Pocket Sized Pastor*

²⁸Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray. ²⁹And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. ³⁰Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. ³¹They appeared in glory and were speaking about his exodus, which he was about to fulfill in Jerusalem. ³²Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep, but as they awoke they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. ³³Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us set up three tents: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah,” not realizing what he was saying. ³⁴While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. ³⁵Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” ³⁶When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen. 

Luke 9:28-36

My sermon from the Transfiguration (March 2, 2025) on Luke 9:28-36.

******

I’m pretty sure there’s a bunch of stories in our Bible we don’t fully understand. And while that can be annoying, I’m here to say that’s okay. It’s incredibly faithful to hear all these prophecies, dreams, and experiences that have been passed down for over two thousand years and not know how to handle them. And when we find ourselves hearing a story we don’t really get, God often uses those words to expand our spiritual imagination. The Transfiguration is, I think, meant to be one of those kinds of stories. It’s a moment in Jesus’ life where an epiphany – aka a revelation or manifestation of God – took place. Jesus, according to Luke, took three of his friends up a mountain top to pray since even God knows how important it is to occasionally take a break. Jesus’ friends, at that moment, were a little worn out since they had traveled with Jesus from the shores of the Sea of Galilee to Tyre and beyond. They were there when Jesus healed the sick, casted out demons, and heard words challenging their own understanding of their lives and their world. It was a lot and they needed their sleep. But there came a moment when even their closed eyelids couldn’t stop the light shining in front of them. 

Now, in the past, the English translation of the Bible we used in worship tried to make this story seem a little sensible. The translators recognized how there was a bit of a mystery in Luke’s version of the story so they used Matthew and Mark’s version to fill in some of the details. That translation, known as the New Revised Standard version, described what Jesus went through by focusing on what he was wearing. The brightness he embodied was, as we see in the other texts, enhanced by his clothes becoming extremely white. Yet the ancient Greek words Luke used to tell this story never included “white” at all. Our attempt to make this story more understandable missed noticing how Luke wasn’t really trying to explain it. For Luke, the transfiguration is an experience that becomes way too safe, shallow, and small when we try to describe it at all. What these three friends of Jesus experienced was seeing Jesus radiate with an aura and an energy they couldn’t be pushed away. I like to imagine, as they napped, their darkness behind their eyelines was replaced by a light they couldn’t ignore. And so, when they finally opened their eyes and looked at Jesus, what they witnessed wasn’t Jesus ready to go to a so-called “white party” during the summer. Staring at Jesus was, instead, like looking at a flash of lighting or staring at the noon day sun or being a bit too close to an atomic blast. We expect, I think, that our prayers with Jesus would be rather serene, hopeful, and extremely comfortable. But the revelation they received instead was completely life-changing and terrifying. 

It’s hard for us, though, to recognize how frightening Jesus was because we have a different kind of relationship with the divine. To us, a holy moment feels like a warm hug around the shoulders and an aura of peace that feels like it will never end. But in Jesus’ day, people recognized how different holiness and divinity truly were. In a world that was created, the uncreated would be wild and free. It was assumed that when the divine showed up that wasn’t through dreams or messengers or even mystical signs stirring our heart – whatever that divinity ran into would be completely consumed. As Jesus’ intensity grew, Peter, James, and John’s fear grew too. They needed something to calm their troubled spirits but received, instead, a doubling down as two figures from their own ancestral story chose to show up. The miracle Jesus’ friends lived through wasn’t seeing Jesus transfigure into something new. The miracle was that after everything was said and done, they were still alive. Peter’s response to his survival was to do the very biblical thing of making something to mark the spot where God showed up. But I also wonder if, while that particular moment washed over him, if Peter wasn’t also excited to see Jesus’ power manifested in exactly the way they hoped it would be. Jesus’ might; Jesus’ strength; this outward presence of the divine and holy Son of God literally on earth – this display was the kind of Jesus they had always wanted. On that mountain top, he was lit up with more power  than the noon-day desert sun they often saw reflecting off the shields and helmets of all the Roman soldiers that patrolled the land. The Jesus who burned was the Jesus who embodied everything they believed the Messiah to be. We often act as if the display of power and its outward appearance are what true power, strength, and might really look like. And when Jesus transfigured on the mountaintop, he seemed to finally look the part. He was like an atomic blast, growing, and spreading but one that was already on the disciples side. Jesus’ friends, I imagine, sensed that this was the Jesus they wanted to lead them to Jerusalem. And if he did, then even Rome itself might fall under the radiant thumb of the Son of God. 

