Category: Sermons

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household. If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight. They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs. You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the passover of the Lord. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human beings and animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.

Exodus 12:1-14

My sermon from the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost (September 10, 2023) on Exodus 12:1-14.

A couple of weeks ago, after I put my kids to bed, I took a seat in my gray easy chair, opened up my laptop, and got ready to learn about Bloodborne Pathogens. The Fall sports season was about to begin and my town’s rec leagues, like every other volunteer based organizations, needed a little help. I know that most of us are too busy, too stretched, and too tired to do all the things that need to be done. And while we do our best to set our priorities, it doesn’t take much for everything to fall apart. It’s tricky to know how, and in what way, we can contribute in the communities we are called to live in. But I figured taking a few required training courses, including one about blood, is how I can contribute on the Cross Country field this year. And I noticed, while reflecting on our first reading from the book of Exodus, how contributing and participating in the community is within God’s words about a sacred meal.

Now a lot has happened since last week when we heard about Moses meeting God on a mountain top. After fleeing the land of Egypt after spilling the blood of an Egyptian who had brutalized an enslaved Israelite, Moses built a new life for himself in the land of Midian. He married into the family of a local religious leader, started a family, and took on the task of managing his father-in-law’s sheep. One day, nearly a generation after he left Egypt, he led the sheep to the base of Mt. Sinai. While there, his curiosity drew him to notice a burning bush that didn’t burn up. God, who was in the bush, told Moses it was time for him to return to Egypt and let Moses’ kin know God had heard their cries. The attempt by the Egyptians to distort their own history and exploit the lives of others was coming to an end. Moses went back to Egypt, bringing a word of promise to the Israelites and a word of warning to the Pharaoh. But the Pharaoh refused to listen so God created the first plague, transforming the water in the Nile River to blood. That, though, merely made the Pharaoh more stubborn so God sent 9 more plagues into the land. In quick succession, frogs, gnats, and flies covered the land. All the livestock was struck by a deadly disease and boils appeared on everyone’s skin. A massive storm pummeled every city while locusts devoured every green thing to its root. God then covered the land with a deep darkness that, on-top of everything else, should have convinced the Pharaoh to simply give up. Yet the king of the Egyptians refused to be moved so God promised that a final plague was on its way. Every one of the plagues was, in its own way, a response to what the Isrealites had experienced. The Pharaoh had used them to build the Egyptians economy so God took all of that away. The last plague, though, would mimic the original command that caused Moses to be placed floating in a basket after he was born. The Egyptians used violence and death as a way to tear apart the Israelite’s community. God in response, was going to do the same to them. Now we’d expect after all this excitement and tension and drama within the story, that the words immediately following God’s promise would show exactly what God was doing to do. But before the one final plagues comes, everything is interrupted by God’s description of a meal.

The meal, appearing at this moment in the story, feels a bit out of place since it doesn’t feel big enough to commemorate what’s about to take place. The food God told them to eat is pretty simple and everyone must dress as if they’re about to rush out the front door. The main course, the lamb or goat, is singled out for a ritual where its blood is brushed onto the outside of the door frame so that anyone coming by would notice who is gathered there. The blood acts as a kind of marker even though I’d expect the creator of the universe to know who’s already inside the home. Up to this point in the story, none of the plagues required the Israelites to do anything to make them happen. Yet here, before this climactic moment, God gives the community something to do. It’s almost, I think, as if God told the people that in the midst of everything – they could still contribute something to their world too. Much of what the Pharaoh and Egyptians had tried to do was to isolate, oppress, and diminish who the Isrealites got to be. And so, in response, God gave them a meal which could show who they would be instead. The meal, like all meals, begins with the people around the table. God wanted these tablemates to be connected but still diverse, welcoming, and suppurative. Their connection to each other invited them into the difficult work of truly knowing who their neighbors were. And, in that process, being very honest about their own abundance or lack there-of. Everyone had a place at the table and God wanted them to participate in making it happen. And it’s only after the table is set when food is finally served. The meal is simple yet points to the complexities and variety of life. The blood on the door mimics the blood in our bodies, an animating force that doesn’t serve as some kind of insurance against the wrath that’s about to come. It is, instead, a proclamation that the community gathered around God’s table will be defined, shaped, and rooted in something other than all the blood the Pharaoh tried to spill. They will have a future, a new life, shaped, formed, and nurtured by the One who had already claimed them as God’s own.

