Author: MASadmin

My sermon from the Fourth Sunday of Advent (December 21, 2025) on Matthew 1:18-25.

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We might currently be knee deep in shopping, wrapping presents, hanging lights, and feeling as if Christmas is already here. But here at the church, we’re still waiting for a Roman Emperor to call a census, for a pregnant teenager to walk her way to Bethlehem, and for angels to let shepherds know what God the new thing God is up to. When we think of a faithful Christmas, the details, drama, colors, and excitement are what we find in the gospel according to Luke. He, very faithfully, elevated the experience of Mary – Jesus’ mother – which wasn’t necessarily a very Biblical thing to do. The Christmas story, though, also comes from another book in our Bible. The gospel according to Matthew focused mostly on depicting what happened after Jesus was born which is why we hear about the visit of the magi, Herod’s incredible thirst for violence, and Jesus then spending his early childhood as a refugee in Egypt. But we do, in Matthew, get to learn about how Joseph needed to figure out what to do about all of this too. Joseph is a bit of an unknown since he’s only present at the beginning of Matthew and Luke before disappearing from Jesus’ story. Over the centuries, our imagination, culture, and art has depicted him as a gentle old soul with the integrity and strength to be the caregiver Jesus needed. But my personal favorite pop culture exploration of who Joseph might have been doesn’t come from a painting or a movie. It is, instead, from a song by power pop indie supergroup known as The New Pornographers.

Now this band’s sound has been described as “peppy, gleeful, headstrong guitar pop” and they’ve been active for almost 30 years. Around the year 2007, they released a 3 song Christmas themed EP called “The Spirit of Giving.” Sandwiched between the title track and the last song “Arms of Mary / Looking at a Baby,” is a 3 minute and 1 second post punk song entitled “Joseph, Who Understood.” What I appreciate most about this song is how it invites us to let Joseph be human. Rather than making him into a stoic figure who simply accepts what happened to him, Joseph has feelings, questions, doubts, and concerns. He didn’t only possess the faith we wish we had; a faith that can easily accept a future we didn’t realize was on its way. Joseph, instead, was a person who needed to do the very human thing of mourning the unrealized tomorrow the angel’s words formed in his heart. He thought he already knew what his future with Mary might be. But then, as the song begins, he’s honest about what this experience was like for him. “Rumors are flying all over Galilee” and while Joseph is trying to stay cool, “when his friends walk by, they can’t even look him in the eye.” Joseph was trying to listen, believe, and trust what his betrothed told him. But he also confessed he’s being asked to believe in way too many things. He wasn’t, I think, trying to shut down Mary or act as if what she said wasn’t true. He was, rather, admitting it sometimes takes time, energy, and work to really be transformed. It would be awesome if a true word, story, or experience another person shared with us would immediately upend whatever false expectations or assumptions we hold. Yet it often takes time to push through our own expectations and our need to be defensive when our soul becomes uncomfortable. What was shared might make us feel incredibly guilty about what we’ve done in the past or we might realize we’re maybe not as good as we thought we were. It’s not always easy to accept how our intent matters way less than the actual impact our actions and words actually have. And while we might assume a word from an angel would immediately change us, it can sometimes take a bit more time for the Word to finally break through. Joseph, then, in the very next verse of the song, named this truth out loud. He already heard how this child was sent to heal our broken time and there are some things way bigger than what we know. Joseph even throws in a little joke, declaring “when somehow you find out that you are stepfather to a God – well, Mary, that’s life.” And yet at the heart of his emotions, feelings, and experience is a phrase he then repeats over and over again. Joseph sings outloud: Oh, Mary, is he mine?

And that question is, I think, our question too. When we take seriously the entirety of Jesus’ story and of God’s activity in our world and in our lives, do we really trust Jesus is ours? I’m not trying to make faith into a choice we do on our own. Rather, when we take the fullness of ourselves seriously, do we believe – with all our doubts, questions, sin, and ways we get in the way of noticing what God is up to – can we really lean into the God-who-is-with-us. There might be folks who from the tips of their toes to the top of their heads can hold tight to who they know God to be. But I’ll admit that even I, a professional religious person and pastor, struggles with this too. When I think about all the stories, in the words of historian Kate Bowler, that shouldn’t be told – such as the story of a child who doesn’t get to grow up; the story of parents left to piece together a future they never asked for; the story of a world that doesn’t quite know how to sit with suffering; and the story of everyone carrying something heavy today – such as a diagnosis, a goodbye, or a future that no longer exists – the most faithful thing you and I can do is wonder if Jesus really is ours. And instead of rushing through the discomfort to seek the assurance that ignores the life we live, we’re invited to let Joseph’s story be our story too. We can let the space between the periods and the start of each sentence in Matthew be full of every fear, doubt, and worry. Rather than putting our trust in how strong our faith feels, we can admit it’s only God who saves. And while we want our experience of faith to withstand whatever might come, even Joseph and Mary were full of questions and doubts too. If the ones who raised Jesus needed to be given the faith to help them care for the One who would go to the Cross for us and for the world, it’s okay for you to trust God will give you that same kind of faith too. As we live and listen and love and serve, as we wonder and question and worry and hope, as we live the life God has given us to show ourselves and others what God’s love will always do, it’s often in the most surprising moments when our questions suddenly change. And then we, like Joseph, will find ourselves unexpectedly moving from “is Jesus mine?” to realizing that since Jesus has made us his own, we get to make Jesus our own too.

Amen.

My sermon from the Third Sunday of Advent (December 14, 2025) on Matthew 11:2-11.

