From Hard-Scrabble Hearts

Proper 10A-26
Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

For three Sundays, we are camped out here in Matthew 13 which contains seven parables about the kingdom of heaven or “realm of God.” Each offers an answer to the question: What happens when the kingdom of heaven is proclaimed? Our scriptures give witness. Some will hear it. Some resist it. Some misunderstand it. Some bear astonishing fruit while the natural world, the surrounding spiritual animacy of the web of life will have just one response. It will give God praise.

“A Sower went out to sow,” Jesus said. He flung seeds everywhere—on the path, on the rocks, among the thorns, and finally some land on good soil. “That is what the kingdom of heaven looks like. “God refuses to ration grace. The Word of the kingdom is proclaimed to saints and skeptics alike. To disciples and doubters. To those eager to hear and to those who have grown cynical. To people whose lives seem well cultivated and to those whose lives feel overrun with rocks, weeds, and hard-packed paths. The Sower just keeps sowing…most of us have experienced all four soils.” (Micah Krey, Writings on Recovery and Preaching, “7th Sunday After Pentecost,” July 12, 2026) God pours out grace without considering the worthiness of the recipient. This parable should uproot our faulty assumptions about who is deserving. Let anyone with ears to hear rejoice!

Here in Matthew 13, after repeated rejection and controversy, Jesus makes a strategic choice to begin speaking in parables. Matthew uses the conjunction hoti, which can be translated as “because.” Jesus does not speak in parables in order to keep people from understanding. Jesus speaks in parables because they have already become people who “look but do not perceive” and “hear but do not listen.” Parables stick with us. They work on our imagination. Until finally, when we are ready, they explode false understandings and make room for grace to grow again bearing new fruit some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.

But this chapter filled with parables doesn’t begin with a parable. Matthew begins with movement. “That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea.” (Matthew 13:1) That same day. Everywhere Jesus turns, someone questions who he is and by what authority he speaks. And so, he walks to the sea and because the crowds are so large, he gets into a boat and sits down while everyone remains standing on the shore. Many commentators note that the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee forms a natural amphitheater. Water carries sound well. And so, Jesus’ boat becomes an ideal place from which to address a large crowd.

Scholars suggest something more is happening as well. Look where Jesus is teaching. Not from the synagogue. Not from the Temple. Not from the home where chapter 12 ended. He’s teaching from a fishing boat. “Throughout Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus continually relocates where God’s authority is encountered. The Sermon on the Mount happens on a hillside, not in Jerusalem. Fishermen become the first disciples rather than religious scholars. Children understand what the wise often miss. Tax collectors find mercy while the righteous argue over technicalities. Now the kingdom is proclaimed from the water. Away from the formal institutions that have dismissed his authority.” (Krey)

Matthew tells us that Jesus sat down, the traditional posture for authoritative teaching, but the classroom has changed. “Instead of walls, there is shoreline. Instead of benches, there is sand. Instead of institutional architecture, creation itself becomes the sanctuary.” (Krey)

This resonates with a major theme in our bible. The natural world participates in giving witness to God. Isaiah describes a God who pours rain and snow down from heaven without measure, watering everything on earth in the full confidence that what needs to grow will grow (Isaiah 55:10). Isaiah promises God’s people, “For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands” (Isaiah 55:12). The psalmist echoes, “The pastures of the wilderness overflow, the hills gird themselves with joy, the meadows clothe themselves with flocks, the valleys deck themselves with grain, and they shout and sing together for joy.” (Psalm 65:9-13)

For centuries, Christians have dismissed these words are mere poetic flourish. But contemporary science, philosophers and theologians bring us back where our ancestors in faith started. “At the heart of matter, is the heart of God.” Jesuit priest, paleontologist, and mystic, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) is one of these thinkers who ask us to reexamine our assumptions about how the world works. Teilhard wrote “Let us leave the surface, and, without leaving the world, plunge into God.” When we experience the beat of this sacredness deep within us or encounter it in the body of the earth or the body of another, we have a sense of being addressed by name, said Teilhard. In other words, the life at the heart of all life is not just energy; it is presence. The universe is radically relational. In and through matter we are born for relationship, and at the heart of our relationship with the earth and one another is relationship with the divine. (John Philip Newell, Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul. P. 171-172 // quoting Chardin, The Heart of Matter, p. 15)

Around the age of thirty, Teilhard had an epiphany in which he experienced himself being addressed by the Light that shines in matter. What he heard within himself were words from Matthew’s gospel, in Latin ‘Ego sum, noli timere’ (It is I; do not be afraid, Matthew 14:27). He heard these words not from afar, as it were, or from above the physical, but from deep within the matter of the universe. The assurance that came to him in that moment was: “Do not be afraid to see matter as sacred; do not be afraid to adore this Light that is deep in all things. It is I.”

“The universe,” as Teilhard later wrote, now became “something that loved and could be loved.” This was a way of saying that God can be found in all things. The Sower has been sowing for 13.8 billion years. The stars, the periodic table of elements, a myriad of life forms, all arranged in symbiotic communities, tending toward ever greater complexity, the harmony of contrasts, and beauty. In one of this last writings, Teilhard said, Christianity “is reaching the end of one of the natural cycles of its existence…After what will soon be two thousand years, Christ must be born again. (Xnity and Evolution, 94-95) In that born-again Christianity, he said, Christ will no longer be seen as a deserter of the earth. He will be seen as a lover of the earth, at one with the earth. (Newel)

Teilhard saw that evolution is not opposed to the story of creation, rather evolution is the story of how God creates. The Divine Sower pours out seeds of grace upon all people, all things, from within the heart of all matter, at the heart of each moment, across the cosmos, across time.
“This does not mean that evolution always moves toward love in a straightforward way. Indeed, the process of evolution also involves destruction, tragedy, and loss. The creative advance into novelty includes not only harmonious cooperation but also intense struggle. The emergence of beauty is inseparable from the presence of suffering. The cosmos is shaped by moments of tragic beauty—where love and loss, order and chaos, emerge together in a grand improvisational unfolding.” (The Cosmic Lure of Love: Teilhard, Whitehead, and the Evolution of Sympathy, Open Horizons)

Recently retired ELCA Bishop Tim Smith of the North Carolina Synod has said “you can count the number of seeds in an apple, but you cannot count the number of apples in a seed.” Most apples contain five seeds. Many apple tree varieties produce up to five hundred apples each season and can produce fruit for eight or more years. What is slowly coming into being in you, is that you can look on the face of anyone, any creature, stand on any horizon and see that it is your sister or brother or sibling. Then you will know the day has come that you are blossoming into a new creation in Christ. May the wasteful abundance of God’s grace transform our hard-scrabble hearts and fuel our growth with joy. May God be praised.

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Embraced by Grace

Proper 9A-26

Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

To what should I compare this generation?  They are like toddlers crying all the louder when they hear other children crying. Nothing satisfies them. “Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds,” Jesus said (Matthew 11:16, 18, & 19).

It is remarkable, and maybe a little depressing, how applicable Jesus’ words are to today. “Jesus describes children sitting in the marketplace making contradictory demands. John the Baptist preached an austere message of repentance, and the people complained he was possessed by a demon. Jesus invited everyone to the table for food and drink, and the people called him a glutton and a drunkard.

How often do we miss what really matters in the moment, in this time and place? “We claim to be wise and discerning, but we don’t recognize the divine when we encounter it.  God is always too much or too little for us; too severe or too generous, too demanding, or too provocative.  [Caught in the swirl of our emotions], we [like children] have little capacity to discern what is good and right and holy and true” (Debi Thomas, “A Lighter Burden,” Journey with Jesus, 6/28/20.)

