"Overlooked Stories: Jonah" a sermon on Jonah 3:1-10

Jonah 3:1-10
“Overlooked Stories: Jonah”
Preached August 17, 2025

Today, you might be surprised that I am including Jonah in our “Overlooked Stories” sermon series. Jonah? Overlooked? It’s one of the first Bible stories we learn in Sunday School. There is not a single children’s Bible that doesn’t include this story. The book of Jonah is a beloved story. Running away, getting swallowed by a whale - the story delights every child. And while children’s books and movies depict the awe-inspiring, fantastic imagery of a man living inside a fish…There is more to this story. We think we know the story of Jonah and the “whale” and so the rest of this story is often overlooked. I did not know the whole story of Jonah until I read it in seminary!

And so today we are going to go beyond Jonah running away and being thrown overboard and the big fish that swallowed him…because there is more to this story that is often overlooked.

We must remember that God was not asking Jonah to do something easy. God called Jonah to go and preach repentance to the people in the city of Nineveh. Now Nineveh was the capital of Assyria. The Assyrians were known as aggressive, ruthless conquerors. Jonah hated the Ninevites. He may even have been afraid of them - and probably for good reason. As so he ran… I think a lot of people think Jonah ran because he was afraid of public speaking or that he didn’t want to be a preacher or a prophet…a lot of pastors, especially second career pastors, use the story of Jonah to mirror their call stories. They ran from their call until they couldn’t anymore. But Jonah, Jonah actually ran from what God was asking him to do because he HATED the Ninevites. “Preach repentance to THOSE people? I’d rather run away to the opposite ends of the earth.”

It’s not surprising that Jonah did not want to take the message to Nineveh. We often forget that these Biblical figures are also human. And it is very human to hate. To fear. To run. Every human, somewhere inside of them, has hate. Sometimes that hate is unconscious, learned but not realized, beneath the surface. Sometimes that hate bubbles to the front and explodes in our actions and words. Sometimes we know it’s there and do our best to quietly ignore it. Other times we see it, recognize it, ask God for forgiveness and then work towards repentance. But in whatever form hate dwells inside of us, it is there. Every group hates something or someone. Sometimes our hate or dislike for a person can bind us together more than shared interests or things we like.

This hate is a part of our fallen human nature and can easily take a hold within us. As Christians we know we shouldn’t hate people. We don’t even like to use the word hate because it seems too harsh. And, at the same time, there might be people who, if they fell off the face of the earth? Well, we might just think, “good riddance” or even “thank GOD.”

Not only that - sometimes we, as a culture, hate people so much that we celebrate their deaths or misfortunes. In recent history I can remember people shooting off fireworks to celebrate the death of a terrorist. He was so hated, that for many, his death was worth celebrating. I’ve also seen people celebrating diseases and awful diagnoses for politicians they don’t like. I’ve seen people online giving death threats just because they don’t like a pop star. Hate can give people a heck of a high.

And this is an apt comparison to the story of Jonah, because in today’s world, asking Jonah to go to Nineveh might be like asking one of us to go to the headquarters of Hamas or the KKK or the Proud Boys or other terrorist groups. Groups that, generally, we hate and we fear, the two emotions tied up in each other. And so, Jonah ran away. Heck, I would too.

And our hate isn’t just for enemies of state, far away. In this day and age I do not think anyone really needs convincing that hate is a part of humanity. All we have to do is turn on the news or scroll down our facebook feeds, or look into our own hearts.

Not only can hate rot our souls from the inside out but it can overflow in violence. I want to say as Christians this hate inside us won’t lead to violence or destruction, but it will. There is a reason there is a phrase that is often used in atheist of post-Christian spaces, “There is no hate like Christian love.” The story of Jonah is satire that is meant to hold a mirror to our own souls, our own hate, our own half-hearted following of God. The story of Jonah is a precursor of what Jesus preaches, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven, for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.”

Let’s turn our attention back to this sharp satirical story of Jonah interacting with his enemies, rather begrudgingly, following God’s word. At this point Jonah received the call from God to go preach to Ninevites, tried to run away to the opposite side of the world, got thrown overboard, swallowed by a giant fish, and spat out. Up until this point, we know the story. So let’s see what happens when he arrives in Ninevah:

“Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, ‘Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!’” Now, let’s look at this. It was a three days walk to go through the whole city of Nineveh. Jonah went a third of the way across the city. This isn’t half-heartedly following God - this is one-third heartedly! After living inside a fish for 3 days and 3 nights, you’d think Jonah would have gotten his act together by now. But Jonah, Jonah didn’t even bother to go to the center of the city before he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” In English, 8 words. In Hebrew, 5. Can you imagine if I got up here every Sunday and the whole message consisted of 5 words - and five words that fell short of the full message that I wanted to convey? For some reason, I have a feeling that wouldn’t go over well - despite being able to beat the Baptists to lunch.

Jonah was following God’s call. He went to Nineveh, didn’t he? He kind of told them to repent, didn’t he? Well, yeah. Kind of. He was only half-heartedly prophesying. He was only half-heartedly following God’s call because Jonah didn’t want the Ninevites to repent! His hate and fear of them got in the way of him full-heartedly prophesying and preaching and following God.

Like Jonah, our hate can keep us from full-hearted discipleship. When we don’t address the hate and sin inside of us, when we aren’t calling it by name and actively working against it, it can act as a barrier for fully living out God’s commands to love our neighbor and follow Jesus.

I’m going to take a minute and look at myself. Where am I only serving God half-heartedly? Who do I hate? Who am I afraid of? I want you to know that I am airing out and working out my problems, not accusing anyone in this congregation or beyond. Despite living most of my life not wanting to recognize it, I know there is hate and fear inside of me and the more I examine it, I realize how much I stumble over it.

Sometimes I am afraid to address race and racism and the tricky and complicated feelings it brings up and realizing how I am complicit in it. Often I am afraid of addressing the hate disguised as Christian Nationalism or any -ism, really, fearing I will upset someone. Sometimes, maybe, I don’t really feel comfortable sitting by and having a conversation with those who are homeless. My first instinct is to be the one in the kitchen serving dinner rather than joining in fellowship. And sometimes I feel like there are *those* people that are just so far gone, so full of hate themselves, that they’re not worth my time - you know, the ones who watch the news channel that you hate. Maybe sometimes I’d really only rather serve God monetarily not by my actions or sometimes just by my actions and not by my money...These are some of the issues and things inside of me that I am dealing with that keep me from wholeheartedly following God. Since I have reflected openly about this question myself, I invite you to consider, inwardly: What is keeping you from fully serving God?

As we ponder that question, I am going to switch gears for a minute and share some good news this morning: Despite Jonah falling short, despite his hate and his half-hearted attempts at following God, God still used this flawed human being to bring about repentance. God worked in spite of, with, and through Jonah. Likewise, our hate and fear and sin, though they often act as stumbling blocks, don’t disqualify us from doing God’s work. And at the same time, a challenge: God wants us to serve full-heartedly.

Take, for example, the full-hearted repentance of the King of Nineveh. Not only does he repent but he calls for the whole city - even the animals - to repent, to fast, to cover themselves in sackcloth and ashes. The Ninevites REPENT. They repent SO MUCH that they even cover their animals in sackcloth and ashes. This is in direct contrast to Jonah’s half-hearted attempts. The “bad guys,” the enemies, the Ninevites - they throw themselves into full-hearted, over the top, repentance. This is another sign that this story is satire by the way, livestock do not need to repent. But they totally cover their bases - even the animals repent.

But Jonah, that hate inside him is still going strong, he barely followed what God was asking of him and now he is hoping that they didn’t listen to his five words that he said only one-third of the way into the city and that God will smite them. Jonah, in fact, throws a tantrum to God. The Scripture says:

“But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord and said, ‘O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning, for I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from punishment. And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.’ And the Lord said, ‘Is it right for you to be angry?’ Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city.”

But God, in God’s kindness, doesn’t leave Jonah to stew in his hate. God makes a little plant to give Jonah shelter and Jonah was happy about the bush. But the next day, God sent a worm to eat the plant. I am going to read again from the book of Jonah:

“But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that it withered. When the sun rose, God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint and asked that he might die. He said, ‘It is better for me to die than to live.’

But God said to Jonah, ‘Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?’ And he said, ‘Yes, angry enough to die.’” Hold, on, I gotta interrupt here to just, emphasize this ridiculousness. ANGRY ENOUGH ABOUT A BUSH TO DIE! Okay, back to Scripture, “Then the Lord said, ‘You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left and also many animals?’”

Again - satire. Jonah cared more about a BUSH than the fate of all the people, including children and innocents, in Nineveh. He cared more about a plant than a hundred and twenty thousand people. Just because he hated those people - they were the enemy.

It is here that we, once again, are called to hold the mirror up to ourselves. Who are we hating? And perhaps, our hate is as ridiculous as wanting to die because a plant got eaten by a worm and yet not caring about the fate of thousands of people.

So we’ve already said there is Good News here, God can work good through us even as we still struggle with the sin of hate. And here is some more Good News, in the words of Jonah himself: “for I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from punishment.”

In other words, hear this Good News: While we are often afraid, while we often have hate inside of us, there is hope -- God does not hate ANY. ONE. Thank God for that!

God loves all of God’s creation. God loves you and God loves me, even with all of our faults. God loves you regardless of your immigration status. God loves you regardless of your gender or sexual identity. God loves you regardless of your race and ethnicity. God loves you regardless of your employment status and socioeconomic status. God loves you whether you're single or married, kids or no kids. Simply put, God loves you. Because isn’t that the whole point? That God loves us so much that God would send us Jesus? To live and breathe and die with and for us? No one - not even our enemies and not even ourselves with all our faults - no one is outside the love of God made manifest in Jesus Christ. Trust me, it’s hard to say this, as it would have been very hard for Jonah to say that God loved the people of Nineveh - even those we love to hate or even hate to hate...God loves them too.

And because God loves us and them, yes, even our enemies, so unconditionally - we too are called to love like God loves. Regardless. Just love.

