“In the Time of Herod…We Long For God To Break In” an Advent 1 sermon on Luke 1:5-13 & Lamentations 3:55-57

Luke 1:5-13
Lamentations 3:55-57
“In the Time of Herod…We Long For God To Break In”
Preached Sunday, November 30, 2025

Today marks the first Sunday of Advent and the beginning of a new worship and sermon series that will carry us through Christmas. It is called:

“What do you fear? Insisting on hope this Advent.”

The sermon series focuses on the narrative in the Gospel of Luke that starts with the words “In the time of Herod…” Our Scripture translation was a little more wordy today: “In the days of King Herod of Judea…” It has long been said that Luke was the more historical of the Gospel writers and he wanted to cement the story of Jesus’s birth in the historical narrative. This opening sentence, however, conveys more than just the year in which these events took place. It also lets us know what kind of world Jesus was born into. It is the important backdrop for everything that is about to happen.

Saying “In the time of Herod…” would be synonymous with saying
“In a time of rampant oppression,”
“In a time of economic disparity,”
“In a time of uncertainty,”
“In a time of instability.”

It sounds like it might be a time not too unlike our own.

If this story had happened “In the time of 2025…” what background knowledge would that give for our stories and lives…
“In a time of stark political divides,”
“In a time of a widening gap between socio-economic classes,”
“In a time of mass deportations,”
“In a time of covid & post-covid,”
“In a time of war and broken peace treaties,”
“In a time of, in a time of, in a time of….” I will let you fill in the blank.

And yet, and yet. In the time of Herod…the angels of God repeatedly say, “Do not fear.” In a time when there was so much to fear, the most repeated phrase in the Christmas narrative is, “Do not fear.”

I believe, in our world, in our times, God is repeating that same phrase to us here and now, today, and across our lives. “Do not fear.” And so this Advent we will explore where we can release fear and hold tightly to hope, peace, love, and joy - the promises of God.

Therefore we are invited this Advent to gently and tenderly examine our fears - the larger fears of our world and the fears of our personal lives, for so often they are deeply intertwined. As we hear the echoes of the angels saying, “Do not fear,” I do not want you to imagine a deep booming voice issuing a command from the heavens to tell us to instantly banish all fear. It is not a scolding command that fills you with shame and doesn’t actually work to make fear just go away. Instead imagine it whispering softly in your ear, in the voice of a loving Divine parent, coming to comfort a child who just had a bad dream. “What are you afraid of? Do not fear. I am here with you.”

It is in the comforting Divine embrace that we are called to release our fears, acknowledging what they are in order to make room instead for hope.

We may never in this life let go of our fears completely. And fear can be lived with in a healthy way, acting as a safeguard and a teacher. But fear cannot be allowed to run our lives and shrink our hearts. I sometimes think of fear as a protective measure for our hearts - for my heart. If I expect the worst, if I don’t dare to hope, then our cruel and harsh world will hurt me less when it eventually disappoints me.

The Rev. Sarah Speed wrote about this in a poem called, “In the Time of Herod.” The beginning of the poem reads:

“I didn’t live during Herod’s time—that brutal, murderous king, God save his soul.
But even hundreds of years later, I know the prayers of his people.
I know the prayers of the mothers and the children under his rule.
I know the prayers of the young men under his angry arm.
I know their prayers, because anyone who has ever lived in this soft world for more than two days
knows how to pray for a miracle.
We rub our hands together.
We fold weary shoulders in,
a cage of bone to protect our bleeding hearts.”

I know that posture, shoulders folded in, a weary weight upon them, constructing a cage around my heart in the hope of protecting it ...but also closing it off to the miracles that God is working in this world…

The poem concludes:

“And when all of that is said and done, we whisper to our creator,
God, break through the yelling and the fear. Break through the violence and the oppression.
Get past the Herods of this world, and come be here.
Like every bleeding heart before, we pray for a miracle.”

Enter Zechariah, praying for a miracle.

Zechariah was living in this world in the time of Herod. As a priest and as a Jewish man, I believe he would have been praying for an end to the oppression of his people. And on a personal scale, as a man, as an individual, he was praying for a child.

He was praying for a miracle - miracles.

My question is, was he praying for a miracle that he really believed would happen? Was he praying for a miracle with hope in his heart for Divine intervention? Was he praying with the assurance that God was listening to his prayers? Or was he praying the prayers he had prayed for many years, going through the routine of saying them but devoid of the hope they would be answered, let alone heard.

Let’s pause here and ask these questions of ourselves. Are you praying for any miracles? Are you praying with hope? Have you stopped praying for the miracle at all? Have you stopped praying?

In John 14:27 we have this famous line from Scripture, “Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

Do not let your hearts be troubled. That word which we translate as troubled is Zechariah’s reaction to the angel appearing before him. Started, disturbed, agitated.

