TWENTY-FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Zephaniah 1:7, 12-18

Psalm 90:1-12

1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

Matthew 25:14-30

Prayer of the Day: Righteous God, our merciful master, you own the earth and all its peoples, and you give us all that we have. Inspire us to serve you with justice and wisdom, and prepare us for the joy of the day of your coming, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

^“For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.” I Thessalonians 5:9-11.

In Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Gilead, John Ames, an ill an aged pastor pours out in his diary the matters he knows he will never be able to share with the nine year old son of his old age. In one particular entry, he relates a conversation growing out of a question posed by Jack Boughton, the ne’er‑do‑well son of his friend and colleague and fellow pastor. “So, Reverend,” says Jack, “I would like to hear your views on the doctrine of predestination.” What follows is an awkward verbal game of ‘cat and mouse’ in which Ames does his best to uphold the tenants of his Calvinist heritage while articulating the primacy of God’s grace:

“….certain attributes of our faith assigns to God omniscience, omnipotence, justice and grace. We human beings have such a slight acquaintance with power and knowledge, so  little conception of justice, and so slight capacity for grace, that the workings of these great attributes together is a mystery we cannot hope to penetrate.”

[Jack] laughed. “You say it in those very words.”

“Yes, I do. More or less those very words. It’s a fraught question, and I’m careful with it.”

He nodded. “I take you to mean that you do believe in predestination.”

“I dislike that word. It’s been put to crude uses.”

“Can you propose a better word?”

“Not offhand.”

“I would like your help, Reverend,” he said, so seriously that I began to think he might be serious. “This is a grave issue, isn’t it? We’re not really dealing here with a mere word, a mere abstraction.”

“You’re right,” I said. “That’s true.”

“I assume predestination does not, in your understanding, mean that a good person will go to hell simply because he was consigned to hell from the beginning….I’m an amateur here. I suppose if I had your history with the question I’d sick of it too. Well, actually I believe I do have a history with it. I have had reason to wonder fairly often about it. I hoped you would instruct me a little.”

Upon further reading, we discover that Jack, though an unbeliever, is nevertheless plagued by the suspicion that his character might be irredeemably corrupt. He wonders whether there are people “who are simply born evil” and so “live evil lives.” Ames continues attempting to affirm the ancient doctrine while salvaging a degree of human agency. Finally, in exasperation, Jack remarks, “For a man of the cloth, you’re pretty cagey.”[1]

The doctrine of predestination has engaged the minds of great theologians from Augustine to Karl Barth. Martin Luther famously championed the doctrine against the theologian and scholar, Desiderius Erasmus in his Bondage of the Will. Disputes over predestination constituted a principal cause of schism between the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and other Lutheran bodies in the United States during the nineteenth century. As recently as forty five years ago, it was a hot topic of debate on the pages of the campus newspaper at my alma Mator, Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. We seem always to be left with the same dilemma: Hold firm to predestination so as to preserve the sole agency of God’s grace in working salvation and sanctification in the believer or reject the doctrine and leave the final determinative factor to human will, effort and decision. A binary choice for either position against the other has the potential for creating doubt and uncertainty. Consequently, we try to have the best of both worlds and come out sounding, well, “cagey.”

I do not pretend to have thoroughly resolved this issue, but I think there are some observations to be made that might lead us to a better place. I think it is important to point out that, while the term “predestined” is scriptural, the terms “omniscient,” “omnipotent” and “omnipresent” are not. The last three words are metaphysical concepts foreign to the scriptural writers. They do not fit well into the biblical narratives where we find events and human activities running contrary to God’s desires and where we witness God changing God’s mind, lamenting the actions of God’s creatures and responding to a world in constant motion. Perhaps it is possible to speak of God as omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent from the perspective of eternity. But as soon as God spoke the words, “Let there be,” God made space for something other than God. God made something that, like God, could create, decide and move in directions even God could not have predicted.

God’s act of creation was in some ways like one’s decision to become a parent. Bringing a child into one’s life results in a loss of autonomy, the assumption of responsibilities and a change of lifestyle. It also introduces the potential both for unimaginable delight and inexplicable pain. Pride, disappointment, anxiety, satisfaction and perhaps even an occasional bit of regret go with entering into parenthood. So, too, for God. God delights in God’s creation, takes joy in the earth and its creatures and loves it enough to put God’s own “skin in the game,” so to speak. God is likewise deeply wounded by the injury done to creation by its human creatures and the brokenness of that one creature capable of bearing God’s image. God might have regained the “omnis” by erasing creation, but God rejected that temptation following the great flood narrated in Genesis. This is the context, I think, in which we can rightly understand the biblical meaning of predestination. God has destined God’s creation for redemption and perfection. God is determined not to let anything, even humanity’s rejection of God’s intent, to stand in the way of that goal.

I think also that Rev. John Ames’ difficulty was in part due to his understanding of God’s redemptive activity as a matter of individual human salvation. John 3:16 does not say that God so loved the church or that God so loved Christians or that God so loved religious people or that God so loved good people or that God so loved humans exclusively that God sent the only Son. John’s gospel tells us that Jesus was sent for the salvation of the entire cosmos. The church is not a lifeboat rescuing a select group of human souls from a sinking ship. It is a community living aboard this spaceship earth witnessing in word and deed, however imperfectly, to God’s love for this ship with all of its inhabitants and God’s promise to bring it finally into the harbor of a new heaven and earth. God takes no delight in the punishment of the wicked but desires the redemption of all. No one is predestined for eternal punishment.

So are all destined to be saved? I think it is probably as presumptuous to assume the salvation of all as it is to dogmatically insist on the damnation of some. Is it possible that a person can become so thoroughly twisted and distorted with evil that the image of God is altogether lost such that one’s Maker can only say, “I never knew you. Depart from me.”? As Jesus raises this possibility, we would be foolish to dismiss it. Nevertheless, that is a call none of us mortals are competent to make. As far as we are concerned, all people are neighbors to be loved and cared for. That goes even, perhaps especially, for those who we view or who view us as enemies. From our perspective, they are and must always remain persons who, like us, are predestined for salvation.

Human life is a mixture of the predestined and the contingent. Much is, in fact, predestined. We do not choose the timing, location, ethnic group, class, gender or family into which we are born. We do not choose the factors in our genetic makeup that can influence our health, capabilities and length of life. Yet within these predetermined parameters there remains a wide range of possibilities for independent agency. The decisions we make within the limited scope of our freedom matter. They can influence profoundly our own lives, the lives of others around us and, in some cases, the course of history. Beyond that, there is in all of these transactions what I like to call a “God factor.” The Word that at the dawn of time said, “Let there be,” the Word that became flesh and still dwells among us, that Word still holds creation together against the powers of evil that would rip it apart. The Spirit of God which at the beginning of creation moved the primordial waters from chaos to harmony still blows over the face of the earth to thaw hardened hearts, work reconciliation and inspire hope. God’s parental providence continues to move all creation toward a new heaven and earth on which God will be “all in all.”

Here is a poem by Robert Frost exploring the complex relationship between fate and free agency.

The Trial by Existence

Even the bravest that are slain
Shall not dissemble their surprise
On waking to find valor reign,
Even as on earth, in paradise;
And where they sought without the sword
Wide fields of asphodel fore’er,
To find that the utmost reward
Of daring should be still to dare.

The light of heaven falls whole and white
And is not shattered into dyes,
The light for ever is morning light;
The hills are verdured pasture-wise;
The angel hosts with freshness go,
And seek with laughter what to brave; —
And binding all is the hushed snow
Of the far-distant breaking wave.

And from a cliff-top is proclaimed
The gathering of the souls for birth,
The trial by existence named,
The obscuration upon earth.
And the slant spirits trooping by
In streams and cross- and counter-streams
Can but give ear to that sweet cry
For its suggestion of what dreams!

And the more loitering are turned
To view once more the sacrifice
Of those who for some good discerned
Will gladly give up paradise.
And a white shimmering concourse rolls
Toward the throne to witness there
The speeding of devoted souls
Which God makes his especial care.

