Sundays at St. James

Main point: We can trust that God will lead us into all truth by his Spirit.INTRODUCTIONP: Christ is risen! C: Christ is risen indeed, Alleluia!Today is the Sixth Sunday of Eastertide and we continue our season of celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus which leads to resurrection life for all those who follow him. Today we encounter the gift of the Spirit of Truth who leads us into that resurrection life.When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth. John 16:13The Spirit of Truth Today I wish to introduce you to the Spirit of Truth. It is unlikely this is your first introduction. Perhaps this introduction is more of a formal introduction after occasional familiarity. You know what it's like when you live in the same neighborhood as someone but you don't know their name, or you recognize someone by name because they have a reputation in your town or neighborhood, or you see the same faces of other parents because your kids are in the same class at school… today might be your first formal introduction. So allow me to introduce you to the Spirit of Truth.

“I am the way, the truth, and the life.”Main point: Participation in truth and life is participation in Jesus. That goes for everyone.INTRODUCTIONP: Christ is risen! C: Christ is risen indeed, Alleluia!Today is the Fifth Sunday of Eastertide and we continue our season of celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus which leads to resurrection life for all those who follow him. This is the day when we reflect on Jesus in a dialogue with his disciples as he tried to explain to them about that very life. The life that he is. In his being.

Main point: Jesus is the protector of the sheep and giver of abundant life.INTRODUCTIONP: Christ is risen! C: Christ is risen indeed, Alleluia!Today is the Fourth Sunday of Eastertide and we continue our season of celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus, but in a little bit of a different way. This is the day when we reflect on Jesus being the Good Shepherd. As we begin, notice verse 6 of our gospel reading. It says…Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.I think the people who were listening to Jesus give this teaching probably thought something like this.. “Jesus, I can tell you’re really excited about what you’re saying. And I’m sure what you’re saying is really important, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”How many times do you all look at me and say… Bryce, I can tell you’re really excited about what your’re saying…Suffice it to say that there is a deeper connection between the first paragraph of our text, Jesus being the Good Shepherd, and our Easter season regarding the Harrowing of Hell that I will not be touching on this morning. I tried to include it at the Saturday service last night and received enough blank stares that I got the point. If that bit was lost on you, take heart. It was also lost on the original hearers.

“Were not our hearts burning within us”Main point: We encounter the risen Christ where he said he would be -in the breaking of bread.INTRODUCTIONToday we encounter the risen Christ. I wonder if we might begin where we left off last week - in various degrees of belief and understanding of this marvelous miracle of life over death and light over darkness. We closed the sermon last week with a gentle affirmation of the resurrection. I invite you to put your hand on your heart….P: Christ is risen! C: Christ is risen indeed, Alleluia!Today is the third Sunday of Eastertide and we continue our season of celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus. With Mary Magdenlen from two weeks ago and Thomas last week, today we run smack dab into another encounter with the risen Christ. This time with two travelers on the road to Emmaus.

“Sinners and skeptics wanted!”Main point: God engages with us in our struggle and in our questions.On this Second Sunday in Easter, I invite you to say our Easter Acclamation again… let me hear you…P: Christ is risen! C: Christ is risen indeed, Alleluia!

Easter Sunday Messgae 2026

“Behold your King Comes to You”Main point: God comes to us in low places - in humility - and if we look low we may find him.

“Identify with Christ”Main point: We identify with Christ in his suffering and his resurrection.IntroductionToday, we meet three characters who live in a village called Bethany: Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Lazarus is sick and it doesn't look good. Finally, Lazarus comes to the point of death…Mary and Martha send for Jesus.The story tells us that Jesus is only a couple of miles away. He hears the news, commits to going to see Lazarus, and then… waits 2 days before making the 2 mile trip to Bethany.Mary and Martha knew Jesus could help. They send for him. The text tells us that Jesus loves Lazarus… and yet Jesus waits 2 days. And during those two days, Lazarus dies. Mary and Martha were devastated. Perhaps, In those two days of waiting, …they felt neglected. …they felt confused.…they felt bewildered.…maybe they even felt mad.If I was in the shoes of Mary and Martha, I think I would have been pushed right to the limit of my trust in Jesus.My question for us today is this: What do we do when hope is delayed?What do we do with the 2 days of waiting - when we have made our need known to God and yet we don’t see God coming to meet us? What do we do while we wait for healing  -  when we are uncertain of the outcome. What do we do when those two days turn into two months or two years or two decades? What do we do when hope is delayed? What do we do when we are ground down to dust or when we sit and wait with the person we love as we see them ground down to dust. Those two days of waiting can grind us down into our most raw and most volatile states. It might even cause us to forget that even in these circumstances, even in the pain of the pit, God’s purposes can still be worked out. Not in glory, but in suffering. As we learn to identify with the sufferings of our Savior. But it doesn’t seem like it at the time.Some of you know very well that those two days of waiting may grind us to dust. Until we have nothing left.No words can comfort us.No soothing self-talk breaks past the surface.No glossy ideals about God's grand purpose for all things makes any sense to us.We want to minimize our suffering. We want to make sense of the senseless situations we face. And these are good impulses. What is God doing while I sit here and wait? JESUS SPEAKS TO USJesus speaks words of comfort to us while we wait. They are the words he spoke to Mary and Martha while they were still crying. When there are no words…when we're at the end of our ropes. When kind words no longer bring us comfort.  When everything else is gone: It’s just Jesus left.He looks at them and says: “I am the resurrection and the life…though you die, yet shall you live.”Jesus stands at the end of the dark tunnel when nothing else is left and says to us: “I am the resurrection and the life…though you die, yet shall you live.”Consider righteous Job, a man who lived a couple Milena before the time of Jesus, knew more than anyone else about loss and suffering. He was stripped of every worldly possession. All of his children died in horrendous accidents. His body was afflicted with boils from the top of his head to the soul of his feet. When he was pushed to the end of his limits and beyond, when Job had nothing left and was told to curse God and die, Job spoke with unwavering hope:I know that my redeemer lives and that in the end he will stand upon the earth;and after my skin has been destroyed,    then in my flesh I shall see God,When there is nothing left, Jesus stands before us and says: I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this? 

“Seeing with the Eyes of our Understanding”Main point: Jesus grants spiritual sight to those who enter in through humility and faith.IntroductionWe all understand the powerful role stories play in our lives. Who doesn’t love a good book or a good movie? Who doesn’t appreciate the specialness of reading stories to kids - as their eyes light up and they get carried along by Dr. Richard Latham Lechowick, a research associate with the University of Cambridge said this about stories…Stories are not just entertainment: they are vessels of memory, identity, and meaning. More than words strung together, stories are carriers of culture and architects of reality. … Storytelling is not a byproduct of human development—it is a primary engine driving it.Today, we read a substantial story about a blind man, Jesus, and a diverse cast of characters who don’t know what to make of the situation in front of them. As we contemplate the story today, I invite you to invite that story into your own well of memory, identity, and meaning. Today, It is our story. And today we let the story do the heavy lifting as we trace our way though it and see what meaning we can draw from it.Overview of the storyA man blind from birth begs in the street for money to buy his daily bread.Jesus’ disciples see the man and pose to Jesus a common question of the day: Who is to blame for the conditions we see? Do we blame the parents? Or did this man sin himself?Jesus answers emphatically: Neither. This is not a case of punishment. But in this case, as in every case of brokenness, God can be glorified in it.The disciples’ question gives us an opportunity for reflection. Point 1: The Folly of the Blame Game. There are many in our day who try to create a link between troublesome circumstances in their lives and sins they have committed. Do you know what I mean? There are many who operate on a “if I’m good, God will bless me and if I’m bad, then bad stuff will happen to me”. I admit to you… there are times when I wish it were that simple. There are times when I wish I could control my environment by working really, really hard to do good stuff so I have a pleasant life. And on the other side of the ledger.. There are times when I wish I could have someone to blame for the troublesome circumstances of my life. At least then I have a clear reason for why bad stuff happens… then, it’s my fault! And if I can blame myself, then I can change it, get back on track, and make good things happen again. If only it were that simple.Of course we know from experience, it’s not that simple. Life is way more complicated than that. I’ve tried to straighten up my life. I’ve tried to do better. I’ve tried to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative - but stuff still happens. Life is far too complex to be reduced down to a simple version of cause and effect. Jesus knows it doesn’t work that way. He knows we can’t turn God’s action into a detailed response to my action. God isn’t that small and I’m not that important.I don’t control my environment. I never did. I play a part, sure. But I’m not that powerful. Jesus’ answer is the reminder we all need to bring us back to God. “Neither this person nor his parents sinned to bring this condition on him. This is not a case of punishment. But in this case, as in every case of brokenness, God can be glorified in it.

“St. Photini and Springs of Living Water”Main point: Hope springs eternal from the living water gushing up to eternal life.IntroductionHistory tells us the woman we meet in our gospel today is St. Photini - the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. You might not know she has a name, but she does. She is an example to us of an apostle who carries the good news of Jesus to others. Her Feast day on February 26th (10 days ago).So who is Photini and what can we make of this interaction with Jesus at a well in Samaria?The Encounter at Jacob’s WellOne point right off the bat: this story is often taken as an exchange between Jesus and a woman with moral failing. They jump quickly to the bit of the conversation about her having 5 husbands and now living with a man who is not her husband - in order to make this the problem Jesus was addressing. Before we make the same mistake, consider this…Women in this time and place in the world were not permitted to initiate a divorce. And lawfully, when a divorce was granted - both parties were permitted to remarry. The five husbands Jesus references were not so much a testament of moral failure, but of social disgrace.This is likely why she hiked out to the well at the hottest part of the day - because no one else would be around to point and laugh… or at least to avoid the awkward glances when you’re trying not to meet the eye of the people around you. She chose the hottest part of the day to avoid the other women of the town.But a woman who had been married 5 times and whose options were reduced to the 6th man who wanted all the benefits of marriage without the commitments, carries a certain social shame. Even if she knows she’s doing the best she can with the hand she has been dealt, others don’t necessarily see it that way. And if you’ve ever been on the losing end of an embarrassing social situation, you know that you don’t often get a chance to explain your side of the story - especially in casual comings and goings which is most of our lives.At the playground while the kids play with other kidsAt the school pick up and drop off line when the other parents are standing there awkwardly on their phones.At the sporting events when you’re watching your kids play soccer. At the laundry mat Or, can I say it, at church, when it sometimes feels like you have to have your, um, “stuff” together just to come for an hour on Sundays to worship God.Photini is certainly living in sad conditions - conditions she certainly wouldn’t pick for herself. But turning this into a moral problem misses the point. Photini is a person who is hurting. Photini is a person in need. Photini is a tragic character much like Brandy, the 1972 hit from the band Looking Glass. You know the song… Brandy, you’re a fine girl, what a good wife you would be, but my life, my love, my lady is the sea.Or like Fantine from Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables who was unjustly fired from her job at the factory and sacrificed her hair, her teeth, her body to provide for her daughter. Photini is a tragic character. Photini is hurting. Photini is in the worst circumstances of her life. And Jesus meets her there.

