Category: FPC Rolla

Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on Jeremiah 17:5-10 and Luke 6:17-26.

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For a little over two years, I have used a planner called a Monk Manual. The motivating principle behind it is that monks are some of the happiest and most productive people. Steven Lawson, the creator of the Monk Manual, studied the monastic life and developed a way to achieve similar results in secular life. His approach encompasses these ten principles:

• Gratitude
• Simplicity
• Intentionality
• Order
• Generosity
• Relationships
• Reflection
• Presence
• Balance
• Transcendence

The question is, how can we incorporate these in our daily lives? Lawson developed the Monk Manual as a way of integrating spiritual practices that lead to living out these principles. Just last week, I started a program he calls, “Find Your Inner Monk,” which delves deeper into these concepts.

I want to focus on just a few today to set the stage for the rest of our time together. The first is simplicity. Simplicity begins with letting go. Monks express this tangibly by paring down to the essentials—both emotionally and physically—liberating themselves from the things that weigh down their mind, body, and spirit. The vows of poverty and chastity are the tangible expressions of a dedication to simplicity. Much easier said than done. If you start making a list of all the things in your life that you “need,” you will find that it includes many things that were unknown a generation ago. Do I “need” a smartphone? Probably not, but getting rid of it is unimaginable to me.

Next, there are relationships. Monks vow chastity, but do not live without love. Instead, they embrace a different kind of love, the chaste love of brotherhood. In the same way, we can have lives filled with loving relationships. In the Monk Manual, there is a spot for daily gratitude. Most of my entries there are people with whom I have a relationship—sometimes family members, but often friends who enrich my life, or even casual acquaintances who reveal God to me. Hospice nurses cite that the biggest regret of the dying has nothing to do with achievements or financial investments—but has everything to do with relationships. I’m an engineer and an introvert, so for much of my life, I’ve focused on developing a few close relationships. Over the past few years, I’ve tried to broaden my social circle. The pandemic has made that difficult—I think everyone’s social circles have been collapsing just because it is SO HARD to get together. Still, I’ve been striving to stay connected with old friends and develop new friendships.

The last principle I want to discuss is presence. Presence means letting go of the past and the future and being fully in the moment. It means really listening to the person you’re talking to, rather than thinking about what you’re going to say next. We are so used to control that it’s hard to let go, and trust that it really is going to be okay, after all. Engaging with what’s right in front of us, which means giving ourselves fully to the present moment, requires vulnerability—which can be terrifying. But if you’re ever with someone who has real presence—like my friend Ashley Brooks—it’s exhilarating. Their openness and presence are contagious and make you more open and present with them.

Simplicity, relationships, and presence—three ways we let go of our attachments to the material world and surrender to God. This week’s Gospel lesson is the opening part of the Sermon on the Plain, which is Luke’s parallel with Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount. As in Matthew, Luke opens the sermon with blessings, but unlike Matthew, Luke includes the woes here as well. We see these pairings: Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. Basically, if you’re down, you’ll be lifted up; if you’re up, you’ll be brought low.

The blessings are for those who trust in God. The woes are for those who trust in worldly things. If you are rich and you think you can rely on your wealth, you will be reluctant to trust in God. But as the saying goes, you can’t take it with you. One day, you’ll have no choice but to surrender all that you have. If you release your attachments now, you can break free of the cycle of blessing and woe inherent to our world and you’ll be more able to live in God’s realm now. Jesus’s message that the kingdom of God is at hand reminds us that we can live in God’s kingdom now, not later. But living in God’s kingdom means not living in a worldly kingdom.

Jeremiah has similar curses and blessings. Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals, but blessed are those who trust in the LORD. Then Jeremiah follows up with a reminder that, “The heart is devious above all else.” It’s easy to turn your whole life over to God, or rather to say that you’re turning it over, but hard to really let go. Most often, we say that we will put our trust in God alone, but then don’t follow through. On Sunday, we believe that God will provide, but on Monday, we go to work or check our investments. When I was working with Rocco to design our new house, I started out with the intention of downsizing because our family doesn’t need so many attachments—but by the end of the project, we ended up with a bigger house and more storage space for all the stuff we don’t really need. I’d like to let go and trust in God completely, but it’s a struggle every day.

 It’s important to remember, though, that these blessings and woes are not commands, but rather are descriptions of reality. If you put your trust in your wealth, you’ll worry about every dip in the stock market. If you are attached to your possessions, they wind up owning you. If instead you let go of your possessions and trust in God, there’s nothing you can lose. I’m reminded of Nino—some of you know him from the Mission. He went through some things, including alcohol addiction and prison, but then found Jesus and turned his life around. He posted once on Facebook, “I don’t have much but I have it all.” He has let go of all his material needs and dedicated himself to serving God, and he’s filled with joy. It’s always great when he stops by the Mission. He lifts people up and makes the community better just by his presence, which reflects the glory of God.

Nino has enough. We live in a society where a scarcity mindset prevails. We worry that we won’t have enough time to do everything we “need” to do. We worry that we won’t have enough money to be secure. So we chase after more money, which uses up the time we don’t have. I was listening to a recording by Father Richard Rohr recently, and he pointed out that our homes and kitchens are full of “time-saving devices,” and yet we have less time than ever. The pursuit of abundance leaves us always feeling scarcity. We think, If I just have X, I’ll be happy. I just need a new car, or a new job, or a bigger TV, or a faster computer. Then we get it, and it’s nice at first, but eventually it leaves us unsatisfied. The more we have, the more we want, and the less it satisfies.

So the opposite of scarcity is not abundance. The opposite of the scarcity-abundance trap is enough. Kurt Vonnegut wrote this poem as an obituary:

True story, Word of Honor:
Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer
now dead,
and I were at a party given by a billionaire
on Shelter Island.
I said, “Joe, how does it make you feel
to know that our host only yesterday
may have made more money
than your novel ‘Catch-22’
has earned in its entire history?”
And Joe said, “I’ve got something he can never have.”
And I said, “What on earth could that be, Joe?”
And Joe said, “The knowledge that I’ve got enough.”
Not bad! Rest in peace!”

Enough. Instead of striving to have what you want, enough-ness is wanting what you have. The root of this enough-ness is relationships.

Father Rohr reminds his audience that many poor people in Third World countries are much happier than relatively well-off people in America. The reason is that instead of relying on things, they rely on each other. They know that if they are in need, their family or their neighbors will help them out. Instead of putting their time and energy into building up a big bank account, they build up a big social account—wealth in the form of social connections. Elsewhere I have heard this called the gift economy. I give something to you, not as a loan against some future gift you’ll give me, but as an investment in our friendship. And maybe you won’t “pay me back,” but in sharing of myself, I help build up a community of belonging where people support each other. God’s realm is built on something even more powerful: the grace economy. We share not only our time and resources, which are limited, but also God’s grace, which is limitless. God’s grace multiplies our efforts and strengthens our relationships.

I mentioned that I started a program called, “Find Your Inner Monk.” It’s described by Monk Manual founder Steve Lawson as a pilgrimage, but a pilgrimage that takes place in your daily life. In the first lesson, he talks about how we form our ideas, values, and goals, and how we answer life’s big questions. Especially in America, we have this image in our minds of the solitary individual deriving answers from first principles and formulating their own vision of how the world works. That image drives the phenomenon of those who say they are spiritual but not religious, instead seeking answers to life’s questions on their own. But Lawson points out that that’s not a reflection of reality. In reality, the influences on our ideologies and beliefs are first our communities of belonging, then the broader culture, and then our personal experiences. That is, our communities of belonging have the strongest influence, and the more we feel belonging, the more permeable we are, the more open we are to the community’s beliefs.

As we let go of our worldly attachments and invest instead in relationships, we build up those communities of belonging. The more I give to this church, in time, talent, and treasure, the more I feel a part of it, and the more it molds me into its image. We should work towards making our church both a place where people feel complete belonging, and a place where we lift up Jesus Christ and his self-sacrificing love as the ideal that we are all striving to achieve.

I’ve noticed something curious about the human psyche. You would think that receiving a gift would make you value the giver more and make you feel more a part of the giver’s community. But that hasn’t been my experience. In reality, it is in giving that we ascribe more value to the receiver, and in giving that we feel more a part of the receiving community. It’s as if the receiver validates our gift, and therefore validates us as a person and as a member of the community. That’s why so many people volunteer at the Mission and at GRACE and at all of the other charitable organizations in town. That’s why a great way to reconcile with someone is not to give them something, but to ask them for a favor, which shows that you value them.

So to build a true community of belonging, we need to value the gifts each person has to offer. If we want to grow in our impact on our community, we don’t need to raise more money for charity, although that won’t hurt and I would still encourage you to give on this Souper Bowl Sunday. We don’t need to be more entertaining, or to have more programs. What we need is to create spaces where people feel valued, where the gifts they have to offer matter. Some people have financial resources they can share; others have musical or artistic talents, or know how to fix things, or know how to organize and plan, or are good with numbers, or whatever. All of us have life experiences that we can share, things we have learned that can help others see God in a new way. All of us have a yearning to love and be loved.

A community where people truly feel belonging, where they can bring their full selves and all their life experiences and skills and talents, has a name: the kingdom of God. I’m not sure how to build such a community, but Jesus tells us that the kingdom of God is at hand. It’s nearby, just waiting for us to enter it. Let us all strive to create spaces where people can give of themselves, their whole selves, and receive in return the grace of God and membership in God’s glorious kingdom.

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Sermon based on Isaiah 6:1-8; Luke 5:1-11. Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla.

Well, here we are, first Sunday of February. How are you all doing on your New Year’s resolutions? I didn’t make any resolutions, per se, but did intend to change my morning and evening routines. I have been somewhat successful in changing my evening routine, but my morning routine is another story. My intention was to go running every morning to stay active. Well, New Year’s weekend was bitterly cold and also deer season, so I didn’t get off to a very good start. Since then, I’ve gone running occasionally, but not regularly.