And none are taken but who will,
Having first heard the life read out
That opens earthward, good and ill,
Beyond the shadow of a doubt;
And very beautifully God limns,
And tenderly, life’s little dream,
But naught extenuates or dims,
Setting the thing that is supreme.

Nor is there wanting in the press
Some spirit to stand simply forth,
Heroic in its nakedness,
Against the uttermost of earth.
The tale of earth’s unhonored things
Sounds nobler there than ’neath the sun;
And the mind whirls and the heart sings,
And a shout greets the daring one.

But always God speaks at the end:
’One thought in agony of strife
The bravest would have by for friend,
The memory that he chose the life;
But the pure fate to which you go
Admits no memory of choice,
Or the woe were not earthly woe
To which you give the assenting voice.’

And so the choice must be again,
But the last choice is still the same;
And the awe passes wonder then,
And a hush falls for all acclaim.
And God has taken a flower of gold
And broken it, and used therefrom
The mystic link to bind and hold
Spirit to matter till death come.

‘Tis of the essence of life here,
Though we choose greatly, still to lack
The lasting memory at all clear,
That life has for us on the wrack
Nothing but what we somehow chose;
Thus are we wholly stripped of pride
In the pain that has but one close,
Bearing it crushed and mystified.

Source: The Poetry of Robert Frost, (c. 1969 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.) pp.19-23. Robert Frost (1874-1963) was born in San Francisco but moved following his father’s death to Lawrence, Massachusetts. Frost held various jobs throughout his college years. He was a worker at a Massachusetts mill, a cobbler, an editor of a small town newspaper, a schoolteacher and a farmer. By 1915, Frost’s literary acclaim was firmly established. On his seventy-fifth birthday, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution in his honor. The State of Vermont named a mountain after him and he was given the unprecedented honor of being asked to read a poem at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy in 1961. Through the lens of rural life in New England, Frost’s poetry ponders the metaphysical depths. His poems paint lyrical portraits of natural beauty, though ever haunted by shadow and decay. You can learn more about Robert Frost and sample more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.

[1] Robinson, Marilynne, Gilead (c. 2004 by Marilynne Robinson; pub. by Farrar, Straus and Giroux) pp. 149-151.

TWENTY-FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Amos 5:18-24

Psalm 70

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

Matthew 25:1-13

Prayer of the Day: O God of justice and love, you illumine our way through life with the words of your Son. Give us the light we need, and awaken us to the needs of others, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

“Then all those young women got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise replied, ‘No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’” Matthew 25:7-9.

On the surface, the conduct of the “wise” women seems at odds with the one who shared his meager store of fish and bread to feed five thousand hungry mouths. This parable, however, is just that, namely, a parable. It is not a fable with a moral. What the wise women cannot share with their foolish companions is their wisdom. One must learn the hard way that life seldom goes as planned. A wedding feast can be delayed by any number of occurrences beyond the control of the participants. The baker’s assistant drops the wedding cake. The presiding clergy get stuck in traffic. The eight year old ring bearer drops the rings over a drainage grate. The cute little flower girl throws a tantrum and throws herself on the floor just as the procession is supposed to begin. Trust me, over forty years of ministry, I have seen it all. Few weddings come off entirely as planned.

Similarly, the coming of God’s reign does not go according to anyone’s schedule. It breaks without warning into a world filled with tragedy, wickedness and danger. The reign of God is revealed on an instrument of execution and the new creation comes to life where life typically ends-the grave. It takes a patient, watchful and attentive wisdom to discern precisely when, where and under what circumstances that reign will appear and what its appearing will require of us. A shallow and simplistic faith that falls apart like a cheap shirt when life goes off the rails will not do. Only faith that has grown wise through the experiences of grief, disappointment and loss can enable the disciple of Jesus to go the distance.

While I would never say that deathbed conversions are impossible, I have never seen one and I suspect they are exceedingly rare. That is because faith strong enough to brave even death grows out of experience through which one learns again and again the reliability of God’s promises, the wisdom of the scriptures and the example set by communities of saints who have traveled the path one is having to negotiate. It takes a lifetime to learn the meaning of taking up the cross, doing and saying the right thing regardless the consequences and dying with confidence, grace and dignity. It takes a lifetime to learn to recognize Jesus in the face of every stranger you meet and to realize each opportunity you have to enter into God’s reign of justice and peace by serving the neighbor dismissed as “the least” by the rest of society. Faith, as Soren Kirkegaard teaches us, is a habit of the heart. Like all habits, faith is learned and strengthened by practice, by repetition and progress from baby steps to a mature and steady walk.

“I believe that by my own understanding or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him.” So says Luther’s Small Catechism. That is undeniably true. Yet though I am incapable of generating faith on my own, I can join the communion of saints in worship. I can receive the sacrament of Holy Communion. I can read the scriptures, pray the psalms and listen with care to the preaching and teaching of the church. I can choose to place myself in the service of my neighbor in need, advocate for the most vulnerable among us and support with my financial resources the church’s mission and ministry to them. Through all of this, “I am enlightened [ ] with [the Holy Spirit’s] gifts, made [ ] holy and kept [ ] in the true faith.” Martin Luther’s Small Catechism, The Apostle’s Creed, Article 3. Can such faith be shared? Yes. But it is not a commodity that can be poured into a fading lamp as simply as oil. Like Philip who invited his skeptical brother Nathaniel to “come and see” the Rabbi from Nazareth, we can do no more than extend the invitation to enter into relationship with the one who promises to school us in the wisdom required to recognize the dawn of God’s reign wherever it happens to appear.

The arrival of God’s reign has begun for all who are prepared to receive it. It is happening wherever churches and individuals are opening their homes to give shelter and give sanctuary to refugees. The reign of God presses in upon this world wherever welcome is given to strangers; wherever generosity extends to the poorest, sickest and hungriest among us. The reign of God shakes the foundations of the status quo whenever truth is spoken to power. The voice of the bridegroom is calling to all who are armed with the wisdom and courage to answer it joyfully with hope and expectation.

Here is a poem by Tanya Winder that speaks of the disciplined and communal way of life that breeds wisdom required for a mature and enduring faith.

Being

Wake up, greet the sun, and pray.

Burn cedar, sweet grass, sage—

sacred herbs to honor the lives we’ve been given,

for we have been gifted these ways since the beginning of time.

Remember, when you step into the arena of your life,

think about those who stand beside you, next to, and with you.

Your ancestors are always in your corner, along with your people.

When we enter this world we are born hungry,

our spirits long for us to live out our traditions

that have been passed down for generations.

Prayer, ceremony, dance, language—our ways of being.

Never forget you were put on this earth for a reason—

honor your ancestors.

Be a good relative.

Source: Poetry (March 2021). Tanaya Winder is a performance poet, writer, motivational speaker, and educator. She was raised on the Southern Ute reservation in Ignacio, Colorado and is an enrolled member of the Duckwater Shoshone Tribe. Her interest in poetry began in her senior year of high school. Winder attended Stanford University and, although she set out to become a lawyer, she switched to English in her sophomore year, graduating in 2008 with a BA in English with an emphasis on Creative Writing. In 2010, she won the Orlando Poetry Prize and in 2013 she appeared on TEDxABQ with a talk called “Igniting Healing.” In 2016 Winder was named one of the “Native American 40 (Leaders) under 40” by the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development. You can read more about Tanaya Winder and sample more of her poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.

ALL SAINTS SUNDAY

Revelation 7:9-17

Psalm 34:1-10, 22

1 John 3:1-3

Matthew 5:1-12

Prayer of the Day: Almighty God, you have knit your people together in one communion in the mystical body of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Grant us grace to follow your blessed saints in lives of faith and commitment, and to know the inexpressible joys you have prepared for those who love you, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.” Revelation 7:9.

“We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church.” Nicene Creed, Third Article.

“‘why is it we only take people from shithole countries,’ right? Why can’t we have some people from Norway, Sweden — just a few — let us have a few, from Denmark. Do you mind sending us a few people? Send us some nice people, do you mind? But we always take people from Somalia, places that are a disaster, right? Filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime.” Donald J. Trump, President of the United States.