And one way this shaping takes place is through a meal. It’s there where God’s passover took shape, showing what life with God might look like. It’s around a table where God passed over and upended the contributions we make to the world that take life rather than animates it. It’s while wearing garments rooted in our complicated story where God passed over our attempts to forget or distort our history by choosing to highlight a few privileged voices at the expense of others. It’s over a few simple foods where God passed over our lack of curiosity to invite us deeper into God’s vision for our world. And it’s through God’s ongoing work that our love of power, control, and violence was passed over for something more. As Christians, engaging with the story of Passover isn’t easy since it’s not as foundational to our own story as it is to our Jewish friends and neighbors. Yet within our faith is another powerful simple meal that shapes us too. In that meal, the promises declared to us in baptism and faith are lived out in the ways we love and mutually support one another. In the meal of Holy Communion, we discover who God knows we can be. God’s vision and Jesus’ presence among us is what, as disciples, animates what we say, think, and do. And when we eat around the Lord’s table, we become something more too. It’s these sacred meals that show us who we can be and how, through simple acts, we can contribute to the vision God is making real all around us. And while that’s often hard to see, it’s through our honesty, empathy, and doing what we can to prioritize God’s way rather than our own, that we discover how different things can be.

Amen.

My sermon from the 5th Sunday after Pentecost Sunday (July 9, 2023) on Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30.

During the first three years after I was ordained, I spent a few days in January at a conference for newly ordained clergy. Bishops, pastors, and deacons from all over the northeast gathered together for prayer, worship, and to participate in a bunch of workshops. The one I remember the most was led by a former bishop of the New England synod, Rev. Margaret Payne. The workshop took place in a small lecture hall where everyone sat in a large circle. I don’t recall the official name of that workshop but our topic was money. She began the conversation by introducing herself and giving a shoutout to everyone from New Jersey since she began her ministry in Princeton Junction. Once that was all done, she asked the entire class a question: if we looked at everything Jesus said, what thing or topic or idea did he emphasize and focus on the most? Now I think that’s a pretty good question because what we emphasize in the name of our faith doesn’t always match up with what Jesus said or did. We have a lot to say about our traditions, our values, and the roles we expect people to play. The details about what we say changes but the fact that we do this has been a part of the church since Jesus rose from the dead. We do this, I think, because living isn’t easy. We are created beings living in a created world and our lives are often complicated and full of different kinds of people, experiences, joys, and sorrows. We know that Jesus has a lot of say about what it means to live as God’s beloved children in a world that God loves. And yet what Jesus emphasized during his earthly ministry doesn’t necessarily match the ministry we emphasize in his name. I, and everyone else in that room, already had an answer ready to go when Bishop Payne asked the question. When it comes to that one thing in our everyday life that Jesus talked about the most, the answer is always money. Jesus knew that the easiest way to discover the idols, morals, and values at the heart of a person, a community, or a nation was to simply look at their budgets. Everyone in the room said, in unison, that money was the physical and tangible thing Jesus talked about the most. Yet Bishop Payne pushed us to not forget all those things Jesus talked about that feel a bit spiritual, mystical, and even abstract to us. When it comes to Jesus’ earthly ministry, there’s only one thing that Jesus talked about more than money: and that thing is the kingdom of God. 

Now I think we treat the kingdom of God as a primarily spiritual thing because in Matthew’s gospel, he named it as the kingdom of heaven. Living in this world is complicated enough so we let heavenly things remain in whatever comes next. Yet I’m not sure if deemphasizing the kingdom of God in the here and now is necessarily what Jesus wants us to do. Much of his ministry was devoted to the proclamation that in him, and through him, and because of him – God’s kingdom was near. He, through his words and actions, embodied what the kingdom of God is all about. He didn’t let God’s love remain as an abstract thing; instead, he taught and he prayed and he reconciled people’s relationships to themselves, their God, and their neighbors. He didn’t tell those who followed him to primarily devote themselves to the life that comes after this one. Jesus, rather, lived his life so that we could see what our lives could be too. And a big part of his own life was a promise that those who are weary and those who are carrying burdens – that they, in him, could find rest. 

Now that promise from Jesus is one of the most comforting things Jesus ever said. It’s also, I think, one of the hardest to believe because our burdens are still here. If we named all the stuff that feels like a burden right now, I wouldn’t be surprised if we ended up feeling a bit guilty or ashamed by what we consider a burden. Some of what we carry feels pretty normal – like the burden of having a terrible boss, or struggling to find the right kind of work/life balance, or even dealing with the pile of laundry that never seems to be put away. Yet there are other burdens that are a bit different and way harder to swallow. We might, for example, be a caregiver, who is completely overwhelmed by the care we are required to share. And it’s a heavy burden to watch a loved one fade while knowing there’s nothing we can do about it. There’s the burden of carrying a pain we know we can never forgive. And there’s the burden of being unable through circumstances, situations, or maybe a few bad choices to provide for those around us. There’s also the burden of fear and sorrow, of grief and pain, and knowing all the ways we’ve failed to be the people God has called us to be. And while we’re busy naming all our burdens, Jesus, in his own ways, seems to be adding to them since loving God and your neighbors is never easy. Jesus, with his words today, doesn’t promise that our burdens go away. But he does, I think, promise that they don’t have to become the emphasis for what our lives are all about. Instead, there’s something more to who we are and who we get to be – because being the body of Christ means that the kingdom of God is already here. 

