Category: FPC Rolla

Preached May 18, 2025, at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on Revelation 21:1-8.

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I don’t usually preach from Revelation. In fact, I don’t know if I’ve ever preached from Revelation. I’m no fire-and-brimstone preacher. But I take what the lectionary gives me. I could have preached about love from the Gospel of John. I could have preached about inclusion from the Acts of the Apostles. But you’ve heard all that from me before, right? So today, you’re getting some apocalyptic preaching. 

Before I get into the reading, let’s try to get the perspective of the original readers of Revelation. John of Patmos was probably not the same John who was an apostle, nor the John who wrote the Gospel that bears that name, nor the John who wrote the epistles that bear that name… Anyway, John the Revelator was exiled to the island of Patmos sometime late in the first century CE, probably around the year 95. This is about 25 years after the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. In the 60s, there was a lot of turmoil in Jerusalem, culminating in a revolution that was absolutely squashed by the Romans. In 70 CE, the Temple was destroyed and Jews were all banished from Jerusalem. Without the Temple, all those who followed our God had to figure out what God had in mind for them. 

One group, the Pharisees, determined that the Temple sacrificial system could be replaced by the many traditions that had grown up in the synagogues. Out of that group grew rabbinic Judaism, the Jewish faith that continues today. 

Another group saw an altogether different vision of the future. Of course the Temple had been destroyed—God no longer needed a dwelling place on earth. Jesus Christ had come to show us God’s essential nature, and then through his death and resurrection, he established a new Way to follow God. In fact, they called themselves followers of the Way. They envisioned a God who transcended any particular place, and indeed one who transcended any tribe or nation. Out of this group grew Christianity in all its varied forms. 

But remember, many Christians saw themselves as still Jews who had grown in their understanding of God. John of Patmos was thoroughly Jewish. Throughout the book of Revelation and especially in today’s passage, there are references to Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, and other books in our canon, plus many extra-biblical books like 1 Enoch. John was immersed in apocalyptic messianic Judaism and wove its themes all through his writing. 

What was John’s ultimate goal in writing? Well, the core message of Revelation is this: In the end, GOD WINS. Things may look dire—God’s people may be subjected to persecution and the Temple may have been destroyed, but God is at work battling evil and transforming the world. There is always reason for hope. 

In today’s passage, we read that a new heaven and a new earth is descending because the old things had passed away. God is transforming the world into God’s eternal kingdom, which as I have so often said is an existence of universal human flourishing. Most days, it’s hard to see a path from where we are to such an existence. There are so many terrible things happening in the world—how could we ever reach universal flourishing? Well, those old things need to pass away. There are lots of good things in the world, too—but the good is bound up with the bad, often inextricably so. We need to be willing to let go of everything, good and bad, for the sake of God’s kingdom. Only then can we achieve the transformative restoration of all things that is needed to achieve God’s original vision for humanity. 

As the new heaven and new earth are descending, so too is a new Jerusalem, a new holy city. In these last chapters of the Bible, we hear echoes of the first chapters of the Bible. Jesus Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. Christ was there at the beginning, when God spoke all things into being and declared them very good. Christ will be there at the end, too, when all things will be restored to that state of perfection, of wholeness and holiness. 

In the beginning, God placed humanity in a garden. Back then, all we needed was the bare minimum to survive. At first, there was only one human, but God recognized that Adam was incomplete in himself. Being made in the image of God, we are made for relationship. Adam needed a mate, a helper, a companion. Only a loving relationship can really make us complete. 

But no single person can satisfy all of our needs. Many marriages have failed because one person relied too completely on the other and became emotionally unsatisfied. This is no criticism of the other partner—nobody is perfect and therefore nobody can satisfy all of another person’s needs. Similarly, no relationship is pure and untarnished. When you are close to someone, you two can hurt each other because humans are finite, imperfect beings. 