Today is the 174th anniversary of Frederick Douglass’ speech at Corinthian Hall. Douglass’ claims about the complicity of the church in perpetuating the evil of chattel slavery seem obvious to us now. Through the long lens of history, we see the same old serpent at work in and among us today. Jesus calls us today to step out from behind the innocence of childhood with regard to our history. ‘When I was a child, I spoke like a child I thought like a child; now that we are grown, we are finished with childish ways.’ (1 Corinthians 13:11).

And so, yes, we celebrate with hot dogs and fireworks. We honor the 250th anniversary of our nation, by holding together the best and the worst, the sunny side and the underside of everything, be it an event, be it our workplace, be it our family, our congregation, or be it our own souls. Truth-telling about your country is not hatred of your country. It is the form love takes once we’ve grown up. (Cornel West)

American philosopher, theologian and Black activist, Cornel West, asserts the Revolution was “the beginning of an anti-imperial movement against the largest empire of the day,” a courageous wager that ordinary people could build arrangements where each person carries equal worth and dignity.”  [And also] …it was a courageous movement “…wedded to genocide of indigenous peoples and wedded to barbaric enslavement of my own ancestors,” West said. (Tripp Fuller, “Guilty of Our Own Innocence with Cornel West: A Sermon for America’s 250th Birthday Party,” Homebrewed Christianity, 7/4/26).

Roughly 15,000 enslaved Africans fought for the British whereas just 5,000 fought for the Americans. Why? Because the British empire offered emancipation, and the revolutionaries were not. The people with the most at stake in the promise of liberty looked at both armies and concluded that freedom was more likely to come from King George. (Fuller)

“That’s the gift Christians bring to the 250th that nobody else in the public square is carrying. We are the people who are supposed to be able to stare at a cross — an instrument of imperial execution, in case we’ve forgotten what the jewelry means — and not flinch, because we believe the truth is survivable. More than survivable. We believe it’s the doorway.” (Fuller)

Yesterday, for the 250th anniversary of American independence, roughly 400 members of the Nazi white nationalist group Patriot Front marched through the nation’s capital, some carrying Confederate flags. By contrast, what joy, has been kindled in me watching World Cup soccer fans in the U.S. Seeing our nation through their eyes renews my love for America. I am inspired, not because of their amazement at American portion sizes and air conditioning, but by the spirit of international reverie and fellowship they embody.  They are a sign of what is good, right, holy, and true that “…All people are created equal and loved by God. We hold these conflicting events together without flinching because the truth is survivable. Because truth is the door to greater wisdom and grace in the future.

It was Martin Luther’s Small Catechism which taught us to say: “I believe that I cannot by my own understanding or effort believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him.” The wise and intelligent rely upon their own abilities rather than God’s grace. They do not bear the yoke of freedom. Instead, they fashion yokes for others to shoulder life’s burdens.

The prophet Jeremiah wrote, “Thus says the Lord: Stand at the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies; and walk in it and find rest for your souls” (Jeremiah 6:16).  Our ancestors in faith have handed down two radical and distinctive ideas. The first is that being chosen by God is not an exclusive blessing as if God blesses some to the exclusion of others. No. From the very moment of creation (Genesis 1) up to and through our own baptism—the blessings of God are universal. God’s blessings are not exclusive, but rather instrumental.

God doesn’t love the ancient Hebrew people or anybody else because they are good. This truth just does not compute inside our binary, judging, competing, and comparing brains. God does not love you because you are good; God loves you because God is good, and then you can be good because you draw upon such an Infinite Source of Goodness. (Brian McLaren, “Jesus Came for Everyone,” Daily Meditations, 7/1/26)

The second radical and distinctive idea Jeremiah and others pass down to us is that God works inside human history. We are called to put our shoulders to the yoke, to engage the work of God unique to our time so that the divine commonwealth (or i.e. the kingdom) may come on earth as in heaven.

Apparently, I was an insufferable and inconsolable toddler. My nickname, coined by my uncle Norm, was ‘the mon-ster.’  Hearing these stories repeated my mom is quick to rise to my defense.  She says, ‘I was slow to wake up from a nap’, and/or ‘crabby when I was hungry’, and/or ‘ kind’a whiney when I got car sick’ which apparently, was like all the time—but finally, once the appropriate remedy could be administered, I became a lovely little child again. What was the magic cure?  It was simply to be held—preferably sitting on mama’s lap for a time put me in my right mind.

“My yoke is easy, and my burden is light,” Jesus said. “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28 & 30). The yoke Jesus describes in our gospel today is a double yoke joining two animals, side by side, in their daily labor. Is it stretching the metaphor too far? Or is the yoke to which Jesus invites us simply a way of being held? We are embraced by grace by putting on the yoke of Christ. Suddenly the storm is stilled, the whirl of anxiety, the petty passions are driven away in God’s loving embrace. Embraced by grace, we do not become super-human –we simply become more human. We become the beloved, playful, creative, honest, and loving little children to whom, Jesus said, the kingdom of God belongs.

Beloved, it is time for us to grow up. The many challenges we face are global in scale. Unlike previous generations we will not resolve them with new technology or greater military force.  They require collaboration between cultures, among religions, across ancient divides. This is what it means to grow up. It does not mean that we won’t make mistakes.  It simply means that we can hold the good and bad of history together without flinching, that we can face the challenges before us with the confidence that comes from knowing we are not alone. We may not always or often be successful, but this is how we do God’s work with our hands. “Take my yoke, I am beside you; take and learn humility.” (ACS #1017)

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The Sword of Truth

Proper 7A-26

Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”  (Matthew 10:34-37).  Family against family.  ‘Your foes will be members of your own household.’ Happy Father’s Day!?

For families already strained by political divisions, culture wars, and religious intolerance, Matthew 10 can feel like a slap in the face. For others who grew up in evangelical settings listening to sermons about obedience and submission, the devil and Hell, division and threat, this was truly a text of terror.

Jesus speaks of persecution, division, crosses, and losing one’s life. These are not comforting words. So, what’s going on?

This week’s gospel continues Jesus’ “Mission Discourse,” which we began last week. Jesus sent the disciples out to proclaim that “the kingdom of heaven has come near.” Jesus was not attempting to frighten his disciples. He was preparing them. Three times he tells the disciples not to be afraid. It may be a simple fact of human nature. You and I are often more comfortable celebrating peace than truth. The unpleasant truth is always difficult, both to speak and to listen to.  We shield ourselves against its wounding accuracy –not just as individuals, but as families, denominations, as a people and as a nation.

As Jesus prepared the disciples for mission, he prepared them for resistance. “A disciple is not above the teacher. If Jesus himself has been misunderstood, maligned, and accused of serving evil (Beelzebul), then those who follow him should not be surprised when they experience similar opposition.” (Micah Krey, Writings on Recovery and Preaching, 4th Sunday After Pentecost, 2026)

The prophetic witness runs deep in our tradition. The prophet Jeremiah wrote, “If I say, “I will not mention [God] or speak any more in [God’s] name,” then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot” (Jeremiah 20:9). Hebrew prophets spoke truth to power in opposition to the Judean/Israeli government long ago. This was not antisemitic. Rather it was an expression of God’s justice and mercy. The prophet speaks painful words, so that the tender grace of God may take root in our hearts.

This is exhausting, of course. Jeremiah seems to have grown weary of truth telling. “I have become a laughingstock!  Everyone mocks me!” (Jeremiah 20:7).  Every prophet soon comes to realize that nobody loves you for being the enemy of their illusions.  Every prophet quickly discovers the almost unworldly power of homeostasis –the tendency of all systems to stubbornly resist change.  More than truth, “most of us want peace at any price –as long as the peace is ours and somebody else pays the price.” (William Sloan Coffin, Not to Bring Peace, But a Sword, February 16, 1992).

