YEAR A 2026 pentecost 9

Pentecost 9, 2026
Genesis 29:15-28
Psalm 128
Romans 8:26-39
Matthew 13:31-33,44-52
Final sermon at St. Timothy’s Church, Massillon, OH (where the football comes from)

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

As longtime listeners know, the apostle Paul and I do not always see eye to eye.  But to be fair, that’s partly because he was working out his theology in public, in real time, through his letters to the churches.  And by the time he writes to the church in Rome, he is really hitting his stride.  There are absolute gems in the epistle reading we heard today.

The Holy Spirit prays for us in the times when we can’t pray.  All things work together for good for those who love God.  If God is for us, who can be against us?  Who will separate us from the love of Christ?  I am convinced that nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Absolute bangers, Paul!

And that last one is key for us all to hold onto in the days ahead.  Nothing can separate us from the love of God.  Back in 2001, my bandmate and I recorded an album we called “Something.”  (Long story how we got the name.)  The theme of that album was:  Nothing can separate us from the love of God.  The chorus of the second song was just that phrase: For I am convinced that there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God.  And then between each song we would play the melody from that song on a variety of instruments, to remind the listener of the theme.  And then, after the final chorus of the last song, we shifted back into singing the theme chorus one last time:  For I am convinced that there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God.  And we ended with the final chord played nine times—3 long, 3 short, 3 long.

After a couple days, I said to Michael, “You know, I think that pattern is Morse Code for SOS!”  And we got really excited about the theological possibilities of working with that as a plea to God to save us.  It was like a perfect serendipitous ending.  Salvation is tied to the idea that nothing can separate us from the love of God.   And that’s like our SOS, right?  After we released the album, I checked to make sure I was right about that pattern.  Turns out, in Morse Code, three dashes, three dots, and three dashes do not spell SOS.  They spell OSO.  Could have been worse? 

For I am convinced that there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God.  But here’s a list of things that can separate you from the love of God.  I’ve heard preachers do this all the time.  Smoking.  Drinking.  Who you love.  Who you vote for.  How much TV you watch.  Everyone’s got their list of things that are a bridge too far.  But notice, those things are about you, not me.  Nothing can separate us from the love of God, except for some of your personal behaviors.  

But Paul goes through the trouble of listing everything he could think of to show that there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God.  Hardship, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness(!), peril, sword, death, life, angels, rulers, things present, things to come, powers, height(?), depth(?), anything else in all creation.  I think that pretty much covers it!  Nothing means no thing.  But we all still have those exceptions in our head.  Something we’re sure makes someone else—or ourselves—unlovable.  Beyond God’s love.  Nothing in all creation . . . except for this one particular thing.

And that’s because we confuse God’s love for us with how we treat each other.  Those lists of behaviors we don’t like serve to separate us from each other.  To sow division.  To say, “I’m in and you’re out.”  Because things do separate us from one another.  Time, distance, politics, anger, points of view, we are separate from one another in many ways.  And there are plenty of things that foster that separation.  Our news silos, gossip, grudges, football rivalry games.  (Go Tigers!)  Plenty of separation to go around.

But Paul says, nothing can separate US from the love of God.  We are the body of Christ in this world.  We are one body, like it or not.  Paul doesn’t say nothing can separate you or separate me from God’s love.  It’s us.  Whether we are together or apart, it’s still us.  Whether we agree or disagree, it’s still us.

Yes, things do separate us from each other.  Over these ten past years, things I’ve said and done and preached have had that effect.  Even when we’re not trying to separate ourselves from one another, it happens.  But I’m just some guy.  Sure, I’ve been invested with some authority and a pulpit because you chose to entrust me with it.  But I’m still just some guy.  The 20th guy, in fact.  There have been 19 other guys, and there will be plenty more.  And one day, God willing, gals as well.  But priests are just people, walking alongside you, and hopefully doing our best.

The real ministry in this faith community is carried out by the people, not the priest.  And when you read through the history of St. Timothy’s—which I will once again encourage you to do—you’ll see that it’s true.  Priests come and go, but the people are where you see God working in this world.  St. Timothy’s keeps going because nothing can separate us from the love of God.

And notice the inclusion of the word “love” in Paul’s claim.  There are things that do separate us from God.  (Mostly of our own doing.)  This is why we have weekly corporate confession.  In the catechism of our prayer book (page 855) we read that “The mission of the Church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ."  Restoring to unity implies some separation, right?  The thing to hold onto here is that though we can separate ourselves from God and one another—sometimes without even trying— we can never separate ourselves from the love of God.  Nothing can separate us means No thing.  With a capital N.  God’s love is relentless.  Maybe even annoyingly relentless!

So what about right now?  What about today and the scary unknown future?  Even though nothing can separate us from the love of God, at the end of this week, you and I will be physically separate from one another.  And that’s really hard.  

