"Let Your Love Be Known" a sermon on John 14:23-29

John 14:23-29
“Let Your Love Be Known”
Preached May 25, 2025

There is a pop psychology concept known as love languages. The premise is that we all communicate love, giving or receiving, in five different ways. This is based on a book by Gary Chapman called “The Five Love Languages.” And so these five ways we give and receive love are: Through words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service, gift giving, and physical touch. I may have mentioned those in the order that I show love. I primarily show and receive love through my words. Through compliments, words of encouragement, and the such. This doesn’t mean that I don’t also show love through giving gifts or hugs - just what comes most naturally to me first.

Over the years, I have found this to be a helpful tool not just for my marriage but for all relationships. For example: I am not a “flowers” person. I do recognize when I receive flowers though, that the person giving them, that’s how they may show love. So I appreciate the gesture. Meanwhile, my preschooler is a “flowers” person. Nothing lights up her face like being given flowers. So I have found myself buying bouquets at the grocery store or picking dandelions even…a way to show her that I love her, using one of her love languages.

From my spouse, my children, friends and more - I try and learn how different people give and receive love most naturally. Both so I can show them my love and I can appreciate how they are showing or telling me that I am loved in return.

Like all personality tests and tools like Enneagram and Myers Briggs, they can be helpful to become more self-aware, to work on being your best self, and to aid your relationships and mutual understanding of other people. And, like all personality tools, I take them with a grain of salt because we’re all more complex beings that can be summarized in one of five or 9 or however many categories.

Still - I bring up the love languages today because I want us to consider how we show love - specifically, how we show love to God

Because our relationship with God requires showing love, acting on love, being committed to that love just as much as any other relationship we have does. We all know it’s one thing to say you feel love toward something or someone - and another thing to be committed to that love and sharing and showing it daily in your actions, thoughts, and words.

So - how do we show we love Jesus?

In this week’s Gospel reading from John, Jesus says, “Those who love me will keep my word.”

Well - that’s pretty simple! Jesus basically tells you his love language...well, kinda. What does Jesus mean by “his word”? There have been arguments about this in Christian circles for quite some time. Does Jesus mean all of the Bible? A book that didn’t exist yet when Jesus spoke these words? Does he mean the Law - Something Jesus expounded upon, challenged, interpreted? Does he mean The Sermon on the Mount? Which commandments, exactly, Jesus?

I think, sometimes, we make things more complicated than they need to be. I want to offer a simple interpretation to what Jesus says when he refers to his Word in today’s Scripture reading...basically, the words he was saying right before he said “those who love me will keep my word.”

Just several verses before Jesus says, “those who love me will keep my word” - Jesus says, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

In the context of this passage, Jesus had just washed the disciples’ feet and was sitting down at the table with them, sharing with them his final teachings before his betrayal, death, and resurrection. His final teaching to his disciples before he goes to the cross?: “love one another.”

It is by keeping this commandment that we show we have love for God - it’s how we let God know that we love God. We show love to and for God, by showing love to and for one another. Those who love God will keep God’s word and love one another. That sounds a lot like what Jesus identifies as the two greatest commandments, a summary of all the Law and Prophets:

Love God.
Love your neighbor as yourself.

The thing about these two commandments is that they’re hardly two seperate commandments at all - they’re kinda like opposite sides of the same coin. John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement wrote: “Solitary religion is not to be found there. ‘Holy Solitaries’ is a phrase no more consistent with the gospel than Holy Adulterers. The gospel of Christ knows of no religion, but social; no holiness but social holiness. Faith working by love, is the length and breadth and depth and height of Christian perfection.” Often this quotation is summarized to be said, “There is no holiness but social holiness.”

So what does this, concretely, mean? Now, bear with me as we work through this together. I know many of you have heard me preach on this before - and I’m going to keep on preaching on it - because it’s that important.

We as Christians are called to holiness - and holiness is nothing but living a life shaped by love of God and love of neighbor. So we are called to live lives of holiness. And we know we do this by having a personal relationship with God: by praying, by reading the Bible, by spending time with God, by working on our personal piety. We also know that we are called to be part of a worshipping Community: to share the sacraments, to sing hymns, to pray with and for one another. This is how we not only show love of God, but how we cultivate and strengthen love of God.

So if we love God…we keep God’s Word, we love our neighbor. So just as we are called to piety and worship, we are called to charity and justice. We are called to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, free the captive. We are also called to create systems in which there are less hungry, less naked, and less fellow humans in captivity.

When I teach confirmation, or even adult Bible Study, and we talk about this tenet of Wesleyan theology, I draw a cross and put each of these areas in one quadrant: personal piety, communal worship, personal charity, communal justice. When I teach confirmation, I don’t just draw it on a board, I make a big cross on the ground - with tape or with chalk, I’ve even drawn it in the snow, and I ask the youth to stand in the quadrant in which they feel they most naturally show their love for God. I always have youth standing in all four sections. I affirm that each of us is going to have a different love language for God - where we spend the most time, how we feel most comfortable sharing our love for God. I then also offer a challenge: we cannot only stay in our own comfortable quadrant. We are called to the wholeness of a holy life - to live out our love for God and neighbor in all the ways available to us.