And so a garden is not sufficient for a person to thrive, and a single partner is not sufficient for the pair to thrive. We need a community. We need to be embedded in a complex web of relationships that are individually good, and together provide everything we need to flourish. Metaphorically, we need a city, a Holy City, a place where God dwells and unites us all and ensures the health of every relationship. 

We need a Holy City where everyone we love is there with us. Death will be no more, and neither will there be mourning or crying. This is only possible if absolutely everyone is there with us. If I get to heaven and my Grandma or my Uncle Dick aren’t there, it won’t feel very heavenly. 

The problem is, if everyone I love is there, everyone I hate will be there too. There are people who have hurt me over the years, old pains that sometimes flare up, things that cannot be resolved in the present age. There are surely people that I have hurt. Someday, all of the physical, emotional, and spiritual pain we have inflicted on one another will be healed so that we can be reconciled to one another. Only through that reconciliation will we be able to truly enjoy God’s presence. Only through that reconciliation will the world be truly transformed into God’s kingdom. 

But there are at least two main parts to reconciliation. First, the transgressor needs to be reformed. Here’s where the fire and brimstone come in. In Revelation 21:8, we read, “But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, the murderers, the sexually immoral, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.” That sounds pretty bad, right? I mean, I’m not a murderer, but who among us has never lied? Who among us has never acted cowardly? This seems to doom everyone, or almost everyone, to eternal conscious torment in a lake of fire. Or the slightly more positive interpretation is annihilation: those who don’t make the cut to enter the Holy City are annihilated and cease to exist. 

But again, if I get to heaven and the people I love aren’t there, what kind of heaven would that be? The third way to interpret this passage harkens back to Malachi 3:2-3: “But who can endure the day of [the Lord’s] coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver.” The fire and brimstone are not to destroy or torment us, but to purify us. This vivid metaphor helps us to understand the pain that comes from confronting the many ways we have fallen short of God’s glory and failed to show our love of God or our love of our neighbor. This reckoning will be painful, but is necessary to purify us and to remove from us all of our hatred and all of the ways we hurt one another. Then we can truly repent and, having repented, we can truly reconcile with those whom we have hurt, or those who have hurt us. 

And then, all will be well. Fernando Sabino, a Brazilian writer, once wrote, “In the end, everything will be all right. If it’s not all right, it’s not the end.” Until we have all been purified and reconciled with one another, it is still not the end. God will keep working on us, individually and collectively, until everyone is flourishing. God will keep transforming the world until it truly reflects God’s vision for humanity. 

We might wish that we wouldn’t need to go through all of this. The pain and loss of the present age lead to mourning and tears, but Christ promises that in the end, mourning and crying shall be no more. Julian of Norwich, a famous 14^th-century visionary, wrote this about her 13^th Showing: 

In my folly, before this time I often wondered why, by the great foreseeing wisdom of God, the onset of sin was not prevented: for then, I thought, all should have been well. This impulse [of thought] was much to be avoided, but nevertheless I mourned and sorrowed because of it, without reason and discretion. 

But Jesus, who in this vision informed me of all that is needed by me, answered with these words and said: ‘It was necessary that there should be sin; but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.’ 

These words were said most tenderly, showing no manner of blame to me nor to any who shall be saved.

Jesus doesn’t blame us for our sinfulness and imperfections. He was one of us and so he knows how hard this life is.  We accumulate pain and sorrow throughout the length of our days, but we know that in the end, all shall be well. 

OK, great—someday, we’ll all be in heaven and all shall be well. You should know me well enough, though, to know that I’m not here to promise you pie in the sky when you die in the sweet by and by.  

The core message of the Gospel is that the kingdom of God is at hand! Yes, in the end, all shall be well, but we can have glimpses of what that will be like as the world is slowly transformed. Because the new heaven and the new earth and the new Jerusalem are coming to us. They come to us each day as we strive to create a world that is more aligned with God’s original intention for universal human flourishing. We are living in the Holy City right now. It’s here. It’s within us and among us. 

