Jesus Points™

Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on Easter Sunday, April 20, 2025. Based on John 20:1-18. I am indebted to Amy Evans whose Substack, “This Prayer Meeting Should Have Been a Fistfight,” introduced me to Jesus Points.


I’d like to congratulate you all on earning 100 Jesus Points today. What are Jesus Points, you may ask? Well, you’ve probably never been taught about them, but you probably live by them, like most Christians.

I read about Jesus Points recently and felt compelled to teach you all about them. Don’t worry about taking notes; I’ll post this sermon online so you can refer back to it later. See, you earn 100 Jesus Points for coming to worship on Easter, 75 for coming to worship on Christmas Eve. A normal Sunday is 10; if you take communion, too, it bumps up to 15. Special services like Maundy Thursday are 20.

But you can lose Jesus Points, too. A few years ago, I was in a rough place mentally and emotionally. Rhonda and I went out to lunch after Easter service with Bob and Carlene, and I was kind of mean to the waitress. Being mean to servers is minus-20 points, and doing it on Sunday doubles that. Doing it on Easter quadruples it, I think.

So to make it up, I read my Bible a little extra. That’s one point each time you read it. You get another point if you pray, but you lose a point instead if you pray selfishly for something good to happen to you at someone else’s expense.

Those aren’t the only ways to earn or lose Jesus Points, though. Believing the wrong thing about salvation is an automatic minus-1000 points. Teaching someone else the wrong theology is minus-10,000. Boy, I really need to be careful up here.

If you marry a Christian, that’s plus-1000, but if you marry an atheist, that’s minus-1000. But then if you can get the atheist to come to church, even if they don’t believe, that gets cancelled out.

If you successfully evangelize and get someone to accept Jesus in their heart, that’s plus-5000. But of course, if you get them to believe the wrong thing, the minus-10,000 kicks in.

Oh, and don’t get me started on all the things you can do to earn or lose points at work, or by voting, or with your money. Are you spending your time and money in ways that glorify God? Or in ways that enrich you personally? But what if they do both? It gets super confusing.

Does this all sound familiar? You’ve probably never had a preacher spell it out for you, but I bet you’ve encountered someone who seemed to be helping you keep track of your Jesus Points, right? They might have commended you for giving to charity, or chided you for something you said or did. But here’s the thing: it’s all a lie. Just like Drew Carey said to open Whose Line Is It Anyway? Everything is made up and the points don’t matter. I’ll say it again: Jesus Points are made up and they just don’t matter!

There are lots of theories about what happened on the cross exactly, but I know this for certain: Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection put an end to this kind of recordkeeping FOREVER. Jesus came to reconcile us to God. No longer do we need to make sacrifices to satisfy God. No longer do we need to worry about which sins are worse than others. No longer do we need to live in fear of eternal damnation over something we did or failed to do. We have been reconciled to God through Jesus’s once-for-all sacrifice on the cross. Easter is the proof that even death has lost its sting.

Hear me again: There is no such thing as Jesus Points. You do not need to keep track of whether you’ve done enough good, or if you’ve committed some sin against God that might be unforgivable. There is nothing you can do to separate yourself from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Nothing. No matter what, God loves you! No matter what, you are welcome in God’s kingdom! The scandal of the Gospel is that there’s no such thing as “too much grace.” Through Christ, God offers grace upon grace upon grace!

So if you don’t have to earn Jesus Points, why do good? Why not just live a carefree life, with no respect for anyone or anything? If, as I believe, we are all destined for the eternal joy of God’s presence, why not have some sinful fun now?

Well, we have been freed of sin, guilt, and especially shame so that we can continue Jesus’s work. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Why? To be the light of the world, to show us the Truth with a capital T, to show us how to live. Jesus came to initiate the total transformation of the world into God’s kingdom. When he spoke of the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven, he wasn’t talking so much about what happens when you die, but instead he was telling us what would happen if we truly live. If we embrace his teachings and seek universal human flourishing, we will experience the kingdom of God in this age, not just in the age to come.

Jesus came to reconcile us with God. That much is true. But if we are reconciled to God, shouldn’t we seek to further God’s work in the world? This isn’t like paying God back for the work Jesus did. This is responding out of love.

When you love someone, your natural response is to want the best for them, and to want to help them in whatever they are trying to accomplish. Have you ever had a close friend ask you to support an organization that they were a part of? Maybe you didn’t care too much about the particular cause that they were pushing, but because of your love for your friend, you would support what they care about. True love is desiring the other person to thrive, to flourish, to reach their full potential, to achieve their goals. Well, loving God is expressed by helping to build God’s kingdom. Jesus came to preach forgiveness, to preach reconciliation in all relationships, to break down artificial barriers between individuals and tribes and nations, to restore outcasts to full participation in the community. Jesus came to heal the sick and free the prisoner. Jesus came to provide for everyone. If you love Jesus, you should desire to continue this work. If your efforts are unsuccessful, well, that’s OK. You are not the Messiah, just someone trying to help him. We will all fall short of what God asks us to do. I’m reminded of Micah 6:8:

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
    And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
    and to walk humbly with your God.

We should strive to act with justice, which in this case has a sense like restoring wholeness rather than pursuing retribution. We should highly value mercy, seeking reconciliation rather than punishment. And above all, we should walk with humility as we seek God’s guidance. Where pride is concerned with who is right, humility is concerned with what is right (Ezra T. Benson). I cannot claim to know the will of God, at least not in any detail. We should all recognize our limitations as finite human beings. We cannot know God’s designs for our lives or our community or our world. All we can do is act from a place of love and put our trust in God to guide our actions.

In this way, we can cultivate a world that more nearly approaches God’s kingdom. In many of Jesus’s parables about the kingdom of God, there was something organic about it. A mustard seed that became a large shrub, for example. The world will not become God’s realm overnight, but through steady, persistent effort, we can shape the world into a more just, more merciful society that enables everyone—everyone—to flourish and thrive.

You might be thinking, wait a minute—I thought I came to church this morning to earn my Jesus Points! And now I hear that they’re not a real thing? So why am I here? Well, let’s turn back to the lesson for the day. Mary Magdalene is despondent. She had lost her dear friend and teacher. She goes to Jesus’s tomb, hoping to mourn there, and finds the tomb empty! Now remember, nobody expected this. Nobody in first-century Galilee or Judea expected a Messiah who would be killed by the occupying Roman government, so everyone thought that Jesus’s death on the cross was the ignominious end of his movement. They certainly didn’t expect him to rise from the dead.

So Mary is even more distraught. Not only is her dear friend dead, but his body is gone! The disciples are no help, either; they look in the tomb, see that it’s empty, and go back home to hide. They’re probably scared of the Roman authorities. But Mary stays faithful to the end. She stays at the tomb where she can mourn. She keeps looking for her dear friend. Then the pivotal moment: Jesus calls her by name, and she sees her risen Lord, and exclaims, “Rabbouni! My Teacher!”

Mary encountered our risen Lord. This is the moment that began the transformation of Jesus’s followers from one more failed messianic movement that, as usual, ended in bloodshed, into a movement that would change the world. This is the moment that taught us all that Jesus had conquered sin and death once and for all. Empowered by her encounter, Mary rallied the disciples.

This is why we’re here. We come to worship together to encounter God. We surround ourselves with and embed ourselves in the body of Christ, which is the Church. We see God in each other through the love of God that we share. We are connected to something bigger than ourselves through the power of the liturgy, the prayers, and the music. Then, empowered by this encounter, we can go forth to transform the world into God’s kingdom.

Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection put an end to all accounting for our sins. He came so that we might have abundant life, a life free of guilt or shame, a life where we can confidently seek to build a better world, one that is more like God’s kingdom in which everyone can flourish. We come together today to encounter our risen Lord to be empowered to do His work today, this week, and throughout our lives.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! And he is present within each one of us and within us all together, guiding and strengthening us as we build his kingdom. Amen.

Washing Feet

Published April 17, 2025, by the Phelps County Focus. Based on John 13:1-17.


This article is being published on Maundy Thursday, Jesus’s last day with all of his disciples and a critical turning point in the narrative arc of the Gospel of John.

The opening of the Gospel is the beautiful poem about the Word of God, the divine ordering principle of the universe who became flesh and dwelt among us. After Jesus is introduced to us through his baptism, the first half of the Gospel, often called the Book of Signs, describes miraculous events that crescendo.

The first sign of the inbreaking of God’s kingdom is at a wedding in Cana, where Jesus turns water into wine—a LOT of water, more than a hundred gallons!

His second sign was the healing of a royal official’s son.

He later fed a multitude, walked on water and healed two other men, including one born blind.

Finally, the story reaches a climax in chapter 11 when Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead.

By now, at least some people had figured out who Jesus was. He declares, “I am the resurrection and the life.”

Martha responds, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God.”

John is building his case. Each sign reveals a little bit more about Jesus’s divine nature. Jesus is godly. Jesus is God. JESUS IS GOD!

Jesus could not only heal the sick but also raise the dead! He was the source of all goodness and provision for the people. He had complete power over life and death, being the Word of God who was with God at the beginning, and who was God from the beginning. JESUS IS GOD!