And when we live into one area of our discipleship, it will naturally and intrinsically, push us toward other areas as we grow.

Love for God in our souls pushes us out to the world so that we take care of the least of these and we welcome the immigrant, and we care for the vulnerable, and we visit the sick - this is the work that cultivates social holiness - and while we do this, we learn more about God. We see the face of God in others. We learn more about God’s marvelous creation. We are able to see more of who God is in each other - and this causes us to love God even more - back to personal piety...which pushes us back into the world...where we learn to love God more...and back and forth, and back and forth, a rhythm of love, a pendulum of prayer and good works, a tide of piety and mercy.

I can’t help but think of Jesus after his resurrection asking Peter on the beach: “Do you love me?” “Yes Lord, you know I love you!” “Then feed my sheep.”

Our love of God is not something we can keep to ourselves. When we truly love God, we are sent outwards. And when we go into the world with the love of God in our souls, in our hearts, in our hands, our eyes, our ears - we see God in the least of these, we hear God’s voice in the voices of our neighbors and the marginalized...and we return to God in love.

This rhythm, this love of God and love of neighbor is what I believe Jesus meant when he said that those who love him will keep his word.

And so this morning and this week, as we leave this place, I’d invite you to think about your love language - how do you show love to others? How do you receive love? How do you know that someone loves you? How do you show that you love your loved ones? Work on letting your love in all your relationships be known.

And then, ask yourself, how are you showing your love for God? How are you sharing and showing God’s love for and with your neighbor?

Love is what we’re primarily all about as Christians - or at least it’s what we should be all about - so make your love known - for God & for neighbor.

Amen.

Call to Worship - General/Inspirited by Luke 9:51-62

Leader: We come together in worship this morning:
People: Confessing all the ways we’ve gotten it wrong.
L: We come together in worship this morning,
P: Desperate to hear God’s assuring forgiveness.
L: We come together in worship this morning,
P: Searching for another way - a way of Love.
L: We have come to the right place!
All: Let us worship our holy, loving, and forgiving God. Amen.

Call to Worship for Triniy Sunday Hymn Sing

Leader: Today we will sing:
People: Of God, our Creator, Parent, and Godhead
L: Today we will sing:
P: Of Jesus, God Enfleshed, Our Savior, Teacher, and Friend
L: Today we will sing:
P: Of the Holy Spirit, who is wind, fire, and abiding presence
L: Today we will sing:
All: And worship our Triune God. Amen.

Pentecost Call to Worship based on Acts 2:1-21

Leader: On this day of Pentecost, we come together to declare:
People: Pour out your Spirit on us!
L: On sons, on daughters, on all your children:
P: Pour out your Spirit on us!
L: On the young and the old:
P: Pour out your Spirit on us!
L: On the free and the imprisoned:
P: Pour out your Spirit on us!
L: On your Church:
P: Pour out your Spirit on us!
L: On our worship this morning:
All: Pour out your Spirit on us! Amen. 

Trinity Sunday Hymn Sing - Singing Mystery & Metaphor

Trinity Sunday Hymn Sing - Singing Mystery & Metaphor

Trinity - Three-In-One-God

Matthew 28:18-20: “And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’”

Today is what we call Trinity Sunday - a day set aside to recognize and celebrate the Doctrine of the Trinity, our unique Three-In-One God. Now, there is an old preacher’s joke that preacher’s should not try and preach on Trinity Sunday because, talk about the Trinity too long, and you’re likely to accidentally find yourself preaching heresies. It can be hard to talk about a “Three-In-One” God - how can our God be three persons but also One being?

It’s important to remember that all language we use for God is a metaphor. In our earthly lives, with our limited understanding and vocabulary, we will never fully understand, know, or be able to articulate the truly vast nature of our God. All of our language falls short, even as we do our best to know, share, and love God until that day we know in full.

Three-In-One: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Love, Beloved, and Love itself. However you describe God, we claim that God is simultaneous One and Three. This isn’t a math lesson - it is a metaphor to get to the mystery of our God.

A mystery that today won’t come with lengthy exposition. It won’t come with diagrams and explanations and stories about clovers…Sometimes mystery is best left to the language of poetry, the language of wonder, the language of music. And so today, as we briefly explore the mystery of our Triune God, we will sing.

Let us sing “Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty,” vs. 1, 3, 4, UMH 64

God - Creator, Parent, Godhead

Genesis 1:1-3: “When God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”

One of the primary metaphors that we use for the Godhead, the head of the Trinity, is God as Creator. Genesis gives us several images of God creating - God speaking and it is so. God getting down in the mud, and shaping us with a potter’s hand. God breathing into us - and there is life.

