Text used – Amos 5:18-24

• The Pharisees asked Jesus when God’s kingdom was coming. He replied, “God’s kingdom isn’t coming with signs that are easily noticed.  Nor will people say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ Don’t you see? God’s kingdom is already among you.” Then Jesus said to the disciples, “The time will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Human One, and you won’t see it.  People will say to you, ‘Look there!’ or ‘Look here!’ Don’t leave or go chasing after them.  The Human One will appear on his day in the same way that a flash of lightning lights up the sky from one end to the other.  However, first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.[1] → This passage comes from Luke 17:20-25. Jesus predicting the return of the Human One (or “Son of Man” in many other translations).
  • “Human One/Son of Man” = trad Heb. phrase referring to Messiah
  • Mk 13 = another ch. heavily devoted to predicting the 2^nd coming
  • Jesus always accompanied these predictions of the Messiah’s return with a warning that none – not even Jesus himself! – would know the day or time of that return,
    • End of Mk 13: (Jesus) “But nobody knows when that day or hour will come, not the angels in heaven and not the Son. Only the Father knows. Watch out! Stay alert! You don’t know when the time is coming. … What I say to you, I say to all: Stay alert!”[2]
    • Hear the same warning in our Scripture reading this morning (in no uncertain terms!): Doom to those who desire the day of the Lord! Why do you want the day of the Lord? It is darkness, not light; as if someone fled from a lion, and was met by a bear; or sought refuge in a house, rested a hand against the wall, and was bitten by a snake. Isn’t the day of the Lord darkness, not light; all dark with no brightness in it?[3]
  • And yet despite all of these warnings, a whole lot of people have focused pretty heavily on trying to know and predict just that: the day and time of Jesus’ Second Coming.
    • Both past and future predictions (just from Wikipedia)[4]
      • [read first and last]
      • [congregational involvement – any # btwn 2 and 51]
      • And as entertaining as it may be to read through some of these, they’re what I would call righteous (?) distractions – distractions because when the focus is so unilaterally trained on trying to figure out when Christ is coming back, it pulls people away from the other things that God calls us to: compassion, service, love, even prayer. And righteous (?) because, while it may seem like a righteous pursuit, the Bible definitely has some other things to say about that.
• Enter today’s Scripture reading from the prophet Amos.
  • Amos = one of those 12 minor prophet books all sort of smooshed together at the end of the First Testament
    • Find it btwn Joel and Obadiah
    • Scholar: There is almost unanimous agreement that the book of Amos is the earliest of the prophetic books. As such, it marks the beginning of a unique tradition in the history of religion: prophecies of the approaching end of the existence of God’s people based upon God’s judgment of them for failing to live according to the divine standards.[5]
    • Very beginning of Amos gives us some historical context: These are the words of Amos, one of the shepherds of Tekoa. He perceived these things concerning Israel two years before the earthquake, in the days of Judah’s King Uzziah and in the days of Israel’s King Jeroboam, Joash’s son.[6]
      • Follow me on the history of this one for a minute: places Amos in generation that experienced the division of the northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern Kingdom of Judah
        • Kingdom of Israel was one united nation under kings David, Solomon, and Solomon’s son, Rehoboam
        • Jeroboam led rebellion against Rehoboam
        • Israel split into northern kingdom (Israel) and southern kingdom (Judah) with Jeroboam ruling Judah and Rehoboam ruling Israel[7]
        • King Uzziah succeeded King Rehoboam in Israel → Voila! Amos’s timeline.
  • Most of Amos = lots of doom and gloom for pretty much everyone
    • Beginning of the book = admonitions for nations/peoples surrounding Israel at the time [read some section headings][8]
    • Lead up into ch. 3 and beyond → Amos’ focus lands squarely on the people of Israel [read more section headings][9]
      • Section heading for today = “A statement of divine disgust”
  • And the gist of God’s disgust as expressed through Amos is that the people have become distracted! They’ve succumbed to righteous (?) distractions.
    • Earlier (beginning of Amos 5): The Lord proclaims to the house of Israel: Seek me and live. But don’t seek Bethel, don’t enter into Gilgal, or cross over to Beer-sheba; for Gilgal will go into exile, and Bethel will come to nothing. Seek the Lord and live, or else God might rush like a fire against the house of Joseph. The fire will burn up Bethel, with no one to put it out.[10]
      • Bethel, Gilgal, Beer-sheba = not sites associated with other religions → all pilgrimage sites for the ancient Israelites → Now, I know we aren’t quite into today’s reading yet, but this is really important. These were Israelite pilgrimage sites – sites that were supposed to be considered holy, sites that people were supposed to make sacred journeys to for various religious feast days throughout the year.
        • Beer-sheba = place where Isaac settled → God appeared to Isaac in a dream there, so Isaac built a shrine for God at Beer-sheba[11]
        • Bethel = place that Jacob rested after fleeing when he stole Esau’s blessing from Isaac → place where Jacob dreamed about the ladder going up to heaven[12]
        • Gilgal = integral part of the Exodus story → Israelites escaped slavery in Egypt, finally finished wandering in the wilderness for 40 yrs. with Moses, then crossed the Jordan with Joshua and camped at Gilgal[13]
        • These have been holy sites for the people of Israel for generations … for centuries, even. And yet through Amos, God is saying, “No. They’ve become distractions for you.”
  • We hear this sentiment echoed in today’s text: I hate, I reject your festivals; I don’t enjoy your joyous assemblies. If you bring me your entirely burned offerings and gifts of food – I won’t be pleased; I won’t even look at your offerings of well-fed animals. Take away the noise of your songs; I won’t listen to the melody of your harps.[14] → This has to be confounding for the people who heard Amos’ message because all those things that he’s talking about – the festivals, the assemblies, the offerings, the harps – they’re all things set out by God as means of worship way back in the time of Moses (in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). And yet here is God saying, “Nope. Those aren’t important. You’ve lost sight of what’s really important … what is truly righteous.”
    • Main issue: Israelites during that time had turned worship into a social event → all of these festivals, assemblies, etc. were all about the gathering aspect for the feasts and celebrations … but less and less about how God was calling them to do and be in this world
• So how do we start thinking about and interacting with this text?
  • Prominent theology and author (and, btw, Presbyterian) MaryAnn McKibben Dana highlights the discomfort we find in this text: Amos focuses his ire on the people’s festivals, assemblies, and offerings to God. Few things are more personal. How we worship, how we engage with one another, and what we give to God all speak volumes about who we are. It stings to be told that these are not right or good enough, so it is no wonder that we have learned to tune out the likes of Amos.[15]
    • So what would God’s words through Amos sound like if they were spoken to us today? What are the things that within the life of the church that we find distracting?
      • Secret: just because it happens within the walls of the church building (or even within the walls of this sanctuary) OR just because someone stamps God’s name on it or declares their words/actions “in the name of Jesus” doesn’t make any of it authentically faithful
        • Age-old joke in the church has to do with congregations coming to blows with one another over the color of the carpet … And we laugh … but it’s out there for a reason. It’s out there because it’s happened. More than once. WAY more than once. Do we really think God cares one iota about the color of the carpet? Or whether a particular congregation’s name legally begins with “The” or not? Or what bowl the peas are served in during the yearly dinner?
        • Goes deeper than just internal actions → meme going around: “The Bible is clear” is a term often used to force beliefs and morality on people who don’t follow the Bible. But the Bible IS clear, for those who follow it: Love your neighbor, welcome the stranger, serve the least, feed the hungry, forgive debts, choose the other, be a peacemaker. → Basically, friends, this is a commentary on the rampant proof-texting that is flying around in the Church today – the practice of pulling one single verse out of the Bible to prove whatever point you’re making while ignoring things like context (both context within the Scripture itself like what verses are around the particular verse in question as well as the context in which these ancient words were written) and ignoring God’s overarching message of love and compassion and mercy that’s woven throughout the entirety of Scripture.
          • Amos hammers this home with that last verse: But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.[16]
          • Scholar drives home the heart of this: Amos is not telling us that God despises worship. Amos is telling us that worshiping, respecting, and honoring God are not just about performing ritual. Ritual without action in the world is meaningless. Ritual without meaning behind it – or perhaps without the heart behind it – is pointless. The church cannot claim its calling my worship alone. God commands that we practice justice and that we help usher in the kingdom of God with our own hands in prayer and in deed.[17]
  • Prolific Christian theologian, scholar, teacher, and UCC pastor Walter Brueggemann: The prophetic tasks of the church are to tell the truth in a society that lives in illusion, grieve in a society that practices denial, and express hope in a society that lives in despair. → Friends, Amos makes it clear because God made it clear to him: faith must be paired with actions, not that lift up ourselves and those like us, but those who are in deepest need – those who have been left out, those who have been tossed out, those who have nothing left, those who had nothing to begin with. Our call is Christians is not just to reach down into the fray whenever it’s most comfortable for us but to get down in that fray with those who need us because that is where Jesus spent his time. Everything else? Just a distraction … righteous … or otherwise. Amen.

[1] Lk 17:20-25.

[2] Mk 13:32-33, 37.

[3] Amos 5:18-20.

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictions_and_claims_for_the_Second_Coming.

[5] Donald E. Gowan. “The Book of Amos: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections” in The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary series, vol. 7. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996), 339.

[6] Amos 1:1.

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kings_of_Israel_and_Judah.

[8] Amos 1:2-2:5.

[9] Amos 2:6 – the rest of the book.

[10] Amos 5:4-6.

[11] Gen 26:23-33.

[12] Gen 28:10-22.

[13] Josh 4:19-5:12.

[14] Amos 5:21-23.

[15] MaryAnn McKibben Dana. “Proper 27 (Sunday between November 6 and November 12 inclusive) – Amos 5:18-24, Pastoral Perspective” in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary – Year A, vol. 4. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 268.

[16] Amos 5:24.

[17] Noelle M. York-Simmons. “Proper 27 (Sunday between November 6 and November 12 inclusive) – Amos 5:18-24, Homiletical Perspective” in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary – Year A, vol. 4. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 269.