But then on Maundy Thursday, we learn just what kind of God we worship….

CONTINUE READING AT PHELPS COUNTY FOCUS…

Extravagant Gratitude

Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on April 6, 2025, Fifth Sunday in Lent. Based on John 12:1-8.


Today is the Fifth Sunday in Lent, so we are nearing the end. Next Sunday is Palm Sunday, then we have Holy Week, and Easter. Our reading today also comes near the end—the end of Jesus’s ministry.

The Gospel of John can be divided roughly in half. The first twelve chapters are called the Book of Signs because they contain seven miracles, called “signs” by the author, of increasing impact. From the changing of water into wine to the raising of Lazarus, Jesus demonstrates that He is God. Soon after today’s reading is Jesus’s triumphant entry on Palm Sunday. Then chapter 13 starts the Book of Glory, narrating his last days on earth. So today’s lesson is the turning point, where Jesus has demonstrated who he is but has not yet demonstrated what that means.

Back in chapter 11, we have the greatest sign in the Gospel. Mary and Martha had a brother, Lazarus, who had died. While he was still sick, they sent for Jesus, but Jesus delayed his coming until after Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days. When he finally arrives, Martha chastises him a little, even though she acknowledged the truth that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God who is coming into the world. But Mary is despondent. She has lost her dear brother and cannot imagine a future. Jesus raises Lazarus and restores the family to wholeness.

Time is a strange thing. We are slaves to chronos, the time that we measure on our watches. Some of you are gloriously free from the tyranny of the clock, but I am still bound to it. I have my Outlook calendar set to give me reminders of where I’m supposed to be when, and honestly, I’m a little too diligent about it. I get anxious when I’m late or, God forbid, miss an appointment. Each night, I use my Monk Manual to review the day that has passed and plan my next day. I fill out the timeline to make sure I am prepared for what is coming, and figure out what tasks I can achieve during the pieces of time that are free.

Pre-industrial societies were less bound to a clock and more bound to the sun. Still, they had a sense that there were things that needed to be done at certain times. Judas was bound to chronos time, and was well aware that time is money. He knew that there were certain tasks that needed to be completed, including giving alms.

Greeks had another word for time, though, too: kairos. Kairos has a bit of a sense like “timely.” Like, the right time, or an auspicious time. In kairos time, some moments or seasons have more significance.

While Judas was bound to chronos, Mary was aware of kairos. She knew that something special and important was happening. It was like all the past had gone away and all the future didn’t matter. All that mattered was right then, being in Jesus’s presence, giving her whole devotion to him. She sensed that time was all compressed, from Lazarus’s death to his resurrection to Jesus’s presence in her home to his coming departure. She sensed that this moment would never come again.

So she did the only thing she could. Like her sister, Mary knew that Jesus was the Messiah, anointed by God, but had not been anointed by humanity. She knew that he was with her right then, but soon would be gone from her life forever. So she gave him all that she had.

Mary had a jar of pure nard, which is a perfumed ointment. Judas claims that it was worth 300 denarii, which is roughly a year’s wages for a laborer. A year’s wages! The average wage in Missouri is roughly $50,000 a year, so imagine—a jar of ointment worth $50,000 that Mary just pours out on Jesus’s feet! And not only that, but she wipes his feet with her hair. I sometimes picture my friend Sharon here. She has shorter hair now, but used to have hair down almost to her waist. Mary would have needed hair that long to be able to wipe Jesus’s feet with it. This in a culture where women usually covered their heads. To have her head uncovered was already a sign of intimacy, and to go another step further and use her hair to spread ointment all over Jesus’s feet was a profound act of intimacy. This is the act of a friend, a close friend. For Jesus to have even allowed her to continue must have meant that he treasured Mary deeply. They were already connected on a heart level, the way we all hope to connect to Jesus, and then Mary acted out her devotion to him.

This, to me, is a prophetic statement. This is a sign act. Throughout the Old Testament, there are prophets who perform actions that are a sign of God’s message to the people. For example, Ezekiel baked bread over a fire of dung. Hosea married Gomer, a harlot. Jeremiah smashed a clay vessel in front of the religious leaders, but then later, he bought a field. Most of the sign acts we read about are negative signs, but this last one was a sign that God would restore the people of Judah. God commanded Jeremiah to buy a field in occupied territory to symbolize that Judah would one day be back in control of the land.

Mary’s sign act is one of extravagant gratitude. In one action, she ties together many concepts that flow through the Gospel of John. Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One, whose feet are even holy. Jesus is the source of life whose abundant grace calls forth abundant gratitude. Jesus is bringing his kingdom into being, but it’s an upside-down kingdom, just as his anointing by Mary is upside-down. And, this bridges the gap between Jesus the healer who can even resuscitate the dead and Jesus the servant who washes his disciples’ feet. Mary’s prophetic action reveals the weakness in Judas while displaying the strength of her commitment.

One of Jesus’s promises is life in abundance. That does not mean a life of abundance, though. I was thinking the other day, what is wealth? What does it mean to be wealthy? It means that you don’t need to consider the cost. If you’re poor, maybe you need to count out the change in your car in order to afford McDonald’s, but if you’re wealthy, you can go to Sonic on a whim without checking your bank account balance. By this measure, Mary was wealthy. I don’t know if she had much money or any land or other resources, but she didn’t have to consider whether or not she could afford to use the pint of nard that she had. Her brother had been lost to her, yet had been restored. Jesus, the man who restored her family to wholeness, was there in her home. She was overwhelmed with gratitude, and reacted with the knowledge that Jesus’s worth far exceeded the value of the nard.

I’m reminded of the parables from Matthew chapter 13, verses 44 through 46. Jesus said, 44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and reburied; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. 45Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; 46 on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.”

The kingdom of God is worth everything. Everything you have, and everything you are. Mary gets it. She knows that nothing she owns is worth as much as Jesus’s presence in her life.

Last week in our book study, we read where Jesus said that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. This is not a calling to breed smaller camels or build bigger needles. This is a calling for us to let go of whatever prevents us from full participation in God’s realm. When Jesus spoke of the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven, he wasn’t talking about some pie in the sky by and by. He was talking about the here and now. He was talking about His presence in and among us. But each of us has something that holds us back. Many of us are held back by money or possessions. Others are held back by position or status. Still others are held back by their family connections or other relationships. Throughout the Gospels, whenever someone approached Jesus, he identified exactly what was keeping them back from full participation in his movement. For the rich young man, it was money. For others, it was leprosy or another disease that needed to be healed, or a demon that needed to be exorcised. In one case, it was a father’s burial, and in another, it was land and possessions. Whatever it was, Jesus told them to abandon it and follow him.

I’m finishing up a book called Truth Over Tribe: Pledging Allegiance to the Lamb, Not the Donkey or the Elephant. The authors talk about the tribal nature of our modern political system. We have quickly evolved from partisans who think the other party has some good ideas but are more often wrong, into partisans who think the other party is evil and a threat to our nation. You all probably know where I stand on things, but I’ll say that I’m definitely disappointed in the leadership of both parties, or rather the lack of leadership. I’m trying to remember that at the end of the day, I should not be committed to any political party, nor even any nation, but rather to Jesus Christ and God’s kingdom. Among the things that Jesus asks us to give up are our political and other allegiances to worldly things, instead obeying and worshipping God alone. We are all tempted the way Jesus was by the devil during the forty days in the desert that Lent reminds us of. We should all make the same choices—to forsake wealth and power and instead to embrace our citizenship in God’s kingdom.

Or rather, we should embrace our role as a member of the body of Christ. We, the Church—with a capital C—are called to be and to do just what Jesus was and did. Mary showed us how. She gave all that she had for the sake of her devotion to Jesus. We too are called to give all that we have for the sake of Christ’s body, the Church, and its work in the world. In gratitude for the abundant grace poured out upon us, let us seek to give all that we have and all that we are for the establishment of God’s kingdom, a state of being where everyone can flourish and thrive. Amen.

Grace Conquers All

Sermon for March 30, 2025, Fourth Sunday in Lent, preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32.


Today’s story is a familiar one. It’s one of the parables we find in Luke that has entered popular culture, just like last week’s story about the Good Samaritan. We refer to the “Prodigal Son” even though we need to look up what “prodigal” means! (By the way, it means spending money or resources freely and recklessly.) The preacher’s challenge is to make something so familiar to us seem new. No promises, but let’s see if we can glean some fresh insights today.

The story starts with a shameful action. In a patriarchal society, a father’s inheritance would be divided among his male heirs at his death, with a larger share going to the first-born son. The younger son could have stayed in his father’s household and eventually inherited an appropriate portion, but he was impatient, like so many young people. He was ready to strike out on his own, get away from his father’s control, live a little. So he asked for his inheritance. This was essentially like saying to his father, “All you mean to me is a payday. I almost wish you were dead. Gimme gimme gimme.” The father could certainly have refused, but he didn’t. I’m sure it broke his heart to lose his son in this way, but he allowed his son to bear the consequences of his choices.

We sometimes say that America has a guilt-innocence paradigm while cultures like in ancient Judea had an honor-shame paradigm. That is, we supposedly look only at whether someone broke a rule or not. But if you think about the way some people are treated, you’ll realize that shame is alive and well in 21st-century America.