Sure, we still hurt one another, and we are still finite and imperfect beings. But we have been made in God’s image, and that means we have the capacity within ourselves to express God’s love. We have the ability to forgive, and to repent, and to reconcile with one another. It doesn’t happen very often, but once in a while, I get a sense that I am living in God’s kingdom, if only for a moment or perhaps an afternoon. Once in a while, I have a feeling that God loves me, and that God has connected me with the people around me. I get a feeling that everyone has what they need to flourish, to live out their true identity as a beloved child of God. That feeling passes quickly, but it’s real, and it assures me that indeed, all shall be well. 

The task God sets before each one of us is to find ways to transform the world into God’s kingdom. God works with us and through us as we strive to purge ourselves of evil and hatred. God works with us and through us as we strive to share God’s love with our community, to love as we are loved. God works with us and through us as we seek to feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, and bind up the broken-hearted. 

Someday, all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well. Today, let us strive to make Rolla just a little bit more like God’s vision for humanity. Let us seek ways to help everyone flourish and thrive. In that way, we will live in God’s kingdom today and walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which we have been called. Amen.  

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Preached on May 11, 2025, at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on John 10:22-30.

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This passage opens by putting us in a certain place at a certain time. Jesus is in the Temple, in the portico of Solomon, during the Festival of Dedication. We normally call this holiday something else: Hanukkah. It is also sometimes called the Festival of Lights. It is the major Jewish holiday that was created most recently.

Let me take you back to the time of the Maccabees. In 167 BCE, Judea was under the control of the Seleucid Empire. The emperor Antiochus IV Epiphanes ordered the desecration of the Temple. He had an altar to Zeus erected and ordered pigs—the most unclean of animals—to be sacrificed on the existing altar. This action provoked a revolt that succeeded in 164 BCE.

So, the Jews had re-captured the Temple, but it was still desecrated. The altar had to be re-built, and then they had to light the menorah. Unfortunately, all of the oil available had been defiled, and it would take eight days to make and purify new oil. Miraculously, one day’s worth of oil lasted all eight days. Maimonides, also called the Rambam, one of the greatest rabbis of the Middle Ages, wrote:

When, on the twenty-fifth of Kislev, the Jews had emerged victorious over their foes and destroyed them, they re-entered the Temple where they found only one jar of pure oil, enough to be lit for only a single day; yet they used it for lighting the required set of lamps for eight days, until they managed to press olives and produce pure oil. Because of this, the sages of that generation ruled that the eight days beginning with the twenty-fifth of Kislev should be observed as days of rejoicing and praising the Lord. Lamps are lit in the evening over the doors of the homes, on each of the eight nights, so as to display the miracle. These days are called Hanukkah, when it is forbidden to lament or to fast, just as it is on the days of Purim. Lighting the lamps during the eight days of Hanukkah is a religious duty imposed by the sages.

So, Jesus is in the Temple that had been consecrated miraculously by a light that did not fail. But we know that Jesus Christ is the Light of the World, the Light that will never fail. He came to his own people at this auspicious time to remind them that the Light comes from God the Father, and that he is of one essence with the Father.

This event occurs pretty close to the end of Jesus’s ministry. Throughout the Gospel of John, there is a succession of “signs,” miracles that indicate Jesus’s divine nature. At this late juncture, his opponents are still trying to figure out just who he is and what he’s going to do. So they ask him to state plainly whether or not he is the Messiah. I think the context of the question, being asked in the Temple during Hanukkah, helps us to understand just what they were asking.