“Conversion of the Heart”Main point: Jesus comes from heaven to show us the way to God and for us to understand him and what he's doing, we need a change in the way we think about everything.IntroductionToday we encounter Nicodemous - a religious leader -  a Pharisee - and one of the 70 most esteemed elders of the Jewish people in Jesus’ day. He could tell something was unique about Jesus. Something was different, but he didn’t have the eyes he needed to see exactly what it was. So he comes to Jesus by night. He makes his introductions and asks his questions.To understand this little interaction between Nicodemous and Jesus, I want to share with you a bit of context.As a Pharisee, Nicodemous had very particular expectations about the way God works in the world, what's expected of him, what's expected of his people. According to the way Nicodemus saw the world God’s people were being oppressed by the Roman Empire because they were not obeying God's law. The way for them to get back on God’s program was for all of his people to take God's law seriously and do what is written in it. Once they did that, then Israel would be rescued and restored. This was his hope: God would come and declare the Jewish people righteous and would judge harshly the nations around them.The problem, as Nicodemus say it was twofold: 1) His people weren’t obeying God’s Law and 2) The nations around them (or the world) needed to be judged.This is why when Jesus tells Nicodemus that God loves the world - he’s certainly saying something wonderful in general, but he’s also saying something particular to Nicodemous. He’s saying, “Nicodemous, God is not just for one group of people - your group of people. God loves the whole world. God is not in the business of condemning the world, but of saving the world through the Son.”In essence, Nicodemous had the wrong idea. He was sincere, but misguided. And to get back on track, he would need a rebirth from heaven. Nicodemous needed what we would call in the 90s a “paradigm shift”. He needed a totally different way of thinking if he was going to get on board with what God was doing right in front of him.This is what Jesus told him. It was bold. It was truthful. And Nicodemous didn’t get it.But before we judge Nicodemous to harshly, I have to ask… How many of you, when faced with wildly new information, walk away from that encounter and say, “Why, thank you very much. I’m so glad we had this talk. You’ve entirely and completely changed the way I think about myself and life in general and I am so grateful.”?NOT. VERY. OFTEN. Am I right?There is nothing in the story to indicate that Nicodemous was “born from heaven” in that moment, but his story doesn’t end there. The Gospel of John mentioned Nicodemous three times: The first occasion is here when he visits Jesus by night with his questions. The second occasion is in John 7 when the Pharisees try to condemn Jesus and Nicodemous speaks up to question the legality of condemning Him without a fair hearing. He doesn’t exactly stop them, but he slows them down.The third occasion is in John 19. Immediately after Jesus' death Nicodemous brings burial spices and to wrap his body. The money he spent would equal about $200k in today’s money. In the end, Nicodemus comes around. Over time, Nicodemous was more and more convinced that Jesus was the Anointed One from God and he was born from above. Nicodemus had a conversion of the heart.Conversion of the HeartThe longer I thought about this progressive change in Nicodemus, the more I realized my own need for change in my own heart. There are things in me that don’t align with God’s plans. I still try to get God to come and do my plans instead of asking God what his plans are.I still try to shortcut God's work in the world by doing it my way.I still give up on the best stuff and settle for the easy stuff.

“Three Temptations in the Wilderness”Main point: Jesus shows us victory over three temptations.IntroductionAs we begin our season of preparation leading up to Easter marked by prayer, almsgiving, and fasting, we look at the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness by the Devil. I’d like to begin here: We - you and I, with our modern sensibilities - probably have a general idea that we should abstain from doing bad things and do good things - unless, of course, it’s inconvenient or makes us uncomfortable - then we might easily abandon our ideals and take the path of least resistance. But at minimum, I assume, we have an idea that we should do good things and abstain from bad things. This story today introduces an additional layer that we probably don’t often consider. Hear me: It’s an entirely different thing to think that there might be persons or forces that are actively trying to get us to do things that oppose the good and run to what is evil - forces that lead us to our demise instead of our true and best self - that is, our life in Christ. That, friends, is really leveling up. (Pause)To think that there might be active opposition to us doing good on top of our common, everyday struggle, might be a new consideration for many of us. That particular consideration is an endlessly interesting topic to explore in one of our Adult Ed classes or monthly Coffee & Conversations after church, but, for now, I only want to raise the point, since we cannot get around it when we read our text. Jesus is tempted by the Devil. And, we see, he does not give in. He moves through the temptations victoriously. This gives us hope, that because Jesus has encountered temptation and has won, so we might do the same. So let’s go with the story given to us today.We see three temptations. These temptations are not specific only to Jesus, as we will see. It would not be a good way to read the story to think, “OK, the next time I’m in the wilderness after fasting for forty days, I should really look out for the devil to tempt me with food. And if he does, well, I know exactly what to do. I’ll tell him ‘no’ because that’s what Jesus does and I want to be like Jesus.”That would miss the point, wouldn’t it? Instead, what we see in these temptations are types. They point to deeper issues. They show us ways that we may be tempted in various circumstances - when the specifics might be different, but the core struggle is the same. I hope we can see that core struggle. So let’s begin…BodyTemptation 1: The deprivation of daily sustenance.It was after 40 days of fasting in the wilderness when the Devil came to Jesus to tempt him. I imagine Jesus was very, very hungry. I imagine you and I get hangary after more than a few hours of not eating. But anyone, even the best and the greatest of the world’s spiritual teachers, would be hungry after 40 days without food. Since Jesus’ discipline was linked to not eating food, this is exactly where the Devil begins his attack, because when you're hungry, you want food. A couple days ago, on Ash Wednesday, we talked about fasting. We said, fasting is a voluntary abstinence from food to remind us of our utter dependence on God. Our true hunger is deeper than food. Our need is deeper than daily sustenance. More even than food, we need God. And feeling the need for food points us to our deeper need for God in every area of our lives.Jesus, when faced with temptation, doesn't forget his true need. By saying no to the food, Jesus declared again his dependence on God.Jesus would not for one second declare bread what God declared a stone, even to relieve his hunger pains. He would not depart from perfect conformity to the will of God, even for reasonable, momentary relief. Jesus was content to declare by his actions his perfect dependency on the Father. 

“God’s Life in You”Main point: Through ongoing awareness of our dependence on God, God’s life comes alive in us.IntroductionOn this Ash Wednesday we look straight in the face of our own mortality. We taste the fragility of life. We are reminded that we were formed from dust and to dust we will return. And the time between those two bookends is little more than a drop in the bucket. Vaper in the wind. A wave in the ocean. We blink and 10, 20, 40, 80 years have passed - here today and gone tomorrow.We face our mortality and we ask this question: If I am only here for a short time, what really matters?And our answer comes in the shape of a cross - etched by ashes on our forehead. It is through facing death that we realize the futility of our striving for vain things with the short time we have on this earth. And the only thing that truly matters in this life is the life of God flowing through us into the world. This is significance. Only the life of God will remain when our short time on earth is over.BUT HOW?  Assuming we agree that pursuits of power, wealth, pleasure, and significance for ourselves are futile and will be lost to the sands of time.Assuming we agree that the life of God in us is all that will last in eternity.How do we live more fully into that life - God’s life - and less into the life that will vanish when we take our last breath.For that question, the Season of Lent which begins today brings a substantial reply. And it comes from this teaching from Jesus to his disciples about prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.The link is not obvious, but it is simple: Through these disciplines we become aware of our total dependence on God. And as our awareness of our dependence on God grows, God’s life in us also grows.What is prayer if it’s not an admission that we don’t have it all put together and we can’t save ourselves? And in the end, God will save us.What is fasting if it’s not a reminder that our daily sustenance - the very food we put in our mouths - is provided by God. And in the end, God will provide for us.What is giving if it’s not a declaration that God provides for all my needs in better ways than I can provide for myself? And in the end, God will supply for our every need.These disciplines are reminders of our dependence and trust in God’s provision. And we voluntarily take up these practices to give us those reminders, because we forget.Shenandoah Movie IllustrationIn the 1965 movie, Shenandoah, Jimmy Stewart plays the father of a Virginia family at the outbreak of the Civil War.  He made a promise to his late wife as she passed that their children would be raised as good Christians. So his character, Charlie Anderson dutifully and somewhat begrudgingly took them to church and gathered them for a blessing at every evening meal. Toward the beginning of the movie there is a scene in which Charlie sits at the dinner table with his six sons, daughter, and daughter-in-law. The table is filled with an abundant meal. He prays a blessing, but his prayer is proud and even spiteful. He is independent, self-reliant, and - seemingly - in full control of his destiny. You can tell his prayer is nothing more than fulfilling his promise to his late wife.Lord, (he says) we cleared this land. We plowed it, sowed it, and harvested it. We cooked the harvest. It wouldn’t be here, we wouldn’t be eatin’ it if we hadn’t done it all ourselves. We worked dog-bone hard for every crumb and morsel, but we thank you just the same anyway, Lord, for the food we’re about to eat. Amen.

“From Glory to Glory”Main point: The transfiguration inspires us and shows us a vision of where we’re headed.IntroductionThis is the Feast of the Transfiguration. You might be wondering - what on earth is the transfiguration? What on earth is going on in this scene we just read from Matthew’s gospel? This was a sneak peak through the thin veil between the world as we see it and the world as it actually is. You see, there are many, many accounts of the world that most (nearly all) of us cannot see. It is the world that Christian tradition calls “invisible”. It is the reality that we confess to believe exists when we recite the Nicene Creed. The first line of the Creed reads, “I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.”Today, in our reading from Matthew, we get a peak at what is invisible to most of us, most of the time.What do we see? We see a trip to the top of God’s holy mountain - the holy place where God often reveals something previously unknown or unseen.We see saints - Moses and Elijah - saints of old who are present.We see Jesus - God from God, light from light - unveiled momentarily from skin and flesh.We see a conversation between the three of them which seems just as natural as natural could be. They are conferring together - yet the content of their conversation remains unknown to us.We see light - beautiful, glorious, light - bathing the three people and everything around them.And then, just as quickly as it arrives - it’s gone. And Jesus is standing in front of the three disciples who don’t know what to make of what they just saw.What do we do when we come across a peak into the invisible world?First, we stop and stare. You see before the event is interpreted, before the story is told, the event happens. It’s important we don’t get that out of sequence. We have to let the event be the event. Before we even speak a word of it, before it get’s mined for meaning - we have to let it be. That is why we have Feast Days. They are to commemorate an event or a person so that we remember what happened. Because… first and foremost - it’s a glorious event on its own.At the time, it's just an event. It's just an experience. We don't have time to take it in and process it in its entirety. We just have time to go with it. And those who experience the event are changed by it.After the fact, when the dust settled and they all had time to reflect, all three of the witnesses of the transfiguration -  Peter, James, and John - would tell the story. Two of them - Peter and John - would write about this event in their letters to the churches which are now contained in the Bible.And now we have it as part of our story too.First, we stop and stare. But then we let ourselves move on and ponder the event.

Guest speaker Jason Forari preached the Gospel! St. Matthew 5:13-20[Jesus said:] 13 “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything but is thrown out and trampled under foot.  14 “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 People do not light a lamp and put it under the bushel basket; rather, they put it on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.  17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. 19 Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

“The Heart of Jesus”Main point: Jesus shows us the culture of the kingdom of God.IntroductionThis teaching from Jesus is recognized the world over by Christians and non-Christians alike for their positive spiritual potency. Last week we listened to the first public message of Jesus. He said, “Repent! For the kingdom of heaven has come near.” And to those who would listen to his message, I imagine the next question was this: So what is the kingdom of heaven like? And Jesus says, “I'm so glad you asked. There's nothing I like to talk about more.”I confess I share the same excitement as Jesus when looking at today's gospel. For the last several days my recurring thought has been, I just can't wait to preach this text. So let's begin.Here, in the beatitudes, Jesus invites us into a renewed way of being. It may be different than what we're used to. It may be different than what we think might “work” to get us what we think is best for us. It might require us to consider ourselves citizens of a heavenly kingdom over and above citizens of whatever place we live in during this life. But this invitation to a renewed way of being as citizens of a heavenly kingdom is in line with the heart of God. And when we are close to the heart of God, we are blessed.It is that heart - the very heart of God - that Jesus shares with us today. BlessedIt begins with the word “blessed.” Blessed or blessedness is the state of perfect harmony. When everything is in its proper place and working correctly. And that includes you and me. It means you and I have aligned ourselves with God, others, and creation in such a way that you are experiencing God's blessing. Here we find the highest teachings of Jesus to show us the environment of that blessedness. Father Romsey Adcock, Anglican Priest who was of Jordanian descent, but born in England, called the beatitudes a “Guide for new residence” in a homeland closer to our hearts than any other place we could belong. It's a calling to renounce our former citizenship and embrace our true home in the heart of God. But to embrace this new homeland we may need to learn a new language, new customs, and new behaviors - indeed an entirely new culture - if we are going to embrace our citizenship in the kingdom of heaven.A Heavenly CountryToday, as we are introduced, or at least reacquainted, with the terrain of this heavenly country, allow me to act as your tour guide. Notice the mountains, valleys, and rivers. Admire the open plains, rolling hills, grassy meadows. Enjoy the cloud formations and gorgeous sunsets. This is a heavenly country and we need to adjust our vision to take it all in.When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he began to speak and taught them, saying:"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.What does it mean to be poor in spirit? This is humility. This is the opposite of arrogance, self-aggrandizement, and pride."Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.What does it mean to be one who mourns? This is when the conditions of this world cause your heart to hurt. When it hurts. When youre at a loss for words. When there are no words but words of pain. When you lament. When the painful passages in the psalms make sense. This is the condition of those who mourn."Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.What does it mean to be meek? First, meekness is not weakness. Meekness is power under control. It is power that is content with itself. It doesn’t need the affirmation of others. It doesn’t need to be displayed or affirmed, because it is already affirmed by the One who sees everything.