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Now for the last few weeks, I’ve been drawn to the passages from Isaiah our lectionary – the three year cycle of readings we use in worship – has given us. I see within these words a hope our lives and our world often needs. The prophet Isaiah, who lived 700 years before Jesus’ birth, made the word of God come to life in a community that felt like it was turning in on itself as it anxiously watched the Assyrian Empire destroy ten out of the twelve tribes of Israel. The people assumed the hope they needed was in simply finding the right kind of soldiers, technology, wealth, and friends to stop what was just over the horizon. And so in the race to win, they hoarded for themselves whatever they could, turning their backs on the most vulnerable in their community. God, though, refused to let their lack of care and justice be the end of the story and so Isaiah was sent to announce how accountability was on its way. Isaiah’s words lingered long after his ministry and people used those words to process the challenges, struggles, and opportunities they were living through. That’s why, 160 years or so after Isaiah’s death, the Jewish community who had been exiled by another empire – the Babylonians – and realized they might soon return to Jerusalem used Isaiah’s words to speak into their current reality. The words we heard about deserts blooming and a highway being built probably came from this later period. The community used words forged in a time of fear, anxiety, and worry, to find hope when things were hard. The hope they longed for was more than trying to manifest or wishcast a future where everything was okay. What they needed was a word and a promise that could hold them even when they couldn’t even imagine what okay might be. Isaiah, who had no problem pointing out the community’s need to make welcome, mercy, and grace the core of who they were, also knew what this kind of hope might do. It was a hope that could push them into a future they couldn’t see. And it was that kind of John, in our reading today from the gospel according to Matthew, also needed as he waited in prison to hear if Jesus was who he wanted him to be. 

Now as we heard last week, John’s ministry involved dressing in camel hair, eating bugs, and baptizing folks by the River Jordan while embodying the fullness of who God called him to be. John’s words weren’t always the most pastoral and he wasn’t above name calling to get someone’s attention. Folks, however, listened to him and he soon formed his own group of disciples who followed him wherever he went. John in our Bible never identified himself as the Messiah but he hoped the One who would fix everything would soon be on their way. John imagined the Messiah would, in a very real way, upend the relationship we had with our God and with one another. Our lack of kindness, justice, and our unwillingness to be for one another would be replaced by something more. Yet here, not long after we watched Jesus visit John in the wilderness, everything changed. King Herod Antipas, one of King Herod the Great’s children, arrested John and put him in prison. John, it seems, wasn’t afraid of calling out negative behavior by those in power. After being targeted by John’s words and actions for quite awhile, Antipas threw him in jail. Even though the Roman Empire decided who would rule in all the territories they called their own, people would do all they could to gain power and influence. Herod’s family long had a history of using violence, corruption, and inheritance laws around marriages as a way to convince Rome they were the ones who could keep taxes and soldiers freely flowing into the arms of the Empire. Ancient sources tell us that, at some point, Antipas and his brother’s wife Herodias, decided to marry even though they were already married to other people. From what we can tell, their divorces went through even though a woman being the driving force behind her own divorce was seen as very strange. Rumors, though, persisted and many thought their arrangement was unethical, unlawful, and wrong. John was one of those who was very against what Antipas was up to and that quickly got under the skin of those in power. Antipas, I think, was a ruler who cared about what other people thought of him and his power, wealth, and status mattered more than anything else. When he couldn’t quiet John, he thought shutting him in prison might get him to change his tune. Yet while John waited behind bars, visitors told him about how his arrest kicked off the ministry of a man named Jesus. These words probably gave John a sense of hope since it looked like God was on the move. And so he sent his disciples to Jesus to see if he really was the hope John needed him to be. 

And it’s at that moment when something very heartbreaking happened. The disciples found Jesus and he told them to report back everything they saw and heard. From our perspective, it appeared as if Jesus was merely letting his actions do all the talking. But what Jesus told them was very specific since it was the same thing the prophets and Psalms used to describe who the Messiah would be. Their words were very formulaic and those who knew their Bible would have easily recognized what Jesus was saying. The One who John believed would fix everything would make the blind see, allow the deaf hear, help the lame walk, cure those with skin diseases, and set the prisoners free. We can almost imagine John, sitting in prison, checking off each word in the formula while his disciples shared everything Jesus said. But when they got to the end, John would have noticed Jesus said nothing about those in prison being set free. Jesus, in other contexts, talked about setting prisoners free so we know he knew the formula. Yet here, at this particular moment and while talking to someone in prison, Jesus stayed quiet. Both John and Jesus knew the power of what wasn’t said and I imagine it broke Jesus’ heart to not share what John wanted to hear. And while we might want to explore, in detail, why Jesus didn’t say what John assumed he would say, I wonder if – during this season of hope – if it might be more fruitful to just sit with the experience John had. We all, I think, know what it’s like for hope to change. Life has a way of moving forward but that doesn’t always mean everything will get immediately better. The hope we want is a hope that will fix whatever crisis, sorrow, or heart break devouring our souls. Yet the hope we need is, I think, a hope big enough to hold us when going through – rather than getting better – is the only thing we really can do. This kind of hope doesn’t pretend as if life doesn’t happen or imagines our life to merely be some kind of straight line defined by us getting better physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Rather the hope of Isaiah, the hope of John, and the hope embodied by the crucified One is meant to hold us even when our hearts remain unmended. It’s a hope that trusts every part of our story – the good, the bad, those moments when our tomorrow looks bright and those times when there’s no going back to being okay – when all of us are wrapped up in the story God is already writing for you and the world. You, no matter what, belong to God even if we can’t quite see what our immediate tomorrow might be. And while living with that kind of hope is hard, our hope is always connected to the One who – in spite of all kinds of violence, fear, pain, and even death – still lives which means we – today and tomorrow – will live too. 

