Month: March 2026

Preached on March 29, 2026, Palm/Passion Sunday, at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on Matthew 27:11-54.

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Today and this week, we reflect on the most political events of Jesus’s life. Jesus was, above all, a political figure. He was the Christ, the Messiah, the One Anointed to lead the nation of Israel. This was a royal title, which therefore means a political title. Centuries of democracy have made us ignorant of the true meaning of the word “Lord,” or in Greek “Kyrios.” Kyrie eleison – Lord have mercy. “Lord” was used in place of God’s name because of the similarity between God and a human lord. In antiquity, if someone was your lord, they had complete authority over you, and so you sought their favor and their mercy. Proclaiming Jesus as Lord is to say that Caesar is not our lord. Proclaiming Jesus as Lord is to reject the Empire’s authority over us.

On Palm Sunday, the crowd shouts, “Hosanna!” while waiving palm fronds. We often treat “hosanna” as a synonym of “hallelujah,” but it’s quite different. “Hosanna” means “save us, please save us!” The crowds waved palm fronds for Jesus just as they did for the Maccabees when their rebellion was victorious. They shouted “hosanna” as they sought the favor of the Messiah who came to establish his kingdom and triumph over the Romans.

Meanwhile, Pontius Pilate was entering Jerusalem from the other side, riding a war horse instead of a donkey. Palm Sunday establishes the broad outlines of the conflict to come: the Romans coming in violent domination, Jesus coming in…well, we’ll see how he approaches the conflict.

The Roman governor always entered Jerusalem in a triumphal procession a few days ahead of Passover. Remember what Passover celebrates: the victory of the oppressed Israelites over their captors, the Egyptians. This festival aroused nationalistic fervor. The people of Judea remembered the time when God rescued them from slavery in Egypt. They remembered the time when they were an independent kingdom, united under Saul, David, and Solomon, worshipping together at the Temple Solomon built. They remembered the time when the Maccabees rose up and threw off their Greek overlords to re-establish an independent kingdom. What better time than Passover to rise up again and throw off their Roman overlords? So, the Roman governor marched in to remind them that they were most assuredly a conquered people.

Into this volatile situation came Jesus of Nazareth. For the previous few years, he had been a traveling preacher in Judea, Galilee, and even surrounding non-Jewish areas like the Decapolis, Samaria, and Phoenicia. Now, he brought his revolutionary message to the heart of Judaism: the Temple.

Lots happens in the Gospel of Matthew between the Palm Sunday reading in chapter 21 and the Passion Sunday reading in chapter 27. Those six chapters describe both critical teachings and important incidents that led to Jesus’s arrest and crucifixion. The first major incident was the cleansing of the Temple. Jesus came into town like a conquering hero, and what did he do? He attacked the Temple’s systematic exclusion of foreigners and exploitation of pilgrims by driving the vendors out of the Court of the Gentiles. This prophetic action put him directly at odds with the chief priests. He then continues his feud with the Pharisees and spends several chapters inflaming tensions between his followers and other Jewish leaders. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” he cries.

Jesus was a political leader. Not in the way we understand politics, where decisions are made at the ballot box and in legislatures and in courtrooms. He was a political leader in the ancient sense: the charismatic leader of a faction who proclaimed a different way of life that was at odds with the prevailing power structures of the day.

And so, his life ended as so many other political leaders’ lives did: a violent death at the hands of the ruling empire. We can theologize all we want about why Jesus died. The simple explanation, though, is that he was crucified by an empire that established peace through strength. He was a victim of the Pax Romana, a peace that prevailed only as long as the Roman military could suppress enemies both at the frontier and within their conquered territory. He was killed in a gruesome public display as an example of what would happen to anyone who dared oppose the Roman authorities. He was killed for proclaiming himself king of the Jews, for Rome declared that the Jews shall have no king but Caesar.