But as I reminded you a few weeks ago, grief is borne of love.  If we didn’t love, we wouldn’t care.  So it is fitting that we grieve the absence of those we love.  And grief is hard.

We don’t know what the future will hold for any of us.  There will be hard times ahead, but there will be joy and laughter as well.  Some of us will get discouraged, and others will find the courage to step up to help in new ways.  St. Timothy’s will look different a year from now, just as it looks different than it did a year ago, or ten years ago, or a hundred years ago, or 190 years ago!  And that’s a good thing.  Because the church is always changing, always on the move, always looking for a new way to reach people with the unrelenting love of God.  

May God make us all just as convinced as my frenemy the apostle Paul, that there is nothing in all creation that can ever separate us from the love of God.  Nothing.  Not even mistaking OSO for SOS.  Because no matter what, God loves, and God saves.

Amen

YEAR A 2026 pentecost 7

Pentecost 7, 2026
Genesis 25:19-34
Psalm 119:105-112
Romans 8:1-11
Matthew 13:1-9,18-23

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

This is a fantastic gospel reading for us today.  For where we are now, and for where we’ll be in the future.  This parable of the sower shows up in all three synoptic gospels, by which I mean Matthew, Mark, and Luke.  And in all 3 cases, Jesus offers an explanation of the parable.  And—to be honest—I hate it when he does that, because it feels like it limits where we can go with a parable.  But actually, in this case I think it helps refine the parable, provided we are willing to step out of our knee-jerk reaction to it.  By which I mean, our tendency to make it all about ourselves.  As we are want to do.

So with that in mind, let’s start here.  This is a parable about the seeds; this is not a parable about the soil.  If you’re anything like me, you probably automatically focused on the different types of soil.  And wondered which type of soil you are.  And wondered which type of soil your friends are.  And that’s because our latent Protestant Work Ethic makes us assume that it’s all about the hardworking soil.  And therefore gets us right into a competition to be the good soil.  Or—more aptly—to be better than the soil next to us.  But this is not about the soil!

And let’s look at what Jesus does not say in this parable, or in the explanation.  He does not say that the good soil in any way benefits from being able to make the seeds grow.  He does not say that the good soil is somehow saved and will be welcome into heaven.  And by the same token, he does not say that the rocky soil is condemned, or that the soil with weeds will be sent to burn in the fires of hell.  

He also doesn’t say in any way that the soil is to blame for it’s inability to receive the seed.  As we have encountered in many other parables, it’s important to remind ourselves that soil is just soil, and cannot help being the kind of soil it is.  It is up to the gardener to amend the soil.  It is up to the clouds to send rain for the soil.  It is up to hikers not to trample the soil.  The soil just sits there, being soil.  And along come the seeds, which either sprout or don’t sprout.  It’s not up to the soil.

Okay okay, you’re saying.  We get it.   It’s not about the soil, but then what is this parable about?  I’m glad you asked.  This is a parable about the generosity of God and the unlimited reach of the good news of the gospel.

The takeaway is that the word of God is sown with reckless abandon.  It is everywhere all the time!  The word of God is not a precious delicate seed that is carefully planted to a depth of 1.5 inches in meticulously amended soil and then surrounded by a deer fence and two bottles of Roundup.  The word of God is thrown every place imaginable because it is limitless!  Some seed is choked by weeds, and God throws more.  Some seed is carried away by birds, but the joke’s on them because those seeds will be replanted—with fertilizer!  The word of God keeps coming, no matter the obstacles!

And it doesn’t have to take root everywhere because it is everywhere.  And it’s worth noting that even the good soil varies in how much grain it produces.  Some 30, some 60, and some a hundredfold.  And here’s the kicker: what happens to the 30, 60, and a hundred fold grains?  They fall back into the earth to create even more plants in that same good soil.  We could even call this The Parable of the Magic of Compound Interest!  Not all the soil has to nurture the seeds because some of the soil does nurture the seeds!  Which brings us to the bigger point.  Teamwork.

I was recently telling Andrew our Choirmaster that I had a huge epiphany over the past year in our choir.  And it’s simply this:  As one assigned to the tenor section (against my will), I am well aware that a good many of the notes are above my range.  And I can kind of hit them if I strain, which makes them loud and screechy.  However, if I pull back and flip to falsetto, the note doesn’t go away, because that note is right in the range of the sopranos, who can sing it perfectly.  And when notes are too low for me, there is our reliable Joel Vogt to hit the bass pitches that will shake the building.  The takeaway is that the notes I cannot sing don’t disappear, because someone else can quite capably sing those notes.

