God’s Best Gift

Christmas Eve – 25
Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

‘Let the heavens rejoice. Let the earth be glad. ‘The mountains and hills burst into song. ‘The trees of the wood shout for joy and clap their hands’ (Psalm 96:11-12 & Isaiah 55:12). “To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord” (Luke 2:11). 13.8 billion years ago God created the heavens and much later formed humankind in the divine image. Earth and cosmos resonate as with music as the Word, which was with God, and the Word that was God…brings all things into to being through Christ. Without Christ nothing comes to be (John 1:1, 3).
On this night, this holy night, we tell the old, old story of union with God, union with one another, and union with creation. Immanuel, ‘God with us,” incarnation, is God’s best gift. The Spirit of God is poured to fill all things with beauty, wisdom, and grace. “To be alive in the adventure of Jesus is to kneel at the manger and gaze upon that little baby who is radiant with so much promise for our world today.” (Brian D. McLaren, We Make the Road by Walking: A Year-Long Quest for Spiritual Formation, Reorientation, and Activation (Jericho Books, 2014), 79–80.)

“On Christmas Eve, we celebrate a new beginning. We welcome the dawning of a new light. A new day begins with sunrise. A new year begins with lengthening days. A new life begins with infant eyes taking in their first view of a world bathed in light. And a new era in human history began when God’s light came shining into our world through Jesus.” (McLaren)
“What do we mean when we say Jesus is the light? Just as a glow on the eastern horizon tells us that a long night is almost over, Jesus’ birth signals the beginning of the end for the dark night of fear, hostility, violence, and greed that has descended on our world. Jesus’ birth signals the start of a new day, a new way, a new understanding of what it means to be alive.” (McLaren)

“Aliveness, he will teach, is a gift available to all by God’s grace. It flows not from taking, but giving, not from fear but from faith, not from conflict but from reconciliation, not from domination but from service. It isn’t found in the outward trappings of religion—rules and rituals, controversies and scruples, temples and traditions. No, it springs up from our innermost being like a fountain of living water. It intoxicates us like the best wine ever and so turns life from a disappointment into a banquet. This new light of aliveness and love opens us up to rethink everything—to go back and become like little children again. Then we can rediscover the world with a fresh, childlike wonder—seeing the world in a new light, the light of Christ.” (McLaren)

‘When Christians hear the word “incarnation,” most of us think about the birth of Jesus, who personally demonstrated God’s radical unity with humanity. But the first incarnation, God’s best gift, was the moment described in Genesis 1, when God joined in unity with the physical universe and became the light inside of everything. The incarnation, then, is not only “God becoming Jesus.” It is a much broader and ubiquitous event in which God is encountered in other human beings, and on a mountain, or in a blade of grass, and in a bird in flight.’ Seeing in this way reframes, reenergizes, and broadens our religious beliefs, in a way that is urgently needed today. “It can offer us the deep and universal meaning that Western civilization seems to lack and long.” (Richard Rohr, Daily Meditations, Christ in All Things, 12/22/25).  

Incarnation, God’s best gift, has the potential to enliven dialogue of mutual respect and learning between people of different religions. God’s gift can bring to life deep felt connection and reverence with the land and its creatures. God’s gift is the basis upon which democracy becomes possible. Belief in God-given universal equality and dignity enables citizens to reason together across political differences for the common good.

This Christmas story is powerful gospel medicine. 20th century, English author, philosopher, Christian apologist, poet, journalist and magazine editor, G. K. Chesterton reminds us that, ‘our religion is not the church we belong to, but the cosmos we live inside of’ (G. K. Chesterton, Irish Impressions (John Lane, 1920), p. 215). The universe revealed in Christ Jesus is filled with aliveness. What kind of universe do you inhabit? Once we recognize that the entire physical world around us, all creation, is both the hiding place and the revelation place for God, this world is transformed. It becomes a home, safe and enchanted, offering grace to any who look deeply. It is a place to encounter the risen infant Christ in everyone, in every place, including the face of a friend, a neighbor, a stranger, even our enemies.

Jesuit priest, scientist, and mystic Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955), taught that ‘God is incarnate in matter, in flesh, in all of creation, in the cosmos…We are all together “carried in the one world-womb; yet each of us is our own little microcosm in which the incarnation, God’s best gift, is wrought independently with degrees of intensity, and shades that are incommunicable.’ (Ursula King, Christ in All Things: Exploring Spirituality with Teilhard de Chardin (Orbis Books, 1997), 64–65; Hymn of the Universe, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (Harper and Row, 1965), 24, 28.)

Enchantment came naturally to our forebears in faith and to indigenous peoples. Re-enchantment born of incarnation is urgently needed to restore civilization to health and balance. See! Everything sparkles with the fullness and presence of God. Matter is not empty, but everything speaks of the One Life. Spirit and nature. Sacred and secular. Body and soul. Light and darkness. Insider and outsider. Saints and sinners. Life and death. In Christ these dualisms vanish. God is in with and under it all.

Scripture says, ‘Mary treasured the words people said about Jesus and pondered them in her heart’ (Luke 2:19). We wonder at these things too. Wherever two are three are gathered in Jesus’ name, we are midwives to the aliveness of grace God is bringing into being.

Poet and liturgical artist, Jan Richardson, writes beautifully about the mystery of faith in a poem entitled, “How The Light Comes”:

I cannot tell you how the light comes.
What I know is that it is more ancient than imagining.
That it travels across an astounding expanse to reach us.
That it loves searching out what is hidden, what is lost, what is forgotten or in peril or in pain.

That it has a fondness for the body, for finding its way toward the flesh, for tracing the edges of form, for shining forth through the eye, the hand, the heart.

I cannot tell you how the light comes, but that it does.

That it will.
That it works its way into the deepest dark that enfolds you, though it may seem long ages in coming or arrive in a shape you did not foresee.

And so, may we this day turn ourselves toward it.
May we lift our faces to let it find us.
May we bend our bodies to follow the arc it makes.
May we open and open more and open still to the blessed light
that comes.

(How The Light Comes, Jan Richardson, printed in Circle of Grace, p.59)

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What Kind of Messiah?

Advent 3A-25

Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

Last Sunday, we read about John’s preaching in the wilderness beside the River Jordan. He seemed so sure of himself.  But now, in his prison cell facing death, he is not so confident.  He sends messengers to ask Jesus, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” (Matthew 11:3)

The question rings like a bell through the centuries. It sounds almost uniquely modern. Disappointments, sickness, death, tragedy, injustice, and evil take turns so that we lose confidence in faith. ‘We had hoped he was the Messiah who had come to rescue us’ (Luke 24:21). But now, we’re not so sure.

Jesus failed to meet John’s expectations.  Matthew’s gospel tells us Jesus had done great deeds of power in cities throughout Galilee, in Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum. But the people did not repent. They sort of just shrugged.  Other ridiculed Jesus, “Look, [they said, this Jesus is] a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Matthew 11:19).  Even Jesus’ own mother and his brothers showed up to question him, presumably to take him home and out of the public eye.

‘Are you the one who is to come, Jesus, or are we to wait for another?’  John questioned Jesus afterlistening to an accounting of Jesus’ deeds (11:2-3), not despite them.  John realized that Jesus was not the supernatural judge his preaching had foretold (Paul S. Nancarrow).  John uses emphatic language in Greek.  He asked Jesus if they should be looking toward someone or something else entirely! (Keener, A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew)

What kind of Messiah were you expecting this Christmas?  Perhaps, like John, you have wondered why the Savior doesn’t simply come down and save us? John the Baptist might have wondered why Jesus didn’t come knock down the walls of his prison, unbind his chains, and set him free.  What kind of Messiah is this Jesus of Nazareth?