This theme of God’s love makes itself known over and over in Scripture. Love even for the enemy.

And so, grounded in the knowledge of God’s love and hope, how can we address the hate and sin in this world, in our community, inside of us? How can we work against it? How can we move beyond the things that separate us from each other and from God? The things that keep us from wholeheartedly following God? I don’t have the answers for you today - but Jonah holding up a mirror to reflect on the ways, the ridiculous ways, we get stuck on hate is a start. And so I want to challenge each of us to consider these things: to examine ourselves, to begin to pray for our enemies and the eradication of hate in our hearts and the world. I pray that each of us can reject hate so that we can move towards love - love that allows us to fully follow God, and fully love like God loves.

Amen.

"Overlooked Stories: Queen Vashti" a sermon on Esther 1:1-12

Esther 1:1-12
“Overlooked Stories: Queen Vashti”
Preached Sunday, August 10, 2025 

CONTENT WARNING: This sermon discusses the Biblical story of the rape of Tamar.

We are continuing our “Overlooked Stories” sermon series this morning with Queen Vashti. This week I told someone I was preaching on Queen Vashti and she said, “Who?” And I said, “exactly.” No, I actually said, “The woman who was deposed as queen so Esther became queen.” And she went, “ohhhhh.”

Now, we heard part of her story today in the Scripture but it is not all of it, so allow me to share more. I, once again this week, gave myself a Scripture with many hard names to pronounce. Even more so than last week…so now I’m going to try and tell you the version without all the hard names.

Once there was a king. A very, very rich and powerful king. This very rich and very powerful king threw an extremely large banquet to show off his wealth and power. The banquet was not just for those in his inner circle but whole armies, the elite ruling class, the governors who ruled under his name - this banquet hall was overflowing with men - rich and powerful men - of which he was the most rich and powerful. And this king wasn’t just in it for a good time - he was in it for a long time - what a better way to show off his wealth and power. He could host a banquet, overflowing with food and alcohol, lots of alcohol, for 180 days.

And THEN, once those 180 days were over, he threw another party! Not just for powerful men but all men - and this party was also extremely lavish, over the top, ornate, a display of power, once again lots of alcohol - I am just going to quote the Scripture here: “Drinks were served in golden goblets, goblets of different kinds, and the royal wine was lavished according to the bounty of the king. Drinking was by ordinance without restraint, for the king had given orders to all the officials of his palace to do as each one desired.” In other words…everyone was drunk and was given full permission by the king to do whatever they wanted without consequences. What could possibly go wrong? …but really, use your imagination, I am sure it wasn’t a very wholesome time.

And then there is this line that Queen Vashti, the wife of this very rich and powerful king, also threw a banquet for the women.

On the 7th day of this opulent party, when the king was, well, drunk - he commanded his wife be brought before this raucous seven day party full of drunk men who were given permission to do whatever they wanted. He wanted to show his queen off. Now, there are some interpretations that the King wanted her to not only come wearing her crown - but only her crown. Whether this is the case or not, it would seem that the King viewed his beautiful queen as yet another thing to be put on display to show his wealth and power. He showed off his ability to make the wine overflow, marble pillars, mosaics made with colorful stones and gems… why would he not also show off his beautiful wife to brag what a rich, powerful and “blessed” man he was.

Queen Vashti, however, said “No.” And the king was irate and burned with rage.

We can imagine that this rich and powerful king was not used to anyone telling him no. And certainly no one told him no for the last 187 days as he feasted and got drunk. But Vashti…Vashti said no. We don’t know the reason she said no. The text doesn’t tell us. Perhaps she knew she would not be safe in such a crowd of men. Perhaps she did not want to be humiliated and degraded in such a way. Perhaps she was just tired of her husband treating her as another fine possession, made a thing, treated as less than a full person.

We should not downplay the courage it took Vashti to say “no” in this scenario. The “Me Too” movement has highlighted how even in our modern day, power imbalances make it hard, if not impossible, for women to say “no” to men who have power over them - causing them to endure harassment and abuse.

And while Vashti was a queen - she was also a woman - and did not have the power to say no without consequences. The angry king consulted his advisors and they told him that Queen Vashti had committed an unforgivable and dangerous act. By her saying no to him, she would inspire other women to say no to their husbands, and perhaps even whole regions to say no to the king - her simple act could cause rebellions and was a threat to the king’s power. (To which I say…really?) She was to be banished - although some rabbinic traditions guess that she was actually executed - and another queen was to take her place.

It is at this point that the story may get more familiar to our ears. The king holds a beauty pageant of sorts, causing Esther to become queen and through her acts, she stops the genocide of the Jewish people, she is told by her cousin and father figure Mordecai: “For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.”

But first, let’s look back to poor Queen Vashti. By all measures that I use, Queen Vashti did the right thing in saying no to the king, her husband. She protected her dignity and safety. She refused to be paraded around as an object - especially in front of many drunk men. And while she may have done the “right” thing - she paid dearly for it.

And that, in essence, is the takeaway from this sermon today. The thesis, if you will: this world is unfair and filled with darkness, and as such, doing the right thing isn’t always easy and can come with consequences - but take heart, for God will always be with you.

This thesis, if you will, is in direct opposition to the popular heresy known as the prosperity Gospel that espouses that if people just simply do the right things, follow God, be faithful, pray right, etc, etc - then God will reward those people with health, wealth, and general well-being and happiness.

To preachers who preach this message I simply want to say: the disciples would like a word. The martyrs would like a word. Queen Vashti would like a word.

Because it’s actually the opposite. Faithfully following God and doing the right thing - which includes standing up to injustice and saying no to rich and powerful people who perpetuate injustice, like the king in our Scripture today - can have consequences. It can hurt our reputations, put us at odds with people in power, and have adverse effects - like Vashti being banished.

The fact of the matter is, we live in a world where there is darkness. There are forces - and people - in our world who value profits over people, often profits at the literal expense of people - including their lives; who value being right over relationships; who value power over mutual care and interdependence. Following God means always choosing love - love over profit, love over being right, love over independence. These are not popular choices in our world. But take heart - for God is always with us. And as our Gospel reading from John said this morning, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.”

And yet, in the midst of the darkness of this world, we may ask ourselves, “Where is God in all this?” That’s actually a very appropriate question to ask when discussing Queen Vashti and the book of Esther as a whole. The book of Esther is kind of famous for being the only book in the Bible where God is not specifically mentioned.

Queen Vashti is not the main character in this story. She is used as a plot device to show what kind of man this king was - one who valued wealth over people, who listened to his advisors, who treated his wife as a thing rather than a person - and so she is cast out and enter Esther, a woman of Jewish descent, although she is to keep that a secret, and it is through her coming before the King, and pleading her case, something that well could have gotten her cast out like Vashti - that she stops a genocide of Jewish people that the king’s advisors were telling him to carry out.

But God - God is never mentioned specifically. To the astute reader, however, God is all over this story. God is with Esther and she assumed her position. God is with Esther as she pleads her case before the King. God is with Esther when the Jewish people are saved. God raised Esther up “for such a time as this” to do the right thing and save God’s people. And...God was also with Vashti. God was not just using Vashti as a plot device to bring Esther onto the scene. God was with Vashti when she claimed her courage, God was with Vashti when she said no. God was with Vashti, even as she was banished. For God is with all of us at all times.

The Bible is full of what we call “texts of terror.” The Bible depicts child sacrifice, rape, murder, genocide, and a plethora of violent acts. It is a good reminder that although something is Biblical, it does not make it Christlike. Our Bible is full of absolutely horrid things. I have preached on many of these horrid things before - but at a domestic violence awareness themed sermon that comes with many trigger warnings. I am not prepared to dive into all these texts today. But I will, briefly share, one story that has always stuck with me when asking the question, “Where is God in all this darkness, evil, and violence?”

In 2 Samuel, Tamar, the daughter of David, is raped by her half-brother, Amnon. Unfortunately, many people conspired to make this act of violence happen. And Tamar pleaded with her brother, begging to be spared from this violence. But she was ignored and this horrendous act of violence and evil was done against her.

Where in the world was God in the midst of all this?

God was in her no.

God was in her voice and agency when she said no. When she said no to protect herself. When she protected herself with her voice.

God was ignored by the perpetrators of violence in this text, we all have free will and can all ignore what God desires and choose evil - but that does not change the fact that God was with Tamar in her powerful no.

God was with Tamar in her weeping and screaming and rending of clothes that happened after.

God is with and in every voice that says no to violence. God is with and in every person who is harmed and weeps at injustice. God is saying no to violence with them. God is weeping at injustice with them.

While the story of Queen Vashti is not as explicitly violent as the story of Tamar - God was still with her in her courageous no. And in her banishment. God always sides with the outcast, the oppressed, the trodden on, the forgotten.

For some people, this may not sound like the Good News of the Gospel. What do you mean that horrible, violent acts still happen to people? Or could happen to me? What do you mean that my faith isn’t a magical amulet that assures me protection against bad things? And yet. I have found, for many, especially for survivors of acts of violence or those who are oppressed, there is nothing more Good than this Good News: God is on your side. God is in your “no” as you say no to the violence and hate in this world. God weeps with you when you weep. God does not want this for you or for anyone. God wants the day when all are treated as the beloved children of God that we were all created to be. The day when it is, on earth as it is in heaven…and until that day. God is with you. God is with them. God is with us. Take heart. No matter what darkness you have walked through, are walking through, or will walk through - you are never alone. God is with you.

The story of Queen Vashti - and of Esther - who was raised up to “such a time as this,” reminds me of a favorite quote from The Lord of the Rings. In the book this conversation happens between Frodo and Gandalf, in the movie it’s Pippin. But in the book there is a conversation that goes like this:

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

For those who have lived to see dark times, in their lives and in the world, we wish these dark times had never come to us. And yet…we have to choose what to do with the time given to us.