Text used – Matthew 23:1-12

• Sometimes, when we read Scripture, we find ourselves in the midst of passages that challenge us.
  • Challenge the way we think
  • Challenge the way we believe
  • Challenge us in that they challenge the status quo of the world around us
  • Challenge us in that they point out flaws and failings we’d rather turn a blind eye to – flaws and failings in ourselves and in our society that we’ve done a perfectly good job ignoring and glossing over up to this point, thank you very much.
  • But as the incredibly profound and undeniably prophetic Rachel Held Evans wrote in her book Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again[1], the Bible we read and study and memorize and love is a Bible that rarely behaves. And yet as those who claim and covet the sacredness of this book, we are called not only to read it for the sake of reading it but also to wrestle with it in the same way that Jacob wrestled with God – a way that cannot help but leave us changed.
• Today’s passage = just such a wrestling, calling-out, leave-you-changed sort of passage
  • May seem easy to read and explain away on the surface – “That’s just the scribes and the Pharisees that Jesus is condemning here. He was always butting heads with them because they were just wrong. But that’s literally ancient history – ancient Jewish history. It’s not today.” → And yet, when has God ever called us to a shallow, surface faith? Throughout the history of Scripture and the history of the Church, when has God ever called people to the comfortable message or the easy understanding?
  • So before we dive into today’s text, let’s talk a little bit about where we find it situated in Matthew’s gospel.
    • Scholar digs into this for us: With its harsh and sustained polemic, Matthew 23 may strike congregations as a bit of a shock. But Matthew has prepared its audience for this speech by escalating the conflict between Jesus and various authorities. … Things really intensify when Jesus enters Jerusalem and creates a disturbance in the temple. At that point the chief priests and the scribes express consternation (21:14-15). On the next day the chief priests and elders challenge Jesus’ authority directly (21:23). … Jesus then tells two parables, the Two Sons (21:28-32) and the Tenants (21:33-41), which the chief priests and the Pharisees take as an attack upon themselves (21:45). … This series of controversies pits Jesus against the chief priests, the scribes, the elders, the Pharisees, the Pharisees’ disciples, the Herodians, and the Sadducees, sometimes in teams. … Jesus’ criticisms throughout chapter 23 constitute a final response to the pressure he’s been receiving throughout his stay in Jerusalem.[2]
    • Also important to remember that the intended audience for Mt’s gospel is the wider Jewish community → Matthew wrote specifically for the Jews, so of course, the example that he gives them is one that they would culturally understand – an example of those in positions of leadership and power failing to walk the walk, as we would say today.
      • Scholar: Passages like this persuade scholars that Matthew was written for a community alienated from and competing with the synagogue. … Matthew, including in this passage, shows profound respect for the authority of the Hebrew Scriptures and the riches of the Jewish tradition. … Matthew also recognizes that the vanity, hypocrisy, and arrogance that trouble Jesus are a universal human characteristic, not something specific to the Jewish leaders. The point of this passage concerns the true nature of discipleship, rather than a condemnation of a particular people or religion.[3] → So make no mistake, friends. While the surface reading of this is a condemnation of the Jewish authorities surrounding Jesus at the time, it goes both deeper and wider than that.
• You see, friends, at it’s core, this is a passage about authenticity – about genuine witness and genuine
  • Jesus begins passage by highlighting the Pharisees’ authority – text: “The legal experts and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat. Therefore, you must take care to do everything they say.”[4]
    • Phrase “Moses’ seat” = referencing the teaching and administrative authority of the synagogue leadership, scribes and Pharisees → the custodians of the tradition, literally and figuratively caretakes of the Scriptures through both their handling of the holy scrolls and their interpretation/teachings
  • So Jesus gives them this little nod of recognition before turning the tables. – text goes on: “You must take care to do everything they say. But don’t do what they do. For they tie together heavy packs that are impossible to carry. They put them on the shoulders of others, but are unwilling to lift a finger to move them.”[5] → This part of the passage speaks to those ways that the authorities were using their interpretive influence to set the bar too high for those around them, especially when it’s a bar they themselves don’t even attempt to reach.
    • Lots of Christian voices out there trying to tell people who doesn’t belong in the family of God – who doesn’t get to call God “Father” (or “Mother” or “parent”) … who doesn’t get to call Christ “teacher” à But Jesus is pretty clear in this passage that the only ones failing are the ones drawing the lines … the ones pushing people out, not the ones making genuine attempts at faith – at living together as siblings in Christ.
    • Reminds me of the way various groups of Christians insist that any lack of health – physical or mental – is a failing of prayer
      • Stories that make the news every so often of children who die of completely treatable conditions because whatever religious group their family belongs to refuses medical intervention in favor of prayer
        • E.g. – refusal to treat Type 1 diabetes because they’ve been led to believe they can just “pray it away”
      • Story of our friend from a number of years ago (*Ruth – name changed)
        • Struggled with mental health, mainly anxiety and depression
        • Told by the Christian community around her that she simply wasn’t praying hard enough … often enough … well enough → Which, as a strongly committed Christian, only made her more anxious and depressed because she felt like, with everything else she was struggling with, she was also failing in her faith.
        • Finally sought medical help for her mental health → And her life improved dramatically with the help of medications for anti-anxiety and anti-depressants.
    • Now, I’m not saying that medical help is always the answer. I know and dearly love others who have sought and tried basically every medical intervention out there for their own mental health struggles, and none of them have worked. But let me be clear, friends: the state of your prayer life – whatever that may be – does not affect your body’s ability to balance brain chemicals or heal. If you need medical intervention for your health in any way – physical, mental, emotional, whatever – it does not say anything negative about your faith. Period.
      • Effect prayer does have on the brain (according to studies done by Dr. Andrew Newberg and detailed in his book How God Changes Our Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist[6]): Engaging in 12 minutes of personal reflection and prayer each day makes a profound impact on our brain. It strengthens a unique neural circuit that specifically enhances our social awareness and empathy and helps us love our neighbor by developing a heightened sense of compassion and subduing negative emotions.[7]
• This actually leads us into the second point about authenticity that Jesus makes with this passage today. It’s a point about the dangers of hypocrisy – about saying one thing and yet doing another.
  • One of the biggest dangers (even sins) of hypocrisy is the way it denigrates and minimalizes the contributions of others by lifting up a false ideal → And we see this in our text. All the things that Jesus lifts up in those middle verses are about appearing to be the most fervent, the most religious, and therefore making everyone else feel “less than.” – text: Don’t do what they do.For they tie together heavy packs that are impossible to carry. They put them on the shoulders of others, but are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. Everything they do, they do to be noticed by others. They make extra-wide prayer bands for their arms and long tassels for their clothes. They love to sit in places of honor at banquets and in the synagogues. They love to be greeted with honor in the markets and to be addressed as ‘Rabbi.’ But you shouldn’t be called Rabbi, because you have one teacher, and all of you are brothers and sisters. Don’t call anybody on earth your father, because you have one Father, who is heavenly. Don’t be called teacher, because Christ is your one teacher.[8] → Now, is Jesus realistically saying we shouldn’t call another soul “Father” or another soul “teacher”? No. Jesus is saying that with our words and our actions, we should not be elevating anything or anyone above God and Jesus. And finally, we should not be lifting ourselves up above others either.
    • Last portion of text: But the one who is greatest among you will be your servant. All who lift themselves up will be brought low. But all who make themselves low will be lifted up.[9] → That’s the real heavy lifting, friends – lifting others up above ourselves. Frankly, it’s not hard to try to elevate ourselves, right? Even if we aren’t people who like to brag about our accomplishments, we polish up our social media feeds with filters and carefully-staged photos of lives that make everything look happy and beautiful and perfect. #BestLife, right? But how often do we lift up those around us in the same way? How often do we highlight the accomplishments of others? How often do we shine a spotlight – be it on social media or in the intimacy of our own homes – on the good being done and said and lived by those around us?
      • Nationally, we are beyond failing at this → As a nation, we are spending so much time posturing and preening for those around us – those on the other side of the political aisle, those in the next tax bracket, those with the bigger house … the nicer car … the better whatever … As a nation, we’ve spent so much time and effort lifting ourselves up that we have neglected and abandoned and abused those who need us the most. “All who lift themselves up will be brought low. But all who make themselves low will be lifted up.”
        • Speech from Remember the Titans: “Anybody know what this place is? This is Gettysburg. This is where they fought the Battle of Gettysburg. Fifty thousand men died right here on this field, fightin’ the same fight that we’re still fightin’ amongst ourselves today. This green field right here was painted red, bubblin’ with the blood of young boys, smoke and hot lead pourin’ right through their bodies. Listen to their souls, men: ‘I killed my brother with malice in my heart. Hatred destroyed my family.’ You listen. And you take a lesson from the dead. If we don’t come together, right now, on this hallowed ground, we too will be destroyed — just like they were. I don’t care if you like each other or not. But you will respect each other. And maybe — I don’t know — maybe we’ll learn to play this game like men.”

• • • • • Scholar: Equality before God insists not only that the proud humble themselves but that the marginalized take their place among God’s children. Not everyone has the same gifts or fulfills the same role in the community, but all are children of the same God and students of the same teacher. Everyone has a role to play and gifts to contribute in God’s kingdom.[10] → That is the real heavy lifting, friends: lifting up the contributions of others as good, as worthy, as faithful, as pleasing to God … especially when their gifts don’t look like yours. Amen.

[1] Rachel Held Evans. Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson), 2018.

[2] Greg Carey. “Commentary on Matthew 23:1-12” from Working Preacher, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-31/commentary-on-matthew-231-12-6.

[3] Tim Beach-Verhey. “Proper 26 (Sunday between October 20 and November 5 inclusive) – Matthew 23:1-12, Theological Perspective” in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary – Year A, vol. 4. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 260.

[4] Mt 23:2-3a.

[5] Mt 23:3-4.

[6] Andrew Newberg. How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist. (New York: Ballantine Books), 2010.

[7] https://www.westmont.edu/how-faith-and-prayer-benefit-brain#:~:text=First%2C%20engaging%20in%2012%20minutes,compassion%20and%20subduing%20negative%20emotions.

[8] Mt 23:3b-10.

[9] Mt 23:11-12.

[10] Beach-Verhey, 264.

Text used – 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

• Let me ask you a question this morning: How would you tell a story without words? 
  • Images → e.g. – graphic novels
  • Music → e.g. – symphony (think The Magic Flute)
  • Actions → e.g.s – games (charades) and more communicative actions like American Sign Language
  • Other sounds → [PLAY E.G.]