Heresy is a dirty word among us so-called progressive American protestants. Shaped as we are by extreme individualism and postmodern skepticism, we are loath to suggest or even imply that the values of inclusiveness and diversity know any limits. In common parlance these days, it is not unusual to hear people speak of “their truth,” as though truth were little more than a personal opinion. While such jargon might appear at first blush as open minded and accepting, it is actually nothing of the kind. Unbridled skepticism finally leads into the world of conspiracy theories, junk science and “alternative facts.” An open mind without filters is like a drain without strainer. It is bound eventually to become so thoroughly clogged with gunk that nothing can get through any longer. Rejecting falsehood is merely the flipside of acknowledging the truth.

As our friend Augustine of Hippo reminds us, truth is objective and eternal. Though it may be found in human philosophy, science or literature, all truth finally belongs to God. No human being or religious community (the church included) can claim to know and understand all truth fully and completely, anymore than they can claim to know God fully and completely. It does not follow, however, that nothing of the truth can be known or that all truth claims are relative.  We confess that, as good creatures of God living in God’s good creation, our senses by which we perceive the world and our minds with which we contemplate it are reliable receptors of what is true, beautiful and good.

Of course, our perceptions of truth are not infallible. In science, history, philosophy, politics and all other fields of human endeavor, we continue to discover that the conclusions we thought were well founded are actually incomplete or altogether inaccurate. The same is true for the church. Assumptions held for centuries about the nature of the cosmos, human physiology and psychology have been shown to be false. Our understanding of the scriptures, their message and application have grown and changed over the years in response to the truth we have learned from other sources. Heresy, though usually associated with novel teachings, has just as often manifested as a once traditional belief held with tenacity long after it has proven to be misleading and inconsistent with Jesus and the reign of God he proclaims. Therefore, our search for truth must always be undertaken with openness, humility and a readiness to be surprised.

Not every disagreement within the church suggests the presence of heresy. Different Christian traditions differ in their understandings of ministry, the sacraments and doctrine. While important and worthy of serious discussion and debate, these disagreements do not amount to heresy. So, too, believers may disagree over how faithfully to address important societal issues without rupturing the unity, holiness or apostolic authority of the church. Nevertheless, there are truths we confess that are not negotiable. One of these is the biblical and creedal confession of the unity of the human family. Paul’s assertion in his speech to the Athenians that “[f]rom one ancestor [God] made all peoples to inhabit the whole earth” (Acts 17:26) is grounded in the Genesis creation accounts. It is affirmed in God’s promise to make of Abram a nation of blessing (not privilege) to all peoples. Genesis 12:1-3. That God’s reign is intended for the whole human family in all of its diversity is affirmed by the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah 49:6. It is illustrated in our lesson from Revelation in which John of Patmos sees in a vision the consummation of God’s reign in the Holy City embracing peoples of every nation, tribe and tongue.

The City of God, according to Augustine, consists of all human and celestial beings united in their love for God and their seeking to glorify Him. To be a disciple of Jesus is to owe one’s ultimate allegiance to that city and to the one holy, catholic and apostolic church, the existence of which testifies, however imperfectly, to the inbreaking of that reign into human history. Nationalism, whether “Christian” or otherwise, is therefore heresy. The words “America first” can never be on the lips of a disciple. Obedience to any form of human government or any governmental leader can never rise higher than Jesus’ command to love all our neighbors, including those declared enemies of the state. Faith that puts nation, blood or soil above the welfare of any other people; religion that permits humanly drawn borders or boundaries to separate ourselves from any of our human siblings; doctrine that sanctifies segregation, justifies inequality and promotes exclusiveness is heretical. All Saints Sunday affords preachers the opportunity to remind us once again that God’s redemptive intent for creation embraces the whole human family.

Here is a poem by Berthod Brecht speaking of the unity of the human family and issuing a call to solidarity echoing the biblical witness to that unity.

All of us or none

Slave, who is it that shall free you?
Those in deepest darkness lying.
Comrade, only these can see you
Only they can hear you crying.
Comrade, only slaves can free you.
Everything or nothing. All of us or none.
One alone his lot can’t better.
Either gun or fetter.
Everything or nothing. All of us or none.

You who hunger, who shall feed you?
If it’s bread you would be carving,
Come to us, we too are starving.
Come to us and let us lead you.
Only hungry men can feed you.
Everything or nothing. All of us or none.
One alone his lot can’t better.
Either gun or fetter.
Everything or nothing. All of us or none.

Beaten man, who shall avenge you?
You, on whom the blows are falling,
Hear your wounded brothers calling.
Weakness gives us strength to lend you.
Come to us, we shall avenge you.
Everything or nothing. All of us or none.
One alone his lot can’t better.
Either gun or fetter.
Everything or nothing. All of us or none.

Who, oh wretched one, shall dare it?
He who can no longer bear it.
Counts the blows that arm his spirit.
Taught the time by need and sorrow,
Strikes today and not tomorrow.
Everything or nothing. All of us or none.
One alone his lot can’t better.
Either gun or fetter.
Everything or nothing. All of us or none.

Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (1898-1956) was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. He grew up during the Weimar Republic and had his first successes as a playwright in Munich. In 1924 he moved to Berlin where he wrote The Threepenny Opera with Elisabeth Hauptmann and Kurt Weill. There he also began a lifelong collaboration with the composer Hanns Eisler. Immersed in Marxist thought during this period, Brecht became a leading theoretician of epic theatre.

When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, Brecht fled to Scandinavia. During World War II he moved to Southern California. There he established himself as a screenwriter while being surveilled by the FBI. In 1947, he was part of the first group of Hollywood film artists to be subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee for alleged Communist Party affiliations. The day after testifying, he returned to Europe, eventually settling in East Berlin. There he co-founded the theatre company Berliner Ensemble with his wife and long-time collaborator, actress Helene Weigel. You can read more about Berthod Brecht and sample more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.

TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST/REFORMATION SUNDAY

Leviticus 19:1-2, 15-18

Psalm 1

1 Thessalonians 2:1-8

Matthew 22:34-46

Prayer of the Day: O Lord God, you are the holy lawgiver, you are the salvation of your people. By your Spirit renew us in your covenant of love, and train us to care tenderly for all our neighbors, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

“’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

This Sunday is celebrated as the Sunday of the Reformation by many protestant churches. I have chosen not to focus on the appointed texts for that day, though the readings for this Sunday point, I believe, to the continuing need for reform within the church. Jesus calls us once again to the pivotal role of love in reading and interpreting the scriptures. Given the way the Bible is frequently misquoted, misinterpreted, coopted for political agendas and employed as a club to intimidate, wound and exclude, Jesus’ reminder that the great commandments are at the heart of all preaching and teaching is more than timely.

Love as Jesus uses it is not without content. To love God is not some mystical, abstract spiritual attachment to an amorphous deity. The God to which Jesus refers is the God of Israel; the God who chooses and liberates the enslaved; the God who is referred to throughout the Hebrew Scriptures as “father of the fatherless,” “protector of widows,” “rescuer of the weak and the needy.” To love this God is to share God’s fierce, passionate and empathetic solidarity with the most vulnerable among us. “Just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.” Matthew 25:40. That is why Jesus can say that the second commandment is “like” the first and greatest commandment. In fact, the two commands are actually one.

The most powerful expression of that love is the Incarnation in which God puts God’s “skin in the game” of creation. The strength of that love is God’s determination to keep God’s skin in the game even after experiencing the full fury of humanity’s hatred and violence. God’s Resurrection of the crucified Son and his being offered once again to the world that rejected him demonstrates that God will not be drawn into the vortex of retribution that characterizes so much of human history. God meets all human resistance with undying love. To meet your enemies with love and prayer, to turn the other cheek when stricken and greet the stranger with kindness and hospitality is to be “perfect” as God is perfect. Matthew 5:38-48. To love God is to love the neighbor and loving the neighbor is the only way to love God.