My prayer and hope for us as we encounter dark times is this:
May we have courage.
Courage to stand up like Queen Vashti and Tamar and all in Scripture and our world who say, “No” to injustice and violence.
May we have assurance of God’s presence with us in all and every circumstance.
May all who are downtrodden, oppressed, cast out - may they, through us sharing God’s love and care with them, know that God is with them.
May we be faithful disciples of Christ who were chosen for such a time as this - to shine light in the darkness.

May it be so. Amen.

“Overlooked Stories: The Daughters of Zelophehad” a sermon on Numbers 27:1-11

Numbers 27:1-11
“Overlooked Stories: The Daughters of Zelophehad”
Preached Sunday, August 3, 2025

The daughters of Zelophehad - Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah - you may not be familiar with their story, I know that I wasn’t before I chose this sermon series called, “Overlooked Stories.” During the month of August I will be focusing on five stories, and characters, from Scripture that may fade into the background. Maybe we’ve heard of them - maybe we haven’t. But likely we haven’t spent a lot of time with them and reflected what these overlooked stories have to say to us about God and our faith.

We are beginning this series with the daughters of Zelophehad - Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. While their names are hard for me to say, it is important for me to say their names. Because, very surprisingly, the Bible does. Multiple times. In the Hebrew Bible, the text we know as the Old Testament, there are 1,426 personal names. 1,315 of those names are male or presumed to be male. That means there are only 111 female names used in the whole Old Testament - a mere 9 percent. And so, for these 5 daughters to all be named is, in itself extraordinary. It also goes beyond that. These women - Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah - are not only mentioned in Numbers 27. They are mentioned 5 times in the Scriptures - Numbers 26, 27, and 36, Joshua 17, and 1 Chronicles 7. In four of those five times, their names - Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah - are used. They are mentioned in three books of the Hebrew Bible - there are only two people mentioned in more books of the Hebrew Bible than them - they are Miriam and Moses.

Just by the numbers games - readers of the Hebrew Bible should be alerted at the extreme importance of these women, the daughters of Zelophehad - Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. And yet, for many readers of these sacred texts, they are overlooked and unknown. Let’s change that for us gathered here today.

First, their story:

They first appear in the Hebrew canon in Numbers 26 where we establish their genealogy. They are descended from the ancestors of two half tribes of Israel - Ephraim and Manasseh. Zelophehad is a tenth generation son who fathered no sons - but five daughters. The name of their mother is not known. By the time we get to our story from today, in Numbers 27, Zelophehad has died, leaving his five daughters without an inheritance that they can legally claim - if there had been born sons instead of daughters, there would have been no issue.

The book of Numbers gets its names from the censuses that take place within it. The census is important because it is dividing up the land. According to the law of Israel, women could not inherit. Wil Gafney, author of Womanist Midrash, who I want to acknowledge her scholarship helped me understand this text and what was at play here, she points out that at this time Israel was actually unique in its law to not allow women to inherit land. She says, “Just as Israel was relatively isolated in largely restricting women from public and professional religious roles, they were also virtually alone in legislating women’s exclusion from property law. Women through the ancient Near East, from Egypt to Mesopotamia broadly, and specifically in places like Sumer, Ugarit, and Elam, owned and inherited property for more than a thousand years before the codification of Israel law.. The codes of Hammurabi and Israel’s Hittite neighbors also legally enfranchised the property rights of women.”

In other word’s, Israel’s laws prohibiting women from inheriting property, were not simply a sign of the times. They were unjust and restrictive. Enter the daughters of Zelophehad - Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. Their father was dead. They were unmarried. They had no brothers. There was no male in close enough relationship to them that they would be counted in the census. Soon, they would have nothing to their names - no place of their own. So they stood up. They stood in the tent of meeting - they stood between the leading men of their community in front of them - all the other men in their community behind. Before them was considered the meeting place of God. They were in between, a mediator. A place where Moses often stood. And they said, perhaps with one voice, “Give us the land.” They did not ask. They did not beg. They did not add “please” at the end. They stood up and they said, they demanded, “Give us the land.” They then made their argument as to what they were due. They said, a quote from our Scripture, “Our father died in the wilderness; he was not among the congregation of those who gathered themselves together against the Lord in the congregation of Korah but died for his own sin, and he had no sons. Why should the name of our father be taken away from his clan because he had no son? Give to us a possession among our father’s brothers.” In other words, “Our father was a good man in good standing. He didn’t do anything against the tribe or earn any disinheritance. If we were men, we would have rightfully inherited. Thus, give us what should be ours if we were but men.”

Moses hears their demands, and he deliberates. He takes it to God. He does not dismiss the out of hand - this is to his credit. And God takes the side of the daughters of Zelophehad - Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. God says - yes. God says, “they are right” - a word meaning not just correct but righteous. It is a powerful affirmation from God. And it should not surprise us. The theme of caring for the least and the least, which specifically includes widows and orphans, women and children, is a strong theme in all of our holy Scriptures. As we heard from Isaiah this morning:

“Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove your evil deeds
from before my eyes;
cease to do evil;
learn to do good;
seek justice;
rescue the oppressed;
defend the orphan;
plead for the widow.”

God hears them. And God doesn’t just hear the specific case of Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. God uses them, if you will, as case law, commanding Moses and the people of Israel to re-write all their inheritance laws as it pertains to fatherless daughters without husbands or brothers. Women were now eligible to inherit land. This a change of torah, a change of the law. One commentator phrased it to say that while the law may have been written in stone, this story shows us that God’s people should be flexible and willing to right injustices - even if it means re-writing the law.

This is not the end of the story of Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. After all, they are mentioned three more times in Scripture. We are, however, going to pause here for a moment, talk about the United Methodist heritage of justice work and bring in some more recent examples of Christians listening to God to right wrongs and re-write unjust laws.

I have talked about and preached many times over the Wesleyan theological concept known as “Means of Grace” - that is, the ways that we are called to live out our faith and the ways we encounter God. There are two axes - a vertical and horizontal - making four quadrants. I’ve talked about this before so I am going to rush through it a little - if it’s new to you, I’d love to talk to you more about it. So we have a vertical axis and horizontal axis that over lap - making four quadrants. Picture it with me. First we are concerned about our relationship with God - so we are called to individual acts of piety - prayer, reading the Bible, and such. And we are called to communal acts of worship - gathering together, singing hymns, celebrating the sacraments, and such. We are also called to be act on our relationship with our neighbors. So we are called to individual acts of compassion or charity - basically everything mentioned in Matthew 25: feed the hungry, give the thirsty something to drink, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, visit the sick and imprisoned. And then in this last quadrant, we are called to communal acts of justice. This is the concept, and the exhortation, that we aren’t just called to address needs as they arise with acts of compassion and charity - but we are to work against systems of injustice and work for a world where there is no hunger, no thirst, no need, no outcasts, no forgotten person. We are to work toward the Kingdom of God. Now, we need all four of these quadrants to experience the fullness of our faith. I have talked before about how if you only have one of the axes - you don’t have the fullness of our discipleship. We need love of God and love of neighbor - together they form the cross.

This last one we just talked about, communal acts of Justice. It’s often been politicized. Been scoffed at. Told to keep out of the pulpit. And yet, Justice is as much of a Christian concept as loving God is. This is not justice as it is often thought about and played out in our world today - courts and arrests and fines and sentences with a “justice” system that is less about rehabilitation as it is punishment. God’s justice is about setting all things right, about “Your kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.” About creating that holy Kingdom here on Earth where all persons are treated as the beloved children of God that God created us as.

When I talk about those four quadrants, I often say that each of us is going to have a quadrant in which we feel most comfortable. To which we naturally gravitate based on the gifts and personality that God gave us. I, for example, gravitate towards the Communal Worship quadrant. The beautiful thing about the body of Christ, is there are people who feel most at home in each quadrant present in this congregation. Together, we make up the fullness of the body of Christ.

And…I also say, that doesn’t excuse us from participating in the other quadrants. We are all called to the fullness of our faith. We are called to push ourselves, to grow, to step into areas of discipleship that don’t come naturally to us. Or, on the flipside, to extend a hand to others to “your” quadrant to help teach them the ropes of that area of Christian discipleship. The first time I participated in a march for a cause I believed in, a cause that I believed would help make this world look more like God’s Kingdom, it was alongside a seasoned friend in this area. I would not have had the courage to go alone. The first time I went to a prison, it was on an organized tour meant to educate seminary students. I needed my siblings in Christ to help me step out and grow in my faith and discipleship.

Each of us is called to justice work just as each of us is called to prayer.

And so, some examples for us to follow.

Martin Luther King Jr is certainly an example of a man who lived out his faith and pursued justice. In his “Letter from the Birmingham Jail” he gave multiple examples of just and unjust laws. Here is one such definition from that letter: “Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregated a false sense of inferiority.” King gave his life to make our world a more just place, more like the Kingdom of God.

Further back in our tradition, John Wesley worked tirelessly for causes of Justice & the Gospel. He preached to miners and encouraged workers’ rights. He spoke out against the horrors of slavery and the slave trade - even when it was immensely unpopular to do so and he put his own well-being at risk on multiple occasions, escaping mobs and the threats of being tarred and feathered. One way he fought against this injustice was appealing to the humanity of those trafficking humans:

“Are you a man? Then you should have a human heart. .. . Do you never feel another's pain? Have you no sympathy .. . no sense of human woe, no pity for the miserable? When you saw the flowing eyes, the heaving breasts, or the bleeding sides and tortured limbs of your fellow-creatures, was [were] you a stone, or a brute? . . . Whatever you lose, lose not your soul: Nothing can countervail that loss. Immediately quit the horrid trade: At all events, be an honest man.”

As Christians we are called to love and care for all God’s children - to free the oppressed from oppression which seeks to eradicate the imago dei in all people. And to free the oppressor from the grip of hate which destroys the soul. This is the work of Christian Justice.

There are so many examples I could give. So many stories of Christians - giving water to refugees in the desert, feeding lunch to the homeless in the park, housing families in sanctuaries - examples of things that are illegal, according to the law - but actions that are just and right in the eyes of God.