Jesus expressed the power and the pain of truth telling when he said, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” (v. 34). Jesus who teaches love of enemy, who commanded Peter to put away his sword in the garden, who entered Jerusalem riding not a war horse, but a donkey was not suddenly advocating violence. Rather, Jesus is describing the consequences of God’s kingdom breaking into the world. The truth shall set us free, but first, it will make a lot of people mad.

“Throughout Scripture, the image of the sword is connected not to physical violence but to the power of truthful speech and the Word of God. Proverbs says, “Rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing” (12:18). Hebrews describes the word of God as “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12). In Revelation, the risen Christ repeatedly carries a sharp sword that proceeds not from his hand but from his mouth (1:16; 19:15). The image is not one of military conquest or violent action but of truth spoken with divine authority. (Krey)

Jesus is not commanding violence. He is describing what happens when the kingdom of God comes near. He is not attacking family relationships. He is insisting that no loyalty can supersede loyalty to God.

We stand in need of such truth-telling. This period of 15 days that spans the space between Juneteenth and Independence Day is a unique opportunity for honest reckoning with our past to secure a more vibrant future. Occurring year after year, these days are a season of critical patriotism for our time. Especially as we celebrate and lament the semi-quincentennial of American. Might we develop a new civic liturgy that includes the creative interplay of lament and celebration, reckoning and repair, truth-telling and hope? (Robert P. Jones, “Let’s Tell a New Story: Juneteenth and a Season of Critical Patriotism,” Redeeming Democracy 6/19/26)

Interfaith celebrations of Juneteenth like the beautiful moving service this Friday in Edgewater are one way to do this. Prayerfully learning from the prophets of our age like Frederick Douglass (as we have done today, and for the next two Sundays) is another.

Nine years before the outbreak of the Civil War, July 5th, 1852, the Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society of Rochester, New York, invited Frederick Douglass to speak at Corinthian Hall, the city’s most prestigious public venue. It was the 76th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Douglass stepped onto the high speaker’s platform without an introduction. In his very person he represented an impossibility. He is black. He is an escaped slave. He taught himself to read and write. He is, arguably, the most famous speaker of his age. Douglass was living proof of what was, in fact, possible and, at also, a living testament to the heart wrenching tragedy and wasted potential wrought by racism.

Cradling his 30-page text, Douglass drew on the tradition of the Hebrew prophets and delivered a long list of uniquely American blessings and woes. But he did not merely unleash anger at the hypocrisy of white celebrations of independence in a nation where chattel slavery remained legal. Douglass crafted a piece of art, what historian David Blight describes as a rhetorical “symphony in three movements.”

Douglass began by praising the genius of the founding fathers and referred to the Fourth of July as an American Passover. It is a holiday that celebrates the narrative we most like to tell ourselves about our origins and identity. It is here that we recite the story of American freedom, equality, and justice for all.

In middle portion of the speech, possessive pronouns shift from “our” to “your.” Douglass forcefully highlighted the distance between himself and his white audience. He addresses the other founding story of America, less celebrated, but just as persistent and deep: the America which an exclusive possession of white Christian men. It is this version of America which has again risen to prominence today. Does it surprise us? We cannot pretend it doesn’t exist. We must tell the truth if we are ever finally to root it out and defeat it. Douglass exposed the hypocrisy of slavery in a republic founded on the Declaration of Independence declaring that slavery “brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretense, and your Christianity a lie.”

In the final movement of the speech, Douglass again held out hope that the United States might yet live to be a nation worthy of its professed values. The struggle continues. The mission is ongoing. Jesus’ warnings about conflict and rejection are surrounded by assurances of God’s care. We, with the disciples, are reminded that nothing hidden will remain hidden forever, that truth ultimately comes to light, and that even the smallest sparrow does not fall apart from God’s knowledge. Indeed, all the hairs on your head have been counted. “When through fire-y trials your pathway shall lie, my grace, all sufficient, shall be your supply.  The flames shall not hurt you; I only design your dross to consume and your gold to refine.” (ELW # 796, “How Firm a Foundation”)

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Make God Real

Proper 6A-26
Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

“When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36). Jesus had a visceral reaction upon seeing the crowds. The Greek word for compassion, splagchnizomai, has the connotation of having one’s entrails “stirred up.” Immediately in response, Jesus sent the disciples out in mission.

He told them, “Go to those everywhere who have lost the way. Tell them to take heart, for in all the earth, across all borders, behind every fence, in spite of all the Caesars, the kingdom of God is at hand” (Matthew 10:6-7). “For all the complexity of primitive Christianity, a startling idea runs through early records of faith: Christianity seems to have succeeded because it transformed the lives of people in a chaotic world.” During this time, Christianity was not so much about doctrines or eternal salvation, but about how to live a better life here and now, within the “reign of God.” Diana Butler Bass, A People’s History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story (HarperOne, 2009), 26.

They prevailed, not as conquering heroes, but because they were “like sheep into the midst of wolves” (Matt. 10:16). Their objective was not to dominate but to serve. For the sake of compassion, they carried nothing but compassion. The remembered Jesus taught them to “be wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (v. 16). Christianity begins and ends with compassion. Compassion opens the door to the kingdom of God in our midst. Compassion brings heaven and earth together. Compassion makes God real. Compassion makes us fully human.

A young Jewish woman in her twenties living in in Amsterdam in the spring of 1941, knew how to come alive and to make God real (which amounts to the same thing). Her name was Etty Hillesum. From 1941 until 1943, Etty watched her world descend into nightmare when the Germans occupied Holland. Imprisoned in the transit camp at Westerbork (before being shipped to the gas chambers of Auschwitz), she became deeply aware of God’s hand on her life.
Etty kept a journal of those years that she saw as part of a “dialogue,” with what was deepest inside her, namely, God. Etty wrote: “There must be someone to live through it all and bear witness to the fact that God lived, even in these times. And why should I not be that witness?” “Hatred of Germans poisons everyone’s mind,” she said. It is not that a response to evil should be half-hearted or that denouncing of horrendous wrong should be tame. “But indiscriminate hatred is the worst thing there is. It is a sickness of the soul” (Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life, p. 116).
The only way to truly fight war, she said, is “by releasing, each day, the love that is shackled inside us, and giving it a chance to live” (p. 116). “But it is all so terribly difficult. For the way of love calls us to look for the divine not only in ourselves but also within others, including our enemies. (p. 116).

Etty wrote, “If we were to save only our bodies and nothing more from the camps all over the world, that would not be enough. What matters is not whether we preserve our lives at any cost, but how we preserve them. If we have nothing to offer a desolate post-war world but our bodies saved at any cost, if we fail to draw new meaning from the deep wells of our distress and despair, then it will not be enough.” (An Interrupted Life, p. 305)
“Etty Hillesum is a messenger of meaning to us. She invites us to live and breathe through our souls to access the meaning of life in both its glory and agony. She inspires us to defend the dwelling place of the divine deep within us and all life, and to know in our hearts the strength of love to bear all things, hope all things, and endure all things.” (John Philip Newel, The Great Search, p. 162). Etty came alive making God real.
Like Etty, and the disciples we are commissioned to follow the same path of transformation and liberation through sharing the gift and power of compassion with the “harassed and helpless.” Jesus went on to offer some appalling operating instructions.

He told them to prioritize those who have nothing. Choose poverty, simplicity, and vulnerability. Carry no weapons. Stockpile no resources. Have no back-up. Abandon your egotism. Be pure of heart. Don’t revel in ignorance, or flatten reality, or mistake naïveté for faith. Make every effort to understand the evil happening beneath the surface.

And when you’ve done all this, when you get this compassion racket just right — expect to encounter resistance, sabotage and betrayal. Jesus places the disciples in a position of extreme vulnerability. He told them that if they don’t get killed, they will certainly be beaten. The disciples were sent among the helpless and harassed, and they themselves would become the helpless and harassed. This is what success looks like. Christian discipleship is not a program, not a political party. It is recipe for proximity. We become fully human God becomes real through radical compassionate solidarity. None of us is free, none of us are well, unless all of us are well and free.

