Living in God's Realm Today
Article published in the Phelps County Focus on September 18, 2025. This is an abridged and re-focused version of my sermon by the same name.
In Luke 15, Jesus preached about a shepherd leaving 99 sheep to go look for the one he had lost. Sheep are almost too stupid to live. They don’t run away. They go where they are guided to go. If a sheep is lost, it’s because it was left behind when the shepherd moved the rest of the flock along.
Sheep are like …
Humans are meant to flourish and thrive. Abraham Maslow developed a “hierarchy of needs” that encapsulate everything a person needs to flourish. The foundation levels are physiological and safety needs. Everyone needs water, food, shelter, and security.
Once those needs are fulfilled at some minimal level, though, each person needs to satisfy higher psychological, emotional, and spiritual needs. Love and belonging: we are meant to be in loving relationships with one another, whether friends, family, chosen family, or a larger community. Esteem: we all need both self-esteem and status and recognition in our community, however that is defined. Self-actualization: we are driven to make the most of our capabilities, achieve our potential.
Later, Maslow and other researchers added a sixth need: self-transcendence. We all have a desire to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. That can be a community, a religion, an organization, a nation, or something more spiritual. The ultimate self-transcendence is to feel a part of the Universe, connected to and united with all people and all things, everywhere and throughout time. Few people reach that level of self-transcendence, except Jesus and the Buddha. But it is a goal towards which we can all strive.
Aside from the physiological and safety needs, a connection to God as you understand Them is important at all of the higher levels. People have different names for God: Adonai, the Trinity, Allah; the pantheon of Hindu gods; the Universe, the Source; and so forth. These are all ways of describing Something that transcends our ordinary experience. I am personally a Trinitarian Christian, but acknowledge the possibility, even the high likelihood, that most or all spiritual traditions are describing different aspects of the same ultimate Reality.
The problem is that we fight over different interpretations of that ultimate reality. We try to convince others either that they MUST subscribe to our interpretation in order to be in our community, or that they are forbidden from approaching our God because of some inherent quality of theirs. The pursuit of a connection to ultimate reality becomes a solitary journey, then, or people give up on the pursuit because they think it is blocked.
But it’s not. Nobody has the right to tell you that you are unworthy in God’s sight, except for God. Nobody has exclusive access to Truth. St. Augustine once said, “Si comprehendus, non est Deus,” which means “If you understand, it is not God.” Joy, peace, transcendence, and connection are found in the pursuit, not in any particular doctrine or definition.
Si comprehendus, non est Deus.
St. Augustine
If you understand, it is not God.
In the Christian tradition, leaders are normally called “pastor,” which derives from the Latin for shepherd. The implication is that the pastor knows where to go and guides the flock in that direction, like lost sheep being prodded and pushed and herded. The reality is that pastors know more about scripture and theology, and guide their flocks with love and care, but have no more direct access to the ultimate Truth than anyone else.
In many life settings and philosophical traditions, “mentors” lead protégés. The original model is Mentor, a character in the Odyssey who was entrusted with raising and guiding Odysseus’s son, Telemachus. There are many positive examples of mentorship. However, in its worst form, the relationship can be quite paternalistic as in the Odyssey, where the mentor claims superior knowledge, skill, and wisdom, and seeks to form the protégé into a copy, a “Mini-Me.” I often serve as a mentor within my limited sphere of engineering and academia, but would never claim such authority in the spiritual realm.
Jewish leaders are termed “rabbis,” or teachers. Any teacher has an area where they are experts and other areas where they are learners. I can accept being called “teacher” in my profession as an engineer. There are also specific topics within scripture and theology where I have enough expertise to guide others. When it comes to the broad outlines of the spiritual journey, though, what I know from my own journey can provide just one limited perspective. Oscar Wilde said, “Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.” Developing spiritual depth and wisdom must come from experience, not knowledge transfer.
The Sherpas are an ethnic group in Nepal, India, and Tibet who live high in the Himalayas. Because of their extensive lived experience in that mountainous terrain, many mountain guides and bearers on Himalayan expeditions are Sherpas. As a result, “sherpa” has come to mean a person who helps you on your mountain journey. They may help carry burdens that you cannot. They may help you in an emergency, or go get help for you. They may know the right path to take, or they may rely on their instincts developed over years in the mountains to help you identify better and worse paths.
I see myself as a Thriving Sherpa. I cannot tell you how to thrive. I cannot tell you what to believe or how to behave. I can tell you what I know from my own study and experience, and help you figure out your own path. I can help you carry burdens—emotional, spiritual, relational—as you pursue self-actualization and self-transcendence. And like Tenzing Norgay, who accompanied Edmund Hillary on the first successful summit of Mount Everest, my reward is being a part of your triumph, your flourishing, your emergence as the best version of yourself who helps fill the world with love.