• • Or think about the silent films of the late 19^th and early 20^th → used a combination of actions, facial expressions, costumes, and props but almost no words (save for a few well-placed placards) to tell stories that spanned everything from the simple to the elaborate
  • I was thinking a lot about telling stories without words this week as I was thinking about our Scripture passage because in essence, that’s exactly what it is: a call to tell your faith story … without words.
• Context – 1 Thess
  • One of the letters scholars are nearly 100% certain was actually written by Paul
  • Letter that speaks not to problems the Thess church is experiencing because of challenges from within (members behaving badly) but challenges from without
    • Scholar: Both 1 and 2 Thessalonians are powerful witnesses to the early church’s struggles with the suffering of its members. The Thessalonian letters make it clear that separation from leaders, alienation from former friends, and perennial threats of persecution and even death were [felt across a wide swath of the early church].[1]
  • City of Thessalonike
    • Part of the Roman empire
    • Key trading center in the region = commercial and cultural center
      • Port city located on a bay that led into the Aegean Sea
      • Located on the border of Macedonia and Achaia
      • City included lots of different cultic practitioners of the day
        • Various Macedonian cults (Cabirus and Dionysus)
        • Foreign cults (Egyptians pantheon among others)
        • Roman imperial cult (lifted up emperor as deity) → potent mixture of politics and religion
          • Scholar: It is not difficult to understand why some Thessalonians (those not accepting Paul’s teachings) would castigate Paul’s salvific assembly, which viewed Jesus (not Augustus) as the benefactor and inaugurator of a new age. In the eyes of the Thessalonians, support for Jesus weakened support for the Romans, who had brought tangible benefits to the city. It is important to note, moreover, that criticism of the Pauline believers would have been severely hostile because most Gentiles vehemently opposed Christianity’s exclusivistic claims on hits adherents’ lives.[2] → You see, the Christians were devoted solely to God and to one another above all else … not to the prevailing cult-of-the-moment, not to the city leadership or their fellow citizens, not to the emperor. And this divided loyalty was seen as an unwelcome, even threatening chink in the armor of the Roman empire. So those who were part of the Christian community in Thessalonike suffered ridicule, threats, and persecution.
• So now understanding the backstory better, let’s turn to today’s text – Paul’s opening to his first letter to those Christians in Thessalonike.
  • Begins with Paul’s regular greeting
    • Names himself and those with him at the time (Silvanus and Timothy, in this case)
    • Names his recipients
    • Words of greeting (“grace and peace”)
    • Paul’s expression of gratitude: We always thank God for all of you when we mention you constantly in our prayers. This is because we remember your work that comes from faith, your effort that comes from love, and your perseverance that comes from hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of God our Father.[3] → Before we start talking about non-verbal faith, let’s talk about these words for a minute. I want you imagine with me (close your eyes if you want to) what our world would be like if we greeted one another with a greeting like that on the regular – a greeting that not only affirms that we thank God for whomever we’re greeting but then goes on to name the things we appreciate about that person.
      • Imagine the goodwill that would spread
      • Imagine the bridges that would be built
      • Imagine the days that would be brightened
      • Imagine the lives that would be lifted up
      • And would it really be so hard? In the checkout line at Target to say, “You know what? I thank God for you, Glenn, because you always greet me with a smile, and you remember me, and you take the time out of your day to acknowledge me.” Hmmm. Life goals, I think … to greet people like Paul did.
    • Also need to point out that in Paul’s greeting, we already get an inkling to the suffering that the Thessalonian Christians are undergoing
      • Our transl: We always thank God because we remember “your effort that comes from love” → Gr. “effort” = word that encompasses trouble, difficulty, toil → Paul isn’t trying to whitewash anything or minimize the Thessalonians’ struggle. He’s naming it right off the bat. It’s a part of their faith journey – a crucial, inescapable, unignorable part – and Paul names it. Essentially, he’s saying, “I see you.” You know, often Paul gets a bad rap … and while it’s not entirely unearned (Paul has lots of challenging words, lots of challenging grammatical ministrations, and lots of fallible humanness that he’s wrapped up in), I like this letter to the Thessalonians because it’s one of the moments we get to see the pastoral side of Paul – the compassionate, encouraging side of Paul.
  • Moves from there into the body of the letter → And this is where the “story without words” part comes in. Everything that Paul is talking about is faith enacted, not necessarily faith voiced.
    • Paul’s own words: Brothers and sisters, you are loved by God, and we know that he has chosen you. We know this because our good news didn’t come to you just in speech but also with power and the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction.[4]
    • Paul speaks of his own enacted example: You know as well as we do what kind of people we were when we were with you, which was for your sake.[5]
    • Paul speaks of the enacted faith of the Thessalonian Christians
      • “You became imitators of us and of the Lord …”[6]
      • “You became an example to all believer in Macedonia and Achaia.”[7]
      • Speaks of the welcome others have received from the Thessalonian Christians and “how [they] turned to God from idols”[8]
      • One of Paul’s highest accolades: As a result, you are serving the living and true God, and you are waiting for his Son from heaven.[9]
      • All of these things that Paul is talking about are actions. They’re ways that the Thessalonian Christians were living their faith out loud.
        • Favorite line in this whole passage: The message about the Lord rang out from you, not only in Macedonia and Achaia but in every place. The news about your faithfulness to God has spread so that we don’t even need to mention it.[10]
        • I want you to hear this portion of the text from Eugene Peterson’s translation known as The Message: Do you know that all over the provinces of both Macedonia and Achaia believers look up to you? The word has gotten around. Your lives are echoing the Master’s Word, not only in the provinces but all over the place. The news of your faith in God is out. We don’t even have to say anything anymore—you’re the message! People come up and tell us how you received us with open arms, how you deserted the dead idols of your old life so you could embrace and serve God, the true God.[11] → “Your lives are echoing the Master’s Word … you’re the message!” To Paul, faith is about more than just talking the talk. It’s about walking the walk. It’s about putting feet and hands and a heart and a life on the faith that lives inside your heart.
• We’ve spent a good amount of time talking about testimony in this congregation. We spent Lent a few years ago preparing our own faith stories with preparatory prayers and prompting questions, with dedicated notebooks and time in worship to ponder the various chapters of our faith stories. And we practice putting our faith into words every Sunday morning with both our Glimpses of God time at the beginning of the service and our Exploring the Word Together time after the sermon. But the truth is words can only go so far. Our faith should be about more than just words.
  • Think about your relationships with the people closes to you (family, friends, even coworkers sometimes) → relationships full of …
    • Small, meaningful gestures (story of Darrin/“honey, what’s this?”)

• • • Glances that say more than your words can 
    • Actions that have meant to world to one of you (or maybe both of you) → actions/images that didn’t even require words
    • Sign that I held up when Peter got off the plane at Camp Douglas after his deployment = just an enlarged image of Calvin and Hobbes hugging (no words)
    • If the relationships that fill up our lives and our hearts are built on more than just words, why should our relationship with the God who created us and loves us, the God-With-Us who took on the cumbersome and inadequate nature of human flesh just to put actual flesh and blood and actions on that Amazing Love, the God who continues to move in and through humanity despite our imperfections and our brokenness … why should our relationship with God be relegated to just words?
  • Francis of Assisi: “Preach the gospel at all times and if necessary, use words.”
  • Late and incredibly influential American author Octavia Butler: “All you touch, you change, and all you change changes you.” → Sort of sounds like Paul’s words, doesn’t it? “The message of the Lord rang out from you” … “All you touch, you change, and all you change changes you.” So the ultimate question, friends, is what does your life say about your faith? Not your words. Your Your actions. Your movements. Your priorities. Does the message of the Lord ring out from your life?
    • Leads right into our “Exploring the Word” question this morning: What’s one thing you can change that lets God’s good news ring out through your life?

[1] Abraham Smith, “The First Letter to the Thessalonians: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections” in The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary series, vol. 11. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2000), 673.

[2] Ibid, 677-8.

[3] 1 Thess 1:2-3.

[4] 1 Thess 1:4-5a.

[5] 1 Thess 1:5b.

[6] 1 Thess 1:6.

[7] 1 Thess 1:7.

[8] 1 Thess 1:9a.

[9] 1 Thess 1:9b-10a.

[10] 1 Thess 1:8 (emphasis added).

[11] 1 Thess 1:7-9 (The Message).

Text used – Isaiah 5:1-7

• Maybe you can tell me what these species have in common: garlic mustard … common carp … zebra mussels … common buckthorn … Asian beetles … poison hemlock … Oriental bittersweet … wild parsnip … emerald ash borer. [PAUSE] They’re all invasive species that have made their home here in Minnesota.
  • Definition of an invasive species (from the National Invasive Species Information Center, part of the USDA)[1]: a species that is:
    • Non-native (or alien) to the ecosystem under consideration and,
    • Whose introduction causes or is likely to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health
      • Certainly seen the effects of that harm ourselves → multiple ash trees that we recently had to take down because of emerald ash borers
      • My kids can tell you all about the dangers of wild parsnip as they’ve been thoroughly and dutifully warned about it by my in-laws’ before they head out to adventure in the woods around their property in WI. → just brushing against the plant (let alone breaking the stem) releases sap à sap + sunlight = severe burn within 24-48 hrs. → sensitivity to sunlight for exposed/affected skin can last for years
    • If you spend time in any of Minnesota’s state parks, you’ll find information about identifying invasive species and how to let the MN DNR know what particular invasive species you found and where you found it.
• Invasive species = one of the major issues propelling the effort of reclaiming prairieland across the U.S. → Through our own human intervention – fueled by greed, apathy, entitlement, and hubris – we have become our own invasive species, damaging and even obliterating lands and waterways and all the species that God created specifically for those particular parts of creation. Only in the past few decades have people really begun to recognize just how crucial reclaiming natural habitats like the prairies of the upper Midwest is and will continue to be to the health of our world and everything that lives on it … ourselves included.
  • May sound odd, but I hear the idea of reclaiming natural space in our Scripture reading this morning → So as we dig into it more, I want you to keep that idea of reclaiming space for what God intended in your mind.
• First, an admission: This is a daunting When I was doing my sermon planning a few months ago and I read the passages for today, at first, I discounted this one right off the bat.
  • Way that I plan sermons: RCL = 6 different passages designated for each Sunday → I read through each passage in turn, maybe take a few notes on each, then decide which passage to choose
    • First Testament passages = always first on the list → So for this Sunday, this Isaiah passage was the first one I read, and my initial thought was, “Now how in the heck would I preach that?” But the more I sat with the passages for the day, the more I felt drawn to this one. That being said, I want to acknowledge straight out of the gate that this is not an easy passage. On the other hand, if God didn’t want us to wrestle with hard things, they wouldn’t be a part of the Bible. So onward we go.
• Context reminder: Is = prophet during the Babylonian exile
  • Isaiah himself = part of the exiled population → those forcibly removed from their homeland in Judah and taken on a roughly 900-mi. journey across deserts, rivers, and even mountains (Zagros and Elburz Mountains in modern-day Iran) to a land and a culture and a life completely foreign to them
    • So Isaiah is delivering these words to a people who have been utterly devastated. They’ve been through the pain and trauma of being conquered by an invading army. They’ve been marched away from everything sacred and familiar to them. They’ve had to leave not only familiarity but even sometimes family And they’re just trying to make it in a wholly new and overwhelmingly unknown.
• And yet into this chaos of uncertainty and undesired circumstances, Isaiah speaks these words from God – words about a vineyard tended and cared for … a vineyard that goes horribly wrong.
  • Begins in a way that seems to speak to goodness and care: loved one putting vast amounts of time and effort into creating this vineyard
    • Found not just any parcel of land but a “fertile hillside” = perfect environment for growing grape vines
    • Dug out the land (pre-rototillers, all, so this was no small feat!) and cleared away all the stones → making the already fertile soil even more perfect for nurturing plants
    • Planted “excellent vines” → Heb. indicates the choicest species
    • Also provided for the safety/production of the vineyard
      • Built a tower (watchtower)
      • Dug out a wine vat
      • (Presumably) built a stone wall around the vineyard
    • What Scripture doesn’t indicate = time! – from presentation from the Univ. of California Cooperative Extension “Establishing a Vineyard”[2]:
      • No crop production the first few years, not until Year 4 or 5
      • At least another year is required to produce the first vintage
      • And that’s with modern technology and understandings of how to maximize growth and yields and whatnot! At least 5-6 years before you even begin to see any kind of production from the vineyard. So if our Scripture this morning said the vineyard grew nothing but “rotten grapes,” those plants had to have taken the time to grow and begin producing before the owner even realized just how tragic his situation was.
  • Tell-tale line in the middle of today’s text sheds light on what Is is really talking about: So now, you who live in Jerusalem, you people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard: What more was there to do for my vineyard that I haven’t done for it? When I expected it to grow good grapes, why did it grow rotten grapes?[3] → Remember that these are God’s words conveyed through Isaiah to the people … the exiled people of Jerusalem and Judah. God is speaking to those recently removed from those very places.
    • Now we need to remember what was happening in Judah just before Babylonian exile
      • Kings of Judah had become corrupt and even evil
        • Violent
        • Greedy
        • Most egregious: they had turned not only their own hearts and their own households away from God and to the worship of other gods à they drew the worship of the nation away from God and to those other, pagan gods as well → Through the account of Scripture itself, we know that there is not a single commandment of the 10 that God gave Moses generations earlier that the kings of Judah had not broken.
      • So through Isaiah and through this parable of the carefully, lovingly-attended vineyard gone awry, God is saying to the people, “I cared for you. I worked for you. I tended you and laid down preparations for your best life. And yet despite my best efforts, you have become rotten grapes.
        • Heb. “rotten grapes” = wild, sour, unripe grapes à another transl. = “worthless ones”
• And here is where the reclaiming of the natural space comes in: Now let me tell you what I’m doing to my vineyard. I’m removing its hedge, so it will be destroyed. I’m breaking down its walls, so it will be trampled. I’ll turn it into a ruin; it won’t be pruned or hoed, and thorns and thistles will grow up. I will command the clouds not to rain on it.[4] → Now as a girl who grew up on a farm and spent plenty of my summertime walking beans – putting my own blood, sweat, and tears (literally) into eradicating the fields of those horrible, pernicious, insidious weeds – this sounds awful! “It won’t be pruned or hoed, and thorns and thistles will grow up.” Every farmer and gardener’s nightmare! But if we shift our perspective for a moment, we might actually find both admonition and hope in this.
  • What God isn’t saying
    • The land will be salted so nothing can grow → no mention of that fertile land being damaged to prevent future cultivation
    • The land will be wiped from the face of the earth
    • The land will be taken over by another vigneron (vineyard owner/farmer) can grow crop there instead
    • Even after all that they have put God through, God is refusing to abandon the people! God isn’t calling them hopeless or a lost cause or a mistake. God isn’t even giving them up to the false gods to which they had been led. True, they may not be a vineyard, but there is natural reclaiming that needs to happen in this space – a dramatic return to the way that God intended for the land to be, a dramatic return to the way that God intended for the people to be.
      • Scholar: The truth is clear: the Holy One who planted the vineyard “looked for justice but saw bloodshed; for righteousness but heard cries of distress” (verse 7). This truth-telling is the fulcrum upon which transformation rests. These truths may be hard to hear, yet set the foundation for the flourishing of all. Naming how things really are, not sugar-coating it or pretending maybe things are ok, is necessary. Glossing over reality does not transform it but simply covers it up, making it unavailable for transformation. The vineyard owner is clear-eyed and unapologetic about speaking the truth. Truth-telling is the first, hard, powerful step toward change. But this truth is really hard to hear! We much prefer to be the ones speaking truth to power, power that is elsewhere. But what happens when we are the power? When God speaks truth to power and that power is us?[5]
• You see, in order for that reclaiming to happen, the wall has to come down – the wall that has been built around the vineyard to protect it has to come down. And in the world of the Church, we have built a lot. of. walls. Around ourselves. Within ourselves. Cutting ourselves off from the world around us and from one another. But those walls haven’t kept us safe. They’ve kept us isolated. They’ve kept others out, not to the benefit of the Church but to its utter and undeniable detriment.
  • Virtual Synod mtg. this past week → educational piece from Dr. Corey Schlosser-Hall, Deputy Executive Director for Vision, Innovation and Rebuilding at the Presbyterian Mission Agency
    • Corey’s story about going back to Univ. of Oregon campus
      • Hayward Field → MASSIVE change: bigger, more accessible, able to accommodate more events and better serve both the athletes and the public
      • Koinonia Center → MASSIVE change: bigger, more accessible, included housing (filling a deep need within campus community)
      • Local Presbyterian church in Eugene, OR → no change
    • Discussion of change asked 3 difficult but essential questions in the life of the Church (all on a 1-10 scale):
      • When you think about the next 10 years, do you think things will mostly stay the same and go on as normal? Or do you expect that most of us will dramatically rethink and reinvent how we do things?
      • When you think about how the world and your life will change over the next ten years, are you mostly worried or mostly optimistic?
      • How much influence do you feel you personally have in shaping how the world and your life change over the next 10 years?
        • My addition: the church
  • Reclaiming the prairie can be (and unfortunately is) looked at by some as a destruction, as a backsliding, as the opposite of innovation. But would it really be so terrible to stop preventing the land from returning to its natural state – the way in which God created it to be? As the Church, are we protecting a legacy that has been handed down to us … or are we in fact preventing the wild, diverse, breathtaking, unbounded flourishing of the Holy Spirit in our midst? Amen.