If you want to know who God is - look at the beautiful natural world. Look at the mountains and oceans, the valleys and streams, the deep of the ocean, the wonder of space. Our God is an artist, painting beauty and diversity with every stroke.

Also, if you want to know who God is - look to your fellow neighbor, made in the image of God - meaning that have great capacity for beauty and great capacity for Love.

Another metaphor that we use for God is Father - Mother - Parent. Mother is often related to creator imagery, the one who gave us and all of creation birth. Father is how Jesus referred to God - his father. Jesus said in Matthew, “And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father, the one in heaven.” Parent is all-encompassing. Our heavenly parent is everything a parent should be - loving unconditionally, guiding, protecting, never abandoning.

Let us sing, “This Is My Father’s World,” UMH 144

Jesus - God Enfleshed, Savior, Teacher, Friend

Matthew 1:23: “‘Look, the virgin shall become pregnant and give birth to a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel,’ which means, ‘God is with us.’”

John 3:16-17: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

How do you summarize who Jesus is? To the followers of Christ, Jesus is everything. He is the Christ, the Messiah, the one who came to save all creation from sin and death through a new covenant.
He is our teacher, a Rabbi, summarizing all the law and prophets and giving us the command to love one another.
He is our friend and brother who walks with us through this road of life.
Jesus is Lord to whom one day every knee shall bow.
Jesus is the Resurrected one, whom the grave and all the powers of Hell could not hold.
Jesus is fully human, and fully divine. He is Emmanuel - “God with us.” That God loved the world, all of creation, humanity, us - so much, that God, through Jesus, took on flesh - became one of us, to know the totality of the human experience, to be one of us…

There are many titles for Jesus - and at the end of the day, they all come down to “God with us.”

Let us sing “O How I Love Jesus,” vs. 1 & 3, UMH 170

Spirit - Wind, Fire, Abiding Presence

John 14:26: “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you.”

The Holy Spirit is the most enigmatic of the members of the Trinity, hardest to pin down and to describe. Metaphors abound.

The Spirit is the mist that hovered over the deep before creation.
The Spirit is the very breath that God breathed into our lungs.
The Spirit is the still small voice that spoke to Elijah.
The Spirit is Lady Wisdom, Sophia, what all followers of God should heed and seek.
The Spirit is the tongues of flames that touched the disciples at Pentecost.
The Spirit is our advocate, interceding when we have signs too deep for words.
The Spirit reminds us of Jesus’s words, guides us, moves through us, works with us, empowers us to live out our faith.
The Spirit is there whenever there is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

The Holy Spirit is God at work in this world - in, through, with, and despite us - with us forever and always.

Let us sing “O Spirit of the Living God,” vs. 1-3, UMH 539

Trinity - Dancing with the Divine

2 Corinthians 13:11-13: “Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell. Be restored; listen to my appeal; agree with one another; live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.”

We have, extremely briefly, talked about who God is in the persons of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. I would like, to conclude our reflection on the mystery of the Trinity, by offering  one of my favorite metaphors for our Triune God: perfect relationship

God is in such perfect relationship with Godself, that there is no distinction between the three persons who make up the Trinity.

There is an ancient way, from the fourth century to describe this perfect relationship of the Trinity: perichoresis which means “circle dance.” The members of the Trinity are dancing with one another. And they’re not just dancing together - they ARE the dance. God, Son, Holy Spirit - a divine dance. As the three persons of the Trinity dance together, you can no longer see any lines where they differ, they become a blur of unimaginable beauty, awe, and wonder.

Better yet: we are invited into this dance with them, to become a fourth member of the dance. To dance with God, to know God, to be in relationship with God. Now, our relationship with God won’t be perfect. We’ll stumble and trip and mess up and sometimes need to leave the dance for awhile…but God is always there, always inviting us back into relationship, back into the dance, inviting us to Love.

And if we worship the God who is “perfect relationship,” we are called to mirror that relationship, as best we can, into all of our relationships: with our family, friends, neighbors, even our enemies. Again, we won’t always get it right - and that’s okay - cause God will always invite us, over and over again, into the dance, into a more perfect relationship with God and a more perfect relationship with neighbor.

Let us sing once more of our Triune God: “Maker, in Whom We Live,” vs. 1-3, UMH 88

“Hope in the End” a sermon on Revelation 21:1-6

Revelation 21:1-6
“Hope in the End”
Preached Sunday May 18, 2025

It is the job of preachers to proclaim the Gospel - and Gospel literally means Good News so I have some Good News for you today - and that Good News is….this is not a stewardship sermon. I jest, I jest…but no, really. For several Sundays before Easter and for a couple after, we have been talking about stewardship and generosity in light of our Today, Tomorrow, Together Capital Campaign. Talking about stewardship and generosity is very important, they are necessary components of our discipleship. And, as I sat down to write this sermon (and as you all sat down to listen to it), there was at least some relief that we could move on to a new topic. So when deciding on what to preach on this week, I opened the Revised Common lectionary to see the assigned texts and saw just the things that all of us are really looking forward to hearing about that’s not stewardship - and that is…the end of the world.