My dear friend Ashley Brooks recommended a book to me, Resisting Happiness by Matthew Kelly. I finally got around to reading it over winter break. One of its motivating concepts is the idea that we resist things that we know will make us happier. I know that I feel better and have a better day when I run in the morning, and I know that I enjoy the run itself, and yet I struggle to convince myself to get dressed and go when it’s 12° outside or when there’s freezing rain, sleet, and snow on the way, or 6” of snow on the ground. In the same way, I know that praying, reading the Bible, and other spiritual practices will bring me closer to God, yet I resist doing them. We all have this resistance inside of us.

There’s one concept in the book that I take issue with. It’s the idea that we can choose or seek “happiness.” So often, seeking happiness becomes a search for hedonistic pleasures. But that kind of happiness is fleeting. What the author is really talking about is the deep joy that comes from our relationship with God and with God’s people.

It’s hard to know, though, what choices we can make to become happier or more joyful. In a podcast about our relationship with time, I heard a concept that can help: Choose enlargement. It’s hard to know which paths will lead to happiness or joy, but it’s often easier to know which path will enlarge you. For example, playing an instrument well requires hours and hours of practice, much of it drudgery. I wouldn’t say that I enjoy playing scales or arpeggios or chord progressions, but I know that those exercises make me more able to make music. The example in the podcast was parenthood: Nobody will claim that getting up in the middle of the night to change a dirty diaper is “fun,” but parents do it because it’s part and parcel of the parenting journey.

In today’s reading, Simon reacts to the miraculous catch by saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” In what way was he sinful? I mean, we never hear that he was a murderer or thief or anything. Partly, I think he recognized his sinfulness in comparison to the perfection of Jesus. But more than that, he recognized his finitude, his limitations. We all fall short of the glory of God because we are limited. We love some people more than others. We acknowledge that people in our community, state, nation, and world are in need, but we don’t help them all. Compared to the Lord of Creation, we are small people of limited capabilities. But if we each choose a path that leads to enlargement, to making us a more complete person, we will become better versions of ourselves.

One way we can enlarge ourselves is to become a part of something bigger than ourselves. Let me explain. As an individual, if I see someone who is homeless, I can give them a little money or food, but that’s about it. But if I connect to The Mission, I can help that homeless person get meals regularly, have a place to stay, and get other services they need. As an individual, I can teach a few people about a few topics in electrical engineering. As a professor at a university, I can contribute to a large number of students becoming fully-qualified electrical engineers. We all have a desire to be a part of something bigger than ourselves.

And that’s basically why we are here today, right? We want to be a part of something bigger than ourselves, and what’s bigger than God’s family? In the sanctuary today, there are a few dozen members of Christ’s body, but we are connected to other Presbyterian churches in our presbytery, synod, and general assembly, and more broadly are connected to all expressions of Christ’s teachings. We are all connected throughout time and space. We are connected to the great cloud of witnesses, the communion of saints who enjoy the abundant heavenly banquet. We are connected to poor Simon who just wanted to catch a few fish, but saw God’s realm breaking through and dropped everything to follow Jesus. Simon saw a glimpse of the heavenly banquet that is to come and chose to be a part of it—chose enlargement.

In following Jesus, Simon was promised that he would be a valued part of Jesus’s efforts to build his kingdom. As we heard in the introit, Jesus promised to make Simon worthy. He promised that Simon would do important work fishing for people.

Jesus asked Simon to leave everything he had, everything he thought was important, and abandon his own earthly desires. Simon’s yes had to be followed by a thousand nos. We are finite. We have limited time and resources. We can only be in one place at a time. So, to say yes, I will do this thing for Jesus, means saying no, I will not do these other things for myself or my family or my job. This is a hard calling. I’ve been listening to a recording of lectures by Father Richard Rohr, a Franciscan friar, wisdom teacher, and founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation. Father Rohr reminds us that in the affluence of America, it is hard to obey Jesus’s call. We are bound with golden shackles—unwilling to let go of the things that make our life comfortable, for the sake of following Jesus. This is the part of the sermon when I preach to myself—as much as I’m willing to give to God, I’m very happy living in a nice house and driving a nice car and having a nice life. I struggle to turn away from my career as an engineering professor and spend more time and energy on God’s kin-dom.

But Jesus didn’t ask Simon to set aside his true self. I know it’s a metaphor, but Jesus told Simon he would still be fishing, but for people instead. In the same way, Jesus asks us to bring our true selves, our whole selves, to his service. Jesus doesn’t ask me to cease to be an engineer or a scholar, but instead to bring my skills and talents to bear on his Gospel. Each of us have special gifts that we can use in God’s service. We are all grateful for Jeff and Lorie devoting their musical gifts to God. Nora brings her lifetime of teaching children to her stewardship of the Presbyterian Preschool. I’m glad that Ming brings the skills he developed over an illustrious career as an academic leader to his membership on the PNC. In ways too numerous to mention, we each have skills and talents that we have developed over our lives that we can draw upon and dedicate to God’s service, to building up God’s kin-dom.

Here in Rolla, there are surely thousands of people, maybe more than ten thousand, who are not connected to Christ’s body, which is the church. Jesus is drawing all people to himself, reconciling the whole world and seeking an intimate relationship with each person. He calls us to help in this work, to build up connections person-to-person so that we can experience God’s kin-dom here and now. But the challenge is too big. I cannot personally tell ten thousand people about the love God has for them. Even as a congregation, we can’t possibly reach everyone. But that doesn’t excuse us from trying to reach someone. We need to start somewhere.

Let’s start by thinking about who is not here. Who is not worshipping in the sanctuary this morning? Well, for starters, our homebound members and others for whom worshipping remotely is preferable due to their life situations. Today, that group is probably a bit bigger than usual because of the weather. Some of us, particularly the deacons, are called to help those members stay connected to Christ’s body even if we don’t see them in our sanctuary. Looking beyond our members, let’s think about those vast groups of people who aren’t here. There are the younger generations, by which I mean anyone under the age of 50. For a variety of reasons, many of them have heard the message that they are not welcome in God’s kin-dom. Some have been explicitly told that “their kind,” whatever that means, aren’t welcome in a particular church. Or maybe their friends have been excluded, and so they won’t go anywhere their friends aren’t welcome. Or maybe our inward focus, on the worship style, architecture, music, and programs that matter to people like us, implicitly excludes people who are intimidated by our sanctuary, dislike our music, or whatever. By failing to meet them where they are, we send the message that they aren’t welcome, that they don’t matter to us.

Jesus said, Come, follow me, and I’ll teach you. He knew that Simon would be in challenging situations, dealing with people he had nothing in common with or even people he hated, such as tax collectors and Roman soldiers. In the same way, Jesus knows that if we follow him, we will be challenged. We’ll meet people who have very different life experiences from us. We’ll meet people who are made anxious by the very things that bring us comfort and who need comfort that we don’t know how to provide. We’ll meet people dealing with problems we cannot even conceive of.

We are called to bring our whole selves to those encounters. I will never cease to be an engineer or a professor, no matter what happens in my career. I think like an engineer, solve problems like an engineer, and communicate like a professor. I cannot change my past experiences that have formed me into the person I am today, and that’s OK with God. Like removing chaff from wheat, Jesus removes just those things that hold us back from participating in kin-dom building while retaining that core, that nugget of self, deep inside of us. Jesus promises, though, that he will be with us. When we peel back those layers of worldly attachments that separate us from God and each other, we are left exposed and vulnerable. Yet Christ is always with us, protecting our true selves, loving us completely, and enabling us to share his love with our neighbors.

Serenity is what comes when you stop wishing for a different past. Courage is what we need to build a different future. We all, each one of us individually and our congregation as a whole, can have a future filled with God’s glory if we choose it. If we choose to go where God is calling us, we can experience a taste of the abundant life that is to come when God’s realm is complete.

When Simon saw God’s realm breaking through, he immediately responded, “Go away from me, for I am a sinful man.” He realized that, like all of us, he was limited. He was not ready to participate in the full abundance of God’s realm. Jesus said, It’s OK. We don’t have to change the whole world by ourselves. Jesus is the one doing the work, really, and anyway, the world is a big place. All we can do, and all we are asked to do, is to follow Jesus and change the world for one person. And then another. And then another.

I’m not sure what or where my true calling is. I have some idea, but I’m still groping blindly for the next step. What matters is that I’m trying to follow God’s call. It’s OK to be wrong, but it’s not OK to quit trying. I’d like to close now with a prayer written by Thomas Merton that encapsulates what I’m saying, and that I hope will be helpful to you, each one of you, as you strive to follow where Jesus leads you. Let’s pray:

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always, though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. Amen.

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Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on January 2, 2022, in celebration of Epiphany. Based on Isaiah 60: 1-6, Ephesians 3: 1-12, and Matthew 2: 1-12. YouTube archive:

The story of the three wise men is an old one, maybe a little too familiar to us from being retold every year at Christmas. But let’s try to see it with new eyes.

First, imagine yourself as one of the magi. I’m sure you all know this, but there were not necessarily three magi—there were three gifts, so we assume three people. The magi were priests, probably Zoroastrian, and king-makers. Zoroastrianism is an ancient Persian religion that acknowledges one god, Ahura Mazda. The magi were learned men who studied nature, looking for signs of their god working in the world. They found a sign: a star that indicated the birth of a great king, the king of the Jews. Persians knew about Jews but didn’t know all the details, kind of like the way we know about Islam or Buddhism. But they knew that something important was happening. One of their jobs was to choose a king of their own people, so they decided to honor the newborn king of the Jews. They traveled to the region where Jews lived and sought the leaders who should know what was going on and would be able to help them.

