Scripture: 1 Peter 5:6-11

In 1989 musician Billy Joel was at a turning point in his career.  The successes of songs like Piano Man were well behind him.   In 1989 he turned 40, which in Rock and Roll years is well over the hill.   He was in the studio working on recording Storm Front, which would be his first album in over three years.  While there one day he struck up a conversation with a much younger recording artist.  This person had just turned 21 and they were complaining about coming of age in the 1980s.   He saw his current times as one of upheaval and uncertainty and he lamented about how much easier young people had it thirty years ago.  Billy Joel was a fan of history as well as having more life experience, did not agree with this assessment.   This conversation led him to write the lyrics for what would become the biggest hit off his Storm Front album.   In “We Didn’t Start the Fire” Billy Joel goes through 117 events or people between 1949 and 1989 to illustrate a simple fact.   It does not matter what era one comes of age in, “We didn’t start the fire, it’s been burning since the world’s been turning.”

               Of course, today for a lot of people 1989, when the song was released, feels like simpler times.  This is why almost half of young adults between 18-29 say they would rather live in the past than in the present.   No doubt all the unprecedented times that we have endured for the past several years could easily add a verse or two to “We didn’t start the fire.”   While I do not want to minimize the problems, difficulties, and issues that plague our modern world.  The fact that Bill Joel’s song is thirty-seven years old really shows that its always something.   This morning’s scripture from Peter is written for those days when those somethings feel a little extra heavy.   When it feels like the world is on fire, this morning’s scripture encourages us to stand firm and tells us how we do it. 

               In 1 Peter 5:12, it is stated the letter was written to encourage the recipients.  They needed encouragement because the groups of believers who were certainly going through something.  Unfortunately, we cannot say with 100% certainty what that something was.   .  1 Peter 1:6 acknowledges the believers are currently suffering grief in all kinds of trials.  As we read last week in 1 Peter 3:14, the believers were encouraged with “do not fear their threats, do not be frightened.”   Then in chapter 4, verse 12, Peter wrote, “do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you.” 

               Whatever these churches were enduring did not rise to the level of making the greater historical record, this was not some event like the general persecution of Christians that would come later.  It is likely that what these Christians faced was less formal and it was more experienced on a local level.  They could have been targeted by biased authorities, it could have been cultural pressure like shunning, or it could have been a loss of business or employment.   While we do not know exactly what the issues were, clearly it was always something. 

This morning’s scripture is Peter’s final encouragement to these believers.  Even though we are separated by oceans and centuries from these believers, for us it is also always something.  The encouragement and direction that Peter wrote in this morning’s scripture can still be incredibly relevant for us today.  To stand strong, to be firm and steadfast, Peter points out three things that the believers he wrote, and we, can do. 

               The first direction Peter gives is to “humble yourself, therefore under God’s mighty hand.”    Even though the bible tends to lift up being humble as a virtue, we tend to have a negative association with the word.  After all, the word humiliation comes from the same root.   We tend to shortcut being humble as downplaying ourselves, but I do not think that is the best definition of humility.   I think C.S. Lewis defined it best.  He defined being humble as “not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less.”  

               Being humble means that we strive not to always center ourselves.  Whenever there is something, instead of focusing on “how does this impact me?” the humble response is to center our focus elsewhere.  In this morning’s scripture, Peter specifically suggests to center our focus on God.  This is not surprising because it echoes what Jesus himself taught, we said the greatest commandment is to Love the Lord your God with all your heat and with all your soul and with all your mind.   

               To center on focus on something other than ourselves, does not mean that we make ourselves a martyr and ignore our basic physical, emotional, spiritual needs. What we are going through still matters, and how we feel about it is still valid.   When we center on something other than ourselves though, when we center on God, then our worries and problems do not often loom as large in our minds.  Helen Lemmel captured this idea in a song she wrote in 1922: “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face, and the tings of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.”

               When we de-center ourselves, and center our Savior, then the second direction Peter gave becomes easier.  He wrote, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares about you.”   Based on the content of 1 Peter, the people the letter was originally addressed to had valid reasons to be anxious, and because it’s always something we do too.   A 2025 study found that almost half of US adults report having clinical levels of anxiety, and almost half report they felt more anxious than they did the previous year.   Which I get, because there is a lot to be anxious about right now.  

Putting a focus on God and casting our anxieties God’s way has the potential to lessen how big and overwhelming they feel.  Because we can remember that God is bigger than that worries and troubles us.   We can remember that even though it is always something, it does not matter what that something is because God is still God, Jesus is still a savior who defeated death and sin, and there will still be a day when Jesus comes back, God wipes way every tear and there will be no more crying or suffering ever again. 

While casting our anxieties upon God can be helpful, that does not minimize having feelings of anxiety in the first place.   We do have to be cautious not to overemphasize things and treat feelings like anxiety as something that will go away if someone just prayed harder or had a stronger faith.  Because you can still trust in Jesus and go to therapy.  You can take your medicine in the morning and still cast your anxieties towards God.  Faith and outside help are not mutually exclusive and to suggest otherwise is absurd and harmful.  Seeking help is not an admission of spiritual weakness.  Casting our anxieties on God and focusing on the eternal care God has for us, can be helpful in dealing with the overwhelming somethings of life, but it does not need to be, and perhaps shouldn’t be, the only method we look towards to deal with the troubles of any given day. 

               This leads to the next direction that Peter gives in verses 8-9: “Be alter and of sober mind.  Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.  Resist him, standing firm in the faith.”  This is an area where we do have to be careful not to get too lost in the weeds.  I do not deny that there are spiritual forces of evil in this world, but I am also confident that every setback and inconvenience in our lives is the work of the devil.  It does not matter if the cause is supernatural or not, the fact of the matter is that is always something, and no matter what the cause Peter’s advice here is worth taking to heart. 

               The phrase be “alert and of sober mind” specifically is a reference to drunkenness, but in general it is also a warning not to let ourselves get too distracted.   Whenever our focus is more on what we can do to avoid our worries or how we can ignore the problems of the world, then we are not being alert and sober minded.   When we are focused on hiding or running from problems, then it allows sin to take root in our lives in some unexpected ways.   

               Often, we think of sin as the wrong that we do, but there are other ways that we can fall short of the glory of God and not live the way God would have us live.   There is a theological concept of sins of omission.  This is when we do not do the good that we know we should do.  Our communion liturgy recognizes how prone we are to this kind of sin, because the prayer we confess together states “we have not loved our neighbors, and we have not heard the cry of the needy. Forgive us, we pray.”  When we are busy trying to distract ourselves from the problems of the world, then we completely fail to see the good God would have us to do.    In a similar fashion there is a theological concept known as systemic sin.  These are sinful attitudes and actions that are held up by cultural forces or even institutional structures like laws.  One of the easiest examples to point to of a systemic sin is racism.  When we are not alert and sober to the needs of the world around us, then we can end up participating in these sinful systems.   Our actions or our inactions can then cause harm to others.   Perhaps this is what it means the devil is looking for someone to devour.  By not being alert and of sober mind we get dragged into accepting what is wrong as normal, we get used to not doing the good God would have us to do. 