The Jews were an oppressed nation. In 63 BCE, they became a client state of the Romans, and then lost all independence in 37 BCE. They looked back to their freedom that preceded the Romans and yearned for a savior who would return them to those glory days. Remember that in 586 BCE, Judah was conquered by the Babylonians and remained a conquered nation for centuries. As I said a few minutes ago, by 167 BCE, they were ruled by the Seleucid Empire. King Antiochus IV Epiphanes began persecuting Jewish practices and ultimately desecrated the Temple. Mattathias, a priest, was commanded by some soldiers to perform a sacrifice to the Greek gods in his home village, but instead he resisted and killed one of the Seleucid officials. This began a rebellion, led by Mattathias and his sons. When Mattathias was killed in 166 BCE, his third son Judah took command. He was nicknamed HaMakabi  or “The Hammer.” Judah Maccabee went on to defeat the Seleucid army and took Jerusalem on the 25^th of Kislev, December 14, 164 BCE.

So the Jews were gathered in the Temple to celebrate a great military victory, led by someone apparently designated by God to liberate God’s people from a foreign occupying army. Just as Judah Maccabee freed Judea from Seleucid rule and re-consecrated the Temple, the Jews were seeking a Messiah who would lead them to victory over the Romans, free them from oppression, and purify the Temple. This is the context for the question: Are you the Messiah?

Jesus says, in effect, Yes, I am, but not the kind of Messiah you are expecting! Jesus’s actions, the six great signs reported in the Gospel of John up to this point as well as many others that weren’t recorded, demonstrated his divine nature and his earthly mission. He came not to destroy, but to build up. He came to feed the poor, heal the sick, and free the prisoner. He came to bring forth God’s kingdom, not through force but through love.

Today is sometimes called Good Shepherd Sunday. When Jeff changed the anthem, I said, “Yeah, I was just thinking that the liturgy and music was a little light on allusions to sheep and shepherds.” Sheep and shepherds are common motifs throughout the Bible. God has been likened to a shepherd since at least the time of David, who wrote that “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” Modern Americans don’t have a lot of experience with sheep, so I looked up the kinds of things a shepherd does to care for their sheep:

• Planning for where to graze the sheep, to ensure access to good food and water—still water because sheep are afraid of moving water.
• Finding supplemental hay etc. during times of scarcity.
• Protecting the flock from predators.
• Herding the flock together so they can be protected from harm.
• Separating out sheep who are causing problems, or who need special attention due to illness or injury.

Through it all, shepherds develop a close, personal bond with their sheep. It is true that sheep know their shepherd’s voice and follow it. Jesus calls us to follow him in what he does. We have been chosen to be a part of his flock, and in turn he protects us and cares for us. Jesus’s contemporaries were looking for a strong leader to lead a pack of wolves against the Romans, but God chose instead a Good Shepherd to guide a flock of sheep. In this passage and others, Jesus promises to always be with us, to care for us and protect us and guide us, to restore our souls, to leads us in paths of righteousness. Jesus promises that we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Out of gratitude for this love and care and protection and guidance, we are called to live out our lives as Jesus’s sheep. What does that mean? Well, let’s turn to another famous passage in Matthew 25. When the King comes in his glory, he will separate people as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. To the sheep he says, “Come, inherit the kingdom, for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” When did the righteous do this? Just as they did to one of the least of his brothers and sisters, they did it to Jesus.

This is what it means to be a sheep of Jesus’s fold. We are called to pursue Jesus’s righteousness and do as he did, feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger. As I have said so often, the core of the Gospel is that the kingdom of God is at hand! Our King comes not only at the end of the age, but each day in the oppressed and forgotten and marginalized people of this age. God’s kingdom is an existence of universal human flourishing. It is shalom, a peace that transcends an absence of conflict and encompasses wholeness, completeness, perfection. As the body of Christ, we are called to exhibit the kingdom of God here and now.

The Matthew 25 initiative from PC(USA) is built on three pillars: building congregational vitality, dismantling structural racism, and eradicating systemic poverty. Each congregation that signs on to become a Matthew 25 congregation needs to live out one or more of these pillars in its local context. Given what I know from having been in this church for 17 years and having spoken with about ¼ of the members, I believe we are well-positioned to address poverty. This pillar is described on the PC(USA) site like this:

Eradicating systemic poverty involves addressing the root causes of economic inequality and providing support to those in need. Through advocacy, service, and partnership, we work to create just systems and opportunities for all people to thrive.