Now imagine yourself as one of the scribes. They were scholars, people who studied the Hebrew scriptures. The Torah, which is the first five books of our Bible, contain the law and the deep history, while the prophets, from Isaiah to Malachi, speak to specific events. The scribes would study these scriptures and try to apply them to their contemporary problems. They knew that Micah had foretold the birth of a great king in Bethlehem, but didn’t know when. They were wrapped up in their scholarly studies and didn’t pay attention to signs in nature. They were ready, though—when someone noticed something, they were ready to interpret it, to give it the right scriptural context.

Herod had yet a different perspective. He was a ruler. He wasn’t a scholar, and probably wasn’t a particularly religious man. He didn’t pay much attention to the details of scripture, but he knew that God’s revealed words to the Israelites were important to his subjects. So he kept the chief priests and scribes handy. He knew a problem when he saw one, and boy did he see one when the magi arrived! A new king—a rival to his throne. Whether or not he believed that the words of Micah were relevant, and whether or not he believed that the magi saw a divine sign, he knew that the Jewish people would believe it. So he used his knowledge of human nature to learn the truth and manipulate its revelation.

Epiphany, which we celebrate today, is a synonym for revelation. We celebrate the day when Jesus was revealed as God’s anointed one, which in Hebrew is the Messiah, or in Greek is the Christ. Magi were king-makers, just like the prophet Samuel was, so like Samuel they went to Bethlehem to find out who God favored. When they found Jesus, they anointed him king of the Jews, a title that would stick with him right up to the day of his death on a cross.

In the nativity narratives of Matthew and Luke, we read that God revealed Jesus’s divine nature in many ways to diverse people. First, angels appeared to Jesus’s parents to tell them how Mary would become pregnant and who their son would be. Then on the night when he was born, angels appeared to shepherds to tell them good news of great joy, that a savior had been born for them. Finally, God’s message of a new king and a new kind of kingdom was revealed to foreign, Gentile priests of a different religion, and only through them to the religious insiders and the ruling class of Judea.

One of my core beliefs is that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, the path to wholeness in God’s eternal kin-dom, both here and hereafter. But another of my core beliefs is that I cannot control who receives God’s wisdom or in what form. God chooses. God’s revelations come through the study of scripture, and also through experiences in God’s creation and through our interactions with other people whom God loves, which means everyone. God revealed the Truth to the ancient Hebrew people, but also to people around the world and throughout history. God’s ultimate Truth is unknowable from any one perspective.

There is an old parable from India that you have probably heard: A group of blind men heard that a strange animal, called an elephant, had been brought to the town, but none of them were aware of its shape and form. Out of curiosity, they said: “We must inspect and know it by touch, of which we are capable.” So, they sought it out, and when they found it, they groped about it. The first person, whose hand landed on the trunk, said, “This being is like a thick snake.” For another one whose hand reached its ear, it seemed like a kind of fan. Another person, whose hand was upon its leg, said, the elephant is a pillar like a tree-trunk. The blind man who placed his hand upon its side said the elephant is a wall. Another who felt its tail, described it as a rope. The last felt its tusk, stating the elephant is that which is hard, smooth and like a spear.

We are like one of those blind men. We can know God through Jesus, but Jesus was born a Jew in Roman-occupied Judea and raised in Roman-occupied Galilee two thousand years ago. God’s revelation through the person of Jesus of Nazareth was limited by the ability of the Judeans and Galileans to understand. The magi give us another perspective, but still one that is limited. If we want to truly understand God, we need to be open to wisdom from many sources.

One way to do that is to engage in interfaith dialogue. Our campus ministry, Common Call, is part of the Campus Ministries Association. The main event that CMA sponsors each spring is an interfaith dialogue. We strive to get a variety of Christian perspectives as well as people from a broad range of religions. We are often successful in connecting with Muslims, and sometimes with Hindus or Buddhists or atheists. I have found discussions with non-Christians to be more illuminating and satisfying than, say, arguing with Christian fundamentalists about the literal truth of Genesis 1. We are all striving to be who God wants us to be, and to discern how God is working in our lives, whether we revere Jesus Christ or Allah or Buddha or Vishnu. Now, I don’t believe that all religions are equally valid, but I do believe that God’s revelation can come in many forms to many people.

Last Sunday, the world lost Bishop Desmond Tutu. Tutu was an Anglican bishop who was in the center of the anti-apartheid movement that transformed South Africa. He was a devout and committed Christian. Yet he worked closely with Nelson Mandela, who was at best a tepid Christian, sometimes described as a Christian humanist who drew deeply on the indigenous African concept of Ubuntu. Now, Ubuntu is itself pretty well aligned with Christianity—it is the belief that an authentic individual human being is part of a larger and more significant relational, communal, societal, environmental, and spiritual world. Sounds a lot like the Beloved Community described by the Old Testament prophets like Isaiah and lifted up by Christian leaders like Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. Tutu also worked closely with The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people and the world’s most prominent Buddhist leader. Tibetan Buddhism is more of an atheist philosophy than a religion, in the sense that its adherents do not worship any gods. They instead seek enlightenment, which is essentially the elevation of the self into the godly realm. And yet, the Dalai Lama and Bishop Tutu worked closely for decades, learning from each other about the path to wholeness and holiness. I highly recommend The Book of Joy, which is the product of an extended interview with these two holy men giving different yet congruent perspectives on how a person can attain joy in their life.

Let’s return to the story of Epiphany. The chief priests and scribes thought that they had the whole Truth, the only revealed message from God. Yet they were unable to see God’s revelation through the stars, which the magi correctly interpreted. Herod didn’t know much about either scripture or heavenly bodies, but he did know people. It took all three perspectives to arrive at the Truth of Jesus’s birth. In the same way, we need a variety of perspectives to understand how God continues to work in the world. We cannot, on our own, completely understand God, because we cannot construct a box big enough to contain God. Any time we think we have fully described God, we have simply projected our own prejudices and misunderstandings onto the divine. Any time we think we know who is in and who is out, who is favored and who is not, we have allowed our limited human knowledge to corrupt God’s expansive message of love for all people.

I have it on good authority that a conservative church in town has preached that we are struggling because we allow women in leadership, including ordained Ministers of Word and Sacrament. Well, here’s a little bit of my story as to why I’m a member of this church. My sister is a United Methodist pastor. When we moved to Rolla, we wanted to find a church where my family felt comfortable, and I had one non-negotiable requirement: They must allow women in the pulpit. That immediately eliminated most of the churches in Rolla. I did a little research and determined that this church was of a denomination that ordains women, so we gave it a try. The rest of my story is how we were welcomed when we got here.

We have a message of inclusion, a message of equality, and a message of hope for our community. I would guess that more than half of the city’s residents are unchurched, and that many of those only know about Christianity from the media. They don’t know about churches that welcome everyone, that elevate women, that allow but do not require their members to vote Republican, that allow members to question authority, and that tolerate a wide range of beliefs about and interpretations of the Bible. I am proud to be a part of such a loving community. I believe that there are people in Rolla who need Jesus in their lives, but who have not been able to see Christ’s light because of the clouds of exclusion, judgmentalism, authoritarianism, and patriarchy that fill the media depiction of Christianity. Honestly, if all Christian churches were like the ones described in the media, I wouldn’t be a Christian either.

Like the magi, we have seen the light of Christ. We have been called to worship him. We have been drawn into God’s kin-dom, God’s family. We have been given a message of hope, love, joy, and peace. We have been released from our bondage to sin and death. This is good news! This is the best news! Like Paul, we have been given insight into a great mystery, the mystery that God’s grace is for the Gentile as well as the Jew. The magi were partially right: Jesus was born king of the Jews, but he was also born king of the Gentiles. He was born lord of all creation. He was the eternal Word of God made flesh. We have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

We are called to shine Christ’s light forth so that all people may be drawn to Him. We do not, and cannot, know the whole Truth of God’s grace. We know only in part. In our humility, we should learn from and not denounce others who have a different understanding of God. But we do have a story to share, a story of love, a story of welcome, a story of membership in God’s eternal family, a story of hope and joy. Let us now seek to discern God’s will revealed throughout the world as we shine forth Christ’s light and draw all people into God’s beloved community. Amen.

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I shared this message at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on Christmas Eve, 2021. Based on the nativity story in Luke 2.

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I want you to think about where you were last year at this time. I don’t actually remember where I was—possibly visiting my in-laws already instead of waiting until Christmas morning. I know where I wasn’t, and where nobody was: here. Last year at this time, our in-person worship was still shut down. We wanted to be able to welcome everyone, but feared that Christmas Eve especially would become a super-spreader event with all of the out-of-town visitors.

On December 11 of last year, the first COVID vaccine was approved. Soon after, a second vaccine, and then a third, were approved. First, they went to people over 65 and those who were otherwise vulnerable, and eventually they rolled out to everyone, now including children over the age of 5 and boosters for adults.

Easter was our first worship back together after all of that. By then, a good fraction of our congregation was vaccinated, so we felt more comfortable worshipping together. We haven’t shut down since. We thought the pandemic was behind us, that we were on the path back to normal life.

This congregation was dealt another blow in June when Pastor Lou Ellen left us. God was calling her to a new ministry. That left us to figure out what God was calling us to do.

Meanwhile, the pandemic has not really ended. First the delta variant swept the nation, and now the omicron variant. It seems we can never escape COVID-19. We can never escape the brokenness of this world, no matter how hard we try. Yet, we should remember that life today, as hard as it is, is wonderful compared to the grinding misery of life under the Roman Empire in first-century Judea.

Think back to the story we have heard. Mary, a teenager, was pregnant and her time to deliver had come. Still, the power of empire forced her and her husband to make an arduous journey of roughly 90 miles, probably on foot, so that the Romans could more efficiently extract wealth from their subjugated people. On Sunday, we will hear that the Holy Family was soon afterwards forced to flee for their lives to Egypt. Life was hard under the Romans.