And we see this in team sports as well.  When the Massillon Tigers football team wins a game, the whole team wins that game.  Including the players who sat on the bench all game.  Including the coaches who never set foot on the field.  Including the parents who drove the kids to the game.  Including the band members who inspired the fans and players.  I mean, it’s why we say, “WE won!”  One player fumbles, another player recovers.  One player blocks a tackle, and another player reaches the end zone, producing 30, 60, or a hundredfold points.  When we focus on the goal of winning the game, it doesn’t matter who does what along the way.  

So, back to the gospel.  Not all the soil is too rocky to be a good environment for seeds to grow.  But some of it is; and that’s okay.  Not all the soil is going to have weeds that choke out the plants.  But some of it is; and that’s okay.  Because though not all the soil is going to be exactly right to receive the seeds and produce 30, 60, and a hundredfold more plants, some of it is.  And that is enough.  That is enough for God.

We need to focus our attention on the success of the seeds, and not the condition of the soil.  Let’s not make a story about Jesus into a story about ourselves—tempting though that is.  Jesus does not end the parable by saying, “And all hope was lost.”  He doesn’t finish by saying, “If only I had better soil.”  And—most importantly—he doesn’t say, “And the bad soil was sent away to burn in unquenchable fire for all eternity.”  This is a parable about unlimited seeds of good news that are spread in every direction without giving one thought to the condition of the soil.  God’s love will not be hindered by some rocks and a few weeds.

Which brings us to St. Timothy’s.  We have some challenges ahead, to say the least.  And this parable is a great reminder that not everyone has to do every thing.  There are a wide variety of gifts in this congregation, and you’re going to need all of them in the coming months.  Some are called to leadership, some are called to support leadership.  Some are called to donate financially, and some are called to be good stewards of those finances.  Some are called to sing, and some are called to be inspired by that singing.  And all the gifts that you will share with the world come from God’s unbounded, reckless, unlimited generosity.  And there is some particular seed that will only flourish because it lands on you personally.  I encourage you to let that seed grow, because it will indeed produce 30, 60, and a hundredfold.  We're going to be okay, because of God’s abundant, generous, and unceasing blessings on us all.

Amen

YEAR A 2026 pentecost 6

Pentecost 6, 2026
Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67
Psalm 45: 11-18
Romans 7:15-25a
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Jesus says, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”  Come to me, he says.  Which suggests that’s not our natural inclination, right?  When we are weary, and carrying heavy burdens, where do we turn?  When we need rest, what do we do?  Well, Jesus comes right out and says that we should come to him in the times when we are struggling.  And I think it’s a timely reminder for us all to keep that in mind.  And here’s why . . . .

We have done our best to make sure everyone knows.  So if this is the first you are hearing this news, I am sorry.  After ten years serving with you here in Massillon, I have accepted a call to serve with the people at Church of the Ascension, in Lakewood, Ohio, starting in September.  My ministry with you will come to a close at the end of this month.  For those of you who did not see the email or receive a letter in the mail from me and the Wardens, there are copies by the door in the back and on the table in the parish hall.

So, the priest is leaving, and today we hear Jesus say, come to me.  To me.  Where might we naturally go instead though?  To anger?  To disappointment?  To worrying about the future?  Jesus says come to me, all you that are carrying heavy burdens.  Where might we go instead?  To panic?  To despair?  To hopelessness?  We’ve got a lot of things to sort out in the next month.  A lot of burdens to carry figuring out who does what and how things are done.  A lot of things to organize and hand off and work through and—yes—we’ll all be carrying heavy burdens.  And Jesus says come to me, all you that are carrying heavy burdens.  Perfect.

Jesus also says, come to me all who are weary.  I think it’s true that we have all been weary since at least 2020.  We didn’t know how to navigate a global pandemic because we’d never seen one before.  And rather than bringing us together, covid drove us apart.  No matter what decisions were made and no matter for what reasons, we instinctively attributed the worst motives to everyone we disagreed with.  And the resulting divisions have never really healed.  The deep down exhaustion of those times has never really left us.  And we are weary to the bone.  And Jesus says, come to me all who are weary.  Perfect.

And again, Jesus says come to me.  Wherever we are tempted to turn when we are burdened, wherever we are tempted to turn when we are weary, if we aren’t turning to Jesus, then we’re doing it wrong.  When we turn to Jesus first, we will find rest for our souls.  St. Timothy’s will still be here in August.  And Jesus will still be with St. Timothy’s in August, and still saying “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”  Rest for your souls.

We naturally grieve when relationships end.  And lately I have been thinking a lot about the idea that grief is borne out of love.  If we didn’t love, we wouldn’t care.  If we didn’t love, we wouldn’t grieve.  This is a painful time for all of us, because we care, and because we love.  And so, we are right to grieve.

But let us all come to Jesus at this Altar today in peace.  Come and meet him in the bread and the wine.  Let us come to Jesus and find rest. And then, let us go out into the world to do the work God has given us to do, with our souls resting in Jesus.  The one who says come to me, and I will give you rest.