Jesus’ reference to the judgement upon Sodom and Gomorrah has nothing to do with sexual impropriety (as we tend to think). Ezekiel 16:48-49 specifically names their sin. “She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.”

The path to becoming fully human, the way to make God real is compassion. Yet note Jesus doesn’t say to the disciples: go forth and create shelters and food pantries and hospitals (although no doubt Jesus’ followers from the beginning until now have done just that, and there are other passages we could point to for license). He says, “Go forth and be yourself without a home. Be yourself hungry. Be yourself at the mercy of other people’s hospitality—good or bad… We are to become what we seek to aid. God in Christ showed us how this is done. Jesus’ way is not to help others from a position of distance, superiority, and do-gooder-ism. Jesus’ way is to become poor instead.” (Amy Frykholm, “A Day in the Life of a Disciple,” Journey with Jesus, 6/7/26).

This is a much more difficult proposition. We tend to judge and dismiss people who follow such instructions, perhaps even people like Etty Hillesum. We prefer to keep our egos firmly in place as we decide how to steward our resources, and how to dispense them with good sense. In this way, today’s gospel suggests, we are not like Jesus’ disciples. It’s a bit shocking to recognize that the fundamental identity of the follower of Jesus is not “helper” but helped. Not welcomer but welcomed. Stranger, not host. Not savior but saved. If we heal, it is only because we have been healed. (Frykholm)

Discipleship will disorient and disrupt us. If our overriding priority as Christians is to secure our own comfort, then we cannot follow Jesus. But rather, Jesus’ instructions suggest that there will be times when our faith requires us to violate cultural norms, fight uphill battles, and speak dangerous truths to power. We must say to our siblings in faith ‘stop making my Father’s house a home for racist idolatry and Christian nationalism’; we say to our elected leaders, ‘grift, meanness, violence, and cage matches on the front lawn of the White House are a disgrace before God.’

“To make God believable here and now is to stand in the hot white center of the world’s pain. Not just to glance in the general direction of suffering and injustice, and then sidle away, but to dwell there. To identify ourselves wholly with those who are aching, weeping, and dying. In the case of America’s longstanding racial crisis [and exploitative economic systems,] making Christ credible means moving beyond denial, beyond willful ignorance, and beyond the Band-aid approach of “thoughts and prayers.” It means deciding, as grateful followers of a brown man who died at the hands of brutal law enforcement two thousand years ago, that we will not tolerate the demon of racism in our midst for one more generation.” (Thomas)

Make no mistake: this is a confrontational Gospel. This is the terrifying good news. This is gospel medicine to cure our brokenness, heal our malaise, end our boredom, and dispel our angst. This is how we become fully alive. This is how we make God real for others and for ourselves. Jesus knows that when we go out into the world in his name, healing what is diseased, resurrecting what is dead, and casting out what is evil, we participate in the transformation of our own souls. Listen. The very heart of God is stirring within us, deep calling to deep, the Spirit crying out on behalf of a world desperate for justice and mercy. The Spirit’s gifts empower us to do the work of ministry. (Thomas)

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Let Dogs and Little Children Teach Us

Proper 5A-26

Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

A stray Boston Terrier mut called Stubby served in the US Army during the First World War, where he warned soldiers of gas attacks and located wounded men. He served for 18 months, participated in 17 battles and became one of the world’s most decorated war dogs. He received one gold medal, two Purple Hearts and a promotion to the rank of sergeant. It’s not hard to find stories of other canine heroes – dogs who put their lives on the line to save others.

Scientists in Budapest Hungary tested dogs, cats, and two-year-olds to learn whether each would help people in trouble. They hid objects in a room. Then sent their caregivers to search for them. “It didn’t matter what the object was, more than 75 per cent of the dogs and the children either gestured towards the hidden item or went to retrieve it. They didn’t have any special training. There wasn’t anything in it for them. They were, it seems, just happy to help.” The cats? Not so much. In your moment of crisis trust a cat to be content laying someplace comfortable, looking superior. (“Experts tested whether cats would help humans in trouble. The results were brutal,” BBC Science Focus Magazine, Special issue: June 2026)

I’m not trying to start a war between cat people and dog people. All pets are precious. (But, of course, dogs are the best!) I simply want to draw a contrast to illustrate the kind of love Jesus models for us in today’s gospel. Jesus looked beyond my faults and saw my need. Faith must be active in love, or it is not the true faith, but rather, it is bad religion. Bad religion reveals itself by separating people into two categories—those who are worthy of compassion and those who are not.  When it comes to faith, we must strive to be more like dogs and less like cats.

 Today’s gospel is a story about three untouchables. We watch Jesus interact with three different people who the righteous religious people at that time considered so unworthy that literally, they could not even be touched without incurring the risk of becoming unclean yourself—like their sin would rub off on you.

Touching the tax collector, the woman suffering from hemorrhages, and/or the dead girl are violated the purity codes of Jesus’ day. Jesus broke the rules. He rewrote the codes. He showed us that to embody the radical mercy of God, we must reach beyond the boundaries of social sin, disease, even of death, to heal where we most hurt. When religion becomes an obstacle to mercy, then it is time to change our religion.

Jesus quotes the prophet Hosea, “But go and learn what it means: ‘I want mercy and not sacrifice.’ (Matt. 9:13; see also Matt. 12:7, both quoting Hos 6:6). Worship must inspire us to help one another, or it is no better than a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal (1 Cor. 13:1). It’s not so complicated.  See the need, respond to the need. Even dogs and small children know this instinctively. Bad religion promotes self-righteousness and judgementalism which gets in the way of loving our neighbor as Jesus would have us do.

Sadly, there is a lot of bad religion going around today. The dynamic is the same though the list of people categorized as untouchables has changed. They teach us that empathy is bad and that violence toward immigrants, people of color, women, queer  and trans people are good.

Jesus says to Matthew. “Follow me.” He said to the woman, “daughter, your faith has made you well.” He took the little girl by the hand and she got up. Jesus calls the dead into life and the worthless into communion with God and with us. This is the faith into which we have been baptized.

Finley Warden affirms that faith today upon completion of two years of study. Finley wrote a poem incorporated into a work of art for his confirmation project. (You’ll find it on page 15 of your worship folder.)  He was inspired by Matthew 22:34-40, the Great Commandment—especially Jesus’ teaching to love your neighbor as yourself. Finley writes, “Each and every person deserves to be accepted, no matter their beliefs, gender, or ethnicity. People should be treated they way you want to be treated.” The love of God does not compel us but instead invites us to participate in care for each other and the earth.

For the past two days, Nate Weaver, Marcia Smith and I were in St. Charles, IL attending the Metro Chicago Synod Assembly. (Nate and Marcia will give a brief report on all the goings-on during the announcements next Sunday.) One highlight I will share is that we elected a new bishop.  Pastor Erik Christianson of Trinity Lutheran in Evanston begins service on September 1st.  One of the things the bishop-elect shared with us was his experience growing up with a special-needs sister who taught him about love, human dignity, and the fallacy of self-sufficiency. We are stronger together. We are better, more human, and more faithful to the way of Jesus when we love our neighbor as ourselves and not for what we can get out of them.

 Just look at the example of Matthew in today’s gospel. His interaction with Jesus is the opposite of the transactional encounters that dominated life up to that point. Jesus doesn’t strike a deal with Matthew that he will suddenly become worthy of communion with God only if he does certain things on Jesus’ behalf. He doesn’t make any promises at all. The First Nations Version of the bible, an indigenous translation of the New Testament renders Jesus’ call to Matthew as, “Come and walk the road with me.” It’s an invitation to a journey, a path. Throughout the tradition, we’ve often seen these words as command and obedience. But then it’s easy to forget the flow of love present in this call. Our religion makes us aloof and superior rather than helpful and compassionate.