Do not be afraid. That word, translated as afraid, implies a shrinking of the heart. And yes, since we are entering Christmas time, think of the Grinch who’s heart was two sizes too small. The translation and understanding of this word as “afraid” tells us what we all know because we have experienced it ourselves - in our lives or the lives of people we know - fear shrinks the heart. It can shrink our hearts’ capacities for love. Fear holds our hearts back from loving and treating others as God would have us love and treat them. Fear shrinks our hearts and doesn’t leave room for God breaking into our world and lives with loving action. Fear obliterates our hearts’ desire for hope. It erases even the hope that our prayers are heard at all.

And that’s what I want to focus on today - not on the miracles themselves but on the prayers being heard.

For the miracles we pray for, we know they may or may not happen. More often than not, our world has taught us that they won’t happen, to not even hope for them…and I also think that makes us not even look for them and we miss the small miracles that happen right in front of our eyes.

And yet we know…we know that the healing that we so desperately pray for doesn’t always come in this life but in the soul being healed before the presence of God. We know the child that is so longingly prayed for doesn’t always come. We know that the peace we want to descend on our world may be a long, long way off.

We don’t always get what we want. We don’t always get what we pray for, what we hope for. The mountains don’t move, God doesn’t appear before us as an angel, clear before our eyes. Our prayers aren’t answered in flashing neon lights. And perhaps it causes us to begin to think,
God isn’t listening to me. God doesn’t even hear my prayers.

But what the angel says to Zechariah is, “for your prayer has been heard.”

The same sentiment comes to us from our Lamentations reading this morning. That passage of Scripture is written from the perspective of an oppressed person under Babylonian rule, crying out in personal pain to God.

“I called on your name, O Lord…you heard my plea”
“You came near when I called on you;
you said, ‘Do not fear!’”

Friends, I don’t want to diminish what it means for God to hear our prayers. I feel so often it has been diminished, brushed off, not seen as the absolute miracle that it is.

I said our prayers aren’t always answered in the way we would want or the way we would hope - we don’t get our big miracles in flashing lights. The healing that the doctors can’t explain. The life-changing news. Whatever it may be…

But. And.

God hears our prayers every time we pray.
God draws near to us when we call out to God.
The God of the universe hears each and every prayer that you pray.
The God who is the Creator of All Things…draws near to YOU.
The God of Love loves you intimately and dearly and listens to every single prayer you say.

This is a miracle.

Our God comes to you like that loving parent who comes to the child’s side when they’ve had a bad dream. God tucks your hair behind your ear, kisses your forehead, and whispers in your ear, softly and surely, “Do not be afraid. I’m here with you…”

And so…

In the time of Herod. In our time. Don’t let fear shrink your heart. Keep on praying with hope and don’t lose sight of the miracle that is God hearing each and every prayer you lift up and drawing near to you.

May it be so. Amen.

“Christ the...Humiliated? Lowly? Crucified? King” a sermon on Luke 23:33-43

Luke 23:33-43
“Christ the...Humiliated? Lowly? Crucified? King”
Preached Sunday, November 23, 2025

Wow...what a coronation.

Today’s Gospel reading from Luke, the crucifixion, is when Scripture calls Jesus King - King of the Jews, a sign hung above his head as he was killed by the state in a torturous and brutal way - a way of death that was reserved for those who had committed treasonous crimes against Rome. The sign above his head - why? Was it put there by someone who truly recognized who and what Christ was? Was it put there as a warning to other Jews who were thinking of challenging the social and political order? See - this is what we do to the likes of you. Was it meant to degrade and humiliate, threaten or terrify, or to speak truth in the midst of a horrible scene. Either way, it, along with a crown of thorns, was Christ’s coronation. Where Christ was marked as King.

Let’s compare this to an earthly coronation. And I am going to skip King Charles and talk about Queen Elizabeth because of the hit TV show The Crown which followed Queen Elizabeth’s life. Have any of you ever seen this show? I remember watching the re-enactment of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation with awe.

Elizabeth II was crowned as Queen of England in 1953. They recorded the coronation and broadcast it internationally. Royalty gathered and watched. Elizabeth wore a silk velvet cloak. She was handed the royal orb made of gold, jewels, and pearls, then the scepter with diamonds and sapphires, and the royal ring with sapphire, rubies, and fourteen diamonds and then finally the crown - velvet and with a whopping total of 444 stones. She was given dozens of titles and everyone, including her mother and her husband swore allegiance to her and sang God Save The Queen. When the ceremony was over, she left in a golden carriage.

Christ’s crucifixion, his coronation, on the other hand gives us a stark contrast from the opulence and power from the coronation of the former Queen of England. And lest people think I am just bashing the British monarchy here, our political system celebrates the assumption of power - maybe not with some many precious gems but still with the glorification of power, wealth, prosperity, and popularity. We don’t have kings and coronations but we do have inaugurations - the last several of which cost in the 100s of millions of dollars. All of this wealth and cost and ceremony is in stark contrast to what happened to Christ on that hill of Calvary.