The Christian work of Justice is not easy work. It requires courage to stand up for what is right - like Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah did. It requires a voice - clear and strong or wavering - but still speaking out for what is right. “Give us the land” as the sisters - Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah - said. It requires those in power to listen and then to act for what is right. And above all, it requires persistence. The march towards justice is slow and arduous and does not come all at once.

Which brings us back to our story of Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. This story in Numbers 27 should have been a happy ending. The women stand up for their rights, for what is right, and God calls them righteous and commands things not just be made right for them but for all women who are left in the lurch with no fathers, brothers, or husbands. Justice has been done. God calls it good and right.

But Moses…Moses ignores what God commands. He never gives them the inheritance that God told Moses that he should. Here we get into the complicated person of Moses - and his complicated relationship with women. Or, well, we could get into it but that’s for another sermon. This one is getting long enough…But here’s what you need to know. The next time Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah appear in Scripture, in Numbers 36, it is the men of the assembly complaining against these women and what God commanded regarding them. “But what if they marry men from other tribes and become richer because of it?” Moses does not consult God and says “Fine - they must marry men of their own tribe or forfeit their inheritance.” This takes away their agency…but still, they have not yet been granted their inheritance. Not while Moses is alive. In Numbers 20, God tells Moses that because of his disobedience, he will never see the promised land. God says, “Because you did not trust in me, to show my holiness before the eyes of the Israelites, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.” God’s rebuke in Numbers never gives specific reasoning - the context is he doesn’t strike a rock to give water - as he does in the Exodus account, Gafney says her preferred womanist interpretation of this text is that Moses is banned from the Promise Land, dying having never seen it, because he failed Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. He failed to listen to God’s command to do right by them and by women in their circumstances. Moses never gave them the inheritance.

So when Moses dies, and Joshua brings the people into the promised land, Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah now stand before Joshua in Joshua 17 and they, once again, say, “Give us the land that is ours.” They do not ask. They do not beg. They don’t even say please. They know what is right and what is just - God has already confirmed their request as righteous. Joshua immediately complies and gives them their inheritance that Moses denied them.

The story of Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah tells us that the path towards justice is a slow and arduous one and persistence is needed. The story of Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah tells us that institutions and people in power, even good people likes Moses, or as King wrote about, “the white moderates who say to wait,” will stand in the way of God’s will that justice be done, that Earth looks more like Heaven, that all are cared for as the beloved children of God that we all were created to be.

The story of Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah - the daughters of Zelophehad - is an overlooked one but an extremely important one. It tells us of God’s heart for justice, of caring for the last, the lost and the least - the widow and the orphan - all who society marginalizes. It tells us to stand up for what is right. It tells us to be persistent that God’s will be done, persistent in making sure we care for one another, that unjust systems are dismantled, that unjust laws are re-written, that we act out what we pray in the Lord’s prayer, “on earth as it is in heaven.”

So today, whenever and wherever you see injustice in this world, listen to and learn from the story of Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. Speak up. Be bold. Trust in God. Live out your discipleship in fullness and wholeness, making our world more like God’s Kingdom.

May it be so. Amen.

“Don’t Wake My Sleeping Children” a sermon on Luke 11:1-13

Luke 11:1-13
“Don’t Wake My Sleeping Children”
Preached Sunday, July 27, 2025

When my oldest was born I developed a new pet peeve. Maybe not so much a pet peeve as a button that - if you push it - I will get very angry. The button is the door bell. When my children are sleeping.

At the last parsonage, I hung a piece of paper over the doorbell. DO NOT RING. SLEEPING BABY. SLEEP DEPRIVED PARENTS.

I will admit, with the second child, having an older child in the house who makes noise, we’ve loosened up a little on the noise in the house while the baby is sleeping. It’s part of the background “ambiance”. But I still highly value sleep, for me and my children, and when they are awoken early…I am not happy. And normally, neither are they.

So cue the story Jesus tells in this week’s Gospel lesson….But before we get to that. I want to comment that there are four things happening in this week’s Scripture. For 13 verses, that’s quite a bit.

There are the disciples saying, “Teach us how to pray” and Jesus giving them a version of the Lord’s Prayer.
There is this story of two friends, the need for loaves of bread, and sleeping children. (As you can probably guess from my sermon intro, we’re going to come back around to these sleeping children)
There is the famous “Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” line from scripture - echoed in our opening hymn today, “Seek Ye First” - a favorite of many.
And then there is the bit about parents giving good gifts to their children.

At first glance, this Scripture may seem all over the place - branching off in four different directions. And a preacher could - and I have multiple times - preach a sermon that just focuses on one-fourth of this passage. Although - all four of parts of this Scripture do work together to make a whole. There is a thread that weaves them together. And that thread is that God is our heavenly parent who loves us as God’s children.

Let’s go through this Scripture together, looking for that thread, seeing how in this passage, God is depicting love for us as beloved children of God and how that affects how we relate, talk, and pray to God, our Divine parent.

First, I want to start with this strange story of the father and his children, trying to sleep.

“‘Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’ And he answers from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything out of friendship, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.’”

When I read this I think: knocking on my door at midnight? When my kids are trying to sleep!? Aw heck no. That’s a good way to no longer be my friend and catch my ire. If you’re persistant, of course I will get up and go to the door and give you what you want - JUST TO MAKE YOU GO AWAY AND NO LONGER MAKE NOISE AND LET ME AND MY CHILDREN SLEEP. But really, this story sounds a little strange to us because there’s a lot happening here that doesn’t fit our modern day experiences. There are some ancient understandings of hospitality at play that we don’t really adhere to today and also…
1. For starters, if you have guests at midnight and don’t have food - grocery stores are open or Doordash can deliver late night fast food right to your door.
2. Normally families don’t often sleep all together in one room or bed. And

3. unannounced knocking on doors is really a thing of the past. For Gen X and younger, this is just something we don’t do. If you are going over someone’s house, you check with them first. Even if you’re expected, you might not knock on the door. You may call or text, “I’m outside” because God forbid we actually have to knock on a door. And if someone I don’t know knocks on my door in the middle of the day, there is a good chance I am not answering. You are either a roofer trying to sell your services to me or canvassing for a political candidate and I am not interested in either. Knock in the middle of the night? And no way am I answering! I think many of us have heard horror stories of robberies happening this way.

4. Also, it’s not safe for the knocker to knock randomly on a house either. There are too many stories of people who are lost knocking on a random door for directions and instead of getting the help they need, looking down the barrel of a gun.

So yes. For all of the above reasons - the story sounds weird to us.

But I think it’s important to not get too bogged down in the differences between 2000 years ago and today, and instead ask: who is Jesus, who is God, in this parable? In the Lord’s Prayer and in the heavenly father giving the children good gifts, God is the Father. God is the Father here as well. We are the ones knocking at the door, praying, and making requests of Jesus. But we aren’t only the friend asking for bread here…If God is our heavenly parent and we are God’s children…then we are also the children tucked into bed, safe and snug for the night with a parent who loves us very much.

I wrote this sermon - or at least this part of the sermon - on Thursday morning. The night before, neither Zach nor I slept very well. One child needed tucked back in twice. One needed fed twice and rocked once - and was up for a good bit in between those things. While every night we expect to be up once or twice between the two kids, this was a more demanding night than average and thus resulted in significantly less sleep than usual. It’s hard going without sleep. It’s literally a primary need. We need sleep to live. To function. To keep our sanity. I know I was so sleep deprived after my first was born that I felt like my sanity was slipping…And yet, as a parent, when the child cries, I wake. I go to them. I make them feel safe and loved. I sacrifice my own needs and desires for that of my child. And I will do it again and again and again.

Which brings us to another part of this Scripture:

“‘Is there anyone among you who, if your child asked for a fish, would give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asked for an egg, would give a scorpion? If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!’”

Don’t get thrown off by the “you, then, who are evil” line. Elsewhere in Scripture Jesus says that it is God alone who is Good, all of us in comparison, fall short. We all who are human are evil in comparison to the God who is Goodness itself. We also know that, as humans, we are less than perfect. And for anyone who has ever raised children, or even cared for aging parents or a spouse, we know we don’t always live up to our ideals. At times we have all the patience and understanding in the world - and at other times…well… We also know that there are parents and caregivers who do not parent with love, compassion, and care. Abuse and unsafe homes for children and the vulnerable is the very definition of evil. Yet, for the vast majority of us, we will not give a child a snake instead of a fish, a scorpion instead of an egg. We do our best to raise them to both meet their needs, keep them safe, and to let them know, unequivocally, that they are loved.

If we will go to our crying children in the middle of the night to help them feel safe and loved…God, our heavenly parent, will go to even farther lengths to help us feel loved. We are tucked in tight, secure in God’s arms, held and loved.

I just love this imagery, we are the little children in bed, God our Parent, is watching over us to help us sleep. Rested and loved. I want to just savor this image for a moment longer…

And so, that accounts for two of the four things happening in our short thirteen verses. And they are about how God views us - as God’s beloved children. The other two segments of this passage are about how we relate to - and pray to - this Divine parent who loves us.

Let’s start with, “Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”

I want to be clear as to what this is not. This is the not heresy known as the Proserpity Gospel that espouses if we just ask right, are good enough, do the right things, pray the right way that we will automatically be rewarded with exactly what we pray for including good health, good relationships, and monetary wealth. That is not how God or our world works.

And yet, God still wants us to talk to God. What loving and caring parent doesn’t want their child to come to them. To ask for what they need, to search for a relationship with God, to search for answers about what God is like, to knock on the door - shamelessly coming to God with all that we are and all that we need.

If a child asks for a good gift and a parent gives it to them; if even a reluctant, tired, duty bound friend answers the door - then how much more is God, our loving Parent, willing to listen to us, to hear our prayers, and to give good gifts.

The disconnect here sometimes comes from what we call good and what God calls Good. After all, no one is Good but God. And we, we are evil in comparison to God’s great Goodness. My kid thinks a new toy every time we go to the store and as much tv she wants is good. I know that new toys and screen time are good…in moderation. I would not be good if I gave my kid everything she thinks she wants in the moment. It is in the first part of the Scripture passage, where the disciples ask Jesus to teach them how to pray, in which Jesus tells them what Good gifts he longs to give us…

“One of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.’ So he said to them, ‘When you pray, say:

Father, may your name be revered as holy.
May your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial.’”