Jesus was killed at this particular time and place because he was betrayed by one of his closest companions, Judas Iscariot. Now, just as we can debate why Jesus was crucified, there are many theories as to why Judas did what he did. My personal favorite theory is that he was trying to force Jesus’s hand. Throughout his ministry, people tried to make Jesus into a king. They tried to make him act like the others who claimed the title of messiah. Through it all, though, Jesus resisted. He said over and over that he wasn’t that kind of messiah. I think Judas really believed that once Jesus was confronted with the reality of a threat to his life by the Roman authorities, he would call down legions of angels who would defend him and establish his kingdom by force.

But that’s the exact opposite of what Jesus did. He accepted the title of Messiah. He accepted the accusation that he was claiming the crown of Israel. But he did not react when his disciples, the crowd, and even the other bandits said he should save himself and prove his standing as the Son of God. He died the way he lived: faithful to his nonviolent calling.

So here we have the literal Son of God proclaiming the good news that his kingdom is at hand, and yet willingly dying on the cross rather than establishing his kingdom by force. What could that mean to us today?

Well, first we need to consider what he meant by the kingdom of God. I describe God’s kingdom as universal human flourishing. Violence never promotes flourishing. Violence only begets violence. Violence only harms relationships and deprives both parties of the healing and wholeness necessary for flourishing. Just War theory would say that a war of defense, or protecting the defenseless, is acceptable. Maybe. But never a war of offense. Never a war of conquest. And when given the chance, Jesus did not fight the Romans to protect his subjugated people. Jesus did not respond to Roman violence with his own violence. Instead, “he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.”

A century or so later, early Christians were trying to make sense of things and a belief arose that Jesus would come back and do it right the next time. They built a theology of conquest, that Christ would ride in on clouds of glory and destroy their enemies. They took Revelation, which is a wild book full of imagery and cultural allusions that have been lost to us, and made it into a literal description of what would come to pass.

Then the greatest tragedy in Christian history occurred: we became the official religion of Empire. Instead of being the counter-cultural force that fostered flourishing among the downtrodden and marginalized, we became entrenched in the halls of power. Instead of obeying our one true Lord in heaven, we were taught to obey the men who ruled us in God’s name.

A millennium or so later, the early American settlers adopted this sentiment and declared that this nation would be specially blessed by God to be a shining city on a hill. The seeds of Christian nationalism that were sown by Constantine kept popping up as weeds in our government and our church. The denominations now called “mainline” earned that title by aligning themselves with political and cultural power. I think that’s a big part of the explanation for our decline over the past century. We took our position at the top of the cultural heap for granted and lost sight of the truth of the Gospel.

These days, Christian nationalism has again infiltrated the halls of power, to the detriment of both Christianity and government. Too often, the general public equates “Christian” with “Republican,” when we are supposed to hold our love of God closer than our love of any one political party. Meanwhile, we have drifted into a war in Iran that may herald the unraveling of the world order that has prevailed for half a century. We have embarked on a war of choice with religious overtones. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth recently quoted Psalm 144 in a briefing where he talked about the total destruction of Iran’s military capacity in the context of our soldiers’ sacrifices. Several military commanders have been accused of using “end times” rhetoric to justify involvement in the war in Iran, saying that it was “all part of God’s divine plan” to initiate Armageddon and bring about the return of Jesus Christ. Many of our nation’s leaders subscribe to dominion theology or Christian reconstructionism, the belief that so-called biblical Christianity, meaning all of the moral laws in the Old Testament, should and will rule all areas of society, whether by evangelism or by force.

But that’s exactly what Judas Iscariot did. He thought that Jesus was a military conqueror and sought to initiate the revolution. But Jesus was not that kind of Messiah, and God’s Kingdom is not one of domination. Basically, dominion theology is the belief that Jesus screwed up. It’s the belief that Jesus should have called down legions of angels to rescue him from the cross. It’s the belief that we are tasked with establishing God’s rule by force, even though Jesus sought to establish God’s kingdom through love.