Today is Christ the King Sunday. It marks the last Sunday of the church year - next week will be the first Sunday of Advent and the beginning of a new liturgical year.

Today you may think - careful, Pastor! You're getting too controversial here! And that's because calling Christ King is an inherently controversial statement. Whether it was 2000 years ago when Caesar was King; 100 years ago, when this day was added to the liturgical calendar; or today. 100 years ago, Pope Pius XI added this day to the liturgical calendar that has trickled down through the Catholics and all the Protestants to us here today. What was going on 100 years ago? Mussolini had been in charge of Italy for 3 years and Adolf Hitler had just published Mein Kampf. The Roaring 20s were in full swing - marked by extravagant waste and class divides - soon leading to the collapse of the economy that we know as the Great Depression.

Pope Pius XI wanted to remind the world of where our allegiances as Christians should lay - with Christ the King and no other power or even wealth.

And again, 100 years ago wasn't the only world that needed or needs this message. It is always at the core of who Christians are and who Christ is.

And so, it is on this Sunday that we celebrate that Christ is King.
When we call Christ king, that bucks all the world’s expectations and assumptions about kingship and power.
And that, in turn, makes us question our allegiances to powers of this world that do not embody power in the same way as Christ.

These are not easy topics to examine, they are not easy questions to ask ourselves. They are harder yet to enact in our lives as we withdraw our allegiance from where it should not be and focus more on living and serving alongside Jesus as Lord. We will only skim the surface today and yet I want to say: this is the duty of all Christians who would serve Jesus as King: to do the hard work of self-examination and then the harder follow up actions to make sure that our lives - our words and our actions - serve Christ and no other as King.

First, let’s consider what the world expects of Kings - looking at one of the classic examples of Kingship that I grew up with.

The Lion King.

One of the classic earworms from the Disney classic “The Lion King” is “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King.” In it Simba sings:

“I'm gonna be a mighty king, so enemies beware!..
I'm gonna be the main event, like no king was before.
I'm brushing up on looking down.
I'm working on my roar!...

…No one saying ‘do this,’
no one saying ‘be there,’
no one saying ‘stop that,’
No one saying ‘see here.’
Free to run around all day,
Free to do it all my way!”

What Simba sings about being King is in line with our kings, royalty or not, today - a King is someone powerful who can insight fear in their enemies. A King is someone who is in the center - the center of attention, of authority, of everything. A King is someone who looks down on everyone else, seated high on their throne.

We have lots of “kings” in our world today even if they don’t wear a crown. These “Kings” are people who think they are untouchable, who look down on others, who use their power and fear and violence to get their way - from churches, to the streets, to government and beyond - there are kings wherever there is power to be grabbed.

Which brings us back to today and this day in the Christian year that we call “Christ the King Sunday” - what does Christ’s life and death teach us about what it means for Christ to be King?

You know, many wanted Christ to be the kind of king we were just talking about - a king who used violence to grab power. A king who overturned the current seat of power and then assumed the throne himself, a king who would loftily rule…In our world today, 2,000 some years later - it’s so so so tempting to be a revisionist of history and Scripture and to paint Jesus as the King that they wished he would have been. The kind of King we wish Jesus would be. You know, the kind of King who thinks just like us. The Kind of King who is lofty and uses power to extort instead of help. We can easily make Jesus into that kind of king - like many “kings” we have in our world today - but let us not forget that Jesus was put to death by those in power - some “cleaning their hands of situation” but still dirty as it goes today, too…But Jesus is not that kind of King. If Jesus wanted to be that kind of King he could have been. He had followers. He could have told them to take up the sword and fight for him, he could have shamed his enemies, he could have staged a government coup, he could have ruled with an iron fist so that all would be forced to worship him...but Jesus did not choose to be this kind of king. Instead he went willingly to the cross, where he was mocked and humiliated, sided with a criminal on the cross, and then killed.

I want to say that again: …but Jesus did not choose to be this kind of king. Instead he went willingly to the cross, where he was mocked and humiliated, sided with a criminal on the cross, and then killed.

And then...3 days later, Jesus rose from the dead, definitively and defiantly showing us that there is another way to be King. And that way sides with the lowly, the outcast, and the shamed. That way is a path of humility and lowering oneself to be a servant, to wash the feet of others. That is a way of praying for your enemies instead of overpowering them. That is the way of love over hate. Life over death.

In Christ’s death and resurrection, everything we know about power, everything we know about kingship, everything we thought we knew about God - is flipped on its head.

For Christ is King and his realm is The Kingdom of God.