               Instead of seeking to avoid our worries and the problems of the world, Peter’s advice is to stand firm in the faith.  Because this morning’s scripture is just one big thought, this connects back to Peter’s other directions.  We stand firm in the faith, when we de-center ourselves and focus on Jesus.   We stand firm with our minds and our secured in the knowledge that Jesus is the foundation upon which we are planted.   I think that Baptist Minister Edward Mote put it best.  Mote was born in London in the 19th century to tavern owners.  He grew up with know concept of religion or even God.  As an apprentice cabinet maker though, the master craftsman he was under insisted he attend church with him.  There, very much like the first believers that Peter wrote this morning’s scripture to, Mote learned of a new way of life, he experienced grace, and forgiveness of sins.  It was while working in the workshop one morning, while reflecting on how following Jesus changed his life that verses to a song started to form in his mind.   While the whole song is a personal favorite, I think the third verse really speaks to this morning’s scripture.  Mote wrote, “His oath, his covenant, his blood support me in the whelming flood.  When all around my soul gives way, he then is all my hope and stay.  On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand; all other ground is sinking sand.”     
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               I think Billy Joel was right, “we didn’t start the fire, it’s been burning since the world’s been turning”, but I think Edward Mote hit on an even more profound truth.  It’s always something, but throughout it all Jesus Christ is the solid rock upon which we stand.   When Jesus is our center, when he is the foundation that we are built from, then it is possible to de-center ourselves, cast our anxieties on him, and stand firm in the faith.   I know the world is an anxious place right now, and (again) I do not want to minimize how that might make you feel, but I hope we all may better put our focus on the God who cares for us instead of all that makes us anxious.  At the same time though, may we be alert and sober so that we stand strong, firm, and steadfast.  Even though it’s always something, may we truly be able to say my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.  

Scripture:  1 Peter 3:13-19

​               In the early 1980’s McDonald’s had claimed the spot as the top fast-food chain in America.  To challenge this dominance, A&W went all in on a new strategy.  One of McDonald’s most popular items was the quarter pounder, so A&W launched a 1/3-pound burger for the same price.  Despite huge marketing push and despite being a bigger burger for a better value, The A&W 1/3rd pounder absolutely flopped.   When the company did research into why this happened, they discovered that for the average consumer a 1/4th a pound felt bigger than a 1/3rd a bound because four is bigger than three.  The product failure was due to consumer feeling, even though that feeling had no basis in factual reality.  

               The A&W 1/3rd pounder failure is a case study in social science about how feeling can have a bigger impact than fact.   Sometimes the way we feel actually runs counter to the reality of the situation and this can influence our personal decisions but also larger cultural movements and even official policy.   In the realm of faith an example of an area where feeling does not keep up with fact is the idea that in the United States persecution of Christians is increasing.   This has been a persistent thought for more than a decade now.  A 2016 Barna study found that among those who identify as evangelical 60% stated they believed it was somewhat accurate or very accurate that they were being persecuted in society.   A 2021 Lifeway research study found 59% of all those surveyed who identified as Christians believed they faced increased persecution and a 2023 Pew Research survey found that 60% of evangelical Christians believed they faced increased discrimination.  

               Yet, the reality does not match that feeling.  By any objective measurement or standard American Christians are not persecuted.  There is full freedom of religion, churches still receive privileges like tax exempt status, and there is not systematic violence or discrimination against Christians.  There are several places in the world where persecution does actively happen today, but we are fortunate not to live in one of those places. Despite there not being real persecution, feeling like there might has been persistent for years.   This is because while there is not persecution there has been a loss of cultural relevance and cultural privilege for Christians in the United States. 

 For instance, Sunday used to be a protected day.  Because it was the Lord’s Day, all businesses closed, and the day was reserved for church.  Today, Sunday is another day, and in fact it is usually the best day to hold youth sporting events.  In a lot of ways, Christian used to be the default setting in American culture, and that is not the case anymore.  Commentators have pointed out that the United States is steadily moving to a post-Christian culture, and if trends continue then by 2070 a minority of Americans, 46% will identify as Christian. A loss of cultural standing, privilege, and trust does not equate to persecution, but the surveys have consistently shown that for a lot of people it feels that way.  
These feelings come about because the Christian faith does not quite fit with the culture around us the way many of us remember.  Given those feelings and given that our culture is an ongoing shift to being post-Christian, this morning’s scripture can be a helpful guide.  The audience Peter was writing to also found their faith out of sorts with their culture, and his advice to them is still incredibly relevant to us today.   In this morning’s scripture Peter guides us in how we can respond to whatever comes next. 

Trying to get a good feel of ancient culture is never an easy task, but there are some solid historical context clues that Christianity was not terribly popular in the culture at the time Peter wrote this morning’s scripture.  First, we have the accounts in Acts where Paul met significant resistance.   On more than occasion Paul was driven out of town or had to be snuck out of town to avoid violence because there was some much resistance to the message of grace that challenged the conventional religious systems of the day.   Second, 1 Peter is often thought to have been written during the 60s AD, which is during the reign of the Emperor Nero.   Nero is often remembered as setting off the first official Roman persecution of Christians.   This is because when Rome burned in AD 64 he needed a scapegoat, and   he picked Christians to be the target.   The fact that Nero felt Christians would make an easy scapegoat hints at their general unpopularity in the culture at large. 

This morning’s scripture also gives us a context clue, because in it Peter acknowledges that this first generation of Christians that he was writing to have a fear of being harmed for their beliefs.   Seeing as how persecution under Nero was just around the corner, their fears were not entirely unfounded.   Even though these believers did not know exactly what would be coming in their future, in this morning’s scripture Peter told them how to be ready for what comes next.  Today, we live in a shifting culture where the Christian faith is becoming less relevant in larger cultural conversations, and the culture is moving to a Christian minority standpoint.  The same advice that Peter gave in this morning’s scripture is still what prepares us for what comes next.  