Eugene Peterson, who authored the paraphrase of the Bible known as “The Message,” heard in Jesus’ words the following: “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” When we keep company with Jesus, we participate in the kingdom of God. Instead of focusing on what we think Jesus would say in this moment, we’re first invited to spend more time with Jesus himself. We do this through prayer, worship, by eating at His table, and paying attention to his story as it unfolds. And when we do this, we notice how Jesus chose to take on all the burdens of being human. He chose to be a caregiver and a friend who had the guts to love the loveless and to see people as more than whatever they were living through. He chose, over and over again, for his life, his death, his resurrection, and his ascension – to be FOR you and for the world. It was his way to emphasize our humanity so that we can choose to emphasize the fullness of God’s story too. When we act as if our story is the only story that a person could have, we end up increasing their burdens rather than realizing how all our burdens, in Christ, are never ours alone. Jesus took on the things that weigh us down because our burdens or what feels like burdens or even our guilt at admitting what is draining our heart and our soul is not the total of who we are. Instead, we get to emphasize a new story, a different story, a kingdom of God kind of story that promises that today isn’t the limit to who we are. Rather, because Jesus took on our burdens, we – as the body of Christ in this world – get to take on each other’s burdens too. And when we do that, we are doing more than imagining what Jesus might say to the moment we’re living in. We are, instead, living as if God’s kingdom is truly near. 

Amen.

My sermon from the 4th Sunday after Pentecost Sunday (June 25, 2023) on Matthew 10:24-39.

20 years ago or so, a team of psychologists and researchers from the University of California – San Diego photographed 45 dogs and their owners. Every person and their dog were photographed separately and then together and then, to mix things up, each person was photographed with a dog they met for the very first time. Once these pictures were taken, another group of people tried to look at the pictures and figure out which dog went with which person. As someone who personally spends way too much time laughing at pet videos on the internet, this project is right up my alley. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the people around us have noticed how we and the fuzzy or not-so-fuzzy friends in our life simply go together. The folks from UC – San Diego were trying to discover if there’s something behind the phenomena of pets who look like their humans. So after carefully examining every photograph, folks picked which person went with which dog. Once that data was collected, it was analyzed and the team noticed that mutts – dogs who are made up of more than one breed – were difficult to match with their own. But those who looked at these pet photos had no problem matching purebred dogs with their people. These results suggested that when people pick a dog, some seek out those animals who resemble who they already are. And I wonder if, based on our reading today from the gospel according to Matthew, if Jesus chose us because he trusted we could resemble him too. 

Now I don’t want to stretch this analogy too far, implying that we, somehow, are Jesus’ pets. Yet this reading does help unpack what it means to follow him. It’s a continuation of what we listened to last week. Jesus, after being the primary teacher, healer, and manifestation of the kingdom of God come near, decided it was time to give that mission to others. He gathered together a group of imperfect people to cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, and cast out demons. In other words, these tax collectors, fishermen, young adults, the faithful, the doubters, the betrayers, and those who would leave him hanging on the Cross – they were called to be like Jesus. These disciples would be sent out to form honest, authentic, and life-giving relationships with new people while relying on the hospitality of strangers. Rather than letting their own assumptions limit what love would do, these apostles would let other people reveal the compassion, mercy, and peace they needed. That kind of work isn’t easy to do since it asks followers of Jesus to be vulnerable. It requires them to admit the hard truth that maybe they haven’t been who they’re supposed to be. Making people whole while pointing to the One who brought God’s presence near will always upend the status quo. Now last week’s reading seemed to focus on the practical aspects of what that upending might look like. But today’s words feel way more intense because when we live like Jesus, we sometimes experience all the joy and all the sorrow he experienced too. 

Now I’m sure there are parts of Jesus’ life we wouldn’t mind living out. The power, with a few words or a gentle touch, to physically heal those around us is something I wish I had.  It would be awesome to not only have that power but also Jesus’ ability to deeply listen to his friends, family, and even strangers. Some of us might even get a kick traveling the countryside with a dozen close friends with most of our basic needs already taken care of. Making God’s love visible among those who are often denied that life and love in the first place, would bring so much purpose to our lives. But when the kingdom of God comes near, everything else responds. Conflict comes. And while many try to use such conflict to justify their own love of self, power, and control, it’s important to pay attention to Jesus’ own description of what that conflict looks like. Those who follow him will not find themselves in some kind of culture war that values a limited vision of family, tradition, and the past. Jesus described something deeper that upends the very foundations of who we are. He points to a kind of generational conflict, believing that the young – especially young adults – would grasp what his good news is all about while their parents and in-laws remained rooted in what they always knew. The presence of Jesus pushes people away from what they imagined themselves to be and into God’s vision of who they’re meant to be. It’s why he described his own ministry in an un-Jesus like way, pointing to the power of the sword as a symbol for how God’s love changes the world. Not only will the presence of the apostles change other people’s lives, Jesus reminds them that their own lives will be changed too. When we trust that God’s promises are real and that God’s love actually matters and that Jesus is who he says he is – nothing remains the same. The kingdom of God upends all the kingdoms that make us who we are so that we can be redefined by whose we are instead. 