Amen.

My sermon from the Second Sunday of Advent (December 7, 2025) on Isaiah 11:1-10.

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In front of my house is a plant whose leaves are turning brown. Small spots have shown up on each leaf, devouring all the green it can see. This plant, which is a rhododendron (row·duh·den·druhn), isn’t supposed to be doing this yet this specific plant has browned before. When it first happened, I did a lot of research and talked to a few experts who assured me it was at its end. So one afternoon, I took my garden shears and cut it down, leaving a small stump on the ground. I chose, out of sheer laziness, to leave it there, planning to take care of it once spring rolled around. Yet when that future finally arrived, a green shoot suddenly sprouted. The plant’s tomorrow was, I thought, already decided and life wasn’t on its agenda. It was, however, still growing and it soon bloomed with several bright pink and purple flowers showering others with beauty, grace, and hope. 

Now today’s reading from the book of Isaiah also includes a stump that showed signs of new life. These words, since they come from the first 39 chapters of this book, probably originated with the prophet Isaiah who lived approximately 700 years before Jesus’ birth. During Isaiah’s forty years of ministry, he watched the Assyrian Empire destroy ten out of the twelve tribes of Israel before turning its attention towards Jerusalem. Those in power, at the time, did all they could to survive. They formed alliances with nearby communities, strengthened their fortifications, increased the size of their military, and believed God was completely on their side. Isaiah, though, noticed that in their race to win the game they were playing that mercy, forgiveness, and justice were often in short supply. Those who were struggling to find food, access opportunities, and receive any kind of care were pushed aside and scapegoated as being a drain on the entire community. Rather than being for one another, folks turned on each other, trusting that their power, wealth, and strength would be what would finally save them. The community that saw itself as vibrant and full of life was instead, covered in spots that kept growing and growing. 

And so it was in this context when Isaiah used in his preaching the image of a dried up stump. Whatever energy, vibrancy, and life this plant had was long gone. The stump served as a metaphor for the hope the community had when the son of Jesse, David, was anointed king 300 years before Isaiah was born. Their future, at the time, seemed almost endless and they couldn’t wait to see how everything would turn out. Things, however, did not go according to plan and the community’s faith and calling to care for one another was replaced by violence, suffering, and fear. The people, over and over again, chose to hoard life rather than share it and viewed each other with suspicion rather than sharing their love and support. The future the community built and trusted in would, according to Isaiah, never come. But rather than letting this be the end to its story, God chose to do something different. God wouldn’t merely judge those who failed to embody the mercy at the core of who their God chooses to be. God would keep creating by building the tomorrow we deny to ourselves and others. God will raise up a new royal figure who wouldn’t do what we do by using our power to inflict our will on those around us. Instead, this new king would be the wonderful counselor and prince of peace who builds a future for every person. God’s possibilities are always a kind of  equalizer since the poor, the vulnerable, and the pushed aside will always be worth God’s intervention. And that’s because God imagines a world where the ways we devour one another for comfort and security are replaced by a reality where lions live with baby sheep, leopards hang out with defenseless goats, and children safely play in the home of a poisonous snake. When we let our future stay rooted in fear, selfishness, and a hopelessness that assumes everything depends on us, we end up covered in faithless spots that shape the relationship we have with ourselves, our neighbors, and with our God. 

Now it’s our tradition on the Sunday nearest December 7th to put two red roses on the altar as a way to recognize a couple whose vision for the future gave several communities in Northern New Jersey a different future too. Anna and Dominick Ricci were pillars of this community and whose lives were shaped by their various vocations. Anna worked for a number of years on Wall Street and Dominick was very visible in a variety of roles at the old grocery store known as the A&P. Their lives were very full and when they moved into their later years, I’m told they used their financial gifts to prepare for the future they assumed was on its way. Dominick thought he’d go first and so he made sure to pick a gravesite in a cemetery Anna could easily reach by bus. They both wanted each other to have enough for whatever might come their way. But when Anna passed first, Dominick found himself living in a future he didn’t expect. He could have hunkered down, focused on his immediate needs, and lose himself in what he didn’t have. Dominick, though, chose to use his gifts to help others have their own futures too. He wanted his legacy to allow the communities that mattered to him the opportunity to focus on their mission in the world. And so their ongoing gift is the foundation for our Special Gifts fund which we have used, in a variety of ways, to remove all kinds of spots we see in our world. The congregation has chosen to fund the work of groups responding to disasters, fighting against food insecurity, and those who are making a difference among all the vulnerable parts of God’s creation. The Riccis’ generosity has allowed us to keep this place welcoming and inviting so that community groups, Meals on Wheels, A.A., and the Girl Scouts can focus their energy on care and service. The foundation the Ricci’s gave us has enabled us to weather incredible storms and deepen our relationships with all who call Northern New Jersey home. And while there is tendency to want to anxiously hold tight to this gift whenever we’re worried about what our tomorrow might be, the power of the Ricci’s legacy is how we are always invited to trust that God’s more holy, peaceful, and generous future is already on its way. This doesn’t mean we should ignore our own generosity since recognizing what God gives to each of us shapes our lives and our faith. What we get to do, instead, is to let the future the Ricci’s clinged to be a future we believe in too. And whenever our lives, our community, and our world feels like its a dried stump covered in spots of greed, pride, and hatred devouring whatever hope we have left, we can trust that the God who was willing to be born, live, love, die, and rise is still here – creating a different tomorrow for you and for the world. 