Shame is a way that society has to determine who is valued more and who is valued less, who has more or less status, or who is included or excluded. There are plenty of ways to incur shame. Losing your job, for example. I spoke recently with a former student whose position was eliminated because his employer didn’t have any projects for him. How was that his fault? Yet many prospective employers find that sort of thing to be shameful and are reluctant to hire someone who doesn’t currently have a job. Similar judgment is passed on someone who is homeless. Look around Rolla—there are surely several people who are homeless now, in the wake of the storm. Yet many other people are homeless because of a personal storm in their lives—unemployment, divorce, being a victim of a crime, and so forth.

I recently read about “healthism.” The term was coined in 1980 by Robert Crawford to describe a belief system where health is a function of personal choices. It’s an attitude that ascribes honor to people who are skinny, fit, and active. It ascribes shame to people who are overweight, or have mobility issues, or have chronic diseases, or who otherwise fall outside the bounds of “healthy.” But health is not entirely in our control. Look at Rhonda, for example. Nobody really knows what causes MS, but it certainly is unrelated to any decisions she has ever made.

Relationships are hard, right? Families are challenging. Yet we are expected to have great relationships with our parents, our siblings, our spouse, our kids. Divorce is seen as a failure, and some people will blame parents if their kids don’t live up to some standard of success, or if they get in trouble with the law, or whatever.

I could go on and on. The simple fact is that modern American culture has just as much of an honor-shame binary as ancient Judea, just with different means of gaining honor or incurring shame.

So some people engage in “covering.” I learned about that from a recent podcast. A prime example of covering was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He had had polio and needed to use a wheelchair. In that era, polio was relatively common and was certainly not his fault. Everyone knew that he had had polio and that he used a wheelchair. Yet, he went out of his way to ensure that no pictures were ever taken that revealed his wheelchair, and that he wasn’t in a wheelchair during important meetings.

Covering is trying to hide those aspects of yourself that make you feel ashamed. FDR believed that he would not be respected if people saw him in a wheelchair, so he hid his need for it. Other people try to hide their race, their national origin, their education or lack thereof, their family relationships, and so forth. We hide what we believe to be shameful so that we can have a higher status in society. Interestingly, the podcast I listened to indicated that 47% of straight white men—arguably the most honored demographic—engage in covering behaviors.

Today’s lesson is usually called the Parable of the Prodigal Son, but it is sometimes called the Parable of the Two Brothers. So let’s talk about the older brother. This chapter of Luke opens with an observation that the Pharisees were grumbling over Jesus welcoming “tax collectors and sinners.” The Pharisees were trying to shame Jesus because of the shameful company he kept. At the climax of the chapter, we encounter a man who will not welcome his brother, who will not even acknowledge him as brother but instead as “this son of yours” when he is confronting his father. The modern American church is not so different from the older brother, nor from the Pharisees. I watched a video recently, which I can’t find so I’m trying to reconstruct from memory, about a church in Virginia. I think it was Pentecostal. Anyway, the teenage niece of the pastor got pregnant and was forced to come and be publicly shamed by the congregation during worship.

I would say that we, as a congregation, do better than that, but we are far from perfect. We may not explicitly shun people, but there are definitely behavioral norms that are subtly reinforced by the way we treat each other. I would guess that most of us have some part of our lives that we can’t be fully open about with our church friends. There are some things that we just don’t talk about.

This is actually one of the most critical challenges facing the American church today. One of the top reasons people give for not attending a church is hypocrisy. Outsiders see all the ways that we fall short of what we claim to believe. They see us shaming outsiders while ignoring the sin among ourselves. We must do better, and we must demonstrate to the world that we can do better about welcoming people who are outside of the church.

Because the central message of Luke 15 is the JOY that comes when what was lost is found. First, a shepherd rejoices, not over the 99 sheep he had but over the ONE sheep that was lost but is found. Next, a woman rejoices, not over the 9 coins she has, but over the ONE coin that she had lost but found. Then the father does what nobody in the crowd would expect. His son was lost to him, and indeed had forsaken him. His son treated him as if he were dead and went away. Yet the father was waiting expectantly for his son to return. While his son was still far off—before he could give his prepared speech acknowledging his sin—the father runs out to meet him with open arms.

In the same way, God waits expectantly for us to repent. God waits for us to turn away from sin and towards God’s love. In God’s realm, there is no shame. It doesn’t matter what we have done. What matters is that we turn towards God. What matters is that we choose to receive and dwell in God’s infinite love.

The Presbyterian Church is part of the Reformed branch of theology that is sometimes summarized with the acronym TULIP. The T stands for “total depravity,” the doctrine that all people are inherently sinful and incapable of doing good on their own. I have real trouble believing that. I see too much good in the world to believe that we are all totally depraved. But I can get on board with the I of TULIP: irresistible grace. This is the belief that God’s grace is so powerful that everyone God chooses to receive it cannot ultimately resist it. Instead, the Elect will be eventually, inevitably drawn to Christ.

In God’s realm, there is no shame. There is no shame in admitting that you made a bad decision and choosing to correct it. There is no shame in being a victim of the brokenness of this world. There is no shame in being on the losing end of capitalist competition. There is no shame in terminating unhealthy relationships. There is no shame in falling short of God’s glory, for we all do. There is no shame, only grace.

We have two tasks, then. One is to believe that indeed there is no shame before God, and to approach God through Christ with our whole selves. All the good, the bad, the beauty, and the ugliness within ourselves. We can bring it all to God and let God’s love flow over and through us.

And then, having been empowered by God’s grace, our task is the reconciliation of the world. This is the task that Jesus gave us in the Great Commission, to bring everyone into God’s family. This is the task that runs through the first Great End of the Church: the proclamation of the Gospel for the salvation of humankind. The core of the Gospel is that the kingdom of God is at hand! And the kingdom of God is a state of being where everyone can flourish, which means that everyone is connected to each other. In the kingdom of God, all guilt has been erased, and so has all shame. In the kingdom of God, we love God by loving our neighbor. God’s realm has not arrived in all its fullness, but we get glimpses of it when we welcome the stranger and comfort the broken-hearted. We get glimpses of it when we allow someone to bring their whole selves into our fellowship. We get glimpses of it when we eat with the tax collectors and sinners of our modern society, just as our Lord did two thousand years ago.

So today and every day, I wish you grace upon grace, washing away not only your guilt but also your shame. I pray that you will be confident to approach God’s throne of grace with your whole self. And I encourage you all, each one of you, and our church collectively, to live out God’s grace by honoring everyone who seeks to join us in God’s realm. Amen.


As a postscript, I would like to share an alternative to TULIP that I read a few years ago: the beautiful Gospel of WHEAT:

  • W – Wounded children
  • H – Human solidarity
  • E – Exhaustive reconciliation
  • A – Absolute grace
  • T – Transformative love

Reading this series of blog posts solidified my theology and its ideas run through much of my preaching and writing.

Who Is Jesus?

Sermon for March 2, 2025, Transfiguration Sunday. Based on Luke 9:28-36.


The Transfiguration scene is full of symbolism. I can’t possibly get through all of it, but I want to touch on a few aspects that would have been fairly obvious to a first-century Jew. When Jesus is transfigured, he is joined by Moses and Elijah, so let’s talk about who they were.

Moses was an Israelite who had to flee Egypt after committing murder. While he was in the wilderness, he was chosen by God to lead his people to freedom. During the Exodus, he had many encounters directly with God. In the passage we read earlier, the encounter that Moses had left his face glowing, so bright that he had to wear a veil. This wasn’t Moses’s glory; it was God’s glory reflected from him. Throughout the forty years wandering in the wilderness, Moses would speak to God and then carry God’s words to the Israelites.

Among other things, God gave Moses instructions on building the tabernacle, also called the tent of meeting. Honestly, if you ever try to read the Bible front to back, this section is extremely tedious and repetitive, saying the same thing over and over in excruciating detail. Ugh. But finally, the instructions have been given and the tent of meeting has been built. It is time for God to sanctify it. Exodus 40:34-35 reads,

34 Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. 35 Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled upon it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. 

The cloud was the glory of the Lord, God’s real, physical, tangible presence. Until Jesus came as the incarnation, the Word made flesh, this cloud of the glory of the Lord was the only way the Israelites experienced God in a tangible way.

So Moses led the Israelites out of bondage, guided them to build the tabernacle, made a covenant with God recorded as the Ten Commandments, and approached the Promised Land of Canaan. But God did not allow him to finish the job. Moses was not allowed to enter Canaan, but instead passed the leadership on to Joshua.

A few hundred years later, the Israelites had split into two kingdoms. The northern kingdom, Israel, was ruled by King Ahab and his queen, Jezebel. They worshipped Baal. Elijah was sent to oppose Ahab, Jezebel, and the prophets of Baal. A great battle is recorded in which God decisively demonstrates that Baal is no god and all of Baal’s prophets are killed. Elijah has to flee for his life to Mount Horeb, which we think is the same place where the Ten Commandments were given. There, Elijah encounters God. Refreshed and renewed, he returns to Israel to continue to oppose the kings who are leading the people astray.