“The Invitation”Main point: The invitation from Jesus is to follow him.IntroductionOur gospel begins with a geographical marker which is the setting of the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry. To our modern ears the places we hear about in the New Testament might all run together to make it sound like the entire story happened in one place with all Jewish people. But that wasn’t the case.The locations of Jesus’ ministry happen in three basic provinces along the far eastern border of the Mediterranean Sea. The northernmost province was Galilee; the southernmost province was Judea; and in the middle was Samaria. All three provinces were under Roman imperial rule and each had their unique mix of ethnic differences. The highest concentration of Jewish people were in the south, in Judea, where Jerusalem and the Temple were. This is where, at the end of his life, Jesus was arrested, crucified, and rose from the dead. A little north of that, in Samaria, the Samaritan people were at odds with the Jewish people over historical disputes which we wont get into today. You might remember the story of the woman at the well where Jesus offered her living water. Part of the drama of that scene is that Jesus is talking to a Samaritan woman - and Jewish men simply did not talk to Samaritan women.Then further in the north, in Galilee, where our story begins today, there was a strong mix of both Jewish people and non-Jewish people who were called, at least from the Jewish peoples’ perspective, Gentiles. It was there that Joseph and Mary settled, with the young child Jesus, after returning from their refugee flight to Egypt. And it was there, in Galilee, a land mixed with Jews and Gentiles that Jesus began his public ministry with this message, “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven has come near.”If only the people could see the light that had dawned on them. If only the people could understand what was standing in their midst. If only the people could perceive the invitation being extended to them. This was God in the flesh. God had come close and invited them to be changed so they could enter the domain where God dwells - the kingdom of heaven.Three phrases stand out above the rest in our gospel…Light in the Darkness…the first phrase is this: Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali…Galilee of the gentiles– the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light.My first question for us is this: Do we need that light today? Do we need that light today or is the light that we read about just a special epiphany for those people in Jesus’ day? The land of Zebulun and Naphatali was an ethnically mixed territory occupied and terrorized by one of the largest and strongest empires the world had ever known. The light was shining in the darkness of that time and place. On the gentiles - the people who were not of Jewish descent.Was the light that was cast on those people in that place meant only for them or do we need that light today in our dark time and place?The condition of our world is not so unlike the land of Zebulun and Naphatali. There are wars and violence and power struggles raging in our world today. There are global empires and conflicts rooted in ethnic prejudices. Here in the United States - a land majoritarily composed of Gentiles - are we not an ethnically mixed place with violent power in the streets of our cities?Are we in need of a light shined on us in this dark time in our history?Most of us are non-jewish people. Most of us are gentiles who sit in darkness. If it’s not entirely self-evident, allow me to answer that question for you. Yes. Yes, those of us who sit here in the room today sit in the midst of darkness. But, friends, on you a great light has dawned. And that light has brought an invitation of such magnitude it is worthy to be spread across the whole world.

Introduction Epiphany is a season of revealing who God is. Today’s big reveal or “showing” comes from the voice of John who twice in our gospel points to Jesus and says, “Look, the Lamb of God.”Speaking of God’s anointed one, the Prophet Isaiah says in the  53rd chapter (verse 7): He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.John announces as Jesus walks toward him, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”And a second time, the next day, John says again, “Look, here is the Lamb of God.”John echos the language of the Prophet Isaiah. He even says it two times.What do we mean when we say that Jesus is the “Lamb of God”? I want to take, perhaps, a different route than what we're used to when talking about Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. What did John mean when he pointed to Christ and said, “Look, the Lamb of God”? If you aren’t spontaneously or naturally curious about our gospel texts when we read them, I invite you to think of other times when we talk about Jesus being the Lamb of God such as when we sing about it as we come forward to receive Holy Communion. O Lamb of God, we sing, who bore the sin of all the world away…have mercy on us.Our associations with Jesus being the lamb of God often center on one word: sacrifice. Jesus was the sacrifice for our sins.Our understanding might be partial because as soon as you say “Lamb of God” you quickly loop in words like sin and blood and we don’t often like to talk about these themes. It doesn’t make for polite conversation or warm, fuzzy feelings.But here’s my main contention: We might feel a little uncomfortable talking about it in large part because it’s been misunderstood. Christians in our day might say something like this: God’s justice demands a blood sacrifice to pay the penalty of sin. Jesus steps in to be that sacrifice in place of us. The sins of the world are placed on Jesus and he dies for our sins. And now God’s disposition toward us has changed from anger to love because of what Jesus did.Yes, lambs were offered to God as sacrifices under the Old Covenant. They were a part of the sometimes elaborate sacrificial system which was designed by God as a way to manage the sin problem that was present with God’s people so God could dwell with his people. But that description sounds more like Zeus or Moloch than Yahweh, the God of the Bible.Think of it this way…For that “Lamb of God” metaphor to hold up, then we would expect that there would be an actual lamb in the Old Covenant (Old Testament) that receives the sins of the people and then is killed to eliminate the sins. Nowhere in Scripture are sins placed on an animal and then that animal is killed as a sacrifice.To be the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” means something much, much different. The God of Christianity as revealed in Scripture and Tradition is slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and comes to us in our time of need instead of requiring us to appease his wrath with blood sacrifices.Two Goats/LambsThe idea comes from Leviticus 16 where God gives instruction for the Day of Atonement which is the foundation for “Yom Kippur" - the most holy of the Jewish high holy days. In that chapter we see not one goat, but two. And what those goats do, is exactly what Jesus does. Let’s take a look.

Hope in a Dark TimeIt is not lost on me that we gathered for worship on Tuesday night, held our candles, and sang the comforting words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu…Goodness is stronger than evil Love is stronger than hate Light is stronger than darkness Life is stronger than death Victory is ours, victory is ours through God who loves us.And then in the morning hours on Wednesday, a little more than 12 hours later, further chaos broke out in Minneapolis when Renee Good was shot and killed by a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent.The contrast between these two movements in such close succession shocked me.What do we do when it seems we and the world around us take one step forward and two steps back? It seems like we have a reprieve and then we’re hit with another round of bad news.What do we do when our faith in the goodness of God is so quickly challenged by events around us?What do we do when our faith in the victory in God is not obvious when we listen to the nightly news?I have two ideas and they both come from the words pronounced from the heavens at Jesus’ baptism: “This is my Son, the beloved, in whom I am well pleased.”In troubling times, this phrase reminds us of who we really are because the same can be said of us as well. We are “beloved children of God” too.1 John 3:1-3 “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God’s children now.”Father Henri Nouwen was a Dutch author and priest who wrote a great deal on this aspect of our spiritual life in Christ. In a book entitled You Are the Beloved he wrote, ““Every time you feel hurt, offended, or rejected, you have to dare to say to yourself: “These feelings, strong as they may be, are not telling me the truth about myself. The truth, even though I cannot feel it right now, is that I am the chosen child of God, precious in God’s eyes, called the Beloved from all eternity, and held safe in an everlasting embrace.”But we need to be reminded, because we forget. That’s why I suggest we turn this phrase into a simple prayer that we can say when we’re troubled. Maybe something like this: You call me beloved, and I believe what you say. In this way the phrase spoken over Jesus in his baptism becomes the prayer of our hearts. [Deb, Troy, Maggie, Ed, those we name in our prayers, and everyone else.] God says, “You are my beloved child, in whom I am well-pleased.” This becomes our anchor. This becomes our center. When all else goes wrong, we can return again and again to this promise that we are the beloved of God. Not only is it comforting to remind ourselves who we really are when our faith in the goodness and victory in God is brought into question. It is true. We are God’s beloved and we are going to be OK.In troubling times, we declare this phrase to the world. At Jesus’ baptism the declaration of Jesus’ identity was declared to the world. This is God’s Son, the beloved. Heaven is opened and the Spirit descends. Though the world may be filled with violence and trouble, the answer to the way back to God for all of us is to spread that belovedness to all of God’s children. To remind them just as we remind ourselves that…The heart of God is love, not hate. The heart of God is life, not death. The heart of God is light, not darkness. And the root of our identity in this beloved belonging is found in the Word Made Flesh - Jesus Christ, the Son of God.We continue to spread the message of God’s belovedness because as Dr. Martin Luther King said, “Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” Yes, we may have to go back to the well and dig deep to find hope in dark times because we are not saved from dark times, we are saved through dark times. But the promise of God in Christ is that there is a well that never shall run dry and it springs up with waters unto eternal life. 

What is the Word?The Word is God’s communication to us. In language spoken. In language written. In language embedded in creation. The Word is God’s communication to us.That’s it. If someone asks you, “What is God’s Word?” Or, “Why do we call Jesus the Word of God?” The answer is this: God is too big to understand, but God communicates to us and we call that the Word of God.You might be saying, “That’s it? Bryce, that was a whole lot of build up for something so simple.”Just you wait. There’s more.I said it this way… In language spoken. In language written. In language embedded in creation. The first two parts we understand - language spoken and language written. But that third part is where it gets a little fuzzy so I’d like to spend a few minutes there.Expanded: Language Embedded in CreationIn language embedded in creation.The idea is this… there are logical, intelligible patterns in the created order which can be observed and understood.It comes from the Greek word λόγος (logos) which was a philosophical concept long before John used it in this gospel. There is a design to the created world. Rules that all of creation lives by. The way the world is put together isn't just random. It is orderly and intelligible.The Word is the logic of creation. It’s how stuff works.Examples of the Logic of CreationWeather (the art of knowing what weather is coming and preparing for it. This is tracking the seasons, the smell in the air before it rains, joint pain (like knees and hips) before the weather changes. Also beginning attempts were the Farmers Almanac, now we have radar and satellites and more…)Navigation (the art of finding one's way from place to place using context clues, stars, and cardinal directions. We use these less now because of GPS)Human behavior (the art of navigating conflicts between people and nations, business acumen, family management, even incorporating atypical behaviors and understanding them to a limited degree)Biology (human and animal anatomy, organ function, medicines, interventions that lead to life)Engineering (weight loads and angles, and material strengths and structures, math and physics)THREE IMPLICATIONS1.There IS a Logic to the UniverseTo understand the world in this way is to stand in contrast with some who insist the world is incomplete, broken, and chaotic. They say… “See! There's no God. There's no one running this thing.” “If there was a God, then stuff like this wouldn't happen.”“See, the world is just too big to conceive of something that is consistent and constant throughout the entire creation.”But the evidence is strong in the opposite direction. The presence of patterns and governing laws in every arena of life points to the fact that things that are out of order are simply not yet in line with the order that is there. The existence of chaos speaks to our desire for order. The existence of undiscovered areas of knowledge points to how big God truly is.2.Study and Give Praise to GodThere is truth everywhere to be learned and celebrated. In a sense, when we study “the way things work” we are encountering that Word of God that is present in the creative order. 