Notice, Jesus doesn’t take offense at John’s questions.  Jesus didn’t get defensive. Jesus complemented John even as he remained firm in his own Godly vision for mission.  He responds by asking John’s messengers and the crowd gathered around them, to remember ‘what they had they gone out in the wilderness beside the Jordan to see?’  He asked them to show what they already knew—that neither John nor Jesus were some spectacle—a traveling road show of wonders.  Neither John nor Jesus wore fine robes or lived in royal place such as kings do.  Don’t come here if that’s what you seek.  He told John’s disciples to report what they saw with their eyes, and heard with their ears, and experienced for themselves.

Jesus turned to the passage we read today from Isaiah 35 to direct their attention to a different set of messianic expectations rooted in scripture: not the destruction-filled imagery from the book of Daniel, but the shalom-filled imagery of peace and well-being from Isaiah: “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them” (Matthew 11:5). Jesus invited John to consider a different vision from within the pages of scripture about who the Messiah is.

Our readings this week all point to something John missed that is essential to the character of God.  “All five passages emphasize the people toward whom God is focused. These Scriptures describe at least eighteen — eighteen! — sorts of people in pain who might be forgotten by the world but who are nevertheless remembered by God: the blind, the lame, the diseased, the deaf, the dead, the poor, the dumb, the oppressed, the hungry, the prisoners, the bowed down, foreigners, orphans, widows, the humble, and then, my three favorites, those with feeble hands, weak knees, and fearful hearts.” (Daniel Clendenin)

John and Jesus called us to live according to the way of God and not the way of the world.  The way of God described over and over again by the prophets: is care of society’s most vulnerable (the widow, the orphan, the immigrant); to limit the gap between rich and poor (the Year of Jubilee), not to use power to further the narrow self-interest of yourself and your friends; to not accumulate wealth at the expense of the poor (Jeanyne B. Slettom, Process and Faith).

This is the kind of world that cannot be built by force or the threat of violence but only by love—specifically, by love of God and love of neighbor. John’s followers returned to him.  We don’t know whether he was satisfied with the answer.  Judging from history –I’d say most people are not.

Traveling throughout Great Britain on sabbatical, visiting castle after ruined castle, opened a window for me on the long history of Christianity’s compromising relationship with political power and the economics of Empire. Leaders of the Church were seldom content in the gospel of love alone but sought to add some small measure of political protection to preserve and extend their own power and wealth. Each castle ruin includes, of course, the story of how they met their own predictable and often violent end.

One such place, St. John’s Chapel in the Tower of London. It was built as a place of worship for William the Conqueror inside the iconic royal, military, and prison complex haunted now by stories of countless people imprisoned, tortured, beheaded and hanged there. The Tower is home to an extensive collection of armaments documenting the vast fortunes and enormous amounts of human ingenuity expended on creating the very best weapons of war. The Tower is also the place to see the Crown jewels, some of the biggest, brightest diamonds and gemstones in the world, pilfered, plundered, and stolen from the four corners of the British Empire. So, what was the purpose of St. John’s Chapel? Did it calm the conscience of the powerful?  Did it falsely undergird confidence in their favored status and right to rule—as if God could forget the poor, imprisoned, and orphaned?

Behavioral science tells us we often learn most from our mistakes. Could the collapse of our democracy and impending doom we foresee being wrought by the economics of extraction show us what we, like John the Baptist, either missed or willfully ignored about the Messiah?   Amid collapse, in a time of polycrisis, could the world finally be about to turn?

“The challenge for us in Advent is to allow Jesus to restore our senses, to have him open our eyes and ears so that we can go and tell others what we hear and see” (Erin Martin, Blogging Toward Sunday).  In Christ, we see that God is a friend of the lost.  In Christ, we hear that God stands amid our suffering.  In Christ, God enters our world of darkness and death and decisively fills it with light and life. Jesus has given us new eyes, new ears, a new heart and a new life. He says to us ‘Stop worrying so much about the afterlife. That is in my hands, Jesus says. Focus instead on what I have put in your hands, the world, all its people, and myriads of living creatures so love will reign all in all.’

This Advent, prepare to meet the living God who is always more, whose coming is always different, whose power is always greater and more glorious than we could have imagined.  Who is this Jesus? He is the one who stoops down from heaven.  He is the one who comes to walk with us no matter how messy or fraught with ugly strife, bickering or bitterness our life may be.  He comes not in wrath but in love; not as one who seeks to destroy, but as one with power to transform and renew.  See, the Messiah took on flesh and lived among us.  The spirit of Christ is upon you.  Even now, Jesus dives to bottom of the mucky sea that is our life, to make us new from within.

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Paradise

Christ the King C-25
Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

“Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43) Today. With me. In paradise. For his coronation, Jesus our king on a cross, invited people to live as he did. He opened a door to our life lived in God. A hideous instrument of torture and death was transformed. On the cross, Jesus shows us the way to live together in paradise. We have become a cruciform people.

Some of you remember our old friend, David Henry. As he was fond of saying, all four gospels contrast the way of life we have in Jesus with the way of Judas. The way of Judas is smart by worldly standards. The way of Jesus is foolishness. Judas avoids capture. Jesus is seized into custody. Judas is given free passage. Jesus is beaten and sentenced to death. Judas operates for himself alone. Jesus values love. Judas prioritizes self-preservation. Jesus stands in solidarity with everyone, especially the poor and all those who suffer. Judas turns a tidy profit—30 pieces of silver. Jesus gives all that he has—even losing his life on the cross. Judas dies alienated and alone. Jesus invites us to dwell with him in paradise from which we cannot be expelled, and which no one can take from us. (Pastor David Henry)

The way of Jesus destroys the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning. A ruthless Empire of occupation, a corrupt religious hierarchy, a blind, feckless people, faithless friends and betrayers threw their very worst at Jesus and still his heart was full, and his hands wide open. From the cross, Jesus demonstrates that nothing you can do can make God not love you. ‘You can disappoint me,’ he says. ‘You can break my heart and grieve my Spirit.’

Jesus, our king of kings and Lord of Lords, reigns from his throne on the cross, (Revelation 19:16). He bids us to follow him. Set aside your fears and embrace the way of love—for that is the way which leads into abundant life. The choice is always yours. Jesus or Judas? Life or death? Choose life. The path is open. The gate is unlocked. Today. Come be with me in paradise.

Jesus saves us from the illusion that we can free ourselves by killing our enemies. Christ our king offers no path to glory that sidesteps humility, surrender, and sacrificial love. The Lord does not grant me permission to secure my prosperity at the expense of another person’s sweat and suffering. There is no tolerance for the belief that holy ends justify debased means. Truth telling is not optional. God’s kingdom favors the broken-hearted over the cynical and contemptuous. Christ’s church cannot thrive when it aligns itself with brute power. We cannot be Christ’s church offering right answers but not right living. Where does this leave us? I think it leaves us with a king who makes us uncomfortable. (Debie Thomas, A King for This Hour, Journey with Jesus, 11/13/16)

Today, on Christ the King Sunday, our readings point at simple and startling truth: God never wanted kings. Any celebration of Christ the King must become an invitation to deconstruct one of humanity’s worst ideas. Dominion in the book of Genesis was never intended to mean domination. Our twisted view of kingship has done more damage than good. No kings isn’t just a political slogan it’s God’s plea to humanity. Jesus said, I no longer call you servants but friends (John 15:15). On this the last day of the year of our worship cycle we ponder the failure of kings. And we know the calendar will soon turn to the story of a child.” (Diana Butler Bass, A Beautiful Year, p. 313.)

Today you will be with me in paradise, Jesus said. But in the history of Western Christianity paradise became disconnected from today, placing salvation beyond, behind, or ahead of us—but not in the here and now. Paradise became disconnected from full engagement in the present.

