses 3, 4, and ancient Christian hymn starting at verse 6. Being of the same mind, sharing in the same love and spirit, and being in full accord – cannot be limited to uniformity because Paul used the others verses to immediately look for what’s different. He asked the followers of Jesus to do a ridiculously hard thing – one that’s even harder when done during a conflict. We’re asked to regard the other as better than ourselves and to not look to our own interests, but instead to the interests of others. So imagine trying to do that right now. Think about every conflict you’re currently living through and all the people you are in conflict with. What would it take for you to follow Paul’s comments? How could you see them as better than yourself and to look out for their own interests too? And once you chew on that for a while, let’s add even more to the mix. Think about all the people you avoid, put down, insult, and refuse to listen to. What would it take to assume the best about them – and to raise up their interests in everything that you do? 

I’ll admit that’s really hard because it requires us to realize that in the words of Ekaputra Tupamahu, Christians are supposed to live in a way that “mak[es].. space for others.” It’s often easier to focus only on our own teams because making space for others opens us to the possibility that we’ll change. When otherness moves into our neighborhood and into our lives, we discover different ways of looking at the world and learn stories that might be more honest than the one we tell ourselves. We learn about how we, whether purposefully or not, have harmed the people around us. And we feel compelled to accept that we might have been wrong – and that we’re not as amazing as we imagined ourselves to be. When we make space for others, we turn away from keeping ourselves at the center of the universe – and we begin the process of repentance – of turning towards God so that we can be exactly who God made us to be. Being open to change is one of the hardest things we are asked to do. But we get to do that work because Jesus has already built that foundation in our lives. In our baptism and in our faith, Jesus has already opened us to be more like him – to empty ourselves of our fears, ignorance, and our need to always be right – and instead to lean into who we already are – beloved children of God who are part of the world God made. You are already connected to a community full of others and they don’t look like you, speak like you, or even root for the same sports teams as you. Yet we are connected because we are rooted in a God who chose to connect us. And so – we are left with a choice: Do we choose to pick sides where we are our communities of uniformity seek only their own interests or do we stay connected, seeing how we all are worth everything to God and that we can raise each other up as we figure out how to faithfully follow our Savior and Lord – together? 

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.