That night, while Mary and Joseph comforted their newborn son, there were shepherds hard at work. Shepherds sometimes get a bad rap in modern retellings. There are some ancient sources who describe them as lazy, untrustworthy, and unclean. But the best evidence is that at the time and place of Jesus’s birth, the shepherds were respected. They were hard-working, tough men who protected their sheep from predators and bandits.

See, at night, sheep don’t need to be herded to keep them from wandering off. They’re asleep. So why were the shepherds keeping watch? Because a sheep is like money that walks around. They were making sure no bandits came to steal them. They were protecting their sheep from lions and bears, just as David did as a youth. The shepherds were hard men, tough men who risked their lives to protect the helpless sheep under their charge.

That night, God broke through. An angel appeared, and “the glory of the Lord shone around them.” This is just like what happened to Moses, and just like what will happen at Jesus’s Transfiguration. They were tough men, but they were terrified at first. Sure, a lion or a bear might take a sheep or two, but here was God’s army coming. Was the angel there to destroy them all? Had the Day of the Lord arrived, the prophesied day of God’s terrible judgment?

No. The angel tells them not to fear, that a savior has been born for them. Remember that they were suffering under the weight of the Roman Empire just as Mary and Joseph were. They remembered the glorious past of Israel under David and Solomon, and were waiting expectantly for a Messiah who would save God’s people. Like us, they were waiting for deliverance from the evil of the world around them. Their fear turned to joy at God’s presence. God had finally sent a savior for them.

They didn’t know what kind of savior was born that night, though. They didn’t know that their savior was also our savior, someone to bring God’s eternal kingdom to earth. They were living in the Pax Romana, a sort of “peace through strength” where the Roman Empire was so strong that nobody dared challenge their rule, no matter how burdensome or evil. They didn’t imagine that their Messiah, God’s anointed one, would replace the false peace of empire with the shalom of God’s rule in our hearts. Jesus came to establish a new kind of peace. Instead of the peace of a police state in which everybody is equally degraded, Jesus came to establish a kingdom in which everybody is equally uplifted. He came to establish a kingdom of justice, of righteousness, of wholeness, and of harmony.

Tonight, we gather to remember that Jesus came, and comes again this night, to disrupt our lives just as he disrupted those shepherds’ lives. He came not to rule the world, but to rule our hearts. And of his kingdom, there will be no end.

Our congregation, our families, our nation, and our world have challenges ahead of us. But when it seems that all is lost, we can remember that night, two thousand years ago, when God’s glory shone around the shepherds. God broke through with good news of great joy: a savior who came for them. That same savior came for us and dwells among us. I pray that you will all know the hope, love, joy, and peace that our Messiah brings, the wholeness that comes from Emmanuel, God with us. Amen.

Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on Luke 1:39-56. YouTube archived video:

During Advent, we talk about people other than Jesus who prepared the way for his coming. Last time, I preached about John the Baptist. He was a great prophet, the last of the prophets who heralded the coming of the Messiah. John’s mother, Elizabeth, was an old woman, thought to be barren. The miracle was that even when she was beyond child-bearing age, she was still able to get pregnant. God blessed Elizabeth with a son.

Today, we talk about Mary. Mary was different. She was young—too young. Not even married yet. Maybe 14 years old, little more than a girl. Yet God chose her for the unimaginably important task of bearing our Savior.

In the verses preceding today’s reading, the angel Gabriel comes and visits Mary. His words to her are the source of the first part of the Hail Mary prayer, which then continues with Elizabeth’s words and then some embellishments. I know it’s a Roman Catholic prayer, but Mary is revered in all traditions. Would you pray with me?

Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

Such a sweet prayer for such a sweet woman. Right? I read this week that the word translated as “hail” might be better translated “rejoice.” The angel Gabriel rejoices at meeting Mary, just as Elizabeth and her unborn son rejoice and bless her.

Full of grace. That phrase evokes a kind, gentle woman, graciously blessing each person she meets. But perhaps we should understand it more as an indication that God has richly blessed her.

And how has God blessed her? God made her a prophet and the mother of the most important man to ever live. Listen to her proclamation to Elizabeth. This is not a hymn of submission and gentleness. “He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly.” These are not sweet words. This is a prophetic proclamation of God’s power. A few minutes ago, we sang the Canticle of the Turning, which I think is a fantastic setting for the words. It captures the strength and impact of Mary’s song.

Mary was not some shrinking violet, some meek background character in the Gospels. She was in the middle of the action. She was trusted not only to give birth to Jesus, but also to be his first teacher. God saw a strength within her that would be essential throughout those hard years of Jesus’s childhood.

One thing that struck me as I was preparing this week was Mary’s response. In every other angelic encounter I can think of, the person being visited is terrified. That’s why the angel’s first words are always, “Do not fear.” Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, was a priest in the Temple when an angel appeared, and we read, “he was terrified, and fear overwhelmed him.” On Christmas Eve, we will hear about the shepherds—an angel of the Lord appeared, and they were terrified. But not Mary. She was “perplexed.” Gabriel, being not-so-observant, still told her not to fear. He tells her what God is asking of her. Is she afraid? She should be. Being an unmarried woman who gets pregnant will bring shame upon her. If Joseph so desired, he could break off their engagement, and might even be able to have her stoned. Even if they marry, the shame will linger, and being the mother of such an important boy could bring dangerous attention to her—and indeed it does. Still, her response tells us why she was favored. She simply asks how it will work, then says, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” My life is about to be torn apart and I will live in constant danger? Sure, sounds good.

She understood what was coming. She was not just the carrier of God’s words like the other prophets, but of THE Word of God. Her hymn of praise makes it clear that she knew who Jesus would be: Son of God, a revolutionary who would change the world. There is a famous, or perhaps infamous, song that is often played or sung this time of year, “Mary, Did You Know.” Here’s the second verse.

Mary, did you know that your Baby Boy will give sight to a blind man?

Mary, did you know that your Baby Boy will calm the storm with His hand?

Did you know that your Baby Boy has walked where angels trod?

When you kiss your little Baby you kissed the face of God?

Oh, Mary, did you know?

Mary Did You Know?

Clearly, the lyricist didn’t read the Magnificat. Because the answer is emphatically, “YES!” She knew. She knew that God was doing great things in her, world-changing things. The name she was told to give her son, Jesus (or actually Yeshua in Hebrew), means, “The Lord has saved.” She knew that God would save her, and all of us, through her son. She knew that the hierarchies of power and wealth would be overturned. She knew that God’s chosen people would be saved and glorified. She knew.

So what did she do? After saying yes, she went to visit her cousin Elizabeth. I’m thinking that Elizabeth must have been a pretty distant relation. They lived pretty far apart. Mary was betrothed to a man from the tribe of Judah and Elizabeth was from the tribe of Levi. But they were close relations in another way: they were bound together by the abundant grace poured out on them both by God. They both experienced the miracle of pregnancy—Elizabeth in her old age, Mary in her virginal youth. So Mary went to Elizabeth, in the first gathering of Jesus’s followers. Why? For confirmation? For courage? Perhaps. Mary had an encounter with the divine, and she thought she knew what God wanted of her, but it was a little like a dream. You wake up and think, Did that really happen? Mary was sure that she was called to serve God, but maybe not quite 100% sure. She had a long road ahead of her and she knew that Elizabeth was on a similar road. They could walk together for a bit and lean on each other. But also, Mary knew that she shared something else with Elizabeth: joy! Joy is not the same as happiness. Happiness is a surface-level emotion. Joy is deeper. Joy is that warm fire within your soul telling you that life is good. Well, maybe it doesn’t look so good right now, and maybe it’s hard to see what’s so good, but God’s light is shining through and telling you that all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.

This is a critical message to us this Christmas season. Boy, things have been rough for the last little while. The political climate has been increasingly divisive over the past decade, and shows no signs of getting better—indeed, it seems that every news story adds fuel to the fires of tribal politics. A raging pandemic that has taken lives, disrupted our society, and fundamentally re-made our interactions with each other. This year has seen a huge number of natural disasters, from 120-degree heat in Canada to droughts to floods to tornadoes. I could go on, but this is supposed to be a message of joy!

Through all of the chaos of the world, all of the divisiveness and loss, one constant remains: God’s presence. No matter how bleak things look, we can be confident that God is with us. God came among us as a baby one night two millennia ago, because Mary said yes. Jesus is born again each December, as we remember that amazing gift of his presence and his offer to enter our lives, and say yes. God remains among us by the power of the Holy Spirit, flowing in us and through us all.

And just as Mary’s encounter with an angel led her to visit Elizabeth, we gather together here. It’s common these days for people to say that they don’t need a church to follow God, and I would partially agree. God is no more present here than anywhere else. There are people worshipping remotely with us, and God is as present with them as with us here in this sanctuary. I have encountered God on the sea and on a mountaintop.

But mostly, I have encountered God through other people. We gather together to share those experiences we’ve had. Not just so-called “mountaintop” experiences, vivid encounters with the divine, but the subtle ways God works in us and through us. The ways God is revealed each day through the people we meet and interact with. As you know, I volunteer regularly at the Mission. Each time I go in there, whether to volunteer for a shift or just to check in and prepare for a future shift, I can tell that God is working in the lives of the patrons—and also in the lives of the staff and volunteers. We seldom talk about religion there, but you can feel the Holy Spirit guiding each person to be a little better each day. As you also know, I am a professor and so I interact with students on a regular basis. There’s an energy when students are working together to learn or to solve problems. There’s an openness of their minds that reveals their hearts. One of the best moments I had this semester was at a help session where I was going through a derivation, and at the end, the student I was helping had a sudden moment of understanding that transcended my words.

My office is near the Mobil On the Run station, so I frequently walk up there to get a drink. There’s a woman who works there that I’ve developed a bit of a relationship with—not a friendship exactly, but more than just customer and clerk. Enough that she shares some of the struggles her son is going through, or the joy of visiting with her granddaughter who was born in November. Those moments reveal her humanity, and in turn reveal the way God is working in her life and her family’s lives.