I would say that we do an excellent job of meeting today’s needs. We support the Mission, GRACE, and Russell House with our time, talent, and treasure. Through them, we help individuals escape poverty and abusive circumstances. I think we should keep doing what we’re doing in this area, and expand as we are able.

But where we fall short is in addressing the root causes of poverty. The Mission recently posted a few reasons why people are homeless. Top reasons include: a lack of affordable housing—even in Rolla!; lack of a living wage; escaping domestic violence; medical debt; and mental illness, often related to PTSD or childhood trauma. I don’t know what I can do about any of these on my own, so I cook lunch once a week and hope that helps a little bit. As a congregation, though, we have a lot of resources. I’m not talking about money or space. I’m talking about people, smart and caring people, people who have time and social capital that can impact society.

Recently, a group started up in Rolla called Voters for Informed Action, which among other things has engaged in a letter-writing campaign and hosted a town hall. There is a separate but related group called Abide in Love that is supporting ICE detainees in the Phelps County Jail. These are things that any of us can do. The point is to pick something that enough people care about, then get together and DO SOMETHING.

And it doesn’t have to be big and earth-shaking. Here’s a story from PC(USA) about one congregation’s Matthew 25 efforts, published about a year ago:

The Mission Team at Calvary Presbyterian Church recently decided to donate funds for a new commercial stove and convection oven for the Chevy Chase Center. Their current, residential-style, donated stoves were no longer holding temperature and were becoming dangerous. It was hard for us on the Mission Team to see this organization that has given so much to our community just limping along.

Recently, the stove and oven were delivered and installed, and a few of our team members, along with some of the Chevy Chase Board members, gathered to celebrate!

This is a case where a church invested in some capital that will enable an organization to serve the poor for many years to come. Another story I read described a project that investigated the needs of various poor families in their rural area and bought them things like refrigerators and stoves. What good is fresh food if you do not have a reliable refrigerator? What good are ingredients if you have no way to cook them? Without a stove and refrigerator, many families would need to buy ready-to-eat food, which is usually less nutritious and more expensive.

See, solving the problem of poverty is too big a problem for us to solve on our own, but God amplifies whatever we do, combines it with the efforts of like-minded individuals and congregations and organizations, and little by little, establishes the kingdom of God.

So, what can we do? Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” Do you hear his voice? Do you hear him calling from the margins? What is he calling you to do, and what is he calling us all to do together? Jesus was not a military leader like Judah Maccabee, Judah the Hammer. He was the Prince of Peace and the Light of the world who came so that all might have abundant life. Let us seek together a way to foster God’s kingdom, to foster universal human flourishing, or at least a little more flourishing here in Rolla among the poor, neglected, and abused. Amen.

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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 21^st-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.

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

Merry Christmas! A homily preached at First Presbyterian Church on December 24, 2024. Loosely based on Luke 2 and John 1.

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I recently listened to an audiobook called The Happiness Hypothesis. In it, Jonathan Haidt examines various theories about what produces human happiness.

To set the stage, he explores the nature of our mind. We are only partially in control of our own minds. The analogy he uses is a rider on an elephant. The rider is our conscious mind. It’s our reasoning, our logic, our explicit beliefs, that sort of thing. But the far larger part of our mind is unconscious. It’s the elephant. Sure, the rider can guide the elephant, but it’s not like driving a car. Our subconscious or unconscious mind is the seat of our emotions. It quickly evaluates our experiences and responds far quicker than our conscious mind ever could. We feel emotions, or we make decisions, and then afterwards, we come up with an explanation for why. Basically, the elephant goes where it will, and then the rider decides that’s what they wanted to do anyway.