The scriptures, of course, speak in many different voices. Some call for genocidal war against the inhabitants of Canaan. Some relate stories of vengeance, rape and bodily mutilation. Deeply wounded and persecuted people and groups cry out for revenge in the Psalms. Even the devil has a word or two to say on the pages of the Bible. The Bible has given rise to numerous bizarre and dangerous religious movements. It has been used as a club to bludgeon, wound and exclude. The Bible has become in our own time a virtual gold mine of rhetorical ammunition for all sides of the “culture wars.” I would be the last to say that any of the voices within the Bible should be ignored or disregarded. But it must be understood that the Bible is a human book wrought from human experience. We dare to call it God’s word because we believe that God in God’s love is at work in the midst of its messy, difficult and fraught narratives accomplishing God’s own redemptive purpose for creation. When the great commandments are ignored, trivialized and displaced from their central importance, the scriptures can very quickly unravel.

Jesus concludes his discourse by pointing out that on these two commandments, to love God and to love one’s neighbor, “hang all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:40. The import of this is hard to miss. Every interpretation of the scriptures must finally serve the aim of testifying to God’s love for all creation.  Disciples of Jesus are to read the entire scriptures through the lens of the two great commandments as they are enfleshed in the obedient life, faithful death and glorious resurrection of their Lord.

Here is a poem by Wendell Berry reflecting on the transformative power of meeting hostility with forgiveness. It is, I think, a fitting image of the love called for in the great commandments.

Enemies

Source: Indivisible: Poems for Social Justice (Norwood House Press, 2013). Wendell Berry (1934-2026) was a poet, novelist, farmer and environmental activist. He was an elected member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, a recipient of The National Humanities Medal and the Jefferson Lecturer for 2012. He was also a 2013 Fellow of The American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Berry was named the recipient of the 2013 Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award. On January 28, 2015, he became the first living writer to be inducted into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame. You can read more about Wendell Berry and sample more of his works at the Poetry Foundation website.

TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Isaiah 45:1-7

Psalm 96:1-13

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

Matthew 22:15-22

Prayer of the Day: Sovereign God, raise your throne in our hearts. Created by you, let us live in your image; created for you, let us act for your glory; redeemed by you, let us give you what is yours, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

“Give therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” Matthew 22:21.

For too long this encounter between Jesus and his opponents has been interpreted through the lens of our American understanding of the separation of church and state. The role of government relates to “secular” concerns like national security, law enforcement and the filling of potholes. It is an imperfect, but necessary instrument employed by God to impose a semblance of order on the world until the end of time when the reign of God will come in all its fullness. Until the end, the reign of God exists only as an inward spiritual reality that is given expression in the personal piety of believers. Because Caesar is God’s instrument for secular order and God’s reign dwells chiefly within the hearts of believers until the end of the age, the two realms coexist peacefully-unless one or the other oversteps its boundaries. “Jesus is not political,” an old friend of mine was fond of saying. “He came to change hearts, not governments.”

My friend was an evangelical of the better sort. She abhorred nationalistic rhetoric such as frequently championed by the likes of Secretary of Defense/War Pete Hegseth. Though firmly pro-life, she was genuinely concerned about possible effects on the health and welfare of women that might (and ultimately did) flow from the reversal of Roe v. Wade. While she would tell you that there is no salvation apart from personal faith in Jesus Christ and that nothing is more important than bringing others to that faith, she firmly opposed any efforts by public schools to use coercive measures like mandatory prayer in furtherance of that mission. “God doesn’t need the government to do the church’s mission,” she was fond of saying. With that I heartily agree!

Nevertheless, is it true to say that “Jesus is not political?” If that were really the case, I doubt the governing authorities in Jerusalem would have bothered to arrest him. If Jesus were preaching a purely spiritual kingdom content to stay out Caesar’s way, I doubt he would have ended up on the cross. Indeed, a purely spiritual, solely personal and nonpolitical religion is precisely the sort Rome would have been inclined to encourage. A religion that accepts the status quo as God’s established order, keeps religious practice within the realm of personal piety and places its hope on a kingdom far away in the indefinite future seems like one made to order for an empire desiring to exercise exclusive jurisdiction over the here and now. It is, I believe, the kind of religion that led to my own Lutheran church’s acquiescence and complicity with the Third Reich. It is the kind of religion that moved white church leaders to beg Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to urge Black Americans not to demonstrate, but rely instead on prayer, patience and the eventual work of God in the hearts of white southerners to abolish Jim Crow, thereby rendering to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s. It is the kind of religion that, sadly, has resulted in the tepid, weak kneed and half hearted response to America’s war crimes, the mass arrest and deportation of its residents and the killing of its citizens by masked gunmen under color of law. Whatever else you might call such “nonpolitical religion,” it is nothing like the preaching that got Jesus crucified.  

Understand that the question posed to Jesus was designed to trap him. His opponents would never have asked Jesus whether they should pay taxes to Caesar unless they knew already that Jesus stood squarely against imperial power. Jesus did not equivocate. Note well that Jesus had to ask his opponents for the coin used to pay the tax. He had no such coin in his possession. That was not because he was short on change. The coin given him by his opponents had on it an image-the image of Caesar with bold declarations affirming the emperor’s deity. As such, the coin was a blatant violation of the First Commandment, a violation to which Jesus’ opponents pled guilty as soon as they produced it. When Jesus told them to give “to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s,” he was making clear to them that they must decide who will be their Lord: God or Caesar. It cannot be both. Jesus’ opponents were bent on pinning Jesus down to an incriminating position on imperial taxation, but Jesus instead pinned them down on the far greater question of who they were and to whom they belonged. The coin in their possession was damning evidence settling that question decisively.

Make no mistake about it, Jesus is political. His passionate love for the outcast, his empathy for the sick and disabled, his zeal for feeding the hungry and his solidarity with the poor puts him at odds with the claims of empire in all of its governmental, corporate and economic manifestations.[1] Whether Caesar wears the mask of Nero, Hitler, Putin, Trump, Musk, Bezos or Zuckerberg; whether his violence takes the form of public crucifixion or live streamed execution by firing squad; whether torture is inflicted by means of the cross or by paralyzing infusions; whether oppression takes the form outright slavery or labor extracted without payment of a living wage, housing discrimination and crushing medical debt, the same demonic specter of empire exercises its toxic oppression against those least able to resist it. Caesar would be lord and lord alone. He has no intention of sharing his reign with Jesus or anyone else. To that end, he exercises his power through threats, oppression and violence. But that is his only power. Caesar’s power ends at the cross, which is precisely where God’s power begins. God’s resurrection of Jesus following his execution under the legal authority of Rome is God’s verdict against Caesar and the demonic reach of empire in all its forms.

American Christians of all denominational and theological perspectives are, I think, largely blind to the imperial powers that claim control over every aspect of our thinking and our lives. Our churches have accepted all too eagerly our nation’s invitation to become its chaplain, the spokesperson for morality based on its cultural and economic ideologies. We have traded the revolutionary message of the gospel for the hope of evolutionary improvement through the status quo. We have been distracted with efforts to make the empire a little kinder and gentler rather than preaching the empire’s demise under the advent of God’s just and gentle reign. It is for this reason that the Jesus we preach fits so comfortably into civil ceremonies celebrating our wars, praising our settlement of land stolen from its indigenous inhabitants and ignoring the systemic injustice that continues to oppress the most vulnerable among us. Ours is a Jesus that stays out of the way and does not make waves. As pointed out by Professor Joerg Rieger,[2]

“Both the liberal theological projects of “demythologization” and the fundamentalist visions of the end of the world represent extrapolations from the history of empire. In order to say something meaningful and striking about the resurrection and the parousia, theologians felt that they had to do so in ways that would be acceptable to those who make and shape history and that would correspond with their methods of shaping history. Thus, the resurrected Christ of liberal demythologization fits in with the modern world view and does not rock the boat (not even putting a minor scratch on our commonly accepted worldviews), and the yet-to-come Christ of the fundamentalists uses fire and sword and all the other apocalyptic terrors of empire to accomplish his goal.”[3]

So let us be clear. Christ is Lord of heaven and earth. Caesar is lord of nothing. There can be no Christ and Caesar. It is Christ or Caesar. A believer’s life is not split between the governance of empire and the claim of Jesus upon his disciples. Empire has no legitimate claim of authority over disciples of Jesus rising above the great commandment to love God and to love one’s neighbor as oneself. Thus, for example, when Caesar demands that we support, acquiesce in, enable or participate in the violent attack, imprisonment and deportation of our neighbors, whether “documented” or not, disciples of Jesus cannot comply. When Caesar commands us to support, acquiesce in, enable or participate in military action that is disproportionate to any perceived threat, will result in the death of noncombatants and is not likely to succeed in bringing about a just and lasting peace, disciples of Jesus, no matter what uniform they wear, no matter what oath they may have taken, no matter what their position in the chain of command, must refuse to obey. Jesus challenged his opponents, as he does each of us, to decide to whom we will belong.