And remember what Scripture tells us about the Kingdom of God:

The kingdom of God looks like a wasteful son being greeted by a loving father, running to him with open arms. The Kingdom of God looks like a shepherd searching for that one lost sheep. The Kingdom of God looks like a weed that overpowers everything else in the garden and provides shelter for the birds. The Kingdom of God looks like a rich man’s feast opened up to the uninvited, the poor and the lame. This is not a Kingdom that any Kings of our world would want to reign over.

For in our world we have kingdoms of power, greed, and violence. Kingdoms would condemn Christ the King to the cross.
The Kingdom of God is a kingdom of forgiveness, empathy, humility, service, and love. Jesus reigns over this Kingdom and invites us to be citizens of it - to remove our allegiances from the Kingdoms of this world and serve Christ as our only and true Lord.

So my challenge to you as we close out one liturgical year and begin another one, as we enter the seasons of Advent and Christmas and implore Christ to come, come into our world once again...my challenge to you is to ask yourself this: If Christ were to come again into our world, into our lives, in the here and now, soon - would Christ find your allegiances to only be to him and the Kingdom of God and not any kings or powers of this world? Are we looking for power ourselves? Or someone to follow and claim as our King...but who is not leading us in the ways of Christ, of love, forgiveness, and humility? Instead, turn your heart to ponder upon what it means for Christ to be King and for Jesus to be Lord in your life and in our world.

Amen.

Call to Worship for Christ the King Sunday, based on Luke 23:33-43

Leader: We come together today to worship Christ the King!
People: We bow at his feet in adoration.
L: Feet that were nailed to a cross.
P: His crown is a crown of thorns.
L: Christ our King, hanging on a cross.
P: What does it mean to worship the Crucified King?
L: We worship a God of humility, of self-sacrifice, of love that goes even to the grave - and beyond.
P: May we live like our king - humble, giving, with love that knows no bounds.
All: We come together today to worship Christ the King! Amen.

“The Ground Beneath You” a sermon on Luke 21:5- 9 & Isaiah 65:17-25

Luke 21:5- 9

Isaiah 65:17-25
“The Ground Beneath You”
Preached Sunday, November 16, 2025 at Boardman United Methodist Church

Have you ever experienced an earthquake? I have never experienced a real one but when I was studying abroad in Japan during my high school years, I had the opportunity to do a level 7 earthquake simulator. We were sitting at this table in a mock kitchen, and all of a sudden, the room started to shake violently. The lamp overhead swinging back and forth - making the light dance around the room in disconcerting ways. The loud sounds of crashing pots and pans and breaking dishes played over a speaker. We were supposed to grab the pillows on our chairs, use them to cover our heads and get under the table as fast as we could. My friend fell down as she tried to get under the table, literally tipping over sideways. The chairs around us tipped over. You could barely crawl let alone stand, the whole room was swaying, shaking, the ground beneath you couldn’t be trusted.

Have you ever felt like the ground beneath you couldn’t be trusted? I’m no longer talking about earthquake simulators or icy parking lots - I’m talking about when it feels like the ground was just pulled out from under you.

When a relationship has a fall-out. When you get the diagnosis you don't want to hear. When someone we love dies. When we lose our job. When we move from one life stage to another..

And things beyond ourselves, things out of our control - whether that be in our families, our community, our world - there is so much pain, suffering, strife - we want to be able to make it all better but we so often realize we can’t...

It can feel like there is no sure footing, no ground to stand on.

Enter this week’s Gospel reading.

The setting for this reading is the temple. Jesus just watched a widow give her offering in the temple. It is here that the text says:

“When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, he said, ‘As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.’”

Jesus is literally talking about the ground beneath them, the walls around them, this magnificent structure that seems so strong, so sturdy, so splendid….

It will all fall. The walls will crumble. The beauty will fade. The very ground beneath you will no longer be there.

Jesus goes on to talk of those times when it feels like there is no solid ground to stand on.

When there are those who claim the name of Jesus but do not live like him. When there are wars and rumors of war. When nation rises up against nation. When there is destruction. Hunger. Illness. Persecution.

Many interpret Jesus’s words here to be a prophecy of a specific time period when the world will be ending. But to read Jesus’s words here in reference to a particular point in time would be misreading them and a misunderstanding of the Biblical genre of apocalypse.

Jesus is speaking in a well known genre of his time, like when he told parables - a genre marked by over-exaggeration. The Bible is filled with the genre of apocalyptic stories. Think about it like this, if you start a story with “Once Upon a Time…” or “It was a dark and stormy night…” People know what kind of story you’re going to tell.