Bear with me here and let me first offer a disclaimer: The book of Revelation is not what we may think it is. And certainly not what pop culture has made it out to be. The book of Revelation is not all doom, all gloom, and it’s not all prophecy for the end times. As a culture we are unhealthily obsessed with Apocalypse. The definition of apocalypse is “the complete and final destruction of the world.” As Christians - we are not called to Apocalypse. Instead we are called to a fruitful eschatology which is the study of the last things. They’re different. And we’ll get into that.

But before we do, allow me to talk in very broad terms about what the book of Revelation is. The Book of Revelation was a coded letter written by John to a group of Christians that were being oppressed by the Roman Empire. John could not come right out and tell the Christian community that the Emperor was a horrible, evil person. He could not come right out and tell them that although they were being killed, martyred, arrested, harassed, oppressed - to keep the hope and to keep the faith. Doing so would have gotten him and anyone in possession of this letter into a lot more trouble and lead to the death of more people.

What he could do, was use the ritual or genre of the Roman games, the arena, where Christians - and many others who disagreed with the Emperor - were sentenced to death, to make a farce out of the Powers-That-Be, call evil what it is - just that, evil - and give a word of hope that, in the end, everything is going to be okay.

Rob Bell, theologian and preacher, talks about understanding the book of Revelation this way in “What Is The Bible?” He says this:

“Now, here’s what’s so brilliant about the book of Revelation. John begins his letter by having Jesus address the leaders of the various churches in the regions. Jesus tells them what they’re doing well and then he tells them what they need to do better.

Sound familiar?
That’s how Caesar began his games in the arena!

John then describes the throne of God where angels are singing…wait for it…

You are worthy, our Lord and God,
To receive glory and honor and power.

Sound familiar?
That’s what Caesar’s choir sang about him.

What is John doing here?
He’s taking the theater and propaganda and slogans and pomp of the empire and he’s subverting it.

It’s as if he's telling his people.
Don’t fall for the lie.
Don’t be seduced by the power of the empire.
There’s a better way.

What is Revelation? Satire.
Political, dangerous, pointed, sharp satire.”

Now, I am not saying that the book of Revelation is only satire. And I am not ruling out that it is a book of prophecy. What I am saying is, it is more than one thing. It is more than what popular book series and Apocalypse movies and preachers who want to scare people into salvation have made it out to be.

To consider this, take for example how we understand and approach the book of Isaiah. As Christians, we see the book largely as prophecy about the coming of Jesus. And. For the original audience, it had another meaning. It was talking about present day power struggles and structures. It was talking about the very real and current reality for the Israelities - it was history, it was warning, it was judgement, it was hope - and, it was prophecy - foretelling.

The issue we run into with Revelation is we read it as only Apocalypse and only violence. We use it to make up a violent God who destroys the creation that God loves very much. And that has impacts on how we treat one another and our world. We make God in our own violent image when we think we know exactly what the world will look at the end like when we interpret Revelation just as prophecy to come. When, in all actuality, we might not understand it in whole until after it has been revealed - we will not fully understand it until after the events that are foretold take place - like we read Jesus back into the book of Isaiah.

Brian Zahnd, pastor and theologian, gives us this warning about the way we tend to read the book of Revelation:

“If we literalize the metaphorical violence of Revelation, we create a theological catastrophe. We end up with violence as God’s salvific solution. We end up with God saving the world by killing it. We end up with God adopting the condemned way of Cain. We end up with Jesus renouncing his Sermon on the Mount. We end up with the cross of Christ as superfluous and even pointless. We end up ruining the whole gospel story.”

Now - some deep breaths. Because I am not just preaching against something today. I am wanting to preach the Gospel, the Good News, today. And that Good News is: despite popular interpretations of the Book of Revelation, it, and our world, does not end in destruction. It ends in re-creation. It ends in re-newing. It ends in resurrection. It ends - but not really. The end is not the end, it is really the beginning.

This is the difference between fixating on Apocalypse which can tend to fill us doom and gloom, make us less likely to care for God’s creation, and leave with with a sense of dread more than hope - the difference between that and having a fruitful understanding of eschatology, of how God works at the end of all things as we know them. Which is: Everything. Everywhere. All of creation. Will be redeemed, restored, made right, made whole.

Another one of my favorite Bible passages talks about this waiting, this held breath, this groaning for what will be. Romans 8: “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God, for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its enslavement to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning together as it suffers together the pains of labor, and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.”

All of creation is groaning…not because all of creation will be destroyed. But because all of creation, with God, is in labor - birthing the new thing that God will complete in Jesus Christ. Birthing a new reality. Labor is a kind of end - life as the mother knew it before is over - there is a new identity, wrapped up and connected to the beautiful child she has borne. This is the labor that all of creation is in, co-laboring with God, to bring about, to bear, to birth a new, life-giving, life-filled, creation.