The first poem by Mary Oliver is one I have shared before. I share it once again because I believe it speaks articulately to the present moment. The question for us: How are we to live obediently in the way of Jesus and witness faithfully to that alternative way of being human known as the reign of God? The second poem by Martin Espada suggests the cruciform shape such faithfulness might take and the resurrection hope that inspires it.

Of Empire

We will be known as a culture that feared death
and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity
for the few and cared little for the penury of the
many. We will be known as a culture that taught
and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke
little if at all about the quality of life for
people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All
the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a
commodity. And they will say that this structure
was held together politically, which it was, and
they will say also that our politics was no more
than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of
the heart, and that the heart, in those days,
was small, and hard, and full of meanness.

Source: Red Bird, (c. 2009 by Mary Oliver; pub. by Beacon Press). Mary Oliver (1935-2019) was born in Maple Heights, Ohio. She was deeply influenced by poet, Edna St. Vincent Millay. Her work received early critical attention with the 1983 publication of a collection of poems entitled American Primitive. She is a recipient of both the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the National Book Award. She spent the latter years of her life in Provincetown on Cape Cod, MA before moving to Florida where she died. Many of her poems reflect the unique features, vegetation and wildlife of the Cape. You can read more about Mary Oliver and sample some of her other poems at the Poetry Foundation Website.     

Vivas to Those Who Have Failed

Strikers without shoes lose strikes. Twenty years after the weavers

and dyers’ helpers returned hollow-eyed to the loom and the steam,

Mazziotti led the other silk mill workers marching down the avenue

in Paterson, singing the old union songs for five cents more an hour.

Once again the nightsticks cracked cheekbones like teacups.

Mazziotti pressed both hands to his head, squeezing red ribbons

from his scalp. There would be no buffalo nickel for an hour’s work

at the mill, for the silk of bow ties and scarves. Skull remembered wood.

The brain thrown against the wall of the skull remembered too:

the Sons of Italy, the Workmen’s Circle, Local 152, Industrial

Workers of the World, one-eyed Big Bill and Flynn the Rebel Girl

speaking in tongues to thousands the prophecy of an eight-hour day.

Mazziotti’s son would become a doctor, his daughter a poet.

Vivas to those who have failed: for they become the river.

Source: Vivas To Those Who Have Failed (c. 2015 by Martin Espada; pub. by W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 2015). Martín Espada (b.1957) is a Puerto Rican-American poet, and a professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he teaches poetry. He was born in Brooklyn, New York where he was exposed to political activism at an early age through the work of his father, Frank Espada, a leader in the Puerto Rican community and the civil rights movement. Espada received a B.A. in history from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a J.D. from Northeastern University (Boston, Massachusetts). For many years he worked as a tenant lawyer and a supervisor of a legal services program. In 1982 Espada published his first book of political poems. In 2001 he was named the first Poet Laureate of Northampton, Massachusetts. In 2018 Espada received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, a lifetime achievement award given by the Poetry Foundation to a living U.S. poet. Espada was the first Latino recipient of the honor. You can read more about Martin Espada and sample more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.

[1] Rejection of empire is not an appeal to anarchy. Government can rightly be understood as a gift of God by means of which we share responsibility for promoting the common good, protecting one another from violence and injustice and caring for the most vulnerable among us. In this context, the often reviled practice of politics is nothing more than the corporate means by which we fulfil the great commandment to love our neighbors. When government (or any other economic, political or corporate entity) purports to assume godlike powers to take life, demands ultimate loyalty or imposes any requirement hindering us from loving our neighbors, including those deemed enemies, it morphs into the demonic character of empire.   

[2] Professor Joerg Rieger is Distinguished Professor of Theology and Cal Turner Chancellor’s Chair in Wesleyan Studies at the Divinity School and the Graduate Program of Religion at Vanderbilt University. He is also the Founding Director of the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice at Vanderbilt Divinity School.

[3] Rieger, Joerg, Christ & Empire (c. 2007 by Fortress Press), p. 321.

NINETEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Isaiah 5:1-7

Psalm 80:7-15

Philippians 3:4-14

Matthew 21:33-46

Prayer of the Day: Beloved God, from you come all things that are good. Lead us by the inspiration of your Spirit to know those things that are right, and by your merciful guidance, help us to do them, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

 “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces its fruits.” Matthew 21:43.

This is one of those texts in the common lectionary that must be handled with care. It lends itself to a supersessionist interpretation, suggesting that God has taken the reign of God away from the Jews and given it to the church. This reading of Jesus’ parable has lent support to the erroneous theological understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures as history of failure and unfaithfulness on the part of the Jews. Worse yet, it has led the church to view the Jews as cursed, rejected by God and therefore justly persecuted as “Kiks,” shorthand for “Christ killers.” The violent oppression of Jews in Europe throughout the middle ages culminating in the Holocaust of the twentieth century illustrates once again that bad theology is lethal. It matters what one believes about God. Accordingly, preachers addressing this parable of Jesus need to keep three things in mind.

First, the parable is not directed against the Jews. It is directed against the ruling class of chief priests and Pharisees who presided over the temple cult in Jerusalem. Jesus was not alone in his criticism of the ruling establishment in Jerusalem and the extraction of temple taxes and exchange rates from the people to enrich themselves and their Roman overlords. The temple was built by Herod the Great, the self proclaimed “king of the Jews” who was not himself a Jew. Most Jews therefore held mixed feelings about the temple in Jerusalem. As successor to the Temple of Solomon, it represented God’s presence among God’s people. But like Jesus, many Jewish prophets and teachers abhorred its corrupt and exploitive practices which they felt were wholly incompatible with God’s just and gentle reign. Accordingly, they warned that Herod’s temple might well suffer the same fate as its predecessor.

Second, at the time Matthew’s gospel was written, there was no “Christian Church” distinct from Judaism. All of the gospel actors, Jesus, his disciples and the chief priests and Pharisees were all Jews. The Jesus movement was one of many messianic groups within the larger Jewish community. It is with this understanding that we need to view the often harsh condemnations traded between Jesus and his opponents. Family arguments can be emotional, fierce and sometimes violent. Yet they are, for all that, family disputes. As a former Missouri Synod Lutheran who lived through the reign of Jacob Preus and the formation of Seminex, I can attest to the fact that strife within religious bodies is far more intense, personal and vitriolic than conflict between them. We cannot superimpose on the much later separate Jewish and Christian communities the intrenicene exchanges between Jewish movements in the first and second centuries. The tragic consequence of such misreading is illustrated below by the poet Charles Reznikoff.

Finally, and this may be the most important point to be made, the reign of God is not anyone’s property. It does not belong to the church anymore than it belonged to the chief priests and the Pharisees. The reign of God belongs to God. It is the privilege of God’s people to proclaim the good news of that reign to the world in word and deed. When God’s people mistake the privilege of sharing the news of God’s reign for a right of ownership, they are in danger of losing it. Those of us responsible for preaching that good news should hear Jesus’ parable as warning and a promise. Preachers are warned that their failure to preach the good news as good news for all people puts them at risk for losing that privilege. God’s people are promised that God will always find some faithful people to proclaim the reign of God for which Jesus lived, died and continues to live.

Ultimately, the privilege of witnessing to God’s reign was taken away from the temple elite following the temple’s destruction. For the Jesus movement, the physical symbol of God’s presence was Jesus manifested in his Body, the church. For the Jews, God’s abiding presence was found in the Torah and the great rabbinic teachers who taught and explained it, giving birth to that rich and diverse community of modern Judaism we know today. In the shadow of the temple’s destruction, God found witnesses to the promise of God’s reign among both Jews and Christians. Both are privileged to make known this good news to the world. Neither can claim ownership.