We often expect that being made whole implies our lives are simply a puzzle that’s missing only a couple of pieces. We assume we’ve already prepared the outline of who we’re supposed to be. It’s a bit harder, I think, to wonder if the carefully constructed outline of ourselves might actually be the thing that will come crashing down. Jesus, through his own life and ministry, knew what it was like when God’s kingdom comes near. Yet he refused to let the intensity of this ongoing conflict not be matched by a promise that will never end. Even when God’s peace feels so far away, every hair on your head has been counted and your life is held in God’s hands. And it’s because God loved us first that we’re able to live as if faith actually matters. The call into this way of life isn’t easy because we need the wholeness Jesus brings too. Before we are perfect, Jesus calls us to love. We are to bring healing to others while needing that healing ourselves. We are to work for peace even when anything but peace makes up the bulk of our lives. We are to offer comfort while being uncomfortable and refuse to let the status quo become a stand-in for the kingdom of God. We are to be like Jesus because Jesus has claimed us as his own. If someone managed to snap a picture of Jesus and then a picture of us, they should see the body of Christ we are already a part of. Our faith would be seen in a life that, while imperfected and wounded, can’t help proclaim that God’s future is on its way. The call to embody this way of life is costly since it invites us to make something other than ourselves, our relationships, and our families, the center of who we are. But when we let God be God and we let ourselves be the body of Christ we already are, that’s when people discover how – in us and through us – God’s love can be found.

Amen.

My sermon from the 3rd Sunday after Pentecost Sunday (June 18, 2023) on Matthew 9:35—10:23.

If you were putting together a group of people to make God’s love real on earth, who would be on that team? If it’s helpful, imagine we’re God’s version of the Marvel comicbook hero Nick Fury and we’ve been tasked with putting together a divine version of the Avengers. I, personally, wouldn’t call this new group the Avengers since God’s work is a lot bigger than simply avenging. But if we were putting together a holy team of real human beings, I wonder who we’d pick to be a part of it. I imagine we’d want folks who have a real connection with the God who is capable of casting out the demons that tear us apart. Yet they’d also know what it’s like to be in the presence of the God who bursts into tears when they do. They would be the faithful few who have graduated from the doubt and faithlessness we feel by truly believing God is here. 

In today’s reading from the gospel according to Matthew, we discovered what Jesus did after he finally assembled his version of a super-team we know as the Apostles. Jesus was, for quite awhile, the primary teacher, healer, and manifestation of the kingdom of God coming near. And after looking around and noticing the need that was all around him, Jesus officially invited others into this same kind of work too. The group he pulled together was to show what His community was going to be about. Yet when we closely examine the people who Jesus called to follow him, I’m not sure if we would have done the same thing. Jesus, who literally had a star hover over the place where he was born, brought people together who were not the stars of their own lives. He invited fishermen, tax collectors, the faithful, the doubters, and even the one who would betray him to become the people who would bring healing and wholeness to others. That honestly feels a bit too much since they, like us, are often the ones who need that healing too. Those who follow Jesus and who live in this world often need a refuge from it – a place or an experience where, for a moment, our pain and suffering is no more. We long to know we are loved, valued, and living a life that actually matters. And so that’s why we, and these apostles I think, come to Jesus – to grab hold of God’s grace so that we, in some way, might graduate from this basic life into something more. We want to be on our way into something new. And yet before the heavenly diploma comes, Jesus sends those who follow him out –  to show others what the kingdom of God is all about. 

That, I think, is one of the things that makes the life of a disciple hard. Within this identity we all share, we’re each given a lot of responsibilities. On one level, we’re called to return to Jesus over and over again. When we feel as if we’re not worthy of God’s love or when we feel as if we’re already good enough, that’s a sign we need to pause and sit at Jesus’ feet. We, by integrating Jesus’ story into our own story through the intentional practice of prayer, worship, Bible reading, service, and spending time with all of God’s people – we lean into the part of discipleship that makes us into students of God’s love. This is a type of education that does not end because it helps us become aware of what Jesus is leading us to. We are asked, as students, to also lean into the part of discipleship that’s all about following Jesus. Because when we follow Jesus, we end up in the places where God’s work of love, reconciliation, hope, and mercy can be found. A disciple seeks refuge in Jesus; is taught by Jesus; and goes wherever Jesus goes. And yet members of this super-team have one additional responsibility too. Jesus sends them out so that others can discover for themselves what it’s like for the kingdom of God to come near. 