Sermon given by Bryce Hewlett.

St. James Lutheran Church Christmas Day Recording. Musicians: Steve Abel, Madlyn WulgaertVicar: Bryce HewlettReader: Anna Forari

“Joseph’s Dilemma”INTRODUCTIONWelcome to the Season of Advent and with it a fresh start. For those who are new to the game: Advent simply means “coming” or “arrival.” During this season we put the arrival of Jesus in full view. Today, and for the next few days, the arrival of Jesus sits right in front of our faces. And we wait.Last week we read and heard my wife speak on Mary’s perspective of the arrival of the baby Jesus  found in Luke’s gospel. Today we hear Joseph’s perspective on that same arrival.I confess I have a certain fondness for Joseph in this predicament. Tradition tells us Joseph was probably close to 40-years-old when he was engaged to Mary. A man of a certain age with certain experiences goes about making decisions in a certain kind of way. Making decisions at 40 is more akin to making decisions at 60 than it is to making decisions at 20. Faithfulness to God and attentiveness to one’s circumstances produces a certain kind of maturity that may be absent at 20, but not quite in its fullness at 60 or 80.What’s more, untimely pregnancy for mothers in their teen years are circumstances close to my heart. I’ve not experienced the same thing at Joseph, but his age and the nature of his dilemma intrigue me on a personal level.So I present to you today Joseph’s Dilemma. What is Joseph to do with the situation on his hands? His young, engaged spouse has become pregnant sometime after they became engaged and before they lived together. What is Joseph to do? What is the faithful response?Mike Goodwin - ComedianI imagine Joseph’s prayerful attention to these circumstances considered all of the available options he knew of.On a much lighter note, my mind was taken to the humorous considerations from comedian Mike Goodwin. You might have seen this reel on the socials. It’s kind-of an old-school church humor so we’ll see how it plays out with us this morning. He opens a segment of his standup routine this way…My grandma said there's only two things in life you got to worry about: whether you're healthy or whether you're sick. If you're healthy, you have nothin’ to worry about. If you're sick, you only have two things to worry about. If you're going to get better or if you're going to get worse. If you’re going to get better, you got nothin’ to worry about. If you're going to get worse, you got two things to worry about.If you're going to live or you're going to die.If you're going to live, you got nothing to worry about. It's going to die, you got two things to worry about.If you're going to heaven or if you're going to hell.If you're going to heaven, you got nothing to worry about. If you're going to hell, you got two things to worry about. Original or extra crispy.JOSEPH’S DILEMMA IN DETAILJoseph’s thought process…Women don’t get pregnant unless they have intercorse.If she has Intercourse it either happened consensually or non-consensuallyIf it happened consensually then she has behaved dishonorably and I have two choicesI could marry her and keep it quiet, but then I'd be raising another man's baby knowing she was unfaithful and make it public, but that would bring her disgrace and questions about me.I could not marry her…and make a public spectacle of it (that’s allowed by Torah)do it quietlyperhaps this would lead to a way to help her move forward with the least amount of trouble for her and her child in the future.Joseph’s FaithfulnessIn the end, of course, God knows all things. God knows the truth and that's all that matters. So what is the faithful action I need to take in this situation?You see, Joseph was stuck. This was a difficult situation and there didn't seem to be a good way out. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place - or, maybe, between original and extra crispy.All things considered, Joseph chose not to maintain the relationship with her, but also not to make it a public matter, though he could lawfully do so.In the end he chose mercy.

Thanks for joining our podcast today! We had a wonderful guest speaker talk to us about Mary, Mother of Jesus, for our third week of Advent.Guest Speaker: Kim Hewlett

“Let the Fire of Your Justice Burn”Main point: John comes to us with a message of repentance. Our justice is bent. We need to agree with the justice revealed in Christ.INTRODUCTIONWelcome to the Season of Advent and with it a fresh start. For those who are new to the game: Advent simply means arrival. During this season we put the arrival of Jesus in full view. Today, and for the next two weeks, the pending arrival of Jesus sits right in front of our faces.During Advent we certainly remember the arrival of Jesus in his birth in Bethlehem, we also look forward to his arrival in glory in the future - at the end of this age. In that way, the themes of Advent are twofold. Two arrivals in one - with appropriate themes to match. Today we… meet John the Baptizer who brings a message of fire.JOHN THE BAPTIZERJohn comes blazing on the scene this morning with a fiery message to prepare the way for the Lord. John brings integrity, grit, intensity, and a sobering look at our compromised moral condition.We are reminded that though Jesus may come to us as a cute, innocent baby - he also comes as a good and perfect judge. With fire. When Jesus comes on the scene it’s not just warm feelings and sentimentality - it’s also accountability for those who abuse power, distort justice, and manipulate the people around them. It’s accountability for gross evil. And lest we think this is some other person who is far away instead of me - here - today, John tells us to take account of the ways our justice is bent. Today we are called to task. We run, smack dab, into a person with so much integrity and fervor that it makes us take a hard look at ourselves - to make adjustments to prepare the way for the Lord today.Is it just me, or does John see to come out of nowhere? He seems to pop on the scene and it seems so out of the blue. Where does this message of fire come from?To answer that question, we have to back up and tell a bit more of the story -  because John is a man in context. POINT 1: John speaks with the VoiceJohn doesn’t come out of nowhere. He comes 1) from a long line of prophets who spoke truth to the people around them and called people in power back to fidelity to the ways of God. He also speaks 2) with the Voice that laid the foundation of the world from its very beginning. The Word of God. The voice that said, “Let there be light.” The prophets - John the Baptizer among them - spoke in agreement with the voice that laid the foundation of the world. Wisdom, mercy, and justice are baked into the created order - and they are baked into us. It only takes us a short reflection to see how this plays out as we look at the world and assess what is going on - whether we agree with things or disagree with things, whether we think the world is going along ok or whether we think things are not so good.We can’t hardly string three sentences together without referencing fairness about our situation or values of good and bad as we look at the world. At the heart of values is justice. Notice it the next time you’re talking to someone, even casually.“It doesn’t seem right that…(you finish the sentence)” That’s justice.“I can’t believe that person would say that to me.” That’s justice.Just yesterday I was sitting at a birthday party and the conversation turned to food pantries and SNAP benefits and the worthiness of people to receive or not receive government assistance. The heart of that conversation was justice.Even rooting for Indiana over Ohio State in the BIg Ten football championship yesterday carries with it a bit of justice. Indiana’s football program has been the underdog for years. Beating Ohio State felt like a bit of cosmic justice. Unless you’re an Ohio State fan. In which case you’re looking at justice from the other side of the coin.We feel justice deep in our gut. And for good reason. Justice is built into us.

“Come, Lord Jesus, but not just yet”Main point: The era we live in (the last days) gives us time to repent and return to Christ.INTRODUCTIONWelcome to the Season of Advent and with it a fresh start. Next week when we are back together in-person, you’ll notice some things have switched around in our sanctuary and in our worship. Our colors are blue. Some of our liturgical music is new. We’re lighting Advent candles and we’re singing O Come, O Come Emmanuel. All for this fresh start in Advent.For those who are new to the game: Advent simply means arrival. During this season we put the arrival of Jesus in full view. Today, and for the next three weeks, the arrival of Jesus sits right in front of our faces.For many of us, the arrival of Jesus only means one thing: his birth in a manger 2000 years ago. But there’s more. During Advent we certainly remember the arrival of Jesus in his birth in Bethlehem, we also look forward to his arrival in glory in the future - at the end of this age. In that way, the themes of Advent are twofold. On the one hand, we prepare to celebrate the arrival of Jesus in the world when he was born as a baby. We rejoice in all his birth means for us - in our time and in our place - as well as for the whole world. His arrival was a gift to the world - unlike any other gift. It brings us hope. It brings us peace. It brings us courage to do good in the world.On the other hand, the full extent of the blessings of that gift have not permeated our world completely. When we look around at the state of the world, we might wonder if the blessing of Christ truly extends as far as the curse is found - as the old Christmas carol states so beautifully.Two arrivals in one - with appropriate themes to match. Today we especially look at the arrival of Christ that has not happened yet. The arrival in the future.FROM THE TEXTIn our gospel on this first week of Advent we see a teaching which anticipates that future arrival. “Keep awake,” “because we do not know the day our Lord will come.” So we must “be ready.”To welcome the arrival of Christ, we must be ready. Are we ready? I confess to you that I am not ready today.It’s like…I’m throwing a dinner party and my house isn’t clean, the food is still in the oven, and the first guests have just arrived at my door. It’s like…My child is finishing high school and wants to go to college, but we haven’t sent in all of the necessary paperwork and we haven’t saved up enough money for them to go.It’s like… it’s Christmas Eve and Amazon tells me the gift I bought for my parents three weeks ago is still in transit.I’m not ready. That is why I say in anticipation of the arrival of Jesus Christ…Come, Lord Jesus, but not just yet. I wonder if you feel the same way.LAMENTATIONGod, grant us time to be ready.Come, Lord Jesus, but not just yet.Give us time to return to you.Our lives have grown distracted and overwhelmed in our pursuits. We’ve been chasing after things that we think will make us happy, but they haven’t made us happy. In some ways, we have received what we wanted, but it hasn’t fulfilled us. Not in the deepest ways we desire to be fulfilled. In other ways we have not yet received what we pursue and we’re still chasing. We think when we find it, we will be happy, but in the meantime, our hearts are restless because they have not found their rest in you. Be patient with us a little longer to put down our distractions and pursuits that don’t lead us to you.God, grant us a little more time so that we may be ready.We say: Come, Lord Jesus, but not just yet.

“Who is this King of Glory?”Main point: We see Jesus revealed to us as a trustworthy king today. He is our King of Glory.INTRODUCTIONChrist is King and there is no other. King? Really??? I've never lived under a king, so what's that all about?Kings get a bad rap in our representative democracy, so, first,...A Word on KingsWhat do Moses, Plato, and Thomas Aquinas all have in common? Answer: they all thought monarchy was A OK.Monarchy/kings, as a form of government, are not inherently bad. It's actually good, or, at least, permissible. I know…shocker.When we look at history, Christians around the world (and our Jewish ancestors in the faith before them) have lived under monarchs for most of our existence. It’s the reality they lived in. In nearly every era of the Church, we - Christians - have lived in lands ultimately ruled by some sort of supreme monarch. Consider Moses from the Bible who lived about 3500 years ago. Even long ago under Moses when God gave the Torah (or “Law”), God made provision for the Israelites when they entered the promised land and got a king. It’s at the end of Deuteronomy, chapter 17, if you want to read it on your own. God made provision for it. Kings must be at least permissible.Even the Greek philosophers who came after Moses, such as Plato about 2300 years ago, they reasoned that philosopher-kings would govern mostly benevolently, efficiently, and justly.Then in the 13th Century, about 800 years ago, Thomas Acquanas, theologian and Doctor of the Church, described monarchy as the very best form of government citing its efficiency and efficacy to affect the common good as its chief asset. You might not be convinced yet, but monarchy/kings, as a form of government, are not inherently bad. It's actually good, or, at least, permissible.Monarch is RiskyThe reason we don't like Kings is not because having a king is inherently bad, the problem is the risk of getting the wrong kind of king. If the history of monarchs in the world tells us anything, it's that good kings who reign with justice and peace are the ultra-slim minority, not the rule. Consider this: If efficiency is the virtue of monarchy, you can be assured, you're gonna get somewhere quickly, but you might not like it when you get there. Having a king may be OK. Having the wrong kind of king is devastating. We don’t like KingsI say all of this because we here in the United States have a particular distaste for kings. Whether it’s our Pilgrim heritage, the “No More Kings” song from Schoolhouse Rock, or the recent No Kings protests - we don’t like the idea of a king. It’s in our DNA. And yet, Christ comes to us today - from Scripture and Tradition - as King.BECAUSE of our distaste for kings, we might balk at the very idea that Jesus - the one who taught, demonstrated, and accomplished forgiveness, peace, love and mercy - would even come to us as a King. In a word: our distaste for Kings might make us dismiss the King of Kings himself. Jesus Christ. The King of Glory.But to that disposition we can say this: Jesus is a decidedly different King than all those who call themselves kings in human history.WHO IS THIS KING OF GLORY?So, with the psalmist who penned today’s psalm we ask the same question: Who is this King of Glory? And the answer to our question comes to us in our readings today.Answer #1: The Prophet JeremiahThe first answer comes from the prophet Jeremiah in our first reading. It says…this king rules with wisdom and executes justice and righteousness. He brings safety. His name is Jehovah-Tsidkenu which means “The LORD our righteousness.”