In this morning’s scripture, Peter writes that we are revere Christ as Lord, and we also should “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who ask you to give the reason for the hope that you have.”   There are a couple things that I really like about Peter’s direction here.  First, he puts forth the best thing we can do in a potentially hostile culture is to always be willing to talk about our faith.  If we truly revere Christ as Lord, if we believe he is the most important thing in the world to us, why would we be quiet about him?   I do not like how, for decades faith has been considered one of the forbidden topics that is not supposed to ever be talked about, and it is supposed to only be a private affair.  In general, we talk about what we care about, what we are passionate about, and what we think is important.   Peter wrote to an audience that faced a greater possibility of harm for what they believed than we do, and he told them not to be afraid to talk about what they believe.   We should also be willing to do the same. 

Second, I really appreciate how Peter encouraged the believers to talk about their faith.   He did not write “always be prepared to give a three-point argument, citing credible sources, for what you believe.”   He did not write that we need to be prepared to win an argument or have the right witty one-liners to shut down all objections.  Sometimes to talk about our faith we feel like we must have all the answers before we say anything, but that is not what the scripture states.  We do not have to have all the answers; we have to have hope.   As followers of Christ, we should have hope.  This question this scripture really puts before us is what is your reason for hope? 

You may have never considered the question of why Jesus gives you hope.   Yet according to this morning’s scripture, that is question we need to be most prepared to answer when it comes to sharing our faith.   If you consider yourself a Christian, if you revere Christ as Lord in your hearts, then there should be a reason why you find hope in Christ.   While the reason that resonates with us, might be a little different from someone else we all should be able to point to how following Christ fills us with hope.  The good news is that there is no shortage of ways we can find hope in Christ. 
 
Perhaps, you find hope in the forgiveness of grace.   There is hope that your past does not define your future, and that God is a God of second chances.   Perhaps you find hope in the radical inclusion of God’s love.  There is hope in the assurance that you are uniquely hand crafted by the same God that creates universes.  That you are not broken, that you are not junk, and that you are loved as you are and that God proved this love through his son Jesus Christ.   Perhaps you find hope in the transformative power of Christ.   There is hope in knowing that even though there is darkness in the world, the light of Christ has come, the darkness can not over come it, and through the power of Christ we can also shine that light and make a real difference for tomorrow.    Perhaps you find hope in an eternal Christ that was and is and is to come.  There is hope in knowing that the body of Christ existed long before any of us and it will endure long after any of us, but we each have are part in it.  There is hope in knowing that there is a seat reserved for us in eternity.  Following Jesus means that we should have a reason for hope.  We should know what our reason for hope is, and we should be able to express the hope we find in Christ.  

Verse 15 does contain a final instruction about sharing our hope.  It says we are to do it with “gentleness and respect.”  When it comes to dialogue in our current culture there is not a lot of gentleness and respect.   Too often conversations about important topics like faith are treated less like conversations and more like debates.  Instead of a honest dialogue, too many people just wait for their turn to speak, or more often stop pretending to listen and talk over the other person.  Too often topics like faith are treated like contests to be won.   Perhaps this is why the words that non-Christians most associate with Christians are words like judgmental and hateful.   Instead of treating faith conversations like debates, this morning’s scripture gives us a better starting point: gentleness and respect.  

               We should have a baseline level of respect for all people, because every single person that we have ever seen, that we have interacted with, that we have talked to is beloved by God and has sacred worth.   Every single person is a precious creation of God, and so we should treat every person respectfully because we should respect the God who made them.  Not only should we treat people with respect, but we should also treat them with gentleness.  We should do this because Jesus told us to.   In the gospel of Matthew, we find Jesus teaching these words: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you.” 

               When it comes to having conversations with people, especially conversations where there may be room for differing opinions or disagreements, gentleness is how we would want to be treated.  We do not want to be yelled at, talked down, dismissed outright, or insulted.   Yet when it comes to topics of faith this is how those conversations have gone for far too many people.   We should treat people with respect because God cares about them, and we show that we also care by treating people with gentleness.  There is an old adage that has a lot of truth to it.   People do not care what we have to say until they know that we care.   Perhaps the best way that we push back against a culture shifting away from Christianity is not to yell louder, but it is to show we care and then when people are ready to listen, we show them hope and not judgement. 
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               Like the audience that Peter wrote this morning’s scripture to, we also live in a culture that has a rocky relationship with Christianity.    Peter’s advice on how to deal with what comes next is just as relevant today.   May you know the hope that you have and.   may you be prepared to share your hope.   May the hope we have in Christ work in our lives to increase our love for other people so that we treat them with gentleness and respect.   May we share our hope with others and with our community so that what comes next is we make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.  

Scripture:  1 Peter 2:2-10

            In 1995 the NBA broke new ground when the Toronto Raptors became the first Canadian team to play in the pro basketball league.   One of the people who attended that first game was Nav Bhatia.  He is an immigrant from India who had come to Canada to build a life for himself in the 1980’s.  While he grew up immersed in the sport of Cricket, he found a love for basketball once he settled in North America.  Since he was already a big fan of the sport, he was excited to support a local team.  After he attended the first game, he came back for the next and then the next.  In fact, he never misses a home game and once he had season tickets he can be found courtside, with his loud booming voice supporting his home team.  Bhatia has stuck by the Raptors through thick and thin.  For instance, during the 97-98 season when the team only won 19% of their games, he was there.   Bhatia is not just a super fan, the team considers him an essential part, and the sixth man on the court.  In 2019, when the Raptors finally won the NBA championship Bhatia was awarded a championship ring by the team.  In 2021 Bhatia became the first fan to be inducted into the NBA hall of fame.  The raptors are no doubt happy to have such a long time and loyal fan.  

Statically speaking, there is a good chance Nav Bhatia is happy too.  A lot of social science studies have been done about the most extreme sports fans, and these studies show some consistent results.  The biggest super sports fans consistently have higher self-esteem, are less likely to be depressed, or experience feelings of loneliness.  The studies go into a lot of detail, but they can all be summed up simply: rooting for their favorite team makes people feel better about their life.   Sports fans get a deep sense of connection and being part of something bigger and better than themselves when they invest themselves in their team.  One of the thoughts as to why studies keep showing these results is tribalism theory. This theory also recognizes the desire that people have to belong to something greater than themselves.  According to this theory many people historically found this connection through their tribe, their local network of connections with people like them.    However, as the world has continually become more global, Western culture particularly has become less tribal.  The basis of the theory is that people find their new tribe in sports. 

If this is true, then the large appeal of sports across ages and cultures is that it taps into something deep within the human spirit.   I think it is by God’s design that we have a desire to be part of something greater, to be fully invested in something outside ourselves, and to know we belong to something that last.   This idea of looking for tribes has a lot of validity, and it goes a long way to shedding light on this morning’s scripture.   This morning’s scripture is about how our faith fulfills those needs to belong, to be part of a tribe, and to be part of something far greater than ourselves. 
 