Now the word “Apostles” is more than a title for the super team Jesus put together. The word really means: “one who is sent off.” An apostle is an emissary, a messenger, and an ambassador – and this term was used in our Bible for other people beyond who were named in our reading today. When we follow Jesus, we are sent out by Jesus to be like Jesus wherever God calls us to be. That language of sending and being sent might bring to our own minds a superteam full of missionaries, pastors, chaplains, nurses, doctors, non-profit workers, and all those who excite our spiritual imagination by giving hope to those who are often left behind. Yet that image in our head usually doesn’t include us since we think that work is supposed to be done by someone else. Matthew, though, didn’t believe that these words from Jesus’ words were only meant for the twelve. He included this entire scene so that those we’d never pick for our faithful super-team heard these words too. The original twelve Apostles was a group full of folks who challenged Jesus, questioned Jesus, talked back to Jesus, and fled from Jesus at the time of his greatest need. And they were the ones Jesus sent out to build new relationships with people they didn’t fully know. Their task was to do the hard work of making wholeness a reality for others by not assuming they already knew the pain and suffering they were going through. By relying on the hospitality of others, they were immediately brought inside so they could listen and witness the lives people actually lived. Those who were sent by Jesus could then participate in God’s work of breaking through what keeps all of us separated from a life full of hope and love. It’s a way of being in the world that keeps us connected to God and each other by admitting how vulnerable we all are. And it’s through this work we create places filled with a divine peace that extends beyond simply the comfort level of a select few. Being a disciple isn’t easy because being vulnerable, asking for help, and admitting the ways we do not love like God loves is a truth we aren’t always ready to bear. Yet this work – of being one of the ways God’s kingdom comes near in the lives of others – isn’t work we do alone because we can’t be sent to something unless we were already part of something first. 

And what we’re part of is Jesus himself. Through the gift of faith and the power of baptism, you are already part of this body of Christ. The team Jesus put together to make God’s love real in the lives of others includes more than just other people; it includes you too. You, as you are, are necessary for what God is up to in the world. Now there are times when this feels right – especially when our life is moving forward and we’re graduating from one thing to pursue another. But as our situations change, as our lives ebb and flow, and during those times when our moving forward feels like we’re, instead, going backwards – we can’t possibly imagine Jesus’ team truly includes us. Yet Jesus, as we see in today’s story, has a habit of not letting individuals get in the way of where God wants them to be. Jesus calls those who make mistakes, those who have doubts, and those are fuzzy in their faith – to be the ones who cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, and cast out demons. It’s Jesus who sends those who struggle to see the image of God in their neighbors to be the ones who share how God’s love is real. It’s Jesus who, over and over again, calls imperfect people to reflect His perfect love into the world. It seems pretty improbable that among the faithful people we look up to, Jesus would make us part of that team too. But you were made for this kind of Holy work because the love of God in you is meant for God’s world too. 

Amen.

My sermon from the 2nd Sunday after Pentecost (June 11, 2023) on Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26.

If the space-time continuum broke at 3 pm and you had an extra three hours to do whatever you wanted until it was fixed, what would you do? That isn’t a lot of time but it’s enough to let us make a choice. We could, depending on how the rest of this morning goes, choose to take a guilt free nap but there could also be several movies or tv shows we’ve been meaning to binge. We might finally go on that hike we’ve been planning to take once the weather turned nice. Or we could pick-up one of the eighty or so books in our current “to-read” pile. A few free hours would be perfect for some guilt-free “me time” or, better yet, to crush my kids in several rounds of the board game Sorry. Yet you also might be a bit like me and get excited about how productive those three free hours could be. I, for example, could finish putting mulch around my yard or clean out the garage or and answer those dozens of emails currently haunting my dreams. It would be so easy to knock a few things off our never ending to-do list since that extra time would enable us to make a choice outside the busyness of everyday life. 

Now today’s reading from the gospel according to Matthew isn’t very long but it is full. It begins with a call story and moves into a healing and a resurrection that I wish all of us experienced way more often. Matthew, while busy living his life, was met by a Jesus who simply said “follow me.” This story feels pretty similar to the other call stories in this gospel. Way back in chapter four, Jesus met Peter, Andrew, James, and John while they were busy fishing along the sea of Galilee. After sharing only a few words, all four left their nets and boats to follow the One who had just begun to proclaim that the kingdom of God was near. It’s in that same general area where Jesus finds Matthew sitting in a tax booth. Matthew’s job, most likely, was to collect taxes based on how many fish people caught. Much of the fishing done in the ancient world along the Sea of Galilee took place at night and so when dawn broke, a long line of people would have been waiting for Matthew to go through what they caught. They hoped Matthew would go through the line quickly so that their fresh fish could make it to the market on time. By the time Jesus noticed the tax booth, Matthew was already sitting down. It’s possible he was doing that because the busy part of his day was already over. But there’s also a chance he was sitting down because he could. Tax collecting in the ancient world was a little complicated since governments, even as powerful as the Roman Empire, didn’t have the people or the infrastructure to physically collect all the taxes they needed. That kind of work was contracted out to individuals, businesses, and organizations that were basically street gangs. These groups were empowered by the Roman Empire to collect more than what the Empire asked for as payment for their services. And they were allowed to use violence, intimidation, and force to get what the ruling authorities wanted. Tax collectors, then, weren’t the most beloved members of their community since it looked like they chose a way of being in the world that was beyond redemption. Yet not every person collecting taxes could choose the life they lived. Some, through poor choices, bad luck, and awful circumstances, ended up doing that work just to make ends meet. Others, though, had no say in the matter since they were enslaved. No one liked tax collectors yet the story of every individual who collected taxes was complicated and complex. We have no idea why Matthew became a tax collector and the choices that led to him sitting in that booth on that day. But we do know that while living through the busyness of his complicated and imperfect life, Jesus showed up. 