“Jesus teaches on “the end””Main point: Give testimony and persevere as the end draws near.INTRODUCTIONAdvent is just around the corner and our themes are turning toward the arrival of Jesus. As always, when we remember the coming of Jesus in his birth in Bethlehem, we also look forward to his coming in glory at the end of this age. Such is the theme of our gospel this morning.Friends, it’s getting bad out there. When we look around at the state of the world, we might wonder, are we at the end yet? This thought might have crossed your mind as you watch the news or chat with a neighbor. It was on some of our minds last week after the service when we met for our Coffee and Conversion. About 15 of us sat in the Lower Level after the Sunday morning service and pondered the political climate, the violence around the globe, and  - get this - AI. Yes, a large portion of our conversation was spent on trying to understand the world we live in today and the world we will live in tomorrow with the presence of Artificial Intelligence. Some of us are scared. What’s going to happen? Are we going to survive another technological revolution? What will become of humanity?So… is this the end? Are we there yet?After reading this passage and going through the list of the signs Jesus talks about, I think we can check-off just about everything on the list that “the end” is near. So how ‘bout it? Are we at the end?People in Jesus’ day were wondering. Some of them asked Jesus about it. In today’s teaching, we see Jesus’ response. There are queues for us to take from what he says that may bring us more comfort rather than doom. Let’s look together.Do Not Be Led AstrayThey asked him, "Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?” And he said, "Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, 'I am he!' and, 'The time is near!' Do not go after them.Do not be led astray. This is a palace we need to pause for a moment and acknowledge, the potential to be led astray when trying to interpret “the end” is a real danger. You may remember some ofl the various attempts by people throughout the ages to pin down “the end”. I remember several in my short lifetime alone. The most prominent was Harold Camping who said the end will happen on May 21, 2011. He happened to die two years later with a net worth of $75 million. That’s certainly an extreme example but smaller, less-prominent examples are everywhere. “Beware,” Jesus says. Lest you need me to remind you: Everyone who thought it was the end from then to the present day was wrong. That isn’t a very good track record for folks who want to try to pin it down. Beware.Signs of the end"When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately. But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name.Jesus describes signs of the end. But the signs are not the end. Yes, these things will happen. They are signs that the fabric of the world is breaking down. Things are getting chaotic, atomized, and hostile as people drift away from the Life of Christ that is in the World. Expect it to happen. But those are just signs. That’s not the end.—PAUSE: Rabbit trail: The text uses this term “the end”. I’ve used it a few times already today. What is “the end”?I ask, because we might assume that the timeline between Jesus and the “the end” is a straight line. But that’s not the way the Church practices time keeping.

“You don’t know what its like to be a bat”Main point: We only know a little about what life will be like in the age to come. But we know it will happen.INTRODUCTIONSome very interesting things pop up in our gospel today…The Sadducees come to Jesus with a challenge… they are trying to trap Jesus.Tell the Story: Comical, Outrageous, Assuming Life After DeathWe see it in our gospel today: Life. Death. Resurrection. You may have noticed as you attend Christian worship, there are many scenes in the gospels that don't make sense unless we assume that people don't stop living when they die - that there is life after death.In one scene James and John  - two of Jesus’ closest followers - asked to sit on the right and left side of Jesus in his glory. The assumption inherent in that request is that there is a seat in glory where Jesus will sit after this life is over.You may remember the thief on the cross who died next to Jesus. Jesus said to him, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”Yesterday, at the funeral for Don Evens, we read the words of Jesus, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live.”Our scene today is recorded in all three of the synoptic gospels - Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Jesus is challenged by some of the religious leaders of his day - the Sadducees - about how marriage is going to work in the resurrection because they did not believe a resurrection would happen. Jesus replies, “have you not read what God said to you, 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? God is not the God of the dead but of the living.” implying Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were still living.Death is not the end. There is something that comes after. This point may be obvious to many of you, but I name it because in our day there are many who think when you die…that's it. Poof. The lights go off and there's nothing more. Christian tradition has always held that there is something more. Life extends beyond what we experience now. TO LIVE AS A BATWhat is the age to come going to be like?Answer: We don’t know. Last week we referenced this line from St. John’s letter: “At the present time, we do not know what we will be, but we know we will be like him for we shall see him as he is.”We live in this age, but in the age to come, we will be different. How different? We don’t know. What are those differences? We only get some clues now. But our consciousness in this age cannot conceive of what our consciousness will be in the age to come."What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" is a paper by American philosopher Thomas Nagel, first published in The Philosophical Review in October 1974.Thomas Nagel argues that while a human might be able to imagine what it is like to be a bat by taking "the bat's point of view", it would still be impossible "to know what it is like for a bat to be a bat".What do we know about the age to come?If anyone in our story knows what the age to come is going to be like, it’s Jesus. He says, “In the age to come, we cannot die anymore, because they are like angels”Death will not be a part of reality. Because death is not a part of reality, procreation is not needed to perpetuate the species. Because procreation is not needed, marriage is not needed. This is Jesus’ basic logic: No death, no need for more people, so no marriage.But we can't conceive of that. We are timebound and limited. In this age, we do not know what it's like to live without death. We don't know what it's like to live without marriage. We don't know what it's like to live without the need for procreation. In essence, we don't know what it will be like to live in the age to come. Or said differently, we don't know what it's like to live as a bat. 

“Maturity in Christ: Sainthood for Today”Main point: We are not yet what we shall be. Sainthood for today is growing into our maturity in Christ.INTRODUCTIONOn this Feast of All Saints, we remember the saints of the past as well as those in our congregation who have passed into their eternal rest. They are not gone. They join us today in the lighting of the candles and we join them in the breaking of the bread - in the feast of victory for our God. We may wonder, what do we do now? They have passed before us. We will join them at some point in the future. What do we do now? To honor them. To please God. To live out our lives with meaning and purpose during the short time we have in this world. What do we do now?I have one word as an answer for you this morning. That word is found in our second reading. Maturity: That is, growing up into the measure of the fullness of Christ. We have been called to be saints. This is what that means: We have been placed into Christ in our baptism. And we wait for the perfection that will come to us and to the world when Jesus appears. In the meantime, we grow into what we will be in the future. That is sainthood for today.Saint John said it this way in his first epistle:1 John 3:2Beloved, (friends), now, (today), we are children of God; and it has not yet been shown to us what we will be, but we know that when Jesus is revealed, we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is.What a joyful promise from God! We will be like him, for we shall see him as he is. What do we do today? In one word: maturity. We grow into what we will be. That is sainthood for today. This is our calling in our baptism. This is our duty and our joy. My next question: What might it look like if all of us here at St. James Lutheran Church began to live right now like the saints we will be in the future?A StorySome of you will remember a story I shared at a midweek Lenten service about a monetary that has fallen on hard times. I don't like to repeat stories if I can avoid it, but this story so perfectly illustrates the lesson that I think we can bear hearing it again. I found this story from a book by M. Scott Peck entitled The Different Drum. The story is called, The Rabbi's Gift.Once a great monastic order, as a result of waves of anti-monastic persecution in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the rise of secularism in the nineteenth has fallen on hard times. All its branch houses were lost and it had become decimated to the extent that there were only five monks left in the decaying mother house: the abbot and four others were all in the late stages of life. Clearly it was a dying order.In the deep woods surrounding the monastery there was a little hut that a rabbi from a nearby town occasionally used for a hermitage. Through their many years of prayer and contemplation the old monks had become a bit psychic, so they could always sense when the rabbi was in his hermitage. "The rabbi is in the woods, the rabbi is in the woods again " they would whisper to each other. As he agonized over the imminent death of his order, it occurred to the abbot at one such time to visit the hermitage and ask the rabbi if by some possible chance he could offer any advice that might save the monastery.

“The Truth Will Make You Free”Main point: Justification by faith is the sure foundation for the freedom Jesus promised us.INTRODUCTIONThen Jesus said to [those] who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” John 8:31-32I have one question for you this morning: Do you feel free? In the circumstances of your life, do you feel free?Today we celebrate Reformation Sunday. The Reformation in the early part of the 1500s began as a protest to theological and spiritual abuses of the medieval Roman Catholic church. The key figure of the Reformation in our Lutheran tradition is, of course, Martin Luther. Luther had such a deep experience of internal freedom when he uncovered the good news about Jesus Christ that his experience launched a revolution that spread across Europe and beyond.Justification by FaithWhat was that good news that he found? The kernel of the gospel that would sprout into a tree of renewal in the western Church was found while Luther was translating our first reading from Romans. In it he found this phrase: the just will live by faith. “Justification by faith” became the banner for the Reformation. In this word of Good News, Martin Luther and so many others found the freedom Jesus promised.Justification by faith: Technical definition - Though we are not righteous and cannot obey God perfectly, the righteousness and goodness of Christ is applied to us though faith.In simpler terms it basically means this: Because of God’s work in Christ, God is not mad at you. God is not threatening you with damnation. God is not watching your every move in such a way as to catch you doing something you shouldn't do. Sin, that is all the stuff that is contrary to Life, has been taken care of by Jesus.So now, we can live in freedom in this life. Freedom from feeling like God is mad at us. Freedom from hypervigilance about the morality of everything we say and do. Freedom from the threat of burning in hell because we aren't good enough, or we didn't say our prayers the right way, or we didn't do enough good stuff during this life.God’s PromiseIf you are here this morning, and you are afraid that God is mad at you. I say to you, by the promise of God, Jesus has made you clean, God has already forgiven you, and you don't have to worry about whether you are okay with God. When the worm of doubt creeps into your mind and tries to tell you that you aren't good enough, that you are unlovable because of what you have done, that God is against you because you have made God mad,... You can tell that worm of doubt: it was never about me being good enough in the first place. Christ is good enough. And because of Christ's faithfulness to me I am now okay with God. God doesn't love me because I have made myself lovable. God loves me because I am 1) created by God and 2) made lovable by Jesus Christ. Our Starting PointI want to be really clear about this, because this is our starting point. If we think God is out to get us, we are doomed before we begin. If we think God will only love us if we try harder, and perform better, and earn that love by doing good stuff, then we will always be on shaky ground. If we think God is like an over-demanding parent, either mother or father, who we can never please, then we are never going to feel like we can bring our whole self to God. We will always be trying to hide our imperfections. We will always be afraid that God will find out our secrets. We will always wonder when adversity comes into our life if we didn't actually deserve it because of something we did. 