In fact, we are called to be co-laborers with God in bringing about this new creation. Labor here has two meanings - to work in the vineyard of our world to bring about the fruit of God’s Kingdom and labor as in taking deep breaths until something new is born - that new thing will be God’s new creation - a world where all is as it should be, and God, the Lamb, is fully seated on the throne.

There will be a new heaven and a new earth. This is the image given to us in our Scripture passage today from Revelation 21: “See, I am making all things new.”

Our story does not end with destruction. It ends, it begins again, with creation.

This should make a difference for us.

After proclaiming the book of Revelation as satire, Rob Bell goes on to say:

“But it isn’t just satire.

[John] then tells about how he saw the throne of God and there was a lamb that had been slain -
Remember, the Romans did a lot of slaying -
All of it to essentially say

I’ve seen who’s in charge of the world…
And it’s not Caesar!

That’s the power of this letter.
John reminds his people that ruling, military, oppressive power like that of the empire is temporary and passing. It can’t endure.


John uses this imagery because he believes that in Jesus, God has decisively dealt with evil.
He writes to them of a reality beyond their everyday circumstances, a reality rooted in God’s love for all of creation. He writes to them of the life they have in Christ even if their present, physical, earthly life may come to an abrupt end. He wants his people to find comfort and peace in the turmoil raging around them, and he believes this is found in Jesus, who can be trusted.”

In summary, we live in a world not too unlike the world that John was writing to in the book of Revelation. Our world is marked and marred by violence. Our world has too much injustice, too much death, too many tears. We live in a world where all of creation is groaning for redemption. We live in a world desperate for hope.

So take hope. God does not end our story in violence. God does not end our story with Apocalypse. In fact, there is no end. There is only God’s continued creation - a new Heaven, and a new Earth, where all will know God, and all will be set right. A day when everything and everyone is whole and well. A day when “Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven” is truly our whole reality.

14th Century mystic and saint Julian of Norwich says it like this, “all shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

In the face of everything that is wrong and could be wrong, in the face of what seems like destruction, in the face of what seems like the end - take hope. All is not lost. For if we have nothing else, we can still have hope - that God is, ultimately, in charge. And one day, all forces of evil and violence and empire, will be destroyed - God will dwell with us, death will be no more, mourning and crying and pain will be no more…all things will be made new. And all shall be well.

Have hope. Amen.

“Unclenching Our Hands” a sermon on Deuteronomy 15:1-11 & Matthew 19:16-22

Deuteronomy 15:1-11
Matthew 19:16-22
“Unclenching Our Hands”
Preached, Sunday, May 11, 2025

Today is a day of note. It is Sunday, always a “set-apart” day for rest and connecting with God. It is Mother’s Day - an important day for many families. And it is our conclusion of what we are calling the “active phase” of our Today, Tomorrow, Together Capital Campaign. It is our Commitment Sunday where we invite those who have not yet made their three year commitment to this campaign to do so and where we make note, celebrate, and give thanks to each other and God for the momentous amount of generosity, sacrifice, and HOPE for both the church of today and the church of tomorrow, that is behind each and every gift.

With the importance of today noted, we will move on to talking about this: (*open and close hand*) - okay, let me explain myself by turning to our text from Deuteronomy.

There is a command here that every seven years there is to be a remittance of debt for fellow Israelities in their community. The question I was asking of myself in this text was, was it a one-year hold on collecting debts? Was it a forgiveness of debts? I honestly couldn’t find the answer… but it was, at the least, putting debts on hold for a year - done every seven years. It was a practice for the big remittance, the big forgiveness that is the year of Jubilee which is every seventh seventh year. But what strikes me is what comes after giving the command. The text says, remit debts every seven years…but should there really be any among you in need in the first place? An exact quote: “There will, however, be no one in need among you, because the Lord is sure to bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as a possession to occupy, if only you will obey the Lord your God by diligently observing this entire commandment that I command you today.” In essence: Should there be anyone in need among you? Not if you’re treating each other like you should! Should there really be any among you who had to go into debt to survive? Not if you care for one another as you have been commanded! Oh if we only still held and followed this value today.

The last line of the passage from today really gets to the core of the values embedded in this passage: “Give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so, for on this account the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.’”

Open your hand…

Are you starting to get what I mean by this? (*open and close hand*)

Now, I want everyone to do this with me. Close your fists tightly….Now open, release….Now close tightly…and now open, release…

This is the primary concept or idea we are looking at in our sermon today - the juxtaposition between holding on too tightly to something or releasing it, letting it go.

Deuteronomy gives us instructions to open our hands for the good of our neighbors, to not hold too tightly or begrudgingly onto things, instead to liberally open our hands to our neighbors, the poor and needy.