Now I’m not sure what Matthew would do if he, on the day he met Jesus, had a few extra hours in the afternoon. Maybe, in a burst of productivity, he’d make sure everyone in line got their catch to the market on time. Maybe those few free hours would let him feel free in a way he never could be. Or maybe he’d have chosen to simply sit and wait – using the little bits of power he had to feel more important than those around him. I don’t know what Matthew would have chosen if he was given some extra time but I notice how everything changed once Jesus chose him. The text doesn’t tell us why Jesus called Matthew to be his disciple. We get no story that might prove, to us, the validity in the choice Jesus made. The two stories that follow – of a woman and religious leader who in the midst of their pain, grief, and sorrow, come to Jesus seems to be a little bit of what the life of discipleship is supposed to be about. And when Jesus talked to Matthew, Matthew didn’t do what we’d expect him to do: he made no declaration of faith; didn’t fall at Jesus’ feet; nor did he even ask Jesus a few questions of what following him might mean. Instead, in the middle of Matthew’s complicated and busy life, Jesus said “follow me.” And that’s exactly what Matthew did. 

Rev. Cleophus J. LaRue, in a commentary on this passage, recently wrote: “God never calls us to something, without first calling us away from something…You can never get to the next thing that God has for you until, in an act of simple obedience, you let go of where you are and follow after him…. [this call] is action-oriented, for it requires us to live now as if the rule and reign of God had come upon us in its fullness. It requires us to live now as if the lion and the lamb were already lying down together. To live now as if adversaries had already beat[en] their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. To live now as if justice had already begun to roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” Matthew, while busy living his life, needed Jesus to choose him first before he could get a glimpse of what his life might be. This choice wasn’t rooted in the worthiness of Matthew’s past but in the love God already had for him. And like Matthew, you in your baptism, in your faith, and in who you are right now – you are chosen too. You’ve been called into a way of life that trusts the kingdom God is near. It’s a way of being in the world that comes to Jesus when we have nothing left and brings us into places where sorrow and death have made their presence known. It’s a point of view that doesn’t lean into a purity test that lets us decide who Jesus called to follow him. And it’s a life that knows how difficult it is to see what Jesus did 2000 years ago and wonder why our own lives haven’t been touched in the same way. You have been chosen for a life that isn’t easy but one that trusts that there is always more: because Jesus comes to you not in the place where you want to be but chooses to lead you into God’s hope, wholeness, and love. 

Amen.

My sermon from the 7th Sunday of Easter (May 21, 2023) on Acts 1:6-14.

Twice a year, I work with another parent to make the Scholastic Book Fair come to life at my kids’ elementary school. It’s a fun three day event where kids and their caregivers argue about which books, pens, journals, bookmarks, erasers, and posters they’re going to bring home. The book fair raises thousands of dollars that are used to fund additional learning programs for every kid in the school. And we work hard so that every kid, regardless of economic background, can walk away with a new book or two. The fair is extremely fun but can be a bit stressful especially when the cash registers attached to the fair don’t work. During the height of the after school rush, the scanner attached to a register refused to work and so I spent what felt like hours entering 13 digit ISBN codes by hand. Once we worked through the line that, at one point, stretched across the entire elementary school gym, I…needed a break. I handed the machine off to another volunteer and joined a group of volunteers reshelving and adjusting a bunch of books. All of us had kids around the same age and so it didn’t take long for our conversation to focus on being a parent. We initially kept it pretty light, sharing all kinds of funny stories. But it didn’t take long for a different kind of story to emerge. On the surface, what we shared was what life was like for these kids. Yet when you listened a bit more closely, what we were really talking about was ourselves. We named our own worries and fears, wondering if we had the capacity to be the patient, loving, caring, and non-judgemental people these kids needed us to be. We, in whispers that no one else could hear, wondered what the future might bring. As we talked, we admitted that, for many of us, it felt like we were simply going through all this stuff on our own. What we needed – and what our stories seemed to be searching for – was the hope we weren’t alone. 