“Pray and Do Not Lose Heart”Main point: God is the perfect judge who hears us when we call out to him.INTRODUCTIONJesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.We live in a time when it may be easy to lose heart…Our elderly are being neglected in long-term care facilities that rely heavily on underfunded medicaid and medicare.Our children, the most helpless and innocent among us, routinely run active-shooter drills in their schools because of the pandemic of disturbed people mixed with instruments of death.Our government is entangled with foreign governments in Ukraine, Iran, and Israel in war-waging with our tax dollars while the death toll in these conflicts climbs higher and higher.If you're in the older generations, perhaps you're wondering what kind of a future you're leaving to your grandchildren and great-grandchildren.The promises of prosperity made to the latest generations of Americans are now in question. The message of “go to college, find a career, work hard and things will be alright” doesn’t ring as trustworthy to more and more people under 40, under 30, under 20.Perhaps the most obvious cause for us to lose heart are the conditions we face every day…Families, churches, and neighbors are divided by layers of political divisions. We’re in deep and it seems to be getting deeper. One writer put it this way: The political divisions in our country could rightly be called a “cold, holy war”. Our culture is dominated by a cold holy war where each side is waging a righteous crusade against the other. We’re dug in. Our righteous cause is rooted in personal identity and fueled by fear…and the more polarized we are, the more pulverized we become.One of my professors last week was commenting that the divisions and chaos we face today are so deeply affecting our young people that sociologists are starting to call it’s impact a generational trauma similar to the war generations and the way COVID will have a generational impact on our collective memory.So we say with the psalmist, “How long, O Lord? Will you forget us forever?”If ever there was a time where we need a lesson to pray always and not lose heart, it is today.Plausible ObjectionYou may be saying to yourself, “Bryce, sheesh, what a downer! I didn’t come to church to hear all about the terrible things I hear from the news all week. I’d rather block that out for a while and sing a couple of songs. Why are you bringing it all up again?”My answer: I’m bringing it up today because 1) we are best when we’re processing our real life in light of our Christian faith and not succumbing to escapism. Jesus meets us in our brokenness from the inside out more often than he plucks us out of our circumstances.2) the test itself brings it up. The text describes our condition. Our backs are up against the wall. God knows it. And God speaks to us here. Now. and today.3) and perhaps most important of all - our text has good news for us when our backs are up against the wall. God doesn’t leave us alone to squirm. God is a perfect Judge. And this is good news.

IntroductionWhen we come to church we hear the familiar message of forgiveness of sins and the gift of salvation through Christ so we don’t have to earn merit with God. But is that the end or is it just the beginning?Our gospel tells the story of 10 people with a skin disease. To understand the story, it is important to understand a bit about the way diseases were handled in the world or Jesus’ day. I’m pretty sure they didn’t have microscopes or understand the differences between bacteria and viruses. Though they probably didn’t have ways to identify the specifics of microbiology, they did understand contagion. They did understand that diseases spread from person to person and if you are around a person who has an ailment, you are likely to pick it up yourself.People with skin diseases in Jesus’ day were called “unclean”. This wasn’t a moral category. Unclean didn’t necessarily mean you did something bad or sinful, it just meant you couldn’t be around people because they might attract the uncleanness from you.The Torah said in the book of Numbers 5:2 “Command the Israelites to send away from the camp anyone who has a defiling skin disease or a discharge of any kind, or who is ceremonially unclean because of a dead body. Then to be reinstated in the camp, one had to show themselves to the priests who would verify that they were no longer unclean.Who are the unclean today?It’s like when we went through the Covid pandemic. People who attracted the virus I imagine it was like the fear and uncertainty of the HIV AIDS pandemic in the 80s and 90s. Before much was understood about the transmission of HIV AIDS, people with the disease were treated as outcasts in society. My own story of people with mental health conditionsSeems like most nonprofits connected to social causes had their benefactors, but not mental health. Mental health wasn’t cute. Mental health wasn’t sexy. Mental health wasn’t…It was sometimes coupled with substance abuse and homelessness.Or text comes to us in two parts.Part 1: The Group of 10In part one: Jesus crosses into a border territory and addresses a group of people who are cast off from society. Jesus meets people in need who are on the margins of society. They ask for Jesus' help. And what does Jesus do? He tells them to go and show themselves to the priests. And as they go they are healed from their diseases. All 10 obey Jesus. And all 10 are healed.Notice, Jesus didn't heal them all at once. He certainly could have. There were many other times when someone touched Jesus or Jesus spoke the words of healing and the person was healed on the spot. Not this time. This time Jesus didn't even say they would be healed. He just told them to do the things they would need to do if they were healed. Can you imagine? You're in this place removed from society. You've been sick for a long time. You call out for help from someone who can help you, perhaps the only one in all the world who can help you. You aren't even clean yet, and Jesus tells you to go show yourself to the priests. I imagine they liked at each other with puzzles expressions…“Umm, I guess we can do that Jesus. I mean, if you say so.”They may have taken their first few steps with puzzled expressions on their faces and confusion in their minds. What's going to happen if they get to the priests and they're just as unclean as they are right now?The reason I draw it out is this: The 10 did not know what the outcome would be before they set off to present themselves to the priests. But Jesus said go. And they went. And the scriptures say: as they went, they were made clean. I can only imagine the joy in their hearts that replaced the apprehension and confusion, as step-by-step they noticed their disease was disappearing and their skin was healed. Not all at once. But progressively. As they put one foot in front of the other in obedience and faithfulness to the command of Jesus, they were made clean.

"Faithfulness into Faith”Main point: In trucking times, God gives us opportunities to increase our faithfulness.SERMONToday's gospel meets us right where we need to be met. Today. Faith and the duty of a slave. But what do they have in common?Lord increase our faith. When times get hard.When the world is chaotic and the problems seem too big to solve.When circumstances in our lives don't make sense. Lord increase our faith.When we are called to be our best selves in situations when we would prefer to complain.When the cross we are asked to bear is harder than what we think we can stand.When  there is strife in my family system and my patience wears thin.Lord increase our faith.Such was the response of the disciples when they asked, “How many times should I forgive someone who offends me?” 70x7 was Jesus' reply. “Lord, that is too much for us. Increase our faith.” When compassion is what we need to bring but we'd rather bring spite.When forgiveness is called for but we want to stay bitter.When compromise is what we need to bring but we want to stick to our “right opinions.”Lord increase our faith.Every day we face our lack. Every day we come to the end of what we can do. And our prayerful refrain remains the same. Lord increase our faith.But how? How does God increase our faith? (Transition)There is a scene in the movie Evan Almighty when the character played by Lauren Grahm is sitting in a diner and meets the character played by Morgan Freeman. She's confused because she's unsure of what she should do in the circumstances she is in.Morgan Freeman’s character shares some wisdom that's worth repeating. He says ..If someone prayed to be more patient does God give a dose of patience or does God give them opportunities to be patient?If someone prayed for courage, does God give a dose of courage or does God give opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for their family to be closer together, does God zap them with warm fuzzy feelings or does he give them the opportunity to show love for each other?As it applies to our gospel today,When we pray for faith, does God zap us with more faith or does God gives us opportunities to be faithful?This is the very teaching Jesus gives to his disciples when they ask for more faith. You see, the amount of faith is not the issue. Jesus makes that clear. He says, the smallest amount of faith, like the size of a tiny seed, can bring about extraordinary wonders, such as commanding a mulberry bush to be uprooted and planted in the sea.No, it's not the amount of faith, it's faithfulness, and he gives the example of a slave doing their duty. Through faithfulness to God by doing one's duty, the life of faith enters into our experience. A slave surrenders all regard for their own thoughts, their own desires, their own will to that of their master.

“Lazarus and the Rich Man”Main point: Save yourself from hell. Love your neighbor.BLESSING THE CHILDRENSERMONFor the time being, I'm going to put the issue of hell and eternal torment on the back burner. If this is something you have questions about, I suggest a book for you by C.S. Lewis entitled, The Great Divorce. Or you can chat me up at another time.Instead, our story references the premacy of Moses and the prophets, so I would like to begin with the closing remarks from the last of the books of Moses - the book of Deuteronomy. This reading, in many ways, is a summation of the Torah (the Law) and the invitation God gives to all people to live a righteous life. This theme is carried throughout the rest of the Bible and is present in this parable told by Jesus. Let's see if we can make the link together.Deuteronomy 30:11ff11 Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. 14 No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.15 See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. 16 For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase..17 But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, 18 I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed.There is a path that leads to life and there is a path that leads to death. We are invited to participate in the path of life, or in the path unto death. The rich man, blinded by his wealth and love for extravagance, ignored his neighbor Lazarus and chose through the course of his life to ignore the path of life. By choosing his blessing in the life he lived on earth, he forsook his blessing in the hereafter.Lazarus, on the other hand, lived a life in abject poverty. Because of his circumstances in this life, he was rewarded with an abundant life in the hereafter.Earlier in Luke's gospel he gives a list of Beatitudes from Jesus' Sermon on the Plain.Luke 6:20ffLooking at his disciples, he said:“Blessed are you who are poor,    for yours is the kingdom of God. (Sounds a lot like Lasarus)21 Blessed are you who hunger now,    for you will be satisfied. (Sounds a lot like Lasarus)Blessed are you who weep now,    for you will laugh. (Sounds a lot like Lasarus)22 Blessed are you when people hate you,    when they exclude you and insult you    and reject your name as evil,        because of the Son of Man.23 “Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets. (Sounds a lot like Lasarus)24 “But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. (Sounds a lot like the rich man)25 Woe to you who are well fed now,  for you will go hungry. (Sounds a lot like the rich man)Woe to you who laugh now,  for you will mourn and weep.26 Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets. (Sounds a lot like the rich man)

“The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good”Main point: We can get messy in freedom as we are moved by God’s Spirit to act for redemption in the world.SERMONHold on, what?  Did I read that correctly? After mismanaging his money and nearly getting fired, did the master really just commend the manager for losing more money?We just sang to Jesus in our acclimation, “you have the words of eternal life,” and this is what we get? I'm more confused than I've ever been after reading a gospel text.Our GospelMany times when we read the parables of Jesus, we can pick up on the point Jesus is making. There’s usually a person who does the right things, and, by comparison, there are some examples of people who are doing the wrong thing. For example in the parable of the Good Samaritan, there were two people who passed by the person who was mugged and robbed. They were not loving their neighbor. Then the Samaritan walked by the beaten man and took care of him. He did the loving thing toward his neighbor. Clear and direct.Reading this parable today, we are faced with questions because what we expect to find - a clear moral or ethical character - isn’t so clear. It’s mixed.I'd you're wondering what to make is this story, you aren't alone. One commentator on this text called it the most difficult text to interpret in all of the gospels. Who is doing right and who is doing wrong in this situation?Is the Master behaving rightly when he attempts to fire the Manager and then at the end commends the actions of the slanted Manager? Can the Master be right? Is what the Manager did, worthy of commendation?Is the Manager behaving rightly when he settles the debts with the borrowers to save his own hide? He’s commended by the Master as doing a good thing, but since that good thing is done from self-preservation, that might not sit well with us who value both the action and the heart from which the action springs forth. The story teller calls him “slanted” but you could also say “twisted” or “crooked”. This reminds us that perfect justice very well may be a straight line, but all of us are a little slanted, twisted, or crooked.I think this parable presents a less-than-clear situation: What do we do when faced with ethical decisions in less than ideal conditions? What is our responsibility to God (as it is presented in this story)?

Gospel: John 3:13-17After explaining to Nicodemus that one must be born of water and Spirit, Jesus speaks of being lifted up on the cross, with reference to the bronze serpent lifted up by Moses in the desert. Here the Son of God is revealed as the source of healing.[Jesus said:] 13 “No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.  16 “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.  17 “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.”

St. Luke 14:25-3325 Now large crowds were traveling with [Jesus], and he turned and said to them, 26 “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. 28 For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, 30 saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he cannot, then while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. 33 So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all yourpossessions.”