Take away some of the flowery language and here is how I might phrase this prayer for a child today:

Father, may I know you.
May the world be as it should be.
Give us food.
Forgive us for when we mess up.
Lead us through the hard times and deliver us into your safe arms.

At the heart of this prayer that Jesus taught us are our very real needs: physical, emotional, and spiritual.
Prayers for food; for forgiveness which is necessary for relationships, and for safety and security.

In this prayer is everything that is Good and Right that our heavenly parent wants to give us:
Right relationship with God. Right relationship with neighbor.
These are the good gifts that God longs to give us.
And if we ask for these Good gifts, if we seek out what God deems right and good, if we seek out how we can make this world more Good, more Right as God desires it to be... then we will find it. God will come to the door and answer it for us.

For me, the take away from these four segments in this passage of Scripture isn’t even really about how to pray. It’s not a checklist of the right things to say. Or even the right things to ask for. It’s, at its heart, a beautiful depiction of how Jesus sees our relationship with the Divine:

We are beloved children - God wants to be our heavenly father who gives us good gifts and loves us.
And in return, God wants us to be God’s children, who come to Jesus with our needs and our thoughts and trusts that, our holy, heavenly Good Father, can help make this world right. We come to God with the blind faith and love of a child who is tucked into bed by their loving parent.

May it be so. Amen.

Call to Worship inspired by Acts 20:7-12 & Deconstruction & "Woven"

Leader: We come to worship today with a humble ask:
People: That our faith would have room to breathe.
L: We come to worship today with a humble ask:
People: that we could ask questions and grow.
L: We come to worship today with a humble ask:
P: That even when we aren’t sure what we believe, or we don’t believe what we used to, that we would still belong.
L: We come to worship today with a humble ask:
P: that we would have a faith that can hold fast to God’s goodness - even as that faith changes.
L: We come to worship today with a humble ask:
P: That the Spirit would be at work in our lives and our faith.
All: May it be so. Amen.

Prayer of Discipleship inspired by Romans 12:9-18 & Joseph of Arimathea

Leader: Holy Lord, help us to be people
People: who weep with those who weep.
L: Holy Lord, help us to be people

P: who rejoice with those who rejoice.
L: Holy Lord, help us to be people
P: of goodness, honor, and love.
L: Holy Lord, help us to be people
P: who have a deep reverence for what is holy.
L: Holy Lord, help to to be people
P: who hold fast to what is right and true.
L: Holy Lord, help us to be people
P: who love and follow you.
All: Amen.

Call to Worshiped inspired by Luke 23:44-56 & Joseph of Arimathea

Leader: We come worship today, cultivating a sense of wonder.
People: We come to worship, opening ourselves up to the mystery of God.
L: What must it have been like, to behold Jesus on the cross?
P: We imagine devastation, immense grief, and fear.
L: What must have it been like, to cradle the Messiah’s dead body?
P: We imagine holy but messy work. Shock and tender love all wrapped together.
L: We come to worship today, remembering those who stood at the foot of the cross, those who fled, and he who cared for the body of Jesus.
P: We come to worship today, cultivating a sense of wonder.
All: Let us worship. Amen.

Call to Worship based off of Jonah

Leader: God said to Jonah, “Go.”
People: To which Jonah said, “No.”
L: God said to Jonah, “Preach to them.”
P: To which Jonah said, “But I hate them.”
L: God said to Jonah, “My mercy is for everyone.”
P: To which Jonah said, “I’d rather watch them die.”
L: God said to Jonah, “Rejoice! They have repented.”
P: To which Jonah said, “I might as well die.”
L: Friends…this story is ridiculous.
P: But yet we see ourselves in it.
L: As we come to worship this morning, may we admit that we have a long way to go.
P: And yet praise be to God that God doesn’t give up on us.
L: Let us worship our God who still loves us all and wishes abundant life for us.
All: Amen!

A Prayer for Such a Time as This inspired by Queens Vashti and Esther and Lord of the Rings

Leader: In “The Lord of the Rings,” this conversation happens between Frodo and Gandalf:
“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

This quote echoes the stories of Queens Vashti and Esther and many others, including ourselves, who have all seen and encountered times such as these. And so we pray for God’s guidance and empowerment in these, and all hard, times. Pray with me:

Leader: When the world seems dark,
People: Help us be the light.
L: When we don’t know the way forward.
P: Journey with us.
L: When we are afraid to speak up for what is right.
P: Strengthen our voices.
L: When we are afraid to stand in solidarity with the oppressed.
P: Be our wellspring of courage.
L: When we look around and can’t see where God is…
P: May we know that God is always with us. Never abandoning us. Forever at work in our lives and our world, even when it’s hard to see.
L: Whenever we feel like we have come to “such a time as this…”
P: Help us decide what to do with the time given to us.
L: May we answer the call to always point the way back to how God is at work in our world.
P: Raise us up to be what God is calling us to be: disciples who reflect God’s hope, love, and light.
All: May it be so. Amen.

Call to Worship for Troubled Times

Leader: We gather together today, seeking God’s presence.
People: We admit that, sometimes, God is hard to find.
L: Take heart for God is here with us today.
P: But what about in the world that is so lost and broken?
L: Take heart for God is at work in all the lost and broken places in our world.
P: But what about the lost and broken places in our lives?
L: Friends, take heart. God is always with you.
P: We come to worship today, trusting, knowing, that God is with us.
L: Let us worship the God who is only ever as far from us as our next breath.
All: God is here. God is with us. Let us worship.

Call to Worship inspired by Micah 6:8 & Wesley's Simple Rules

Leader: As we gather for worship this morning, we remember what God is asking of us:
People: To do justice, to love kindness, to walk humbly with our God.
L: As we gather for worship this morning, we remember the Simple Rules of Methodism:
P: To do no harm, do good, and stay in love with God.
L: May this morning’s worship help realign our hearts and minds to live out love of God and love of neighbor.
P: We love you, Lord! Help us love one another.
All: Let us worship our Just, Kind, and Loving God.

“Needed Things” a sermon on Luke 10:38-42

Luke 10:38-42
“Needed Things”
Preached Sunday, July 20, 2025

I think we’ve been looking at the whole Mary and Martha story all wrong.

Some preface:

My sister and I are complete opposites. We grew up sharing a room and always bickering - sometimes, full out fighting. I was …not the neatest person. At some points, it might have even been fair to call me a slob. She was a much neater, and cleaner, person.. That, actually, was the basis for most of our arguments. We played out the old sibling sitcom tropes - everything from yelling at each other about borrowing clothes and literally putting duct tape down the center of the room to dictate “your” space and “my” space. Today, my sister and I are still very different people.

Now, she lives 9 hours away - something my sister and I would both claim is good for our relationship but we still talk at least weekly if not more. We still care about what is happening in the other’s life. We still want happiness for the other and love one another.

But, as a child who was used to fighting with her sister, when I was younger, I heard this Mary and Martha story as a fight between two siblings and Jesus claiming a winner. I, who identified more with Mary at the time and who labeled my sister “a Martha,” well, I was obviously the winner and my sister was the loser. Sibling dynamics play out in our lives - and all through the Bible. Cain and Abel. Isaac and Esau. Leah and Rebekah. Joseph and his brothers.

I know I am not the only one who has thought of the whole Mary and Martha thing as a Mary versus Martha thing. Fighting siblings are pretty much par for the course in the Bible and in life. AND, I also think this story plays into our culture’s unhealthy obsession to pair women off against each other. Ya’ll know what I’m talking about? Instead of celebrating female excellence we want to make it into a feud - create the false narrative that there’s not enough room at the top.

So we make it Taylor Swift versus Olivia Rodrigo
Rihanna versus Cardi B
Brittney Spears versus Christina Aguilera

And, I know some of you don’t understand those references so I did some googling to find some that you might know:

Vivien Leigh versus Marilyn Monroe
Cyndi Lauper versus Madonna
Bette Davis versus Joan Crawford

Those last three are complete unknowns to me but maybe they make sense to others out here…but basically…in every generation, the media has pitted females against each other. In some instances there may be real beef, in others, it’s played up for the drama, more clicks, more sales…

And, of course, from our Scripture this morning: Martha Versus Mary.

We take this Bible story of two women and decide that there can only be room for one of them to be living out her discipleship right and so we hear Jesus’s words that Mary has taken the better part and we become anti-Martha. And so many sermons on this topic talk about the danger of busying oneself too much and not spending enough time at Jesus’s feet - and while, I think that is a moral of this story, they so often do so in a way that is decidedly anti-Martha and her actions. They take the commendation of Mary as a condemnation of Martha.

So I want to say first that both Mary & Martha were demonstrating discipleship. Both of them were serving Jesus. Both of them are worth emulating in our discipleship.

Martha often gets written off as putting housework above God. Some of these commentaries or interpretations of this passage paint her as a silly woman, busying herself with the kitchen rather than sitting at the feet of Jesus. Not only is the interpretation sexist - it misses an important point. Martha was practicing and extending hospitality to Jesus.

The Bible emphasizes hospitality above most other things. Being inhospitable is the Biblical sin of Sodom and Gomorrah. The commandment to be hospitable and to welcome the stranger among you is repeated over and over in the Bible and Jewish & Christians faiths. In many Ancient cultures, including Greek, Jewish, and Christian - hosts were expected to welcome guests, even strangers, and house them, clothe them, feed them, protect them - and then, in many stories, including Biblical ones, those strangers turned out to be gods or angels among them. The most famous from the Bible is Abraham welcoming the travelers who would tell him that he was going to have a son. Or the two disciples walking along the path to Emmaus, not knowing it was Jesus they invited in to eat with them. Jesus himself stresses hospitality. When he sends out his disciples two by two, he tells them to look for and expect people to take them in and be hospitable. The spreading of the Good News depends on those willing to take in strangers and care for them as if they were Jesus themselves. The whole Gospel of Luke stresses the point of hospitality as a central tenet of the Christian faith.