[1] https://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/what-are-invasive-species.

[2] https://ucanr.edu/sites/sdviticulture/files/281943.pdf.

[3] Is 5:3-4.

[4] Is 5:5-6.

[5] Amy G. Oden. “Commentary on Isaiah 5:1-7” from Working Preacher, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-27/commentary-on-isaiah-51-7-11.

Text used – 1 Corinthians 11:17-26

• We believe that Christ’s work of reconciliation is made manifest in the church as the community of believers who have been reconciled with God and with one another; [we believe] that unity is, therefore, both a gift and an obligation for the church of Jesus Christ; that through the working of God’s Spirit it is a binding force, yet simultaneously a reality which much be earnestly pursued and sought: one which the people of God much continually be built up to attain; [we believe] that this unity must become visible so that the world may believe that separation, enmity and hatred between people and groups is sin which Christ has already conquered, and accordingly that anything which threatens this unity may have no place in the church and must be resisted; [we believe] that this unity of the people of God must be manifested and be active a variety of ways: in that we love one another; that we experience, practice and pursue community with one another; that we are obligated to give ourselves willingly and joyfully to be of benefit and blessing to one another; that we share one faith, have one calling, are of one soul and one mind; have one God and Father, are filled with one Spirit, are baptized with one baptism, eat of one bread and drink of one cup, confess one name, are obedient to one Lord, work for one cause, and share one hope; together come to know the height and the breadth and the depth of the love of Christ; together are built up to the stature of Christ, to have new humanity.[1] → This is a portion of the Belhar Confession.
  • About Belhar
    • Document that was penned through the Dutch Reformed Mission Church in South Africa in the early 1980s
    • Response to the sin and Gospel distortion that was apartheid
    • From intro to Confession of Belhar in our Book of Confessions: How should the church respond when sin disrupts the church’s unity, creates division among the children of God, and constructs unjust systems that steal life from God’s creation? … Apartheid formed a racially stratified society. Those with the lightest skin tones were offered the greatest protection and opportunity. Non-“white” persons were separated into three categories; each skin tone step away from the “white” category represented a decrease in governmental protections and opportunities. Racial separation was established by law and enforced through violence. Nonwhite citizens lived with constant and intrusive police presence and interference in the daily functions of life. Those who protested risked punishment, imprisonment, and even death.[2]
    • Belhar = adopted as a confession of the PC(USA) in 2016 by the General Assembly “because it believed the clarity of Belhar’s witness to unity, reconciliation, and justice might help the PC(USA) speak and act with similar clarity at a time when it faces division, racism, and injustice.”[3] → And yet here we are 7 years later … dealing with more “division, racism, and injustice” than we did when we adopted Belhar … dealing with more division, racism, and injustice than we have in decades, at least on an out-in-the-open scale … dealing with more division, racism, and injustice not only on the streets and out in the wider world but even spewing from pulpits who declare words of hate and separation and even violence and call them the word of God. And yet here we are. And it’s World Communion Sunday … a day for the whole world to celebrate coming together at God’s table in unity, in peace, in Christian love and forgiveness and acceptance. [PAUSE]
• There are a lot of different texts that I could have chosen today – lots of beautiful descriptions that intertwine faith and breaking bread and encounters with God and Jesus sprinkled throughout the whole Bible. But I picked this one for today because I feel like as the Church … as siblings in Christ … and human together, we are in a tough spot.
  • Today’s Scripture = reminder/reassurance that the Church has always been imperfect – Paul to Corinthian church: Now I don’t praise you as I give the following instruction because when you meet together, it does more harm than good. First of all, when you meet together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you, and I partly believe it.[4] → Never one to mince words, Paul is characteristically frank here.
    • Wants to make sure Corinthians understand he’s not praising them
    • Wants to make sure the Corinthians understand they’re doing more harm than good
      • Gr. is particularly striking here → Paul’s exact wording = Corinthians gatherings are inferior
    • Wants to make sure Corinthians understand that he can believe these rumors about interior divisions that have reached him
  • Goes on to detail these divisions: When you get together in one place, it isn’t to eat the Lord’s meal. Each of you goes ahead and eats a private meal. One person goes hungry while another is drunk. Don’t you have houses to eat and drink it? Or do you look down on God’s churches and humiliate those who have nothing? What can I say to you? Will I praise you? No, I don’t praise you in this.[5]
    • Scholar sheds some light on this situation: One finds an indication that wealth and its associated status played a part in some of the struggles between Corinthian believers. … only wealthy persons had homes and staff large enough to host the church and provide for its celebration of the Lord’s supper; and only the wealthy could arrive at the dinners early enough to eat the best food and get drunk before the other, less fortunate ones would arrive. … The Corinthians who are abusing the Lord’s supper have minimized or lost the basic Pauline sense that the life of faith is a life of community. The abusers have privatized their faith and their worship in a way that Paul finds totally unacceptable; they have lost any sense that love as the right relation to others is the proper and necessary expression of their faith as the right relation to God.[6] → Considering the church gatherings that Paul had experienced back in Acts – “All the believers were united and shared everything. They would sell pieces of property and possessions and distribute the proceeds to everyone who needed them.”[7] – we can understand Paul’s apparent sense of both disbelief and disgust at the behavior of the Corinthians. “What can I say to you? Will I praise you? No, I don’t praise you in this!”
• And I have to ask, friends: Are we so different today? Have we come such a long way from that long-ago Corinthian church? Or are we stuck in the same cycle 2000 years later?
  • Christian pastor, author, speaker, and modern-day prophet John Pavlovitz lays it out pretty clearly in A Bigger Table: Building Messy, Authentic, and Hopeful Spiritual Community: We’ve lived so long in an Internet culture of drive-by analysis that we’ve forgotten that this isn’t normal, that our faith demands a deeper investment of time, of ourselves. We never even make it to the table with many people because we’ve evaluated and judged them from a mile away. As a result, local churches so often become segregated, conditional communities of life-minded culture-warring Christians who believe they have God on their side. These faith communities rarely operate as one big table, just a series of smaller ones. Despite all our talk of a gospel for everyone, despite our effusive language about diversity and inclusion and grace for all – we ultimately just want to know what people think about gays or guns or maybe hell, and we either align ourselves with or distance ourselves from them depending on their answer. In this way, theology becomes an easy, efficient barrier between ourselves and those we believe to be less enlightened than we are. Our believe system becomes a wall.[8]
    • Brings to mind the ancient allegorical story known as the Parable of the Spoons
      • Attributed to Rabbi Haim of Romshishok (Lithuanian village)
      • First, the rabbi travelled to Hell and saw a terrible sight. There were rows and rows of tables piled high with food and sat near to them were rows of starving, emaciated people trying to eat. The people were all strapped to their benches too far from the food to reach it, but with a spoon long enough to scoop some up. This didn’t help them to feed themselves though, because the long spoons and their strappings meant they could not get the food they had picked up near their mouths. The poor souls were doomed to forever sit looking at heaps of delicious food, able to pick it up, but never able to eat it. Next, the rabbi travelled to Heaven and was surprised to see a scene almost identical but with one important difference. The rows of food-laden tables were the same, as were the people and the long spoons. However, where in Hell there had been sadness and starvation, here in Heaven there was joy and satisfaction. One long party. He realized why this was when he watched one of the occupants of the benches reach to the tables with his spoon, pick up some food and navigate it to the mouth of a person near him, rather than his own. She then reciprocated. This mutual satisfaction was happening everywhere in Heaven and it was this that separated it from Hell.[9]
  • Paul reiterates the important part of the gathering at the end of today’s Scripture reading – portion that we hear every time we gather together around that table: I received a tradition from the Lord, which I also handed on to you: on the night on which he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread. After giving thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this to remember me.” He did the same thing with the cup, after they had eaten, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Every time you drink it, do this to remember me.” Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you broadcast the death of the Lord until he comes.[10] → The importance is in the coming together – in the setting aside of all the things that are supposed to pull us apart … in actively, intentionally, even forcefully putting those dividing elements away – turning our backs on them – to turn our faces toward one another. We gather together not because we find ourselves to be worthy but because, at this table, through these simple elements of bread and wine/juice, God makes us worthy.
    • Not because of who we are
    • Not because of what we’ve done
    • Not because of anything that we bring with us
    • Not because we’ve said or learned or done or been the right thing
    • Book of Order: The Lord’s Supper enacts and seals what the Word proclaims: God’s sustaining grace offered to all people. The Lord’s Supper is at once God’s gift of grace, God’s means of grace, and God’s call to respond to that grace. Through the Lord’s Supper, Jesus Christ nourishes us in righteousness, faithfulness, and discipleship. Through the Lord’s Supper, the Holy Spirit renews the Church in its identity and sends the Church to mission in the world. … The opportunity to eat and drink with Christ is not a right bestowed upon the worthy, but a privilege given to the undeserving who come in faith, repentance, and love. All who come to the table are offered the bread and cup, regardless of their age or understanding.[11]
      • Rachel Held Evans: This is what God’s Kingdom is like: a bunch of outcasts and oddballs gathered at a table, not because they are rich or worthy or good, but because they are hungry, because they said yes. And there’s always room for more. → Thanks be to God. Amen.

[1] From the “Confession of Belhar, September 1986” from The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA), Part 1: Book of Confessions. (Louisville: The Office of the General Assembly, 2016), 10.3.

[2] Ibid, 300.