We gather as Christ’s body to share these experiences, just as Mary and Elizabeth gathered to share their experiences. This is a place where there is no taboo about discussing God, where we can let down the barriers that so often keep people from truly understanding one another. Our relationships are stronger because God is at the center of them. We are bound together not by something superficial like a shared hobby, but by the deep and abiding love of God.

Life is hard. The pandemic has made easy things harder and hard things almost impossible. It has kept people apart, disrupted relationships, and taken loved ones away from us. Even before COVID, though, for thousands of years, the people of God have struggled. We struggle to do God’s will and follow the path Jesus laid out for us. We struggle to understand the evil and brokenness of the world around us. We suffer pain, and loss, and grief. And yet, we know that one night two thousand years ago, a young woman was called to give of herself, and because she said yes, God came to dwell among us, fully human and yet fully divine. Jesus became the fulcrum of history, the person that changed all of our lives. With Jesus at the center of our lives together, we can know hope, and love, and joy.

Several of you have commended me for the work I do for the church, and I appreciate being noticed. However, the work I do is no more important than what others are doing—it’s just more visible. I stand up here in a pulpit and preach, and my words go out on the Internet to the far corners of the world, because I have been given the ability to understand God’s Word and to preach about it. The job of a preacher is to encounter God in scripture on behalf of the congregation, and to witness to the encounter. But that job is no more important than, for example, the way the deacons witness to God’s grace as they meet behind closed doors with people who are homebound, or sick, or grieving. In fact, their witness can be even more crucial to building God’s kin-dom than my words because those moments they share live in heart space, rather than head space. I can perhaps convince you to think a certain way and maybe even act a certain way, but it is God’s presence and creative power that softens your heart and forms you into the person God desires. It is Jesus walking beside you who guides you through the hard times. It is the Holy Spirit dwelling within you who strengthens you and brings you joy.

We have received a great gift, the love of God expressed through the person of Jesus, born more than two thousand years ago because Mary said yes. Let us respond just as Mary did. God is calling us all to be witnesses of God’s grace. In all that we do, let us share the hope, the love, the joy, and the peace that Jesus brings as he is once again born in us by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on Malachi 3:1-4 and Luke 3:1-6. Podcast linked below. YouTube archive:

Before we talk about John the Baptist, I’d like us to take a whirlwind tour through the history of Israel, as recounted in the Bible. It all started with Abraham. God chose him to be the father of a great nation. His descendants were fruitful and multiplied in Egypt, then God freed them from the pharaoh’s rule and guided them to Canaan. For several generations, the Israelites tried to live up to their end of the covenant, and failed. God established Israel as a kingdom and instituted the Temple under Solomon. Almost immediately, the kingdom split and one half abandoned God. The other half, Judah, swung wildly between obedience and idolatry. Finally, God says, Enough! Judah is conquered and exiled. The great prophets step in, including Ezekiel who says, Do this right, rebuild the Temple, purify yourselves, and worship God properly. For 600 years, the people of Judah tried, with varying degrees of success. We are right now in the midst of Hanukkah, which commemorates the re-dedication of the Temple after the Maccabean revolt. But the Maccabees didn’t last long, and Rome took over.

For most of the time after the end of the exile, there were no prophets, no one to speak on God’s behalf. Malachi, whose words we read this morning, was the last prophet and was active in about 450 BC. For all this time, God’s people were just muddling through, trying to figure out how best to serve God. Some people said that the best way was to be more scrupulous in observing the purity laws, eventually being called Pharisees. Others said that the best way was to be more dedicated to Temple worship, eventually being called Sadducees. There were many other groups, including the Essenes who gathered the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Into this turmoil stepped John the Baptist. Finally, a new prophet! Someone to tell them all what God really wants them to hear. He preached not about the purity laws or Temple worship, but about repentance. He meant that they should follow the basic laws about loving God and neighbor. The examples of his teaching given throughout the Gospels include sharing your wealth and doing your job without cheating or extortion. He preached to observant Jews and to the Gentile occupying soldiers. He said that the kingdom of God was not inherited by Abraham’s descendants, but by those who God favored. And above all, he said that the Day of the Lord was coming, that God was coming.

John was a revolutionary. God’s word did not come to the powerful. Luke situates John in the midst of powerful men: Emperor Tiberius, prefect Pontius Pilate, tetrarchs Herod Antipas, Philip, and Lysanias, and high priests Annas and Caiaphas. These were the men who supposedly controlled the lives of God’s people, the civil and religious authorities. But God’s word came not to one of them, but to John, “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness.”

John himself could have been a priest. His father, Zechariah, was a priest. At that time, the priesthood was hereditary, for the descendants of Zadok within the tribe of Levi. He could have been a priest, but wasn’t. He walked away from his inheritance and reinvented worship. He proclaimed that the way to God was not through stricter religious observances, whether in daily life or in the Temple. Instead, the way to God was through a changed heart. Repent, he said. Turn towards God. Orient yourself towards God’s love. Do what is right in God’s eyes—share your wealth, do your job honestly. He didn’t go to the Temple, but to the wilderness, to the River Jordan. He knew that we can encounter God anywhere, but especially in those places where we are not distracted by the temptations of the world.

That’s a valuable message to everyone, but especially young people. As you probably know, I’m an advisor to Common Call Campus Ministry, which is co-sponsored with Christ Episcopal Church. The goal of campus ministry is to enable young people to transition from an inherited faith to a personal faith. Most people of college age have some awareness of spirituality or religion. Maybe they have attended church with their family, or maybe not. At a college like ours, they are often away from home and independent for the first time. They are free to grow in their received faith, or in some other faith, or to walk away from God. Our goal as a campus ministry is to help them find their own path. That means engaging with the issues that are meaningful to them in a way that enables them to see God at work in their lives, and to help them find the right language to express their beliefs, and the right practices to continue their growth.

Each new generation faces new challenges and has new formative experiences. I think that the most impactful events happen when you’re between the ages of 10 and 30. That’s when you go through adolescence, become an adult, maybe go to college, maybe start a family. Whatever dominates public discourse at that age affects the way you perceive the world for the rest of your life.

How many of you were in that age range in 1962 and 1963? Think back on that time. 1962 had the Cuban missile crisis and 1963 had John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Now let’s fast-forward to 1974 and 1975. Think a minute. There was Watergate, and then the fall of Saigon. What about 1989? The fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War. 2001—9/11.

Each of us have different memories that affect what matters to us. I still think of Russia instead as the Soviet Union, the enemy that was defeated when I was in high school, even though it was more than thirty years ago. At the same time, I know the story of the Vietnam War, but I have no visceral reaction to it. Why? I was only two years old when it ended.

Most of you probably remember 9/11 vividly. I do, and Rhonda does, but Sam doesn’t. Rhonda was stranded in Dallas with Sam, but he was only 15 months old. Jesse wasn’t even born yet. Their generation has little to no visceral reaction to Islamic terrorists.

What events do impact their psyche? Sandy Hook. Parkland. Las Vegas. The shooting at a Michigan high school just this week, yet another incident that strengthens the low-grade anxiety that is part of their lives. Unite the Right. January 6, 2021. They don’t fear al-Qaeda or ISIS. They fear groups like the Proud Boys and the Three Percenters.

As a set of institutions, mainline Christianity has been essentially silent for these recent events and more, or at least not a major part of the public conversation. We have failed to live up to our prophetic calling, to speak to the problems of the day, to see God in all things and exhibit God’s kingdom to the world, to prepare the way for Jesus to enter into people’s hearts and lives. I challenge you to have this conversation with a stranger sometime. First, ask them what Christians think about current events, that is, where they think “Christians,” generically, stand on a given topic. You will probably be amazed at how far removed it is from what you personally believe. Then, ask them what they know about Presbyterians in general or our church in particular. If they are under the age of 40, I bet they know us for our preschool or they’ve been in our sanctuary for a concert, but they have NO IDEA where we stand on the Black Lives Matter movement, or gay rights, or white nationalism. For that matter, I’m not sure that we know ourselves.

Last week, Bob said that the problem of mainline Christianity is a lack of discipleship, and instead too much focus on social issues. My immediate response was to think he was dead wrong. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. What is discipleship? Is it spending time in prayer or studying the Bible? Is it sharing our faith with others? Yes, but that’s not all. Discipleship is about connecting God’s Word, Jesus’s message of love and reconciliation, to the world. To do so, you have to know what’s going on in the world and be relevant to the people you meet. If a young person says to you, “I don’t dream of labor,” do you know what they mean? Do you understand how it connects to Jesus’s parables or the instructions given to the Israelites during the Exodus? If not, how can you meaningfully, and without judgment, tell that young person about God’s message to them?

Preparing the way for Jesus to come means being confident in your understanding of Jesus’s teaching and how it connects to the world so that when something happens, you instinctively know how to respond. This congregation didn’t respond in any tangible way to the Black Lives Matter movement. If we had already had serious conversations about systemic racism and police relationships with our community, we would have been prepared. Maybe we would have engaged, maybe not. Maybe we would have been a moderating voice, steering between the “All Lives Matter” crowd and the “Defund the Police” crowd and perhaps building a bridge between them. But as it was, we said nothing because we had nothing to say. The message to young people in our community was that we don’t care.

That moment is past now. What’s next? What other issues are simmering below the surface that we need to engage with NOW, so that we are ready when they blow up? Or what issues have passed us by and become a part of the fabric of life, so that if we don’t know where we stand, if we are not educated about the changing language and cultural landscape, we are simply becoming increasingly irrelevant?

You might be thinking, Yes, but if we talk about political issues, or social issues, or other things going on in the world, won’t that divide us? Well, if you pay attention to the news, you’ll notice that America is divided already. Our calling is to build God’s kingdom so that “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” If we cannot talk to people that we love and respect, people who are part of our local church family, about things that matter, how can we possibly talk to strangers about them? As a congregation, we have been through some things together and have forged deep, loving bonds. Even if we disagree with each other, we know that we all are seeking God’s will. We can rely on the strength of those relationships to see where God is moving in the world outside our doors.