It wasn’t long, though, before that that moment was completely over. The cloud, the booming voice, and the intense light were suddenly gone. The remnant of what Peter, John, and James had seen was still burned into the back of their eyeballs. Yet the mountaintop was just a mountaintop and Jesus’ clothes and face were as dusty as they had always been. What was left behind was simply Jesus and his friends exactly as they were. And while the Jesus Peter, John, and James so desperately wanted to share with others had been right there – the Jesus they got was the One they already knew. It was the Jesus who chose to be for people; the one who chose to surround himself with the sick and the marginalized. It was the Jesus who knew that wealth, power, military might, and our social status would never be what truly defined it. The Jesus who could burn with the power of the sun chose to be a loving Son to a world that’s too often covered in shadow. All the mercy; all the compassion; and choosing to see people as those who truly bear the image of God – that was, and will always be, how God’s true divinity – and power – shines. The God we get isn’t the God we necessarily want because the power we desire isn’t the kind of power God chooses to wield. What God chooses to do is simply love which is a bit of a mystery to us since we often struggle to love ourselves and others too. But whenever we witness someone caring without the expectation for any reward; when we choose to accept the sacrifices that always come with helping others thrive; when we realize that hoarding what we don’t need isn’t God’s vision for our world; and when we listen more, talk less, and embrace hope rather than commit ourselves to causing harm – it’s then when we are embodying the holy gift of the divine we were given since Jesus has already chosen you to be part of what God’s love will look like in the world. And while there are times when we want God to show up like a flash of lighting on a mountain top, what we get instead is a God who chooses to come down the mountain and walk with us through whatever valley we end up wandering through. The Transfiguration isn’t about finally understanding who our Jesus truly is. It’s about realizing that God’s power is always made real in a love that never ends. 

Amen.

[Jesus said:] ²⁷“But I say to you who are listening: Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; ²⁸bless those who curse you; pray for those who mistreat you. ²⁹If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. ³⁰Give to everyone who asks of you, and if anyone takes away what is yours, do not ask for it back again. ³¹Do to others as you would have them do to you.
 
³²“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. ³³If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. ³⁴If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive payment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. ³⁵Instead, love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. ³⁶Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

³⁷“Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; ³⁸give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap, for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”

Luke 6:27-38

My sermon from the 7th Sunday after Epiphany (February 23, 2025) on Luke 6:27-38.

******

Last fall, a bunch of videos appeared online showing what it takes to feed a family. Spread out on a kitchen island or a dining room table was a week’s worth of food purchased at the supermarket as well as the receipt showing how much it cost. The response to these videos varied greatly, with even a few making it onto cable news. And while those videos offered a glimpse of how expensive this ingredient necessary for life can be, most of them were focused on generating engagement, getting attention, and justifying a specific political choice. Food is a necessity and not many of us can easily absorb what happens when something like eggs jumps in price by 30% since January. It’s really hard being a parent, a child, a student, a teacher, a grandparent, or even just a friend when food insecurity is all we have. And while those videos could have been focused on that reality, they were really about “winning” some kind of verbal contest. But if we look past the rhetoric, the vibes, the need to go viral, and all the partisan talking points, it was actually pretty brave for people to show others why they buy the food that they do. All those cans and boxes and bags full of produce told a story about what feeds their bodies and souls. For some, their grocery bill was a bit less than we’d expect since they prioritized ingredients rather than food that was already prepared. These folks had the time, energy, and mental space to actually come up with an idea whenever their kids asked: “what’s for dinner?” It’s possible the act of cooking allowed them to unwind after a difficult day, serving as a way to love those around them. Other families, though, don’t always have the time, energy, or desire to create a dish out of the stuff in their fridge. Their life revolves around popping something into the air fryer or placing an order through their phone at the end of a very long day. The stresses and joys that come with all our callings sometimes means we need the starches, salts, and sugars corporations and restaurants make. And when that’s the case, inflation shows up in very annoying ways. We might assume there is one kind of household – either ingredients based or convenience based – that is better than the other. But I think it’s much more faithful to notice how what we eat – and what its cost – is merely one ingredient making up the life we get to live. The other ingredients that influence our food include our culture, background, financial security, hopes, dreams, relationships, and even our politics. And when we take time to notice all the ingredients that make us who we are, we get a better glimpse of who Jesus calls us to be. 