This is the challenge that Matthew takes up when he responds, not with words, but with actions. He stands up, leaves behind the tax-collector’s table, and in consenting to follow, begins to follow Jesus’ way of the cross.

You don’t have to be perfect to walk this road. In fact, it might work out better if you’re not. Jesus sees Matthew. He doesn’t see Matthew, the tax collector. He sees a full human being. He sees someone who is more than he appears. Each of us comes into adulthood with a false self that must be dismantled. The small ego self in us must be replaced with the larger self that is who we are in relationship with God.

Let the little children and dogs teach you. “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy, like the wideness of the sea…There is no place where earth’s sorrows are more felt than up in heaven. No place where earth’s failings have such kindly judgement given.” (ELW #587) This is the way of Jesus.  The way of the cross. The way into communion with God and neighbor.  The way into life and the abundance of life that stands open and inviting you now.

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A New Birth of Freedom

Pentecost A-26

Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

Earth. Wind. Fire and water dramatically combine forces in our scriptures today. For many, Pentecost is the birthday of the Church. But that is too small a story to account for what Luke is trying to tell us. Pentecost is the birth of a new humanity, a new creation. “In the last days,” God declares, “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh” (Acts 2:17). All flesh. Not just some people. Literally, in Greek, “the whole of human nature” or “every physical body.”

In Acts, Luke envisions God remaking the world in which we live. It is a tale told in deeply symbolic terms, drawing from a vision of the cosmos that those who first heard the story would easily recognize. The four elements of earth, wind, fire, and water are among the most pervasive symbols in the world’s spiritual traditions. The ancient Greeks spread this idea throughout the Mediterranean, and many cultures embraced the notion that the whole of creation was composed of these four things. Luke’s account wove this older creation story together with the Christian idea of resurrection. Acts tells a story of deep human connection, of how a powerful God transforms each one of us, and of how the Spirit remakes the world (Diana Butler Bass, A Beautiful Year, p. 213).

To me, Earth, Wind & Fire connote something quite different. The 1970s rock band was part of the soundtrack of my youth. AM radio broadcasts selling soap, beer, and cigarettes also played music that told me, “No matter who you are, you’re a shining star.” And “Until the 12th of never, we all will live love forever.” It was the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, they said: a new era of global enlightenment, human unity, and technological advancement. Star Trek painted an optimistic picture of a diverse, technologically advanced, adventurous, curious, and compassionate civilization on television. President Lyndon Johnson gave a graduation speech at the University of Michigan in 1964, where he put forth a new vision for the United States, which he called “the Great Society.” He laid out the dream of a country that did not confine itself to making money but rather used its post–World War II prosperity to “enrich and elevate our national life.” In 1965, protesters in Selma, Alabama, bravely crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday. Their bravery and sacrifice ushered in a new era of civil rights and the passage of the Voting Rights Act. The 1960s and 1970s were times of turmoil, assassinations, stagflation, and war in Vietnam. But they were also a time when the American imagination soared.

Now, 60 years later, it seems we are right back where we started. Will we find the courage and vision to cross that Alabama bridge again? Black political power is being systematically and urgently erased. The era of the New Jim Crow is upon us. Funding for schools, health care, universities, and the arts—pillars of the Great Society—is being cut or eliminated. Approaching the 250th anniversary of the nation, our conservative siblings in Christ are attempting to rewrite the story of America. In their telling, we are no longer a republic based on the ideals of freedom and equality for all, but a nation born from white Christian patriarchal supremacy. Rather than the Great Society, they dream of enriching themselves with taxpayer funds and of creating immunity for their many crimes. On this Memorial Day weekend, when we commemorate the sacrifice of the nation’s war dead, we somberly ask ourselves: Is this what they fought and sacrificed to defend?

We need a new Pentecost. We need a rebirth of the church. We need a new birth of freedom in our nation. We need it every bit as much as our ancestors in faith, who were faced with the daily threat of the Roman Empire and a religious system that no longer served them and did not serve God. We need a new baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire (Matthew 3:11).

Earth, wind and fire, was a 1970’s Rock band but something from that time rings true with our gospel today. The earth, our mother, endlessly brings forth new life from death. Air that is not moving becomes stale. Water that doesn’t flow becomes stagnant. Fire that doesn’t move cannot be sustained. Water, wind, fire, and earth must move or die. The Holy Spirit is moving in us now, today, and forever.

This was the apostles’ great discovery. It propelled them to claim and proclaim the kin-dom of God throughout the ancient world. It is that same Spirit, groaning in us with sighs too deep for words, that calls to us now to rekindle our hope, to lift the banner of love, to learn from our mistakes, to embrace the wisdom of the past, to advance once again the cause of liberty and equality, and to reclaim and proclaim the gospel of Christ Jesus our Lord.

There is nothing we need that we do not already possess. The Holy Spirit springs to life in us like a seed that in earth lay dying. The 14th-century German priest, philosopher, and mystic Meister Eckhart said that “God is not found in the soul by adding anything but by a process of subtraction.” In other words, we do not need to add anything to our depths to find the One who is the Ground of our being. We just need to get out of the way for it to spring to life like the flowers and trees of the field. “We need to die to the pretense that our ego is the ultimate center of our lives, or that the ego of our nation should be served as the defining center of international relationships, or that the ego of the human species should be the sole focus of the earth’s purpose and journey” (John Philip Newell, A New Harmony, pp. 7–8).

Earth, wind, water, and fire are already deep within you. Pentecost is a story of the world’s baptism in holy fire. In it, we hear echoes of a more ancient tale—God appearing to Moses in a burning bush on holy ground. Rabbi Nahum Ward-Lev likes to say the important aspect of this story is not that the bush is burning, but that Moses notices. For every bush is burning. Every bush is aflame with the Living Presence (John Philip Newell, A New Harmony, p. 18). “The fiery power,” as Hildegard of Bingen puts it, “is hidden in everything that has being” (Matthew Fox, Hildegard of Bingen’s Book of Divine Works, p. 8).

At its heart, the Pentecost story is not about spectacle and drama. It’s about the Holy Spirit deep within, springing forth and transforming ordinary, imperfect, frightened people into the Body of Christ. It’s about the Spirit carrying us out of suspicion, tribalism, and fear into a radical new way of engaging God and our neighbor (Debie Thomas, “I Will Pour Out My Spirit,” Journey with Jesus, 5/24/20).

Our ancestors declared that the presence of God is like earth, water, wind, and fire. The Spirit waters our lives and breathes upon the divine spark that kindles the fires of our imagination. We commit our bodies to these flames. May we present our gifts and talents to the fires that bring the structures of hate to a decisive end and provide nutrients to the delicate seedlings of faith sprouting up in us and everywhere around us.

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One People. One World. One God of All.

Easter 7A-26
Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

In the last moments before his arrest, Jesus looked to heaven and poured out his heart’s deepest desires to God. Jesus prayed that we would love one another across differences. He prayed we would preserve and cherish our God-ordained oneness. He told us we don’t make this unity happen–it already just is.

By contrast, my prayers these days sound more like psalms of lament and complaint. Our Christian siblings gathering today on the National mall in Washington, DC use religion to project their power and domination. People, powers and principalities now champion an anti-gospel and injustice. On the night he was betrayed, Jesus could point to many such betrayers. Yet, Jesus prayed we might awaken to the God-infused unity deep within us, entrust ourselves to it, and live into it.