Life is usually not very easy for prophets. Jeremiah was thrown in a cistern. John’s reward was his head on a platter. Jesus’s reward was crucifixion. But you know what? They mattered. They spoke to God’s people at critical times and told them where God stood on the topics of the day. First century Judea was suffering under the weight of the Roman Empire, and political revolution was in the air. People were looking for a strong military leader like the Maccabees who would throw off the Roman yoke. John the Baptist wasn’t that leader. Instead, John’s message was, Repent! Get ready! God is coming! Start loving one another, right now! Live into God’s kingdom so that you’ll be ready when the Messiah comes! Jesus’s message was, The kingdom of God is here! It’s not just for Jews, but also for Samaritans and Gentiles. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done or who you are. What matters is that you turn towards God NOW. Don’t worry about the Romans. Worry about loving God and loving your neighbor, and by the way, here’s what I mean and how to do it.

I have good news for you all: Jesus’s message is still fresh and new. Maybe we have missed some opportunities. Maybe we have fallen short of our calling. But that’s true of everyone, always. The past doesn’t matter as much as how we respond today. John is still calling us to repent and prepare for the coming of the Messiah. The kingdom of God is still near, already here but not yet in full glory. There is still time to turn our hearts towards God.

Advent is a special time. It’s not just a time to decorate and buy gifts and have parties. It’s also a time to remind ourselves that Jesus is coming. It’s a time to start over, to re-dedicate ourselves to following God, to living into God’s kingdom, to turning away from our past sins of omission as well as our sins of commission. A time to let Jesus be born anew in our hearts.

We have been given a great gift. We are about to celebrate a holy feast, which connects us to Christians throughout the world and through all time. We have been made a part of Christ’s body. We have been shown God’s love in the greatest way possible, through the sacrificial love of God himself. John prepared the way for Jesus in ancient Judea. Let us now prepare ourselves so that we can prepare the way for Jesus in modern America, right here in Rolla, to change hearts and lives and to build God’s kingdom today. Amen.

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Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on Hebrews 10:11-25. Podcast linked below. YouTube archive:

It’s been a few weeks, so I want to once again remind you about the nature and context of Hebrews. It’s essentially a sermon transcript. In medieval times, it was used to support anti-Semitism and supersessionism, that is, the idea that Christianity had superseded Judaism. But that’s an anachronistic reading of it, since at the time of its authorship, Christianity did not exist apart from Judaism. Rather, Hebrews could perhaps be read as anti-religious. That makes it particularly relevant for today’s prevailing trend of people being “spiritual but not religious.” The anonymous author of Hebrews would probably describe himself as Spirit-led and freed from the religious obligations of his predecessors.

In the first few centuries after Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection, various thought leaders now called “church fathers” helped to interpret Jesus’s teachings, and indeed his very essence, to create Christianity as we know it today. Many of these church fathers, including Clement, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, and Athanasius, believed in universal salvation through Christ. Richard Murray has written extensively on this patristic universalism, distinguished from other forms of universalism because it is based on the beliefs and writings of these early theologians. He wrote:

Simply put, Patristic Universalism believes Jesus will win all people back, come Hell or high-water. God, through Jesus Christ, will ultimately rescue and convince ALL to receive their rebirth, even if it is after (in some cases) much “gnashing of teeth,” prolonged emotional anguish, and stubborn mental resistance. Many will hold out for extended periods of time, but all will eventually see that against an irresistibly virtuous God there is no eternal defense. As the lies are burned away, every soul will come to itself and behold this champion truth– Jesus Christ is God’s rescuing love.

For the first few centuries, this belief was commonplace among both church leaders and Christians broadly. However, there was also a recognition that the sins of the present age must be rectified. The Roman Catholic Church developed the principle of indulgences, which are, in the words of their catechism, “a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and all of the saints.” In essence, eternal guilt has been forgiven, but some action must be taken to rectify guilt in the present age.

I’m on board with that concept in principle. However, as time went by, greed and corruption took over the doctrine of indulgences. Unscrupulous “pardoners” used the sale of indulgences to fund projects like cathedrals. They quantified the indulgences in terms of how many years of purgatory they would buy out. Most of us know that Luther strongly opposed the sale of indulgences, but in 1392, more than a century before the Reformation, Pope Boniface IX wrote a condemnation of the practice of obtaining money from the simple-minded faithful by promising them perpetual happiness in this world and eternal glory in the next.

Into this fray stepped John Calvin. He developed a theological principal that was later called “total depravity.” Basically, he taught that our original sin permeates every aspect of our selves. Calvin’s theological descendants, such as the Puritans, used this principle to guilt and shame church members.

I think I’m old enough now that I’m allowed to be a cynic. Agreed? Well, we have on the one hand a theology that teaches universal salvation and God’s eternal, unconditional love, and on the other hand a theology that teaches us that we have guilt that cannot be removed but must be addressed “day after day.” Which one is more lucrative? Which one gives the church power over people’s lives? I think that explains why the main teaching of many churches is that we are sinful creatures who must make amends. That keeps butts in the seats and money in the plates. There is good money in guilt, and even better money in shame.

Guilt is a response to a particular bad act. You might think, Wow, Friday night was a little wild. I’d better throw an extra $20 in the plate today. Guilt is OK if it provokes action and change. I mean, after throwing in that extra $20, you might change your plans for the next weekend. Shame is different. Shame is believing that not only have you done bad things, but that you are a bad person. How can you ever remove that shame? Well, if you listen to certain preachers, the only way is to come to church every week, or twice a week, or to give the church everything you can or everything you have. But no amount of restitution can ever remove shame.

That’s why the author of Hebrews writes, “every priest stands day after day at his service, offering again and again the same sacrifices that can never take away sins. But Christ … offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins.” Jesus did not come to set up a new system of bookkeeping to replace the old Temple sacrificial system. He came to share God’s grace. And after he offered himself, “he sat down at the right hand of God.” Christ offers us eternal rest. No longer do we need to work “day after day” to earn forgiveness. The work has already been done. We are already forgiven. God’s grace is stronger than any guilt or shame we might feel. We can look forward to our eternal sabbath, our eternal rest from the hard work of living together and loving one another in all the messiness of this life.

The author of Hebrews goes on to say that we can approach God “with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” Here, he’s using language that describes priests. Those priests who offered sacrifices day after day had been sprinkled with the blood of the sacrifice and had been ritually bathed. Like them, we have been cleansed so that we can approach God. There is nothing we need to do to earn this access. Jesus has done all the work already. We are already cleansed, already forgiven, already free to come to God. There is nothing we can do to earn God’s love, but also nothing we can do to lose God’s love.

Our shame has been removed. Whatever Calvin may have thought, our total depravity has been overcome by God’s grace. The opposite of shame is honor: we are raised up out of our sinfulness and given a place of honor in God’s eternal family. Through Christ’s reconciling love, we have been adopted into God’s family and are honored for all eternity. No matter what the world might think of us, God loves us.

So what is the appropriate response? We have been given a great gift. There is nothing we can do to lose honor in God’s eyes. We are forgiven so that we may forgive others, loved so that we may love others, honored so that we can honor others. We are called to participate in bringing about God’s reign. All people will be a part of God’s realm in the age to come. We are called to bring them into God’s family now.

So what’s stopping us? Well, there are a lot of social pressures that work against us. For about a century, talking about religion and politics have been taboo in “polite company.” As a result, we are culturally incapable of having polite conversations about these sensitive subjects. It’s hard to have a conversation about what we believe without it turning into an argument about which belief is better. The public conversation—on TV, the radio, and especially the internet—has been taken over by the loudest and most extreme voices. As a result, the public perception of Christianity is not something I want to be associated with. I don’t want to be known as a judgmental homophobe who is against women in leadership. So I mostly stay quiet unless someone brings the subject up, instead focusing on living out my beliefs.

“Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.” That’s a nice, pithy quote, usually attributed to Francis of Assisi, founder of the Franciscan Orders. The concept behind it is that our practice should be sufficient to spread the Gospel. But here’s the truth: St. Francis never said it. The closest quote that captures this sentiment is:

No brother should preach contrary to the form and regulations of the holy Church nor unless he has been permitted by his minister … All the Friars … should preach by their deeds.

In essence, he was saying that our words and deeds should match. He is saying, Don’t be a hypocrite. If you’re going to preach love, you must show love. If you preach charity, you should be charitable. If you preach welcome and hospitality, you should practice welcome and hospitality. He never said that you should keep quiet about your beliefs. In fact, there is nothing in the Bible that says you shouldn’t talk about the enormous gifts we have received from God through the sacrificial love of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Jesus even said, in Mark 8, “Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” You can do what you like, but I personally think we should pay more attention to what Jesus said than to a modern proverb that seems to have been totally made-up.

You might still be afraid to speak out. Let me assure you that God is on our side, on your side. And if God is for us, who can stand against us? As Paul wrote, “Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” No matter what we do, no matter how we are perceived by society, we are always, always bound to God’s kingdom through Christ. If we act from that place of love, we will be continually renewed and strengthened by the Holy Spirit acting in and through us.

You are beloved. You are forgiven. You are freed from the brokenness of this world. And yet, we all must live in this broken world. So what to do? We are freed so that we can love dangerously. We are freed so that we can share God’s love with every one of God’s beloved children, which is everyone: people like you, people different from you, people you agree with, people you disagree with, your friends, your enemies. There is no one you will encounter who is not beloved by God.

Let me give you a couple of examples of dangerous love. As you probably know, I volunteer at the Rolla Mission. I cook lunch every Friday and fill in occasionally when there are open slots. These days, there are usually lots of people around to help on Fridays, both staff and other volunteers. However, if I do, say, a warming center on the weekend, or an overnight, I am alone and in charge. Fortunately, I have never had a major emergency, knock on wood. Occasionally a few patrons will have heated discussions, but everyone acknowledges my authority to remove them from the building, so I can get things settled down.