Amen.

My sermon from the First Sunday of Advent (November 30, 2025) on Isaiah 2:1-5.

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In early October at the New York City Comic Con, journalist David Harper asked Hayden Sherman – the current artist of Absolute Wonderwoman and Batman: Dark Patterns – why they loved comics. Hayden responded with – “Easy answer – they’re fun.” He, though, kept going and I’m going to quote his entire response in full. “The longer answer [is] – all different forms of visual storytelling have their inherent excellences – the thing they accomplish that another medium can’t. Film has the joy of a moving image that passes you by, jump scares, all these different things – different tools you get through film. Picture books – … have more limited visuals, a little more text per page, and there’s more of an expansive quality to it [through] the image selection and the choices the illustrator has to make. There’s games where you [get to] interact – [there’s just] all these different ways of having visual stories. Comics are unique because it allows us the breadth to break up a scene. There’s [the kind of] intentionality …you might associate with animation or film but it’s broken down in such a way that you can hold onto individual moments. And so much of the joy of comics is the ability to linger [which] other mediums don’t give you. We do have a pause button so you can pause a show you[‘re] watch[ing] but…. It’s hard to appreciate it [before]… it’s gone. But in a comic you have the artist’s voice and vision trying to find that key moment, the key sequence, the key moments within that sequence and the reader is able to appreciate each [one] of them individually…. There’s this singular relationship with time that comics have that I [Hayden] find enthralling.” Now I realize not everyone here is a giant fan of comic books but I do think we all know what it’s like to linger. When we find ourselves living within a moment of joy and happiness, we do everything we can to linger within it by either focusing all our senses towards it or taking out our phone trying to capture it. There are other times, though, when the lingering we do breaks our hearts because there’s sadness that feels like it will never end. The full impact of lingering is deeply connected to the prayers we offer since we want God to keep us close to the good and transform all other kinds of lingering into something new. Lingering has a habit of letting anxiety, contentment, joy, and worry find a place within our souls. And while we might not know how to move beyond whatever we’re lingering in, today’s reading from the book of Isaiah invites us to notice who is lingering there with us too. 

The book of Isaiah is, I think, a biblical book that knows what it means to linger. Within its pages we witness a community living through incredible highs, devastating lows, and everything in between. The words within Isaiah contain spoken reflections by a prophet who lived more than 700 years before Jesus as well as reflections by a community who used those words to ponder what was happening to them nearly two centuries later. Chapters 1 through 39 of Isaiah are, most likely, linked to a prophet named Isaiah, son of Amoz, who from 742 BCE through 701 BCE watched the Assyrian Empire destroy 10 out of the 12 tribes of Israel and then besiege the city of Jerusalem. Chapters 40-55 were from maybe 150 years later when those who remembered Isaiah’s words while exiled from Jerusalem by the empire who destroyed the Assyrians noticed the Persians were coming from the east. When the Jewish community were allowed by the conquering Persian Empire to return to Jerusalem, the work of rebuilding their life together after their long exilic journey were fleshed out in the final 10 chapters of the book. Isaiah, in its own way, is also a kind of comic book since we’re told at the start of chapter 2 that Isaiah saw a word concerning Judah and Jerusalem. Isaiah the prophet preached during the reign of four different kings in Judah whose lingering with God varied in a variety of ways. The first, Uzziah, was described as strong and prosperous, the template that the later kings tried to copy and return to. Those who followed, however, struggled with both Jotham and Ahaz changing their minds, values, and practices while attempting to “win” at whatever challenge came their way. At the end of Isaiah’s ministry, the king Hezekiah was seen as strong, becoming one of the very few leaders the Bible actually likes. Throughout this period, though, the kingdom struggled since the shadow of the Assyrian Empire covered them. The leaders and the people tried to find their way through the various crises that came their way, placing their trust in whatever army, wealth, or power they could build up. They assumed what would keep them safe was if they, and no one else, could inflict their will on others. The key sequence, in their eyes, to being good, faithful, and peaceful was by being strong so no one could push them around. Yet when a different voice used words painting a picture challenging their comfort, pride, and point of view, they chose to linger on what they knew rather than with the One who already knew them. 

That’s why, I think, a big chunk of Isaiah feels harsh and judgmental. Its words were meant to hold us accountable for the ways we refuse to seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, and plead for the widow. We choose to linger in the status quo because we’re afraid of what we might lose and others gain if God’s promises really came true. Isaiah, though, does more than bombard us with the messiness of life. He also reveals the promise we get to linger with instead. God does not leave it to us to figure the key sequence and moments for our own salvation. God chooses to show us how there’s so much more we get to linger in. When God sits at the center of who we are, the practice of life is fully changed. The old rules of who has value, who doesn’t, and who is part of what God is doing in the world no longer applies. And while we might imagine we have the power and ability to put God at the center of our lives and our communities, God knows what we try we often turn god into something that looks like us instead. So that’s why God, in Jesus, lingered in the lives we actually live. Jesus isn’t afraid to call us out and hold us accountable while showing how being cared for and loved is something that is truly holy and strong. Jesus refused to let our love of glory, power, and violence make up the entirety of our story. Jesus, like the season of Advent and the book of Isaiah, chooses – instead – to linger. We want, I think, for all our joyful experiences this holiday season to linger deep in our souls. Yet when we find ourselves held by a sorrow, grief, and pain that just doesn’t go away, we’re invited to trust that our future doesn’t only depend on us. Our attempts at making every moment into something momentous by filling it with the sound of jiggling bells forgets the ringing Isaiah heard and saw were the hammers hitting anvils as they turned the weapons we build to defend our way of life into something that nurtures life instead. In baptism and through faith, what we hold onto is the promise that God is for us and for the world. And since our God chooses to linger here, we are also lingering in a holy and eternal tomorrow that is already on its way. 