Like Moses, though, Elijah was not able to finish the job. He is known as the greatest of the prophets, but his ministry eventually had to end. As he approached the end of his life, he recruited a successor, Elisha. Elijah did not die, but instead was swept up in a whirlwind. There is a tradition that Elijah will return to herald the Messiah.

So here we have Jesus chatting with Moses and Elijah, who we might think of as representing the Law and the Prophets—which is to say, the entirety of the Hebrew Bible. The three of them together represent the revelation of who God is, from the founding of Israel as a nation through to the opening of the messianic age.

Chapter 9 of Luke is the climax of Jesus’s ministry in Galilee. It largely centers around one question: Who is Jesus? Let me give you a thumbnail sketch of this chapter. First, he gave the twelve apostles authority over demons and disease, and then he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God. Next, we hear that Herod is confused because of John the Baptist, who some believe to be the coming of Elijah, which of course would mean that the messianic age is about to begin. After the apostles return, there is an encounter where Jesus feeds 5000 men.

So Jesus has authority that he can delegate, he was preceded by an Elijah figure, and he has power to feed as well as to heal. So when he asks Peter, “Who do YOU say that I am?” Peter gets it right: “You are the Messiah.”

But what kind of Messiah is he? One that will suffer and die. Well that can’t be right. The Messiah is supposed to begin a new age where the nation of Israel will be re-established. All of the other messianic movements in this era took on a militaristic tone and ended in bloodshed—the blood of the supposed messiah and all of his followers. Jesus says yes, there will be bloodshed, but it will be mine alone, and that will be the start of the new age.

This is all quite confusing to the disciples. Nothing that Jesus says makes sense to them. But to be a good leader, show, don’t tell. Jesus had to show them who he really was so maybe they would understand it.

They go up on the mountain, and Jesus is transfigured before them. He is shining forth like Moses. But Moses was glowing in reflection of God’s glory, while Jesus shone forth his own glory. Jesus had to show his chief disciples that yes, he was a good person, and yes, he was the Messiah, but also, he is so much more than that. Fully human, yet fully divine. Jesus was God. JESUS IS GOD. Amen!

Who is Jesus to you? To some, he was a great teacher. Yes, that’s true. He taught many things throughout his life and ministry, and the Sermon on the Mount is possibly the greatest theological statement in any holy book. To some, he was the sinless one whose death sets us free from sin. Yes, that’s true, too. To some in first-century Judea and Galilee, he was a failure. He didn’t expel the Romans or re-establish the kingdom of Israel. I would say that he wasn’t a failure so much as a fulfillment of God’s plans, which were different from human plans. He didn’t meet the people’s expectations, but that’s a criticism of the people, not of Jesus.

Jesus was all of these things. A moral exemplar and a great leader and organizer. But he was more than that. JESUS WAS GOD. JESUS IS GOD. Jesus of Nazareth was the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity, one who came to be in solidarity with all humanity.

And so after he was transfigured to demonstrate his divinity, Jehovah, the first person of the Trinity, appeared. Remember the cloud that filled the tabernacle that Moses built? That same cloud overshadowed Peter, James, and John so that they had a real, tangible encounter with God. And God’s message to them was: Jesus is my Son, the Chosen One. Listen to him!

So why was Jesus a great teacher and leader? Because he taught with authority, AS GOD. Now the disciples know the Truth, revealed to them in a vision that will sustain them throughout the long, hard journey to Jerusalem and Gethsemane and Golgotha.

But all good things must come to an end. Peter wanted to stay on the mountain with his beloved rabbi and the two greatest men among his ancestors. Jesus says no, we need to get back to work. The messianic age is upon us—the kingdom of God is at hand—but only if we continue to work towards its fulfillment.

They come back down the mountain and find the other disciples struggling. The disciples were trying to exorcise a demon by their own authority, but Jesus says no—you must cast out demons by God’s authority. We can’t do it on our own. We have to be present as channels for God’s power, but that’s all we are—I am not God, you are not God, none of us are God, but all of us can channel God’s love and power to heal the world.

One of the most important tasks of any leader is succession planning. Someday, each one of us must pass the torch to the next generation. I see this on campus. Good department chairs look at their faculty and identify those who have leadership potential, then guide them into experiences that will enable them to grow into the leaders that the university needs. Sometimes it doesn’t work out, but if you don’t try, you’ll definitely fail. Anyway, Moses knew that he would not be able to enter the Promised Land, so he kept Joshua close at hand to learn how to be a good leader for the Israelites. Elijah knew his time was growing short, so he recruited Elisha to carry on his battle against Baal and other evil in the land.

Jesus knew that his time was nearing the end. He had done all he could in Galilee and had to go to the heart of Judaism, the Temple in Jerusalem. He knew that when he did, his ministry would end in bloodshed, crucified as a rebel against all that Rome stood for. But he also knew that if that was the end of his movement, all of his work would be for naught. His kingdom had not yet been established.

So, he declared that Peter would be the Rock on which his church would be built. He taught the other disciples so that they could support Peter. He gave them all the vision that they would need to carry on after he departed this earth.

Empowered by the spirit, that’s exactly what they did. Peter eventually became the bishop of Rome. Most of the disciples were martyred, but not before carrying the message of God’s kingdom to the ends of the earth.

Peter was Jesus’s successor, and by extension, so are we all. We have been commissioned to carry on Jesus’s work. We have been commanded to participate in the flourishing of God’s kingdom, which is the transformation of the world into a place where everyone can thrive. We are empowered by the Holy Spirit, who came at Pentecost to encourage the disciples when they felt abandoned and that the future was bleak. That same Spirit encourages us today when we feel like our own future is bleak.

It’s not. The future is filled with Jesus’s radiant presence, if we only look for it. We see Jesus when we open our hearts to one another, when we do as Jesus did—healing the sick, freeing the prisoner, welcoming the stranger, and overturning the hierarchies of this world that treat some people as less worthy of love and respect.

So like Peter, let us be emboldened and strengthened by the knowledge that Jesus is God. Let us remember that Jesus is the kind of God who heals, who feeds, who casts out demons, who nurtures everyone in need. Let us remember that God is always with us to guide us, and that we have been entrusted with the good news that the world is being transformed into God’s kingdom where everyone is loved and nurtured so that they can flourish and thrive. Amen.

In Whom Do You Trust?

Preached on February 16, 2025, at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on Jeremiah 17:5-10.


Today, I’m going to be preaching from the Old Testament text, something I rarely do. I would say that many Presbyterians have some general idea of the story arc of the Old Testament but are weak on many of the details. We hammer on the Exodus and maybe some of the patriarchs like Abraham, and then we sometimes talk about David, but there are hundreds of years of Israelite history that we skim over.

Jeremiah was one of the Major Prophets, along with Isaiah and Ezekiel. He is also the supposed author of Lamentations. He began his prophetic mission during the reign of King Josiah, around 627 BCE, and continued through the reign of Zedekiah to 586 BCE. The Book of Jeremiah is the longest in the Bible, 52 chapters long. Most of it centers on doom and gloom with Jeremiah chastising Judah for its many sins, from which we get the term “jeremiad.”

Josiah instituted various religious reforms, which was a good thing. The latter portion of his reign was a turbulent time, a time of conflict that extended to the end of Jeremiah’s life. Here’s a brief summary, and don’t worry, there won’t be a quiz. First Egypt and Assyria aligned against Babylon. Then the Medes and Babylonians conquered Assyria. Judah sided with Babylon against Egypt, and Josiah died in battle. Jehoahaz succeeded him as king, but was then conquered by Egypt and imprisoned. Another of Josiah’s sons, Eliakim, became king and was renamed Jehoiakim. Babylon defeated Judah and took Jehoiakim captive. He was eventually released and was put on the throne of Judah as a vassal of Babylon. Later he rebelled and Babylon returned to besiege Jerusalem. Jehoiakim died and was replaced by his son, Jehoiachin. Finally, Babylon broke the siege and ravaged Jerusalem. Jehoiachin was replaced by Zedekiah, who also later rebelled against Babylon.

During this last rebellion, Jeremiah really got going. He was imprisoned, then released, then thrown in a cistern because of the critical things he was saying to the king. He was trying to warn Zedekiah, but Zedekiah listened to his sycophants instead. Eventually, Babylon’s siege was successful, Judah was destroyed, and the captivity began.

Whew! What a whirlwind! Reminds me of high school history class where we had to memorize names and dates and such. Here’s what I want you to remember: Jeremiah prophesied that Judah would fall. One king after another failed to heed his warnings, and chose instead to rely on military alliances to ensure the safety of his kingdom. Ultimately, the king and his followers believed that they could throw off the yoke of the Babylonian Empire, and were destroyed in the process. Through it all, Jeremiah was preaching doom and gloom because of Judah’s many sins. He was proven correct in the end, but that was little comfort to a nation thrown into disarray and captivity.

In today’s lesson, we hear one of Jeremiah’s early prophetic utterances, which mirrors Psalm 1 that was embedded in our liturgy. In the larger context, Jeremiah holds up Judah as just one example of sinfulness. What ties Judah’s sins to the sinfulness of all humanity is encapsulated in today’s reading: cursed are those who rely on mortals, blessed are those who rely on God alone.