Our first reading today from the book of Acts takes place 40 days after Easter. Jesus had died but was now making his presence known to all of his disciples. He took the time to meet up with Peter, break bread with two disciples who fled towards the village of Emmaus, and then joined everyone for a dinner of broiled fish. Luke, who wrote the gospel according to Luke as well as the book of Acts, wove these individual events tightly together. They pile up, one on top of the other, to make us feel as if Jesus was meeting everyone all at once. For forty days, Jesus hung out with his friends in the city of Jerusalem. He ate with them, prayed with them, and even blessed them. Their time together included a bit of Bible Study that let the disciples ask all kinds of questions. I like to imagine that they, while in the presence of the resurrected Jesus, shared their joys, their doubts, and even their hopes for the future. Day in and day out, the disciples saw the risen Lord face-to-face and they probably assumed that this new habit was going to continue. But Jesus, on the 40th day, did something a bit different. He led them to a place outside the city, roughly two miles away near the village of Bethany. Once there, they walked up a nearby mountain known locally as the mount of Olives or Olivet. As they neared the top, their gaze took in the entire valley including the city of Jerusalem itself. They probably felt as if they were on top of the world and so one disciple decided that was the perfect time to ask Jesus a question. 

Now, if we were given the chance to talk to Jesus face to face, I’m not sure if we would ask the same question. But if we pay attention to where they were, that question makes a lot more sense. They had returned to the spot where, just a few weeks before, Jesus had mounted a donkey to ride into the city below. After sending his disciples to find him an animal to ride, Jesus rode into the city of Jerusalem as if he was already its king. They were standing in the exact place where Jesus had, for just a moment, embodied everything they hoped he would be. The disciples believed that the Messiah would change their world by re-establishing a political kingdom that would push the Romans into the sea. Everything that Mary sang about way back in chapter 1 – with the mighty being casted down and the poor raised up – was, they thought, finally coming true. The Romans, in response, tried to end Jesus’ story and yet here they were, just weeks later, ready for Jesus to ride that donkey once more. The Romans believed they were destined to rule the world so now seemed like the perfect time for them to meet a Risen Lord with the power to make everything right. The disciples were ready for Jesus to be the Jesus they always expected him to be. But he didn’t send the disciples to find another donkey for him to ride. Jesus didn’t deputize his friends as soldiers to engage in some kind of holy fight. Jesus didn’t embrace the symbols of power and might that we seek out every single day of our life. Instead, he ascended so that those who followed him could do a more difficult thing of simply living. Jesus, with only a few words, gave his disciples a commission to bear witness to what God was already up to in the world. They were hoping that Jesus would create an earthly power where they could finally meet and experience the fullness of their God. Yet Jesus reminded them that God’s kingdom had already come and that it would continue to unfold through them. Jesus didn’t promise his followers fame or privilege. He didn’t claim that Christians were entitled to a kind of power that placed them on top of anyone else. And instead of seeking the kind of wealth that would bring them a certain level of comfort, Jesus sends his followers to the ends of the earth because God’s kingdom is always bigger than our own. It’s in the sending that we discover a promise of what our life gets to be about. We live because God knows we have a future wrapped up in the One who has already claimed us as his own. 

This future, though, isn’t something we have to wait for because God, through the Spirit, shows we’re not alone. Jesus didn’t ascend because he was trying to escape the world. Rather, he took the particularities of his entire life and brought it into every aspect of the divine. God did more than simply create the world; God chose, in Jesus, to live in it. Jesus lived a complete human life – including moments when it felt as if he was alone. He lived through the experience of being abandoned and casted aside by those who believed there was no future for him. So Jesus, in response, chose to send us the Spirit – this energizing force that manifests the presence of God in our lives so that you, unlike him, will never be alone. In those moments when it feels like everyone else has it all figured out and we are, somehow, hidden in whispers we don’t want anyone else to hear – God’s Spirit comes to show that you are loved, you are valued, and that your life has a future because through baptism, in faith, and because of Jesus Christ – your eternal life has already begun. 

Amen.

My sermon from the 6th Sunday of Easter (May 14, 2023) on Acts 17:22-31.

Areopagus is a word that literally means “Mars Hill” and it was a physical place where court cases in Ancient Athens were heard and decided. But by the time Paul arrived in the city, it had become the name of the city’s governing authorities. Athens had long lost its status as a major political power but it was a place that valued education and learning. Paul, after being chased out of the city of Thessalonica, took refuge in Athens and told his friends to meet him there. He planned to keep a low profile but he soon fell into his old habit of visiting the local synagogue and the nearby marketplace to tell anyone who listened about the Jesus who lived, died, and rose again in a land across the sea. Some who heard Paul dismissed everything he said but a few gentiles – non-Jews – wanted to learn more. They brought him before the Areopagite Council who were more than simply the leaders within the city. They also represented the intellectual curiosity at the heart of Athenian identity. Paul, I think, knew what this kind of curiosity looked like since he, as a Pharisee, read, preached, studied, and just dug deep into God’s word. Those who brought Paul before the council probably recognized his curious spirit and so they asked Paul to flesh out the message he had been sharing. Paul, then, did exactly what they wanted him to do but chose to not share the name of Jesus at all. 