In fact, The Rolla Mission could be described as one great experiment in dangerous love. It started when The Vineyard decided to open their church to people in need around them. From laundry and showers, it has evolved to providing meals, shelter, and case management. As the staff, board, and volunteers have learned more about the needs of the patrons, they have developed connections to services around the city, county, and state to help patrons become full members of our community. They work with patrons to resolve the issues that have created their homelessness. This requires vulnerability on both sides. Someone who is homeless, whether due to mistakes they have made or circumstances beyond their control, can be overwhelmed by shame. They will only trust a case manager who is open and vulnerable enough to have their heart broken. We are blessed as a community to have Ashley and others at the Mission who are willing to open up every day, risking stigma, risking heartbreak, risking everything to show love to people in need.

Last week, Rev. Morrison said that we change the world by our example. That’s true, but what example should we set? Too many Christians keep people who are different from them at arm’s length. They stay within their little social circle of like-minded people who share their demographics. What did Jesus do? He didn’t just surround himself with fellow Galileans who were observant Jews that kept the purity codes. He ate with sinners and tax collectors. He spoke with Samaritans. He performed miracles for Gentiles. He didn’t just preach about love, he showed it. He entered into relationships. He met people where they were and changed their lives with his love.

That’s the example we should set. Not just some surface-level kindness, not just supporting charitable organizations with our money. No, we should embrace people who are different from us, enter into true relationships with them, wrap them in God’s love. Everyone, everyone, will one day encounter God face to face. Today, the only way they can encounter God is through us. Let’s go forth and be the hands and heart of Christ. Let’s take risks, knowing that not even the gates of Hell will prevail against us. Let’s love dangerously. Amen.

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Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on Hebrews 7:18-28; Mark 10:46-52. Podcast linked below. YouTube archive:

https://youtu.be/iEYINTFTadg?t=1822

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A couple weeks ago, I introduced the book of Hebrews. Let me just take a few moments to remind you of some key ideas. Hebrews is not so much a letter to a particular group like the other epistles, but more a rhetorical treatise, perhaps a sermon written out. Its author is unknown. Historically, it was ascribed to Paul, but most scholars now believe it was written by one of Paul’s close associates. In the Middle Ages, it was used to justify anti-Semitism and supersessionism, that is, the idea that Christianity has superseded Judaism. But really, the thrust of the author’s argument is that the heavenly supersedes the earthly. We do what we can to worship God here on earth in the present age, but all the while, Christ worships God in the heavenly Temple and will unify us all into God’s realm in the age to come. Christ is our great high priest, holy and pure, who makes atonement for us so that we may approach the throne of mercy and grace.

Jews have celebrated the Day of Atonement since their escape from Egypt. On the first day of the seventh month, called Rosh Hashana, Jews begin a ten-day time of reflection and repentance. On the tenth day, Yom Kippur, they are reconciled with God. In the Second Temple period, this was the day when the high priest would enter the Holy of Holies. Following the ancient template described in Exodus, the high priest would purify himself. He would then make a sacrifice, and use the blood of the sacrifice to make atonement with God. He would sprinkle the blood on the Ark of the Covenant as a sign and seal of the relationship between God and God’s people.

We have been conditioned to think of the old sacrifices only in terms of sin: to wipe away sin, God demands a blood sacrifice. But in actuality, the old sacrificial system was much more complex and nuanced. There were a number of reasons to offer a sacrifice: sin, guilt, thanksgiving, and fellowship offerings are all described. In some cases, the priest would give a burnt offering, which is to say that the animal or grain would be burned and destroyed completely. That was the case for the Yom Kippur offering, for example. In many cases, though, the offering would be eaten, either by the priest or by the people giving the offering or both.

So what was the point of giving an offering to God, and then taking it back and eating it? Well, the sacrifice was not so much about what was given up, but more about the relationship between God and God’s people. Through the sacrifice, offered to God, the person giving would draw closer to God. I suppose in a sense, it’s like the times when we share a meal together, whether at our old potlucks that have been canceled due to the pandemic or at the First Friday Out gatherings we have resumed. In a sense, we are offering a sacrifice to God, then using it to draw close to God by drawing close to one another. As we enjoy table fellowship together, God is present by the Holy Spirit. The ancient sacrificial system was like one long-running potluck where people would bring the product of their labors in the field, dedicate them to God, and enjoy a closer communion with God and God’s people through the sacrifice.

The sacrificial system was an embodiment of the Law. We know about the Ten Commandments, but by one count, there are 613 commandments in the Torah, that is, the first five books of the Bible. 613—that’s a lot! That’s partly why the author of Hebrews goes on about how the Law could make nothing and nobody perfect. Keeping all 613 commandments perfectly is just about impossible. Jesus said that he came not to abolish the Law but to fulfill the Law. Yet even he flouted the purity laws and broke a lot of the rules about the Sabbath. Instead, he gave us the Great Commandment. When someone in the crowd challenged him, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Sure, there are 613 rules that are specific to ancient Israelite culture and often contradictory, but there are two overarching commandments: love of God and love of neighbor. The rest is just details, that is, what does it mean to love God? What does it mean to love our neighbor? Those questions have challenged God’s people from the days of the ancient Israelites wandering in the wilderness down to today.

Our passage today assures us, though, that if we turn towards God, if we seek God with our hearts, Jesus Christ is there to connect with us. No matter what, if we seek God, we are assured that God’s love will flow back to us. Jesus is able to save completely, for all time, because he always lives to intercede for us. We may mess up, we may fall short of God’s glory, but Jesus is always working on our behalf to connect us with God’s love.

But wait—what about the other half of the Great Commandment? Remember the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” Or as many of us learned it, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Or perhaps the best word to use in that phrase is “sin.” We ask God’s forgiveness of our sins against the first half of the Great Commandment—our failures to love God as we should—while we offer forgiveness to others who sin against the second half.

The ten days between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur are a time of introspection, reflection, and reconciliation. It is a time for each person to reflect on the way they have wronged their neighbor and to seek forgiveness. God forgives us, which is great, but at the end of the day, a large part of the reason for the Law is so that we can live together, in peace and harmony.

I believe in universal reconciliation. That is, I believe that all of us, every person throughout the world and throughout history, have Jesus on our side, interceding on our behalf, so that one day, we will all enjoy God’s grace, mercy, and love. So what’s the point of being here today? What’s the point of being a Christian in the present age, if we will all enjoy God’s heavenly realm in the age to come? Well, it’s so that we can enjoy that unity, a partial vision of God’s realm, in the here-and-now. We make restitution and reconcile with one another so that we can live in peace and harmony now.

Recently, Jon Gruden was in the news. He was, until recently, the coach of the Las Vegas Raiders. Before that, he worked for the NFL. Some of his emails from the past decade were leaked. They were full of racist, misogynist, and homophobic language attacking the NFL commissioner, the president of the NFL Players Association, and many others in and around the league. Obviously, he’s an idiot. I mean, how can anyone in the 21^st century not know that you shouldn’t put that sort of thing in an email? But more to the point, we are lucky to have a written record, while so often we only have hearsay indicating that someone is racist, misogynist, and homophobic. After the emails came out, Gruden had to step down.

Now, I believe that if he asks God for forgiveness, he will receive it, through the grace of Jesus Christ who intercedes on his behalf. That’s great. But it doesn’t mean that he should get his job back. He cannot lead an organization full of black men while being openly racist. He needs to repent of that sin, and then seek reconciliation with the people he has sinned against.

The author of Hebrews assures us of our ultimate reconciliation. There are two kinds of reconciliation: vertical and horizontal. Jesus assures us of vertical reconciliation. As he intercedes on our behalf, we receive grace and mercy from God. Jesus also assures us of horizontal reconciliation. He said that he would send an Advocate, the Holy Spirit. As the Holy Spirit flows through us, we are connected to each other. God’s love enables us to forgive those who sin against us, so that we can live together as part of God’s family. Our vertical reconciliation, that is, the love flowing down from God, enables our horizontal reconciliation, as that love flows out from us and into each other, this group of worshipers gathered today, the people we serve around the community, and people all around the nation and world who are beloved by God.

In part, the book of Hebrews was written as assurance to people who were shut out of the Temple system. It’s a little unclear whether it was written before or after the destruction of the Temple. If before, then the author was thinking of the people who were too poor or too remote from Jerusalem or too ritually unclean to worship God and enjoy the fellowship of God’s people at the Temple. If after, the author was thinking of everyone, all of God’s people, who had previously turned towards the Temple as the special place where God would dwell on earth, where the high priest could enter the Holy of Holies to achieve reconciliation with God, which was now destroyed. Judaism had entered a time of transition, when it seemed that God’s favor and God’s presence had been removed.

But we are assured that the Temple system, which was finite and exclusionary and doomed to one day end, was merely a reflection of the heavenly worship that continues. What was once bound to a certain group of priests in a particular place is now broken wide open. Jesus is our new high priest who worships continually in the heavenly sanctuary. Jesus welcomes everyone—rich and poor, near and far, every age and race and gender—to his heavenly banquet. While we still put up barriers between ourselves in the present age, all will be welcome at the heavenly banquet in the age to come.

Let’s turn now to Bartimaeus. As Jesus passed out of Jericho, a blind beggar called out to him. Last week, we heard how two of Jesus’s closest friends asked him for power. But Bartimaeus asked simply for mercy. He recognized Jesus as a Son of David, the Messiah, God’s anointed one who had come to share God’s love, and he called out for mercy. Mark writes, “Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’” Bartimaeus gets it. He understands what James and John did not. Jesus came not to achieve or grant power, but to show love and mercy to God’s people. Jesus called Bartimaeus to come to him, and suddenly the crowd changed. They told Bartimaeus that Jesus was calling him, and he responded with joy. He sprang up, abandoned his cloak—probably his only possession—and went to Jesus. Jesus’s only challenge to him was to ask him, “What do you want me to do for you?” Bartimaeus said, “Rabbouni, my teacher, let me see again.” When Jesus heals his sight, Bartimaeus becomes a follower. He is lifted from his old life as an outcast and enjoys the healing, loving, merciful presence of his Messiah.