The whirlwind of military action that occurred 2600 years ago is not that different from the military exploits of the last hundred years or so. I recently listened to an audiobook that talked about World War I. The Great War, the war to end all wars, began as a conflict between Serbia and Austria-Hungary. However, the dense network of alliances across Europe resulted in a multi-front war involving all of Europe’s great powers. It quickly became the most devastating, horrifying wars of all history. Modern mechanized warfare turned battle into a killing machine, a means for efficiently destroying men and munitions. It ended with only minor changes in the borders, but the collapse of several great powers. Russia succumbed to the Bolshevik Revolution, three other empires collapsed, and the ensuing destabilization ultimately led to World War II.

Yet we seem to never learn the lessons of history. There are currently two major armed power struggles in the world. The obvious one is Russia vs. Ukraine. The roots of this conflict date back to 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed, and Ukraine regained its independence along with several nuclear weapons. In 1994, the Budapest Memorandum declared that the US, UK, and Russia would guarantee Ukraine’s security in exchange for Ukraine relinquishing all nuclear weapons. The foreign powers guaranteed “perpetual sovereignty and border integrity.” Twenty years later, in 2014, Russia declared that the Budapest Memorandum was null and void because a different government was in control of Ukraine. Russia invaded and occupied Crimea, in a prelude to today’s war.

Meanwhile, in the Middle East, the primary conflict is between Israel and Iran, with Saudi Arabia also vying for regional power and influence. Israel and Iran rarely engage in direct, open warfare. Instead, Iran works through proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah. The result is an uneasy equilibrium that shifts periodically, as Israel and Iran gain and lose military power.

In both Eastern Europe and the Middle East, there are diplomatic agreements in place. However, they are ultimately just words on paper. The strength of the treaties is ultimately the trustworthiness of the people who sign them. If you cannot trust your opponent to abide by the treaty, then it is simply a description of the current state of affairs, which will change whenever one party decides to press their advantage. The equilibrium shifts, not because of good-faith negotiations that seek the best interests of all parties, but because of raw power.

We’re different, though, right? John Adams wrote, “that the very definition of a Republic, is “an Empire of Laws, and not of men.” That, as a Republic is the best of governments, so that particular arrangement of the powers of society, or in other words that form of government, which is best contrived to secure an impartial and exact execution of the laws, is the best of Republics.” We claim to be a nation of laws, not of men. But in fact, we are a nation mostly composed of people who desire to be a nation of laws, but some who do not. Many of you knew Jim Drewniak. He once told me, “The rules apply to people who want the rules to apply.” We have witnessed recently the unraveling of a system of laws because some people have declared that the laws are not serving the American people.

Now, I can get on board with the idea that not all laws are good. There’s a meme floating around that says, “The people who hid Anne Frank were breaking the law. The people who killed her were following it.” The point is, the rule of law ultimately relies on people.

Which brings me back to Jeremiah. He said, “Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals…. Blessed are those who trust in the Lord.” We all claim allegiance to a nation, perhaps to a political party, perhaps to various organizations. But in the end, we are called to trust in the Lord, not in any human institution. Not even the church.

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is governed in its day-to-day operations by the Book of Order. I have here the 2017-2019 Book of Order. They issue a new edition every three years as conditions change; rather than getting new print copies, I just get the updates online. The Book of Order describes how we do things—how we are organized, how we resolve problems, that sort of thing. It includes some basic theology, too, like the Great Ends of the Church. But it’s volume 2 of our constitution.

Volume 1 is the Book of Confessions. This is the most recent edition, from 2016, which includes our most recently added confession, the Confession of Belhar. There are twelve confessions in here, from the Nicene Creed that dates to the fourth century through the several creeds of the Reformation era to the four twentieth-century confessions. These are taken to be authentic expositions of what we believe, but there are a ton of contradictions in them. Each confession arose from a particular historical situation. For example, the Confession of Belhar arose in South Africa under apartheid, and the Theological Declaration of Barmen arose in Nazi Germany.

In principle, the confessions are all based on applying the Bible to the conditions of the day. This is a pew Bible, which is the New Revised Standard Version. You can’t actually buy an NRSV Bible anymore. It has been replaced by the NRSVue, or “updated edition.” Updated because they found more ancient manuscripts and learned more about how certain words were used. This is one of the dozens of translations available. Recall that the Bible was originally composed primarily in Hebrew and Greek with a little Aramaic. If you have a good study Bible, it will tell you where the translators struggled, and perhaps where there are discrepancies among manuscripts. And as I’ve said before, the Bible is a thick book that contradicts itself, with verses that can be taken out of context to mean whatever you want God to endorse.

None of these documents are God. The Book of Order defines what it means to be part of the PC(USA). The Book of Confessions describes the PC(USA) beliefs within the broader Reformed tradition. The Bible relates to us the experiences of ancient people and the encounters that they had with God, as transcribed and translated by men. But the Word of God is Jesus Christ. If you know in your heart what God’s word is for you, today, in your particular circumstance, and that word is for your flourishing and the flourishing of God’s kingdom, and that word is contrary to the Book of Order, the Book of Confessions, even a particular verse in the Bible, trust that God is speaking to you. Jeremiah did not say, “Blessed are those who trust in the Torah,” or “Blessed are those who trust in the high priest,” or “Blessed are those who trust in Temple worship,” or “Blessed are those who trust in the preacher.” No: he said, “Blessed are those who trust in the Lord.” I believe God still speaks to us all, if we are listening. I strive to listen, and each of you should, too.

I’m reminded of something that happened a few years ago in the Campus Ministry Association. CMA is an umbrella group that includes our campus ministry, formerly Common Call but now called Sacred Paths. We’re a tiny ministry by comparison to CCF, the Newman Center, and Baptist Student Union, plus others. We were getting stickers made, and one of the CCF ministers wanted one to say, “Got questions? We’ve got answers!” I objected. I am not in the answer business. I am in the business of guiding everyone to find their own path. I am not up here to tell you what to believe or what you should do. I am here to tell you how God has called me, and to help you to find out how God is calling you, and then how we can work together. In the end, CMA made stickers that say, “We believe in stuff.” That’s all we could agree on.

And you know, that was among a group of Christians who allegedly all believe in the same risen Christ and use the same Bible. And yet, we can’t agree on the nature of Christ, or what happens during communion, or what the appropriate age and manor of baptism are. Those are all human constructions, human interpretations of God’s word. Don’t trust them. Trust in God.

Humanity is finite. There are problems that we cannot solve, and things we cannot know. So trusting in any one person, or any institution, or even any nation will one day break your heart and bleed you dry. Someday, that person or institution will need to make a choice based on limited knowledge, limited resources, and limited time. That person, or the group of people who make up the institution, is finite and full of conflicting desires, some selfish and some magnanimous, some sinful and some holy. They will make a choice, and will break your heart.

I don’t know about you, but seeing the way some supposed Christians behave these days breaks my heart. They claim to follow our risen Lord, the one who taught his disciples to care for the “least of these,” and yet continually act in ways that I believe are contrary to Jesus’s teachings. They claim sole authority and claim that people like me are heretics. Someday we will know the truth. In the meantime, the task I have chosen is to pursue love, not power. Christianity made a deal with the Roman Empire 1700 years ago and keeps renewing that deal with each new empire that comes along. We have traded the Gospel of love for the worship of power. Just as Judah’s kings kept choosing military alliances over trusting God’s directions through Jeremiah’s prophecies, Christian leaders make deals to support people that they think will support them in return. These deals always go bad, usually by turning Christians into exactly what they supposedly oppose.

The only way out of this dark valley for Christendom is to reclaim the Gospel in its radical form. Go back to loving our neighbors as ourselves. Go back to caring for the least among us—feeding the poor, clothing the naked, welcoming the stranger, freeing the prisoner, caring for the sick. That changed the world once, and it can change the world again.

We are not called to make men into godly leaders and then follow them. We are called to follow God alone. We are called to put our trust in God, to listen for God speaking Truth in our lives. We are called to put Christ at the very center of our lives and love only Him. As we go from here, let us listen for God’s subtle guidance that enables us to exhibit the Kingdom of Heaven to the world and to proclaim the Gospel for the salvation of humankind. Amen.

Do you treat the Bible like a steak or a hot dog?

Published in the Phelps County Focus on February 13, 2025. Here’s a teaser!

I like steak. Medium-rare, some salt and pepper, maybe some butter. Usually, a ribeye or New York strip. Occasionally with grilled onions or roasted garlic to complement the flavor.

But when I was a kid, I didn’t like steak at all. Some cuts are too tough. You need to cut around the bone, fat, and gristle, and you also need to cut it into small enough bites. A bad cook can ruin a good steak, and even when cooked properly, there are parts that are chewy.

So instead, I ate hot dogs. Hot dogs are easy. No utensils needed. Every bite is exactly the same. If you’re in a hurry, you can even microwave a hot dog in less than a minute. Just don’t ask too many questions about what’s in it—bits and pieces from every part of the animal, all ground up and mushed together to make something tasty and vaguely meat-like.