Peter wrote the letter we now call 1 Peter to Christians living in what is now modern-day Turkey.  This letter would have been circulated around the cities of that region.  Tribalism was alive and strong at the age that this letter was written.  The city the person was from or the people to whom they belonged went a long way to forming the identity of a person.   The customs they followed, the languages they knew, the friends they kept and even the religious practices of a person were all dictated by their tribal affiliation.   This was magnified by the process of what was first Hellenization and then Romanization.  The Greeks were very good at exporting their culture, values, and way of doing things.   When the Roman empire rose to power they did this as well and arguably even better.   Legally, economically, and culturally everyone was incentivized to embrace the Roman way of life, to participate in the Roman way of doing things, and to proudly identify themselves as a citizen of the Empire. 

   This all created a big crisis for those early Christians who converted to follow Jesus.  Christianity cut across ethnic lines, so they found themselves bound in fellowship with people different than them.  They also found hope and faith in a belief that did not support the Roman way of religious practice which was heavily integrated into the culture at large.   These early Christians found themselves at odds with the culture they had grown up in.   This cannot be understated; to fully follow Jesus they had to give up part of their identity.  There is a good chance that all of you know at least one diehard Cubs fan or Purdue fan.  Imagine what it would be like for that person if the Cubs disbanded as a team, or if Purdue closed as a school and stopped participating in sports.  If that happened, then for those die-hard fans it would be like losing a large part of themselves, and that is the kind of situation that these young Christians that Peter was writing to found themselves in.   

            Peter acknowledges that these believers are probably feeling a little out of sorts.   In verse four he compared Jesus to a living cornerstone that has been rejected by most people but chosen by God.   He states that in the same way they have been rejected but chosen by God to be built into a spiritual house.  It is in verse nine and ten though that Peter gets to the heart of his encouragement for isolated feeling believers.  Peter wrote, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praise of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.  Once you were not a people but now you are a people of God, one you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”   Can you try to imagine how profound this message was?   The people Peter wrote to felt cut off from a large part of their identity, they were probably being pressured to turn back to their old life, to their old tribe.   Then Peter connects the dots for them.   They have a tribe; they have a nation because they have been chosen to be a holy nation.
 
Membership in the Christian nation is not by birthright, but it is by mercy.  The message though is even more remarkable than that.   Can you imagine how much grief, bullying, abuse, and peer pressure these young Christians had to put up with when they turned to Christ and away from old traditions?   It would have been immense, which is why’s Peter’s words are so important.  They are God’s chosen people.  God chose them to be God’s people.   More than that though, God chose them to be a royal priesthood.   In the first century, it was only through a priest that someone could connect with the divine.  Yet as God’s chosen people, they had this connection already.   They did not need another priest to intercede for them because their intermediary (and our intermediary) to God the Father is Jesus the son.   For those first century Christians that this was written to, it must have been incredible news!   They had lost part of their identity but found a new identity in Christ.  They had lost their tribe, but they found a new tribe in the church.   The primary investment of their life moved from being where they were from to being where their hope was found.   

This shift in focus was a purpose driven, life giving, soul saving, change for these early Christians.   Finding their identity and tribe in their connection through Christ was vital for these early Christians, and I believe it is still vital today.  Rediscovering our connection to one another in Christ can help ground us in who we are, and it is one of the ways that we can meet the needs of the world around us. 

 The crisis that the first-century believers had was a loss of identity, and in some ways that is an existential crisis that many in our culture face.   A lot has changed quickly over the past 20-30 years.  For anyone over the age of 40 the world that you grew up in is largely gone.   This loss of cultural connection has fueled a lot of anger in our country.  It has led to an increase in toxic nationalism globally, and it has led to a lot of polarization.   It has led to people finding their tribe with people who they feel they share a common adversary or enemy with.   The motivation becomes less what is best for all, and what hurts the other side the most.  I know that you also see this polarization, this increase in hateful rhetoric, and the harm that is being caused.  I am not pointing at finger as to who is at fault, I am naming the reality we find ourselves in, because this morning’s scripture offers a better way.  I think United Methodist Pastor Michael Beck and theologian Leonard Sweet put it best in their book Contextual Intelligence.   They wrote, “There are liberals, there are conservatives, there are progressive, there are moderates, and then there are followers of Jesus.  We believe it is time for all parties-libera, conservative, progressive, regressive- to lay aside their weapons of mass deconstructions and disinformation and feat their eyes upon Jesus, the author and finisher of our story.”  

  As followers of Christ our identity should be found in the Lamb, not in the elephant or donkey.   As followers of Christ, we can offer a different way, a better way to the polarization and radicalization of our culture.   We can be a holy nation, a royal priesthood, God’s special possession that declare praise to God and points people out of darkness into God’s wonderful light.  When our identity is found in Christ, when our eyes are fixed on Jesus, then what connects us to the other followers of Christ is far greater than anything that could divide us.  When Christ is what informs who we are above all of the other noise, then we find that  our siblings in Christ may look nothing like us, think nothing like us, or talk completely differently but they can still be beloved to us because we are part of the same family, we are part of the same team, and we will spend eternity in the same forever home.  

This incredible inclusion of grace that brings all who follow Jesus onto the same team, has the power to meet one of the great problems of our modern world.  While some people find their tribe in sports or other means, so many people in our world today don’t have any people.   In places like the United Sates especially there is a real loneliness epidemic.   The statistics have been backing this up for years, and it seems to be a growing problem.   A 2025 APA polls shows that more than half of U.S. adults report that they have felt isolated, left out, or lacking companionship.   While this impacts people across all ages, the youngest of adults report feelings of severe loneliness at higher rates than older generations, and the group that reports the highest feelings of loneliness and disconnection are young men.  Studies have found that prolonged feelings of loneliness have adverse health effects and can lead to higher rates dementia in older people as well as health issues in people of all ages.  This has led studies to conclude that prolonged feelings of loneliness are just as dangerous to one’s health as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day.  

Statistically, we all interact with people in our day to day lives who feel alone; who feel there are not enough people who care about them; who feel they are not seen or heard; who feel they do not have a place that they belong.   There is a loneliness epidemic in our culture and in our country, and friends we can do something about that!  Because we are a holy nation called out of darkness and into the marvelous light.   We have a savior who gets us, who died for us.  We are part of team Jesus, and our team always has an additional spot on the roster.   There are lonely people in our community, so let’s invite them to join us.  Let’s save them a seat, and let’s give them a place to belong.

Now I know logistically, it is not quite that easy.   Loneliness is hard to pull out of.  It is a lot easier and a lot more comfortable to shrug off invitations than it is to take a potentially scary step.  I know that a lot of the invitations we extend will be turned down, but that does not mean we should stop inviting them.   We can provide a place for people who are lonely, and we can be a community for those who feel they do not have one.  