So in order to be happy, we need to train the elephant. We can guide and nudge it, but we cannot just say to ourselves, “Be happy!” We are not computers to be fixed, but more like a plant that needs the right environment to thrive.

In one section of the book, he talks about the theory that virtues produce happiness. Ancient Greeks talked a lot about virtue. They held that the goal of each citizen is to attain the highest possible virtue, and in so doing, they would serve their community as well as becoming their best self.

Until the modern age, great thinkers realized that there are many virtues that support one another. Starting in the 18^th century, philosophers sought instead to reduce everything to a single principle. Kind of like applying the scientific method. Two schools of thought emerged. One started from the categorical imperative, which basically says that if you wouldn’t want a certain rule to apply universally, then you shouldn’t follow it. The other was utilitarianism, which is the principle that actions should pursue the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

The problem with these two principles is that they are logical and rational. I guess that’s good for philosophers who are trying to write books and articles, but not terribly useful in daily life. I mean, I can’t sit around trying to decide whether each action I take will achieve the greatest good for the greatest number. I usually don’t have enough information to even try. Instead, like everyone else, I make decisions based on my gut instinct, then try to rationalize the decision I’ve already made. No amount of logic can help with those gut instincts.

I believe that the philosophers were right to pursue a single, unifying principle, but they found the wrong ones. They found logical ones that in our analogy would help the rider, but do nothing for the elephant. We need something that can affect us deep down, that can change the way we react to the circumstances around us.

So, what universal principle can we pursue? Some of the ancient virtues are personal, like humility. Some are communal, like justice. Ah, justice—let’s pull on that thread.

True justice is about reconciliation and restoration. Putting a thief in jail does nothing for the person who was robbed. It is only by restoring what was stolen that the thief can re-enter society and be reconciled to their victim.

Reconciliation is about healing relationships. And what is the root of every relationship? LOVE. That is the grand unifying principle. Love of God, love of neighbor, love of self. Love of all things. Love is what guides us towards restoration and reconciliation. Love is what enables us to sacrifice our own well-being for the sake of our family, our friends, our community, or our world. Love empowers us and brings us hope when all seems lost.

In a few minutes, I will read a few verses from the opening of the Gospel of John. He wrote, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” The Word, or Logos, refers to the divine ordering principle of the universe. And just what is that principle? LOVE. The universe is created from love and for love. We are created to love. Jesus was born this night so many years ago to demonstrate just what it means to love one another, because God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.

So tonight, let us all commit to living a life of LOVE. Let us celebrate love made flesh in the child of Jesus. And let us always remember the essential power of love to conquer evil in ourselves and in our world. Amen.

Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on December 22, 2024, the Fourth Sunday in Advent. Based on Luke 1:39-55.

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The reading this morning starts with Mary getting up and taking a trip. I want to back up a few verses, though, to talk about why she’s doing that. Our reading today is called “the Visitation,” but it was preceded by “the Annunciation.” In the sixth month, Adar, which on our calendar is February or March, the angel Gabriel visits Mary in Nazareth. We read that Mary was a virgin engaged to Joseph. Gabriel says, “Greetings, favored one!” Or, as it reads in an old translation of the Bible, “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee!” You might recognize that as the start of the Hail Mary prayer. Anyway, after greeting her, Gabriel tells Mary that she has found favor with God and will conceive a son, Jesus, Son of the Most High and inheritor of the throne of David.

Mary was probably a teenager. Probably not twelve, like some sources say. More like high school age, old enough for her body to handle pregnancy. This proposal from Gabriel must have seemed ridiculous. She would become pregnant? Of course her response is, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” Gabriel basically says, God will take care of it.

So here she is, engaged to be married, and an angel asks her to do this ridiculous thing that will totally disrupt her life. She doesn’t know how Joseph will respond. She doesn’t know how her parents will respond. She probably will need to endure a lifetime of people giving a wink and a chuckle when they say she conceived Jesus by the Holy Spirit when still a virgin. Or worse, a lifetime of being shunned.