In our Gospel lesson from Matthew we see a man holding on too tightly to what he has. A man comes to Jesus and asks him, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” To which Jesus replies, “If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.”

Well, “Which ones?”

“And Jesus said, ‘You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. Honor your father and mother. Also, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”

You can almost hear the young man checking off the boxes in his head. Yupp, I’ve done all those…But what’s of interest here…is Jesus did not actually list all the commandments, the ten commandments, as we know them. He didn’t mention the first ones that deal with relationship with God: No other God before me, no idols, no mis-use of the Lord’s name. He didn’t mention what I call the bridge commandment because it deals with both God and neighbor, the command of Sabbath. He went right to the commandments that deal with our neighbors: Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not lie, honor your father and mother… so if we’re counting commandments….we are at 9. What is the 10th Commandment that Jesus does not mention? “You shall not covet…”

Realizing that Jesus did not explicitly state this commandment, but knowing that the young man probably KNEW this commandment - as did Jesus - it gives new meaning to the rest of this interaction as the man asks,

“I have kept all these; what do I still lack?” Maybe he’s hoping that Jesus will say “nothing else…” That he conveniently forgot the commandment of covetting, of always wanting more.

Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

That’s the NRSV translation which is what I normally preach from but I actually like the Common English Bible more here… “If you want to be complete, go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor. Then you will have treasure in heaven. And come follow me.”

And then that line we know all too well: “When the young man heard this word, he went away grieving, for he had many possessions.”

He was holding on too tightly. Too tightly to his possessions. And maybe too tightly to his narrative of what those possessions could do for him. His hands were closed tightly around what he had - not only his hands but his heart and soul too. And by so tightly holding on to what he had, by not unclenching his hands, it kept him not only from love of neighbor…but from love of God.

Let’s open and close our hands again. Clench them tightly….now open, release…clench them tightly….now open, release….

If your fists are clenched tightly, literally or metaphorically, you cannot, as Deuteronomy says, open your hand and give liberally and ungrudgingly to your neighbors, the poor and needy. If your hands are clenched too tightly…we cannot fully love God and neighbor.

So everyone, clench those fists again…hold them up, look at them. What does a world of clenched fists give us? I feel like we’re all rock ‘em sock ‘em robots. Literally or metaphorically, a world of clenched fists does not give itself to generosity, reciprocity, love and care…it leads to, well, fighting, hoarding, mine and yours, have and have nots…

Something really beautiful happens when we unclench our fists - go ahead, unclench your fists - when we unclench our fists…we can better be in relationship with one another. We can fulfill the commandments. We can be complete…this understanding that without loving our neighbors, without being part of a community together…we are incomplete, we are not whole. We are not living as God intended us to live.

Unclench your fists. Open your hands.

Turn to your neighbor and offer them your hand - You can shake hands. You can hold hands. You can high-five…if you don’t know your neighbor that well, you can wave at them! What difference would we make in our world if we all had open hands? With open, unclenched hands…You can offer a hand out…or a hand up. You can be in relationship with each other. And when you’re in relationship with one another, we can go back to the question in Deuteronomy, “Should any among you really be in need? Not if you’re all living as we are commanded to do.”

So my question this morning is: What are we holding on to too tightly? For some, it may be possessions, money, stuff and how we interact or use it all. It might be part of our own life that is holding us back - regret, shame, low self-esteem. It might be an ideology of othering we’ve held on too tightly that keeps us from loving our neighbors.

It might even be a vision of what our church has been - what it was, a decade, two decades, or even 5 decades go…that we are holding on to too tightly, so we cannot love our church and community and one another now, here in the present, and move forward into God’s future for us, hand in open hand.

To be clear - so many of you have opened your hands to this church, this Today, Tomorrow, Together Capital Campaign is a HUGE and momentous sign. We don’t get to the 545,950 that was already committed to this campaign without open hands. And we don’t get the loving faith community we have without open hands and open hearts. And we certainly don’t get to this point without making sacrifices, of whatever each of you has let go of when unclenching your hands, to join hands with one another, to help and love their neighbor, to be church community… Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. For your generosity, and your open hands.

Friends, in just a moment, we will join together in our Commitment Liturgy that is printed in the bulletin, and ushers will invite you by rows to come to the front of the church, and place your commitment cards in the baskets. Now, we know that many of you have already turned in Commitment Cards. Thank you. We know that some of you are not ready yet to do so. Or some of you may be guests with us today and this part of the service doesn’t apply to you…

Which is why, in your bulletins, every single one of us has a blank index card. Because every single one of us has something in our lives that we’d like to give to God. Maybe it is something you are holding on to too tightly and you are ready to release your hands, unclench your fists in the act of letting go of something… Maybe you have already opened your fists and what you’d like to give to God is a commitment of time, talent, or treasure - or a way you can better love God and love neighbor. Examples might be…becoming a Sunday School volunteer, forgiving the person who harmed you, fasting from social media, taking the next time to become a foster parent, becoming a volunteer for a good cause, reading your Bible daily, taking on the practice of daily praying for our world or visiting the homebound…the possibilities are endless.