Martha was being the hospitable host. She was doing everything her religion and society taught her. She was doing what Jesus taught. She was serving Jesus, feeding him, giving him shelter, offering protection - she literally had a God in her home and she was treating him as such.

Martha’s error was not in being hospitable. It was not in working. It was not in doing. It might have been calling out her sister to Jesus - but also, what a sisterly thing to do, right? She was like, “Um, hey, Jesus - help a girl out and remind my sister what we’re supposed to be doing right now?” She was expecting him to notice her hospitality, praise it, and remind her sister and all there to do the same. How much can we relate here, right? Maybe in relationships with our own siblings, our spouses, even fellow Church members. We can feel like we’re doing all the work and just want to remind others that this is their house too, their church too. But Jesus says that her sister, Mary, has chosen the better choice. Now, I highly doubt all those there took this as a condemnation of Martha’s acts. After all, Jesus had urged hospitality frequently and will go on to stress it again and again.

Martha’s actions are also commendable. The early church and even the church today - needs people like Martha to survive. We too are called to live out our discipleship in hospitality to each other and to the stranger.

I see Jesus’s words to Martha not as a condemnation or shaming or belittling her. Jesus’s words helped Martha put things into perspective. Helped her really focus on what the most important thing was in that moment. Martha was not really realizing what it means when Jesus is right in front of you. Not realizing the “why” of doing what she was doing.

Who here, has been hosting a party - a holiday, a birthday party, a family reunion - and they have been so busy DOING, cooking, cleaning, making sure everyone has what they need, make sure everything is running smoothly, etc - that it gets to be the time when people are leaving and you realize…I never actually sat down and talked with the people I care about. I never actually took a moment to savor being surrounded by people I love. I never got to just…enjoy? Raise your hand? I am expecting it to be mostly women raising their hands because this is how our society works…Yupp.

Can you imagine how Martha might have felt when Jesus stood up to go and left and Martha realized…the Messiah, the Christ was in my house…and I never stopped and talked to him! I never stopped to listen to him! I never appreciated the blessing he was bringing me. I never just took a moment to bask in his presence… I am sure she would have regretted it. And perhaps even had resentment against her sister who did take the time to appreciate being in the presence of Jesus.

Martha needed to shift from serving, to worshipping.

Living out our discipleship, as Martha was doing, is only one side of the coin. Because in this world we can live as good people, we can welcome the stranger, we can feed them, clothe them, protect them, we can love the neighbor with no exceptions as ourselves - and we can, and people do this, entirely from a secular position. What sets our lived discipleship apart, what sets our hospitality and service to the stranger, the neighbor, the world, apart is that we first sit at the feet of Jesus. We return to the feet of Jesus, over and over.

We come to the feet of Jesus to learn, to listen, to drink deeply from the well, to unburden, to realign our priorities, to renew and strengthen ourselves for the work of discipleship. Mary was doing, serving, living out the important commandment of hospitality - but also forgetting to first sit at the feet of Jesus and and fill up her well before serving. No wonder she was exasperated with her sister. When we fail to care for ourselves and our souls first, when we fail to rest in Jesus, the work, even the good work, drains us and burns us out - leaving us frustrated and tired. I know many of us have felt this way - burned out by church work.

This story is very much about the double-sided coin that is love of God and love of neighbor. It come to us in the Gospel of Luke right after the parable of the Good Samaritan which emphasizes love of neighbor - even love of enemy. This story, of Mary and Martha, emphasizes love of God. Many commentaries believe Luke was intentional in framing these two stories this way. We cannot have one without the other. We need to balance our attention to both, lest we forget why we serve. One could even imagine Jesus, who is praising Mary for sitting at his feet, for resting in him, for learning and growing in her faith and adoration of God - we could imagine if she sat there too long - If she started to neglect hospitality, if she neglected love of her neighbor - We could imagine Jesus saying to her, “Mary, you have chosen the better thing - but don’t just sit there! Share it! Live it! And then return.”

I have preached many times about love of God and love of neighbor. Love of God pushes you to love your neighbor. Love of neighbor reveals more of who God is, causing us to love God more. The story of Martha and Mary reminds us of this: two sisters living out love of God and neighbor. The caution in the story is to not forget to keep on coming back to God. Don’t pass up a single opportunity to sit at the feet of Jesus. Don’t forget to tend your own soul, to find rest in Jesus.

We need “Marthas” - I am one most of the time. It would be too easy for me to make my life motto “Busy people get stuff done.” And yet, how unhappy, uncenetered, and unfulfilled would I be if I let that busy-ness, even busy-ness for Good causes, overtake my life? We all need balance, need to have our wellspring be Jesus, need to not miss the Kingdom in front of us. We need to START with Jesus. It is the only way our work will be sustainable. We need to start with God and never lose sight of the invitation to rest in Jesus. Mary and Martha are not at odds, they are two sides of the same coin. Two women living out their discipleship. Two women who Jesus uses as a teachable moment about the necessity of resting in Jesus.

Summer is the perfect time to revisit this - it’s supposed to be a time of rest and renewal and yet we get so busy...even if we’re busy with good things. We might get to the end of our summers, supposedly a season of rest and renwal and realize… we are burned out. We are tired, we are exhausted. We never want to get to the end of a season and I realize our wells are empty.

But we might. And we will. During one season or another of our lives. We are only human. And it is at this point that we need to ask ourselves: How long has it been since I last sat at the feet of Jesus? How have I been filling my own well, tending my own soul? It is then that we need to turn to Jesus and hear him say, “you have been doing good work. And it’s time to chose the better thing. Sit at my feet. Rest.”

Even with the best intentions, we can forget why we’re doing what we’re doing. We can forgot to turn to Jesus first. We can forget to rest at his feet. Because when we encounter Jesus, the tables are turned. We are no longer the host, we are the guest. Jesus is our ultimate host - taking care of us, offering us protection, offering us renewal, a safe place to rest our heads - inviting us to feast on the Word, to drink deeply from the water that gives life.

So how have we been getting the story of Mary and Martha wrong? The conclusion is not a “don’t be a Martha, be a Mary.” The conclusion is more - be your whole self for God. Live out love of God and neighbor, extend hospitality, serve God - AND never forget why. Never forget to drink deeply from the well. Never lose sight of God inviting you to rest in Jesus, that invitation that is always right in front of you.

For now, right now, choose the better thing, stay here at the feet of Jesus, and rest awhile. May we all find renewal and strength for the journey here, with Martha and Mary, at the feet of Jesus.

Amen.

“How Many Times Do I Need to Preach This Text?” a sermon on Colossians 1:1-14 & Luke 10:25-37

Luke 10:25-37
Colossians 1:1-14
“How Many Times Do I Need to Preach This Text?”
Preached Sunday, July 13, 2025

I am going to go out on a limb here and say that most of you have heard this morning’s Gospel text before.
Many of you have heard, “Love God and Love neighbor as self” many, many times.
Many of you have heard the story of “The Good Samaritan” more times than you can count.
This morning’s theme, even the message of this sermon, may seem “old hat.” There is nothing new here.

And. Please don’t tune out. The message of the Gospel is so important. It bears repeating. We need to hear it again and again and again.

Our reading from Colossians today even starts with the letter writing acknowledging that the community has heard this message before: “You have heard of this hope before in the word of the truth, the gospel that has come to you.”

I had a preaching professor in seminary who started his class by having each student summarize the Gospel in one or two short sentences. He said this is the one sermon you will preach as a preacher - there may be variations on the theme but every sermon you give will have this at the core. Because preachers are called to proclaim the Gospel - the Good News.

My Gospel summary is something like this: God loves us so much that God became one of us and is always with us. In response to that love, we are to love God and love neighbor as self. This is the Good News - the Good News for all people. You are loved. Love in return.

This week’s Scripture from Luke is at the heart of the Gospel, the core of God’s Good News for us. So yes, you’ve heard this story before. You’ve heard these commandments before. And God knows I have preached on them before. Even when the weekly Scripture is not this exact text - it always comes back to “Love God, Love Neighbor.” As Paul says in Colossians - “you have heard of this hope, this Gospel, before…”

And so, even though we’ve heard it before…let us turn our attention, once again, to the Gospel message and hear it anew.

When the lawyer, which is really, one who studies the law more so than we think of lawyers in the modern sense, but when the lawyer asked Jesus: “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He already knows the answer. He knows he’s supposed to love God and neighbor as self. Jesus tells him, "You have given the right answer.” He knows HOW he is supposed to treat his neighbor - but he wants to know WHO he has to love as himself. He’s looking for the loophole here - he wants to define “neighbor” in a way that he is justified in not loving some as himself. Or even, perhaps, to justify his hate.

It is here that Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan: where a man is making a long and dangerous journey and is mugged and beat up - left for dead on the side of the road. Then a priest and Levite, two well-respected and religious people, cross to the other side of the road so they won’t have to deal with the helpless man. And then, a Samaritan comes, stops, helps the man - taking him to a 5 star hotel and paying extravagantly for his medical and recovery bills.

And after telling this story, he asks the lawyer, “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?"

Now, remember, we have already established HOW you should treat your neighbors - you are to love them as yourself. The lawyer and Jesus are on the same page about this. Jesus does stress this point by using hyperbole. The inn here is not an inn like Mary and Joseph stopped at but more like a very nice hotel. The amount the Samaritan pays is extremely generous. Jesus is probably using hyperbole to make his point - as is a staple in the genre of parables. But they are not discussing how to treat your neighbor - they are discussing who is your neighbor.

And so, in response to the question, “who is the neighbor,” you’d expect a straightforward answer “The Samaritan.” After all, he gave a very straightforward answer to the summation of the law. But the lawyer answers Jesus, “The one who showed him mercy.” Which, I mean, was the Samaritan. But - the lawyer hated Samaritans so much - he couldn’t even bring himself to say that the “Samaritan” was the neighbor. The very thought of admitting that the neighbor was a Samaritan probably made him sick - he couldn’t even bring himself to say it.