I feel called to be a Thriving Sherpa for the LGBTQ+ community and their allies. For too long, gay and transgender individuals have been told that they are inherently sinful and unworthy of God’s love. THIS IS CATEGORICALLY FALSE. There is nobody who is unworthy. Everyone is pure and holy at their center.
There are some relationships that are beautiful, joyful, and life-giving, and should be celebrated and affirmed.
There are some relationships that are abusive, exploitative, and life-denying, and should be ended.
The gender(s) of the participants is only incidental to whether a relationship is life-giving or life-denying. In fact, heterosexual relationships are more likely to be corrupted by gender dynamics inherited from patriarchy than same-sex relationships. I reject any theology or social framework that elevates and affirms a marriage in which the husband abuses the wife while denying or castigating a marriage between two loving men or two loving women.
The Divine Spark dwells in each person’s innermost being. There, with all of the externalities removed, we are all pure and good. At STL Pride 2015, a rabbi led a chant, “Elohai neshamah shenatata bi tehorah hi.” “My God, the soul you breathe in me is pure and good.” That soul dwells within our human flesh. In some cases, there is a mismatch between the form of that perfect and beautiful soul and the outermost form of the flesh containing it. In some cases, we lack language to really describe the form of that soul. The closest terms we can come up with are things like “non-binary,” “genderfluid,” and “genderqueer.” These are all failings of our language and culture, not of the perfect and beautiful soul.
To be absolutely clear: I believe that same-sex and opposite-sex relationships are equal before God. I believe that people of all genders are equal before God. It is our task to build a society in which healthy relationships can flourish, and people of all genders can flourish.
I recognize that I write this all from a place of extreme privilege. I am a straight, cisgender, white man. I have never needed to contend with minority status due to my race, gender, or sexual orientation. It is incumbent on me to learn about the challenges that minorities of all kinds face in our society, and to work to alleviate them. Rather than forsaking my privilege, I strive to use it to elevate those who are on the margins because of their identity.
I believe, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” He was speaking of the ultimate end of history when we all know the Truth, the infinite Love that awaits us when all things are reconciled. God is good. The Universe is good. But MLK also recognized, as I do, that the moral arc does not bend on its own. It bends towards justice when those of us who have the ability to make a change in the world pursue justice, righteousness, and reconciliation.
So my calling is to help people wherever they are on their journey. For many years, I have sought to create an organization and a place where everyone can fulfill their love and belonging needs, LGBTQ+ Rolla. At the same time, I have been exploring the spiritual terrain and growing closer to God as I understand Them. Now I am stepping out to create a space where I can walk alongside people who are striving to fulfill their higher needs, as they recognize a need to be a part of something bigger than themselves, as big as the whole Universe.
Article published in the Phelps County Focus on July 3, 2025. Here’s a teaser:
What happens when we die?
Many, probably most, modern Christians believe that humanity is split between the saved and the damned. They differ on how someone gets saved—whether predestined or by freely accepting Jesus, for example. They differ on what happens to the damned—whether they are annihilated and cease to exist, or are kept alive in eternal conscious torment in a fiery hell. All of these variations are well-supported by scripture.
But I believe in an all-loving God, a just God, a forgiving God. I cannot accept a doctrine that assigns eternal, infinite consequences to our finite time on earth. If you believe in forever, then life is just a blink of an eye. There’s another option, …
Yesterday, June 30, 2025, was a milestone in my life and, I hope, in the life of my community. Back in 2010, as I recall, Susan Murray prodded me down a path towards affirming and supporting the LGBTQ+ community. In 2013, my wife’s health crisis put a pause on progress, but by 2017 I was starting to think again about how I could best fulfill my calling to serve the LGBTQ+ community and help everyone flourish.
In 2019, I started putting things in action. Being straight, I didn’t have any idea what would best serve the LGBTQ+ community in Rolla, so I had lunch with a couple of gay acquaintances. The repeated message I received was that we needed a focal point. There are LGBTQ+ individuals everywhere, but too many of them think they are the only ones. They don’t realize how many peers they have and don’t have a way to find community.
Then the pandemic hit. After some dithering, I realized that COVID wasn’t going away anytime soon, so I might as well get on with life. I had connected with Onyx Russ, a nonbinary grad student, at a couple of campus events. We started talking about what we could do. LGBTQ+ Rolla was incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in August 2020. Other people came and went, and eventually we decided to have some Zoom gatherings. Those went well, and then when the weather was nice enough, we started gathering in person in city parks.