Amen

YEAR A 2026 pentecost 5

Pentecost 5, 2026
Genesis 22:1-14
Psalm 13
Romans 6:12-23
Matthew 10:40-42

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Well, here I go again, preaching on the first reading.  We call this story, “The Binding of Isaac.”  It is one of the nine options for readings at the Easter Vigil, but I’ve never heard anyone actually use it.  Because . . . well, because you can’t just read this story during a worship service and not say something about it.  And no priest in their right mind chooses to spend their Easter sermon talking about the time God told Abraham to kill his only son.

As we heard, God says to Abraham, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.”  You notice how it’s all right in there:  Your son, your only son, whom you love!  

Let’s take a moment to remember how we got here.  At some point, God promised Abraham that his descendants would number as the grains of sand.  Two weeks ago, we heard that Sarah and Abraham are very old when God gives them the miraculous birth of Isaac.  And last week, Sarah has Abraham send away Abraham’s other son, Ishmael.  And now here we are: The one and only chance to give Abraham the offspring who will number as the sands, being taken on a three-day journey to be offered up as a sacrifice.  The end of everything God has promised.  Something’s not right here, right?  I mean, a LOT of things are not right here!

But . . . we must remember that child sacrifice was not unusual in the culture of the time.  When we read the book of Genesis, we run into all sorts of things that seem unthinkable to us, things which were commonplace at the time the book was written.  That world is not our world.  We need to set aside our natural horror and revulsion, because in the wider culture all around Abraham, the gods were always demanding things like child sacrifice.  To hear God requiring the same thing from Abraham probably seems expected to him, on some level.  All the other gods were making demands of brutal domination and cruelty; that was the sign of a good leader, to make people suffer and cower in fear.  It was a different time . . . sort of.

So Abraham dutifully takes Isaac up the mountain.  We get the full description, from saddling the donkey and getting servants, to leaving the servants behind and going on ahead with Isaac and the stack of wood.  We can’t believe he’s really going to go through with this.  And Isaac asks his father, “Where is the lamb for a burnt offering?”  And Abraham tells him, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering.”  And then we get to the dramatic climax as Abraham raises the knife, to sacrifice his only son,  and the angel of the Lord calls out to stop him.  The God of Abraham is different from those other gods.  Thank God!

Which is kind of the point of much of the first few books of what we call the Old Testament.  All those seemingly arcane laws and everything else show us that the God of Abraham is different from the other gods.  And the God of Abraham’s people are different from the other people.  All those dietary restrictions and moral codes serve to mark God and the Hebrew people as different from their neighbors.  As being set apart, as a chosen people.

The gods of Abraham’s neighbors demanded sacrifice, and in Abraham’s mind, this would have made God just like the other gods.  But the God of Abraham is different from those other gods.  The other gods still want sacrifice, but the God of Abraham wants mercy and salvation.  This is different!

And so the child Isaac is spared, and a ram in a thicket takes his place.  But notice, Issac is not spared because of the ram.  No, Isaac is saved because of God’s intervention.  The ram is not there because God needed a sacrifice.  My own guess is that Abraham still needed to sacrifice something, and God provides.  But God does not require the sacrifice; God desires mercy, not sacrifice.  It is not about the death of the ram; it’s about the life of Isaac.  

And one thing this whole event gives to Abraham is a date to refer to.  A moment in time.  When his neighbors ask him, “How do you know that God desires mercy and not sacrifice?”  Abraham can say, “One day, God called to me and told me to take my only son, whom I love, and go up this mountain . . .”  He’s got a story to prove the point:  God desires mercy, not sacrifice.

And as Christians, we have this same pattern with Jesus.  Some Christians will tell you that Jesus needed to die because God needed a sacrifice.  The technical term for this view is Penal Substitutionary Atonement.  I know plenty of clergy who subscribe to this fancy-named Calvinist theory.  But I don’t believe it for a second.  God didn’t need a sacrifice, but we did.  Like Abraham, we need a date that we can point to, a specific event, and say, “That’s the day everything changed.  That’s the day when God did for us what we can’t do for ourselves.”  And that day for us is not Good Friday; that day is Easter.  That’s the day that matters for us.  The day that God raises Jesus from the dead is our Mount Moriah.  Our own story that proves: The Lord provides.

And even though the false gods of this world still want sacrifice, the God of Abraham wants salvation.  Those false gods of selfish gain, and blind vengeance, and high moral principle want sacrifice.  The God of Abraham wants redemption.

And so the obvious question is, well, how do we satisfy a God who wants redemption and salvation?  It’s easy to satisfy the gods who want bloodshed and sacrifice.  We do it all the time, by throwing people under the bus, or dropping bombs on their cities.  But how do we conjure up mercy, and salvation?  And the answer is back there on that mountain: The Lord will provide.  