As I grew up, a plain hot dog became less and less satisfying. To compensate, I piled on the toppings: ketchup (but definitely not in Chicago!), onions, relish, hot peppers. Other people pile on sauerkraut, chili, or cheese. The options are limitless. If you do it right, you can barely tell there’s a hot dog underneath all the toppings!

Some people treat the Bible in the same way. They….

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Answer the Call

Preached February 9, 2025, at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based primarily on Luke 5:1-11, with references to Isaiah 6:1-8.


The American Society of Plastic Surgeons issued a press release in August 2022 stating that there had been a substantial surge in demand after the pandemic. There were lots of reasons. One was that people had money to spend on luxuries that they hadn’t spent on vacations due to travel restrictions. But to me, this quote points to the primary reason: “We’re seeing ourselves on a computer screen a lot more regularly and are much more aware of our appearance. And for a lot of people, that makes them recognize that they may want to look a little younger or to appear less tired, which has led to an increase in facial and neck procedures as well. I think there’s something that’s happened in terms of the cultural values on aesthetics and wellness in this country that we haven’t seen before. And I think people are recognizing that it’s OK to do something for themselves.”

I don’t know about everyone in our congregation, but I spend a LOT of time in front of a computer. During the pandemic shutdowns, much of that time was spent on Zoom. The harsh light in my basement office and the close-up view from my webcam revealed all of my flaws. Fortunately I’m not vain, except maybe about my beard. But many people had this experience of staring at themselves on the computer and seeing every little flaw. They saw themselves as others see them, and didn’t like it.

Today’s readings have two call stories. First, Isaiah is in the Temple and he saw the Lord sitting on a throne, surrounded by seraphim who called out, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” The building shook and filled with smoke, and Isaiah was overcome with awe at God’s mighty presence. The bright light of God’s glory revealed to him all of his flaws. He said, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” Isaiah realized his own brokenness and that of his community and nation. He realized that they had all fallen far short of God’s glory.

Then we have Simon, who will soon be called Peter. He’s in his fishing boat on a normal day, giving Jesus a ride while he preaches. Jesus tells him to go out to deep water and throw out his nets. Simon basically says, “Sure, whatever, we’re not going to catch anything, but I’ll humor you.” When God’s abundant kingdom breaks through, Simon is overcome. Like Isaiah, he sees all of his sinfulness in the bright light of Jesus’s glory. He suddenly sees himself the way God sees him and knows his every failing. He tries to get Jesus to take his bright light away, to let him go back to his normal life.

The thing is, though, once you have encountered God, everything changes. Isaiah couldn’t go back to his mundane duties, but instead needed to become God’s prophet. Simon couldn’t go back to fishing, but instead was compelled to follow Jesus as his disciple.

God has a way of calling some of the most unlikely people, many of whom protest that they are not worthy. Moses tried one argument after another to get God to leave him alone. Last week, we heard Jeremiah protest that he was only a boy who didn’t know what to say. Isaiah protested that he had unclean lips. Simon, now called Peter, declared himself a sinful man. But God sees us differently. Just like when the LORD sent Samuel to anoint David to be king over Israel, the LORD does not see as mortals see, but looks on the heart. Jesus saw something special in Simon, something that would enable him to transform into the rock on which his church would be built.

Keeping track of the sequence of events in the Gospels is sometimes tricky, but let’s give it a try. In Luke’s Gospel, first, Jesus was baptized, then tempted in the wilderness. When he returns, he proclaims the year of the Jubilee in the synagogue in Nazareth. Next, he heals Simon’s mother-in-law, and then we have this story. So Jesus is already becoming known in the area. He has already begun to preach and he attracted a big enough crowd that he needed to preach from a boat. Jesus and Simon know each other well enough that Simon would let him use his boat to preach from, and Simon also trusts him enough to humor Jesus and take his fishing advice. But at this point, people don’t really know who Jesus is exactly.

Then the abundant kingdom of God breaks through, and Simon sees it: Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus is God! And yet Simon is thinking, Me? Why did you choose me? I’m not worthy! I’m just a fisherman! I’m not learnèd like the scribes or Pharisees. I’m an uneducated peasant from a dinky little backwater town. And you know what? I’m not even that great a fisherman. I worked ALL NIGHT and didn’t catch anything, and then this Jesus guy comes along and suddenly I catch all these fish. I AM NOT WORTHY.

Yet Jesus saw something in Simon and pushed on. Somehow, Jesus always calls the right person. Ultimately, Simon said yes. That’s all that Jesus asks of us, that when he calls us, we say yes. Not a half-hearted yes, not a “yes but,” but a 100% YES to whatever he asks us to do. Jesus doesn’t promise an easy path, but he does promise to be with us wherever we go, and to give us the courage and wisdom we need to participate in his transformation of the world.

Simon said yes. He left everything behind—his family, his boat, his business, everything. But he gained something along the way. He became part of something bigger than himself. Indeed, he became part of a movement that would transform the world. He felt compelled to follow Jesus. He didn’t know what the future would hold, but he intuitively knew that as long as he was with Jesus, everything would work out for the best.

This is a classic call story. First comes the theophany: God did something amazing in the world, and Simon had a front-row seat. Next comes the assurance: Fear not, your sins are not disqualifying, you will see God and not perish. Then the commission: Follow me and fish for people. Then finally, the response: Simon left everything behind. Simon was assured, Simon heard the call, and Simon gave a 100% YES.

This is also an excellent model of discipleship for us all. Most of us haven’t had such a dramatic theophany as Isaiah or Simon had, but perhaps we had some experience that made us understand that God is real and present with us. I had an experience like that listening to Rabbi Randy at an interfaith service held during Pride STL ten years ago. I had another experience like that sitting next to Mary on my couch twelve years ago while Rhonda was suffering with her face pain. In both cases, I didn’t hear a specific call or have a dramatic vision, but I did have a very real sense of God’s presence.

Those experiences, and other less tangible experiences of God’s presence mediated by other people in my life, led me to a sense of assurance, a sense that God is with me. Not that “God is on my side,” as some might say, but that God is accompanying me on my walk of faith. An assurance that there is no need to fear what’s coming my way.

Here’s where it gets difficult, though. Without Jesus sitting in the boat with me, or the hem of God’s robe filling the temple while seraphim fly around, I don’t have as much clarity around my calling. I have a sense of it, but I am continually seeking feedback to know that I’m on the path God intends for me. When I feel that I’m going the right way, I become more committed to responding YES.

That’s discipleship. Continually watching and listening for the signs that God gives you so that you know you are on the right path. We can’t force God to speak to us plainly. God’s work and signs are subtle.

An interesting quirk of our brains is that we find what we are looking for. Let me explain. Suppose something important is going on in your life, or there’s some problem you’re trying to solve. The classic example is when you or someone close to you is pregnant. Suddenly, you’ll find that you see pregnant women EVERYWHERE. When your mind is attuned to certain clues, they pop up as if by magic.

So if you are dedicated to seeking God’s guidance, you will find it. We can better attune ourselves to the clues that God is giving us if we are diligent in seeking God’s guidance through prayer. That’s why I have encouraged people to develop spiritual practices, and that’s why I have encouraged people to find prayer partners. By praying individually, we each start to see God’s plans for ourselves. By praying in pairs, or as a congregation, we start to see what God has in store for us all collectively.

Let me be clear: I am not just talking about us as individual church members or collectively as First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Each one of us is called to serve God in particular ways, and we work together in groups that are called together by God to further God’s kingdom. I have a lot on my plate: professor, department chair, lay pastor, treasurer of a nonprofit, volunteer at the Mission, father, husband, friend. Yet I see my work in every role as furthering the same goal: universal human flourishing. That is what I believe is the essence of God’s realm, and that is what I seek in all that I do. The challenge is to discern, in each role and in each situation in life, just what God’s desire is for me. How can I best serve God when I’m confronted with a student, staff, or faculty member who is having some difficulty? How can I best serve God when my nonprofit is in conflict with the city?

Each of you have similar challenges. Each of you fills many roles in your life. The primary criticism of Christians or of the church is hypocrisy: we say that we are seeking God’s will, but when we have to choose between God’s will and our finances, we do what’s best for our finances. We say that God loves everybody, but then we try to decide who is actually worthy of that love. The cure for hypocrisy is to see your whole life as being of one piece: one call, one mission, all dedicated to God’s kingdom.

I’ve been thinking lately about the Theological Declaration of Barmen, the confession that came out of Germany in 1934. Its second point is this: “We reject the false doctrine, as though there were areas of our life in which we would not belong to Jesus Christ, but to other lords—areas in which we would not need justification and sanctification through him.” Christ does not call us to serve him on Sunday mornings. Christ does not call us to serve him within the church’s dealings only. Christ calls us to follow him all the days of our lives. There is nothing that we do where Christ says, “Yeah, I understand, it would be unreasonable for me to expect you to follow my guidance in this situation.” Christ doesn’t say, “It’s OK to lie, cheat, and steal in business as long as you tithe your ill-gotten gains.” Christ doesn’t say, “Love your neighbor as yourself, but only the neighbors that you like.” Christ doesn’t say, “Follow the government’s laws, not God’s law of love, so you stay out of trouble.” No, Christ expects our 100% YES. Christ expects us to love and serve only Him. Not our stock portfolio, not our government, only God.