Here is the above cited poem by Charles Reznikoff characterizing a dialogue between Abrabanel[1] Queen Isabella and Torquemada[2] on expulsion of the Jews from Spain.

Spain: Anno 1492

Source: Poems 1918-1975: The Complete Poems of Charles Reznikoff (Black Sparrow Press, 1977). Charles Reznikoff (1894-1976) was an American poet. He was born in 1894 in Brownsville, a largely Jewish neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. His parents were immigrants who fled the Russian Empire and its pogroms. Reznikoff worked for a time for his family’s business as a hat salesman. He also worked for a legal publishing house where he wrote summaries of court records for legal reference books, an experience that was to influence profoundly his later writing which consisted in the main of refashioning court testimony into poetic verse. From his teens, Reznikoff had been writing poetry. He published his own work using a second-hand press for which he set the type himself.

Reznikoff’s best known poetic writing, Testimony: The United States (1885–1915), is a multi-volume work based on court records exploring the experiences of immigrants, black people and the urban and rural poor in the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His final work, Holocaust (1975), is based on court testimony about Nazi death camps during World War II. You can read more about Charles Reznikoff and sample more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.

[1] Abrabanel is one of the oldest and most distinguished Jewish families. It first achieved prominence on the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages.

[2] Tomás de Torquemada (1420-1498) was the first grand inquisitor in Spain, whose name has become synonymous with the Christian Inquisition’s horror, religious bigotry, and cruel fanaticism.

EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32

Psalm 25:1-9

Philippians 2:1-13

Matthew 21:23-32

Prayer of the Day: God of love, giver of life, you know our frailties and failings. Give us your grace to overcome them, keep us from those things that harm us, and guide us in the way of salvation, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

“What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, ‘The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge’? As I live, says the Lord God, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel. Know that all lives are mine; the life of the parent as well as the life of the child is mine: it is only the person who sins who shall die.” Ezekiel 18:1-4.

Actually, there is more than a little truth to the proverb to which the Lord takes exception in our lesson from the Hebrew Scriptures. We know that many children of abusive, neglectful and inept parents carry for the rest of their lives scars from wounds inflicted by their dysfunctional families. We who live today in the United States have never owned slaves and, unless a good deal older than me (and I’m no spring chicken), have not played any part in implementing or enforcing Jim Crow legislation. Nevertheless, we live with the consequences of these sins which perpetuate themselves systemically in our government, workplaces and educational institutions. Moreover, our children stand to inherit the world we have made for them: a world irreparably ecologically damaged, less prosperous and threatened by the resurgence of fascism. We have eaten the sour grapes of greed, racial hate and violence; their teeth are set on edge by the sorry legacy we have bequeathed to them.

Yet the prophet condemns this saying because, while undoubtedly true, it is not the whole truth. While we may have been born into circumstances created by our ancestors, unlike our ancestors, we are still living and breathing. We are moral agents capable of making moral decisions. We may not be able to erase the scars inflicted upon us in the past. But we can choose whether our past will define our future, or whether our future will bring redemptive meaning to our past. We cannot change our nation’s shameful history of racism. But that does not free us from our obligation to dismantle its continuing presence in our churches, schools, workplaces and government. We say in our confessional liturgy that “we are captive to sin and cannot free ourselves.” That much is true. But the greater truth comes in the absolution which states: “God, who is rich in mercy, loved us even when we were dead in sin, and made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved.” So, yes, you are stuck with a past, much of which you did not make and none of which you can change. But you have been liberated to live in a present governed not by your past, but by God’s future reign. So what are you going to do about it?

I think our biggest problem, and when I say “our” I am speaking principally to my fellow Lutherans, is that, like Ezekiel’s audience, we fixate too much on the confessional liturgy and too little on the implications of the absolution. My childhood religious education emphasized the pervasiveness and power of sin in our individual lives and in society leading to a kind of pious fatalism. I am old enough to remember the days before Martin Luther King, Jr. was a civil rights icon. I can remember my pastor criticizing King and the civil rights movement on grounds that disobeying the government God had established was rebellion against God. Yes, he conceded, racism is a sin and segregation is unjust. But because we live in a sinful world, the justice meted out by human authorities will always be less than perfect. Ours is not the prerogative to resist or overthrow the authority God has instituted. Because we are sinners, we cannot expect anything better from any improvement to or replacement of the authority that already exists. To the contrary, we will likely end up making matters worse.

Thankfully, you are not likely to hear preaching like that in any American Lutheran church today, though I suppose if you were to turn over enough rocks among some of the more reactionary break off Lutheran bodies you might find a specimen or two. Nevertheless, I think the same pious fatalism still infects much of our ministry today. It is just more difficult to recognize because very often it is hidden under activist rhetoric. In a recent article in the Christian Century,[1] Gerardo Marti, professor of sociology at Davidson College observes that “the word inclusive is everywhere….” Yet while usually sincere and rooted in scripture, “over time it has become a moral framework centered on affective warmth rather than structural change.” As a result, the “theology of inclusivity leads to an impasse for the White progressive church: It wants to be prophetic without being disruptive, just without being divisive, welcoming without ever being uncomfortable.”

The paucity of substance in my own Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s commitment to dismantling white supremacy became clear in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. At that time many of us, including yours truly, urged the bishops of the ELCA to call upon the church to make a substantial commitment to reparations to African American victims of racism. See Open Letter to the ELCA Presiding Bishop and Synodical Bishops: A Modest Proposal for Reparational Tithe. I cannot speak for everyone who issued this call, but I received a half page response from the then presiding bishop thanking for me for my interest and informing me that the issue of reparations was being referred to a committee for study. Ah, the committee, that cul-de-sac down which ideas are sent to die! The rationale, I was told, was to develop a program to educate the whole church so that the move for reparations and other more direct actions to address white supremacy would have “buy in” from all members. But again, as Marti observes, the emphasis on analysis, discussion, education, all designed to “get everyone on board,” leads finally to institutional paralysis. The study and consideration of racism gets confused with actually confronting and combating it. The process becomes an end in itself. More than that, it practically ensures that no meaningful action involving risk or sacrifice will ever be taken.

There is little risk in issuing public statements condemning white supremacy and urging justice for its victims. There is no risk involved in synodical conventions breaking its delegates up into little groups to share experiences and feelings about racial issues. It costs nothing to post a “Black Lives Matter” sign on your front lawn. But pledging substantial financial support and making church property and resources available to Black churches and/or Black organizations fighting for equal housing, education and opportunities will surely prove disruptive and very possibly divisive. Some bishops with whom I have communicated tell me that they are pastors to the whole church and that it is their job to build consensus, not dictate. We need to take whatever time that requires.  

To any bishop who might give a tinker’s dam for what a retired small steeple pastor thinks, I respectfully disagree. Bishops are not group facilitators. The ELCA presiding bishop is to “be a teacher of the faith of this church and shall provide leadership for the life and witness of this church.” So says the ELCA constitution at chapter 13, subsection 21. According to the model synodical constitution, bishops are to “[i]nterpret and advocate the mission and theology of the whole church.” Model Synodical Constitution, chapter 8, section 12, subsection g1. No, you cannot dictate what the rest of the church must do. But you can and, if the above cited constitutional provisions mean anything, you must call the church to do concretely what is right and what is just. The church may not listen to you. It might well turn on you and reject you. You may seem to have failed. You might not be reelected. That’s called taking up the cross. Deal with it. Stop acting like the CEO of a failing corporation trembling before the wrath of angry shareholders. You are bishops. You stand in the shoes of the apostles. Speaking hard but redemptive truth is your job. So put on your grown up pants and do it.

Ezekiel’s message is clear. There is no room for resignation. Repentance is a refusal to let the past shape the future. You play the hand you are dealt, however unpromising it might be. You do not throw your cards into the air and walk away from the table. You do not complain that the challenges are too big, that you are too small and the consequences of obedience are too risky. Even in the ashes of defeat and the hostile environment of exile, God is present working a new thing. You can choose to be part of “that number when the saints come marching in,” or you can just sit on the curb and let the parade pass you by.