Jesus prayed we might all be one. The focus is not which one but everyone. We are one with all who suffer. We are one with all those whose voice and vote are being actively erased. We are one across humanity, religions, and wisdom traditions. We are one across cultures, ethnicities, and race. We are one across species, planets, and throughout the cosmos. The 14th century English saint, mystic, and abbes, Julian of Norwich said, “The love of God creates in us such a oneing that when it is truly seen, no person can separate themselves from another person.”

Jesus continues to pray that we might be one with God and each other because this is precisely how the world finally comes into eternal life this day, tonight, and forever.

The setting for Jesus’ prayer was the upper room on Maundy Thursday, and the mood in that room as Jesus spoke to God was heavy and poignant. “He has just said goodbye to his disciples, and every word, deed, and gesture he has offered them is weighted with grief. He has washed their feet, fed them bread and wine, promised them the Holy Spirit, and commanded them to love one another. He has spoken to them with both tenderness and urgency, as if time is running out. Because it is.” (Debie Thomas, That They May Be One, Journey with Jesus, 5/17/20) We can apply this lesson to our own life: “What matters most when time is short is what matters most.”

Jesus’ high priestly prayer in today’s gospel is a kind of commencement address. Jesus prayed that his death and resurrection would be the beginning of zoe ionias, or life eternal (John 17:3). This phrase is notoriously hard to render in English. Unfortunately, the phrase eternal life is often misinterpreted to mean “life in heaven after you die” — as are kingdom of God and its synonym, kingdom of heaven.

But if “eternal life” doesn’t mean “life after death,” what does it mean? Jesus offers us this definition in his prayer to God: “This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom [God has] sent” (John 17:3). So here, “eternal life” means knowing, and knowing means an interactive relationship. In other words, “This is eternal life, to have an interactive relationship with the only true God and with Jesus Christ, his messenger.”

The Greek phrase John uses for “eternal life” literally means “life of the ages,” as opposed, we could say, to “life as people are living it these days.” Eternal life is a life that is full and overflowing centered in an interactive relationship with God and with Jesus. (Brian McLaren, The Secret Message of Jesus, pp. 36-37)

Jesus walked among his betrayers and imparted peace. Forgiveness is the great gift of glory that breaks the endless cycle of vengeance and acrimony. Oneness in Christ leads beside the still waters of belonging and community. By this gift we find resilience in relationship and the ability both to impart strength and to receive strength from one another. Jesus’ prayer issues in a new heaven and a new earth which, even after two thousand years, we have barely begun to comprehend.

Julian of Norwich said of God: “I am the one who makes you to love; I am the one who makes you to long; I am the one, the endless fulfilling of all true desires.” (end quote) We strain for this glory even when it eludes our grasp. The mere pursuit fills our hearts and illumines our lives. We live the good life by living as Jesus lived—the life for which he prayed. Life eternal and abundant, the life of the Father to the Son, the life of the Spirit of our ascended Savior, life in God, now and forever. Amen.

The Human One, Jesus our Lord, let himself be victim to our violence and was raised declaring a message of forgiveness, not vengeance. He let himself be pushed out as an outsider, one of Them, to begin breaking down the barriers of Us and Them. His Father and the Spirit of Truth represent a Oneness that transcends all dualisms. There is no longer Us and Them. There is only Us. This is a brand-new Oneness. A wholly different God. Believing in this God might appear to be atheism to some of our siblings in faith. Yet it is the ancient and always new way which leads to life and the abundance of life.

Somehow, despite Jesus’ prayer, Us vs. Them thinking is so entrenched in me I cannot easily undo it. How can we help one another cultivate Jesus’ life of oneness? Searching through the treasure box of ancient wisdom passed down by generations of faithful followers of Jesus, there are two faith practices I believe are especially helpful today. One such faith practice that seems to be cropping up everywhere is (I think) called contemplative prayer, also known as silent prayer, and/or mindfulness meditation. Christian mystics down through the ages echo the wisdom of many Eastern religions that seek to open the heart to the profound reality of oneness. Silent prayer helps us access the right brain to counteract overemphasis on left brain thinking. In silence we encounter the foundation of life in all life, the soul within all souls which makes us one.

Another essential practice (I think) is solidarity with the most vulnerable. Martin Luther King, Jr. became most dangerous when he opposed the ultimate Us and Them thinking of militarism and launched a Poor People’s Campaign. His mantra succinctly expressed the new logic of Oneness that transcends the old us-against-them thinking. King said “I’m not free until everyone is free. I don’t have enough until everyone has enough.”

Jesus’ prayer opens the way out from suffering wrought by Empire. The word of God is like a lamp to our feet and a light to our path (Psalm 119:105). When he was lifted up, the disciples stood gazing toward heaven, when suddenly, two angles, robed in white, stood by them and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” (Acts 1:11a). Now, as Saint Teresa of Avila (1515–1582) famously said, “Christ has no body but yours, No hands, no feet on earth but yours…” We do God’s work through our hands. Through faithful contemplation and action we become one as Jesus and God are one.

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Orphans No More

Easter 6A-26
Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

Anne of Green Gables. Harry Potter. Peter Parker. Bruce Wayne. Bambi. Snow White. Cinderella. Mowgli. Elsa and Alladin. What do all these famous characters have in common? They’re all beloved. They’re all brave. They’re all orphans. Big media knows how to pull on our heart strings. We immediately connect with these character’s desperate need to know that they belong. When we are infants, we need other people to survive. Care for one another is what allows us to survive and thrive as a species.

On the night of the Passover meal before the crucifixion, as he spoke to the disciples of his coming absence, Jesus words must have been both perplexing and deeply reassuring. He told them, “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.” (John 14:15). We are family. We belong to one another. We are never alone. Each of us are always and forever cherished and loved.

This Thursday May 14, Christians mark the Ascension, the story of the risen Christ leaving this world for full union with God. Today’s reading is the conclusion to a long farewell message reminding the disciples that what they experienced with Jesus is trustworthy and true — God is with them, they have seen God, and God loves them.

That’s the message John’s gospel intends for us to hear. Yet, sometimes, modern readers get tripped up by that little word, “if.” “If you love me,” Jesus said, “you will keep my commandments… They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them” (John 14:15 & 21). Love and obedience. According to Jesus, the two are inseparable. We can’t honestly claim to love Jesus if we don’t obey him. And we’re like, ‘Wait a minute! Is that a threat? Is God’s love conditional? God is a bully who extorts obedience by threatening to withhold his love? We’re like little Orphan Annie waiting to be plucked from the orphanage by Daddy Warbucks but only if we’re good enough?’

We have been conditioned by so much bad religion and by mean religious authorities that it doesn’t take much to undo the promises generously offered here in Jesus’ words. So, first, it’s important to notice, Jesus doesn’t say, if you keep the commands, God will love you. Nope. “It is the reverse — If you love God, you will keep the commandments to love God and neighbor…It is only conditional on US! If we fail to keep the commandments — rebelliously, consistently, willingly, making the choice to constrain love and harm our neighbors — that is evidence that we don’t love Jesus. We can turn our backs on community and reject this way of love.” (Diana Butler-Bass, “If-Then and the Grammar of Spirituality,” Sunday Musings, May 9, 2026)

“What exactly has Jesus commanded us to do? Well, in the chapter directly preceding our lectionary reading, John gives us the answer: “A new command I give you,” Jesus says. “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” In fact, this commandment — Jesus’s “Maundy Thursday” mandate that his disciples love one another — is the only recorded commandment in John’s Gospel. Everything else we say and do as believers in Christ comes down to this. Prayer, evangelism, repentance, generosity, asking, seeking, alms-giving, truth-telling, honoring, serving, feeding, sharing… all of it, in the end, comes down to love. The essential question, the searing question, is this: Do we love one another as Jesus has loved us? Or do we not? (Debi Thomas, “Love and Obedience,” Journey with Jesus, 5/10/20)

Whether or not we choose to reside in the orphanage is up to us. “Loving Jesus means loving God and loving our neighbors. Period. Loving God and loving our neighbors is the very definition of following Jesus. That’s it…That’s the whole point of the Easter story — love. If you love Jesus, you will love God and your neighbor as yourself…This is the way, the truth, and the life — the way of love. That’s the Easter promise. (Butler Bass)

If I am being honest with myself, it’s not hard to name why I fail to obey Jesus’ dying wish. Love makes me vulnerable and I’d rather not be vulnerable. Love requires trust, and I don’t want to be a sucker. Love spills over margins and boundaries. Love involves me in chaotic situations. I feel safer, less stressed, and holier policing my borders. “Love takes time, effort, discipline, and transformation, and I am just so darned busy” (Thomas).