Amen.

My sermon from Christ the King Sunday (November 23, 2025) on Luke 23:33-43.

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So when I was in high school, my chemistry teacher shared with us a bit of wisdom that became a kind of in-joke for me and my friends. We were, at the time, talking about hydrogen bonding which – if I’m honest – I can no longer fully explain. It’s – I think – what happens when a hydrogen atom sort of inserts itself between another pair of atoms, forming a connection that is a big part of who we get to be in the world. This bond explains why water – which is necessary for life – is sort of strange with its unexpectedly high boiling point as well as having its solid form (aka ice) being less dense than when it’s a liquid. But hydrogen bonding really shines when it comes to the building blocks of life since it allows proteins and DNA to be a certain kind of shape needed for our life to be lived. Hydrogen bonding was something we went over all the time in class and we often struggled seeing it when it showed up. And so my teacher told us whenever we were stuck on a question, the answer was usually going to be hydrogen bonding. This became a kind of mantra for my friends and I for the rest of the school year. If we didn’t have the answer for a question in chemistry or any other class, we’d simply say it’s hydrogen bonding. There’s a bit of comfort, joy, and hope that comes with having some answer whenever we’re faced with a question we can’t solve. And in our reading today from the gospel according to Luke, Jesus gives us a word that gets to be our answer too. 

Now as I said during my children’s sermon, today is the last Sunday of this church’s year and our lectionary – the three year cycle of readings we use in worship – picked this moment on the Cross as the capstone for everything that came before. After arriving in the city of Jerusalem to celebrate the religious festival Passover, those with power did their best to end the story of the One who had become a thorn in their side. Jesus was betrayed, arrested, tried, and sent to be crucified which was a punishment reserved for those who were convicted of undermining Roman control and rule. And while we often act as if the Jesus movement was primarily spiritual, his followers and those around him would disagree. Jesus’ commitment to the poor, the marginalized, and those we see as undeserving – was viewed as a threat to an Empire who believed they would be the ones who ruled the world. They were the ones blessed by the Divine to bond others to their will. The Empire would tolerate religious and ethnic groups arguing amongst themselves about who they wanted to be but if any group acted as if something other than the Empire was on top, they would soon face the full military, political, and economic might of Rome. This context, I think, helps to put into perspective the behavior of those around Jesus on that fateful day 2000 years ago. Everyone assumed – and acted – as if Rome was a winner and being a winner is what we want to too. If Jesus was who he said he was, folks believed he’d overcome Rome the same way Rome overcame everyone else. And if Jesus was letting these outsiders end His story, he couldn’t be as good or as powerful or as holy as others claimed him to be. Some around Jesus appreciated what he said and did but his willingness to empty himself of power to show what God’s love will always do was a step too far for those who knew how fragile life could be. Choosing to be vulnerable when he had the option to be anything but wasn’t something we, in his place, would do. We, instead, would rather be the king, queen and ruler of our own lives rather than admit how life often reminds us of how human we truly are instead. 

And so in the midst of it all, Jesus did something different. He refused to let those trying to end his story change who he was going to be. Even during this very difficult moment, he embodied what a true king should do. Jesus offered mercy and forgiveness to those who sought him harm and listened to the one who was convicted of the same kind of crimes as he was. When one of the criminals asked Jesus to exert his power in very overt and visible ways, the other simply asked Jesus to be remembered when Jesus arrived in a kingdom he assumed was still far away.  And it was at that moment when Jesus responded with a word that was a bit shocking, mysterious, and strange. He told the one who was, like him, suspended between life and death that – today – he would be with Jesus in paradise. And yet we know they weren’t in paradise at that moment and Jesus’ resurrection and ascension were still on their way. Whenever we find ourselves – or our loved ones – suspended between life and death, we want “today” to really be “today. We want this heartbreak to not be the capstone of who we knew them to be. The word “today,” then, becomes our hope, our longing, and our prayer. Yet Jesus throughout the gospel according to Luke proclaimed a today that is much more mysterious, immediate, and powerful. We first notice it way back in chapter 2 when angels announced to shepherds in the hills outside of Bethlehem that a new kind of king had entered into the world. Then, when Jesus grew up and preached his first recorded sermon, he shared that a word from God about good news being delivered to the poor, captives released, and the year of the Lord’s favor was fulfilled today. The community, in response, nearly drove Jesus off a cliff since he also said God’s grace is often given to those we refuse to be graceful too. And later on when Pharisees warned Jesus a king appointed by Rome wished him harm, Jesus promised he would keep bringing good news today even though the Cross was on its way. As his ministry continued, a wealthy tax collector named Zaccheaus went to see Jesus who then told Zaccheaus he would – today – welcome Jesus into his home. And when Jesus got there, Zacchaeus gave away half of what we had and promised to restore to others 4x whatever he had taken from them. Then, the evening before today’s reading, Peter saw Jesus’ words – “before the cock crows today, you will deny me three times” would come true even though Peter promised he would never leave Jesus’ side. The word today throughout Luke was always more than an immediate promise for something coming around the bend. It was, instead, an acknowledgement that Jesus’ presence had already transformed this moment into something brand new. He is – right now – with us – and by being with, that is the capstone to who we will always be. The promises Jesus made to us through baptism and faith is a bond that becomes our answer even when our lives feel suspended by what we have done and what has been done to us. This answer won’t make life easy, peaceful, or completely comfortable but it is the hope that will carry us through every one of our days. And while we will often be tempted by what we think power, money, and strength might give us, Jesus’ mercy and forgiveness will bring you into the next chapter God has written for you. The bond we have in Jesus is a bond that shows what true power looks like in our world. And when we are lost, nervous, worried, and unsure of what’s next, Jesus is the answer for what our life – today and tomorrow – will always be. 