Here is a poem by Langston Hughes arguing for the recognition of the present time as the day of liberation for people of color. Hughes’ holy impatience reflects that of Ezekiel’s zeal for the future of his people.

Freedom

Source: Selected Poems of Langston Hughes (c. 1926 by Alfred A. Knopf, pub. by Random House, LLC, 1990). Langston Hughes was an important African American voice in the “Harlem Renaissance” of the 1920s. Though well-educated and widely traveled, Hughes’ poetry never strayed far from his roots in the African American community. Early in his career, Hughes’ work was criticized by some African American intellectuals for portraying what they viewed as an unflattering representation of back life. In a response to these critics, Hughes replied, “I didn’t know the upper class Negroes well enough to write much about them. I knew only the people I had grown up with, and they weren’t people whose shoes were always shined, who had been to Harvard, or who had heard of Bach. But they seemed to me good people, too.”  Today Langston Hughes is recognized globally as a towering literary figure of the 20^th Century. You can read more about Hughes and discover more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation website (from which the above quote is taken).

[1] “The Inclusivity Trap,” by Gerardo Marti, The Christian Century, (October 2026), pp. 62-66.

FOURTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Jeremiah 15:15-21

Psalm 26:1-8

Romans 12:9-21

Matthew 16:21-28

Prayer of the Day: O God, with all your faithful followers of every age, we praise you, the rock of our life. Be our strong foundation and form us into the body of your Son, that we may gladly minister to all the world, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

 “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Matthew 16:24.

Jeremiah is a prophet in deep trouble. His relationship with his congregation, the people of Judah, has become toxic. The early delight he took in his calling has evaporated. His ministry seems to be going nowhere. He is alienated from his prophetic colleagues. Unfortunately for Jeremiah, his time knew nothing of today’s cottage industry of pastoral coaches, pastoral burnout counselors and congregational conflict mediators. His only source of consolation is the God who called him. And God does not appear particularly empathetic toward his downtrodden prophet:

“Therefore thus says the Lord:
If you turn back, I will take you back,
    and you shall stand before me.
If you utter what is precious and not what is worthless,
    you shall serve as my mouth.” Jeremiah 15:19.

To paraphrase, “Quit your whining, Jeremiah. I never promised you a rose garden. You can’t expect people to thank you for telling them truths they don’t want to hear. God does not care about polls, favorability ratings or popularity and neither should you. I am bringing this people to a bright new day. That’s good news they are longing to hear. But the way to the new dawn comes only after passing through the dark night of judgment. That is news they are not going to like. Furthermore, they are not going to like you for bringing it to them. You won’t be spared their hostility. The only promise you get is that God will give you what you need to face whatever you have to face. You will become tough as a wall of bronze.” Not exactly the model of pastoral ministry I learned in seminary or the expectations I had for my own pastoral career. I was, of course, determined to work hard at preaching, teaching and pastoral care for my members. But I also anticipated that I would be loved, cared for and supported in return. For the most part, I was. But there were exceptions.

The first time I experience substantial hostility from members of my congregation occurred following the election of Donald Trump in 2016. Though I did not hide my dismay over the outcome of that election, I did not express my views on that subject from the pulpit or in any Bible study class or church meeting. My preaching and teaching did not change. My focus was, as I have always striven to keep it, on Jesus and God’s just and gentle reign for which he lived, died and continues to live. I continued, as I have always done to emphasize Jesus’ call to serve him in those regarded “least” among us. These include the poor, the homeless, the alien and even, perhaps especially, those we regard as enemies. For a significant group of folks within the church, however, such preaching evoked a visceral response. Suddenly, advocacy and support for immigrants, which has been a focus of our Lutheran churches for more than eight decades, was “too political.” Welcome and inclusion of LGBQT+ folk, our policy for the last decade, became a red line of contention. Combative emails, provocative posts on my FB page and angry letters started coming my way. What once were areas of discussion over differing viewpoints became lines of demarcation in an atmosphere of increasing hostility.

I responded by meeting with disaffected members over lunch, individually and in groups. I held discussion groups at which I hoped we might learn to listen to one another, understand one another’s thinking and perhaps diffuse some of the anger. While members who participated were generally receptive, the dissenters only deepened their opposition as it became clear that the congregation at large did not share their outlook on my ministry. My efforts at reconciliation failed. One member angrily and publicly announced his departure from the congregation at our annual meeting, dramatically tossing his church keys on the table in front of me. Another circulated an email to the congregation stating that he would no longer attend or support the church. A few simply disappeared but informed me though remaining members “that there was no need for me to call on them.”

This was a painful chapter in my ministry. The folks who left were people I married, people whose children and grandchildren I baptized and whose loved ones I buried. I suppose I will never stop looking back upon that troubled time and wonder whether there was not more I could have done to bring about reconciliation and peace. Still, unlike poor Jeremiah, I had the support of my congregation. The church council stood solidly behind me. I had the support of sympathetic colleagues in ministry. Moreover, while I encountered a lot of anger, I never received any threats of violence. I am thankful for the love, support and encouragement I received from my congregation and colleagues during those difficult days. I know of many pastors who, like Jeremiah, did not fare so well with their congregations.

As I read Jesus’ words in Sunday’s gospel calling his disciples to take up the cross, I am beginning to wonder whether perhaps I was trying too hard to make peace. After all, didn’t Jesus warn us that he did not come to bring peace, but a sword? Didn’t he tell us that he came to sow division? Matthew 10:34-39. Didn’t Simion warn Mary the Mother of our Lord that Jesus would be “destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed?” Luke 2:33-35. Let us not dilute the impact of Jesus’ challenge in Sunday’s gospel by turning the cross into a generalized metaphor. The cross was an instrument of imperial violence designed to instill terror in the hearts of imperial subjects. From Rome’s standpoint, it was the most powerful reminder that Ceasar was lord and a warning to anyone who dared to dispute that lordship. Jesus’ call to live in a manner that brings one to the cross is therefore a radical political statement. It is a call to witness explicitly, by word and deed, that Jesus, not Caesar is Lord.

I do not believe that the church’s message changes under the reign of Trump or that the task of ministry was any simpler before he came on the scene. To the contrary, I believe the president has made our task clearer, if not easier. As I have said before, we have Trump to thank for exposing the demonic influences of white supremacy, economic oppression and a whole smorgasbord of bigotries that have always been part and parcel of our nation’s DNA. He has, I believe, made it nearly impossible for us to believe any longer in the United States as a benevolent giant whose power and wealth are “blessings” signifying divine approval. That is and always has been a lie in which the American church has too long been complicit. It is time for that to end.

The current regime is doing everything in its power to prop up the dying myth of American exceptionalism. By purging all references to the nation’s history of slavery from our national parks and museums, censoring exhibits at the Library of Congress and bullying universities into substituting propaganda for history, the Trump administration is working frantically to revive a picture of the United States that is deteriorating faster than the lining for the reflecting pool at the Lincoln Memorial. Jesus would not have been the least bit surprised by any of this. He understood and would have us know that empires, the American empire included, are ephemeral. They “fret and strut their hour upon the stage and are heard from no more.” Jesus knew that Rome’s power, like the power of all empires, rested on the fear of its ability to deal out death. With all its military might, Rome was powerless in the face of a man who did not fear death. Rather than shrinking in horror before the threat of crucifixion, Jesus embraced it. He turned Rome’s most powerful symbol of oppression into a lifegiving symbol of liberation.

The word of the cross is tough medicine for an empire that has confused wealth, power and privilege with divine approval. It is perhaps even tougher for a church that has always seen itself as the nation’s chaplaincy and enjoyed the benefits that come with such status. As observed by Rev. Dr. Linda E Thomas, professor of theology and anthropology, Lutheran School of Theology, Chicago:

“People with achieved and ascribed privilege, power, wealth, individually and intersectionality, need to understand how the vectors of demonology operate to give them privilege, access to resources and freedom at the expense of “othering” others. They need to know how they perpetuate demonic systems that give them advantages and grant them social subsidy, monetary subsidization and/or endowment. In other words, historically dominant groups need to know the ways they advance and keep the cancers of racism, sexism, heterosexism, Islamophobia, and other “isms” alive and metastasizing. They can become allies of many different historically subordinated people by replacing discriminatory statutes, decrees and laws that usurp power or nullify the enactment of legislation that promotes equality and equity.”[1]

Preaching that goes to the heart of our sin and calls for repentance at the individual and communal level is likely to spark hostility and opposition within our congregations and the church at large. It might even mean the end of the church as we know it, just as the Babylonian conquest meant the end of Judah as the people knew it. But Jesus reminds us that “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain, but if it dies it bears much fruit.” John 12:24. The surest way to lose one’s life is to cling to it. Matthew 16:25. People fixated on the past will never see the Kingdom of heaven coming to us out of God’s future. People terrified of death will never see through its darkness to the resurrection. People unwilling to face God’s judgment will never find God’s grace. This word of the cross is a hard word; but it is a good word for the church, for our nation and for the world.