And for the listeners of Jesus’s day, It is the same here in this little apocalypse. This is a genre that takes tricky little stories that seem to be about the future, to say something profound about the present. Will the temple walls one day crumble? Yes. This passage of Scripture was actually written by Luke not long after the temple was destroyed. Remember that the Gospels weren’t written down until decades after Jesus’s death. The scholarship on this varies but remember that Jesus died in about 30 CE. The Temple was destroyed in about 70 AD. And Luke was written in about 80 CE. Does this mean that Jesus didn’t say this? No. That’s not what I’m saying… And. It means that we should also take Jesus’s words as a statement of the present time - his life and the lives of Luke’s readers. For in Jesus’s and Luke’s time there were false teachers. There were wars and rumors of wars. There was nation rising against nation. There was destruction. There was Hunger. Illness. Persecution.

The text through the genre or apocalypse is saying, “Why are you so focused on the temple? On its beauty and its ornateness? And even its supposed sturdiness? Don’t you know how impermanent things really are? Don’t you know how easy it is for the ground to come out from underneath you and for it to feel like there is no solid ground to stand on?”

Now, Jesus does say “why are you talking about the temple?” but he doesn’t say what we should be focusing on instead. Although, right before this passage, he was commenting on a widow giving all she had to the temple - the story of the Widow’s Mite. Maybe it was like whiplash for Jesus - to see a widow giving all she had, to the point of destitution, and then to hear others praising the ornateness of the temple. Maybe Jesus was trying to serve up a little whiplash back to those around him, to pull the carpet out from beneath them, so that as they flayed around trying to find solid ground, their eyes may rest on the poor and needy in front of them instead.

And so as we read these words through the lens of the genre of apocalypse - what does Jesus have to say about our present lives?

Jesus’s words about impermanence. About wars and illness and the ground beneath us crumbling may sound all too familiar to many of us today.

So where do we turn? Where can we find solid ground beneath our feet?

Enter this morning’s text from Isaiah.

The contrast from the Luke text is striking. Instead of crumbling ground, instead of war and destruction, we have something with much more joy and delight. We have an image that is being weaved with words, built around us, built underneath us, an image to give us somewhere firm and life-giving to stand.

This image in Isaiah illustrates The Lord’s Day - this is also a common theme or genre in the Bible. It depicts that day when God redeems all creation, when everything and every one is reconciled to God. A day where God creates a new heaven and a new earth. I firmly believe in this day. I believe that God has the power and the intent to do this, to reconcile and recreate all of God’s creation in perfection and love.

When? I don’t know. None of us know the day or the hour...but I also believe that God has already started this re-creation. And we, you and me, are part of this much, much bigger picture as given to us in Isaiah.

A bigger picture that is full of joy and delight.

“But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight.
I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress..”

God - delighting in us. No more weeping, no more distress.

The text says that there will be no more death among children. No more pain.
The text says that all will have homes! That they will plant and reap and benefit and thrive off the land - humanity and creation in harmony and balance with each other.
The text ends “They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the LORD.”

It is here, in the hope and the promise, that is a new heaven and a new earth, on God’s holy mountain, where we can find solid footing, solid ground beneath us.

Theologian Walter Brueggeman says this passage from Isaiah “is...an act of daring, theological faith that refuses to be curbed by present circumstance. This poet knows that Yahweh’s coming newness is not contained within our present notions of the possible.”

This image cannot be curbed, cannot be dampened or weakened by whatever our current reality is, it cannot be curbed by whatever mini apocalypse surrounds us...

When our lives turn upside down, when we don’t know which way is up, when everything seems impermeant, when we don’t know what to do, when we are lost...look for signs of the work God is doing in this world.

Looks for signs of the re-creation. Of a new heaven and a new earth.

Of peace being fostered.
Of relationships being restored.
Of love being tended.
Of new life and joy and hope…

Look for signs of God’s Holy Mountain. Trust in the work of God. Trust that you have a role in it, in this beautiful, delightful, restored creation - something that is not like those impermanent walls of the temple, something that will not come crashing down...somewhere where the ground underneath you is solid and firm, trusting in God’s goodness and grace.

May we all be found on such solid ground.

Amen.

Prayer of Confession for Christmas Eve

Holy God, tonight is a night of Good News of great joy for all people. Yet we often let our fear be louder than the assurances of angels. We have failed to believe that the Good News is for us. We have not accepted that it is for all people. We have taken joy and put it on the back burner - living lives of apathy. Forgive us for not fully accepting the gift of your Son, Jesus, God-With-Us. May this Good News of Great Joy for all people transform our hearts and lives - for love of God and love of neighbor as self. Amen.

Gratitude & Generosity Hymn Sing

This hymn sing is meant to replace the sermon portion of an order of worship. There is also an accopmanying Call to Worship.

Call to Worship for Gratitude & Generosity Hymn Sing:

Leader: Scripture tells us to sing hymns to God with gratitude in our hearts.
People: We’ve come today, ready to sing praises to God.
L: We want to live lives of gratitude and praise.
P: We give thanks to God with hearts and hands and voices!
L: Gratitude pushes us towards generosity -
P: With eyes on God, we care for one another.
L: May all that we have, all that we are, all that we give - bring glory to God!
P: And so today we gather with gratitude in our hearts.
All: Let us sing praises to God. Amen.