Recent scholarship reveals that paradise was the dominant image of early Christian sanctuaries and liturgies (Brock and Parker, Saving Paradise, 2008). For the first thousand years after Christ, paradise meant something more than heaven or the afterlife. For them, paradise was this world permeated and blessed by the Spirit of God. Paradise was the salvation the Spirit offers us in baptism. To experience the Spirit of God in all things and the beauties of this world, early Christians helped each other cultivate an acute attunement to the life around them through art and worship.

These scholars claim “What we need now is a religious perspective that does not locate salvation in a future end point, a transcendent realm, or a zone after death,” (p. 417). In exile and in search of paradise, Christians “…today are anxious for home, for grounding, for meaning, for contact, for communion, and for escape from the present life, which can never match up to our imaginary goals.” Western culture needs to face the origins of its hollowness and to relinquish its violent, colonizing habits (p. 417).

Another Christianity is possible with the return to the wisdom of our ancestors. Paradise is already present. We have neither to retrieve it or construct it. We have only to perceive it and to bring our lives and our cultures into accord with it. This is the way of Jesus. But the way of Judas remains a powerful temptation among us.

Just ten days ago, the Michigan House of Representatives passed resolution 222, declaring that today, November 23rd, be known as Christ the King Sunday in the state of Michigan. Ignoring 240,000 Muslims living in metropolitan Detroit, legislators wished to pause, honor, and acknowledge Christ’s kingship within every aspect of life.
It reminds me of when the disciples got Jesus’ title right, he is the Messiah of God, but repeatedly, misunderstood what it meant for him to be the Christ.

Jesus shows us what God looks like in sandals. Jesus is the type of king who knelt at the feet of his disciples, who washed their feet as a slave would, and said to them, I no longer call you servants but friends. This is the exact opposite of the kind of kingship expressed in Resolution 222. God’s power leads to a whole different way of being human. A cruciform people following the way of Jesus serves community and bears crosses. It doesn’t build crosses for others to hang upon. Meanwhile news media reported this week that proponents of Christian nationalism and authoritarianism following the way of Judas, not Jesus, report that Agencies within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), intend to implement a comprehensive plan to target Spanish-speaking churches across the country during the upcoming holiday season between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

St. Paul quotes an ancient hymn. Jesus is our cosmic king, “for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible…” (Colossians 1:16). Jesus is the “head” of the church, not as in Caesar holding dominion over people in a pyramid of power. It isn’t about Jesus being “head” as in the CEO of a company. Instead, the title used here implies the head of a river, the source. This theological poetic metaphor shifts power away from a top-down structure of dominion toward an organic and interconnected image, strengthening the notion of and promise of a new Eden. (Diana Butler Bass, A Beautiful Year, pp 312-313.) Today, with me, in paradise.

As Jesus hung in the gap between one man’s derision and another man’s hunger, he ruled, not with the power of a dictator, but with power like that of an infant child in a manger. So, what shall it be? Jesus or Judas? The choice is yours. Despite your mistakes and failures, Jesus calls you now to return to the path to paradise. See, all people become kings in the presence of God. And in that equality, kingship forever dissolves in worship and wonder, the full measure of divine friendship and shared well-being. The second century theologian, Clement of Alexandria once said, “Everything belongs to the God of beauty.” One’s response to the gifts of life already given, the beauty already here, makes all the difference. (Brock and Palmer, p.419)

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The Shelter of Friends

Proper 28C-25
Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

Her name is Stefani. She laughs easily with a throaty chuckle. Her eyes sparkle. ‘Bliss,’ could be her nickname. But her words catch us by surprise. In a quiet moment, she says, “What a sad world. I look around the world and grieve.”

Stefani is not a sad person, but she has the capacity to grieve, and she has had a good deal of personal experience. Stefani Schatz moved with her husband to live and work among the poor to follow Jesus. She says, “I work with people who have no jobs, and whose families for two or three generations have had no jobs. I see people who die here at a younger age than other places because of alcoholism, and drugs [They lack access to health care, grocery stores, and other basic necessities.] I see people living in homes that crumble around them…There is no sense of hope…This feeling pervades everything.” (Anne Sutherland Howard, Claiming the Beatitudes, p. 33-34).

For people like Stefani and her husband faith is not an abstraction but a shelter. While conflict and chaos swirls around them they have a place in their heart, mind and soul to come in from the storm. They find shelter in Christ—and so can we, so can you. Jesus told the disciples, even if ‘You are hated by all because of my name, not a hair of your head will perish, by your endurance you will gain your souls.’ (Luke 21:17-19.)

We share this shelter of living stones with all people. It is our truest and best home. We draw others in with us to shelter from life’s many storms. That is why, on Friday, a peaceful, nonviolent interfaith group of pastors, imams, rabbis, and deacons (including Immanuel member, ELCA pastor and former Bishop Stephen Bouman) stepped past the barricade at the ICE facility in Broadview carrying bread and wine for communion and a letter demanding access to share spiritual solidarity with our incarcerated neighbors. They were pushed back. Many were shoved to the ground. 21 were arrested, including pastor Luke Harris-Ferree of Grace Lutheran in Evanston. They were denied access even though, spiritual care was routinely administered there in the past, even though, according to CBS News, just 16 of 607 people detained there by ICE have criminal histories. In fact, 3,300 people have been detained in Chicago in total and most of their names have yet to be made public. (Sabrina Franza, Charlie De Mar, Rebecca McCann, Christopher Selfridge, CBS Chicago, 10:51 AM CST, 11/15/25.)

The church is not a building. In fact, Jesus doesn’t use the word ‘church’. Instead, he called us friends. We are friends in Christ. The church is people, people who love people, people who love and serve the living God. Sadly, this is a lesson we must learn over and over again.

As they walked past the magnificent Temple in Jerusalem, Jesus told the disciples, not one stone would be left upon another (Luke 21:6). The ruin of it must have been impossible to imagine. Yet to the hopeless poor and incarcerated like those Stefani and our siblings in faith serve, people who are being crushed by the weight of life circumstances that oppress them—Jesus’ ominous warning sounds like good news.

When Jesus talks about the ‘end-times’ we, like the disciples, mostly have the wrong idea of what Jesus is talking about. He aims to kindle our hope not to enflame our fear. Maybe we’re just more ready to hear what Jesus is saying these days. The truth is we know that things have been ending for a long time. When wars, insurrections, betrayals and injustice begin to swirl around us, the apocalyptic language of the bible teaches us to switch to the long view. Bulgarian-born writer Maria Popova has called this a telescopic perspective on the world. Think of your life, she suggests, not in the span of days or years, or even generations, but from the perspective across geological epochs and cosmic space. The bible trains us to view our life through this telescopic perspective with its language about the end-times.

When we do this, the so-called big things become very small and certain other things which may seem small now, loom large. We can better see the hand of God pull, lure, shape, and instruct us from within everything and everyone. We are not the first generation of believers to feel discouraged and bewildered by world events. When the Temple was destroyed in 70 A.D., it seemed to signal the end of the world. Josephus’ account of the conquest of Jerusalem by the Romans just thirty years after Jesus’ resurrection is no less spectacular that his description of the Temple itself which he described as blinding in reflected sunlight clad in so much gold. He writes, “The roar of the flames streaming far and wide mingled with the groans of the falling victims; and owing to the height of the hill and the mass of the burning pile, one would have thought that the whole city was ablaze” (War 6.271-275) [p. 359].