Finally, in June 2021, we held our first Pride gathering at Schuman Park. I would have been satisfied with 30 people, but 80 showed up! That demonstrated and validated the message I had received: LGBTQ+ individuals are hungry for a way to connect with one another. Human connection is vital for human flourishing.
Since then, the organization has grown exponentially. Pride 2022 had about 200 people, so in 2023, we moved to the downtown festival lots. We added a drag show, which resulted in blowback and extended city council meetings for months. Fortunately, the furor died down, and now drag shows are accepted as normal entertainment. We continue to have drag at Pride and have hosted shows at S&T and at the local VFW post.
When the LGBTQ+ Rolla board of directors did its strategic planning for 2025, we decided to open a physical location. Shasta Johnson, our president, found a rental property that would work for us. We signed the lease in April and started renovations. Lots of people contributed to the work of turning a run-down, former tanning salon into a beautiful and functional space.
Finally, yesterday, we had a ribbon-cutting ceremony with the Rolla Chamber of Commerce and opened to the public. I would say we had 75+ people in attendance. It was amazing! There is so much excitement about having a space where we can gather, host small events, open our affirming clothes closet, and more!
My personal calling is to live out the Gospel message that the kingdom of God is at hand! I believe that the kingdom of God is universal human flourishing. We all have physical, emotional, spiritual, and relational needs. It is my hope that the LGBTQ+ Rolla Community Center will be a place where people can experience true community, true connections. It is my hope that it will enable LGBTQ+ members of our community to flourish, to grow into the best version of themselves.
Yet I must remember that this is a milestone, not the end. Now the next phase of work begins: keeping the doors open, fighting bigotry in the community, managing the inevitable conflicts that will crop up as people from diverse backgrounds come together. But I am convinced that we will succeed if we keep focused on our mission: Affirming, Supportive, Visible Community.
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….
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….
Published in Phelps County Focus on November 14, 2024. A meditation on Jonah after the presidential election.
We all know the story about Jonah—or at least we think we do. Something about spending three days in the belly of a whale, right? Well, there’s a lot more to the story.
At the time, the Assyrian Empire was the bully in the neighborhood, perhaps like the Soviet Union in its heyday. They pioneered the practice of exiling the leaders of conquered nations. They were not nice people. So, God decided to destroy their capital, Nineveh.
But of course, God is merciful, so God called Jonah and told him to preach repentance in Nineveh. Jonah absolutely did not want to do that! So he fled, sailing fast in the opposite direction. But after a miraculous journey in a great fish, he ended up back on land and on the road to Nineveh. He realized that he had no choice but to go where God had sent him. When he arrived, he half-heartedly told the people of Ninevah what God had planned.
Jonah was BY FAR the most successful prophet after Moses. All the other prophets were ignored, killed, tortured, exiled, etc. But Nineveh heard Jonah’s warnings and immediately repented. It’s kind of a comical story—even the cattle wore sackcloth and ashes! As a result, God relented and showed them mercy.
Jonah was extremely successful—and that upset him. He did not want Nineveh to repent. He wanted God to destroy them. When God showed mercy, Jonah sat down and wished to die.
So often, we are like Jonah. We may say that we want people to change their hearts and minds, but our actions show our true feelings. We don’t really want to change our opponents into our allies—we want to destroy our enemies.
But God reminded Jonah that all of us are made in God’s image. All of us are God’s beloved children. All of us belong in God’s kingdom.
Article published in the Phelps County Focus on August 1, 2024. Here’s just the start of it; please visit and support my publisher!
Gatekeeping. If you poke around on the internet, you’ll see plenty of examples, where someone tries to determine when someone else’s accomplishments or tastes or interests or suffering are “sufficient” or “authentic.”
Statements like, “Stop claiming you love sushi when all you do is eat a California roll with a fork!”
There’s something fundamental in human nature that wants to draw boundaries between who is in and who is out. Many of the “gatekeeping fails” memes are updated versions of the old joke, “You think you have it so hard? I had to walk 10 miles to school in the snow, uphill both ways!”
As if one person’s likes, dislikes, challenges, pain or desires are only valid if they are more extreme or more authentic than someone else’s.
Unfortunately, gatekeeping is well-known in the church, too.
We simply cannot resist the urge to make rules, formal and informal, about who is worthy. We have hundreds of denominations in America, thousands worldwide, because of disagreements over those rules.