And so, I’d like each of you to take those cards, and hold them in your hands. You can do that right now, hold them in your hands, and think of what you’d like to give to God today. What God is calling you to give, to do, to release…with open hands and open hearts. If you’d like, you can grab a pencil from the pew and write on that card. Or you can just think it, inscribing on the card with your thoughts and heart…

And so when we come forward, some of you will be bringing cards for our Today, Tomorrow, Together Campaign - thank YOU - and all of us will be bringing forward that piece of paper, a tangible sign, a concrete action - of giving to God of our whole selves, with open hands…

And so, let us join together in the responsive litany printed in your bulletin…

Leader: The 90th Psalm reads: Let your acts be seen by your servants;
People: Today!
L: let your glory be seen by their children.
P: Tomorrow!
L: Let the kindness of the Lord our God be over us.
Make the work of our hands last.
P: Together!
L: Let us pray, As we open our hands and give what we have over to you, Lord, bless all the ways we and this church bless and serve you. May our generosity bless this community for generations to come. And so we pray with the Psalmist:
All: Make the work of our hands last! Amen.

You may come forward as the ushers invite you. Amen!

"I Pity the Fool" a sermon on Luke 12:13-21 & Luke 19:1-10

Luke 12:13-21
Luke 19:1-10
“I Pity the Fool”
Preached Sunday, May 4, 2025

“I pity the fool” is Mr. T’s iconic line in the 1982 movie, Rocky III - and it went on to become his personal motto. In the movie, the line is ironic, as the fool got a beatdown - the pity isn’t really there in the sense of feeling bad for someone…but in 2006, Mr. T launched a reality TV show with the same name - “I Pity the Fool” where he works with “fools” to help them make better decisions in their life and business.

Today we are going to look at a fool in Scripture - and we should pity him - and then another example of a man who could have been a fool - but an encounter with Jesus radically changed his life and his generosity.

First, the fool.

There was a rich man who grew even richer due to his land being abundant. The man, perhaps, seems a little surprised at this. For he asks himself: “What should I do?” He decides to build new barns and store his grain and his goods and live comfortably for the rest of his life. But, here’s where Jesus throws in a plot twist, the man was a fool for he was to die that very night. Jesus concludes, “So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

I want to read a line from the Scripture to you again and see what pops out at you. It will hopefully be easy as I’ll be stressing the words I want you to hear:

“What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?...I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods...”

What is this man’s folly, you may ask? When the rich man recognizes his wealth, sees his abundance: all of his thoughts are directed back toward himself. Jesus is quite prolific in his use of the first-person pronoun when giving the rich man a voice in this story. It is clear that his first priority is me, myself, and I. It is a story applicable 2000 years ago and a story applicable today.

In Deuteronomy, the Jewish people were instructed to take the FIRST tenth of their produce, of all their land had supplied, bring it to the temple and give thanks to God. That first 10 percent, their tithe, was then used to set a feast and feed the hungry. But in the case of this rich man, there is no thanksgiving made to God and not a single thought is spared for the widow, the orphan, and the poor who go hungry. Instead it is me, myself, and I. The commandment of the tithe, to give thanks to God FIRST and to give back to God and neighbor FIRST, it is a hard one and one that I know we struggle with still today. Many would say it’s not a good business decision. For some of us, the mandated ten percent may seem like an impossible feat in the face of bills, debt, inflation. It’s a hard decision at least - and one that I think should be taken seriously and be considered first when we decide how we are going to live, financially, as followers of Christ. Too often, life just gets in the way. Bills come, they -hopefully- get paid. Tables get filled, mouths fed. This is all good. But by the time we may finally come around to thinking of God and others, it is already all gone.

This story, though, helps to put it in perspective, for the story as Jesus tells it goes, “But God said to him, ‘you fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared whose will they be?’” Woah. Talk about extreme. Remember that in parables, hyperbole is a staple of the genre. But this man would die before the day was over, before he had the chance to enjoy his abundance. The occasion of death and of loss always pauses to make us think: What do I want out of this life? What do I want my legacy to be? It helps put things into perspective for us, that this life is fleeting. Our time with each other, our relationships, our resources - they are all gifts from God. And we should treat them accordingly, with reverence, with thanksgiving to God, and with a heart full of hospitality, generosity, and love.

I want to take a moment and circle back to another line from the story that really caught my attention. The rich man is talking to himself and he says: “And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years: relax, eat, drink, and be merry.’”

And I will tell my SOUL - Soul, don’t worry. It’s okay. You’ve got lots of stuff.

Does anyone else here talk to their soul? It’s a habit I’m trying to get used to. When I talk to my soul, I try and talk to my soul, really, to myself, as if I am a small child in need of reassurance of love and safety. I practice telling myself things that I have told many of you: God loves you. Breathe. You’re a child of God. I think all of our souls need this reassurance. In our world, it’s so easy to get an anxious soul, a restless soul, a burned out soul. Even a bitter or cynical one. We are embodied souls in this world and we are all seeking the same thing: love and reassurance of that love.