[3] Ibid.

[4] 1 Cor 11:17-18.

[5] 1 Cor 11:20-22.

[6] J. Paul Sampley. “The First Letter to the Corinthians: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 10. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002), 777, 934.

[7] Acts 2:44-45.

[8] John Pavlovitz. A Bigger Table: Building Messy, Authentic, and Hopeful Spiritual Community. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2017), 113-114.

[9] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/story-long-spoons-lessons-mutual-support-hard-times-jamie-smith.

[10] 1 Cor 11:23-26

[11] From The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA), Part 2: Book of Order. (Louisville: The Office of the General Assembly, 2019), W-3.0409.

Text used – Jonah 3:10-4:11

And now the end is here
And so I face that final curtain
My friend I’ll make it clear
I’ll state my case, of which I’m certain
I’ve lived a life that’s full
I traveled each and every highway
And more, much more
I did it, I did it my way

Regrets, I’ve had a few
But then again too few to mention
I did what I had to do
I saw it through without exemption
I planned each charted course
Each careful step along the byway
And more, much, much more
I did it, I did it my way

Yes, there were times I’m sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew
But through it all, when there was doubt
I ate it up and spit it out
I faced it all and I stood tall and did it my way

For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself then he has naught
Not to say the things that he truly feels
And not the words of someone who kneels
Let the record shows I took all the blows and did it my way[1]

• There it is, right? The Frank Sinatra classic.
  • Lyrics written by Paul Anka → new lyrics to a French song he heard on the radio while at his home in France
    • Anka = acquaintance of Sinatra’s → knew he was considering retiring → wrote the lyrics as a combination of Anka’s own story and Sinatra’s story – Anka: “The song became a composite of my life and his, but mostly his.”[2]
  • Recorded by Sinatra at the end of 1968 → highly successful
    • Debuted at #69 on the Billboard chart in Mar. 1969 (highest new entry that week) → climbed as high as #27 in 6 weeks and stayed there for a while
    • Reached #5 in the UK → spent 124 wks on the UK’s singles chart
      • Longer than any other song ever!
    • Taken back to the charts numerous times by numerous artists/groups covering this song
      • US charts
        • Brook Benton – 1970
        • Elvis Presley (released posthumously) – 1977
      • UK charts
        • Sid Vicious/Sex Pistols – 1978
        • Shane McGowan/The Pogues – 1996
      • Even a part of the recent animated hit “Sing”[3]
  • Clearly, these lyrics have carried weight and meaning for thousands over the years. Indeed, in many of the articles and opinion pieces written about this particular song, it’s declared “an anthem” – for the generation into which it was first released but also for many who followed after. But after reading our Scripture passage for this morning, I think the power and applicability of Sinatra’s song could stretch backward in history, too. Really, couldn’t this be Jonah’s anthem as well? → [reread lyrics] Oh, yeah … that’s definitely Jonah!
• Let’s talk about Jonah as a book for a moment.
  • As part of the biblical cannon, it’s considered one of the 12 minor prophets (Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachia … and Jonah) → But unlike the other 11 minor prophets, the language and literary layout of Jonah is wholly different.
    • Other prophets: almost entirely records of the words of the prophets → their dire warnings for the people of Israel and their praise of the goodness and justice of God
    • But then you have Jonah … which is told as a story.
    • Scholar: Jonah is a difficult book to decide how to read. It is surely prophetic. It has been included among the twelve prophets at least since Qumran [and the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls]. Its main character is presumably the eighth-century-BCE prophet named in 2 Kings 14:25 [“{Jeroboam} reestablished Israel’s border from Lebo-hamath to the Dead Sea. This was in agreement with the word that the Lord, the God of Israel, spoke through his servant the prophet Jonah, Amittai’s son, who was from Gath-hepher.”], and [Jonah] begins with the conventional prophetic formula, “The word of [the Lord] came to Jonah”. However, Jonah is a didactic narrative or a parable, a short story about the fabulous adventures of a(n anti-) prophet, not a collection of prophecies.[4] → So we have another place in Scripture naming Jonah as a prophet who actually lived and prophesied in the history of Israel, and yet in the book of Jonah, we find this fanciful tale that we know so well from Sunday school coloring sheets, right?
      • Jonah = called by God to deliver a message of/demand for repentance to the people of Nineveh → And it’s important to remember that at the time, Nineveh was considered a place of lawlessness and evil.
        • Modern day equivalent = Tortuga from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies → town built upon the wobbly, flawed legs of drunkenness, debauchery, brawls, gambling, and general piracy
        • And it’s to a place like this that God calls Jonah to deliver a message of repentance. God says, “Go ahead, Jonah. Tell them what they’re doing wrong and remind them that they’re better off with me.”
      • Jonah’s response to God’s call: NO WAY!! → thinking he can hide from God, Jonah hops on a ship headed in the opposite direction
      • God causes a storm to rage up around the ship → those aboard draw lots to decide who’s brought this horrible fortune on their voyage … and guess who draws the short straw? Yup … Jonah.
      • Jonah fesses up → gets tossed overboard → swallowed by a giant fish → spends 3 days and nights in the belly of the fish before repenting and promising God he’ll go wherever God tells him to go → fish pukes Jonah up on the shore just outside of Nineveh
      • And then Jonah actually does as God commands. He goes into Nineveh. He called on them to repent: “Just forty days more and Nineveh will be overthrown!”[5]
        • Notice: not promise of God’s love or grace or forgiveness → just condemnation and warning
      • And miracle of miracles, the people of Nineveh actually listen! They repent. They declare a fast. They put on sackcloth and sit in ashes, the rituals for mourning and deep repentance. From the lowliest citizen all the way up to the king of Nineveh himself.
• Okay, so that brings us up to today’s portion of the story.
  • God can see that the people’s repentance is sincere – text: God saw what they were doing – that they had ceased their evil behavior. So God stopped planning to destroy them, and he didn’t do it.[6]
  • Jonah’s response = full-on toddler meltdown! – text: Jonah thought this was utterly wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord, “Come on, Lord! Wasn’t this precisely my point when I was back in my own land? This is why I fled to Tarshish earlier! I know that you are a merciful and compassionate God, very patient, full of faithful love, and willing not to destroy.  At this point, Lord, you may as well take my life from me, because it would be better for me to die than to live.”[7] → Truly, y’all, only Jonah can make thing like mercy and compassion, patience and faithful love sound like insults!

Regrets, I’ve had a few
But then again too few to mention
I did what I had to do
I saw it through without exemption
I planned each charted course
Each careful step along the byway
And more, much, much more
I did it, I did it my way

• • God tries to reason with Jonah, but Jonah chooses to continue his pouting on a hillside outside the city
    • One thing to point out: Jonah is beyond upset about God’s tendency to forgiveness → BUT without that same forgiveness, Jonah would still be in the belly of that fish! → It’s okay for Jonah to receive that forgiveness, but it’s not okay to witness anyone else receiving it.
  • And friends, this next part may be my favorite part in the whole Bible because in it, we are privy to a substantial picture of God’s sense of humor. It’s a little bit dry. It’s definitely ironic. And it’s saturated in a profound lesson to be learned.
    • God grows a shrub up over Jonah for shade → Jonah is happy
    • God sends a worm → worm attacks the shrub
    • Shrub dies → Jonah’s discomfort level and anger rise simultaneously

Yes, there were times I’m sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew
But through it all, when there was doubt
I ate it up and spit it out
I faced it all and I stood tall and did it my way

For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself then he has naught
Not to say the things that he truly feels
And not the words of someone who kneels
Let the record shows I took all the blows and did it my way

• • • And then we get the lesson: [Jonah] begged that he might die, saying, “It’s better for me to die than to live.” God said to Jonah, “Is your anger about the shrub a good thing?” Jonah said, “Yes, my anger is good—even to the point of death!” But the Lordsaid, “You ‘pitied’ the shrub, for which you didn’t work and which you didn’t raise; it grew in a night and perished in a night.  Yet for my part, can’t I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than one hundred twenty thousand people who can’t tell their right hand from their left, and also many animals?”[8]
      • God to Jonah: “You can pity a plant – a plant for which you did zero work but still benefitted. But you can’t pity a whole city full of people? And not only that, you’re going to begrudge me for pitying this city of people that I made? People that I love? People that have come back to me? Really, Jonah? Really?”
      • Scholar pinpoints both the humor in this and the point undergirding the humor: In rhetorical terms, … humor has the ability to disarm those who encounter the story, since laughing at others opens one up to accepting in the end that the joke is on oneself. … the absence of a final response from Jonah transforms our laughter at the petulant prophet into the nervous laughter that fills our own silence in response to the query that comes, when we realize the joke is ultimately on us.[9]
• You see, that question that God asks Jonah is where the narrative ends. It’s where the whole book of Jonah ends – on that hanging question about whose view of when repentance is appropriate and when it isn’t is correct. Is it Jonah’s way – a way of judgment and punishment and “comeuppance”? Or is it God’s way of compassion and mercy and second chances?
  • Question that needs to be asked in this day in age when we’re so focused on pointing fingers and holding a magnifying glass to others’ faults and flaws → Which way will we strive to follow: our own way of human misintention and misunderstanding and bias … or God’s higher way of trust and compassion and wholehearted forgiveness? Is it more important to see people taken down for their sins? Or is it more important to witness salvation? What’s the ultimate aim of faith: retribution … or repentance? Does God call us to convict … or to love? Amen.

[1] “My Way,” recorded by Frank Sinatra at Western Records, Dec. 30, 1968. Original melody (“Comme d’Habitude”) by Jacques Revaux, Gille Thibault, and Claude François. Lyrics by Paul Anka.

[2] https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/frank-sinatra-my-way-story-behind-song/.

[3] “Sing,” written and directed by Garth Jennings, produced by Illumination Entertainment and distributed by Universal Pictures, Dec. 21, 2016.

[4] C. Davis Hankins. “Proper 20 (Sunday between September 18 and September 24 inclusive) – Jonah 3:10-4:11 – Exegetical Perspective” in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary – Year A, vol. 4. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 75 (my own clarifications added).

[5] Jonah 3:4.

[6] Jonah 3:10.

[7] Jonah 4:1-3.

[8] Jonah 4:8b-11.

[9] Timothy B. Cargal. “Proper 20 (Sunday between September 18 and September 24 inclusive) – Jonah 3:10-4:11 – Homiletical Perspective” in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary – Year A, vol. 4. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 77, 79.