Gratitude & Generosity Hymn Sing

God Comes First
Colossians 3:1-4:
“So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.”

What are you focused on? Where is your energy going?

There are many voices in this world that compete for our attention. Some are good - those who love us well; good causes that help one another; those that push us to live more holy lives of love; the voice of the Spirit urging us to spend time with God.

Some are…not so good - a thousand advertisements vying for our attention and wallet; ideologies that want us to buy what they’re selling hook, line, and sinker without thinking for ourselves or thinking of the needs of others; the voices that come when we doom scroll that trap us into anxiety, depression, and apathy; the voices that tell us to only care for me, myself, and I; that bog us down in all the things of this world.

Colossians tells us to set our minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth - for our very life is in Christ. Our life is not made up in the abundance of possessions or in the achievements of this life. Our very life is in Christ who has died for us to give us a new, eternal life. A life of hope. A life of glory. A life of love.

The issue is - the things of this world, all those voices that vie for our attention, they confuse our hearts about the things that are really important. We get bogged down, worn down, and left unfulfilled - always searching for more. And so - we need to turn our eyes upon Jesus. Keeping our eyes, hearts, minds, and souls oriented on the things above, helps us keep everything else in its proper place, helps us know what really matters in this life. Jesus, the God who loves us and fills us with the gift of the Holy Spirit comes first - for it is in Christ that our very lives are found.

In a moment we will sing “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” - many may not know that the author of this hymn, Helen Lemmel, had a serious illness and was left blinded. Her husband, unwilling to take care of a blind wife, left her. It was then, in about 1918, she wrote this hymn. At a time of uncertainty, pain, and darkness in her own life - she penned “turn your eyes upon Jesus.” In doing so, she found what really matters. May we too turn our minds to the things of above.

Let us sing.

Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus, x2, UMH 349

Gratitude Follows
Colossians 3:15-17:
“And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

When our eyes and our hearts are focused upon Jesus, our priorities fall into place, and we make room for gratitude in our lives.

The exhortation to give thanks or participate in thankfulness, appears about 150 times in the Bible. If our eyes are focused on the things of this earth, we will not experience true gratitude as we will always be seeking for the endless “more.” We will never have “enough” by the standards of the world. We will never be satisfied.

And yet, when Christ dwells in us richly - that is, when we listen to the wisdom of Christ, rely on the peace that the Spirit gives, when we recognize that we are not just ourselves but that we all are one body in Christ - we realize that we have “enough” - for Jesus is all we ever need.

I am not sure that there is a more counter-cultural message than this in our current consumer obsessed world. Can you imagine that Christmas commercial this holiday season, “We’re not selling you anything. You don’t need to buy anything. There is nothing you need but Christ.”

When we focus on God first, it makes room for gratitude in our lives. When we focus on God first, our priorities are in line and we can see all that we have - and all that we share with one another in the body of Christ, comes from God. We can know we are loved and held - and give thanks with psalms, hymns, and voices raised to God.

In a moment we will sing thing hymn, “Now Thank We All Our God” - a hymn we often associate with the holiday of Thanksgiving - which, for many, is a holiday of excess - although there are many in our country who scrimp and save and sacrifice in in order to put food on the table to celebrate that holiday. And that is more in line with the circumstances in which this hymn was written.

Martin Rinckart likely wrote this hymn during or soon after the Thirty Years’ War in about 1636. He was one of the sole surviving ministers in a refugee city - he spent most of his resources in order to be able to feed refugees - meaning he often ate only scraps. It was the time of the plague and he reportedly did over 50 funerals a day. It is under these circumstances that he wrote the words, “Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices, who wondrous things has done, in whom this world rejoices…”

Would we be giving thanks in the circumstances that Rinckart and his congregation would be in? A life filled with uncertainty, war, loss, hunger, death… Perhaps we would if our eyes were fixed upon Jesus. If we relied solely on Jesus - who gives us peace, keeps us in grace, guides us and frees us - in this world and the next.

Let us sing.

Now Thank We All Our God, UMH 102

Simplicity & Contentment Go Hand in Hand
Philippians 4:11-13:
“Not that I am referring to being in need, for I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”

As we sang that last hymn, we can imagine that Rinckart felt gratitude and contentment even as he lived a hard and simple life.

It may be that simplicity and contentment go hand in hand - this is the secret of Paul’s contentment in times of plenty and in times of need - keep things simple by focusing on God with gratitude and contentment follows.

The lure of abundance and the accumulation of things and wealth has a gravity that weighs us down. Often the more we have, the less content we are. The more we fear losing what we have. The more we place our hope in things that rust, that moths destroy, that thieves can steal.

Simplicity that is rooted in our hearts being oriented toward God, brings contentment. For what do we truly need? What really carries value? Simplicity breaks the pull of the endless drive for more and allows us to focus on what really matters.