Now this is our second week listening to Jesus’ “sermon on the plain.” He, after gathering together an initial group of disciples, was surrounded by a multitude of people from throughout ancient Israel and beyond. Luke explicitly shared that the community around Jesus came to not only learn from him but also wanted to be healed. They longed for a kind of wholeness they believed only Jesus could bring. This community, though, had a bit of trouble seeing Jesus since he chose to be in the middle of them. He stayed level and regularly bent down to connect with those brought to him by their friends. I can almost imagine those in the crowd bending, weaving, and stretching their necks while trying to get a glimpse of the One who might help them live in a different way. But every time they looked for Jesus, they saw a mass of humanity that Jesus’ presence connected them to instead. After making time to listen, care, and treat those around him as the beloved children of God they already were, Jesus then shifted what he was up to by launching into a sermon. He began by first saying that those we despise are often those who God sees as blessed and that our so-called “winning” often creates woes that devour us and our friends. Jesus wasn’t merely pointing to our next life might be. He, instead, reiterated how the ingredients we claim define our life are often flawed and wrong. Chasing after wealth and power and whatever “winning” looks like isn’t what God wanted for us in the first place. Life could be different if we paid better attention to the actual ingredients God gives us. So Jesus, after naming God’s blessing and reminding us of the woes we choose instead, invited those around him to see life differently. What would it be like if we loved our enemies as much as our friends? What would we need to define our lives by something other than retribution and vengeance? Would it be possible to have the courage to support those who couldn’t give us anything back in return? And what would this moment be like if we focused on what we could give rather than on what we feel entitled to get? At the heart of Jesus’ words is, I think, a trust that God’s presence reverses most of our expectations. Life isn’t meant to be a game we’re trying to win. Instead, life is what happens when we look for God at the center of it all. And when we do, what we see is that mass of humanity that God loves too. 

But what that life looks like will, I think, vary from person to person. It isn’t always easy to be generous at every moment of our lives. The one ingredient in life that is pretty much always constant is change. And while there are moments when we can, and should, be generous – there are other times when we’re the ones who need help instead. Learning how to care and to let go of our pride, stubbornness, and the need to make enemies fundamental to who we choose to be, is how we let love grow. And this love, for Jesus, isn’t something we have; love is lived out through the relationships we have with God and with others. These relationships aren’t simply limited to something romantic or familial; they also include those strangers we’re meeting for the very first time. Realizing how difficult this kind of life can be might leave a bit of a knot in our stomach since Jesus’ words feel like the ingredients for a way of life we’ll always, somehow, fail at one time or another. But Jesus didn’t only share these words to only one person; he spoke them to a crowd who, while looking for him, saw all kinds of people too. We, with the spirit’s help, can let the ingredients named by Jesus for our life flow through us while participating in a community that can do those things when we can’t. When forgiveness, love, mercy, or generosity becomes too much, Jesus connects us to others who get to take on those until we’re ready to live that way again. That doesn’t mean we get to pretend we’re something other than we’re not to get out of what God calls us to do. Rather, it lets us be for and with each other through all that life brings while discovering God’s imagination for our lives and for our world. God doesn’t call us to win at life since life is a game we could never win on our own. What we need – and what we have – is a God who, through the Cross, won an eternal life for us and all who God claims as their own. Jesus has changed the ingredients for what life should be so that our life can take the ingredients of His love to show ourselves and others what it means to follow Him. 

Amen.

5Thus says the Lord:
 Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals
  and make mere flesh their strength,
  whose hearts turn away from the Lord.
6They shall be like a shrub in the desert
  and shall not see when relief comes.
 They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness,
  in an uninhabited salt land.
7Blessed are those who trust in the Lord,
  whose trust is the Lord.
8They shall be like a tree planted by water,
  sending out its roots by the stream.
 It shall not fear when heat comes,
  and its leaves shall stay green;
 in the year of drought it is not anxious,
  and it does not cease to bear fruit.
 9The heart is devious above all else;
  it is perverse— who can understand it?
 10I the Lord test the mind and search the heart,
  to give to all according to their ways,
  according to the fruit of their doings.

Jeremiah 17:5-10

My sermon from the 6th Sunday after Epiphany (February 16, 2025) on Jeremiah 17:5-10.