You have heard me share before that Jewish New Testament Scholar AJ Levine has said that a modern equivalent of “the Good Samaritan” would be like telling the story of “The Good Hamas Member” today. Perhaps it would be like telling the story of “The Good Russian Soldier” to a Ukrainian. In our own country, we are so divided by hateful political rhetoric that depending on who your audience was, it could be “the Good MAGA” of “The Good Democrat” alike.

And so here we come to another part of the Good News - the Gospel Message we have heard before. The sermon I have preached over and over.
We have heard HOW we are to respond to God’s love for us - and that’s to love God and to love neighbor as self.
We have also heard, again and again, time and time over, “Who is my neighbor?” And the answer? - Even the Good Samaritan. Everyone is your neighbor, even your enemy.
Love God. Love neighbor. Love your enemy.

I’ve preached this sermon before.
You’ve heard this sermon before - not this exact sermon, but this message.
And sometimes, I can’t help but ask myself, “How many times do I need to preach this text?”
Maybe you’re wondering, “How many more times do I need to hear this?”

Sometimes I get discouraged when I look at the world. Sometimes I ask myself, “Does preaching Love make any difference?” Am I “preaching to the choir?” “Am I preaching to a wall?”

Perhaps you feel the same way. I know that many of you are trying your absolute best to live lives of Love. Lives filled with Love of God. Love of Neighbor. Even love of enemy. I know that you are all on a journey of discipleship. That the Spirit is working in and through you, to be sanctified, to follow Jesus, to live a holy life of Love.

But maybe you too look at the world around you and wonder…is it making any difference? Am I making any difference? Is God’s love making any difference?

My exhortation to myself and to each of you this morning is this: Keep on preaching Love. Keep on living lives of Love. Maybe, just maybe, it may be the first time someone hears a message of love. It may be the 1000 time someone hears a message of love…and it may be the first time it sinks in, the first time it makes a difference. Keep on going. Keep on preaching love, keep on living Love…until there is fruit.

Our text from Colossians says: “You have heard of this hope before in the word of the truth, the gospel that has come to you. Just as it is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing fruit among yourselves from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God.”

Basically, you’ve heard the Gospel message before - and from the very first day you heard it, The Spirit has been at work within you to bear fruit. And not just from the very first day you heard it - but the day you really got it too. The day it clicked. The day that the Love of God, the Good News of the Gospel, the command to Love God and Love Neighbor as self and yes, even to Love our Enemies - the day it went from head knowledge to heart knowledge. The day that that heart knowledge spilled out in an overflow of Love.

And I want to add - not just the DAY but the DAYS. Plural. We are all works in progress. As Christians we call this Sanctification. That day by day, the Spirit of God works with us, through us, within us…to help us love just a little better. And there are days and times when we don’t get it right. When we move backwards. When we fail to bear good fruit. And the Good News - the really Good News of the Gospel - is that isn’t the end of our story. God never gives up to us. We will hear the Gospel of Love again. And again and again, we will have the opportunity to respond in love.

There is another parable in the Gospel of Luke about a fig tree. It goes like this: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the man working the vineyard, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good, but if not, you can cut it down.’”

We, and our world, are like the fig tree. The Gardener may be telling us the Gospel of Love, over and over and over…and yet we fail to produce the fruit of that Love. But - The Gardener does not give up on us. The Gardener is patient with us. The Gardener tends our soil with, pardon the imagery, the manure of Love. So every time we hear the Gospel of Love, the Good News to Love God, Love Neighbor, Love Enemy…each time we hear it, it is like The Gardener putting manure on our roots, planting us more firmly in Good Soil, giving us everything we need to bear Good fruit for God.

How many times have we heard this text? How many times have we heard the Gospel? How many times….? May we produce the fruit of love tenfold as many times as we hear it.

Closing prayer for each of us, as it comes to us from Colossians:

“For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God's will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God. May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, so that you may have all endurance and patience, joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.”

May it be so, Amen.

“Why Are We Like This?” a sermon on Galatians 5:1, 13-25 & Luke 9:51-62

Galatians 5:1, 13-25
Luke 9:51-62
“Why Are We Like This?”
Preached Sunday, June 29, 2025

Here’s my Sunday morning confession to you: I don’t always talk to myself with kindness. As a pastor, and just as a friend, I often tell people to talk to themselves as they would a good friend or even a small child. Don't berate yourself. Give yourself grace. Negative self-talk does no good. We are commanded, after all, to love neighbor - as self. While we are going to talk about loving our neighbor this morning, sometimes we also have to start with loving ourselves.

And yet, and yet…almost all of us do it, negative self-talk, berating ourselves. I have a particularly infuriating habit of losing earbuds. I just can’t keep track of them. In the last week or two I’ve misplaced them so many times, I found myself in a spiral of negative self-talk. Including the lament, “Why am I like this???”

Which is also the sermon title I chose for this week - a lament against the state of humanity, found some 2000 years ago in our Scriptures and in the headlines and our lived reality today.

We start with the scene of Jesus rebuking his disciples.

“When his disciples James and John saw this, they said, ‘Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?’ But he turned and rebuked them.”

Some people didn’t respond to Jesus the way they would have hoped - a rejection instead of acceptance. And James and John…they ask, “Should we kill them???” - or “Should we pray for God to kill them?”

I want to be flabbergasted at this. Like, “Excuse me, what?” But then I look at the course of human history and our world today - how quick and how often we rain fire down from the skies on each other. In addition to that, they were spurned by Samaritans - already the enemy. How quickly their disdain and hate for them bubbles to the surface in anger and violence at even the smallest slight. It is the same for us - how quick are we to call for the elimination of all who oppose us? Of those who don’t think like us? Of the “other”? So instead I sigh and ask, “Why are we like this?”

I wish the words of Jesus’s rebuke were written down in Scripture. I wish they had been transmitted through the ages down to us today. Although I can imagine what he said, especially when I look at today’s reading from Galatians:

“For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.”

Maybe these words are an echo of Jesus’s rebuke. Something along the lines of: “What part of love your neighbor as yourself don’t you understand??? You are going to bite and devour one another and all of you will be consumed by violence, sin, and death.”

After Jesus’s rebuke we then have what seems like a slight change in topic in today’s Gospel lesson - but it is all related.

Jesus encounters some would-be disciples on his way:

“As they were going along the road, someone said to him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’
And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’
To another he said, ‘Follow me.’ But he said, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’
And Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’
Another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.’”

We don’t have the actual answers of these possible disciples. Did they heed Jesus’s words and leave everything to follow him…or did they get stuck in their “buts”?

I’d follow you…BUT that sounds too demanding.
I’d follow you….BUT let me bury my father.
I’d follow you….BUT let me say goodbye to my family.

But…wait, actually, don’t these sound more like good reasons to us rather than excuses to not follow Jesus?

Biblical scholar Chelsea Brooke Yarborough frames it like this:

“Now naturally, Jesus could let them do these things that feel so crucial and necessary. I would also want to bury my parent or tell my people at home that I was leaving. However, the reason these were recorded was to show that this following is costly and time-sensitive.

I don’t know that I would suggest we should not bury those we have lost in honor or take time to be with family and friends. Yet, thinking that following Jesus and living in a radically loving and wholly inclusive way won’t cost us something is misguided. Jesus is saying, ‘Do you truly want to follow me in practice, or do you want to be seen following me as perception?’”

Because the thing is - there will always be good reasons - or even bad reasons - excuses - as to why we should not follow Jesus. As to why we should not love our neighbor, even our enemies, as ourselves, as to why we should not make costly sacrifices or changes to our lives in order to follow Jesus.

A costly sacrifice like one that James and John may have been challenged to make - in order to follow Jesus, we have to let go of our sin. Our penchant towards violence. Our hate towards our enemy.

In Galatians , “the works of the flesh” that we are called to reject are offered up. “The works of the flesh” always sound so…well, “Biblical.” “Christian-ese.” What these really are, are the sin-sick condition of humanity.

“For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these.”

What struck me is the line “Now the works of the flesh are obvious…”

I want to ask - are they? Are they really? Were the works of the flesh obvious to James and John when they wanted God to reign down fire on their enemies? Were the works of the flesh obvious to those who made excuses to not follow Jesus? Are the works of the flesh obvious to us in our world today?

Here’s the thing…are they so obvious? Or do our excuses sound like pretty good, justified reasons? Well, that sounds reasonable to act this way…we can twist ourselves in knots to justify our sin - as individuals and a society - and then deny in the face of all the evidence that we are so contorted that we lose sight of which way is up. We hear things in this list from Scripture and like to focus on the sins that we think are the sins of “others” - well **I** don’t engage in debauchery...but what about strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, and factions…? Well…

I think it’s almost impossible for us, in this day and age, to be born into our world, and not only not engage with “the works of the flesh” but to even try and justify them. And so again, we may find ourselves asking, “Why are we like this?”

For some the answer is original sin or total depravity. That is the theological concept that every human is born sinful by our very nature, passed on through the seed of Adam, that inertly, we are totally depraved.

This is certainly one answer for “Why are we like this?” And we have Augustine to thank for that…and to be honest, it is not my favorite theological concept. Original Sin has so much baggage about how humans are made that I simply don’t think sin is something passed on like a gene. And total depravity ignores God’s statement when humanity was made, “and indeed, it was very good.”

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, offered up an alternative to “Original Sin” called “Inbeing Sin.” Basically that the world we are living in is so sick, so polluted with sin, that we can’t help being affected by it, made sick by it. Sin is simply in the air we breathe, the water we swim in. Now, I think it may be helpful to stop here and define sin. We have that list of things that are “works of the flesh” from Galatians and there are certainly other lists - the 10 Commandments and such in the Bible…but I think sin can all be summed up in understanding the Greek word used for it, hamartia. Which literally means, “missing the mark.” It’s used to describe when an archer fails to fit the bullseye target. Sin is missing the mark… What is the mark then? The two greatest commandments: loving God and loving neighbor as self. All else is interpretation.