Luke 14:1, 7-14

Year C, Proper 16

“Where are my people at”Main point: Jesus' message divides the unrighteous and the righteous.BLESSING THE CHILDRENELW 798SERMONIntroductionIn our First reading from the Prophet Jeremiah we heard, “Is not my word like fire, says the lord, and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?”In our Gospel we hear that word speak, "I have come to cast fire upon the earth, Jesus says, and how I wish it were already ablaze!”When Jesus brings the fire, he calls people to righteousness. When righteousness is in conflict with the systems of our world, Jesus's message will divide, not unify. (Repeat)Make no mistake, God stoops down low and comes to us to meet us in our need. The Good Shepherd leaves the 99 sheep to find the one lost sheep. Over and over again God comes to us with a steady and reliable invitation to join Jesus in the work of turning our world into the place God always intended it to be. (Pause) But the invitation is never an invitation to stay exactly the way we are and to leave the world exactly the way we find it. The invitation is to join God in transforming the world so that all of creation may become what God intended it to be - holy, righteous, and in perfect unity with the Father where only goodness exists. When Jesus brings the fire, he calls people to righteousness. When righteousness is in conflict with the systems of our world, Jesus's message will divide, not unify.The PeopleThe people in Jesus’ day expected a time when God would come close to his people. The signs are there. Jesus is standing in front of them. God has come near to set the world right - and the people were missing it.The people with Jesus that day were hypocrites - just as he called them. They were actors, pretenders, posers, and worse. They said they wanted God’s blessing, but they couldn’t see God when he was standing right in front of them.Two Examples of UnfaithfulnessThey are just like the prophets we read about in Jeremiah. The prophets had one job! - speak the words of God in truthfulness and faithfulness. Instead, they made up dreams and said they heard from the Lord. They said they were speaking for the Lord, but they were liars. And now they are being held accountable for their wickedness.(Jeremiah 23:26)How long, O Lord? Will those who speak for the Lord ever return to him? The people in Jesus’ day were just like the “small-g” gods, we read about in our Psalm, who were judged by the Most High in the Divine Council. Before the flood of Noah, the gods were given territories on the earth and charged with the task to administer justice for the weak and the orphan; service to the lowly and destitute; protection for the needy; and shelter for the vulnerable. But they rebelled against the Most High and abdicated their responsibilities. They demanded worship and penance from the people they were charged to serve. And now they are being held accountable for their wickedness.(Psalm 82:8)Arise, O God, and judge the earth! For you shall take all nations for your own. In the same vein, Jesus is saying, “I have come to transform the world and you say you want what I want, but your actions speak louder than your words. You are just like the prophets who lied and the gods who neglected the orphans and widows.

“The Gift of the Kingdom”Main point: Jesus presents the kingdom to us as a gift. We receive the gift in the two ways he presents.BLESSING THE CHILDRENSERMONIntroductionMy friends, do you ever feel like your salvation is a long way off? Do you ever feel like you keep trying to do this Christian thing, but something just doesn't seem to match up for you? Do you ever feel like your timing is off with God - you’re on then God is not, then God is on and you are not? Do you ever feel like you just can't figure out what you're supposed to do? Or maybe worse…Do you ever feel like God is playing an “I gotcha” game with you? Like maybe God is just waiting for you to mess up so he can smack you down? Or like maybe God is dangling a carrot in front of you just to pull it away at the last second so he can keep egging you on?Do you ever feel like God is making you pay for your past sins and you never can get out of the hole?There's a bumper sticker meme, you might have seen it, that shows a picture of Jesus peeking out from around a corner. The caption simply reads, [pause] “I saw that!”It's intended to be humorous, but jokes are only funny because they use humor to reveal the truth about what we’re really thinking.If you could identify with one of these probing questions, I have good news for you this morning:God has brought salvation near to you today. God doesn’t play “I gotcha” games.God doesn’t dangle a carrot in front of you just to pull it away at the last second.Children of the heavenly father are not left guessing about our Father’s intentions.Hear the words from Jesus this morning…"Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.Like we said a couple of weeks ago, God is a Good Father. We heard the question in the text, “What Father, when his child asks for an egg, would give them a scorpion?” From the mouth of Jesus we heard again, that just like a Good Father - God gives good gifts to his children.Every good and perfect gift comes from above, from the Father of Lights in whom there is no variation or shifting shadows. (James 1:17)Today we see the Good Father again. But this time, along with the good gifts, we see the good intentions of the Good Father. “It is your  Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.God does not give begrudgingly. God does not keep you guessing.It is the Father’s good pleasure to give you… what is it? The kingdom. -  …where God is closer to us than we are to ourselves. …where God’s perfect intentions are known and believed.…where our conduct and our being is in perfect harmony with him.And to that end, Jesus gives us two exhortations to align ourselves more fully with God’s perfect reign in our lives and in our world. They are not easy, but they are two of the many guiding words Jesus gives to us so that we may receive the kingdom.Store up treasure in heavenFirst, it says, store up treasure in heaven.

“The Path of Life”Main point: Greed leads to death. Jesus provides an alternative. Generosity leads to life.BLESSING THE CHILDRENSERMONIntroductionMost people when given the choice between life and death will choose life without a moment's hesitation. It's an instinct. We are survivors. We strive to live. These are the terms in today's gospel reading on greed. A path of life and a path of death. The teachings of Jesus are a path of life that we cannot find anywhere else.I hope it is no surprise to you to learn that these teachings differ from other ways or lives are informed. The ways of conventional wisdom, cultural norms, and common sense are not the same as the life-giving words of Jesus.  For example…When someone makes you mad, conventional wisdom may tell you to cut that person out of your life. But Jesus tells us to go to that person, and do your best to work it out with them. When someone disagrees with you, common sense might tell you to leave that topic of disagreement alone for fear of rocking the boat. But Jesus tells us to be humble and listen to those who disagree with us because they might share wisdom with us that we would miss otherwise.When a rough-around-the-edges kid on your youth sports team pushes your buttons one too many times, cultural norms might tell you to cut the kid from the team and be done with them. But Jesus tells us to go the extra mile and give second chances because the second chance you give to that kid might be the last lifeline they have left.You see, there are a whole lot of situations in life, when conventional wisdom leads us to a more impoverished existence. And though the path of Jesus is often in conflict with what the world teaches us - Jesus’ teachings lead us to abundant life. This is salvation.We need to be informed by Jesus. And we have just such an opportunity today.ContextToday we find Jesus confronted with a situation in which he is asked to make a judgement. Following the tradition of Jewish rabbis, he sees a teachable moment and pauses to give a warning. Rabbis often taught about two paths: the path of wisdom that leads to life and the path of foolishness that leads to death.Beware of Greed"Take care!” Jesus says, “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions."Warnings against greed are common in wisdom literature. You probably know the story of..King Midas and the Golden Touch (a story from Greek mythology), The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg (Aesop Fables),Ebenezer Scrooge (A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens)Greed is simply the love of more stuff. It pushes us to keep moving so we can get more - achieve more, accomplish more, obtain more. Greed promises satisfaction when we get to wherever it is we're going. But it's a trick. The goal posts keep moving and we never quite get enough to feel satisfied. So we keep moving.

“The Good Father”Main point: The Good Father gives the gift of the Holy Spirit.BLESSING THE CHILDRENSERMONIntroductionThe disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray. Prayer. Prayer is the habitat of the union we share with God. It is the environment where the life of God joins with the souls of God's children. It is the air we breathe in the spiritual life. It is the cup which holds the water for the thirsty soul. The disciples recognize it as such and ask for a lesson in prayer.Jesus bookends his response with the word “Father.” He begins with, “Father, may your name be revered as holy,” and ends with, “If you then, being 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!"Today's lesson is instruction on prayer, but that prayer is anchored in the nature and character of God. And God is shown to us as a Good Father.Part 1: Who is God to us?By showing God to us as a Good Father, Jesus dispels several ideas about God that are incompatible with being 1) good and 2) a father.God is not an impersonal force that is present in the universe despite what Star Wars tells us (Sorry, Star Wars fans). God is a being.God is not the Great Spirit in the sky despite what Norman Greenbaum tells us. God is father.God is not neutral in his activity as one who tries to stay above the fray. God gets involved and God is good.Just like a Good FatherJust like a Good Father - God gives good gifts to his children. Every good and perfect gift comes from above, from the Father of Lights in whom there is no variation or shifting shadows. James 1:17Just like a Good Father - (this one may be a little more difficult to swallow) God doesn't abandon us when we get stuck in our sins. (What do I mean by that?) When we are stuck in patterns that lead to us becoming the worst versions of ourselves - God steps in. Sometimes when God steps in it doesn't always feel like flowers, rainbows, and warm feelings. Ex: There are times when my own children are so determined to get their own way - even when it's detrimental to their health and well-being - that I, as their father, have to match their determination with equal strength to save them from themselves.That is why the Scriptures tell us that, Whom the Lord loves he also chastens. Hebrews 12:6If you don't love this idea, I ask you:What kind of a father would see their child languishing in a hell of their own making and not move to correct them? God is so good that when we in our short-sighted weakness would rather walk in patterns of death, God steps in and leads us to patterns of life.We don't always see it as such, and even when we do see it as such we don't always want it. Sometimes maturing out of our childhood ways feels unpleasant. Sometimes it feels harder rather than easier. Sometimes it feels harsh rather than gentle. But if we begin to believe that every action of God in our lives is done in perfect love with our best interest in mind, we begin to trust that God knows better than we know. A Good Father, at times. saves us from ourselves.

“The One Thing”Main point: In worship and adoration, we are doing the one thing that matters most.BLESSING THE CHILDRENSERMONIntroductionMary and Martha host Jesus. This is a familiar story to many, but, perhaps because of its familiarity, it has been misapplied in some Christian circles and has led to some low-level distress for the Marthas in the room.I pray you find some relief this morning. Because…This story is not a lesson to turn those who are more naturally inclined to stay busy into second class citizens. The world needs Marthas. We need Marthas here at St. James Lutheran Church. Jesus knows the world needs Marthas … and it doesn’t seem consistent with his character to shame someone for doing good things in service to him.This story is also not intended to be an example of how right Mary was and how wrong Martha was. I actually had two friends in New Jersey who knew this story and acted it out in their friendship with surprising precision. One identified with Martha. The other identified with Mary.There was always a mild resentment in the friend who more closely identified with Martha against the friends who identified with Mary. And there was also a slight air of superiority in the friend who identified with Mary over the friend who identified with Martha. They knew the story and both of them took it to heart that the one who was more naturally attentive to people was just a little more spiritual than the one who was more naturally busy and attentive to tasks. “Well, I’m just a hopeless Martha” one would say with resignation. “Well, I can’t help it that I’m a Mary” the other would say with secret pride. And so it became a feature of their relationship based on a misinterpretation of the story.No, these readings miss the point.You see, the stories in the Bible were not given to communicate flat, historical information to record events that happened thousands of years ago. The biblical writers were careful about what and how they told the stories of Jesus. They were composing a spiritual symphony, not reciting historical data.Luke, the author of our gospel, organized and arranged these excerpts from the life of Jesus with great care and precision to communicate layers of spiritual truths. These layers are present to guide believers into deeper ways of knowing God.We will see in our text today an example of these layers of meaning. I invite you to embrace these layers, not as extrapolation or subjective interpretation, but has the main reason why these texts were organized and given to us. I'll present some of that symbolic layer through the use of two quotes from our text. One from Martha and the other from Jesus.BodyPoint 1: "Lord, do you not care…”Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself?How many prayers in our lifetime began with these words? Lord, do you not care that my health is failing? Lord, do you not care that my child is being bullied at school? Lord, do you not care that children are starving in Sudan?Lord, do you not care that I lost my job? Lord, do you not care that my spouse ignores me? Lord, do you not care that the country is heading down a path to ruin?Lord, do you not see that I'm trying so hard to be a better person? Lord, do you not care that…(fill in the blank.)I venture to say that all of us, if we were honest with ourselves, would have plenty to say about our own situations. Lord, do you not care?When we face the chaos and disorder in the world, our instinct often resembles Martha’s activity. Do more. Work harder. These are not bad impulses, but action coupled with frustration tends to sour or disposition.