******

So this is the second weekend in a row when a Saturday night storm made this moment a bit unsettled. For almost sixteen hours, all kinds of water – snow, ice, sleet, and rain – have fallen from the sky. This water is simply doing what it’s supposed to do, seeking out the easiest path from the sky to the ground. We, though, have done our best to get in some of that water’s way by building a roof over our heads. Water, though, has a habit of seeping through any expectation we have. And a couple of weeks ago, I noticed a cardboard box sitting on a cabinet in the church office that was completely soaked. It was then when I noticed along one of the walls all kinds of water stains and paint peeling off the walls. Our property team and others at the church quickly responded to this issue by contacting our roofers and setting up a few dehumidifiers when the office began to smell. Their generous and faithful work is amazing but we’re still not exactly sure how the water is seeping through. There’s been storms over the last little bit that have left a puddle of water on the cabinets and other storms that have left the room completely dry. And while the search for the leak continues, I can’t help being a little annoyed and a bit anxious about what’s seeping through a building we’ve put a lot of time, energy, and money into. Watching and waiting for the water to seep through the roof can be very stressful. And in today’s first reading we heard from our Bible, the prophet Jeremiah points out how there are other things other than water that seep into us, becoming what we trust and believe.
Now over these last few weeks, we’ve spent quite a bit of time with the prophets. We heard Isaiah give voice to the message God called him to share 900 years before Jesus was born and how those same words shaped Jesus’ understanding of his own mission and call. A prophet is a person called by God to share a message inviting people to re-center their relationship with God and with one another. And in ancient Israel and Judah, the role of prophet was identified as a kind of religious leader that some kings and queens supported with money and resources. But when a religious leader ends up becoming part of a leader’s entourage, their message can become primarily a way to reinforce whatever their leader wants. There are a number of books in our Bible named after prophets; yet these prophets were the reluctant ones who weren’t really supported since God told them to push back against those who assumed God was always on their side. Jeremiah’s work began around the year 626 BCE and his words seeped into the life of the kingdom of Judah for the next forty years. Those in power assumed they were the blessed ones since they had wealth, resources, and could tell others what to do. People assumed that those kinds of resources were extremely limited and so those who had more than enough were seen as entitled to what they assumed God had given to them. This self-reinforcing fantasy masquerading as common sense valued keeping things as they were or returning to some romanticized past where only the right kind of people were in control. But when Jeremiah began to preach, the Babylonian Empire located in modern Iraq had started to grow. Those living in Judah and Jerusalem grew anxious as kingdoms came to fall to these outsiders from the East. The community responded by trying to form new alliances, strengthen their military, invest in their borders, and even embraced non-Jewish religious practices as a way to convince the divine to act on their behalf. Over time, their anxiety grew into a story of safety and greatness that even the prophets working for the king promised God would respond if Babylon’s armies ever broke through. Jeremiah, though, brought a different kind of message – proclaiming that it was God who was leading Babylon’s armies against them. The community had put so much of their trust in their wealth, their power, and their own understanding of what was holy and true that God had to respond. This trust had seeped so deeply into their lives, those incharge and those who supported them couldn’t even see what they had become. Their trust was reflected in the ways they treated their God through the harm perpetuated on the poor, the orphan, and those they chose to marginalize. They believed life was only meant for the right kind of people and their desire to dominate others had not gone unnoticed by their God. The community was so wrapped up in what they were, they couldn’t even listen to those around them showing how dry, dusty, and cruel their hearts had become.
And so Jeremiah, throughout his career, pointed to something else that could seep into their souls instead. We shouldn’t assume that the status quo, our traditions, or our expectations are a kind of holy foundation of who we get to be in the world. Every one of us has the opportunity to not let a sense of goodness, purpose, or faithfulness be the limit of what our life should be. And that’s because our God will continue to shape the foundation parts of who we choose to be. When we refuse to act as if God is still changing us, we become the shrub in the desert failing to realize how much more we can become. Saying we trust God isn’t always enough since what we do, say, what we listen to, and how we treat the most vulnerable among us reveals what we really trust instead. We might act as if this moment and our future depends on our wealth; what we hoard; and a deep sense of entitlement assuming certain opportunities belong only to us. We might choose to act as if the gifts God has given us, like our intelligence or our work ethnic, is only for us and not a world desperately in need. There are a million different ways we make our God small by choosing to put our trust in all the other stuff seeping into our lives that pretend only one kind of identity, purpose, goal, or culture is allowed to be. God, though, knows that these limits will not be the end-all-be-all since something else has already seeped into our lives. When you were baptized, the water that fell on you did what it was supposed to do. Some of it fell off the side of your face, seeking the ground, while other drops seeped into your skin and hair. It was that water, united with the promises of God, that became the new water meant for the roots of your soul. The promises of God – of an eternal life that has already started; of a union with a holy family stretching beyond all time and space; and the promise that your value isn’t based on what you have done or will do but on God’s love for you alone – that is at the heart of who we get to be. This does not mean life will always be easy nor that we won’t often put our trust in things that cause woes, death, and destruction rather than hope and peace. But it does mean that what we get to trust is that we truly are worth living, dying, and rising for. This is a gift that none of us are entitled to but one that helps us do the hard thing of loving God; loving our neighbor; and of choosing to serve those we don’t fully understand – no matter what comes next. And when we truly trust that the God who was born, who lived, who loved, who laughed, who cried, and who died on a Cross with arms open to all – when we trust the God who is with and for us all of our days and beyond – that’s when we begin discover how our true life has already begun.