This is the message that Peter shared with his original audience.  It is still a message for us today.    This is our team.  We are part of a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.  We are God’s special possession.   May we allow those truths to deeply speak to identity and who we understand ourselves to be.   May we realize that as believers and followers of Jesus Christ we are already part of something bigger than ourselves.  May we take this better way of love and grace we have been called to and may we consistently invite other people to join us on team Jesus.  May we pass it on.  

Scripture:  1 Peter 1:17-23

I love how delightfully weird the English language can be.  Like all languages, English is constantly evolving and as a language, English is not shy from borrowing from all kinds of other sources.  This leads to spellings that do not make a lot of sense, unusual exceptions, and syntax that does not quite fit with the rules of the language.   For these reasons, English is often considered to be a difficult language to learn by non-native speakers. One of the aspects of English that makes it especially tricky to learn are all of the idioms we use.  An idiom is saying to express a more complex thought in a few words, often by referencing something else.   Over time though the idiom will change and it will become completely disconnected from its original context, so that while a native speaker will naturally know what the idiom still means it will seem like nonsense to other people. 

               While there a lot of idioms that this is true of, I think a good example to point to is “the proof is in the pudding.”   This idiom is often used to refer to things that are not pudding, and the idea of looking for proof in pudding is odd to begin with.   It really does not make a lot of sense, but that is because we have largely lost the original meaning.   The phrase traces back to the 17th century, and originally it was “the proof of the pudding is in the eating.”   The word pudding in this context does not refer to tapioca, chocolate, banana, or any of the other sweet puddings we think of today.  Rather it referred to a meat product that was something of a sausage loaf, and one could never be 100% sure what was put into it.   Also, in 17th century the word “proof” meant something more along the lines of “too test”, so the original meaning was much closer to something like the “test of the sausage is how it tastes.”   But because English is delightfully weird, even though the words changed and gain new meaning, the idiom stuck around for centuries and gained new meaning.  Today, the phrase the proof is in the pudding means the effectiveness or truth of something can only be determined by seeing the results firsthand instead of trusting appearances.  

               While this morning’s scripture does not have any actual pudding of any kind found within it, the idiom the “proof is in the pudding” is the same point this morning’s scripture makes.  In this morning’s scripture Peter describes how the grace of Jesus Christ can change and transform our lives, but the proof of this is how we love one another.  When it comes to the transformative power of grace, the proof is in the pudding, and the pudding is the love we have for one another. 

               This morning’s scripture comes from 1 Peter, which claims to be written by the apostle Peter and church tradition has long affirmed that position.   This letter was likely written towards the end of Peter’s life.  The resurrection and the first Pentecost had been decades ago, and Peter had been leading the church since then.   Chapter 1 1 Peter tells us that this letter is addressed to churches   throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.  All of these areas are in modern day Turkey.  This area was a hotbed for early Christianity thanks to the work of Paul and other missionaries.   Peter, as one of the apostles and heads of the church, wrote this letter with the intentions that it would travel around to the various churches in the area.  Unlike some of Paul’s epistles, this letter was not written to address a specific issue in the region, but rather it was meant to encourage a diverse group of people to live as faithful followers of Jesus.
We see that emphasis at the start of this morning’s scripture.  In verse 17 Peter wrote, “Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear.”  Peter is making a potentially jarring statement here.  In this part of the world during the first century, a large part of a person’s identity was related to where they were from.    Even more so than today, a foreigner was someone who was an other, an outsider, a person who would always be a little out of step and never 100% belong with the locals-with the insiders.   Peter is encouraging these early believers to live like no one else, and he is direct in this encouragement because in verse 18 Peter refers to the insider way of life they were used to as “the empty way of life handed down to your from your ancestors.”

Peter is encouraging the Christians of this region to turn their back on the culture they are used to.  There is good reason for Peter to use this strong language.   The religious landscape of the Roman world was incredibly polytheistic and had space for all kinds of religious expression.   There were a variety of secret societies, mystery cults, or specialized religious orders that people could be a part of devoted to all kinds of different deities.  It was possible for someone to join one of these groups, participate in their rites, and still participate in the greater civic religion of the culture.   Peter is making the point that following Jesus not just another mystery cult or secret society.   Following Jesus is not a club that one joins, and following Jesus is not just a label that someone adds to all of their other labels.  Peter’s point is that following Jesus should be such a defining characteristic of someone’s life, it should be so transformative, that faithfully following him should put us so out of step with the culture around us that we are living like a foreigner.  

               In this morning’s scripture, Peter goes on to explain why this is.  This message of grace and forgiveness was radical in the first century, and it should still be life-altering today.  The reason why these early believers should live like no one else is that because of Jesus we are redeemed from a life that was not connected to God.  It is through Jesus, we are connected to God, have faith in God, and have hope in our heavenly Father that forgives us and accepts us.   This great love of God, proven through the precious blood of Christ, is life changing.   As Peter references in this morning’s scripture, it should be so life changing that we live as if we are born again through the living and enduring word of God.  It should inspire us to live like no one else; it should lead us to live purified and holy lives.    

               What I find most fascinating in this morning’s scripture, is that Peter then lifts up that the proof this changed life, the proof of grace, is how the followers of Jesus love one another.  Peter wrote, “Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart.   The proof in the pudding for the transformative power of grace is in how those who claim to be saved love one another.  This really sticks out to me, because we often talk about the importance of loving our neighbor, which we should do, as followers of Jesus we should have a general love for everyone.  However, according to Peter the proof in the pudding for those outside church walks is how well we love one another.    This is what shows to the world that this faith we hold is not just another empty promise, another grift, or another false hope.  In this morning’s scripture, Peter puts forth that the proof that the love of God is transformative is in how the followers of Christ love on another.  I suppose the question this morning’s scripture puts before us, is how are we doing at that? 

               Unfortunately, this is a question where it is a lot easier to point of examples of Christians or church getting it wrong, because those negative examples are ones that stick out because they leave a negative impression and can sour people to faith. Unfortunately, a lot of people have stories where people found other believers were not living up the ideals of this morning’s scripture, and I think that one my life experiences points to one of the most common ways that we can fall short of loving one another. 

               Right out of college I had a part time youth ministry position in a United Methodist church down south in Corydon, Indiana.   Because we were so young we were a lot closer in age to the teenagers I was working with than any of the adults in the church.  So we tried attending a mid-week young adults’ group at a large non-denominational church about 25 minutes away.  This group did contain all people who were all much closer in age to us.   After attending for several weeks a woman, who was one of the lay leaders of this group, formally introduced herself to us and engaged in conversation.   A month or so later, she did the exact same thing, introducing herself as if meeting us for the first time.  It can be hard to keep names and faces straight, so it was not that big of a deal.  However, the very next week she did it again, introducing herself as if we had never met even though we just had this same conversation for the second time seven days ago.  After that, we ended up not going back to that group or church.  