Everything necessary for salvation is provided by God, not by us.  Our role is to listen and to trust, just as Abraham did.  Our part is to discern the voice of the gods of this world for what they are, and where they lead us, and to choose instead to follow the voice of the God of Abraham.  The one who cries out, “Stop!” and provides another way.  Even though we naturally think that what God desires are sacrifice and rejection, God shows us over and over that mercy and acceptance are the better way.  God’s story is about salvation and redemption, from the beginning of time until the day Jesus returns—Salvation and Redemption and Restoration. 

We can trust that things really are going to be alright, because God will provide.  We might not see it right now, we might not believe it right now, but God always provides.  Because—like Abraham—we worship the God who chooses mercy and redemption, and always shows us a better way.

Amen.

YEAR A 2026 pentecost 4

Pentecost 4, 2026
Genesis 21:8-21
Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17
Romans 6:1b-11
Matthew 10:24-39

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Jesus said, “For I have come to set a man against his father.”  Happy Father’s Day everybody!  Really some unfortunate timing to use that gospel text.  But these things happen.  So . . . let’s go to Genesis instead.

Remember last week how I was saying Sarah and Abraham are heroes of the faith for us?  And remember that cute story about how Sarah got caught laughing at the absurdity of God’s generosity?  And how we can all sort of identify with her?  That was really great, wasn’t it?

An amazing story of how God brings hope to those who have no reason to hope.  How God fulfills promises that are seemingly impossible.  Life comes only through promise, and promise comes only through the actual bodies of the hopeless ones.  A baby is born to a couple who are “as good as dead.”  They have no reason to hope, they have no reason to dream, which is exactly the time God steps in.  It’s an inspiring story, and a reminder that babies can bring hope to the world.  But then today, that happy, hopeful story goes south.  It all comes undone.

Some background though:  before all this happened, Abraham and Sarah could not have children, for whatever reason.  So Sarah arranges for Abraham to have a son with her handmaiden, Hagar, and the boy is named Ishmael (which means, “God hearkens”).  Then, as we heard last week, because of God’s generosity, Sarah now has a son of her own, Isaac.  An unexpected blessing in her old age.  But, as we heard today, Sarah is worried that the “illegitimate” son will usurp Isaac’s birthright, since Ishmael is older.  And so, Sarah tells Abraham to send Hagar and Ishmael away, which he does.  Last week’s cute story of hope and laughter has given way to today’s unthinkable rejection of Abraham’s first son and his mother.

After they are sent off into the desert, Hagar runs out of water, and knows her son will die.  She can’t bear to watch this, and so she puts him under a bush and goes off a good distance to watch him die of dehydration. 

We’re now a long way from Sarah’s claim that “all who hear will laugh with me.”  When Ishmael was Abraham’s only son, Sarah was fine with that.  But after the birth of Isaac, after the unmerited abundance of God’s unwarranted blessing and grace, after she gets everything she ever wanted . . . she turns.

Sarah’s fears about the future lead her to treat Hagar and Ishmael as “other.”  Just look at how she says it:  “Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac.”  You notice who doesn’t get names there?  We heard, “this slave woman,” and “her son,” versus “my son, Isaac.”  Sarah is saying, I got what I wanted, and now I have no need of these others.  Get them out of my sight.  

It’s so easy for us to judge Sarah for this obvious betrayal.  But as we sit between Juneteenth and July 4th, I can’t pretend not to see some obvious connections to things we’ve done.  What we’ve been doing for 400 years, actually.  The parallels are glaring, and they are real.  We have enslaved people for our own needs, to build things and harvest crops.  We have stolen people’s land and sent them away to live on reservations.  We have quietly welcomed migrants to work the land and in meatpacking plants while telling them they are not welcome.

And once we got what we wanted, we turned our backs on these “others.”  As a country, we have said, “Abraham, keep those other children out of sight and off our streets.”  And then we invented redlining, and housing agreements, and Indian reservations in order to see that it gets done.

When we focus solely on our own children, when our invented fear of scarcity makes us turn inward, we say that the other children don’t matter, send them away.  Let them go die in the food desert, now that I can see that I will be okay.  And if hearing me say that upsets you . . well, I don’t know what to tell you, because it upsets me too.

But then . . . here comes God.  The angel calls to Hagar from heaven and asks, “What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is.”  Heard the boy whose name literally means, “God Hearkens.”  And as we saw, now she sees there is water in the desert; Hagar gives it to Ishmael; and the boy lives.  And what’s more, God says, ”Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.” 

Sarah looks out at the world as a zero-sum game.  If I am going to win, somebody else has to lose.  If God blesses me, someone else must be cursed.  In order for me to succeed, I must dominate, belittle, trample, and destroy.  This is a very human way of looking at the world.  If God is going to make a great nation out of Isaac, then Ishmael must die.  So limited; so small; so pathetic.