Friends in Christ take shelter, come home, to where the ground beneath your feet becomes solid and the courage to slay demons finds strength. Jesus called us friends and takes us in, partly, by popping our spiritual bubbles. The disciples drew false confidence from the grandeur of the temple. Today’s gospel challenges us to take inventory. What lies or illusions have I mistaken for truth? On what shiny religious edifice have I pinned my hopes? In what memories or traditions do I attempt to put God in a box? Why do I cling to permanence when Jesus invites me to evolve? Can I embrace a journey of faith that includes rubble, ruin, and failure? As the traditions I love, places I built, things I cried and prayed for fall apart? (Debie Thomas, By Your Endurance, Journey with Jesus, 11/10/19) What remains of our life when we are done living it? Come in. Take shelter, Jesus says. Let us work together on what lasts.

The 13th century mystic Meister Eckhart once wrote, “Let us pray to God that we may be free of God.” Our ideas of God and faith inevitably always fall short. “Let’s name honestly, he suggests, the imposter gods we conjure because we fear the Mystery who really is. Let’s admit that we shape these gods in our own image, and that they serve us as much as we serve them. Let’s open our hearts, our minds, and souls to the world Jesus sees while living within the shelter of friends, our true home that Christ has made possible. (Debie Thomas)

Christians like Stefani remain joyful yet engage fully in all the sadness in the world. Our nonviolent siblings outside the ICE abduction center find calm and confidence in the face of tremendous grief from knowing they are with us in the undying life of God. Because they imagine themselves seated at the heavenly banquet, they have resources in God to draw upon that never run out. (p. 37).

“People who live in such a way — especially in a world whirling with wars and rumors of war, awash in conspiracies and insurrections — aren’t always loved by those whose power thrives on fear. Indeed, the powerful would keep us on an emotional razor’s edge of Armageddon all the time. Jesus insists, however, that his friends not get distracted. Pay attention to what is true. Know what is really important. This age is, indeed, ending. God’s reign is near. But don’t be surprised. Take shelter. Stay the course. Love one another just as I have loved you for I have counted all the hairs on your head and not one of them shall perish. (Bass).

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Cosmic Kin

All Saints-C25

Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

For those

who walked with us,

This is a prayer.

For those

who have gone ahead,

this is a blessing.

For those

who touched and tended us,

who lingered with us

while they lived,

this a thanksgiving.

For those

who journey still with us

in the shadows of awareness,

in the crevices of memory,

in the landscape of our dreams,

this is a benediction. (Jan Richardson, “For Those Who Walked with Us” The Painted Prayerbook.)

The feast of All Saints offers insight into the character of God our creator. Today’s liturgy has its historical origins from when our Christian ancestors moved northward into ancient Europe. There, they encountered and adopted two ancient seasonal festivals, one held near the spring equinox and the other at the end of autumn. These festivals informed what we now call Easter and All Saints.  “Both festivals, falling at or near seasonal equinoxes of Mother Earth’s cycles of fertility, are held in the liminal time between winter and summer. They mark the transitory balance of dark and light, the two rare moments when moon and sun are equal…. [Today] At the threshold of what has been and what will be, we more fully understand both the miracle of resurrection and the mystery of death” (Diana Butler Bass, A Beautiful Year, 2025, pp. 296-297).

All life is lovingly held in the palm of God’s hand.  The poet and essayist, Mary Oliver, wrote, “Do you think there is anything, not attached by its unbreakable cord to everything else?” Such profound truths draw nearer to us when the colors and smells of autumn death are upon us.

“On these days, we are invited to be aware of deep time—that is, past, present, and future time gathered into one especially holy moment. We are reminded that our ancestors are still in us and work with us and through us” Deep time, along with the communion of saints professed in our creeds, means that our goodness is not just our own, nor is our badness just our own. We are intrinsically social animals. We carry the lived and the unlived (and unhealed) lives of our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents as far back as DNA and genomes can trace them—and beyond that—including the whole 13.8-billion-year history of the universe.  We are the very first generation to know that this is literally and genetically and cosmically true. There is deep healing and understanding when we honor the full cycle of life. (Richard Rohr, “Fullness of Time,” Daily Meditations, 10/31/25).

We hold these truths to be self-evident. We uphold the fundamental dignity of all human beings even as federal support for SNAP benefits ends, immigrant neighbors are abducted and terrorized, and military ships amass as for war in the Caribbean.

We proclaim the words of St. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians.  “And [God] has put all things under [Christ’s] feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all (Ephesians 1:22-23).  We are in communion with Christ, communion our ancestors in faith, communion with all things living and that have ever lived, in communion now with all those who suffer want or injustice.

The Eucharist re-presents this gospel truth to us each Sunday with a mixture of words and actions.  We cannot process such a universal truth logically; but we can slowly digest it! “Eat it and know who you are,” St. Augustine once said. Likewise, in baptism water and the Word combine to instruct us each day as we rise who and whose we are. We are children of God, and so is everyone else.

Only slowly does the truth become believable. Finally, we realize that the Body of Christ is not out there, or up in heaven; it’s in you—it’s here and now and everywhere. Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. Slowly, little by little and sometimes, all at once, you and I awaken to possibility we may take part in the second coming of Christ. We do God’s work with our hands.  Together, we are a living sanctuary of hope and grace where we and all who are hurting now may take shelter and grow in grace.

It sounds like mission impossible. Jesus said, ‘Love your enemies. Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, look them in the eye and offer the other cheek also. If anyone takes your coat offer them your shirt.  Give to everyone who begs from you. If anyone steals your stuff, don’t ask for it back. Do unto others as you would have them do to you.’ (Luke 6:27-31)

Mission impossible becomes mission possible when we join our lives together in Christ. On days like today, amidst fall colors, candles, icons, photos, and keepsakes of departed loved ones, perhaps we are closer to realizing that our lives exist in kinship. “It is not just that my well-being and yours are at some very real level bound up together if we look closely enough at our economies and societies and ecologies. We may resist this knowledge and live in lonely and unhealthy defiance of it. Nevertheless, we are joined at all times by the substance of our beings — the energy and matter of our bodies, the air we breathe, the ground we stand on, and the mysterious stuff of consciousness itself — and this is as much common sense as high science.” (Krista Tippett, “On Staying Grounded,” On Being, 11/01/25).

Today, we may listen to the great communion of saints now gathered around us speaking from the shadows and the light, from the crevices of memory, and in the landscape of our dreams. Yes, they say. The power of evil is real. But there’s no better way to make a better world than when evil is returned with forgiveness and mercy. All the Saints in heaven sing alleluia!

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Human is Human is Human is Human

Proper 25C-25

Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

The author of Second Timothy writes, ‘I have fought the good fight; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith…there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which…belongs to all who long for Christ’s appearing’ (2 Timothy 4:7&8). It’s a memorable statement of a life well lived. In contrast, today’s gospel is like a cartoon—but not a very funny one. As Mark Twain might have described him, the Pharisee in our gospel was, “a good man in the very worst sense of the word.”  He claimed a crown of self-righteousness to elevate himself above others. I wish I could say I don’t recognize him among certain people we encounter in the news, or worse, in myself.

The Pharisee was upstanding and religiously righteous. The tax collector was universally despised, a traitor to his people, and aid to the foreign oppressor in Rome. The religious striver was smug and confident; the outsider was anxious and insecure. The self-appointed saint paraded to the temple; the sinner “stood at a distance” from that sacred building—a nonverbal expression of his spiritual alienation. The righteous man stands up; the sinful man looked down. In an act of shocking narcissism, the Pharisee prays aloud loudly and only “about himself;” whereas the tax collector could barely pray at all.

Yet, Jesus says, the respectable, reputable believer, so competent and accomplished, who does everything right, is rejected, whereas the secular sinner — the disreputable, inadequate, and incompetent failure — “goes home justified before God” (Daniel Clendenin). It’s a story of reversal, of the first becoming last and the last becoming first. A clean heart is born of true repentance. But then Jesus’ parable gets a little weird. Notice, neither the Pharisee nor the tax collector are aware of the judgement God renders on their prayers.