What would you do? How would you respond if Gabriel showed up and offered you the option of throwing away the life you were expecting in exchange for the uncertainty of birthing the Messiah? Well, what Mary did was say, “Sure. Let it be with me according to your word.” What? I couldn’t do that. I bet most people here today wouldn’t be able to do that.

In Catholic circles, Mary is treated as this supreme person, just one step removed from God. She is the theotokos, the God-bearer. One of her titles is Queen of Heaven, with a corresponding feast day. Mary is held up as this impossible standard for women, the perfect mother and yet forever a virgin. Many people pray the rosary every day, which includes praying the Hail Mary fifty times. Mary has appeared in many places around the world, and virtually every Catholic church has a Lady chapel. Catholics take Mary seriously.

In reaction against this glorification, Protestants tend to treat Mary like any other character in the Bible. Sure, she’s important, but probably less important than Peter or Paul. Yeah, yeah, miraculous birth, whatever. She was just a convenient womb to incubate our Lord.

The truth is somewhere in-between. Since Jesus had brothers, I reject the doctrine of perpetual virginity out of hand. But still, Mary was special. She did what almost nobody else would have done: she allowed God to take complete control of her life. As we sang in our cantata last week, “No one but she true homage paid, none was like her for lowlihead.” Mary was willing to endure the snide comments about her supposed virginity, the pain and suffering of childbirth, the burden of raising the Messiah, and the knowledge that messianic movements almost always end the same way: bloodshed. When she presented Jesus at the Temple, Simeon confirmed what she must have already known. He said to her, “A sword will pierce your own soul, too.” She agreed to bear the Son of the Most High knowing that she would have to witness both the glory of his movement and his death at the hands of the Romans.

But she was willing. Why? Because God asked her. She said yes, and then she got to work. She knew that it would be hard. Motherhood is hard under the best circumstances, let alone as an oppressed and impoverished peasant in the rural village of Nazareth. What could she do to help overcome this challenge? Gabriel gave her a hint when he mentioned that she had a cousin who just got pregnant miraculously as well. Putting two and two together, Mary gets up and travels a hundred miles to visit Elizabeth. She went in search of comfort, companionship, wisdom, and mutual support.

So let’s talk a little bit about Elizabeth. We met her earlier in the book of Luke. Her husband, Zechariah, was a priest who was also visited by Gabriel. Zechariah and Elizabeth were “getting on in years” and were childless. Gabriel promised that Elizabeth would conceive a son who would be filled with the spirit and power of Elijah to prepare the way of the Lord. Zechariah didn’t believe him and was punished by being made mute until the birth of his son, John the Baptist. So he was no help.

Elizabeth, though, was a wise, older woman. She was childless so she couldn’t speak to Mary about childbirth, but she was several months pregnant when Mary conceived and could guide her through the morning sickness and whatnot. She could also make sure that Mary knew all of the rituals and traditions surrounding pregnancy and motherhood and help to connect her with the long line of Jewish mothers.

When Zechariah heard the promise of the Lord, he doubted that it could be fulfilled. So when Elizabeth greeted Mary, she was overjoyed that Mary believed in the message from God. Today is the fourth Sunday of Advent, which is the Love candle, but I feel like this lesson should have been last week with the Joy candle. The whole episode of the Visitation is filled with JOY. Elizabeth is joyful, her baby is joyful in her womb, and Mary’s song is joyful.

A prophet is someone who is empowered to speak on behalf of God. The Old Testament prophets speak a lot of wrath. I’ve been reading through the twelve Minor Prophets lately, and geez, there’s some wrathful stuff in there. John the Baptist, as the last of the pre-Christian prophets, preached against the scribes and the Pharisees, calling them, “You brood of vipers! Who taught you to flee from the coming wrath?”