Amen.

¹Once while Jesus was standing beside the Lake of Gennesaret and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, ²he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gotten out of them and were washing their nets. ³He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. ⁴When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” ⁵Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” ⁶When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to burst. ⁷So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. ⁸But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’s knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” ⁹For he and all who were with him were astounded at the catch of fish that they had taken, ¹⁰and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” ¹¹When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.

Luke 5:1-11

My sermon from the 5th Sunday after Epiphany (February 9, 2025) on Luke 5:1-11 and Isaiah 6:1-8.

******

I wonder – what did you expect to happen in worship today? I know, because of the snow, I spent most of this week anxiously wondering if this moment would even happen. My energy was tied up in the logistics for a Sunday that won’t meet our usual expectations. But taking time to focus on what happens when the divine shows up is, I think, pretty much what worship is about. The act of worship isn’t about what we do; it’s about where God chooses to be. We gather together virtually or in-person trusting that, regardless of whatever happened this week, this is the moment where you are seen, known, and loved. The divine really is meeting you right now even though our expectations for what this moment should be like probably varies from person to person. We might imagine that when God shows up, we should feel a kind of peace and comfort – as if a warm towel was suddenly draped over our shoulders. Or maybe we hoped some passion, energy, a guitar, and a voice would lift up our hands, our hearts, and our souls. Maybe we need this moment to have a kind of silence large enough to overcome the other noises telling us that we aren’t who God made us to be. Or when the divine shows up, we assume we’ll be inspired by a word propelling us into something new. What we want is an encounter with the divine that changes this current moment into something truly positive and amazing. Which is why our readings today from Isaiah and the gospel according to Luke feel a little weird because when the divine does show up, everyone’s first response is full of fear. 

Now the fear we see in these readings isn’t what we feel while watching a scary movie. When Isaiah and Peter encountered the divine, they were truly afraid for their lives. There was a belief that when the holy showed up, our story could come to its end. And we see this when Isaiah received a vision of God where the Holy Temple in Jerusalem became an extension of a heavenly palace. God, as we read, was an overwhelming presence sitting on a throne while wrapped by a royal robe that filled the entire space. Around God flew all kinds of fantastical beings that were covered in way too many wings and eyes. Nothing about Isaiah’s vision was meant to bring comfort or peace since he was witnessing just how powerful God truly is. Isaiah, in that moment, was overcome by a sense of his own humanity since comparing his createdness with God’s uncreatedness stole any sense of joy he had. His words weren’t simply what we’d expect a prophet in our Bible to share. He was, instead, articulating just how imperfect he truly was. These words weren’t about questioning his sense of worth or his own self-esteem. He was, instead, feeling an incredible sense of awe that was indistinguishable from terror and fear. Isaiah’s response was, I think, something we would feel if the hem of God’s royal robe suddenly filled whatever space we’re currently in. So why did Peter, while hanging out with Jesus who wasn’t being physically massive and over the top, react to God in the very same way? 