In a moment we will sing the hymn, “Simple Gifts.” This hymn comes to us from the Shaker movement of the 1800s that sought to make little utopias here on earth - they believed in communal living, equality between the sexes, and, above all, simplicity. For them, simple living was the absolute key for being able to connect with God. Free from distractions of this world, simplicity allows us to focus on what really matters - loving God and loving one another.

Simple Gifts, x2, Insert (http://gbod.org.s3.amazonaws.com/legacy/kintera/entry_14599/66/simplegifts.pdf)

Generosity Pours Out to Care of Neighbor
Matthew 25:31-40:
“‘When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ 40 And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.’”

When we turn our eyes on Jesus, when we practice gratitude, when we cultivate contentment through simplicity - it is not just about us and God. It’s about our neighbors too.

God wants us to love one another. This is the second greatest commandment - love neighbor as self. When we live lives orientated toward God, God will orient us toward our neighbors and in our neighbors, in the least of these, we will encounter Jesus.

Lives of simplicity and gratitude free our resources and our hearts to serve one another. To feed the hungry. Clothe the naked. Welcome the stranger. This is the ultimate sign of a life based in Christ - a life of gratitude and generosity where love overflows to all we meet. Where we consider their needs as our own. Where we see the face of Jesus in every outstretched hand.

Love of God and love of neighbor are two sides of the same coin - together they are the wholeness of the life we are called to live as followers of Christ. We love God and thus we love our neighbors and serve them. We love and serve our neighbors and in them, we encounter Jesus, which pushes us back to better love God.

In a moment we will sing the hymn, “Lord, Whose Love Through Humble Service” which was written by Abert Bayly. He wrote this hymn in response to a call for hymns focused on social welfare. Having lived through The Great Depression and both world wars, Bayly knew how important it was to serve one another, to support one another, to love neighbor as self, to serve Christ through serving our neighbor. Thankfully, Christ lived his life in such a way that wholly pointed toward God and serving our neighbors. When we are generous - with our prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness - we follow in the footsteps of Jesus.

Let us sing.

Lord, Whose Love Through Humble Service, vs. 1, 2, 4, UMH 581

It All Comes Back to God
James 4:7-10:
“Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.”

Ultimately, a life that is fully oriented in Christ, recognizing that our life is in Jesus, pushes us to realize that everything in our lives is not ours - it is God’s. There is nothing in our lives that we can hold back from God. We are called to give God everything. Everything in our lives is both a gift from God and belongs to God. We are but stewards - using our lives and resources in such a way that brings glory and is pleasing to the one to whom they belong.

We should hold all that we have loosely - so that it doesn’t hold us back from drawing near to God. As we draw near God, God draws near to us. As we give all that we have to God, God consecrates it and makes our lives holy.

In a moment we will close out of hymn sing with the hymn “Take My Life and Let It Be,” this hymn reflects all the things in our lives that we are called to give over to God. The hymn includes: My moments, my days, my hands, my feet, my voice, my lips, my silver, and my gold, my intellect, my will, my heart, my love, myself - my life - take it all Lord, and let it be.

Singing this hymn causes us to pause and reflect - what in our lives are we holding back from God, what in our lives is keeping us from gratitude, simplicity, and contentment? What in our lives is keeping us from generosity and service? What in our lives is coming between us and God? May we give it all to God - that our whole lives would be in our God. May it be so.

Let us sing.

Take My Life and Let It Be, UMH 399

“Obtained an Inheritance” a sermon on Ephesians 1:11-23

Ephesians 1:11-23
“Obtained an Inheritance”
Preached Sunday, November 2, 2025 at Boardman United Methodist Church

Have you ever received an inheritance?

Perhaps for some of us, we have been left money when a family member died. Or perhaps a piece of jewelry or something special to us and our loved one that was passed on to us. Or even something we gave them - I know I have this little glass penguin that I gave to my grandmother when she was alive and now I have it back - and I am reminded of her when I look at it. Some of us, I know, are left with the responsibility of their parents’ or family members’ houses when they die - and that’s a whole other story, less of an inheritance per say and more of a responsibility to care for.

When we think of the word inheritance we think of large sums of money, estates...perhaps we think of the stereotype of spoiled heiresses or we think of crime movies that start with the reading of a will…

On this All Saints Sunday, I would encourage us to realize that we all have received an inheritance worth far more than anything that can be left behind in a will.