Mary and Elizabeth were prophets, too. Yet their message was not one of wrath, but one of JOY. Elizabeth is filled with the Spirit and speaks a word of hope, a word of love, and a word of joy to Mary. Mary is filled with the Spirit and sings her glorious Magnificat: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior …” Mary finds herself in a challenging situation, but she rises to the challenge with joy. She goes on to rehearse all the great things that God has done, as a way of reminding herself, and us, that God will do them all again. God has done great things for Mary—and will do great things for us. God has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly—and will do so again. God has come to the aid of his child Israel—and will do so again and again.

In the time since Christ’s death and resurrection, Christ has come to many people throughout the ages. We hear the most about mystics who had dramatic encounters with God through Christ. People like Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, and more recently Thomas Merton. Every mystic who has had a deep encounter with Christ has spoken of Christ’s deep love. They speak of a union of their soul with God and the overwhelming power of God’s love filling them. And they speak of a hope that transcends everything they know in this world. Julian of Norwich is most famous for writing, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

Mary and Elizabeth experienced some of this love and joy and hope. They experienced the power of the Holy Spirit filling them and showing them the glorious future that would come, first through John the Baptist and then through Jesus the Messiah. They had what is sometimes called a “mountaintop experience,” a transcendent encounter with the fullness of God.

The thing about mountaintop experiences, though, is that they are not enough on their own. Take Julian of Norwich, for example. She had a mystical encounter when she was thirty years old, and then spent the entire remainder of her life ruminating over it. She wrote a short book that had just the facts of the encounter, and then worked and reworked and expanded on it to create a long text titled Revelations of Divine Love. She voluntarily sealed herself off from normal life so that she could focus on this contemplation. Yet she was not truly isolated. She lived in a cell that was attached to St. Julian’s Church in Norwich, whose members, staff, and clergy cared for her. She was visited by many who were seeking enlightenment, including the mystic Margery Kempe.

In the same way, throughout the Gospel of Luke, we read that Mary “treasured these things in her heart.” She contemplated all of the events of her life that related to her miraculous son. But she remained in community with others who could guide her. She realized that birthing and raising the Son of the Most High was a task too hard for any one person to undertake. She needed a village, a community. We call this koinonia, a communion and fellowship of God’s people united in Christ by the Holy Spirit. Mary needed koinonia, and so do we all. Mystical experiences can profoundly impact your life, but they truly flourish when they are shared with a community of believers. We support one another in both practical and spiritual ways so that we can draw closer to God and more faithfully follow God’s calling to us.

Because remember, Mary had a mystical encounter, but also had a job to do. Gabriel said, Something wonderful is going to happen to you! Mary said, OK, let it be as you say. But she wasn’t just an empty vessel to be filled. She was a living, breathing human being, who gave birth to a living, breathing human being who was totally helpless and totally dependent on her for sustenance, for protection, and for teaching. As Jesus leaned on Mary, so Mary leaned on her extended family and her community. Without Mary, there would be no Jesus, but without Elizabeth, Mary may not have been able to go through with her promise to God through Gabriel.

Mary took a risk. She knew that what Gabriel asked of her was a huge challenge, one that might break her body and her spirit. She stepped out in faith to give her “yes” to God, and then did what it took to make that “yes” a reality.

What is God asking you to do? What risk do you feel called to take? How is Christ asking you to participate in the blossoming of his kingdom? I believe we all have a part to play in Christ’s coming kingdom. Some of us are called to preach or lead in other public ways, while others are called to care for people who are suffering in mind, body, or spirit. Ask yourself, what is God calling you to do, and what support will you need from your community, this church, to do it?

Sometimes I wish an angel would come and announce to me just what God has in store. That hasn’t happened yet. God comes to me in subtle nudges, feelings of comfort and discomfort, and times of joy that transcend happiness. May we all have the awareness and discernment to hear God’s voice speaking quietly through the experiences of our lives, the courage to follow where God is leading us, and a supportive community that enables us to take big risks for God’s glory. Amen.

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