Text used – Romans 14:1-12

• Last Monday, we marked the 22^nd anniversary of the horrific terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.
  • Boys were asking Peter and I about it this week: “Mom, where were you when the planes flew into the towers?” → And it was the first year that I really felt like we could at least start having a more in-depth conversation with them about that day.
    • Part of that conversation = explaining that there are going to be events in their lives that will be so profound that they will remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard about them
      • One my parents always talked about: assassination of President Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.
      • Another in my life: news of the death of Princess Diana
  • Around the anniversary of 9/11 every year, I feel like we hear a lot of news recaps and opinion and reflection pieces about how Americans came together following the tragedies of that day.
    • Study put out by the Pew Research Center in 2021: The enduring power of the Sept. 11 attacks is clear: An overwhelming share of Americans who are old enough to recall the day remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. Yet an ever-growing number of Americans have no personal memory of that day, either because they were too young or not yet born. A review of U.S. public opinion in the two decades since 9/11 reveals how a badly shaken nation came together, briefly, in a spirit of sadness and patriotism … It is difficult to think of an event that so profoundly transformed U.S. public opinion across so many dimensions as the 9/11 attacks. While Americans had a shared sense of anguish after Sept. 11, the months that followed also were marked by rare spirit of public unity. Moreover, the public largely set aside political differences and rallied in support of the nation’s major institutions, as well as its political leadership. In October 2001, 60% of adults expressed trust in the federal government – a level not reached in the previous three decades, nor approached in the two decades since then. … Americans also turned to religion and faith in large numbers. In the days and weeks after 9/11, most Americans said they were praying more often. In November 2001, 78% said religion’s influence in American life was increasing, more than double the share who said that eight months earlier and – like public trust in the federal government – the highest level in four decades. Public esteem rose even for some institutions that usually are not that popular with Americans. For example, in November 2001, news organizations received record-high ratings for professionalism. Around seven-in-ten adults (69%) said they “stand up for America,” while 60% said they protected democracy.[1]
      • Possibly the most telling statistic/trend that came out of that particular Pew Research study: Yet in many ways, the “9/11 effect” on public opinion was short-lived. Public trust in government, as well as confidence in other institutions, declined throughout the 2000s.[2] → Here we find ourselves just 22 years – barely over 2 decades – after such a horrific and life-altering event as 9/11, and as a nation, we seem to be falling further and further apart. And this falling apart isn’t a new phenomenon. We’ve been falling apart since just a few short years after that terrible tragedy brought us together.
• Today’s Scripture reading make it clear that life within the early Church wasn’t so different
  • Jesus spent a few years teaching, preaching, healing, and completely reorienting people’s entire lives
  • Around 30 C.E. → Jesus is crucified
  • Roughly 30 yrs. later we find Paul writing letters to groups of Christians near and far – Christians he knew and Christians he’d never met (as is the case with the Roman church) – trying to encourage them to continue on – to hang in there together! – instead of falling apart
    • Sometimes Paul’s writings addressed particular issues that had arisen in particular churches
    • Other times (as is the case with Romans), Paul’s writings were more general directive on how to live as Christians and how to live together as Christians
  • Love the intro that one scholar wrote to his interpretation of this particular passage: Hospitality is never easy when suspicion rules the day. Why would anyone want to visit a community—never mind join them!—if they are known for “friendly fire”? If members of the church are targeting one another with verbal attacks and slanderous assaults, then we have become the very thing Christ died to overcome. … How do we live with one another—inhabit the same spaces and share time together—when we treasure opposing rhythms and gather around customary inclinations? Paul continues in this eminently practical section of his magnum opus to address issues related to the nitty-gritty of everyday life together in communion.[3] → “The nitty-gritty of everyday life together in communion” … Paul could be delivering these same words to the Church today, and they would be just as crucial, just as relevant (as much as I hate that word), just as applicable.
• So let’s dive into today’s passage.
  • Paul approaches overarching issue of differences in opinion coinciding in faith through one particular issue: food → And while this may seem like a trivial way to approach the issue of faith, I think it’s actually kind of genius. Food is not only an essential part of every single person’s day, it’s also an essential yet wildly differing expression of different cultures.
    • Current streaming obsession = The Ultimate Braai Master[4] → South African outdoor cooking competition where teams cook everything from things familiar to us in America (chicken and tuna) to proteins wholly foreign to us (warthog and springbok)
    • Bread is a beautiful example of the similarities and differences of cultures all wrapped up in one simple food
      • Risen or unrisen?
        • If it’s risen, is it a short rise or a long rise?
      • Crunchy crust or soft and smooth?
      • Shape?
      • Flour?
      • Preparation techniques?
      • Other special ingredients?
      • There are as many ways to make bread as there are cultures around the world … and yet, they all make bread in some form.
    • So, really, it makes sense that Paul starts off his conversation about differences and similarities in faith with food. – text: Welcome the person who is weak in faith—but not in order to argue about differences of opinion. One person believes in eating everything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Those who eat must not look down on the ones who don’t, and the ones who don’t eat must not judge the ones who do, because God has accepted them.[5]
      • Key word in this opening passage comes at the end: Gr. “accepted” (“God has accepted them”) = word of welcoming and receiving someone in – into your society, into your home, into the circle of your life → There’s also an element of togetherness in this word – a connotation of partaking with So Paul is pointing out that no matter how people are honoring God with the food that they’re eating, God is with them. And if God is with them, why should they quarrel among one another about that food?
  • Just for good measure, Paul comes at the same issue from another angle, too. – text: One person considers some days to be more sacred than others, while another person considers all days to be the same. Each person must have their own convictions. Someone who thinks that a day is sacred, thinks that way for the Lord. Those who eat, eat for the Lord, because they thank God. And those who don’t eat, don’t eat for the Lord, and they thank the Lord too.[6] → It’s all about how we observe sacred moments and days.
    • Example of this today = way Catholic and Episcopal churches observe holy days for various saints/prominent religious figures → Do we say, “Man, those Episcopals can’t be real Christians because they’re honoring Hildegard of Bingen today”? Of course not! Are the Episcopals looking at us saying, “Man, those Presbyterians can’t be real Christians because they aren’t honoring Hildegard of Bingen today”? Of course not! We all find and follow different paths, but those paths lead us to reverence and worship of the same God who is God of us all.
  • And this is Paul’s ultimate point. – text: We don’t live for ourselves and we don’t die for ourselves. If we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we belong to God.[7] → Paul’s way of saying, “It’s not about you!” Right?
    • Emphasis of this point comes in one small word that appears all over throughout Scripture but takes on particular significance here and in one other place = word that conveys being
      • Earlier in Gr. translation of First Testament = 1 of 2 words that make up the holiest name of God when God gives Moses God’s own name at the burning bush[8] → “I AM that I AM” = made up of Gr. for “I” and this word
      • Here: word is translated as “belong” (“we belong to God”)
        • Connotations of being and belonging
        • Connotations of being present with and staying with
        • Connotations of existing and happening
        • Connotations of meaning and possibility
        • With this small, seemingly-simple word, we are assured that our who being – all that we are, all that we do, all that we say, all that we hope for, all that we fear, all that we pray – is with God. “We don’t live for ourselves and we don’t die for ourselves. If we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we belong to God.”
  • The universality of this statement prompts Paul’s final words in this passage: But why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you look down on your brother or sister? We all will stand in front of the judgment seat of God. Because it is written, As I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow to me, and every tongue will give praise to God. So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.[9]
    • Scholar highlights the importance of this point: Paul is not suggesting that we should stop advocating for our respective views. Paul clearly values and regularly engages in theological argument. Paul’s concern and passion here is the spirit of Christians who are arguing, not the rectitude of their position. The radicality of Paul’s passion here is the radicality of grace, the radicality of life lived beyond judgment, beyond justice – life that loves real and enduring enemies. Our spirit for and toward those with whom we bitterly disagree is Paul’s focus.[10]
• Once again, it’s not about us. Faith is not about us. It’s about God. Enacting our faith is not about us. It’s about God. Embodying our faith is not about us. It’s about God. And what God is calling us to do in this world. We aren’t called to mission for our own sake but for the sake of our siblings who are in need of care and compassion. We aren’t called to share the good news of the gospel for our own sake but for the sake of God’s love and grace.
  • Important distinction: none of the actions/activities that Paul is using as examples are ways that people use their faith to harm/oppress/exclude another → Jesus opened himself up to all people, especially those relegated to the margins by the rest of society but even those with whom he disagreed most vehemently and most often – the Pharisees – when they were willing to open their own minds and hearts to the freedom and openness of God’s grace.
    • Put bluntly by one of my very favorite quotes from contemporary author and theologian Anne Lamott: You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.
  • Love the way that scholar concluded his discussion of this passage and Paul’s perspective on Christian disagreement: First and last, we argue for the right and struggle for the good, not for the sake of ourselves or our own opinions or identity – or even for the sake of the church, justice, or the good – but because we are moved by love and concern for every particular other, which is to say, because in life and in death, we belong to God.[11] → If we truly believe that we all belong to God, then isn’t it time – isn’t it past time – to come together? Thanks be to God. Amen.

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/09/02/two-decades-later-the-enduring-legacy-of-9-11/.

[2] Ibid.

[3] David McCabe. “Commentary on Romans 14:1-12” from Working Preacher, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-24/commentary-on-romans-141-12-6.

[4] https://ultimatebraaimaster.co.za/.

[5] Rom 14:1-3.

[6] Rom 14:5-6.

[7] Rom 14:7-8.

[8] Ex 3:13-15.

[9] Rom 14:10-12.

[10] William Greenway. “Proper 19 (Sunday between September 11 and September 17 inclusive) – Romans 14:1-12, Theological Perspective” in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary – Year A, vol. 4. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 62, 64, 66.

[11] Greenway, 66.