When I say that God’s Kingdom is not of this world, I don’t mean that it comes after we die and this world passes away. I mean instead that God’s Kingdom does not play by this world’s rules. How does this world establish power and authority? Sometimes by brute strength. Sometimes by the will of the majority of people as determined at the ballot box. Sometimes by wealth, or relational influence, or fame, or persuasiveness. It would be nice to think that we are governed by leaders who obey the will of the people, but I think it’s more accurate to say that we are governed by people who worship the almighty dollar and will do whatever will benefit those who give them financial support. You know, the golden rule: whoever has the gold makes the rules.

Dominion theology, Christian reconstructionism, Christian nationalism, Christian Zionism—it goes by many names, but at its root, this theology believes that we are obliged to establish God’s reign by taking charge of the levers of power, the Seven Mountains: Education, Religion, Family, Business, Government, Arts, and the Media. This theology is the logical consequence of our alliance with Empire made under Constantine, and is directly in conflict with Jesus’s plain teaching.

Again, there are many ways to interpret Jesus’s crucifixion, but the simplest truth is that when Jesus was arrested on accusation of sedition and rebellion, he had the choice to establish God’s reign by force, but chose instead prophetic self-sacrifice. He acknowledged the truth in Pilate’s accusation—“You say so” means something like, “Those words are true, but you don’t really understand what I mean by them.” Jesus acknowledged that he claimed the title of King, and accepted the punishment that ensued.

Jesus’s message to his disciples: Follow me. Do likewise. Do not seek to rule by force. Proclaim a gospel of love, the divine Truth that all people are beloved children of God. Welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, free the prisoner, and foster universal human flourishing. This will put you—us—at odds with the powers and principalities that govern this world. This will lead to suffering, to rejection, to conflict with those who benefit from the injustice baked into every human society. But don’t worry: I will be with you always, even unto the end of the age.

Jesus calls us to follow him this week, for he knows that we will reach the same destination. Follow his path of challenging the status quo, rejecting unjust rule, and embracing the outsider. This sacred path will lead to the cross, but through the cross, you will reach his glorious kingdom. May we all have the courage to walk the path Jesus has laid out for us, knowing that He will be with us always by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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Preached on the Third Sunday in Lent, March 8, 2026, at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on John 4:5-42.

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Let’s review where we are in the story of Israel, and the story of Jesus. Under David and Solomon, the northern and southern kingdoms were united. They split, and then the northern kingdom was conquered by the Assyrians. You may remember me talking about Isaiah, who was an active prophet during the Assyrian invasion. Both Samaria and Galilee were part of the old northern kingdom. Somehow, Galilee maintained a religious connection to Jerusalem and Judea, but Samaria adopted other religious practices even though they maintained a connection to the patriarchs. In fact, there are still Samaritans today, and they still have a Pentateuch that is parallel to our Bible but with different details.

One difference is the specification of the holy mountain. Our Bible specifies Mount Zion in Jerusalem, but the Samaritan Pentateuch specifies Mount Gerizim, near the location of the encounter that we read about in this story.

I think it’s important to always look at the larger story arc when considering any passage. The previous chapter of John opens with Nicodemus coming to Jesus by night. Although he is a Pharisee, he is seeking Jesus’s wisdom and insight. And yet, although he is a Pharisee and a teacher of the Law, he cannot understand Jesus’s teachings. Or perhaps his preconceived notions of who God is and how God acts in the world block his ability to perceive God’s presence through Jesus. And so, Nicodemus visits by night, and leaves unenlightened.

After that encounter, Jesus’s disciples have some squabbles with John the Baptist’s disciples. Who has the greater authority? Who is following the right practices? John ultimately says, “I told you, I’m not the Messiah! Follow Jesus!”

There is a bit of additional conflict with other Pharisees, so Jesus decides to go home to Galilee. Now, he could have gone around, but the shortest path from Judea to Galilee goes right through Samaria. Right through enemy territory.