Scholar, Walter Wink, comments that both men are victims of a religious system that taught them God would love them only if they were successful in playing by the rules laid out by authorities in the temple. Both need deliverance. Both men are loved by God. Jesus is not teaching us to stand at the margins and beat our breasts as a way of gaining religious favor. He is shattering the whole idea that God’s grace is scarce, or withheld, or dispensed like a commodity controlled by pastors, priests, or bishops. Jesus is overthrowing the unholy idea that your worth in the eyes of God is determined by anything you do. He is declaring a new economy, one that neither character in our gospel recognized.

Jesus told stories called parables. The word, “parable” comes from two Greek terms, para, meaning “to come alongside,” and ballein, meaning “to throw.” A parable is intended to be a story that comes alongside our regular understanding and, frankly, upsets it. The parables of Jesus do not offer any rules, commands, or doctrines. Instead, they are open-ended tales that invite us to struggle with their meaning, to wonder, to see the world from unexpected angles. Parables “challenge us to look into the hidden aspects of our own values, our own lives. They bring to the surface unasked questions, and they reveal the answers we have always known, but refuse to acknowledge.” (Amy-Jill Levine )

In the kingdom of heaven ruled by our Lord Jesus Christ, the winner loses, and the loser wins. Both the winners and the losers are loved equally by God. There is nothing you can do to earn this love, or to increase it, or to decrease it. There is nothing we can do but to accept this gift, embrace it, trust it, believe it, and live it.

This is Lutheranism 101. On this Reformation Sunday, we tip our hat to Luther’s famous teaching that we are sanctified by grace alone. Yet somehow, we keep trying to make religion a ladder we use to climb up to God or at least takes us one step higher than our neighbors. But self-justification doesn’t work, and neither is it necessary. God accepts you “just as you are.”  Full stop. Why do we have such a hard time accepting that God comes down to us, which, after all, is the meaning of the Incarnation (see Philippians 2:5-8). Stop running up the down escalator!  We will miss Jesus on the way—as he descends into our so very ordinary world.

Christians have named this paschal mystery, this path of descent, the Way of the Cross. Jesus brings it front and center. A “crucified God” became the logo and central image of our Christian religion: a vulnerable, dying, bleeding, losing, brown, Palestinian Jewish man. How often do we look upon the Crucified and miss the point?

Katherine of Genoa, a 15th century Italian mystic saint, once said, “My deepest me is God.” Each of us find our fullest and best self by trusting in the inescapable and abundant love of God. To become a follower of Christ is to realize God makes no distinction between races, colors, clans, or religions. Human is human is human is human. It is a violation against God to say that to make America great it must remain white.  It is a transgression against Christ to be indifferent to the suffering of our neighbors who must look over their shoulders every day as they go to work or walk down the street, who live in terror of being abducted, their families torn apart, treated unfairly without due process of the law.  It is an abomination to blow up boats in the Caribbean, or bomb and destroy entire cities on the West Bank and in Gaza as if some people are less than human.  Doing so only makes us less human.

We are called to walk a different path. Follow Jesus on the path of descent. Walk the way of his cross. Learn the wisdom of winning by losing so that you may become more human, more kind, a better listener, grow thicker skin, be more compassionate, more ready to cry foul when others suffer injustice, be more generous, more welcoming, more hospitable, be a better lover, friend, parent, spouse, sibling, and neighbor. Let God’s kin-dom come in us, through us, and among us.

Remember how Luke’s gospel begins.  In the wonderful, famous prayers Zechariah and Mary from the first chapter of Luke, each of them gives thanks to God.  God has sent the rich away empty and filled the hungry with good things (Luke 1:53). God’s grace is paradoxical: only the merciful may receive mercy, and only those who forgive are forgiven (Luke 6:36-38).  The Pharisee had enough religion to be virtuous, but not enough to be humble. Sadly, the tax collector had too much religion to realize his prayers were answered by God. Let our religion be so filled with grace that our faith neither puffs us up, nor holds us (or others) down but lifts all people into God’s embrace. One holy human family in solidarity, justice, and peace.

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Wrestling with God

Proper 24C-25

Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

“And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Luke 18:8b) How would you answer Jesus’ question?  Second Timothy sounds like it could be written today. “For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound teaching, but, having their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires and will turn away from listening to the truth—” (2 Timothy 4:3-5).

 We live in a time when many Christian siblings have replaced the gospel with an anti-gospel. We see evil masquerading as law and order, antisemitism, and as government efficiency. Freedom is manipulated to destroy our freedoms—and I could go on—and so could you. Yesterday was an important and joyful counterpoint. In what some have said is the largest public protest in U.S. history people turned out and said, No!

 Together they provide one answer to Jesus’ question. Yes, because the separation of the church and state is a sacred boundary.  It’s one Christians have fought for and died for. Because that separation doesn’t just benefit the State, it benefits the church.  The protections go both ways. When religion gets too cozy with political power it loses its prophetic voice and its ability to speak truth to power.  Moreover, church people have often needed those outside it to remind them of their own values –such as the abolition of slavery, the inclusion of women, voting rights, civil rights, GLBTQIA+ rights.  Yes.  We need the separation of church and state but that is not the same thing as a separation of faith and politics. We must bring our faith into the public sphere to question power and reinforce the individual value of every human being. (Heather Cox Richardson and James Talarico, “A New Way to Think About Religion and Politics,” America Conversations, 10/11/25)

Seminarian James Tarico, a candidate for the US Senate in Texas has said, “Democracy is very much a spiritual exercise.  It’s not just a form of government. “It really is a commitment that we have to our neighbors, especially our neighbors who are different from us, especially our neighbors who disagree with us on important issues. And unless we have that moral commitment to each other, there’s no way we can continue this American experiment.” (Heather Cox Richardson, “A New Way to Think About Religion and Politics with James Talarico,” American Conversations,  10/11/25.)

Yes Jesus, we find evidence of faith on earth. But it doesn’t look like what we expected. It doesn’t always come from behind altars or from Bishops and councils, but we see prophetic faith springing up everywhere in people and places who are making a difference in the streets, and beside hospital beds, and feeding the hungry, or with those who refuse to laugh at a cruel joke.

  And yet, perhaps for the first time in the history of the human species, Jesus’ question about finding faith provokes a different and deeper one: is the future of our civilization sustainable?  Jesus is not merely pointing out the sins, commissions, and omissions of other Christians. A closer look at history reveals that work to end the injustices I mentioned a moment ago was not well supported by church folks.  Most Christians did not oppose slavery.  Most Lutherans cozied up to Hitler. Most did not like Martin Luther King. Today, many of us are just now waking up to the fact that our highly prized lifestyles are tightly connected to the destruction of people and the planet. “And so, asked another way, when the Son of Man comes, will he find any people on earth? And if they way we are living now inevitably will lead to there being no people on earth, wouldn’t that be a profound indictment of our lack of faith?

So, let’s turn to our parable of the bothersome widow. What are we to make of it?  I wonder if Jesus is asking us to take a good honest look at ourselves. Shine the light of grace into the dark corners of our heart –bravely ask the hard and difficult questions about the systems, economy, and culture we have created. The parable of the bothersome widow might just be about the state of our hearts, and about the motivations behind our prayers. Maybe what’s at stake is not who God is and how God operates in the world but who we are, and why we need so desperately to be people of persistent prayer.” (Debi Thomas, “The Bothersome Widow,” Journey with Jesus, 10/13/19)

“The parable demonstrates an intrinsic unity between justice and prayer. Jesus portrays the widow as the one whose pleadings for God’s justice are the essence of prayer. As Jesus taught and demonstrated in his own life, prayer is the way of breaking ourselves open to the presence of God’s love at the center of our being. And as that happens, we embody the yearning for God’s purposes to break into the world. That’s how Jesus is teaching us, in this parable, to pray, and telling us to pray always.