Simon encountered God in the flesh. He realized how inadequate he was, and yet Jesus chose him and assured him of his continual presence, guiding him each step of the way. So Simon gave his whole life to serving God, and in return, he was renamed Peter, the rock on which Christ’s church was built. In the same way, each of us has been chosen, each of us has been assured of God’s continual guiding, comforting, strengthening presence. So give God your YES, give your whole life, all that you have and all that you are, to fostering human flourishing, to reconciling all people, to serving the people that God loves here in Rolla and around the nation and world. Amen.

Anointed and Connected

Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on January 12, 2025, Baptism of the Lord. Based on Luke 3: 15-17, 21-22.


Many times over the past decade or two, I’ve wished that we knew more about John the Baptist. Here’s what I think we know. John was the son of a priest, and so he could also have been a priest. He chose a prophetic path instead. He spoke truth to power, and in the end, ran afoul of Herod Antipas and was beheaded. But before we get there, we read that he led a major movement in the wilderness centered on baptism and repentance. He explicitly rejected the title of Messiah, saying instead that he was sent to prepare the way for the Messiah to come.

How big was John’s movement? We don’t really know. I’ve been told that if John’s movement survived his death and produced any writings, they have been intentionally lost so that he wouldn’t be seen as overshadowing Jesus’s movement.

Here’s something else we know: Jesus was part of John’s movement, at least peripherally. In verse 21, Luke writes, “Now when all the people were baptized and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying….” Jesus was part of the crowd. He came to be part of this radical Jewish community that was exploring a new way to be God’s people.

John had prepared the way for Jesus indeed. He had created a movement full of people who were eagerly anticipating something new. He had reminded them that they had failed to live up to God’s expectations of them and that it was time to turn back towards God.

Into this highly-charged atmosphere comes Jesus, a carpenter from Nazareth, which is to say, a nobody from nowhere. He wasn’t a priest, he wasn’t a warrior, he wasn’t from Bethlehem, he wasn’t anything that people expected the Messiah to be. And yet when he immersed himself in John’s community and then immersed himself in the waters of baptism, he was ready to take center stage. The heavens opened and the crowd got a peek behind the curtain that separates us from the True Reality of God’s realm. Something like a dove came as an emissary from God’s realm, anointing Jesus with the Holy Spirit as God declared Him to be God’s beloved Son.

Jesus became a part of John’s community, and then grew his own ministry. Jesus was the inheritor of a tradition that stretched back a thousand years, mediated by a charismatic leader and prophet who helped the people interpret that tradition.

We Presbyterians subscribe to Reformed theology, a movement that started with Calvin. Both Lutheran and Reformed theology hold to sola scriptura, that is, only scripture is the ultimate authority. I have a pretty hard time with that, in part because I know how the Bible we have today evolved over the centuries and in part because I do not read Hebrew or Greek. I think also my difficulty stems from my upbringing in the United Methodist Church. Besides Lutheranism and Reformed theology, another major branch of Protestant theology is Anglican. Instead of sola scriptura, the Anglicans have the three-legged stool: scripture, reason, and tradition. The Wesleyan quadrilateral took this three-legged stool and added experience. Basically, the Wesleyan tradition says that yes, scripture is essential, but God gave us rational minds to learn with and put us in this world to experience God anew each generation.

And also, tradition. If all I had was the Bible, in English but without notes, I would quickly get lost. Add in my reason and experience and I might be able to understand some of it. But tradition is essential to bring it all together. When we read passages like this one, we remember all of the theology that has grown around baptism. What actually happens in baptism? I’m not certain, but the Presbyterian tradition teaches that it is an outward sign of an inward grace. Our tradition also says that it is the sign and seal of our incorporation into Jesus Christ. Reformed tradition understands baptism to be a sign of God’s covenant, linked with the waters of creation, the flood, and the exodus. Without the centuries of great thinkers who have pondered the mysteries of the sacraments, I would have no understanding of the riches of God’s grace as demonstrated through the waters of baptism.

Indeed, most people only learn about the Bible through our traditions. Until fairly recently, most Catholics didn’t read the Bible. Even among those traditions who interpret the Bible literally and believe it to be inerrant, Biblical literacy is pretty poor among modern Christians. And as I’ve said before, the Bible is a thick book that has almost everything in it. Through our traditions, we learn what’s important and what’s not, how to interpret these ancient writings in a modern context, and how to apply the Bible to our lives.

Traditions are the product of a religious community. “Religion” gets a bad rap these days. Many people claim to be “spiritual but not religious,” whatever that might mean. They reject formal religious structures, essentially rejecting tradition, accepting some scripture but not all of it, and elevating reason and experience. Organized religion has done a lot of things that are wrong or even evil, so I understand why some people would reject it. We have collectively done much to lose trust.

Yet let’s not throw out the baby with the bath water. Religion has a place in the modern world, just as it did in the ancient world. The root of the word is ligare, which means to bind. It’s the same root as for “ligament.” Religion binds us to one another and to God. I think of it like tomato cages or plant stakes. Religion supports us when we’re weak and guides our growth. Not just religion, but a religious community. The community lifts you up when you’ve fallen, challenges you when you’ve become complacent, and comforts you when you’re hurting. The community enables you to do more than you could on your own, as everyone’s efforts add together. The community enables you to understand more than you could on your own, as everyone’s perspectives enrich the conversation.

Even Jesus needed to be a part of a community. When he was ready to start his ministry, he immersed himself in a religion that connected back many generations, through the exile, through the monarchy, through the exodus, to the time when one man and his family walked with God. He immersed himself in a community that was a part of this great tradition but was reimagining it in a radical way, to rediscover a way to be God’s people and participate in God’s transformation of the world. Jesus was the Word made flesh, the Son of God, the Messiah, and yet he needed a community to support him. Man does not live by bread alone, but bread is a necessity, and it was provided to him by the community he surrounded himself with.

Not only that, but Jesus was a finite human being, just like all of us, so he couldn’t be everywhere at once. Sure, he did some miraculous things, from turning water into wine to feeding the 5000, but he could only work one miracle at a time and preach to one crowd at a time. Twice in the Gospels we read of him sending his disciples out in pairs to help spread the good news throughout Galilee and Judea. At the end of Matthew, he charges his disciples to go even to the ends of the earth, because he couldn’t go himself as a finite human being. Indeed, we would not be Christians today if Jesus didn’t lead a community that carried on his movement.

One of the many things we find in a community is our identity. It’s paradoxical, I know. You would think that because your identity is so core to your individuality, you would find it best through self-reflection and isolation. I used to think that. But in a community, other people bring out aspects of your identity that you never would realize yourself. I’m up here today because Lou Ellen saw something in me that I didn’t see. I bet all of you see yourselves differently because of something you learned through this community.

I also often say that I most readily experience God through other people. God is everywhere, but invisible. As human beings, we can just barely perceive the actor behind the action. It’s easier for me, though, to see God acting through other people.

This need to make the invisible visible is the essence of the sacraments. Through bread and juice, we encounter the body and blood of Christ. Through the waters of baptism, we experience the outflow of God’s grace and our anointing by the Holy Spirit.

At Jesus’s baptism, the invisible was made quite visible. The Holy Spirit descended in bodily form, like a dove. Through this encounter, he knew, and the whole crowd knew, just who he was in God’s realm. Jesus was anointed, designated for his role in God’s mission to transform the world—on earth as it is in heaven. Once his identity was established, Jesus was empowered to embrace his role and proclaim the year of God’s favor.

We too are designated for a special role in God’s transformative work. Today, Steve and Cheryl were designated to serve as a ruling elder and a deacon, respectively. Back in August, I was designated to serve as a commissioned lay pastor. Most of you have been similarly designated for church offices now or in the past. But more than our place in the church’s polity, we all have a part to play in the body of Christ. We are eyes or ears or hands or mouths or feet. All of us have a job to do to transform the world, starting in Rolla. All of us are here today and each Sunday to receive this commission and to be empowered by both the Holy Spirit and this community of believers. We are here to encounter God, through worship and through each other, and then to carry that encounter out into the community.

I want to return briefly to verse 21. Luke wrote, “When Jesus also had been baptized and was praying….” A recurring theme in Luke is the centrality of prayer in Jesus’s life and ministry. Again, if the Son of God, the Word made flesh, needed prayer, how much more do the rest of us! So, who here watched my recorded sermon last week? And don’t lie just to make me feel better. OK, in my sermon last week, I laid out a plan for us to have prayer partners. I want everyone to have at least one and no more than three partners. They need to be from this congregation and not in your family. They shouldn’t be holding the same office as you hold right now, so if you’re on session, don’t pick another installed elder and if you’re a deacon, don’t pick another deacon.

What I want you to do is to get together, in person, once a week. Could be five minutes, could be an hour. You can follow up by email or phone or text, but spend at least a little time together in person. Talk about whatever is true and on your heart, then pray together and pray for one another.