Well, it’s a long walk, so at midday, Jesus needs a break and a drink of water, so he stops at the well. Not just any well: Jacob’s well, one with a long history. Jacob lived more than a thousand years before Jesus, yet this region retains a memory of his life and travels. They remember that this well was the one mentioned in Genesis, the one where Jacob settled with his twelve sons who fathered the twelve tribes. An auspicious place to have an encounter with history-making ramifications.

It’s midday, and yet there is a woman out fetching water. This is a chore normally done at daybreak, not the hottest part of the day. All of the other village women would have come early in the day, so why does this one come at noon? Well, we find out pretty soon that this unnamed woman has had five husbands and is now living with a man who is not her husband.

I’ve given that some thought. Why would a woman in first-century Samaria have been married five times? Divorce was expensive. Basically, if a man wanted to divorce his wife, he had to return her dowry, except in the case of adultery. So perhaps, she had committed adultery and been divorced on that account. Another possibility is that she was barren. The main duty of a woman in that time and place was to bear children, so perhaps she was divorced because of her failure to produce heirs for her husband. Yet another possibility is that some of those marriages ended with her as a widow. Needing some source of support, she would have found a man who was willing to take her in.

We don’t really know why she had been married five times. Any of the reasons I can think of, though, would have made her an outcast. Perhaps she was adulterous, perhaps she was barren and therefore perhaps cursed by God, or perhaps she was bad luck and led to her husbands’ deaths. Not the kind of woman that other women would want to hang around with. Instead, they would shun her. They wouldn’t want her around their husbands, and they wouldn’t want to be associated with her bad luck or her curse. And so, here she is, high noon, fetching water alone.

That explains the woman, but why does Jesus speak to her? Why does Jesus choose her to receive his message? The first reason is convenience. He has a mission, to spread the good news that the kingdom of God is at hand, and that eternal life is available to us all. He sees someone who needs to hear this message, so he starts up a conversation.

But doing so transgresses a number of social norms. First, there is the fact that he is a Jew and she is a Samaritan. Jews believed that Samaritans were ritually unclean, and therefore contact would make them unclean, too. This is certainly not the only time Jesus welcomed contact with someone unclean! He crosses that boundary so many times that it seems like he does not acknowledge uncleanness as a real thing. Second, there is the fact that he is a man and she is a woman. Men did not speak to women as equals at that time. Are you familiar with the Billy Graham Rule? That was his policy not to be alone with a woman other than his wife. In the ancient Near East, there was a similar social convention. Plus, there are stories in the Bible where a man encounters a woman at a well and it ultimately leads to marriage—including Jacob, who met his wife, Rachel, at a well.

So there were plenty of reasons why Jesus would not, should not speak to this person. Regardless, Jesus did. Jesus did not see her ethnicity, gender, or religion as barriers between them. He saw her as a sibling in his eternal family, someone also made in God’s image, someone also worthy of his attention.

Why else did Jesus choose to speak to her? Her receptivity, perhaps? When he asked her for water, she could have just said no and gone about her business, or said yes, given him a drink, and been done with it. Instead, she was willing to engage in conversation with him. She let him draw her out of her shame-covered shell.

Shame is a powerful force. Shame is different from guilt. Guilt says, I did something wrong and need to pay a proportional penalty for my transgression. Shame says, I did something wrong and therefore I am a bad person. Shame says, my very inner being and character are corrupted. This woman was covered in shame, due to her marital history. Maybe she didn’t even do anything wrong, but the results were shameful, so much so that she could not associate with the other women of the village.

I bet everyone here has things in their past that cause them shame. Maybe it was the way you treated someone close to you. Maybe it was an episode in your career. Maybe it was a time when you should have spoken up in defense of the defenseless, but you didn’t. Maybe it was a time when you supported a person, a movement, or an institution, only to find out that they weren’t who you thought they were.

Shame reflects our deepest need to belong. We fear that our shame will lead to isolation, a loss of status or community that in our prehistoric days would have led to banishment and death. That’s not how modern society works, but that is how our brains still think it works. We still think that if our shame is revealed, we will lose everything, perhaps even our lives.