               I think the vast majority of churches in the world view themselves as nice and friendly, but loving one another is more than just being friendly.   To love one another we have to truly care for one another.   This means we truly take time to focus on the other person, not treat them as a line on a checklist to greet in order to be friendly, but to recognize the person as sibling in Christ who we are called to love life family.  While stories like mine might stick out, the good news is that they are mostly outliers.   For people who attend church regularly the majority, 57%, list one of the reasons why is to be part of a community.  

               This is likely true for many of you, because many of you have found and experienced community right here.  It is likely that several of you can think of people that you have attended church with for years who do truly have a sincere love for you, deeply from the heart.  However, this actually leads to an issue that some commentators have called the Lego problem.  A standard Lego brick has eight pegs with which it can connect with other bricks.  Research has found that most people have no more than eight meaningful relationships with people they attend church with, and once those eight spots are filled, they stop seeking to make meaningful relationships.   They key to loving one another in a way that shows the transformative power of God, is that we do so in a way that is ever expanding.  

One of the ways that the all-encompassing love of Christ should change us is that we should always be willing to add one person.   In his book A Bigger Table, former Pastor John Pavlovitz writes about this.  He wrote about when there were large family gatherings, like Thanksgiving or Christmas, in order to accommodate everyone his father would grab two big leafs that were inserted into the table to make it bigger.  Pavlovitz writes, “We quite literally expanded the table so that we could fit everyone.  We made room we didn’t have before.  This was a regular incarnation of the love of God right in the center of our home, though we never knew to name it as such.  This is the heart of the gospel:  the ever-expanding hospitality of God.  Jesus, after all, was a carpenter.  Building bigger tables was right in his wheelhouse.” 

When we love one another in such a radical way, that we are always willing to pull up one more chair, make the table a little bigger, or expand our circle a little while then we prove the world the transformative power of God’s love.  This is because we show that the love of God is so great, is so incredible, is so all-inclusive, that this room for all.   When we love one another enough to make space to for each other, we embody this all-encompassing love of God. 

In this morning’s scripture, Peter wrote a letter to encourage the early believers of Jesus to live differently than their neighbors.  He encouraged them to live into a faith and hope in God that had been made known to them through Jesus Christ, and the evidence of how they have been saved by God’s love was in how they love one another.   The times have changed, the language has changed, and the culture has changed but Paul’s point is still true today.   The world around us is still in need of God, and it is desperate for the love and acceptance that only comes from our heavenly Father.  One of the best ways we can show this all-inclusive love is how we care for and love one another.  The proof is in the pudding.  So as the people of God, redeemed by Christ Jesus, may you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart.  

Scripture:  John 20:19-31

For Hollywood actors who love the craft and art of acting, one of the biggest potential career pitfalls is getting typecast.  This happens when an actor has some success in a particular role and then future projects only want to cast them in the same type of role.  Daniel Greg has gone on record in multiple interviews, about his frustration that playing James Bond seemed to brand him for years as only an action movie actor.    To avoid being type cast, some actors walk away from big roles.  For instance, after two successful Batman movies Michael Keaton turned down a lot of money to don the mask a third time because he did not want to get typecast.   Other times actors try to break out of typecasting by pursuing radically different roles.  Sometimes this work and other times it does not.   It worked for Arnold Schwarzenegger who starred as a muscle-bound action star but successfully managed to go against that type casting with several successful comedic roles.  Other times it has not worked out.  Clint Eastwood might be one of the most typecast actors as the perpetual tough guy, but early in his career he tried to avoid being typecast in that role by starring in Paint Your Wagon, his one and only attempt at a musical.     Since musicals did not work out, Eastwood eventually embraced being typecast. 

            It is hard for actors to avoid being typecast, because people tend to try and reduce other people to the lowest common denominator.  So, if an actor stars in a couple of romantic comedies, then it becomes easy to think of her as an actor who only does romantic comedies.   This morning’s scripture shows that typecasting happens in the bible as well.   Because of this morning’s scripture he got stuck with a label for all time.   Even today, the term “doubting Thomas” is used in a somewhat derogatory nature when someone is a skeptic.  There is a good chance that people who do not really have a church background are familiar with and use that phrase.  Thomas was more than a doubter though.  In this morning’s scripture he asked Jesus for proof.  Thomas may have had a moment of doubt, but he is probably in good company.   During the messiness of lives, many people find their faith tested, they find doubt creeping in.  Like Thomas we can have doubts in our own faith, but those doubts do not define our faith or our lives.  Doubt is not the absence of faith, and even amid uncertainty and doubt faith can flourish. 

It is unfair to label Thomas as doubting for all time, because that is not a full assessment of what we know about him.   There are other places in scripture where Thomas displays amazing faith.  For instance, in the eleventh chapter of John, Jesus decides to go back to Judea to raise Lazarus from the dead.  The disciples though are concerned about this because the last time Jesus was in Judea people tried to stone Jesus.   Many of the disciples are afraid, but it is Thomas who speaks up in 11:16: “Then Thomas said to the rest of the disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”  Thomas did not lack faith or conviction. 

Yet Thomas has been shackled with the label of “doubting” because of a single instance recorded in scripture.   Again, this is not fair because we are likely not that different from Thomas.  If we were in the place of Thomas, would we believe the others or would we also demand proof?  If we put ourselves in his shoes, we can see that Thomas had a reason to be skeptical.  Before the crucifixion he had put his hope in Jesus.  He had given up everything to follow him.  Based on his statement in John 11, Thomas clearly believed that he was willing to follow Jesus to death.  However, when put to the test, Thomas found his faith weaker than he thought.  Like all of the disciples he fled and hid when Jesus was arrested.  Thomas would have been grieving at the beginning of this scripture.  He was grieving the loss of his teacher and friend, but he was also grieving his hopes and dreams which he also believed died on the cross.   Given all that Thomas had gone through and given all the pain that he probably experienced, it was not that unrealistic for him to demand a little proof that he can have hope again. Thomas is in good company, because most of us probably would have done the same. 
  Many of us may have found ourselves in the same boat as Thomas.  Many of us have likely been in a place where the circumstances of life rocked a faith that was perhaps less solid than we thought.  There have been times that we, like Thomas, wanted a solid and tangible assurance that God is with us; that we can still have hope.    If we were honest with ourselves, we have probably all had moments in our faith journey where we may have felt like our faith is lacking.   We have all had moments when we felt like we could be considered doubters.  The question we should be wrestling with is, where do we go from there?   In answering that for ourselves I think there are two points we should consider. 