The point of this spiritual exercise is to reveal your identity to yourself and to one another. Who are you in Christ’s body? What is weighing you down? What lifts you up? What are your hopes and fears? How do they define you, or how can you transcend them to live out your truth in Christ?

I don’t expect the heavens to open and the Holy Spirit to descend in bodily form upon you, but if she does, I want to hear about it. What I do expect is that as you talk to each other and pray for each other, you will be progressively more open and more able to hear God’s voice. Perhaps you will encounter God through one another. You will better know where you fit in God’s plan. And then together, we all can live out our calling to be Christ’s body, doing God’s work in the world. Amen.

What Will You Give Him?

Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on January 5, 2025, in celebration of Epiphany. Based on Matthew 2:1-12.


Today, I am preaching about Epiphany, which is technically tomorrow. Today is technically the twelfth day of Christmas. No, I don’t have twelve drummers drumming for us, as much as I’d like to.

But since it is still the season of Christmas, we can talk about Christmas carols and hymns. I bet everyone has a favorite carol, or at least a short list that they would choose from depending on their mood. Some carols have great tunes or great lyrics, and some have both. My personal favorite Christmas carol is “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen,” mostly because the bass line is fantastic. Unfortunately, there is no good way to make its language inclusive, so it hasn’t been included in hymnals in the last fifty years. Of the carols we still use in worship, my favorite is probably “Joy to the World.” It also has a pretty good bass line, and the lyrics and tune fit together nicely. When I was growing up, we used it as the closing hymn for our candlelight service on Christmas Eve, just as we do in this church, so there are those memories associated with it as well.

My mother’s favorite is “In the Bleak Midwinter,” which is #36 in the blue hymnals in the pews. It’s a setting by Gustav Holst of a poem by Christina Rossetti. The poetry is as beautiful as the melancholy tune. Especially the last verse:

What can I give Him, Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a wise man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.

Christina Rosetti, In the Bleak Midwinter

In today’s lesson, we read about the magi coming to visit baby Jesus. The magi were most likely members of a priestly caste in Persia, at least that’s where the word comes from. Magi studied the stars; at the time, there wasn’t a clear distinction between astronomy and astrology. They were well known for reading portents in the stars. So it would make sense that they would see something new in the heavens and interpret it as heralding a new king.

After they saw the sign, they set off on a long journey. If they were Persians who came from, say, Tehran, they had to travel perhaps 1100 miles. That’s a long way to go. Perhaps they were wealthy enough to travel on camels or horses, but a good portion of their retinue would have to walk. It would have taken them months. Such was their commitment to honoring a newborn king that they were willing to travel an enormous distance with valuable gifts that would have been targeted by bandits.

The gifts they brought are full of symbolism. Gold—well, that’s pretty obvious. If you’re visiting a king, you should give him money, I suppose. I have also read that gold is supposed to symbolize virtue. Perhaps. Regardless, gold reflects Jesus’s kingship.

Myrrh is used as an embalming oil and as an anointing oil. If we consider its use as an anointing oil, we are reminded that Jesus was the Messiah or the Christ, Hebrew and Greek words respectively that mean “anointed one.” Jesus was anointed by God to lead God’s people and bring salvation to all humanity. If we consider its use as an embalming oil, our thoughts in this second chapter of Matthew flash forward to the twenty-seventh chapter, in which Jesus is crucified and buried. We are reminded that he was anointed to obey God’s will, even to death on a cross, for the sake of the world that God loves.

Frankincense is used in perfume, so it would have been a perfectly ordinary gift to offer a king. But it is also used as incense. Let me read to you from Revelation, chapter 8, verses 3 and 4:

Another angel with a golden censer came and stood at the altar; he was given a great quantity of incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar that is before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel.

Revelation 8:3-4

Incense is used throughout the Bible to symbolize prayer. When the high priest entered the Holy of Holies, he would carry a censer to fill the room with the scent of the incense. Many churches still use incense today to remind the congregation of God’s presence and to symbolize our prayers rising up to God. So the frankincense can be seen as a symbol of prayer, as a symbol of divinity, as a symbol of the magi offering their prayers to Emmanuel, God With Us.

Let’s talk a bit about prayer. How does prayer “work”? In the popular imagination, it’s something like, if you pray the right prayers, then God will grant you what you ask. That’s a very dangerous theology. That opens the door to blaming the sick and dying for their fates because they must not have prayed enough or correctly. Let me tell you how I approach prayer and what I believe about it.

First, prayer is about laying my burdens down and accepting that there are many things outside my control that only God can do. When I know someone who is going through hard times—financially, medically, emotionally, or relationally—I’m usually unable to actually do anything to help them. Through prayer, I ask God to do what no human can, and release myself from the burden of doing the impossible.

Next, prayer is about transforming myself. It’s about attuning to the leading of the Holy Spirit. It’s taking time to let God change me from within. When I pray for peace, I am more able to see violence and see the ways that I can work for peace. When I offer prayers of thanksgiving, I am gently transformed into a more grateful person who can show gratitude to the people in my life who mean so much to me. When I ask for forgiveness, I guide myself away from repeating my sinful behaviors.

Finally, prayer is about connecting with God. Let me tell you about a practice I began sporadically a few months ago and that I intend to make my nightly spiritual practice this year. Here is a picture of a couple of rosaries:

Two rosaries, wood on the left, colored beads on the right

The one with wooden beads is special to me because Jesse bought it in Jerusalem and brought it home to me. That doesn’t make it magic or extra holy, but a little more personal. So because it’s special to me, I normally leave it at home. I made the other one with about $3 in supplies from Walmart and Etsy. It’s my travel rosary. Since it’s cheap and homemade, I can replace it when I inevitably lose it, which has already happened once.

Anyway, a rosary has a cross on the end, then a first bead, a group of three beads called antiphon beads, and then another major bead. The loop has five sets of ten beads called decades, each divided by another bead. What you do is say a prayer of some sort for each bead. You use the beads to keep track of your place. Catholics use the rosary for prayers involving Mary, but I have a different technique. On the cross, I pray the Prayer of St. Francis. Then on the first bead I say the Glory Be, then on the three antiphon beads the Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Then on the major beads, I say the Lord’s Prayer, and on each bead of the decades, I pray this: “Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu, melekh ha ‘olam,” which is Hebrew meaning, “Blessed be the Lord our God, Sovereign of all Creation.” It’s the opening line of a Jewish prayer that Jesse taught me.

Anyway, you start at the cross, go through the first few beads, then the five decades, then back out the first few beads, and end at the cross. Often, as I pray through the decades, I feel something in my solar plexus. It’s like a yearning of my soul reaching out to God. As I wrap up, I end in a contemplative state where I am open to God’s leading and I feel my burdens lifted.

This is the form of contemplative prayer that works for me, that helps me connect with God. It’s a complement to my morning prayers in which I offer confession, thanksgiving, supplication, and intercessory prayers. My morning prayer keeps me grounded while my evening prayer seeks transcendence.


“If I were a wise man, I would do my part; yet what I can I give him, give my heart.” The task before us this day and every day is to seek God’s will, as individuals and as a congregation. One of my hopes for 2025 is that this church will become a Matthew 25 church. PC(USA) has a whole program centered on the story in Matthew 25 about the judgment of the nations. The sheep will be separated from the goats based on whether or not they welcome the stranger, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and free the prisoner. That’s a HUGE task. We need to find our place in it. The PC(USA) program starts with congregational vitality.

In our baptismal vows and our membership vows, we agree to give ourselves to God and to God’s church. We agree to pursue the Great Commandment: to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. The second is empowered by the first. Only with the strength of God’s love can we hope to truly love our neighbors. We can best tap into the endless fountain of God’s love through prayer.

So I have a task for us all in 2025. Regardless of your current or planned spiritual practices, I want you to add one more. I want everyone to have a prayer partner. Here’s how I envision it. You and your partner will connect at least once a week in person, for five minutes or an hour or anything in-between. You’ll talk about something that is true and meaningful to you. You can talk about the church, or the community, or the world, or your family, or your work, or your hobbies, or anything. Whatever is on your heart. Then pray together or pray for one another when you are apart. Pray for one another every day.

I want everyone to have at least one partner, no more than three. Your partner must be outside your family. I mean, you should pray with and for your family members, too, but I want you to specifically seek someone outside of your family to partner with. If you are an officer, find someone who doesn’t hold the same office.

I want everyone to find a prayer partner soon. Today would be nice. This week would be OK. If you are struggling to find someone, let me know and I’ll help you out. It doesn’t have to be someone you are already close to—in fact, this might work better if it’s someone you don’t know so well. As long as you are both committed to serving God through this congregation, Jesus Christ will be there with you.

Too often, Christians are functional atheists. We say that we believe in God’s power, but then we act as if everything relies on our own efforts. We say that we cannot do more for our community because we don’t have enough time, money, or people. Yet nothing is impossible for God. Through prayer, let us turn our cares over to God and walk with Christ on the next phase of our journey together. Through prayer, let us give our hearts to Christ, so that we might better follow the path He has shown us. Let us give Christ all that we have and all that we are, so that we might truly become the body of Christ. Amen.

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