But God says, I will make a great nation of Ishmael too.  With God, it is never either/or, it is always both/and.  God bless my children, and my neighbor’s children.  God bless America, and the other nations of the world.  We cannot control God’s unwarranted, unmerited grace.  God will bless whomever God chooses.  And it’s best not to get in the way of that.  God does not abandon the people we reject, because God can make a great nation of them as well.  If that strikes us as unsettling, well . . . good.  Because God is about life, and hope, and mercy, no matter how much our fears get in the way of seeing that.  Fear changes us.  And not for the better.

And speaking of fear, Jesus said, “Whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.”  That’s pretty unsettling, isn’t it?  I’ve heard countless speakers at youth gatherings use this text to scare kids into being complete jerks about sharing the gospel.  Militarized good news.

It’s kind of tempting to use this Gospel text in a frightening way, which might explain why so many people do.  And, the text sets a nice trap for the blissfulness of youth:  “For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”  You see how they are all the younger being set against the older?  It’s almost a set-up for someone to tell kids that they need to hate their elders.  What is up with that, huh?

Well, there’s a recklessness when we’re young.  Over time, as we grow up, we start to see that in order to be accepted by those around us, we have to play some cards closer to the chest and play by the rules.  You know, not let you know what I’m afraid of.  Not let you know my concerns about my job, or my health, or my future.  What keeps our society civil is a certain amount of secrecy . . . or, you know, propriety.

So, now you’re asking, “Where is this going, anyway?”  Thanks for asking.  We all have our various individual fears.  Some irrational fears, some totally rational.  But, if we’re honest, we especially fear being known.  Or, being fully known.  We hide our fears, and hope no one notices.  And yet, in today’s Gospel, Jesus says, “nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known.”

This ought to scare us all quite nicely.  All those things we keep bottled up inside, hidden from the world, and hidden from the ones we love the most, all of it will all be uncovered and known.  All of it.  And all God’s people said, “uh oh.”

But wait, there’s something else in there that seems out of place at first.  Jesus asks, “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

Now, as I’ve said before, God’s hair counting gets easier each year for some of us.  But here’s an interesting thing about the hair on your head and the sparrows outside your window:  They keep on changing and replacing and regenerating and on and on.  It’s not as if you are born with 1 million hairs and that’s all you get.  Your hair is constantly falling out and getting replaced.

And the same is true for the sparrows: it’s not like the same sparrows come back to our feeder year after year.  There’s a constant turnover.  At our one little bird feeder.  In our one little town.  Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from God.  Not one sparrow will fall to the ground apart from God. 

The sparrows are known.  All of them.  Each and every one of them.  The hairs on your head are counted, each and every one of them.  There is an intimacy in these images that can be comforting.  And yet they both call to mind that phrase from Jesus, there is nothing secret that will not become known.  Fully known, fully loved, never apart from God.

And this leads us back to Sarah and Isaac and Hagar and Ishmael.  Although Sarah can send Hagar and Ishmael off into the desert, claiming never to have known them, they are still known to God, still loved by God.  Though Sarah can turn her back on the ones she no longer sees as valuable, God turns to face them instead, still loved by God.

Hagar and Ishmael are fully known, fully loved, never apart from God.  You are fully known, fully loved, never apart from God.  And the children who still cry out for justice in our country are fully known, fully loved, and never apart from God.  May God give us the will and the strength to lift every voice and sing, till earth and heaven ring with the harmony of liberty.

Amen

YEAR A 2026 pentecost 3

Pentecost 3, 2026
Genesis 18:1-15
Psalm 116:1, 10-17
Romans 5:1-8
Matthew 9:35-10:8

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Let me start by saying, people are people.  That’s not exactly earth-shattering news, I know.  In fact, Depeche Mode told us that back in the 80s.  But it’s important to remember that, because over time we tend to glorify our heroes until we start to remember them as having done nothing wrong in . . . forever.  And then they become these mythical Greek-like gods, who loom larger than life, and whose lofty perfection we can never hope to replicate.  Heroes are different than mentors.  It is fine to have heroes; but it is better to have normal people who show us the way.  Heroes of the faith don’t usually help us in our faith journey; but friends do.  And that’s because heroes are larger than life, whereas regular people point us to a life well lived.  As I said, people are people.

So then these readings today . . . In the reading from Genesis, we heard about the birth of Issac.  Or, more accurately, the pregnancy of Sara.  It’s one of those strange little tales we encounter in the Hebrew scriptures that seems designed to tell us something else.  But there’s something else in the “something else” here too.  We think of Abraham and Sarah as being these giants of the faith.  And yet, here is Sarah, having an ordinary reaction to a ridiculous promise.  She is not really laughing so much as gasping for breath and saying, “AS IF!”  I mean come on, right?  She is an ordinary person having an ordinary response to an extraordinary promise.  Abraham is like a hundred years old!  As Paul said last week, as good as dead.  Forgive my skepticism, says Sarah.