Text used – Acts 16:16-34

• So here we are at the end of this summer journey with the Beatitudes. We’ve talked about …
  • Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven → through lens of surrender
  • Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted → through the lens of heartbreak
  • Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth → through the lens of confidence
  • Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled → through the lens of longing
  • Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy → through the lens of solidarity
  • Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God → through the lens of authenticity
  • Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God → through the lens of liberation
  • Today’s Beatitude = actually the last 2 Beatitudes combined because they’re so similar (we’ll talk about why in just a little bit): (v. 10) Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (v. 11) Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.[1] → This may be the most countercultural of Jesus’ statements.
    • Cole puts a contemporary spin on this countercultural nature with his opening story for this chapter → [read beginning of ch.[2]]
  • Through the previous Beatitudes, Jesus has already encouraged the people to reject the trappings and pressures and treasures of the world around them to instead focus on a life of faith. In this final pairing of Beatitudes, Jesus is basically promising suffering because of that faith … and yet, wrapped in that less-than-desirable promise is the stronger, even more powerful promise of blessedness. “You will be persecuted,” Jesus says. “You will be insulted, ridiculed, reviled, and pursued. It won’t be comfortable. It won’t be fun. Yet in this, you will be blessed.”
    • So let’s talk about that word “blessed” for a minute.
      • Gr. “blessed” can also mean fortunate or happy = translations I don’t love because I feel like they add a dismissive or even flippant note to some of these really heavy topics that Jesus talks about → I don’t like the way “happy and those who mourn” or “happy are those who hunger and thirst for justice” reads because it can too easily morph into that toxic positivity that tries to force people who are suffering and struggling to slap on a smile no matter what.
      • Another transl. of “blessed” = recipient of divine favor → Recipient of divine favor. So even in the midst of all of these struggles and challenges that Jesus highlights throughout the Beatitudes – culminating in today’s promise that there will be suffering – when we live and speak and respond and react not with whatever defensive emotion first bubbles to the surface but instead with faith, Jesus says, “God sees you. God is with you. And God is pleased.”
        • Catholic theologian John Dear: To risk persecution in the struggle for justice and peace goes against everything we have been taught. The culture encourages us to be successful, powerful, rich, and famous. I figure Jesus knows better than the rest of us, so even if we do not understand, let’s get on with the work for justice and peace, come what may. The kingdom of God is worth it.[3]
• That’s why the story of Paul and Silas and their miraculous escape from the prison is such a perfect story for today’s Beatitude AND to wrap-up this whole summer-long discussion on the Beatitudes.
  • Context leading up to today’s encounter
    • Paul is in the midst of his 2^nd missionary journey (early 50s C.E.) → starts out in Caesarea on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea → down to Jerusalem → moves inland and turns north → up through modern-day Jordan and Turkey to the southern shore of the Black Sea → west to basically circle the whole of the Aegean Sea (basically all of modern day Greece) → even crosses the Aegean Sea at the southern end after having traveled the whole of the shoreline from east to west → finally gets on a ship in Ephesus and sails back to starting point (Caesarea)[4]
  • Paul and Silas in Philippi → staying with Lydia (local merchant of purple cloth who was baptized along with her whole household)
    • (Interesting little Bible trivia nugget: this is where the book of Acts switches from 3^rd person – talking about “Paul did this” and “Paul said that” to 1^st person – talking about “We went here” and “We experienced that”)
  • But things don’t exactly go well in Philippi for Paul and Silas. – text: One day, when we were on the way to the place for prayer, we met a slave woman. She had a spirit that enabled her to predict the future. She made a lot of money for her owners through fortune-telling. She began following Paul and us, shouting, “These people are servants of the Most High God! They are proclaiming a way of salvation to you!” She did this for many days. This annoyed Paul so much that he finally turned and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to leave her!” It left her at that very moment. Her owners realized that their hope for making money was gone. They grabbed Paul and Silas and dragged them before the officials in the city center. When her owners approached the legal authorities, they said, “These people are causing an uproar in our city. They are Jews who promote customs that we Romans can’t accept or practice.” The crowd joined in the attacks against Paul and Silas, so the authorities ordered that they be stripped of their clothes and beaten with a rod. When Paul and Silas had been severely beaten, the authorities threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to secure them with great care.[5]
    • Surely, friends, we can agree that this falls under “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account”? I think we can. And yet, in the midst of that suffering and persecution, that ridicule and reviling, Paul reacts exactly as Jesus encourages through the Beatitudes. → Paul and Silas spend their time in prison praying and singing hymns to God → then …
      • Earthquake that shakes the prison’s foundations
      • Doors fly open
      • Chains fall off
      • And yet instead of running out to freedom as so many probably would have, Paul, Silas, and all the rest of the prisoners remain in the prison … for the sake of their jailer! – text: When the jailer awoke and saw the open doors of the prison, he thought the prisoners had escaped, so he drew his sword and was about to kill himself. But Paul shouted loudly, “Don’t harm yourself! We’re all here!”[6]
  • Final stroke = Paul and Silas use that moment to witness – to share the story of God’s love and their faith – not only with the other prisoners (who we’ve already been told are listening and have clearly already been affected because they chose to remain with Paul and Silas when the prison literally broke open) BUT also to the jailer and his entire household → jailer is literally brought to his knees in awe and gratitude before Paul and Silas → asks “What must I do to be rescued?” → they reply, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your entire household.” → Paul and Silas spend time witnessing to the jailer and then to everyone in his house → text: Right then, in the middle of the night, the jailer welcomed them and washed their wounds. He and everyone in his household were immediately baptized. He brought them into his home and gave them a meal. He was overjoyed because he and everyone in his household had come to believe in God.[7] → Truly this story puts feet to that last Beatitude pairing.
• So let’s talk about the pairing for a minute because the fact that these last two Beatitudes are so similar also factors into how we interact with these particular Beatitudes and with all the rest of the Beatitudes as well.
  • Throughout this whole Beatitudes portion of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is broad in his blessings → Each of the Beatitudes starts with some general descriptor – either “those” or “the …” to describe who that particular Beatitude encompasses.
    • Blessed are THE poor in spirit …
    • Blessed are THOSE who mourn …
    • Blessed are THE meek …
    • Blessed are THOSE who hunger and thirst for righteousness …
    • Using this arms-length description acknowledges that there will be times when our lives fall into those categories while also recognizing that not all of them will apply to all of us at the same time. The generality of it brings us in. It actually helps us engage and stay engaged because, even if we don’t identify with a particular blessing in that moment, we can hear Jesus’ blanket blessing for all those who are merciful or all those who are peacemakers, and we can say to ourselves, “Okay, maybe that isn’t me personally, but I know this person or that person who falls into that category.”
    • Also give us goals to strive for → when we hear the blessing for a category in which we feel we may be struggling or lacking, we can say to ourselves, “I may not be pure in heart now, but I can work on that.”
  • BUT this last pair of Beatitudes is different
    • Jesus starts with same formula: Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.[8]
    • BUT then he turns it around and makes it – and by extension, everything that came before it – inescapably personal: Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.[9] → By flipping the script in this way, Jesus is reminding us that we cannot escape any of these calls to act and speak and live and be in faith because they are, indeed, for all of us. Inexcusably. Irrefutably. Enduring. These blessings are a personal call for each and everyone one of us to share our faith with the world and, in doing so, take a step closer to God’s kingdom here on earth.
      • Cole: This is what it means to be a witness. It’s not about suffering in itself or seeking a grim death; it’s about having a love for God and neighbor that so far exceeds the fear of death that we would happily give our lives as a sign for those who do not yet believe. It’s about being so enflamed with the truth of the Gospel that we cannot bear the thought of anyone not knowing what we’ve found, even our enemies. We are compelled to do something heroic, emboldened to endure something painful. When all we can think about is making our lives a sign of the coming kingdom, forfeiting even our lives to make it known, we are on the way of Beatitude.[10] → Amen.

[1] Mt 5:10-11 (NRSV).

[2] Casey Cole, OFM. The Way of Beatitude: Living Radical Hope in a World of Division and Despair. (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 2022), 99-101.

[3] John Dear. The Beatitudes of Peace: Meditations on the Beatitudes, Peacemaking and the Spiritual Life. (New London: Twenty-Third Publications, 2016), 102.

[4] https://www.conformingtojesus.com/images/webpages/pauls_journeys_map1.jpg.

[5] Acts 16:16-23.

[6] Acts 16:27-28.

[7] Acts 16:33-34.

[8] Mt 5:10 (NRSV).

[9] Mt 5:11 (NRSV).

[10] Cole, 110-111.

Text used – Ephesians 2:14-22

• Drawing close to the end of our summer series on the Beatitudes → only 2 left
  • Today: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.[1]
  • Next week → going to combine the last 2 beatitudes for the final one because they’re so similar in subject/tone
  • Back in July, we talked about “Blessed are the merciful” and how that particular beatitude was possibly the most deceptively simple beatitude – the repetitiveness of mercy for mercy, the obvious nature of it (“Of course we should be merciful!”). Today’s beatitude feels like it falls in the same category: deceptively simple, obvious … maybe even too obvious for us to handle?
    • Again, of course we want peace → joke in the movie Miss Congeniality
      • Brief synopsis of movie
      • Joke that pokes fun at beauty pageant contestants: “World peace!”
    • But the challenge in this particular beatitude is in the simplicity. Yes, we should all be peacemakers … peace-bringers … peace-sharers … peace-infusers. Yes, we want peace in our hearts, in our relationships, in our world, in our faith. … But after thousands upon thousands of years of human history, we still can’t seem to get that part right. God knows we’ve been trying … but God also knows we are still far from getting this one right!
      • Google search for “what are peacemakers?”
        • Lots of hits for this particular Scripture passage
        • Some general “characteristics of peacemakers” type of posts
        • Conflict-resolution-focused hits → Think corporate teambuilding and HR mediation-type articles.
        • Definitely some school-focused hits
          • Peer mediator training in elementary school
        • Then I came across a number of different faith-based hits that made a very particular distinction between being a peacemaker and a peacekeeper. → bottom line: peacemakers are more active and intentional in their work whereas peacekeepers try to minimize conflict – sidestep it, whitewash it, sweep it under the rug
    • I think with this idea in mind – this idea of peacemakers being the ones who work through conflict in the healthiest ways possible – this beatitude is the hardest one for us to enact in the world in which we live today. We’ve said all along that these blessings that Jesus laid out in the Sermon on the Mount were countercultural, and this one definitely feels that way because somewhere along the way, we seem to have lost the ability to deal with conflict together as humans. I have my side. You have your side. And there is no middle ground. If you don’t see it my way, you must be ignorant. If I don’t see it your way, I must be corrupt.
• And yet Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers” … not “Blessed are the label-makers.” So what do we do with this one? → enter the reminder we get in letter to the Christians in Ephesus
  • Background
    • One of the epistles that was traditionally believed to be written by Paul himself → scholars have since come to a general consensus that Eph was written by someone else in Paul’s name
      • No specific greeting like we find in Paul’s other letters
      • No mention of any kind of relationship with those receiving this letter → Even in Romans, which we know was written by Paul, he talks about the fact that he and the Roman Christians lack a relationship because he’s never spent a lot of time in Rome. But Ephesians includes no such declaration.
      • Still draws heavily on themes, language, theology of Paul
    • Not even sure this was originally intended specifically for Christians in Ephesus – scholar points out: The [opening] phrase “in Ephesus” does not occur in many of the earliest manuscripts. Nor would that locale be appropriate for an audience that does not know the apostle. Paul had worked extensively in Ephesus. He may even have been imprisoned there. (She goes on to give some detail about the purpose of Ephesians.) … Ephesians never refers to false teachers whose doctrines must be avoided. Therefore, the epistle appears to be addressed to Christian churches in general, not a particular situation.[2]
  • Into that backdrop of it being a message for all Christians, we read today’s passage: Christ is our peace. He made both Jews and Gentiles into one group. With his body, he broke down the barriers of hatred that divided us.[3] → Okay, let’s stop there for a minute. Really, that single verse alone could be our sermon for this morning. Christ is our peace. He made both Jews and Gentiles into one group. With his body, he broke down the barriers of hatred that divided us. There’s so much to dig into there.
    • Gr. “peace” encompasses both Heb. sense of peace (welfare, health re: one’s relationship with God) and the Christian sense of peace (tied to salvation through Christ) → So basically, Christ is the peace we need for our bodies. Christ is the peace we need for our souls. Christ is the peace we need for our everything.
    • Next: “He made both Jews and Gentiles into one group.” → I don’t think we can appreciate just how divided Jews and Gentiles were at the time. Heck, there are still some of the stricter branches of Judaism that doesn’t have much to do with Gentiles (general term for anyone and everyone who isn’t Jewish) on a regular basis. The gap between Jews and Gentiles was a gap not breached in most circumstances. The Gentiles were almost always the conquerors of the Jews – those who enslaved them, oppressed them, occupied their homes, and taxed them just for inhabiting their own homelands. Truly, there was no love loss between Jews and Gentiles. And yet … “He made both Jews and Gentiles into one group.” Now that was a countercultural declaration!
    • Last sentence in that verse: “With his body, he broke down the barrier of hatred that divided us.” → I’m not the only one yearning for that type of breaking down today, right? In this world in which we live in today, it feels like there’s nothing but “barriers of hatred that divide us,” right? It seems like every post … every headline … every soundbite … every political slogan … even things that are supposed to entertain us like country songs … it seems like everything we encounter throughout the day constructs a new barrier of hatred that divides us. And yet we are assured that Jesus breaks those barriers down.
      • Passage goes on to declare how Jesus makes peace btwn those for whom peace was thought inconceivable – Jews and Gentiles
        • Speaks of creating a new person out of the 2 groups
        • Speaks of making peace
        • Speaks of reconciling all to God through the cross
  • Eph passage also extends that peace OUT! – text: When [Jesus] came, he announced the good news of peace to you who were far away from God and to those who were near.[4] → makes it clear that this peace that Jesus brings is a peace for all
    • Jew and Gentile
    • Near and far
    • Those who are strangers and those who are not
    • Text: So now you are no longer strangers and aliens. Rather, you are fellow citizens with God’s people, and you belong to God’s household.[5] → Does that sounds like being called “children of God” to you? Because it does to me.
  • Eph passage also goes into the call that’s associated with being a peacemaker – text: As God’s household, you are built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. The whole building is joined together in him, and it grows up into a temple that is dedicated to the Lord. Christ is building you into a place where God lives through the Spirit.[6] → This part of our passages presents the idea that being a peacemaker – being a child of God – is a process. It’s a journey, not a destination. It’s a building being built one decision … one kind word … one act of peace … one prayer … one particle of faith at a time. But no matter how it’s built – no matter what it looks like or how long that building takes – Jesus is always both the builder and the cornerstone, the one that anchors the whole building firmly and undeniably in a relationship with God. You see, being a peacemaker is not just about how you “do.” It’s also about how you “be.”
    • See this in the Gr. “they will be called children of God” → Gr. “called” has three particular meanings
      • 1^st = most obvious: “named/addressed”
      • 2^nd = choice element of being called: “invited” → We are invited to be children of God, but we have to willingly and genuinely accept that invitation each and every day.
      • 3^rd = flip side – the compelled element: “summoned” → We are free to make the choice … but we cannot deny that there is something deep inside us that is drawn to God, something that yearns for God.
        • Gr. language source: “almost equivalent to the verb ‘to be’” → That call to be a “child of God” runs that deeply within us – that it is mystically and inextricably linked to our very being!
• And yet we find ourselves living and moving and trying to find God in the midst of a culture that has long since valued profit over peace … politics over peace … proof over peace. For too long now, the emphasis has been on proving myself right, not just by making a sound argument for my point but by denigrating and even vilifying your point. We’ve forgotten that true peacemaking requires coming together. We’ve forgotten that true peacemaking requires We’ve forgotten that true peacemaking requires effort and compromise. It involves uncovering and confronting some uncomfortable things and dealing with them – grappling with them, learning both about them and from them, and letting that process of dealing with them bring about change … sometimes even change in ourselves. Y’all … we have gotten SO BOGGED DOWN in the ugliness of this that for nearly 20 yrs., one of the U.S.’s main weapons of war – an intercontinental ballistic missile – was called the Peacekeeper. That’s sick.
  • Words of author Marianne Williamson: Hate has talked so loudly for so long. Greed has talked so loudly for so long. Liars have talked so loudly for so long. Love has got to stop whispering. → Friends, we are called to be peacemakers. We are called to actively work and pray and hope and dare for peace in all the corners of this world – within ourselves; within our relationships; within our homes; within our communities; and within this crazy, messed-up, broken gathering called humanity. Jesus never promises that it will be easy or fun or even safe work (foreshadowing: we’ll get into that more with next week’s beatitude!) … but still, it is the work to which we are called.
    • It’s what we sing every Sunday: [READ lyrics] “Let There Be Peace on Earth”
    • Truly, friends, blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Amen.