Now this probably wasn’t the first time Peter – aka Simon – met Jesus. In the verses right before today’s story, Jesus went into Peter’s house and healed Peter’s mother-in-law from a deadly fever. Jesus, at the time, was doing what he always did – preaching, teaching, and bringing wholeness to those who needed it. Their experience of the divine was the kind of experience so many of us want for ourselves – and our family members – right now. This is why, I think, Peter was perfectly fine with Jesus jumping into his boat and using the water as a way to amplify the sound of his voice so everyone could hear what he had to say. His experience with Jesus was already positive so he didn’t mind sticking around on the Lake of Gennesaret (which was just another name for the Sea of Galilee) after a night where Peter caught nothing. Peter was probably a little disappointed by how little he caught even though he knew that some nights, the fish were biting while others, they’re not. Peter was doing what he always did, using his gifts to take care of his friends and family. That typical moment was a little strange since there was currently a 30 year old shouting out over the water. But when Jesus, with a word, invited Peter and his friends to fill their boat with all kinds of fish, that abundance scared Peter half-to-death. Now Peter had already experienced the divine yet all this life; all this bounty; all this stuff to take care of his extended family didn’t inspire him with hope and joy. That moment, when Jesus displayed the kind of power over the others, should have caused Peter to give up everything to cling to all that wealth and control. But when the divine made its presence felt in this particular way, Peter was instead full of awe and fear. 

And maybe – just maybe – that really is a healthy response to when God shows up. God isn’t only about bringing us peace and comfort; God also challenges, transforms, and changes. God, as God, will always be bigger than our expectations. And while we have a habit of mistaking displays of power as true power itself, our God will also remind us of how loved – and created – we truly are. We often, I think, hope that a certain kind of ideology, way of life, or exercise of power will transcend how human we truly are. What we long for is access to whatever will create all that fish rather than the One who created that fish in the first place. Yet the God who brings us comfort is also a God who isn’t afraid to move us out of whatever is holding us back and into something a bit more true. God’s willingness to do this, though, is terrifying since we have to unlearn those thoughts, beliefs, and understanding that cares about power over rather than power with. When the divine shows up, abundant life always flows. And while we often want that life only for ourselves, it’s telling that Peter left all that fish for others to discover what God’s love chooses to do. That doesn’t mean, however, that we don’t need comfort and peace from our God since that is often how we are held through all the chaos life can bring. Yet I wonder what it would be like if we also let our encounter with the divine be something that can challenge, change, and even scare us. It’s scary, I think, to trust that this moment won’t be the sum of all our moments nor will our story be the default story meant for everyone else in the world. It’s terrifying to realize that people around us, including those we don’t like or even understand, really do bear the image of God. Our hands might shake when we realize how much our sense of self depends on the displays of power we or others exercise over others. And it’s frightening to see how Jesus chooses to give life to others whenever we do our best to take it. Our experience of the divine will never be the end-all-be-all of what the divine will do since God is always bigger than what we can imagine. And while that can be scary, it’s also a blessing since it’s this same God who, in baptism, has promised to never let you go. Our encounter of the divine will sometimes be obvious or peaceful or ridiculously scary. Yet the One who is with you will also be the One who moves you into an eternal and everlasting future where God’s life will flow out of your life to bring hope to the world. 

Amen.

²¹Then [Jesus] began to say to [all in the synagogue in Nazareth, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” ²²All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is this not Joseph’s son?” 
²³He said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’ ” ²⁴And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown. ²⁵But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months and there was a severe famine over all the land, ²⁶yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. ²⁷There were also many with a skin disease in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” ²⁸When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. ²⁹They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff.  ³⁰But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

Luke 4:21-30

My sermon from the 4th Sunday after Epiphany (February 2, 2025) on Luke 4:21-30.

******

So last week, I invited us to pause and hold whatever we were feeling, thinking, or imagining until we listened to the 2nd half of the story we heard from the gospel according to Luke. Jesus had just started his public ministry and began to make a name for himself throughout the region of Galilee. When he returned to the town he grew up in, the synagogue was packed with people he had grown up with. The attendant in that space handed him a scroll containing words from the prophet Isaiah and he was invited to read and preach. When he unrolled the scroll, he read out loud a handful of verses describing what life would be like for the community when the Messiah showed up. At first, those around him nodded and whispered and were excited by what he said. But once his words started to sink in – the promise of good news only for the poor; the hope of realising every prisoner and those who were oppressed; the healing of those who needed to be healed while also kicking off a year of jubilee that would reverse everyone’s economic futures – it’s then when the questions started bubbling up. If we let Jesus’ words remain merely abstracted and spiritualized, then we’re okay with what he said since we all struggle, worry, and long for some kind of relief. The words Jesus shared, though, were also pretty literal. Wondering if we are really poor or oppressed or if we’re pretending to be those things as a way to harm those around us – while also thinking if we really do what our economic futures and those around us to be reversed – aren’t ones we might be so thrilled to have after listening to these words from the son of a carpenter. Pausing to wonder and think what’s really going on can gnaw on us. And when Jesus kept speaking, that gnawing grew into a deep, deep, grind. 