Let me ask you: When I tell that story, who do you see yourself as? Are you like Bartimaeus, calling on Jesus as your Messiah to heal you and grant you mercy, willing to give up all that you have in order to follow him? Or are you like someone in the crowd, trying to keep everything decent and orderly, shushing those who need to feel God’s saving grace, shutting out those who seem to be unworthy? Or are you like James and John, seeking power and authority in God’s coming reign? I think if we’re honest with ourselves, each one of us has been every character in the story at some point. Susan reminded us last week that we are called not to be served, but to serve. Jesus’s call to Bartimaeus reminds us that when we turn towards God, God responds with love and grace. And it reminds us that those we would seek to exclude as being unworthy are precious to God, loved by God, and welcome in God’s family.

One day, we will all feel God’s eternal loving presence, through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us live in that presence now, allowing God’s love to flow through us, to reconcile us with those we have wronged and those who have sinned against us, and welcoming everyone who calls on Jesus to join us in God’s family today. Amen.

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Based on Hebrews 4:12-16. Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Unfortunately, video is not available, but the audio (podcast) is linked below.

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I will be preaching three times on the book of Hebrews, so before I begin today, I’d like to give you a little background and perspective on it. It has elements of an epistle, but is structured more like a rhetorical treatise, or perhaps a sermon. Maybe I should just read it straight through as the sermon! Traditionally, it was attributed to Paul, but there are many reasons to doubt that tradition. The early Christian father Origen personally believed that Paul wrote it, but also said, “But who wrote the epistle, in truth God knows.” Most likely, it was written by one of Paul’s close associates, perhaps Apollos, perhaps someone else whose name is lost to history.

The challenge with Hebrews is that it has been used for centuries to support anti-Semitism and supersessionism. The basic argument running through the book is that the temple has been or will be replaced with something better. By the Middle Ages, this was interpreted to mean that Christianity has replaced or superseded Judaism. Our “priest,” who is Jesus, has replaced the former Temple priests. Our covenant has replaced their covenant.

In a recent article in The Christian Century, though, Jesper Svartvik argues that when Hebrews was written, there was no concept of Christianity separate from Judaism. The author, then, could not be arguing that Christianity is better than Judaism. Instead, his argument should be interpreted as one more book written in the stream of apocalyptic messianic eschatology, just like the Gospels, just like Paul’s letters, just like most of the New Testament. I believe I’ve spoken about apocalyptic messianic eschatology before, but briefly, it is the understanding that our Messiah, Jesus, revealed God to us and revealed the new heaven and earth that is to come. The book of Hebrews is not contrasting two different religions, but two different ages. The present age is merely a shadow of the glorious age to come. The temple priests are merely stand-ins for the great high priest that is the Son of God.

So, against that broad perspective, let’s dive in. Today’s reading starts out, “Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” What is the word of God? Not a “what,” but a “who”: Jesus. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” We often describe scripture as the word of God, but the true Word is Jesus Christ, who is revealed to us through the scripture by the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus is the true Word who searches our hearts.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus sets up a number of contrasts between thoughts and actions. He preached, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not murder.’ But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment. You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Throughout Jesus’s preaching, he spoke of the need to not only act good, but to be good. It is necessary but not sufficient to do good works. One must also have right thoughts, for our external actions reflect the intentions of our hearts.

As I said, the book of Hebrews is a rhetorical treatise in which the author builds an argument. The preceding section, before today’s reading, is about sabbath rest. We are promised a sabbath. We will one day enter into God’s rest. But we must render an account first. Recently, I was talking with my friend Sharon about different worship styles and liturgy and so forth. She is Lutheran and grew up with a traditional service, but then later joined a church with a contemporary service. Contemporary worship is pretty thin on liturgy. I personally like liturgy, but many people my age and younger do not. One piece that is often omitted from a contemporary service is the prayer of confession. The argument is that making people say that they have sinned will make them feel bad, make them feel ashamed. Sharon said that she lobbied hard for her church to include one, and succeeded. In the Reformed tradition, we believe it is essential to confess our sins. The general format that we use in this church follows the Book of Worship. First, we are called to confession. We are reminded that all of us have sinned, all of us fall short of God’s glory. Next, we confess our sins. It is essential that we confess not only our personal sins, but also our corporate sins. We are all connected. We are all part of one body of Christ. If one of us sins, all of us sin. But the third part of the sequence is essential: an assurance of pardon. We confess our sins SO THAT we may be assured that our sins have been forgiven.

There is a psychological aspect to this as well. I remember George talking about that from the perspective of the Roman Catholic confession ritual. There is something freeing about declaring your sins—explicitly naming them, whether aloud or in your heart—and then being told that your sins are forgiven.

Each Sunday, we encounter God’s Word, and it reminds us that we are not perfect. But then we are reminded that we are forgiven, that God’s mercy and grace flows through Jesus and covers us all.

As I said, the preceding section of Hebrews talks about a promised sabbath. The promise will be fulfilled in the age to come. The present age will pass away, and we will be welcomed into God’s eternal sabbath. So why are we here? What’s the point of all of this? Well, one way to think about it is like the original sabbath explanation: God worked for six days, and on the seventh day rested. We have work to do first. This present age is a time of working, testing, and learning. We are weak, but are made strong by the learning of a lifetime.

Jesus, too, was weak. He experienced all of the trials and temptations that we endure, and then some. He was tempted by the possibility of conquering his foes, of embracing violence to establish his earthly kingdom. But he rejected that path. He was made weak like us, but through God’s strength was able to resist temptation. So he knows how hard this life can be. He knows how strong the Adversary is in the present age. He knows that we are all trying to do God’s will, but are so often confronted by no-win situations. He knows the brokenness of this world.

The word in verse 12 that we translate “able to judge” is kritikos, the Greek word from which we get “critic.” Often when we hear the words “judge” and “critic” we have very negative connotations. We think about a judge who sits in a court condemning the guilty. We think about the critic who points out all of our flaws. But maybe we should think of this concept more like discernment. Think about a judge at district or state music festivals—yes, they point out flaws, but also good things, and they give the performer a grade. Or an art critic: their job is not so much to tell us what’s wrong with a piece of art or to rank artistic expressions, but to help us see what the artist intends and to show connections between a particular piece of art and the larger artistic tradition or its commentary on society.

Or perhaps we can think about a teacher. I sit in judgment of my students. At the end of the semester, I give them grades. But I don’t just sit back and let them succeed or fail on their own skills. My job is to teach them. I explain concepts to them, give them opportunities to practice with the concepts, and give them feedback on their performance. The semester is filled with formative assessments. A formative assessment is one that has little or no impact on grades but allows the students to determine how well they understand. I assign homework each week that, in total, amounts to 10% of the semester’s grade, and I give half credit for just completing the work. The other half of the credit is given for accuracy, which is intended to encourage students to actually try. Each week, I have a LEAD session, which is a time when the students are all working on the homework together and I’m present to answer questions, correct misconceptions, and help them understand the material I’m trying to teach. Maybe a quarter or a third of the students come to the LEAD sessions.

In the same way, we encounter God’s Word each week and then spend the week trying to apply it. As we struggle with it, the Holy Spirit is there to nudge us in the right direction, if we are willing to listen. God is ready to teach us, to show us what we have done well and poorly, to grade our progress towards full membership in God’s kingdom. All we need to do is turn towards God to receive that instruction. Sometimes it’s hard, just like getting a low grade on homework is hard, but challenging words from God make us better and stronger people, more able to resist the Adversary, more confident members of Christ’s body.

OK, that’s formative assessment. The other type of assessment is summative. That’s the grade I give my students on an exam or at the end of the course. Throughout the semester, I remind students that I am a kind and generous person, and some of them believe it. My job, though, is to make sure that they have learned enough to be successful in their careers, so I need to give good and bad grades based on their performance. And here’s where the analogy breaks down.

Jesus is indeed the word of God, living and active, able to judge our thoughts and intentions, before whom no creature is hidden but is laid bare, and to whom we must render an account. BUT, he is our great high priest. The job of a priest is to speak to God on behalf of the people and to obtain the people’s forgiveness. Jesus is our great high priest who sits on the throne of grace and mercy.

During this COVID pandemic, there were lots of policies put in place to accommodate students. That first semester, spring 2020, was a mess. Students at many colleges were given the option of changing from a letter grade to pass/fail, as an acknowledgment that the semester was really hard due to circumstances beyond their control. In the same way, Jesus knows that life is hard. He was tested just as we are. So at the end of the day, we are given a grade, but instead of a letter grade, we get a pass/fail grade. And by the mercy and grace of our great high priest, we all pass.

I’m reminded of another test that I witnessed. When a student completes their master’s thesis, a three-person committee sits in judgment of it. The student presents their work, and the committee members probe it. This one student had someone on their committee who started asking questions on about the third slide of the presentation. As the defense went on, the questions became increasingly probing and aggressive. It was brutal. After the presentation, the committee deliberates in private. The professor who had asked all of the probing, aggressive questions simply said, “Great work!” The student passed with no concerns.

Sometimes our life of faith is like that. We are challenged daily, even minute by minute, to live up to our calling. We are confronted by people we struggle to love. We are criticized for our beliefs. We are scared to proclaim the Gospel. We are tempted to break every commandment in the Bible, and give in more often than we would like to admit. We are weak. But we have this assurance: we have Jesus as our great high priest, who was tested as we are, ready to advocate on our behalf. And so, “Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Amen.

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