First, having doubts about our faith does not necessarily diminish our faith.   Thomas did have serious reservations about what he was told about the resurrection.  Jesus did acknowledge this, and he did say, “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”  Jesus does essentially say that Thomas had room to grow in faith.  However, it is also worth noting what Jesus did not say.  Jesus did not tell Thomas that his doubt is because he just does not pray enough.   Jesus did not critique doubt has obvious proof that Thomas was backsliding to immorality.   Jesus did not tell Thomas he was now unworthy because he doubted. Jesus did not know do any of those things.   Instead, Jesus met Thomas where he was at.  Jesus took the time to address Thomas’s concerns.   Could Thomas have been a better disciple of Jesus and had greater faith?  Yes probably.  Did doubting, disqualify him from following Jesus?  Absolutely not, and Jesus himself sought to help Thomas overcome his doubts. 

It is my experience that a shallow faith is one that has no doubts.  Doubts are nothing more than questions to our beliefs that do not have answers.   If we are taking our faith seriously, then we are going to ask questions.  If we ask enough good questions we are going to find ones without clean answers, and wrestling with those questions can and will lead to doubt.  However, I would rather have questions without answers than answers that cannot be questioned.   When we put absolute faith in our answers, then our faith is not in God our faith is in the answers we have come up with to define God into a box.   One of the beliefs I am most sure of is that God is bigger than any of my questions.  Doubt is not the opposite of faith, doubt is the space created by questions, and it is in that space that our faith can grow.   Without space to expand our faith will stay small.  However, when we question, that gives space for God to show up.  That gives space for Jesus to say “Put your fingers here.  See my hands.  Reach out your hand and put it in my side.  Stop doubting and believe.”   By being open to doubt, we give God the space to meet us where we are and grow our faith.  

 Second, it is important that we do not let doubt define our faith.   Unanswered questions can grow our faith, but we must be cautious that we do not get hung up on them.  Faith is our ability to believe despite not having all the answers.  If we get so caught up on answering everything then instead of questions creating space to grow, they can become a stumbling block.  Instead of doubts and questions pushing our faith forward, we can fixate on them and let those doubts define our faith life.  Not being defined by the stumbles and questions in the past of our faith development is a lesson we can really learn from Thomas.  Because of a hopeless moment, Thomas earned the label doubter.  That is not the only label he has in the bible though he also has the label of apostle.   He was one of the ones chosen by Jesus to carry forth the gospel.   He was one of the ones responsible for Truth taking root in the world.  Between the two, that is the label that Thomas claimed for himself and it is the one that defined his life.  

This morning’s scripture might be the scripture that Thomas is most well known for, but it is not the end of his story.  The book of Acts records how the original disciples were empowered by the Holy Spirit and led the early church.  Thomas was one of these apostles.  In the beginning of Acts Jesus instructs the Apostles to take the gospel to Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth.   According to church tradition, this is exactly what Thomas did.  In fact, tradition remembers that Thomas took the good new of Jesus Christ further than any of the other apostles.   Tradition remembers that Thomas traveled East to share Jesus with others.  This took him beyond the bounds of the Roman Empire.  Because of his missionary work, the Assyrian Church of the East remembers Thomas as its founder.  By American standards this is an obscure branch of Christianity.  It is currently centered in modern day Iraq, and despite intense persecution in the 20th and 21st centuries still has over 500,000 members.

 Thomas did not stop preaching the good news in just the modern-day middle east, but he went even further.   Tradition remembers that Thomas traveled as far as India to share the message of Jesus.   Tradition also remembers, that because of his bold witness the Christian faith took root in India.   Today there is an ethnic-religious group in India that calls themselves St. Thomas Chrisitans, who remember the evangelism of Thomas as their starting point.  This is not an insignificant group of people, and numbers around 6 million today.  In our Western Christianity culture, Thomas is most remember as doubting Thomas, but to millions of our siblings in Christ around the world he is remembered as the apostle that founded their church.  

Thomas did not let his doubts define him, and he lived out a vibrant faith despite a moment of doubt.  Hopefully, Thomas finds himself in good company because we can follow his example.   Thomas did not let his doubts hold him back, and neither should we.   The question we should all confront is are we?  

Serving in vocational ministry a sentiment I hear regularly is “I doubt I could ever do what you do?”   On the one hand I get it.   I have a brother and a sister, and if you were to go back to a high school version of me and say that some day one of the three of us is going to be in a pulpit, I would not have bet on myself.  On the other hand, I have to wonder if when people cast doubt on themselves if they are letting their fears, their uncertainty, and their doubt hold them back.   I realize that not everyone is called to vocational ministry and not everyone is called to preach.  But I do believe that all who follow Jesus are called to love their neighbors, all who follow Jesus are called to share the good news, and all who follow Jesus are called to be disciples who make disciples.   There is a way that you are being called, there is a way to bring about transformation in this world that you are best equipped for.   And if you are not fully doing that right now, is it because you doubt you can?   Instead of living into the bold calling God has for us, are your more likely to tell yourself all the reasons why you can’t?   If that resonates with you, then may you be in good company with Thomas.  Thomas had real doubts, and Jesus met him where he was at Thomas listened to that voice.  Because Thomas listened to that voice, he took the good news to the ends of the earth as he knew it.   I still believe that Jesus meets us where we are at, and his voice is the one we should be listening to. 
​
Because of this morning’s scripture Thomas has been unfairly typecast as a doubter. Thomas did not let those doubts define him or is faith, and may we follow that example.  If we are serious about following Jesus and living a life of faith, then it is inevitable that we will have doubts.  May we not let those times diminish our faith.  May we honestly wrestle with them and may seek the voice of Christ throughout them.   If we do, then I have confidence that just like Thomas we will emerge with a stronger faith and we will be able to follow Jesus wherever he is leading, all the way to the ends of the earth

Scripture: John 9:1-41
 
​The story goes that two dads were watching a basketball game.  One of the dad’s was mostly quiet and respectful.  The other dad though was not.  He was yelling a lot.   As the game drew into the last quarter, the quiet dad finally said to the loud one, “Which one is your son?”  The loud dad, was drawn out of his hyper-engagement at the game and somewhat surprised asked, “why?”   The quiet dad calmly replied, “I want to tell him how rubbish he is.”  This understandably set the loud dad off and he said, “You can’t do that, he is only a kid!  How would you feel if I said that to your kid?”   The quiet dad firmly pointed out, “You’ve been doing that all game.”   Thoroughly confused the loud dad asked, “Well which one is your kid?”  The quiet dad answered, “The referee.”   