Now Jesus seemed to know what they were thinking since he named their expectation that his attention, power, and love should primarily be for the benefit of those immediately around him. This community had, after all, been there while he was busy living his life. Yet the biblical stories Jesus used to interpret Isaiah’s words made them second guess who this Jesus might be. The prophet Elijah’s lived roughly 900 years before Jesus was born. And he worked primarily in what was known as the Northern Kingdom which formed after the kingdom David established broke into two after the death of his son Solomon. Elijah was known as a prophet who performed miracles and who also ticked off  those who assumed they knew what God could do. So after one particularly intense verbal battle with the king and queen of Israel, Elijah became a hunted man since God, through him, initiated a famine that lasted three years. At first, Elijah found safety hiding in the wilderness, away from the police and soldiers that stalked him. But when the water in that area dried up, he fled across the border into the land of the Philistines. The Philistines were, at that time, the major political and religious competitors to ancient Israel. And those kingdoms regularly fought wars against one another. The famine, though, wasn’t restricted to only one country and Elijah soon ran into a widow who was about to make the last meal for her and her family. When Elijah drew near, she had no interest in inviting anyone to her table who might take away the limited food she could find. She relented, however, and when she went to make food for her and her kin – God also chose to provide to this non-believer everything she needed to thrive. A generation later, Elijah’s disciple Elisha, found himself in a similar position. Naaman, the commander of the armies of the kingdom of Aram, a nation that regularly fought with and against Israel and Judah, had contracted some kind of skin disease. Naaman wasn’t a follower of God nor was he necessarily the kind of person we imagine should be a part of God’s holy family. And yet after being told by an enslaved woman what God was doing through Elisha, Naaman sought him out and was healed. Both stories show God choosing to act among people we would put at the back of the line when it comes to seeing what God’s love should do. We could, I think, read way too much into these stories by assuming this was God saying that these outsiders rather than the insiders were now God’s chosen family. Yet the stories don’t end with Naamen or the widow becoming the believer they assume they would become. Rather than justifying our own sin by consciously or unconsciously deciding who is God’s people and who isn’t, we can choose to notice what happened before any miracle took place. What we see, read, and hear in these two stories are people – with their God – showing hospitality to those they never wanted to be hospitable to in the first place. Elijah became a refugee who needed help from a woman who thought she had nothing to give. Yet when she gave him a seat at her table, God’s hospitality for her and her family flowed. Naaman, a military leader who won victories against God’s chosen people, needed Elisha to show him the kind of hospitality and care that no army could bring to bear. And when he let himself be vulnerable, Elisha welcomed him and showed what love can always do. God wasn’t simply going to be a God who would only work in the ways we expect. God would, instead, operate through the kind of hospitality that reveals who our God chooses to be. 

And so that might be why the community after listening to these words – then tried to toss JEsus off a cliff. After initially being really excited about what this wunderkid might do, they realized he wasn’t there to make their assumptions true. Rather, the God who chooses to do what God chooses to do will never be limited by who we imagine that God to be. Instead, our God will love. And this love will not be idealized or limited to only one community or one kind of relationship or only expressed between the vows couples make to one another. The love God gives is a love we get to share as individuals, as a church, and as a community living in the world. God’s love is often experienced at its best through hospitality. And its within these kinds of relationships where we learn how love really is patient and kind, not envious, arrogant, or rude. It’s the practice of hospitality that invites us to move beyond insisting that everything and everyone must follow our way. Hospitality is where and how we bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things. And while hospitality, like love, is always risky – we have a God who, through Jesus, has already shown that hospitality by claiming you in baptism and faith – as a beloved child of God. We, because of Christ, have already been brought into a divine family that extends beyond every border of time and space. And God did this not because we are perfect or special or always look the part when it comes to being faithful or Christian or even a true believer. Rather, Jesus chose you because you really are worth living, dying, and rising for. And so if Jesus can be that hospitable to us, I wonder what it might be like to show others what God’s hospitality truly is. 

Amen.