Now that feels a bit weird since Jesus was the reason why Paul was in Athens in the first place. Paul’s use of the name of Jesus was one of the reasons why he had been driven out Thessalonica. Paul name-dropped “Jesus” all the time whenever he was preaching. Yet here, before those who embodied who the Athenians imagined themselves to be, the name of Jesus was nowhere to be found. It’s possible that Paul, after his dustup in Thessalonica, was wary of what the leaders in Athens might do. He might have wanted to stay on their good side until his friends arrived. The name of Jesus can sometimes be used as a cudgel, turning words centered in love and grace into a threat. When we’re told to “Believe or else!”, we often build a kind of mental, emotional, and spiritual wall that protects who we think we are. This wall can either shut us down or cause us to lash out, refusing to fruitfully engage in whatever makes us feel uncomfortable. This defense mechanism can, in certain situations, keep us safe but it also might stop us from becoming who God knows we can be. We all, I think, worry that our words about Jesus will cause others to react to us in this very negative way. And we don’t think we have the words or knowledge or even the energy to faithfully respond to what this lashing out might look like. Paul, I think, didn’t even want to be in Athens and so avoiding the name of Jesus might have been his way to keep the governing council from arresting him or worse. Paul wanted to move into the future he had already planned for himself. Yet the words he shared with the Athenians revealed how God’s future had already begun to include them all. 

Paul began his words by describing what he recently saw: an altar in the middle of the city dedicated to an unknown god. The Athenians, I think, noticed how our beliefs don’t really capture just how big the divine actually is. This altar, which would have been used for different kinds of food and animal sacrifices, was their way of trying to grab this unknown god’s attention. The Athenians were doing what they could to reach out to God even though God had already reached out to them. Rather than digging into the Bible and his own Jewish identity, Paul invited those listening to him to remember their own story. The line “In him we live and move and have our being” was probably first written by the poet Epimendies and the words “for we too are his offspring” likely came from the poet Aratus hundreds of years before Jesus was born. Paul doesn’t, at first, use our scripture to show the Athenians who God is. Instead, he leaned into their own desire for grace, hope, and love, to show them what God had already done. The Athenians, up to this point in Paul’s sermon, probably thought Paul was simply naming the thoughts they already had. As he talked, he drew them deeper into who they thought they were. And they expected for Paul’s curiosity to lead them into a kind of thought experiment that felt abstract, holy, and mysterious. Yet Paul, without even naming Jesus, grounded the Athenians by showing how their unknown God had become known in a very particular time and place. God didn’t wait to be found before God decided to find those who needed to be welcomed and loved. By listening to the Athenians’ own story, Paul created space for them to do what none of us want to do: and that’s to repent. Repentance, in ancient Greek, is more than simply turning to God and turning away from sin. It’s more than what we typically do when we give up eating chocolate for Lent or decide that today we’re going to be a kinder person. Repentance is a deep re-orientation of our minds, opinions, and points of views so that we see ourselves and our world in a new way. Repentance is more than becoming the good person we think we’re supposed to be; it’s about joining in with God’s particular story of love, grace, and hope so that we become so much more. 

The Rev. Dr. Matthew Skinner, in his book Intrusive God, Disruptive Gospel, saw two big themes in Paul’s short speech to the Aergogaus. “First, it reminds us that salvation doesn’t exist in some pure, unadulterated form with no connection to human languages, cultures, and our foundational assumptions about the world. Paul preaches an enfleshed message: one enfleshed in the Athenians’ religious curiosity…God may disrupt or confound our preexisting understanding of what’s valuable or possible…but the message of God’s good news also connects to what we hope for and what we know.” 

“Second, Paul’s speech spotlights resurrected life as a core piece of Christian hope. The Easter message is about more than God undoing Jesus’ death; it is about a promise God makes to us in Jesus. God promises to change us… God values our embodied selves and intends a future for them.” It’s that last bit, I think, that describes the kind of story Paul was inviting the Athenians into. Repentance, while mindful of our past, is always about our future. It’s about a way of being in the world that says the particular life you are living matters because God, in Jesus, lived a particular kind of life too. When we share Jesus with others, we are inviting them into a future they can live in right now. And while I’ll admit that my default is to always encourage you to name  Jesus as the reason why we do what we do – from our worship, to our support of food ministries, to the meals we cook for one another when we’re in crisis, and including why we turn our church into a one-day thrift store to raise $10,000 or raise 1300 lbs of produce for the Tri-Boro Food Pantry – God also gives us the freedom to do what Paul did by learning another person’s story and showing how Jesus knows them too. That kind of sharing takes a little time and effort on our part, forcing us to leave our preconceived notions, assumptions, and points of views at the door while we discover what the world looks like through someone else’s eyes. But this is something we get to do because, in our baptism and in our faith, we’ve already been met by the Jesus who lived our life so that we could discover and see and know who God actually is. 

Amen.