Amen.

My sermon from 23rd Sunday after Pentecost (November 16, 2025) on 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13.

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It’s important, I think, to be mindful of all the different ways we use scripture. For example, there might be a story, a verse, or even a short phrase from God’s word that speaks to our souls. When we’re struggling, it’s a text that provides us a bit of comfort and guidance for whatever comes next. They’re the words we hang onto to know God really is with us in the lives we actually live. Yet, if we’re not careful, we end up pulling this text out of scripture and turning it into a slogan or motivational poster divorced from all the other holy words that surround them. God’s words are meant to be understood in light of where they come from. And so that’s why I regularly invite us to not only find those words that make God real in our lives but to also keep God’s word in God’s word by paying attention to its context and why it was written in the first place. Taking words from scripture and putting them back into the Bible is a helpful way to discern what God wants us to hear. And in our reading today from Paul’s 2nd letter to the Thessalonians, the verse we regularly take out of context – that  “anyone unwilling to work should not eat” is one I believe we should put back in. 

Now the word Thessalonians was the name given to those who called the Macedonian city Thessaloniki their home. And that city was, at the time of Paul, the capital of a Roman province which meant it was full of Roman monuments, soldiers, and temples declaring the Emperor to be a Son of God. When Paul arrived in the late 40s, he could see Mount Olympus – the legendary home of Zeus and other gods – just across the water. It wasn’t the kind of place we’d expect followers of Jesus to thrive since the power that killed him appeared to be completely in control. Yet Paul, over a short period of time, founded a church where people learned how to be for one another even when Paul left to continue on his missionary journey. This, however, wasn’t easy since they were new to a faith that was, itself, brand new. And so when the Thessalonians had a concern, they’d send Paul a letter even though he might have been hundreds of miles away. The concern at the heart of Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians was centered around a deep worry the community had. They, like Paul, assumed Jesus would return immediately to establish God’s kingdom here on earth. Yet, while waiting, life kept happening. Some of their friends, loved ones, and folks within the church had recently died. They were concerned that the ones they had lived the faith with would lose out on joy when Jesus came back. And so Paul, in response, was trying to show them how God’s hold on them – and those who had died – really was forever. 

That context is, I think, important to understand our reading today. Paul was responding to a community who felt small, fragile, and who were living with unexpected grief. They needed the assurance that God had written a new chapter for you – was actually true. Living that kind of hope out loud, though, isn’t easy since life has a way of making us hopeless in the face of all kinds of pain and suffering. It was while navigating through this hard stuff that led the Thessalonians to develop some kind of unhealthy dynamic. What exactly that was is a little difficult to know since the letter they wrote to Paul describing what was up hasn’t survived. It’s possible some of the believers were so obsessed with Jesus’ return, they gave up doing their jobs and taking care of their families while waiting for the end to arrive. For them, real life was over since their so-called eternal life was about to begin. It’s also possible, though, that some within this small community became so anxious and overwhelmed by the thought of Jesus’ return they became a kind of “busybody” thinking they could work-out the crisis before it arrived. They might have imagined that if they said the right prayer, worshiped the right way, and lived in a specific kind of way – they would survive what was about to come. They, in a way, became really noisy about what they imagined God wanted for their lives and assumed that everyone around them needed to be that way. This caused them to change their lives in ways that cared more about being noticed by God rather than paying attention to the God who was already with them. And so for Paul, “the best way to honor the Lord [wasn’t] to drop all activity… and wait for the end, nor to rush around like busybodies. Rather, [we’re] to do all things, including the work we are called to, in service and honor of the Lord.” Paul invited the Thessalonians and invites us to recognize that life God has already given us to live. And while what that living looks like will, depending on our age, talents, and abilities be different – it’s always rooted in the Jesus who is, even now, right beside you. Paul wasn’t, I think, making a blanket statement that only those who match our cultural definition of “work” are worthy of life since Jesus regularly fed and cared for those the rest of us would always define as undeserving. Rather, Paul wanted us to pay attention to all the work we actually do. Does our work and care reflect who we know Jesus to be or might it reflect something else? Do we act as if God isn’t present at the office, the store, or at school so we let a love of money, power, and attention trump any love for God? Or could we imagine all our work –  in the words of Professor Nijay K. Gupta – to be like “bakers exercising skill and diligence in their food production, teachers diligently learning and studying so they can offer sound instruction, and garment makers ensuring that their clothing not only is pleasing to the eye but will last.” And instead of focusing our attention on what others are up to, could we instead focus on what we can do since building each other up for the benefit of all is how we learn to never grow weary in doing what is right. 