Humanity is capable of great evil and selfishness, of being sin-sick…of so much we certainly deserve a rebuke from Jesus. The answer to “Why are we like this?” Is that we are sin-sick, and our sin-sickness, our missing the mark, our failure to love God and neighbor as self, our failure to love our enemies, our failure to follow Jesus…our inbeing sin - this is the answer to “Why are we like this?”

Except perhaps…perhaps it is not really the answer that we seek when we ask this question. Perhaps we don’t need the answer - we know why we are like this…what we need instead is the assurance that we don’t HAVE to be this way. We can change. We can be healed of sin-sickness. We can love God and neighbor as self. We can even love our enemies.

I am going to repeat this because I feel like at this point in the sermon, and at this time in our world, we need to hear the Good News of the Gospel. So here it is one more time: We don’t HAVE to be this way. We can change. We can be healed of sin-sickness. We can love God and neighbor as self. We can even love our enemies.

Humanity has a great capacity for evil, yes. And we have an amazing capacity for good as well. For love. For kindness and generosity - for getting it right. For hitting the mark. For following Jesus, the embodiment of the God who is Love.

And if we get ourselves so twisted, so contorted that we don’t know which way is up anymore, if we don’t know how to choose the good over the bad, if we are so sin-sick in our sin-sick world that we don’t know how to follow Jesus…what are we to do? Look to the fruit. This is what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7:

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits.”

Our reading from Galatians offers important insight to what this good fruit is: “By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

It looks like loving God and loving neighbor as self. This love will bear that fruit.

The answer to our sin problem? The answer to “why are we like this?” The response we really need to hear is… There is a better way. We don’t have to be like this. So, stop making excuses - just follow Jesus. That means loving your neighbor as yourself, and yes, even your enemy is your neighbor.
We don’t need to be like this. Instead of being polluted by a sin-sick world, we can find a cure in the Spirit. Abide in the Spirit, spend time with God, worship God, let the Spirit shape and change you, even at great personal sacrifice, until you produce the fruit of the Spirit. Until our lives and our hearts look more like Jesus.

Instead of a world marked by biting and devouring one another, may our world be marked by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

May it be so. Amen.

“What Does Your Soul Long For?” a sermon on Psalm 42-43

Psalm 42 - 43
“What Does Your Soul Long For?”
Preached Sunday, June 22, 2025

What does your soul long for?

Asking yourself this question is part of adopting a breath prayer, as it was taught to me. A breath prayer is a way of praying through breathing. There are many ways to go about doing a breath prayer and the way I was first taught was something like this:

Shut your eyes or still your mind. Go ahead and do so, if you feel comfortable.

Breathe in, breathe out.
In. Out.
In. Out.

Picture yourself in a safe and sacred place. For me it would be Camp Asbury or at the lakeshore, perhaps for many of you it is right where you are, the inside of this beautiful sanctuary, or maybe curled up in a favorite chair in your home - wherever it is, bring that place into mind and the safety, comfort, and sacredness it brings with it.

Breathe in, breathe out.
In. Out.
In. Out.

Hear God saying your name. Hear the voice of God, ringing in your ears, your heart, mind, and soul - calling you by name.

Breathe in, breathe out.
In. Out.
In. Out.

Now hear God’s voice saying to you, asking you by name, “What do you want? What does your soul long for?”

“Allison, what do you want? What does your soul long for?”

Breathe in, breathe out.
In. Out.
In. Out.

Let the answer well up within you, perhaps from a place that feels tender, vulnerable, a place beneath all the noise of this world - what, beneath it all, in the depths of your soul, what do you want?

Breathe in, breathe out.
In. Out.
In. Out.

Now, think of your favorite or go to name for God, say that name as you breathe in…and as you breathe out, pray for the deep longing of your soul.

Lord, give me peace.
God, help me feel your love.
Jesus, make me whole.

Whatever your prayer is, pray it in rhythm with your breath…breathing in and breathing out… Saying the name of God as you breathe in, your prayer as you exhale.

Breathe in, breathe out.
In. Out.
In. Out.

Let’s gather our attention back to the present, pulling it back out from deep within us and focusing on the present and our surroundings. This method that we shared is one of the ways to form a breath prayer. Once you have a breath prayer you can always carry it with you. You can do it in the middle of a work day, in a crowded space, at the breakfast table over coffee or tea. You can do it walking or hiking, at night right before you fall asleep - any time and everytime you find yourself paying attention to your breath, you can turn that breathing into prayer. You can pray the same prayer as long as it feels right or true - until one day, you may find that prayer was answered or you may find your soul is now longing for something else that needs to be named before God.

So what is it that your soul longs for? I asked this question on social media this week and the replies came pouring in. Now, first of all, I think some people mistook their stomach for their souls as doughnuts and nachos were among the answers. Still others shared hopes for our church - how we as a church community can foster connection, how we as a church can be a safe and inclusive space for youth, how we as a church can expand our reach beyond our building… These things certainly affect the soul. I will say, I once called eating the best doughnut of my life a religious experience and the church community can be the means through which we and God work together to give our souls what they need…

…But as for the soul, specifically, here’s what the more serious answers were: What does your soul long for?

Rest
Self-acceptance
A world without drama, war, and hate
Kindness
Connection
Love
Spiritual fulfillment
Purpose
Inclusion
Direction
Empathy
Wholeness
Authenticity
Community
A stronger connection to God
Justice
Tranquility
Just for people to be nice to one another
Healing to wash over the earth
For every child to have a safe, stable, love filled home
Equilibrium
For all to recognize their belovedness
A life without pain
Peace

I actually got almost 40 replies and at least a fourth of them or more were peace. I think that is so telling of the world we live in and how far we are from the world God wants for us.

So those here worshiping with us today, what does your soul long for? Did you hear the desire of your soul on that list? Or is yours something else, calling out from within you? When I read what people wanted, what they longed for, beneath everything else: I heard God. It all boils down to the God who is Love. The God who accepts us. The God who brings us into relationship and community. The God who gives us rest. The God who is the Prince of Peace. The God who calms the storms of the sea and our hearts. Every answer that was given boils down to that our souls long for God and all that God is.

The Psalmist, mostly likely King David as it’s from his point of view, the Psalmist says as much in the opening lines of our Psalm from this morning:

“As the deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.”

I can’t say or read that line from Scripture without thinking of the hymn: “As the deer longs for the water so my soul longs after you. You alone are my heart’s desire and I long to worship you.”

“You alone are my heart’s desire.” You alone. We had a long list of things that our heart’s and soul’s desire - and they all come down to God. The God of peace, community, safety, wholeness…The God of Love.

And I want to point out that to say that God is the desire of our souls is far from a trite platitude. It’s not a happy face Christian-ese saying that attempts to brush the reality of our pain and the pain of this world under the rug. The next lines in the Psalm are “When shall I come and behold the face of God? My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me continually, “where is your God?”

Other lines in the psalm include “Why are you cast down, O my soul and why are you disquieted within me?” and “I say to God, my rock, why have you forgotten me?”

The Psalmist is wrestling with tears, sadness, enemies, fear, violence, feeling forsaken - adversaries from within and without.

Maybe we can relate to that. In our world today there is tragedy, evil, violence, injustice, war…It’s easy to look around and wonder where God is. Perhaps we’ve been asked by those in our lives who wonder how or why we believe in God, asked the same question King David was asked, “Where is your God?”

And then inside of us, there is depression and anxiety. Doubt and fear. Reacting to the world around us. Depression and anxiety are at extremely high levels in our society - both studies and anecdotal evidence shows that anxiety is setting in at younger and younger ages in our children. Elementary school aged children are having panic attacks. And it makes sense when they practice active shooter drills, being told their lives depend on a locked door and not making any noise. When they see a virus rip through families and communities. When they hear our hateful and divided rhetoric in our country and world. We see the anxiety in our children and in ourselves and we may ask, “My God, why have you forsaken me?”

To say that God is the only desire of our souls is not to dismiss this - it is a life vest in a sea of storms, rest in a busy world, a steady light as the darkness tries to overcome. Even as the Psalmist says he is subsisting, surviving off of tears and looking for God, he is reminding himself of God’s goodness and God’s promise.

“Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.”
“By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me.”
“O send out your light and your truth; let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling.
Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy; and I will praise you with the harp, O God, my God.
Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.”

To say that God is the desire of our souls, among all the strife within and without, is to give us an anchor, a stronghold. It is an invitation to breathe, to center ourselves, and let our breath be a prayer.

To remember that in our baptismal vows in which God claimed us as God’s children, we vowed to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves. That through the gift of the Holy Spirit, our efforts for good and against evil are not futile. With God’s help, we are a force of Good in this world.

And it is also a call to care for ourselves, including seeking mental health care for our anxiety and depression and whatever else ails our hearts, mind, and souls - just as we seek care for our bodies. To love God and neighbor as self includes loving self. God is all our souls long for…and we can have Jesus and a therapist. Amen to that? Amen. Part of finding the wholeness in God that we long for involves holistic care of our lives.

To say that the desire of our souls is God is also an invitation to remember God’s glory and all that God has already done for us - all the ways that God has met and is actively meeting the desires of our souls - as King David remembers how he poured himself out to God with glad shouts and thanksgivings and dancing as the arc was brought into the temple.

To stop and breathe, to acknowledge the longings of our souls before God, is a protection against helplessness. It keeps us from being stuck in a downward spiral of cynicism and hopelessness - one that so many in our world fall into.

So today and every day, let us breathe and let us pray.
Even if our prayers are tears. Even if our prayers are saying to God ‘Why have you forsaken me?”
Or even if your prayers are only your breath because you just can’t bring yourself to talk to God - those are all still prayers heard by God.
God is there in our breath, God is there, meeting the desires of our soul with God’s holy presence, God is there. So let us breathe and say, “As the deer pants for the water, so my soul longs after you. You alone are my heart’s desire and I long to worship you.”

Breathe in. Breathe out.
In. Out.
In. Out.

Amen.