But Jesus didn’t say, “This is my suggestion.” He said, “This is my commandment.” Meaning, it’s not a choice. It’s not a matter of personal preference; it’s a matter of obedience to the one we call our Lord. (Thomas)

“In one sense, our instincts are correct; authentic love can’t be manipulated, simulated, or rushed without suffering distortion. Those of us who have children understand full well that “commanding” our bickering kids to love each other doesn’t work. The most we can do is insist that our children behave as if they love each other: “Share your toys.” “Say sorry.” “Don’t hit.” “Use kind words.”” (Thomas)

“But these actions — often performed with gritted teeth and rolling eyes — aren’t the same as what Jesus is talking about in John’s Gospel. Jesus doesn’t stop at saying, “Act as if you love.” He doesn’t give his disciples (or us) the easy “out” of doing nice things with clenched or indifferent hearts. (Nor would I want him to; nothing feels as hollow as a “loving” act performed mechanically. Moreover, I doubt that the people who flocked to Jesus would have done so if they sensed that his compassion was thin or forced.) He says, “Love one another as I have loved you.” As in, for real. As in, the whole bona fide package. Authentic feeling, honest engagement, generous action.”
(Thomas)

All this would be impossible for me but for the gift of God’s presence. John’s gospel has taught us to look for God, not up there, but out in front. God is leading, suggesting, prompting, reframing, inspiring, and transforming. “The Advocate is God’s own Spirit, God’s own heart, living within us. This Spirit, Jesus promises us, will be in us, making possible the startling, counter-intuitive obedience which is love. This Spirit will abide within and among us, creating holy places where authentic, self-sacrificial human love can take root and flourish. The Spirit’s resources are inexhaustible. Long after our natural stores are depleted, the Spirit of God will love in, among, and through us.” (Thomas)

As is so often the case in our lives as Christians, Jesus’s commandment leads us straight to paradox: we are called to action via rest. Called to give the love we receive. Called to become the beloved children we are. The commandment — or better yet, the invitation — is to drink our fill of the Source, spill over to bless the world, and then return to the Source for a fresh in-filling. This is our movement, our rhythm, our dance. Over and over again. This is where we begin and end and begin again.” (Thomas)

Love me by keeping my commandments, Jesus says. These are finally not two separate actions. They are one and the same. We love because we are loved. We obey Christ because we are in Christ.” We are not orphans. “The love we are commanded to share is the love we are endlessly given. “You in me, and I in you.” The definition of love.” (Thomas)

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Rocks and Stones

Easter 5A-26

Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

Death by stoning is a horrible way to die.  Yet despite the violence directed against him, Stephen prayed for his enemies. “He knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’ When he had said this, he died.” (Acts 7:60)

Hatred is a powerful thing.  Cain hated Abel for being more admired by God than himself, so he killed him (Genesis 4:8). King Saul hated David for becoming more popular with the people and tried to kill him every chance he got (1 Samuel 19:19 – 22:23). Saul of Tarsus hated the followers of Jesus because he thought they were blasphemers and heretics. He made a career of rounding up Christians like Stephen to be stoned to death (Act 8:1- 9 :18). Horrible self-deception about our own righteousness can be deadly, not to mention the effects it has on families and relationships.

Human history is a seemingly endless recycling of cities laid to waste. How long will hatred or fear or arrogance or ignorance harden our hearts into doing violence? We throw rocks at what God intends for love. Christ is the stone that causes this tired old world to stumble. Christ is the cornerstone of a new humanity subverting the old Adam and Eve from within. Empire builds community by using and discarding people like Stephen. God rebuilds community starting with the ones Empire throws away.  But exactly how does God do this?

Jesus said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in me. In my father’s house there are many dwelling places” (John 14:1-2). Stephen seems to have taken those words to heart. It changed how he lived. It gave him courage to proclaim the gospel to a hostile crowd.  It gave him peace of mind and love for his neighbor even as they slowly, painfully, and tragically murdered.  It sounds crazy.

Jesus explains, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home (monē) with them” (14:23). Jesus says this repeatedly in John’s gospel. In fact, he says it 69 times.  The little verb “meno” means to “stay,” “remain,” “abide,” or “dwell.”  Jesus revealed the hidden source of his glory was that he abided in the Father and the Father in him—and he invited us to do the same.  This is what Stephen knew and trusted. Stephen knew his true home was in God. God is the soul within all souls, the life within all life. God’s love and light dwells deep within you.  This was the living sanctuary that guarded and protected Stephen.  and enabled him to love his enemies even as they stoned him.

No doubt, today’s generation of Christians will hear Jesus’ promise to go and prepare dwelling places for us and think of ‘going to heaven.’ But here Jesus points to something different. Jesus is describing a place created within us of the mutual indwelling of the undying life of God within every nook and cranny of the universe. Jesus revealed a “dwelling place” God has prepared within you that softens our hearts of stone and opens our fisted hands to drop all our rocks.

The crucial passage for understanding Jesus’ promise to make dwelling places (John 14:2), comes much earlier in John 2:16. It’s the only other place that we find the phrase “my Father’s house.”  There Jesus is talking about the Temple in Jerusalem. Jesus told those selling doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my father’s house a marketplace!” … He said them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” He was speaking, of course, about the temple of his body.

 Scientists now tell us we live in an omnicentric universe.  The center is everywhere. Likewise, the address of the father’s house changed upon Jesus’ death. It is no longer the temple in Jerusalem. It is now the Body of Christ.  Abiding in God through Christ is what Jesus means by “eternal life.”  One scholar suggests it might be better translated as “life in God’s new age.”  (Paul Nuechterlein, Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary).  This is the way, the truth, and the life to which Jesus invites us.

It should be obvious that this way of life in Jesus cannot be a reason to exclude anyone, whether by race, or gender, or sexual orientation, or immigration status, or religious affiliation. Not even our enemies are denied access to the living sanctuary of God’s grace. Neither can we exclude from grace the natural world. Celtic theologian and pastor, George Macleod used to love saying “Matter matters, because at the heart of the material is the spiritual.” (John Philip Newell, Christ of the Celts, p. 98). What we do with matter, therefore, is at the heart of our spirituality, whether that be the matter of our bodies, whether that be the matter of the earth’s gifts, or whether that be the matter of the body politic.  All matter is holy because God dwells there. (Newel p. 99). What could be more revealing of Jesus’ power to forgive and to heal our bitter, hard-won divisions than the story of Saul who would become Paul?

Scripture says, “The witnesses [to the stoning of Stephen] laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.”  This is the first mention of the great missionary apostle whom Jesus will knock from his horse and claim for himself. In Acts 8:1 we are told that this Saul “approved of their killing of [Stephen],” with the implication that Saul himself may have instigated the entire event. Yet this same man will go on to become the apostle to the gentiles, spreading the gospel message to many “even to the ends of the earth.”  He will author more pages of the New Testament than anyone else.