Now, what can fill us with that love and reassurance? I firmly believe that it is our Triune God, claiming and naming us as God’s children. It is then strengthened in the church community and in a rich prayer life and a rich life of Christian discipleship.

Most commercials on TV though, tell us that other things - literally things - will fill us with that love. A new phone, a new car. More money would do the trick too. And so often we try to tell our souls, who are like children looking for love: Soul! Don’t worry about it! We’ve got money, car, phone, <insert whatever it is here> - relax! Just like the rich man in Jesus’s story did.

The fool. For he was to die that very night. And none of those things would have brought happiness and contentment anyway.

And now - let’s talk about another fool - a could-be-fool, who changed his ways.

We sing about Zacchaeus being a wee little man, but there was nothing wee about his bank account. He was a chief tax collector and he earned his money from a corrupt economic system in which he collected high taxes for the Roman Empire and then extracted a generous portion for himself - perhaps even increasing what he collected from people so that he could take more for himself. He likely used just as many “me-myselfs-and-Is” as the rich fool. Zacchaeus was a rich fool. He was storing up wealth for himself - wealth that was achieved at, quite literally, the expense of others. As a result, while his bank account was large, he was generally despised by his neighbors and not welcome in the synagogue as an unrepentant sinner - wee not just in stature, but in reputation and regard.

But on the day Jesus was coming to town - Zacchaus wanted to see him. ...Why? How had he heard about Jesus? Why was he so bent on seeing him? What was going on in Zacchaeus’s mind and heart that day? I recently read that maybe Zacchaus had met Jesus before - or at least been in his company. In Luke Chapter 5, we hear about Levi, another tax collector, who threw a big party to introduce Jesus to “a large number of tax collectors.” Who is to say whether or not Zacchaeus had been there that day? But if he was...maybe he experienced something he had never experienced before. Maybe “he would have felt accepted by Jesus and loved by God. He could have glimpsed a life that was about more than grabbing all the money he could get. He may have realized that all his wealth could never buy the life he most deeply desired. Perhaps he became convinced there was a higher calling for the way he used his money” -- the way he lived his life.

This could have been what was weighing on Zacchaeus’s mind and heart that day - but these were not easy choices, decisions - perhaps he needed to see Jesus just one more time to confirm - did he really feel this way? We also know that changing one's way of life - especially the way we understand and interact with our money, takes a lot of inertia to overcome. And so he climbed that tree, he saw Jesus - Jesus saw HIM, and Jesus called him by name. And “in response to the unexpected, underserved, unearned grace of God in Jesus Christ, Zacchaeus blurted out, ‘Wow! The only way I know to say ‘Thanks’ is to give half of my wealth to the poor and pay back the folks I’ve cheated four times over!’ And Jesus said, ‘Now, THAT’S what salvation looks like!’” Of course, that last bit is a paraphrase but Jesus DOES say, “Today salvation has come to this house.”

Zacchaeus is no longer the fool - he has been saved.

What do we mean by salvation in this context? Salvation has been overly spiritualized in our modern understanding of it so this utterance may seem weird to us. But “Salvation is not merely a spiritual experience that prepares us for life after death.” - Although, that is part of it - AND “Salvation is the way God transforms every area of life so that we become a part of God’s saving work in this world.” Salvation changes our hearts - and because of THAT change, it also should change everything else - or perhaps the heart was never really changed. Martin Luther, the famous reformer, “said that three conversions are necessary in the Christian life: conversion of the heart, of the mind, and of the purse.” - And they seem to happen in that order too. Zacchaeus was getting there in his mind and his heart - we can see that in how we climbed the tree to see Jesus, but he experienced salvation in all areas of his life when he experienced the conversion of his purse.

To be clear, Zacchaeus did not EARN or buy his salvation through giving - his giving, his newfound generosity, was a sign that he has experienced salvation AND, salvation never would have become a reality for Zacchaeus unless he moved away from his his life consumed by money, greed, and taking advantage of others.

For Zacchaeus, an encounter with Jesus changed everything - and he was no longer the fool. The cautionary tale of the rich fool, and the salvation of Zacchaeus should give us pause - where in our lives are we still acting the fool? Where in our lives do we still need conversion?

Where do we need to go from “me, myself, and I” - to “What good can I do in this world?” to “Where and how can I be generous?” A start in this conversion is opening ourselves up to encountering Jesus - as Zacchaus did. A good place to start is praying our Today, Tomorrow, Together Capital Campaign prayer, “God, what do you want to do through me?”

Because God wants to save us. God wants to convert us. To lives of generosity, thankfulness, community, and love of God and neighbor.

May none of us be the fool.

Amen.





*Uncited quotes from Earn, Save, Give material