Now a few days ago, a volunteer for the Tri-Boro Food Pantry in Park Ridge was at a store buying turkeys for their upcoming Thanksgiving Meal Distribution. Someone walking by noticed their shopping cart filled to the brim with frozen turkeys and asked what they were for. The volunteer explained who she was, what she was up to, and who these turkeys would be going to. She was about to keep going on her way since she assumed the conversation was over. But before she could head to the next aisle, the stranger asked her to wait because she had a story to tell. They were, it seems, very familiar with the Tri-Boro Food Pantry because when they were going through a rough time in their life, that pantry had kept them fed. They had been an unemployed single parent, living in this expensive area, and unsure if they’d be able to keep their kids fed. And yet it was the generosity of everyone supporting the pantry who let her kids do the work of being kids rather than the work of being hungry. After sharing her story, she bought a couple of the turkeys so others might experience what she did. The work God invites us to is all about recognizing how God’s work in Jesus of living, loving, dying, and rising for you isn’t a work we’re meant to pay off. It is, instead, a gift we live out by doing what we can to let others know how Jesus is for them too.

Amen.

My sermon from 22nd Sunday after Pentecost (November 9, 2025) on Luke 20:27-38.

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Now there are times when our tone – the emotion, energy, and inflections we use when we speak that reveals way more than what we actually said. The sounds we make – especially when they don’t match our words – can point to something stirring in our soul. Our tone might, for example, invite others to not take seriously what we’re saying and that we want them to move on. Yet a pause, a stutter, or a drop in key can be our way of asking others to find out what’s in our heart and soul. Listening to the tone is how we read between the lines so we can hear what’s truly being said. Now when I was in seminary, one of my theology professors regularly responded to every question with a question of his own. It was, at first, quite annoying since we thought we were smart to say what needed to be said. He, though, wasn’t trying to dismiss us, ignore us, or act as if his words were more important than our own. Rather, he wanted us to notice how our curiosity about God and ourselves was related. By paying attention to our tone and where emotions show up in our words, we can discover how faith speaks into the lives we actually live. Our questions can often reveal how a hurt, joy, or deep grief is shaping who we know God to be. And yet there are other times when our tone reveals an unwillingness to imagine life being anything other than what it is right now. In today’s reading from the gospel according to Luke, the question Sadducees asked was probably said in an incredibly dismissive tone. But rather than getting defensive, Jesus invited those around him to practice their own holy curiosity by discovering who their God chooses to be. 

In Jesus’ day, different groups within Judaism had their own understandings and practices when it came to following God. Jesus’ own movement was merely one of many swirling within the wider Jewish community. One of the more powerful of these groups were the Sadducees who were the overseers of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. They were wealthy, important, politically powerful, and collaborated with the Roman Empire. When the Jewish community eventually revolted against Roman rule in the late 60s, the ensuing war led to the destruction of the Temple and the Sadducees themselves. It’s difficult, then, to fully reconstruct what they believed and taught. Yet we think, when it came to life, they imagined it as a rather limited thing. They assumed there was life after death but that it would be so alien, so isolating, and so meaningless it had no bearing on our life today. To them, the only access we’d ever have to peace, comfort, and joy was our handful of years on earth. Learning how to navigate the status quo was the limit of what life could be. And so the traditions and practices at the heart of their covenant with God was how they maximized their today. When the Sadducees came to Jesus with a question about the resurrection, I’m pretty sure their tone was a bit over the top. Nothing about their question involved being curious since they already had an answer. For them, this life was all that could be so seeking something else wasn’t part of their spiritual DNA. Their tone, then, was all about making Jesus look silly when he tried to answer what, to them, was a ludicrous question. 

Yet – if we remove the tone the Sadducees used – we might realize their question is our question too. Life, as we know, has a way of not going according to plan and wondering how much more there can be is incredibly human. Having doubts, asking questions, and pondering what all this might mean doesn’t mean we’ve lost our faith. Rather, it’s an acknowledgement that life is full of mysteries we don’t always have an answer to. And while we preach, proclaim, and lean into a Jesus whose resurrection shows how God is always writing a new chapter for you, we know Jesus’ wounded feet, hands, and side remain. Figuring out how today shapes our tomorrow isn’t something we can easily see. Our holding onto that mystery is, itself, pretty hard which is why, I think, we – without even realizing it – fall into the habit of acting as if this really is all there is. We put into place rules and practices that manage the limits of what is possible. We let our lives and our world be shaped by all the constraints life brings and fall into the trap of seeing life primarily as a competition and adding additional constraints to differentiate those we value and those we don’t. We might have moments when our talents, skills, and a little luck generate a little bit of prosperity and happiness for us and those we love. But the constraints we build for ourselves and for others will, in the end, close around us. If we act as if today is really the limit of what may be, we end up toning down who we imagine ourselves, our communities, and our God to be. 

Jesus, though, refused to let the tone of life limit who we, with our God, get to be. And that’s because the life he imagines for us has already begun to take shape when – with a little water and a word – God’s words are first uttered into our ears. It’s this word of promise that reveals how the constraints of this world will never constrain the love God has for you. And rather than letting our experiences be the limit of what life is, Jesus begins to transform us into who we, in Christ, get to be. Our ways of seeing life as a kind of competition where we have to get ours before others take it from us will no longer be what defines us. Rather, the One who comes into our lives and grabs ahold of our souls will reimagine our every day with a hope that never ends. We [in a few minutes / at the 10:30 am worship] will get to see God’s imagination lived out when we publicly welcome [three kids] [Mason, Cade, and Mack] into the body of Christ. They will hear how the constraints we’ve placed on the world will not be the limit of who God knows they can be. Instead God’s imagination as fleshed out in the life of Jesus will be at the heart of who they are. And when we act as if what we’ve experienced is all there is, God will show them – and all of us – the more that’s already on its way. That doesn’t mean, however, our questions, doubts, anxieties, and fears will suddenly end since our lives are constrained in a variety of ways. We will often refuse to let mysteries be mysteries and search for answers that never satisfy our souls. A life with faith is a life that will always ask questions since even Jesus, when he knew he was about to be betrayed, asked God if there might be another way. Yet we trust that even when life is hard, we – because of Christ – are part of something more. The life we live is a life enfleshed by the One whose care, kindness, strength, mercy, and grace is the tone extending us beyond the limits of what can be. And it’s this Jesus who, through baptism and in faith, will be there to carry you into the fullness of what your today and your tomorrow will always be. 