[1] Mt 5:9 (NRSV).

[2] Pheme Perkins. “The Letter to the Ephesians: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections” in The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary series, vol. 11. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2000), 354-355.

[3] Eph 2:14 (CEB).

[4] Eph 2:17.

[5] Eph 2:19.

[6] Eph 2:20-22.

Text used – Daniel 3:14-27

• Review sermon series on Beatitudes
  • Dive deeper into one Beatitude each week
  • Today’s Beatitude: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.[1] → I think this is an interesting one because while on the surface it seems like a difficult one, I think it’s actually one of the easiest to understand when we get down to it.
    
    • Difficulty with this one = wholly linked to the word “pure” → word with some very complex associations, right?
      • Idea of purity = without imperfections → And I don’t know a whole lot of humans (myself included!) who are without imperfections. 
      • Idea of purity has been used as a justification for all sorts of hatred and exclusion throughout the history of humanity
        • Racism
        • Sexism
        • Anti-Semitism
        • Genocide on just about every continent at some point throughout history → Here in America, it was the forced cultural assimilation of Native American tribes into the European way of living – the language, the dress, the religion, and so on.
          • American Indian Boarding Schools
          • R. H. Pratt (what he called his “philosophy of assimilation”): “Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.”
      • Idea of purity has led to some really harmful practices within evangelical Christian circles → purity culture swept through evangelical Christianity in the 1990s: built on the idea of saving oneself for marriage … not in and of itself a bad thing
        • But purity culture did this by building up layer upon layer of shame and guilt and control and fear around anything and everything having to do with the natural development of adolescent bodies and hormones and feelings. Because purity culture has been a relatively recent cultural phenomenon, there’s still all sorts of psychological and sociological research being done around the impact of this on people throughout the rest of their life. → what’s already come out:
          • Contributed to women being taught that any unwanted attention from men was their own fault (the women’s fault) → led to many women being too scared or too ashamed to report any abuses
          • Also contributed to toxic masculinity in that it taught men/boys that it was their job to “police their women” → make sure their sisters, daughter, girlfriends, wives were acting, dressing, speaking, living “appropriately” → led to a slough of clear and obvious abuses
    • So there’s a lot of baggage wrapped up in that word “pure” – baggage that cannot and should not be simply ignore … swept under the rug … if we’re going to do our due diligence with this particular blessing of Jesus’. And while I’d like to say there’s some sort of nuance in the Greek that makes this all a lot easier to sidestep, there isn’t. → Gr. here is very clear = “pure” or “clean”
• So what is Jesus talking about when he says, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God?”
  • Key for us and our understanding this morning is going to come from that focus word Fr. Casey Cole proposes for this beatitude in his book[2]: AUTHENTICITY
    • First, Cole addresses issue of “purity” baggage: [read pp. 71-72] → discussion of the Pharisees strict adherence to rules for the sake of the rules as opposed to faith in God
      • Reminds me of a quote from a book that I just finished reading – The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave
        • Brief description (last paragraph from inside the dust jacket): With is breakneck pacing, dizzying plot twists, and evocative family drama, The Last Thing He Told Me is a riveting mystery, certain to shock you with its final, heartbreaking turn.[3]
        • Quote: This is the thing about good and evil. They aren’t so far apart – and they often start from the same valiant place of wanting something to be different.[4] → Now that’s not to say that the Pharisees were evil. Like Jesus and the disciples, they were wanting something to be different. But somewhere along the line, the link between their intentions and their actions had gone off the rails.
    • Cole goes on to give us a more rounded theological idea of “purity”: Too often, the problem with our understanding of purity … is that we treat it as synonymous with cleanliness when Jesus actually intends it as “undivided.” While he is certainly intent on his followers observing the commandments and living moral lives, the lack of external blemishes is not the mark of a true disciple: a focused, devoted heart is. The one with a pure heart is one whose intentions match their actions, who present themselves as exactly who they are. As the old saying goes, “What you see it what you get.” There’s no guile, no ulterior motives, no clandestine hobbies or double life. At the center of who they are is a desire to please God and serve their neighbor, as well as an undeniable confidence in who they are and what they are to do.[5]
      • About being authentic in your relationship with God
      • About being authentic in your relationships with others
• That’s where our First Testament story comes into play this morning. There are few stories in which the participants are more authentically themselves – more genuine and devoted in their faith despite the costs – than Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego!
  • Backstory: Nebuchadnezzar = king of Babylon → king who conquered Jerusalem, destroyed the First Temple, and took all of Israel’s best and brightest back to live in Babylon (Babylonian Exile … yeah, this is that king)
    • Daniel and his friends Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were four of those “best and brightest”
    • Beginning of Dan: In the third year of the rule of Judah’s King Jehoiakim, Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar came to Jerusalem and attacked it. The Lord handed Judah’s King Jehoiakim over to Nebuchadnezzar, along with some of the equipment from God’s house. Nebuchadnezzar took these to Shinar, to his own god’s temple, putting them in his god’s treasury.[6]
  • Historically, we’re told that King Nebuchadnezzar actually treated the exiled Jews well (all things considered). They were allowed to make a living in Babylon. They were allowed to set up their own homes. They were allowed to marry. Most of the time, they were even allowed to practice their own religion … most of the time. → today’s story = one of the exceptions
    • Beginning of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego’s story (Dan 3)
      • Nebuchadnezzar sets up an enormous golden statue → Scripture tells us this statue was 90 ft. high. For those of you who are spatially challenged (like me), that’s roughly the size of a regulation basketball court from the rim of one hoop to the rim of the other. Or, if you’re not a sports person but have been up to Minnehaha Falls in south Minneapolis, it’s almost twice the size of Minnehaha Falls.
      • Nebuchadnezzar has all his government officials dedicate the statue → orders everyone to bow down to this enormous golden statue – text: The herald proclaimed loudly, “Peoples, nations, and languages! This is what you must do: When you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, zither, lyre, harp, flute, and every kind of instrument, you must bow down and worship the gold statue that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. Anyone who will not bow down and worship will be immediately thrown into a furnace of flaming fire.”[7]
      • Enter the Chaldeans.
        • Chaldeans = Aramean-speaking peoples indigenous to Iraq
        • Earlier in Daniel (ch 2), King Nebuchadnezzar had been having all sorts of dreams that were making him anxious → sought people to interpret his dreams, including a group of Chaldean sages → But the Chaldeans couldn’t do it. They declared, “What the king is asking is impossible! No one could declare the dream to the king but the gods, who don’t live among mere humans.”[8] → enraged, King Nebuchadnezzar has all the sages who couldn’t interpret the dreams killed → But who eventually interpreted the dreams for Nebuchadnezzar? Daniel → Daniel and his friends are rewarded
        • This ability to do what their compatriots had declared impossible coupled with those rewards angered the Chaldeans. So when Nebuchadnezzar made the decree about bowing down to the statue, the Chaldeans saw their chance to attack the Jews. → Chaldeans bring news to Nebuchadnezzar that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refuse to bow down to the enormous golden statue → Nebuchadnezzar is enraged and has the three Jews brought before him (catches us up to today)
  • Not a whole lot of hedging and uncertainty in today’s story
    • Nebuchadnezzar makes it abundantly clear what the consequences are for refusing to comply with his edict
    • Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego make it just as clear that they have no intention of complying – text: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered King Nebuchadnezzar: “… If our God – the one we serve – is able to rescue us from the furnace of flaming fire and from your power, Your Majesty, then let him rescue us. But if he doesn’t, know this for certain, Your Majesty: we will never serve your gods or worship the gold statue you’ve set up.”[9] → And there it is! The outright authenticity that Cole is talking about. The confidence in God and in their choice to follow God no matter the consequences.
      • Such a powerful statement because Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are admitting that they aren’t certain God will save them from the furnace → What they are certain of is that God alone is their God, and that the path they’ve chosen is the right one. At this point, it’s not even important that Nebuchadnezzar ends up putting them in the furnace. It’s not even important that God does save them in the furnace. It’s not even important that they come out unscathed. What’s important is that “but” … that small but critical emphasis that their faith is in God. Period.
      • John Dear in The Beatitudes of Peace: I do not think “purity” means perfection, nor is it an unreachable goal. When Jesus calls us to purity of heart, he’s calling us to an inner journey toward an ever-widening heart of love and compassion for others, all creation, and the Creator. Purity of heart or inner purity is a process, a way of life, not a statis goal. He calls us to a soft heart that beats, not a cold heart of stone. When understood this way, this Beatitude becomes an exciting invitation to an inner journey of love, compassion, nonviolence, and peace.[10]
• This is where the 2^nd half of Jesus’ blessing comes in – the promise part: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
  • Gr. “see” has a depth to it → It can also mean witness, experience, perceive, notice, or consider. It’s not just about seeing God with our eyes. It’s about recognizing God’s presence with our hearts in the world around us – the people around us, the community around us, the situations around us. And in order to do that, we have to encounter them openly and authentically. We have to be open enough to see God amidst the trappings and disguises of our world today, and we have to be authentic enough in our own journeys of faith to recognize those glimpses as God.
    • Dear: In other words, as we cultivate nonviolence of the heart, and root all we do in our relationship with the God of peace, we begin to see God everywhere – in the beauty of creation, in the wonder of all creatures, in the faces of children, in those around us. We see God in the struggle for justice and peace, in the poor and marginalized, in our enemies, in ourselves. This purity of heart, this inner nonviolence, helps us to see with the eyes of peace and love, so that we recognize every human being as our very sister and brother and see Christ in others. We see the face of God in the face of every human being.[11] → Truly, friends, blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Amen.

[1] Mt 5:8 (NRSV).

[2] Casey Cole. The Way of Beatitude: Living Radical Hope in a World of Division and Despair. (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press), 2022.

[3] Laura Dave. The Last Thing He Told Me. (New York: Simon & Schuster), 2021.

[4] Dave, 266.

[5] Cole, 72.

[6] Dan 1:1-2.

[7] Dan 3:4-6.

[8] Dan 2:11.

[9] Dan 3:16-18.

[10] John Dear. The Beatitudes of Peace: Meditations on the Beatitudes, Peacemaking and the Spiritual Life. (New London: Twenty-Third Publications, 2016), 80.

[11] Dear, 87-88.