And so we hide our shame. We hide it from our colleagues. We hide it from our friends. We hide it from our family. We hide it from God. We even hide it from ourselves, not acknowledging the shame that is tearing us apart from the inside out.

Jesus knew the woman’s shame, and saw beyond it. Our deepest need is to belong, and true belonging requires us to be truly known. Otherwise, we cannot really feel safe in that belonging. We live in fear that one day, we will be found out, and then we won’t be welcome anymore.

I watched a TEDx talk by Kenji Yoshino called “Uncovering Talent: The Power of Authenticity.” He talks about three phases. First, conversion: we try to be something we are not. Second: passing. You fit your community’s norms well enough that nobody questions whether you belong. Third: covering. You know that you are different, that you don’t really belong, so you disguise your identity or some core attribute. You are ashamed of some aspect of yourself, so you hide it.

True authenticity means transcending shame. True authenticity means that you don’t have to cover any aspect of yourself. Covering will never end well. You can do almost anything for a day or a week, but over time, the fundamental disconnect between your inner and outer selves will lead to anxiety, depression, anger, or other negative emotions. It’s unsustainable. Maybe you hide something you’re ashamed of so that you can get through Thanksgiving dinner, but then Christmas comes, and then the next family gathering, and over time, hiding your shame wears you down.

The question is, where can someone experience enough psychological safety that they don’t have to engage in covering? How can we create communities where authenticity is valued? Jesus knew how. He named the woman’s shameful past, without judgment. It was a simple statement of fact, an affirmation that she was an honest person, and an acknowledgment of reality. But he didn’t stop there. He continued to engage with her in a serious discussion.

In fact, the discussion deepened then. They went beyond a surface-level exchange about the well and living water, and went on to a theological and religious discussion. I have found this to be true in my life, too: when two people can be their authentic selves, they transcend the mundane and are able to talk about the things that really matter. Rather than worrying about hiding something from each other, they can relax and enter into a deeper friendship.

I know how wonderful it feels to be truly seen and known and accepted for who I am, all the good, the bad, and the ugly within my soul. I know how it feels to have a friend with whom I can be truly authentic. And that’s just an ordinary human! Imagine encountering the Son of the Living God, whose very presence radiated God’s love, and being seen and known and accepted! The Samaritan woman had that experience, and so she became an apostle.

She believed in Jesus Christ and then ran to bring others to Him, just as Andrew brought his brother Simon Peter to Jesus. She was so overjoyed at her encounter with the Messiah that she could not contain herself. She set aside the shame and the ostracism she had experienced from her village, and went to share the good news that Jesus was the one who would bring eternal life. Her exuberant response prompted Jesus to remind his disciples: the fruit is ready for the harvest. The time is NOW to go spread the message of God’s love. He says, “You might think there’s plenty of time before the harvest, but there isn’t. People are ready to hear this message NOW, today.”

Everywhere, people hunger and thirst for righteousness. Everywhere, people are alone in their shame. Everywhere, people are afraid to share their authentic selves. They fear losing friends, family, the people closest to them. They fear losing their community, their support networks. They fear losing everything if they live their Truth. And so, they suffer in silence, lives of quiet desperation.

But into that desperation steps our Lord and Savior. Christ sees us completely. He knows our greatest triumphs as well as our greatest sins and greatest shame. Yet as Paul wrote in Romans, I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Too often, the church is a source of shame rather than a place of healing. Too often, we Christians expound on the ways that people fall short of what we believe to be God’s will, leaving those outside the church to feel that they would never be welcome, that they would never be worthy to enter into our fellowship. But if Jesus does not condemn them, neither should we. Jesus is like a physician, sent not to the healthy but to the sick. We too are sent to those who hunger for membership in God’s family. We too are sent to those who are isolated by shame, who need to connect to a community.

Jesus said that he would provide living water, an eternal well springing up within those who believe in him. Let us go forth from here and share that living water with everyone who thirsts, everyone who needs to be connected to the infinitely loving God that we know through Christ. Amen.

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