Here is a poetic meditation by William Dean Howells on Jesus’s inquiry, “what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life?”

What Shall it Profit?

If I lay waste and wither up with doubt

The blessed fields of heaven where once my faith

Possessed itself serenely safe from death;

If I deny the things past finding out;

Or if I orphan my own soul of One

That seemed a Father, and make void the place

Within me where He dwelt in power and grace,

What do I gain by that I have undone?

Source: This poem is in the public domain. William Dean Howells (1837-1920) was an American realist, novelist, literary critic, playwright, and diplomat. He was particularly known for his tenure as editor of The Atlantic Monthly, as well as for the novels The Rise of Silas Lapham and A Traveler from Altruria, and the Christmas story “Christmas Every Day”, which was adapted into a 1996 film of the same name. Howells was born in Martinsville, Ohio (now known as Martins Ferry, Ohio). He began at an early age to help his father, a printer and publisher, with typesetting and printing work. In 1852, his father arranged to have one of his poems published in the Ohio State Journal without telling him. He began working at the Journal in 1858 where he wrote poetry, short stories and translated pieces from French, Spanish, and German. In 1860 Howells wrote Abraham Lincoln’s campaign biography, Life of Abraham Lincoln. You can read more about William Dean Howells at the Britannica website.   

[1] “Public Theology, Populism, and Racism in the Post-Obama Era in the United States: A Womanist Summoning,” Linda E. Thomas, pub. in Resisting Exclusion: Global Theological Responses to Populism, (pub. by Evangelische Verlangsanstalt GmbH, Leipzig, Germany, under the auspices of The Lutheran World Federation).

THIRTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Isaiah 51:1-6

Psalm 138

Romans 12:1-8

Matthew 16:13-20

Prayer of the Day: O God, with all your faithful followers of every age, we praise you, the rock of our life. Be our strong foundation and form us into the body of your Son, that we may gladly minister to all the world, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

From as far back as the first time I was told this story in Sunday School as a youngster, I have been made aware that we Lutherans hold that when Jesus said to Saint Peter, “you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church,” he meant Peter’s confession of Jesus as Messiah, not Peter himself. Thus, the Roman Catholic Church’s claims concerning apostolic succession and Papal authority are fundamentally misguided. I have always been suspicious, however, of arguments based on what Jesus “meant” to deflate arguments based on what Jesus actually “said.” It seems clear to me that the identification of the Greek name “Petros” with the Greek word “petra” meaning rock leaves little doubt that Jesus is conferring some measure recognition and status on Peter. I hasten to add, though that there is a long way to go from there to positing a divine mandate for apostolic succession as practiced by Roman Catholics and other church bodies, including now my own ELCA.

What, then, are we to make of Jesus’ declaration about Peter? Perhaps we should turn to our lesson from the prophet Isaiah. Speaking to a disheartened band of returning exiles who discover that life in their ancestral homeland is turning out to be difficult and fraught with danger, the prophet urges his hearers to:

“Look to the rock from which you were hewn
    and to the quarry from which you were dug.
Look to Abraham your father
    and to Sarah, who bore you,
for he was but one when I called him,
    but I blessed him and made him many.” Isaiah 51:1-2.

The prophet also refers to Abraham and Sarah as rock. But he does not lift them up as heroes or great leaders. The emphasis is not on the virtues of these two ancient ancestors, but on what God was able to do with them. They were but a single family living as aliens and sojourners among hostile peoples. Yet God raised up from them not only Israel, but several other nations. That, too, is the thrust of the gospel message. Jesus says of Peter, on this rock I will build my church. Thus, it is neither Peter’s status among the twelve nor his confession (which we know was somewhat misguided) that matters most. What matters is Jesus’ promise to build up his church.  

What importance does this have for us? First, we know a few things about Peter. He is a frequent spokesperson for the disciples, but often less than perceptive. He does not understand Jesus’ parables and his questions often betray profound misconceptions about the reign of God Jesus proclaims. We know that, after vowing to go to prison and even death with Jesus, he denies knowing him when the opportunity to fulfil that vow arrives. Just as Abraham and Sarah were unlikely prospects for nation building, so Peter does not strike us as a very reliable cornerstone of Jesus’ church. But their vulnerabilities and shortcomings do not limit God’s determination to work God’s redemptive purpose in their lives.

Second, “the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.” Bear in mind that this declaration is made before Peter’s denial of Jesus. Peter, we know, is bound to fail. The church regularly fails to live into its calling as a witness to Jesus and the reign of God he proclaims. Nonetheless, the church, with all its faults, is God’s building project. In so many ways, in our private and corporate lives, we deny the Lord we proclaim. Yet Jesus does not ever deny his church. Once again, the stones are only the building material. Jesus is the builder on which the structure depends. What Jesus begins, Jesus finishes.

Third, there is an awesome responsibility placed upon Peter. He is given the keys of the kingdom, the power to bind and the power to loose. There has been no shortage of scholarly debate over exactly what that means. I will not attempt to summarize it here. But at a bare minimum, it means that the words spoken and the acts done by Peter and through the church are powerful and have eternal consequences. The charge to exercise prophetic ministry is not a privilege. It is solemn charge to speak God’s words of judgment and grace. Properly spoken, these words bring light into the darkest places, hope where there is despair and open up new paths where life seems to have hit a dead end. Get it wrong and bloody crusades are launched, heretics and supposed witches are burned at the stake and Tomahawk missiles slaughter innocent school girls. Great responsibility and, I would add, accountability is placed upon Saint Peter and the church that will be built upon his ministry. The church will always be in need of criticism, repentance and reform if it is to remain faithful.

Finally, the gospel reminds us that Jesus sees in those he calls far more than they are able to see in themselves. Where the rest of the world saw only an unlearned fisherman, Jesus saw Saint Peter the Apostle. Where the rest of the world saw only a corrupt tax collector, Jesus saw Matthew the Apostle. As an ecclesiastical insider, I don’t need anyone to tell me how corrupt church institutions can be, how ambitious for power, how mean and petty we clergy can be and how self centered and unwelcoming congregations can be. But every so often, just often enough to keep me believing in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church, something extraordinary happens. A church assembly votes and takes concrete steps to welcome individuals and groups formerly excluded by both church and society in spite of the institutional consequences, such as loss of membership and financial support. A pastor takes a principled stand for justice that puts their call, their livelihood and their standing with ecclesiastical authority in jeopardy. A congregation puts its endowment into a promising but risky ministry  to its community. In short, every so often we discover that we are more than we think we are. We have gifts for ministry we never dreamed we possessed. We find ourselves doing what we never imagined possible. When that happens, it’s beautiful.

Here is a poem about calling and commission from an anonymous source.

Father to Daughter

Let no one tell you, girl,

          that the mountain is too high,

the evil too deeply entrenched,

          the valley too steep

or that it’s too far to the sky.

          Let no one say, my child,

that your dreams are too big,

          that you are too small,

that what your heart tells you is right

          can never be and so ignore its call.

Let no man convince you to be practical

          or chide you for lacking common sense.

For it just may be that God’s been waiting

          endless ages for someone

blind to conventional wisdom,

          someone brave enough to be compassionate

instead of simply strong,

          someone who would rather die

for a good cause than live for none at all.

          So ignore all words of caution

and shut out all well meaning advice.

          Silence the timid voice of warning

and listen instead with your whole heart to the call.   

Source: Anonymous