“Is not too hard for you, nor is it too far away.”Main point: The Spirit leads us to eternal life through obedience to these commandments.BLESSING THE CHILDRENSERMON“This commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you, nor is it too far away.” Deuteronomy 30:11The story of the Good Samaritan. One of the most famous teachings from Jesus visits us this morning and invites us to ask two questions.First, what must one do to inherit eternal life?Second, who is my neighbor?Question 1: What must I do to inherit eternal life?Our gospel begins with a question from a concerned Jewish lawyer. Presumably this man was smart. Presumably he was educated. Presumably he had played this question over in his mind many times before. It is a question you may have asked yourself before: what must I do to inherit eternal life? This question reveals a deeper question which, when we’re still enough to let it come to the surface, is equally profound. It is, am I OK? God sees all I do. I know I make mistakes. I know I am flawed. Sometimes, I do what I know isn’t the good thing - the healthy thing - the thing that leads to life. I know me. And I know it doesn’t add up to enough. So what does God think? Am I going to be OK when we get to the end?I know God sees me too. Take a crack at that first question on your own. What answer would you come up with if you were asked point blank: What must one do to inherit eternal life?Maybe you would say… Well, there’s nothing someone can do to inherit eternal life. It’s not about what I do; it’s about what Jesus has done.Or, you might say, believe and be baptized. I know that’s in the Scriptures somewhere. We talk an awful lot about believing and baptism and faith at church. Surely, that’s a part of the equation.Lutherans are quick to say both of these things. As we should.I must be straight with you, the answer from Jesus does not sound very Lutheran - or even very Protestant in general. His answer is simple enough. It's plain enough. It comes straight from the heart of the tradition he is in and the tradition we Lutherans claim. And might I remind you, the answer comes from the mouth of Jesus. He doesn't say, be baptized. He doesn't say believe in me. He doesn't say there's nothing you can do to inherit eternal life. We here this morning may expect a Lutheran answer, but the answer Jesus gives us is the answer I give to you this morning. Love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself. Do this and you will have eternal life. In your answer to the question of eternal life, I pray you leave room for the answer Jesus gives. 

“A Picture of Liberation”Main point: BLESSING THE CHILDRENTEXTLuke 10:1-11, 16-20After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go.He said to them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go on your way; I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves.Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals, and greet no one on the road.Whatever house you enter, first say, 'Peace to this house!' And if a person of peace is there, your peace will rest on that person, but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house.Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, 'The kingdom of God has come near to you.'But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, 'Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.'"Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me."The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, "Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!"He said to them, "I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. Indeed, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will hurt you.Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”SERMONTo start this morning, I invite you to recall a time when you saw a painting or an image of some sort that caught your attention. It could be a beautiful piece of art hanging in the Philadelphia Museum of Art or the Met in New York, or above your couch in your living room. This is a short film that captures your attention, makes you grateful, and impacts your soul.(I remember my first visit to the Philadelphia art museum when I was about 22 years old…)There are times when we encounter a passage from Holy Scripture like a beautiful painting. The story creates an image in our minds and we are left to wonder about its meaning. We are left with the impact it makes on us and we are subtly, maybe even imperceptibly, changed. Such is my prayer for us this morning with this scene from Jesus sending out the 72.How We Read the BibleWe often read the Bible with an assumption that we are supposed to obey what the Bible says and do what the people in the Bible do. This is not a bad assumption on our part. The Holy Scriptures were given to the Church and its people to be known, followed, and obeyed. Christians from every century have deeply valued the Scriptures and committed themselves to being shaped by these holy writings. Read the Scriptures yourselves. Read them daily. Study them and know them. Go to Bible studies where you can study them together. When a Bible study isn't served up for you, start your own. Bible study resources are not lacking in our time and place. Use them!However, there is - what I’ll call - a live wire present in evangelical Christianity in our day which assumes each individual person's ability to interpret and apply the Scriptures is THEE place where we hear God's voice and guidance for our lives. I have not witnessed that spirit here at St James, but it is alive and well in our culture.  We must be discerning about this way of reading the Scriptures. Read and know the Scriptures - yes. But none of us should assume that we, on our own, are responsible to interpret and apply the Scriptures to hear God’s voice and guidance for our lives.

“Already, Not Yet”Main point: Saints live in the “already” reality of the kingdom of God is greater than the “not yet.”BLESSING THE CHILDRENSERMONIntroductionLutheran Summer Day CampBefore I get started.. I want to introduce to you a statement that helps us make sense of so much about ourselves and the era we live in as Christians: Already, Not Yet. Keep that in your minds as we consider the lives of Peter and Paul.Peter and Paul were saints and martyrs.Who were Peter and Paul?St. Peter the Apostle was Jesus’ right-hand man. He was a witness to the many miracles of Jesus. He was present at the Transfiguration. When the going got tough he denied Jesus three times, but his relationship to Jesus was restored and he became a pillar in the early church in Jerusalem. He was known as the Apostle to the Jewish people. He died a martyr’s death. He was crucified in Rome under the Roman Emperor Nero.St. Paul the Apostle was not originally a follower of Jesus. He persecuted the church and was even responsible for the death of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr. He traveled all over Asia Minor in his three missionary journeys to spread the message of Jesus. He was also killed by the Roman Emperor Nero. Some accounts tell us Peter and Paul were martyred at the same time - one by crucifixion and the other by beheading - during the Christian Persecution by the Emperor Nero following the Great Fire of Rome in A.D. 64.Two Great QuestionsThis leads us to two great questions that arise on these days when we commemorate saints and martyrs. The first question is regarding saints. Q1: What is up with saints? What are they and why would we try to remember them?Saint Definition: holy one(s) We understand this in two senses.In one sense, we all are saints because we have been called out by God to be God’s holy ones. “Already.” Romans 1:7 To all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.The Apostle Paul, 2 Corinthians 1:22 set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.We are also building toward the full measure of what we have been called to be as God’s perfect holy ones. We are “not yet” what we will be.Philippians 3:13  Brothers and sisters, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal, toward the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.MartyrThe second question is regarding martyrdom. Q2: What would grip a person so strongly that they would die for their faith? Didn’t Jesus already die for us? What good does the death of a saint do? Wouldn’t it be better if they kept on living to do the good things they were doing while they were alive? Why would they give their lives for their faith?Already, Not YetI would like to introduce to you a phrase that helps us make sense of these questions about sainthood and martyrdom. Already, not yet.We live in an era when God’s work in the world is “already fully present in you and in me, not yet perfected for what it will be.” Saints (like Peter and Paul) live in the full reality of God’s presence and work in the world here and now. They live so fully in the already aspect of God’s presence and activity in the world that the “not yet” aspect is pushed out of their minds entirely. Saints are able to see these things from God. We call that vision faith.We can grow in that faith - to see what the saints see.

“Jesus Enters the Scene”Main point: Jesus has power over the evil forces of our world and is at work driving them out.BLESSING THE CHILDRENSERMONIntroductionThere is a story of the young monk who came to his Spiritual Father, the Abbot of the Abbey, with a question…“Master, yesterday I was in the village and I saw a girl who was hungry. I was moved with compassion and gave her my lunch. We speak of the holy angels who lead us to do good deeds for others. We also speak of the Holy Spirit who lives in us to show compassion. Help me, Abbot, was it the angels or the holy Spirit who led me to do these things?”The Abbot replied: “Was the deed you did good?”The young monk replied: “Yes, as much as I can tell.”The Abbot answered: “Then you have your answer. Go and do more of the same.”In our gospel story today we encounter a man plagued by demons. They are destroying him. His body is cut. He is ostracized from society. He lives among the dead - the tombs and catacombs of the city. He is shackled and bound, but chains cannot subdue him. This was not a new condition for this man. Long before Jesus showed up he was subjected to the demons’ torments. It was likely he placed himself in cooperation with the demonic forces at the direction of the people in his town - and now these forces control him. The pattern has been habituated over such a long period of time that the people in the town and in the surrounding area have come to expect what this man has become. Stark, raving, mad. A menace. A terror. A boogyman of the worst degree.Just like every person who is overtaken by demons, he is being destroyed.(Long pause)Jesus enters the scene. Jesus enters the scene..and things begin to change.In a demonstration of divine order Jesus enters the scene and commands the mayhem and the chaos and the confusionand the destruction…to be sent back to where it came from.Because that’s all the demons can do. Where disorder, destruction, and chaos reign, there is the work of the unholy angels. But their activity only goes so far. Until the one whom they must obey comes on the scene…Until the one who has authority speaks and says, “What is your name?”Until the one who created all things seen and all things unseen shows up and orders those chaos dealers to be gone. Expanding the TerritoryIt says that Jesus was in the area of Gerasenes. This was a territory outside of Galilee where Jesus was spending most of his time up to this point. When Luke tells us they were in the area of Gerasenes, he’s saying to the reader that Jesus and his band of merry men are not in a Jewish-typical area. Worship of Yahweh is not the norm in Gerasenes. By going to this place, Jesus is expanding the boundaries of his ministry to include the non-Jewish nations. This message of freedom from the evil forces of this world is for all people in all places! Jesus enters the scene..and things begin to change. The boundaries of God’s reign are expanding.Jesus asks the demon’s name. You’ll also notice that Jesus asks the demon its name and addresses it specifically. Have you ever had a problem in your life and you struggled and struggled not knowing why you were struggling so badly? But then you discovered the source of your struggle and this new insight changed the way you engaged. Your struggle now had a name. No longer were you struggling in general. You were now fighting something in particular.

“Trinity is Reality”Main point: BLESSING THE CHILDRENSERMONA special greeting to all of the Fathers and Father figures present with us today. May all of your golfballs fly straight; may all of your neck ties stay in fashion for at least as long as it takes you to dribble food on them at your next formal dinner; and may your nap this afternoon be interrupted only by the noise of your children arguing in the hall outside your bedroom door.IntroductionI would like to explore with you this theme of Trinity on this Great Feast Day. Let’s begin this way…Around the year A.D. 418, St. Patrick was assigned to be a missionary to the people of Ireland. He used language and symbols familiar to the people of Ireland to explain the Christian message. Perhaps most famous among those symbols was the use of the shamrock to demonstrate how God is both three and one. God is three like the three leaves of the shamrock. God is also one like the stem of the shamrock. The three is the one; and the one is the three.In generations since, many others have tried to use other symbols to explain how the three are also one and the one is the three. Water was the main illustration that was used when I was a child. I still remember being a small child in my Sunday School class and the teacher bringing in a boiling pot with steam rising out of it, a glass pitcher of plain tap water, and a tray of ice cubes to demonstrate that God was three similar to the way water can be a solid, liquid, and gas. But God was also one because each of them is still water. Last night a person at our Saturday service reminded me of another illustration that I had forgotten: an apple. An apple has the white flesh, a peel, and a core. Three parts that are all apple, but the three fit together to make one apple.These illustrations each have their value to make a picture of the way God has revealed Godself through history. Always three. Always one. Always in unity; always in harmony. Three persons limitlessly bonded together in perfect unity to such a degree that there is no distinction between them. They are one person: Father, Son, Spirit.ComplicatedThis dynamic puzzle - 3 is 1 is 3 is 1 - has broken the mind of countless generations of people since the dawn of time.Before the first humans, God was there in Trinity and Unity.Before the first atoms, God was there in Trinity and Unity.Before there was light or energy or any other thing, God was there in Trinity and Unity.This puzzle has broken many minds - as it should. God is infinite and we are finite. God is very, very big and we are very, very small. As our Psalm tells us this morning:O LORD, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are humans that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?Our minds cannot grasp limitlessness. Our minds cannot grasp infinity. God true essence cannot even be known. God is too big. God is beyond us.And yet, God shows us a glimpse of himself. What we are shown is 3 but also 1 but also 3 but also 1. Which leads me to my first point:When we start by contemplating God who is infinite and limitless, we realize…Trinity is actually the simplest way God could reveal God-self to us, not the most complex. Yes, it breaks out minds, but, remember, we are glimpsing eternity.Some would say this idea of Trinity is ridiculous because there’s no way 3 can be 1 can be 3 can be 1. But when we understand we are glimpsing limitlessness, we stop asking, how is God who is one also three? And we begin asking, why did God who is infinite stop at 3?Trinity is the simplest way God could reveal God-self to us, not the most complex.