This article appeared in the Phelps County Focus print edition on April 18, 2024, and is now available online. Please visit their site to support my publisher!
Have you read the Bible? There’s some strange stuff in there. In Numbers 21, the LORD sends poisonous serpents among the Israelites, and then commands Moses to make a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. Anyone bitten by a poisonous serpent was healed by simply looking at the bronze serpent. Huh. I missed that first aid lesson in my Boy Scout training.
The Bible is also full of factual contradictions. Who killed Goliath? Well, in 1 Samuel 17, David did. That’s the story we all know. But in 2 Samuel 21, Elhanan son of Jaare-oregim did. Huh.
The more I read the Bible, the more strange stuff and contradictions I find. I grew up in the church, but then as I reached adulthood, my doubts began to grow. How could the sun stand still for Joshua? How could Elijah call down fire from heaven? How could a dead man come back to life? Doubts upon doubts upon doubts. The Gospel seemed like a house of cards. Some of those cards were pretty flimsy—concepts and events that I just couldn’t accept—and so the whole thing collapsed.
A lot of people have a faith like that. Some people claim that there are only two choices: take the Bible literally and accept everything in it as factually true, or take the Bible literally and reject it in its entirety because of its internal contradictions and its contradictions with science and known historical facts. Yet there is a third option.
Doubts are real, and are the natural result of taking the Bible seriously. If you start with a literal reading and use the inherent contradictions to reject it all, then you don’t have to seriously consider its teachings and its insights into the way to live with one another. But if you do take it seriously, you can see that God pervades the text from Genesis right through to Revelation. You can see that God’s messengers taught the Israelites what they needed to know in order to become a priestly nation. You can see that the major and minor prophets gave piercing commentaries on their own societies that still ring true today. And you can see that Jesus revealed the best way to live.
You can accept all of that without believing that Jesus was raised from the dead. I’ve heard people say that Jesus was a great prophet, or their role model. But he was more than that. He was the Son of the living God, the Source of our being, the Word made flesh. He showed us how to live, and how to die. He showed us that there is always hope. He showed us that he has conquered sin and death forever, and he invited us to live into his eternal kingdom now.
It’s OK to doubt what you have been taught. God can handle it. God is strong enough. In doubting, we find the flaws in our house of cards, and in seeking answers to our questions, we end up with a more flexible and resilient relationship with our risen Lord.
The Greek word in the Bible we translate as “faith” means something more like faithfulness or fidelity. Jesus doesn’t ask us to abandon our intellect or to stop seeking answers. Rather, he asks us to stay faithful to our calling despite our doubts. And that calling is to build God’s kingdom, to live into God’s kingdom, to forgive and to be forgiven, to work for the reconciliation of all, to create a community where everyone can thrive.
Doubt your beliefs. Doubt what you’ve been taught. Doubt the Bible, doubt all of the creeds from throughout the centuries, doubt everything. But never doubt that God loves you—you personally, each person, all of us together. Never doubt that God seeks a future where we can all bask in the glory of his love. And go and live as if you and everyone you meet are on a path that leads to that glory in Christ’s eternal kingdom. Amen.
Below is a lightly edited announcement that I made at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on February 11, 2024, regarding our Ash Wednesday service.
The Stoics have a saying, “Memento mori,” which means, “Remember death.” It’s their way of remembering that death is inevitable, so we need to appreciate the present. This week, Lent begins with Ash Wednesday. We will have a short service in the back of the sanctuary where I will impose ashes with words drawn from Genesis, “Remember you are dust, and to dust you will return.” This is our way of remembering that death is inevitable and to spend the next six weeks in penitence and prayer. We’ve had a few reminders of death lately. Last week, we learned that the Reads lost their daughter, Karen. Then on Friday two days ago, we learned that the Looks lost DC. Yesterday, I found out that my aunt passed away. I won’t pretend to remember or even know all of the loved ones that we have all lost recently, and nobody can ever truly know the grief another person is experiencing.
However, we end this season of Epiphany with a vision of Jesus glorified, shining radiantly on a mountaintop. We will also end the season of Lent with an even more glorious vision, of our risen Lord who conquered sin and death. Unlike the Stoics, we have faith that this world is not the end. We have a hope that in this life we see as through a glass darkly, but one day, we will see God face to face.
So join us this Wednesday to enter the season of Lent with the proper respect for the sinfulness, brokenness, and pain of this world, and our own sinfulness. But at the same time, remember that the things of this world are passing away as God reconciles and restores all things. And remember that we can experience a foretaste of the kingdom of God right here and now, but will one day enjoy God’s reign in all of its fullness.