And yet . . . Here comes God, using ordinary people of doubtful ability to carry out an extraordinary event.  Sarah laughs, then lies about laughing, then gets caught lying, and then says, “God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me.”

And when we hear this story, we probably laugh too.  I know I do.  Maybe because we doubt the truth of it; or maybe because we doubt the possibility of it; or maybe just because of the absurdity of it.  Which makes us prime candidates to also end up saying, “God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me.”  My point is, Sarah is an ordinary person, having an ordinary reaction to an extraordinary event.  And that makes her just like us: incredulous at the absurdity of God’s generosity and abundance.

And in Paul’s letter to the Romans, he writes, “Christ died for the ungodly. . . . God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.”  And we only get why that’s absurd when we look at how we think of our relationship with God.  Deep down, we are all convinced that Jesus only died for the righteous ones, for the good people, for the people who go to church and stay out of trouble.  And it is just as crazy to believe God loves sinners as it is to believe that a hundred year old woman is going to give birth to a son.  It’s laughable, right?  As Sarah said, “God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me.”

And then we come to today’s Gospel reading, from Matthew.  It’s a long set of instructions about how and where and why the disciples are supposed to go out and turn the world upside down.  And the parts of it we tend to remember are the parts that have filtered into our culture by way of Ben Franklin sounding phrases:  Sheep among wolves, and shaking the dust from your feet.  Those things are common to us, and we usually quote them completely out of context.  As we are want to do.

But here’s what I want us to notice about this gospel reading today:  The people who are listed as present with Jesus.  Of course we have the usual ragtag group of fishermen, as always.  Guys who have no idea what it is like to read and write or speak in public.  But there are these three others I want us to notice.  Matthew, Simon, and Judas.

Matthew is a tax collector, which means he is in collusion with the occupying Romans, as we heard last week.  It’s hard for us appreciate what this means in that culture, because we’ve been independent for so long.  But this would kind of be like a tax collector for the British, before the American Revolution.  Someone aligned with the oppressors, but then also making his living by overcharging his fellow citizens.  The Jewish people hated tax collectors.  

And on the other extreme, we have Simon the Zealot (called Simon the Cananaean in this reading, to tell us that he is a different Simon from Simon Peter, as in St. Peter’s Basillica.)  This Simon was a Zealot, which is where we get the word . . . zealot.  And the Zealots in that time would be the ones working their tails off to overthrow the occupying Romans.  Think of them as the Minutemen in the War for Independence.  Simon was all about insurrection and asymmetrical warfare and doing everything he could to frustrate the plans of the Roman occupation.  Most ordinary citizens would have thought of the Zealots as being over the top, and making life more difficult for them, by bringing down the Roman hammer in retaliation for their insurrection.

And then there’s Judas.  At this point in Matthew’s gospel, Judas hasn’t yet done what we know him for, but Matthew wants to make sure we know what to expect of him in advance, so he calls him, “Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.”  To continue with our July 4th theme, we can think of Judas as Benedict Arnold.  

Now if we were making this movie, we would make all the disciples Zealots.  We would not include Matthew among the ones being sent out to preach the gospel and heal the sick.  We certainly would have Judas get hit by a bus or something right after Jesus stops talking.

But this is not a movie.  These are real people.  Ordinary people.  People being told by Jesus that he is giving ordinary people extraordinary power to turn the world upside down.  Not because of who they are, but in spite of who they are.  Not because they are pure and righteous, but rather because they are messy and complicated.  They are ordinary, and that is precisely the thing that allows God to use them to do extraordinary things.

Which inevitably leads us to this:  Every Saturday, the Altar Guild comes in and sets some bread and wine near the Altar or on that little table back there.  Ordinary things, sitting in ordinary containers.  And every Sunday, we gather together here in the hope that something miraculous will take place.  And as Paul says, “hope does not disappoint us.”

Because in what takes place here each week, God takes what is ordinary and turns it into something extraordinary.  And I don’t just mean the bread and the wine.  Because week after week, God is taking the plain old ordinary you and me, with all our doubts and laughter, our pain and our joy, and transforming us into something revolutionary and extraordinary:  As each week we once again become the people of God, receiving the overflowing gifts of God.

Amen.

YEAR A 2026 pentecost 2

Pentecost 2, 2026
Genesis 12:1-9
Psalm 33:1-12 
Romans 4:13-25
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Jesus says, “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice’.”  It’s from Hosea, part of a long rant against the sins of God’s people.  Hosea is a scary book, written at a specific time to a specific people.  So tread lightly.

But, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” is a very strange sentence in the first place.  Because mercy and sacrifice are not opposites.  You would expect, “I desire mercy, not vengeance.”  Or, “I desire sacrifice, not selfishness.”  But Jesus says, “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice’.”

So, what does it mean, to set mercy opposed to sacrifice?  Well, I think it helps to look at how they both are about power.  Mercy is handed downward by the one in charge.  Your boss could fire you for something, or could have mercy on you and let you keep working for less than you deserve.  And, in a religious sense, sacrifice is handed upward by the less powerful.  The Levite priests offer sacrifices to God, in order to win God’s mercy.

So, imagine yourself as the one with all the power.  You could offer mercy, or you could demand sacrifice.  Let’s say you own a chain of restaurants.  As a good capitalist, you’d want sacrifices, right?  You’d want people to work more hours for less money.  You’d want them to work weekends and pick up extra shifts.  Having employees who are willing to sacrifice is like the ideal situation for the person in power!

But consider, what kind of a manager would desire mercy instead?  A manager who wouldn’t last very long, I can tell you that!  You don’t feel like coming in today, Joe?  Yeah that’s cool, we all get tired sometimes.  You forgot to call in the order for all the produce for this week Sally?  That’s fine, could happen to anybody. 

Jesus said, “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice’.”  This is a hard teaching, and it certainly runs counter to how the world works, right?  Because we most certainly desire sacrifice over mercy.  Imagine a football coach who desires mercy over sacrifice?  Don’t push yourselves too hard getting ready for that Massillon McKinley game kids.  I mean, it’s just one game.  “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” . . .  said no successful coach ever.

Even though it runs counter to everything we believe about the world, God wants mercy rather than sacrifice.  So, what does that mean for us?  Well, in the simplest terms, when we are in a position to offer mercy we should do so.  And, it is more important to God that we offer mercy than it is that we make sacrifices to God.  Or, put another way, God gets more joy out of us being merciful to one another than anything else.  So let’s do that!

But enough of that.  Let’s back up to how this reading starts.  As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.”  Follow me.  The gospel of Matthew is said to be written, or compiled by Matthew.  Hence the name.  And here we are, in the ninth chapter of a book called Matthew, and Matthew appears for the first time.  And it turns out, he’s a tax collector!  

I’ve told you about tax collectors before, but shorthand is: the Jewish people hated them.  And the reason people hated tax collectors is because—not only were they working for the oppressive Roman occupiers, but—the way they made their money was essentially by overcharging their neighbors.  Like, you owe the foreign occupiers $1,000, but your bill is now actually $2,000 so that I can line my own pockets.  They made a living by collecting for the invaders and by overcharging their neighbors.  So, you can see why Matthew waits nine chapters to disclose what he did for a living.

Anyway, Jesus says “Follow me,” and Matthew does.  Now here’s the thing about this moment: What do you picture when you hear that?  Like Matthew just closes up his books and leaves his booth and starts following Jesus, right?  Like a baby duckling following her mom.  Okay Jesus, I’ll just be following you now, wherever it is you want me to go.

But here’s what’s weird about this story.  They end up going to Matthew’s house.  So Jesus says, “Follow me,” but he ends up following Matthew back to his own house.  To follow Jesus seems to mean leading Jesus back to your own house.  To the place where you probably feel the most comfortable.  That’s certainly true for Matthew, who would likely be run out of any restaurant he walked into.  When everybody hates you, the safest place is probably inside your own home.  And that’s where Jesus meets him.

Now, some Christians will tell you that following Jesus means you have to prepare for a rugged survivalist journey.  Like, if you’re going to follow Jesus, you better expect to endure a daily spiritual triathlon against the evil powers of this world.  Standing up against Pride displays in retail stores, getting classic books banned from school libraries.  To these people, following Jesus demands sacrifice!  They are at war against the spiritual forces of darkness.  When Jesus says, “Follow me,” he is calling them into battle.  Into sacrifice.  But Jesus himself says, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.

Look at Matthew.  Jesus says to him, “Follow me,” but that means Jesus goes with Matthew to his own home.  To the place where Matthew feels most comfortable.  Based on the call of Matthew, following Jesus doesn’t mean you need to go into battle against the people who disagree with you.  Jesus says “Follow me,” and then joins us right where we are, just as we are.

And, when Jesus tells Matthew to follow him, he joins Matthew at a meal.  This is perfect!  Because Jesus has called you to follow him and, guess what?  He meets you in a meal this morning.  Right here at this Altar.  Jesus says, this is my body, this is my blood.  Following Jesus means he joins us at this meal, just like he joined Matthew at a meal.

Jesus says to each of us, “Follow me,” and meets us where we are, just as we are.  And Jesus walks beside us as we follow him on the pathway that leads to life, forgiveness, and the mercy God desires most.

Amen.