And this comes in the face of what seem to be impossible odds. In the parable, this unjust judge, with real power in society, had no respect for people, and certainly no fear of God. He was a law unto himself. The parallels to today are chilling.” And also hopeful, because the bothersome widow prevails. (Diana Butler Bass)

Our first reading from Genesis promises God will not abandon us to our own worst choices and instincts and that grace never tires of working toward our personal and collective transformation. One of my favorite art works here at Immanuel is tucked away in the back stairwell. It’s the series of three stained glass windows depicting Jacob’s ladder.  Jacob’s name implies that he is a person who takes advantage of others in whatever way suits him best. ‘Jacob’ means ‘cheater’ or ‘deceiver’. And yet,

Jacob’s dream of a ladder reaching from earth to heaven reaffirms God’s covenant with Abraham’s descendants and symbolizes God’s direct communication with humanity and the divine connection between heaven and earth, signifying God’s promise, guidance, and presence (Genesis 28:10-22).

 About 20 years later, Jacob the cheater is heading home. He was fleeing one set of problems of his own making and returning to the scene of another. As Jacob contemplates the deceit, the trickery, the craftiness, the manipulation, the way in which he had cheated his brother Esau out of his heritage, he isn’t sure about the reception he is to receive. Then the news came. Jacob’s messengers returned to tell him his brother, Esau, was indeed coming to meet him along with 400 armed men with him.” (Genesis 32).

Well, as you might imagine, Jacob couldn’t sleep. The details of the story are a little sketchy.  A man comes unbidden, uncalculated, to wrestle with him. Later, Jacob later called the place “Peniel” because he had seen “God face to face.” Jacob faced his demons, and God blessed him with a new identity, signified with a new name. He is no longer Jacob, the cheat, but his name is “Israel”, meaning “he who struggles with God”. The struggle left Jacob with a limp and symbolized a pivotal moment of transformation and a deeper, albeit lifelong, relationship with God.

With the new name, Jacob is told that, even in his weakness, even with his failures, even with his sorry track record, God can work through him.  God works with imperfect people.  God makes Jacobs into Israels.  By grace, God works even now to transform us from the inside out. Faith will not perish but lead us ever forward in the struggle for justice and in making homes, neighborhoods, and communities of peace to live in.   

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Making Eucharist

Proper 23C-25

Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

Good morning, Immanuel. It’s good to be back. I want to say a very big ‘thank you’ to all of you. I was charmed and amazed at the great privilege you gifted me and my family with. Your support and encouragement were amazing. I feel we are blessed by our leader team. I’m truly thankful to pastor Kelly, and our staff Ricardo, Jordan, and Julia. I spent time in Colorado with my mom. Kari and I hung out with friends in Banff, Canada.  I went back packing with my sons (and a girl friend) in Isle Royale National Park. Leah and I explored Scotland.  I lived the monastic life at Iona. I tramped around London. I took online classes, attended conferences, and planted a savannah garden of Illinois natives. (It’s growing very well.) Out of curiosity, I worshiped in a different church most every Sunday and watched the Immanuel livestream each week. I know I’m biased but Immanuel, you’re the best.

How fitting that giving thanks is our theme this Sunday. Last week we heard Jesus scold the disciples.  He told them not to expect thanks for all the good things they do in Jesus’ name (Luke 17:10). Today, we hear the rest of the story.  Don’t wait to receive thanks, Jesus says, but always remember to give it. Thanksgiving is not a duty but a lifeline.  Thanksgiving—literally eucharist—is a means to grab onto grace and take it inside us like lighting in a bottle. Gratitude spills into love.

We begin with the story of ten lepers who were cured.  All ten were cured but only one was made whole—the one who turned to give Jesus thanks, and that one was a Samaritan—in other words—a despised foreigner.  As a group the Samaritans go two for three in Luke’s gospel: 1) Yes. They refuse welcome the disciples in chapter nine (9:53); but 2) the Good Samaritan is a Christ-like figure (10:25), and the Samaritan leper is a church-like figure (17:11). The leper is exemplary of the sort of devotion God expects from the faithful but does not always receive.

Ten are healed. But one returned to say thank you. It took him but a moment. Yet in that moment he is changed. Jesus told him “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well” (17:19). The Greek word for “well” is sózó. That word doesn’t just mean to be cured from an illness. Rather, it means to be saved, rescued, or delivered — healed body and soul.” (Diana Butler Bass, The Cottage, Sunday Musings, “Turn Around, Say Thanks,” 10/11/25)

The Samaritan leper shows us where the church of Christ must be today. It is the story about the gratitude of a foreigner who receives welcome. The church must be such a place. These days, as brown-skinned children languish in cages, racist politicians weaponize borders, and racial and religious minorities fear mistreatment in their own neighborhoods, schools, and worship spaces, the leper’s story shows us where to look for the kindom of God. This gospel spells out what it means that in Christ, we are all one. It proclaims the church’s ongoing responsibility to the stranger, the alien, and the Other. It reveals what happens to our differences at the foot of the Cross. Such distinctions disappear. In a spirit of joy and thanksgiving we give thanks, literally, we make eucharist everywhere we go. We carry the spirit of thanksgiving into the broken places of society so all may be made well. (Debi Thomas: A Foreigner’s Praise, Journey with Jesus, 10/06/19).

You might be saying, well, I’m not sure I have much to be thankful for right now. There’s crisis and collapse everywhere I look. I don’t know whether you noticed, but things are not looking good. It is tempting to disengage.

To you, scripture whispers this gospel truth. Giving thanks is a life hack gleaned from real-life experience of our ancestors in faith who coped and thrived in times more chaotic, difficult, and dangerous than our own. Giving thanks gives life.  Giving thanks gives us courage. Giving thanks shows us where and with whom to be the church. Giving thanks takes practice. Our tradition offers many ways to strengthen our thanks-giving muscles through prayer, song, and meditation. The Jesuits practice the daily examen. Some keep a gratitude journal. Others routinely give thanks at mealtime.

Ask yourself ‘why does a leper give thanks?’  Because gratitude is living water to quench thirsty souls and brings life to the entire landscape. Gratitude gets lost in the ledger when we keep accounts and life becomes small.  Gratitude, like love, grows when it is shared

Making eucharist flows from awe and wonder. It is the recognition that life is a gift and everything in it. Give thanks to the plants for the air we breathe.  Give thanks to the earth for clean water.  Give thanks to the Sun for the color of the sky.  Give thanks to the creatures for tending to the earth, for clothing, for tools, and for food. Does such thanks-giving sound familiar? Such is the wisdom of indigenous peoples and cultures that our civilization has worked so thoroughly to root out and destroy.

Making eucharist may be the antidote for the death-dealing economy of colonialism, extraction, domination, land theft, and exploitation we all participate and benefited from leading toward civilization collapse. It is perhaps ironic that the wisdom of the Samaritan leper is now echoed by quantum physics, and eco-biology pointing toward embrace of the wisdom indigenous teachers once proclaimed on these shores. They told us that we are all relations, and our futures are interwoven in one web of life. “They reflect the gracious spirit of the Shoshone elder who said, ‘Do not begrudge the white man for coming here. Though he doesn’t know it yet, he has come to learn from us.’” (Brian McLaren, Life After Doom, p. 125).

Native teachers tell us that gratitude and reciprocity are the currency of a gift economy, and they have the remarkable property of multiplying with every exchange, their energy concentrating as they pass from hand to hand, a truly renewable resource. This is how the natural world has worked and thrived for millennia. Can we imagine a human economy with a currency which emulates the flow from Mother Earth? A currency of gifts?