Amen.

My sermon from All Saints Sunday (November 2, 2025) on Ephesians 1:11-23.

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So now that my youngest is in first grade, she comes home with a lot of paper covered in all kinds of writing. She, along with her classmates, are working on their penmanship and their spelling. After writing down a sentence or two, they use the acronym C.O.P.S. as a checklist to see if they did everything right. The students first identify any errors with their capitalization since the first word in each sentence, proper nouns, and “I” are supposed to be capitalized. Once that’s checked out, they then look at how their work is organized – making sure transition words connect their ideas, the spacing between the words are correct, and that there are no run-on sentences. The next letter in the acronym, P, is about punctuation with punctuation in 1st grade focused on adding a period at the end of a thought. Once all of that is taken care of, the students end their editing by double checking their spelling. This simple strategy is an awesome way to help kids grow as critical thinkers and learn how to communicate their thoughts to others. But if Paul, the writer of our first reading from the Bible, was asked to use C.O.P.S today, this entire section would need to be re-written since these are sentences which go on and on and on. 

Now I know these words from Paul’s letter to the Christian community in the town of Ephesus are readable to us but that’s because our English translation of the ancient Greek added punctuation to help it make sense.  We began in the middle of one sentence and followed that up with another just as long. Verses 11-14 and 15-23 are two interconnected thoughts filled with a lot more. Yet I wonder if there’s a strategy we could use to make these words feel less abstract and way more human. We, I think, could do a reverse C.O.P.S. by keeping the spelling but removing the capital letters and periods our translation throws in. If we then read what Paul wrote, all these words would flow in a flood – speeding up as we got deeper and deeper into what Paul was trying to help us see. We might add, mentally, a few commas and semi-colons as a way to catch our breath and reflect on what we just heard. Yet Paul, I think, wanted our experience of these words to be a kind of overwhelming event pushing us towards something new. We can almost imagine Paul getting more and more excited as he dictated these words to a scribe he hired to write down everything that he said. And as he talked, the energy, passion, and power at the heart of his relationship with Jesus and God just came tumbling out. That gives us, I think, a hint of how Paul experienced his faith – as a living, breathing, and animating thing that livened his soul. What he believed was more than simply a few thoughts floating in his head. Rather, the trust he had in God was fuel for the life he led. These opening words he uttered were a blessing related to his Jewish identity. God had, according to Paul, blessed the world by deciding those who were not Jewish would, through Christ, have a new identity as children of God. This new relationship would not be at the expense of the Jewish community nor did Paul imagine Christians as being more chosen than God’s chosen people. Instead, what God had done was expand the boundaries of who was included in what God was up to. It might be difficult for us to feel what that kind of inclusion would be since we’re actively living out that kind of intentional expansion through the worship we’re doing right now. But when we step back and notice that we – with all our lumps, imperfections, fears, and anxieties – that we really are part of what God is doing in the world – our emotions might be stirred in unexpected ways. This inclusion, though, isn’t meant to be defined by some else’s exclusion. God’s willingness to include you doesn’t mean God doesn’t want to include anybody else. God will always do what God will do and there’s no competition we can enter that will, somehow, make God love us more. Instead, God’s welcome through baptism and in faith is simply the promise that your life is already more. The old bits of wisdom we carry, the old way we choose to live, and the old way of acting as if we’re the real center of the universe – isn’t the limit of who we get to be. Instead, we’ve been blessed by being drawn into a holy community where Jesus truly is at the center of it all. 

And we, I think, have experienced this through the different kinds of people God has brought into our lives. This blessing is reflected in those who won’t let our worst days be the only ones that define us. They are the ones who showed up, stuck around, and wouldn’t let us live this life alone. And when they would screw up, they showed us how we can all keep growing into who God has made us to be. It’s these saints who showed us what gives life its meaning. They helped us cultivate deep connections with our neighbors, our friends, and our family. The relationships they built with us allowed us to be transformed into better versions of ourselves. The peace, unity, kindness, and safety they gave us helped us face our own lives with courage and grace. And it was they who, in big and small ways, showed us how we get to live this meaning out loud by helping and caring for others like Jesus did. Spending our days learning to be kinder to ourselves and to others, figuring out how to swallow our own selfishness for the greater good, and recognizing how joy is always richer than being happy is how we make the most of the life God has given us. And while this kind of living isn’t always easy, the fact God chooses to be for us and for our world is the wisdom that carries us through. It’s this wisdom that invites us to do the hard thing of making the most reverent and loving best guess we can when a difficult choice comes our way. It’s this wisdom that helps us recognize how courage and strength is always measured in the mercy, compassion, and hope we share. It’s this wisdom that lets our being included in what God is doing is not something we’re entitled to but rather a gift we get to share. And it’s this spirit of wisdom and revelation that lets us lean into Christ no matter what comes our way. The wisdom God gives us, the wisdom God shows us, and the wisdom God edits our lives with is a wisdom that looks exactly like Jesus. And while we will often capitalize our own point of view rather than His and let our own opinions and perspectives punctuate our lives in ways that can be unholy and untrue, we – because of Jesus – get to let Jesus be at the center of all of us as we discover the saint God has made each of us to be. 

Amen.