Jesus Christ, who suffered unspeakable violence, broke the wheel of the endless cycle of violence, enmity, bitterness, and contempt. Christ Jesus returns again and again to us who have rejected and betrayed him with the gift of shalom—peace—this is the seed of willingness planted in us that grows, and blossoms into forgiveness, compassion, and reconciliation so that trust may be restored, loneliness is ended, and kindliness may abound.  Christ is the cornerstone of a new humanity. He is the stone the builders rejected that has constructed a sanctuary of living stones from the stuff of our flawed and finite lives.

Christ the cornerstone is straight and true. Upon it the kindom of God is bound together, stone by living stone. The only rule used by our heavenly architect is love. Do to others as you would have them do to you Jesus said. Religions that are built upon doctrines not as loving as Jesus are false and will fail. How long will we persist in the false gospel of white supremacy, of patriarchy, of rigid gender conformity and sexual orientation, or in the abomination of holy war? How long will the church preach a God more intent upon judging than in loving? True religion aligns with the Golden rule and the Sermon on the Mount.

We are living in the times of Saul, knocked off our horse on the road to Damascus.  Amid bewildering challenge and change, I believe the Spirit of Christ is calling us to begin again with a new name. Something is trying to be born among us, and not just us, but in people of many faiths and of no faith throughout the world. It is a new reformation. A new Pentecost. A new humanity. Something both ancient and new.

Like Stephen and like Paul, we begin this journey from wherever we are.  The heavens stand open before us, and our common humanity is revealed. We dwell in the mystical and living sanctuary of the body of Christ. Christ the true vine, the one body, the temple not made with hands, the living sanctuary of hope and grace in which heaven and earth are one stirs within us.  It gently, lovingly says to us to stop throwing rocks.

We cannot create a world without pain or loss or conflict or hurt feelings, but with God’s grace we can create a world of grace.  We can create a world of forgiveness in which we love even our enemies, heal our losses, repair our lives and relationships, and begin to heal the natural world.  But ultimately, no one can tell you how to live. The gospel, and the Holy Spirit, can only ask.  You and I are invited on this journey.  All of us must walk our own path and go at our own pace to discover the power of the abundant life that transforms your heart and mind and ultimately, is changing the world.

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Ancient Answer for our Modern Malaise

Easter 4A-26

Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

Jesus is our dwelling place and our guide. Jesus is master and servant. Jesus is host of the Eucharist and our food. Jesus is mother hen and the lamb of God who takes away our sin. Scripture is fond of mixing metaphors. Today we get two more. Jesus said, “I AM the gate.” (John 10:7) and I am the good shepherd (10:11).

These are not throwaway lines in John’s gospel. John’s gospel makes the bold claim linking Jesus with the great I AM—with Yahweh—whom Moses encountered at the burning bush. Seven times in John’s gospel Jesus uses the phrase Egō Eimi, “I AM” in reference to himself. Jesus said, I AM the bread of life (6:35). I AM the light of the world (9:5). I AM the resurrection and the life (11:25).  I AM the way the truth and the life (14:6).  I AM the true vine you are the branches (15:5). Could Jesus be the answer we need now?

The contradiction between the dueling metaphors of “the gate,” and “the good shepherd” is helpfully resolved when we learn that an ancient sheepfold like Jesus describes was a pen without a gate. Once the sheep are safely inside the shepherd becomes the gate. The shepherd lays down at the opening. “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep,” Jesus said (v. 11b).

Still, it seems a stretch to say how these ancient agrarian sheepfolds and gates could be relevant to our modern urban lives? We do not reside in a pen. We are not sheep, are we?

Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor, in his book, A Secular Age tells the story of the last 500 years in the West. We have greater freedom and less concern with supernatural evils than our ancestors did.  We are blessed with advances in technology, medicine, and science which have decreased suffering and doubled life expectancy.  But, Tayor says, this has not come without some tradeoffs. Taylor describes a constant, low-grade, background malaise: an emptiness, a felt flatness, a lack of connectedness to something larger prevalent in modern times. Taylor calls this the “Malaise of Modernity.” Day-to-day modern life seems so thoroughly emptied of any consideration of divine involvement that spirituality can feel like a trite response to the world’s great ills. The natural world, so filled with wonder and awe for our ancestors, rarely rises to consciousness full consciousness in modern life.  (Vince Brackett, An Immanent God for our Immanent Frame,” Preaching the Uncontrolling Love of God,” p. 278)

Into this God-sized vacuum of the modern soul, corporations and political partisans’ array all around us pitching their latest and greatest bids for our attention with the help of big data. They provoke our outrage. They want our data, our time and especially our money. Their sales pitch is tailor made for you based on your likes, your swipes, your posts, your credit score, your purchases, your zip code, where you lingered in the aisles of a certain store, and/or where your eyes lingered longest over a post on social media.

These false shepherds manipulate and devour the sheep. “Very truly, I tell you,” Jesus said, “anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit” (John 10:1).  There are no sheep, no sheepfolds in Chicago today but the same evil powers and principalities are still intent to drive us into the same false pen. Somehow these false shepherds found their way into my pocket. What’s more, I don’t go anywhere, even from one side of the house to the other, without taking these manipulators with me. The dopamine released in my brain from using their platforms is addicting—and that’s on purpose. I wonder, when did I get so trapped in this high-tech sheep pen? I’m talking about my smartphone of course—and my laptop too. I’m surprised when I think how uncomfortable I’ve become whenever I realize I’ve left either one of them behind. Is there a way to trade dopamine for daylight, doomscrolls for detours? How do we reconnect with art, nature, friends, my own heart and mind? Where do I go to find awe, wonder, spirit and God again? How do we recover from this modern malaise?

For an answer, let’s look again at sheepfolds and sheep. I learned that ancient shepherds combined their sheep together in a single pen. When it was time to go, no problem. Each sheep simply answered the voice of their shepherd, sorted themselves out, and followed. This is one of the remarkable things about an otherwise humble farm animal.  Sheep learn to trust. This implicit trust is what John’s gospel has in mind when talking about faith and belief. To believe in Jesus is to love and trust him. Sheep are a good example of what it means to have faith in the good shepherd.

The call of our shepherd is an antidote to our modern malaise because the call of the shepherd comes not from ‘far away’ or ‘up there,’ but from ‘in here.’ It is the voice of Immanuel, of God-with-us. It is deep calling unto deep because each of us is created in the likeness and image of God. “The image of God is the essence of our being. It is the core of the human soul” (John Philip Newel, Christ of the Celts, p. 4).

“Christ [the good shepherd] comes to reawaken us to our true nature.  He is our epiphany. He comes to show us the face of God. He comes to show us also our face, the true face of the human soul…Grace is given to reconnect us to our true nature.  At the heart of our being is the image of God, and thus the wisdom of God, the creativity of God, the passions of God, the longings of God. Grace is opposed not to what is deepest in us, but to what is false in us. It is given to restore us to the core of our being and to free us from the unnaturalness of what we are doing to one another and to the earth” (p. 9).

‘I came,’ Jesus said, ‘that you may have life and have it abundantly’ (John 10:10b). Jesus, the good shepherd, calls you by name, not from afar, or from beyond the stars, but from deep within you now, in solidarity with your suffering and grief.  Jesus calls out from the pens of all the false shepherd who would steal from, use, betray, or provoke us to violence.

The German Lutheran liberation theologian, Dorothee Soelle wrote, “Spiritual freedom occurs when we become aware of our limits through leaving them behind… Only in seeing again do I know that I was blind; that I was squatting in a prison becomes apparent only when the prison door opens.”  (Dorothee Soelle, The Silent Cry)

The Lebanese-American writer, poet and visual artist, Kahlil Gibran wrote, “When you love you should not say, ‘God is in my heart,’ but rather, ‘I am in the heart of God.'” (Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet). Christ is our sheepfold. To be free and to be well again we must look through our shepherd’s eyes.  We must enter and go out again from the sheepfolds of our lives by the Jesus gate to find that way that leads into joyful abundance. 

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