Come to the table.  Come to the Eucharist. Lay your burdens down. May bitterness be replaced with laughing; despair exchanged for joy; and grief become an occasion for new love. Don’t count your thanks, but always remember to give it, for in doing so we are made well. May we always be so bold and fearless as to say “thanks.”

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God’s Love Reframes Justice and Generosity

Given by Rev. Kelly Nieman Anderson
September 28, 2025

Friends, over the past 13 weeks, we have journeyed together through scriptures that teach us how God’s love calls us into communities, leads us to deeper faith, and renews us for mission in our world. Today, our Bible readings remind us that God’s love renews everyone – and thus, the faithful are expected to share God’s love with all of our neighbors, especially those who are poor, sick, or lonely. God’s beloved children should never have to beg for the crumbs that fall from someone else’s table.

Thus, the parable of the rich man and Lazarus is not about ultimate revenge. And it’s not about the afterlife, either, as much as we may wish it was. Jesus is retelling a classic folktale of his era, similar to how A Christmas Carol is retold today, using images of an imagined future to help us refocus on how we are living now. And Jesus isn’t talking to crowds of average people, either. Jesus is speaking directly to a group of religious professionals who were part of the rich, ruling classes – people who were ignoring the needs of their own people, much like the rich man in the story. In today’s Gospel, Jesus is explaining how God’s love renews us for a truly abundant life.

The other scriptures today are trying to share the same truth: wealth can be a particularly heavy and stubborn barrier to living the abundant life which God wants for us.
During his life, the rich man lets his material goods create a barrier between himself and his neighbor, Lazarus. That human-created “gulf” is keeping him from the full, abundant life which would have come from beloved community with his neighbors. God created us to love one another, not to use one another; so, sharing his resources could have been one step towards building a more abundant life.

Today’s scriptures remind us that God’s love liberates us from the chains of our “stuff” and realigns our priorities so that we can help one another experience the “life that really is life”.

Such a loving realignment of our priorities is one example of “death and resurrection” while we are still here on earth. God lovingly supports us in letting certain assumptions and expectations die… and God invites us to participate in the holy work of renewing our relationships and revitalizing our communities. Sometimes, as we begin to notice all of our neighbors … we may notice that some of the people whom God uses to bring new life into our world are different than we may have otherwise expected.

Waste Management is one of the most interesting aspects of death and resurrection in our modern world. Every week, I put out all my trash and recycling, and it just gets magically whisked away. All the dead and useless and dirty things in my life go somewhere else, so that my house can only be full of life-giving and clean things.
It’s amazing, actually. Occasionally, some of my trash gets recycled into something amazing, too, like a park bench or electrical energy.
But I don’t think at all about the people who take away my trash. I don’t know the names of my trash collectors. I don’t know where my trash goes, or what happens to it when it goes there. I am feasting every single day in my home, and someone I don’t even know is paid to whisk away the crumbs which have fallen from my table. As someone who can afford to pay for trash removal, I am one of the richest people on earth. It feels awkward to be compared to the “rich” person in this parable – someone who is most likely just trying to follow God’s laws. It feels uncomfortable to realize that whoever picks up my trash is the “Lazarus” in this parable. If I met my garbage collectors in heaven, I wouldn’t recognize them or even know their names.

Of all the bills I pay each month, my trash and recycling bill is fairly small. So cheap in fact that I rarely ever think about it, or the people who do that job. But one of my larger bills every month is my student loan payment. Most pastors are in the same boat – with the average Pastor in the US carrying about $50,000 in student loans. I am still paying a lot for my already completed Divinity degree, and I routinely pay very little for my trash collection, so in the algebra of life, one appears to be more valuable than the other.

But Jesus’ parable about Lazarus and the Rich Man is all about how in God’s economy, everything is upside down. God’s love liberates us from our stuff and realigns our priorities. God’s love encourages us to question the kinds of “chasms” we have created here on earth.

Why does it cost so much to learn about God, when the Word of God is free and available to everyone? Why does it cost so little to manage the resources God gave us on this earth (so little that I think of some resources as “trash”)? I really never thought about those ideas until recently, which is embarrassing to admit. But someone did think about it, very seriously, just a few years ago, when a CEO from a Waste Management company made a choice which dramatically altered the future of theological education in the ELCA.

A few years ago, before the pandemic, Luther Seminary (where I attended) was in danger of bankruptcy. There wasn’t enough money to maintain the buildings and pay the professors, and there weren’t enough people able to pay for their tuition, and there weren’t enough churches able to hire seminary graduates with debt. Death of the seminary was not yet imminent, but it was looming.

Then, an anonymous CEO from a Waste Management company brought resurrection to Luther Seminary in the form of a 20-million-dollar check. That donation inspired other investors to think differently about Seminary costs, too. So, in 2019, the seminary changed the rules, and many future pastors no longer had to pay for their theological education. Their tuition was covered, because an unnamed person whom the world forgot inspired radical generosity and created an illogical solution for a very practical problem. The first year, there were twice as many applications as there were seats available. The seminary was not only rescued, but completely reformed into a new thing, into something that seemed completely irrational just a few months before. Next year, the seminary will change again, selling their physical buildings and resurrecting themselves in a new way. Sometimes, God’s love liberates us from our “stuff” so that we can focus on living abundantly with our neighbors.

Who are we in this parable? We are not Lazarus, although we may be ignored or struggling or in need of something. We are not the rich man, although we may have more material possessions than we really need. Most of the time, we are the five brothers: the siblings of the rich man, still living, whom the rich man wishes to warn, to save from the torment of only using people, not loving them, and ignoring our neighbors, rather than serving them. We are the five brothers, in danger of waiting for some spectacular sign before we will let God’s love realign our priorities and change our lives.

For we do have all the signs we need: we have scriptures, we have Jesus’ resurrection, we have the church and each other, we have enough food and clean water for all to share, we have the gifts we need to be good neighbors and friends and welcome others into our families – if we will just open our doors and our hearts to learn the names of those right next to us whom we may have otherwise ignored.

Jesus reminds us that in God’s kingdom, investing in others is always worth the risk. In God’s kingdom, fighting for justice and peace is always worth the effort. In God’s kingdom, partnering with the least of these is exactly where we are called to devote our time and energy.

God is calling us to live generously – and to start today – even if the first step feels as if our entire world is being turned upside down. Disciples live generously when they volunteer on Sunday morning for worship right here, and also when they serve meals at Care for Real. Disciples live generously when they faithfully contribute to the offering plate and also when they faithfully invest in community partnerships. Disciples live generously when they support their pastor’s sabbatical and renovate the scout room for their neighbors in need. Disciples live generously when they treat their garbage collectors with dignity, and when they invest in the dignity of workers everywhere.

Disciples live generously – and in doing so, we get to experience resurrection hope whenever we let God’s love liberate us from the chains of our “stuff” and realign our priorities so that we can help one another experience the “life that really is life”.

Thank you, people of Immanuel Lutheran Church, for the opportunity to experience God’s love in community with all of you this summer. Thank you for generously welcoming me and thank you for sharing God’s love with me in many and various ways. I hope and pray that you get to keep experiencing “the life that is really life” together for a very long time, as you continue to let God’s love call you, lead you, and renew you throughout your life of faith.

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God’s Love Realigns Our Priorities

Given by Rev. Kelly Nieman Anderson
Sunday, September 21, 2025

Friends, this month we find ourselves in a series of scriptures about who and what is truly valuable.   From the prophets to the gospels to the early church, the Bible keeps trying to remind us that human-created hierarchies are all temporary – but God’s love for everyone is eternal. In God’s kingdom, God’s love reframes generosity as a natural and everyday spiritual practice.