First, from those who we have called saints of our lives, we have received all they had to teach us, all the love they had to give us, and all the memories and moments that makes us who we are because of their love for Christ and us. By saints of our lives, I am referring to those people in our lives who we call saints. Not a saintdom decided upon by an institution, not a saintdom based on miracles performed or any other sort of rubric…but a saintdom based on how they loved Christ and how they loved their neighbor and how they loved us while we shared time with them on earth. These are those people who have the opportunity to remember today and give thanks for. These are the people that we will have the opportunity to remember today. To read their names, to light candles…

And to give thanks for them and all that they have given us - the inheritance they passed on to us. Not an inheritance of things but an inheritance of showing us how to live a life of love. Of showing us what it means to follow Christ, what it means to be a saint. Perhaps of how they participated in a local church community. Of how they talked about their faith. Of how they helped those in need. Of how they had love for us and for others. They left us an inheritance of Love - Love for God, love for neighbor, love for us.

I’d like to pause here for a moment to give an opportunity for you to call to mind those saints from whom you have received an inheritance of love. Say their names - in your hearts, outloud, or to your neighbor sitting next to you. Let’s just spend a moment bringing them to our minds with gratitude in our hearts.

That’s one of our inheritances - the inheritance of those who have loved us well. For which we say, thanks be to God!

And secondly, in Christ we have obtained an inheritance far beyond any other!

Our short but very theologically dense passage today from Ephesians uses the word inheritance three times. I’m going to quote from that passage now for the three times it’s used. But Paul is particularly wordy and uses run-on sentences in this passage - including the longest sentence in the New Testament! So I’m going to use some ellipses here and there to help illustrate our inheritance in Christ.


“In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance…so that we…might live for the praise of his glory.”
“In him you also,...were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people”
And then the last one is part of a prayer toward God: “that…you may perceive what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints…”

Now normally we think of inheritance as something we receive after someone dies. And in the traditional usage of that word, that’s what it means. But the inheritance we have in Christ is not something we have to wait to receive - Christ has already given us his inheritance, in the here and now. Christ’s inheritance is being a beloved child of God. Christ’s inheritance is the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Christ’s inheritance that we obtain through believing in Christ is enabling us to live a life for God’s praise and glory, loving God and loving neighbor. In other words, living the life of a saint.

Living the life of a saint…here and now. Today we remember the lives of those we’ve loved who have died. And let’s be honest, sometimes in death, people do get a little white-washed. We don’t want to “speak ill of the dead.” We might forget the rough edges and remember the good times. Or not - each and every relationship is complicated. But, often, in general, we give someone the title of saint AFTER they die. But our inheritance of having everything we need for sainthood is given to us, here and now, in this life.

So what do we need for sainthood?

We need love. Simple as that.

One, we already have God’s love. We are God’s beloved children, adopted by God, and thus full heirs with Christ - and we’ve obtained that inheritance through Christ!

Two, we need the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. And we know we have that. The Holy Spirit is given to all of us. The Holy Spirit is our inheritance in Christ. The Holy Spirit is God at work in our lives, here and now, and is with us all, never farther away than our next breath.

And three, we need Grace. Grace is God at work in our lives and God, through the Holy Spirit, is always at work in our lives. As Methodists we have a specific term for the grace that helps us to love better - and we call that sanctifying grace. Sanctifying as in - to make sacred. What is it to be sacred in the Christian tradition? It’s to resemble God or to be of God. And who and what is our God? Our God is the God of love. So we believe that every day, God gives us sanctifying grace - that is, every day, God works in our lives to help us make choices and actions that allow us to love God and to love neighbor as self. And overtime, day after day, we get better and better at it. We find we can more easily choose and show and share love. This is the work of sanctification - the work of becoming more like the God of love - the work of being a saint, here and now.

And well, we have all three of those things! We have God’s love! The Holy Spirit is working in our lives! And God is constantly offering us grace. Isn’t that a marvelous thing when you realize we have all we need to live our lives as saints? We have all we need to choose and show and share love every day - love of God, love of neighbor, love as self.

We already have everything we need to be saints!

Isn’t that a really great feeling? It’s like when you get a craving for cookies or an itch to bake and you haven’t done it in awhile and you walk into your kitchen and you open the pantry and you realize - you already have everything you need! You can bake cookies here and now.

But we also have a bonus ingredient: We have the examples of those whom we call saints in our lives. Those are like the chocolate chips in our cookies - they just make everything better. We have all we need - and we can look to the examples of those who are saints, who have shown us and others their love for God, we can pull on our inheritance from them - our memories, our lessons learned, all the love shared - and look to their examples to know where to go - with everything we could ever need - to choose love every day, love of God and love of neighbor as self - to be a saint.

And so today as we read the names of those who have died in the last year and light candles in honor and memory of the saints of our lives…and as we share in Holy Communion, a meal which surpasses all boundaries of time and place - even the boundary of death - a meal that we share with all the saints of earth and all the saints in heaven - As we do all this, may we remember and give thanks for all those who have shown us and the world the love of Christ. And may we follow in the footsteps of those saints, knowing that we have all we need through the inheritance we’ve obtained through Christ - and live as saints, here and now.

May it be so. Amen.