Although we are often willing to talk about generosity, charity, or stewardship, many of us are still hesitant to talk about money in the church.  Personally, I don’t like to talk about money anywhere, least of all during a sermon.  I think one of the first rules of interim coverage is to avoid a money conversation that the called pastor will have to unpack when he’s back.  😉

Our assigned scriptures this month, though, don’t leave me much choice.  One of the most prominent themes in the Gospel of Luke is about how our relationship with money affects our relationship with God and with others.  Luke is honest about the fact that money isn’t just basic math.  Money – whether that’s income or debt, ownership or stewardship – strongly affects our perceived status and our daily habits on this earth.  Those with more money and access to more resources tend to have more power over the lives of those with less money and access to fewer resources –but Jesus changed everything we think we know about status, power, and the social ladder built on temporary wealth.

Luke’s Gospel begins with the Christmas story, when Jesus is born to a poor, unnamed family, and it ends with the Easter story, when Jesus is mistaken for a poor, unnamed gardener.  In between, the proud are “scattered” and the powerful are brought down.  The “lowly” are lifted, and the debts are forgiven. Throughout the Gospel, many people with money, status, or power encounter a crisis, and discover that their true help comes from someone below them on the social ladder.  Finally, in the book of Acts – Luke’s sequel to the Gospel – Jesus followers continue his ministry by also welcoming everyone and sharing everything.

In other words, Jesus consistently reminds us that God’s love reframes generosity. In God’s kingdom, true riches are found in relationships. In God’s kingdom, the currency is love, and God fills us with enough to share.

Today’s parable of the unjust manager is describing how “forgiveness of debts” is a literal implication of God’s Kingdom on earth.  During Jesus’ time, most people were in debt to a very small number of wealthy oligarchs.  It wasn’t a democracy, and there wasn’t a middle class.  Instead, a very small group of land-owning aristocrats controlled most of the resources, and thus, the lives of most of the people. They hired a few “managers” who forced day laborers to produce as much profit for the landowner as possible. Those who couldn’t work, including children, elderly, and disabled people, relied on charity which few could afford to spare.  Basically, everyone was trying to survive in a system which defined people by their production value.  And, in that society, the “gods” also interacted only with the land-owning or the politically connected families, and such “gods” would regularly use or abuse average people as playthings.

Jesus shows up in the middle of that sinful, destructive social hierarchy and reminds us: we were created for more.  Jesus shows us that the true God created a beautiful, interconnected world, designed for love and mutuality.  We were created to care about people, and the planet – not profits.  In God’s kingdom, there are no debtors or debt collectors, no landowners or outcasts.  In God’s Kingdom, people are defined by love and abundance, freedom and flourishing.  In God’s kingdom, we forgive others’ debts just like God has forgiven us.  In God’s Kingdom, with God’s love, there is no more charity, only generosity.  In God’s kingdom, the savior of the world can be found in a poor, unnamed family.

Our Christian faith calls us to this new upside-down kingdom… yet, to insist that all people deserve equal compassion is still a surprisingly countercultural statement.  Even in the most progressive Christian spaces, the social and financial implications of Jesus’ mission are rarely mentioned in church.

But I no longer spend most of my time in church.  I left parish ministry a few years ago to work full time for Lutheran Social Services of Illinois (sometimes abbreviated as LSSI). The people we serve are very poor and they also face other challenges related to age, ability, mental illness, addiction, or incarceration. Our clients were the “outcasts” in all of Jesus’ parables, and the “debtors” in today’s Gospel.  Most of my colleagues are social workers, basically like the “manager” – trying to get the more powerful to forgive the debts of our least resourced neighbors, so that we can all survive in this broken system.

Lutheran Churches – which own property and have bank accounts and access to resources – most closely represent the “rich man” in Jesus’ parable.  My role is to connect the ELCA churches in Illinois with LSSI’s clients – inviting everyone to participate in God’s upside-down kingdom.

Yes, I’m a pastor, but now I’m also I’m a fundraiser – like a modern-day robin hood, trying to cajole “rich” people (including churches) to invest their wealth in the lives of their poor neighbors, in an attempt at the kind of reversal which the Gospel of Luke describes. I spend a lot of my time talking to churches, and church people, about money and charity and “the least of these” and forgiving debts and creating a whole new world where everyone is welcome, and celebrated, and valued and loved, regardless of their “production value”. Each story I share encourages Christians to let God’s love reframe our generosity.

Because Generosity means so much MORE than just wealth transfer.

This summer, an elevator broke at one of our buildings.  Normally, that’s a workable issue, but this time, it was a huge problem.  That elevator was the only one in a 6-floor apartment building for low-income seniors, and without it, many residents were physically stuck on their floor, cut off from the people and things which brought them life and joy.  They couldn’t get to the doctor or the grocery store, the biggest physical problem, but they also couldn’t get to their mail or the common spaces or the bus – so they were emotionally isolated as well.

Of course, our entire team sprang into action, but it was quickly evident that no amount of money was going to fix this problem.  The parts just took a while to make and ship and install.  Once the fix had been ordered … there wasn’t anything else that money could do.

But there was still so much more that love could do.

This challenge provided an opportunity to reframe generosity for all of us.  The local firefighters donated their time to help get people down the stairs for doctor’s appointments.  The food pantry made deliveries to each floor, visiting with the residents who couldn’t get out to shop.  And those residents who could walk the steps often came down and spent the entire day in the common areas downstairs, visiting with their neighbors, reducing the number of times they’d have to go up and down – and increasing the amount of time they spent connecting with friends.

But one of the best things that happened was the church youth groups which sprang into action.  They also had no money to fix the problem.  But, with school out for the summer, the younger people wanted to share their most valuable resources – time and energy – with people in need. A vacation bible school class hand-made greeting cards for every single resident and staff member of the building, trying to bring them cheer and encouragement. A youth group came and packaged up fresh produce, cookies, and water bottles – which they hand delivered to every single resident.  Another youth group organized Bingo – on every single floor. Six tiny bingo games, full of laugher and prizes and stories to share, just because compassion is worth our investment.

True generosity came from sharing God’s abundant love in very practical ways.

Friends, we know, deep in our souls, that God’s Kingdom is built on love and generosity and reciprocity – like youth and seniors sharing God’s love during a bingo game.  We also know that in this world, money pays for the things we need and want for those we love – like a working elevator and food and doctor’s appointments.  This contradiction will not be resolved as long as we live in this broken world, and yet, the contradiction between how things are now and how we hope they will someday be leaves us sad, angry, or weary. The reason we are sad and angry about this broken world, and our unfair systems within it, is because God’s desire for justice and compassion is woven deeply into our hearts.

There will be times in our lives when we have more than we need – and we serve God by sharing those blessings with our neighbors.  There will be times in our lives when our needs are nearly crushing us, and we serve God by crying out for deliverance and recognition.  There will be times in our lives when we finally have enough to take care of ourselves and our loved ones and we serve God by rejoicing in those blessings.   As we share and receive God’s abundant love, we begin to understand that our true riches of life are found in beloved community.  God’s love reframes our generosity into a daily spiritual practice of gratefulness.

I am still not entirely comfortable talking about money in church.  But I am grateful to proclaim the good news that money does not define our church.  We gather together, like the faithful have before us, to remind ourselves that we are valuable because God says we are.  Our true value does not come from our abilities, our efforts, our decisions… or our bank accounts. We are valuable to God, because we are God’s beloved children.

Every day is another chance to acknowledge God’s love for us and share that love with others.  Sometimes, we may even get the chance to forgive some debts and use our resources to serve God’s kingdom.  May God’s generosity and compassion continue to turn our world upside-down, one loving act at a time.

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