Youth sports has a growing problem, and that problem tends to be the parents.  Incidents of parents acting badly at these event has been steadily on the rise.   It is not just how these parents act towards the referees or the coaches.  Sometimes the bad behavior is how parents speak to their own kids.   From the sidelines, they yell at them, they criticize their every move, and constantly berate them for not doing better.  This is not hyperbole, but this is personal experience.  I am at the stage of life where I attend youth sporting events, and the way that I have seen some parents yell at their own children is heart breaking.  

Now of course, these parents will claim they mean well.  They will claim they are simply trying to motivate their children, they are trying to coax the best out of their children, and they are trying to push their children to reach their potential.   However, publically yelling and shaming a child is not the way to do it.  In what will come as a surprise to no one, study after study has shown that yelling at children and especially shaming children has the opposite effect.  The number one response that it creates is stress and an increase in cortisol levels.  This can decrease the ability to make split second decisions, and can actually lead to a decrease in performance and more mistakes in team sports.  When shaming someone does work, it is never because the shame has motivated them to do better.  It is because they respond in a way to make the yelling and shaming stop.   

 This morning’s scripture show that shame has always been a misused and abusive tactic.   This morning’s scripture also shows how Jesus deals with those who seek to shame.  He ignores them, and he heals.  Where others offer criticism, Jesus offers hope.   Jesus healed the man of his blindness but he also healed him of his shame.    We often pray for the sick and trust in God’s healing, but this scripture reminds us that Jesus heals more than the just the physical conditions.  Jesus heals our emotional wounds and cures our spiritual blindness.    

Even more so than today, shame was a large part of the culture in Jesus day.  Honor and shame were much more codified.  In the Middle Eastern culture of the first century honor and shame were like an invisible currency.  It was not seen, but everyone was aware of it. Everyone had an intrinsic understanding about how an individual should be held in honor or in shame.  It was believed that those who should be the most ashamed, the shame manifest itself in physical ailments.   This is why the scripture begins with the disciples asking if it was the man’s sin or his parents’ sin that caused him to be blind.   The belief was that this man had done something so shameful, that God blinded him or his parents had been so sinful that he was born as a living testimony to their shame.   Jesus quickly contradicts this way of thinking, says it was neither, and heals him of his blindness.  Jesus does more than heal him of blindness though.   This man had spent his entire life being ashamed of who he was.  He had been told by other that he should be ashamed of something he could not control, and now that mark of shame was gone.   Jesus had done more than just restored his eyes.  He had restored his heart and soul.      

What happens next is absolutely fascinating.  His neighbors do not recognize him.  The man is no longer the blind, shame-ridden beggar they are used to.   Not a single thing about his physical appearance changed.  Yet, they do not recognize him, because they had only defined him by his shame.   They could not see the man without seeing the shame they had prescribed to him and once that shame was gone they literally could not recognize him.    From a literary stand point this is a brilliant piece of irony.   Now that the blind man can see, he can no longer be seen.  Some of his neighbors seem to be genuinely disturbed and upset by this so they take him to the authorities.  They specifically take him to the religious authorities, to the cultural authorities.  This is because the issue is not that the blind man did anything legally wrong, but he upset the status quo, being able forced others to change how they view him because they could no longer define him by the shame they ascribed to him.   

The man who was blind is taken before the Pharisees, and I have to wonder if this induced a lot of anxiety in the healed man.   It would have been the Pharisees who taught this man that his blindness was because he was steeped in sin.   It was the Pharisees who would have ascribed shame to this man and encouraged others to do this same.  The interaction with the pharisees is kind of fun to read, because he kind of takes the pharisees down a peg or two.  He does this by ignoring the haters and proclaims what he knows to be true.     He was blind but now he can see.  He was ashamed but now he has a new lease on life.    The blind man recognizes Jesus as the one who healed him and recognizes that only one from God can do that.  

The pharisees in this scripture get a little agitated by that because the truth telling forces them to be confronted by their spiritual blindness.  They claim to be the religious experts of their day, but they cannot see the work of God right in front of them.   Again there is a deep irony present in that the blind can see what the expert cannot.   The spiritual blindness of the Pharisees was put before them, and the Pharisees were confronted with a profound truth.  They had the option of accepting the truth, recognizing the good news of Jesus, and changing their views or digging in their heels and lashing out.  Predictably they chose the second.   Jesus had healed the blind man and freed him of shame.  Since the Pharisees could no longer shame him, they just lashed out insulted him, and ultimately threw him out.  

Jesus healed a blind man on more than one occasion.   Throughout the gospels Jesus heals a variety of individuals of many ailments.  Jesus is a healer.   Just like this morning’s scripture Jesus often heals more than a physical ailment, he often heals a person’s spiritual state as well.     As we consider this morning’s scripture there are two ways that we should consider how Jesus can bring about healing for more than just our physical bodies today

Jesus healed the blind man not just of his blindness but of his shame.  We may not have a culture that is so deeply based in honor and shame as the culture of the 1st century middle east, but there are still a lot of people who have a sense of shame loaded onto them.  While I know there are always exceptions, there is a high chance that at some point in our lives every single one of us has had people try to speak negativity into our lives.   We have all experienced someone else measuring us up to their capricious, subjective, and impossible standard to then only be told we are found wanting.   In some way all of us have been told we are not good enough, smart enough, thin enough, talented enough; we have all been told by someone that we are not enough.    Unfortunately, all of us have had someone wield shame like a clumsy club to whack us to where they think we should be.  

​There are many of us who have been told lies about who we are, who have been shamed by those we trusted, and then we have internalized those lies.   There is research to back this up.  It is estimated that in any given day 80% of our self-talk is negative.   We have allowed the shame that other people prescribed to us to define us and we repeat it to ourselves over and over again.    I am telling you all of this, because if you are someone who has been shamed, those voices are not worth listening to.  I am telling you this because those voices that have told you that you are not enough are misguided at best and terrible, awful lies at worst.

I am telling you this because shame is not the end of our stories.  Shame tells us that we are not enough, but grace tells us that we are enough as we are.  Shame constantly tells us we need to measure up or else.   Grace tells us that we do not need to measure anything because we are loved without condition.   Shame by its very nature is designed to throw shade on others, but Jesus heals us because he is the light of the world.    Jesus is a healer.  Jesus does not just heal physical ailments but he heals hearts and souls.   He can heal us of our shame with the truth of his grace, love, and acceptance of us.   

The second way that we need to consider how we can encounter Jesus as a healer has to do with spiritual blindness.   Specifically, this scripture challenges us to consider how we might be spiritually blind.   The religious leaders were so spiritually blinded that they could not see the work of God in front of them.   They could not see the mark of grace upon the healed man.   A man who had been healed by the literal power of God was before them.  Yet, all they could see was a man who had been blind and was still worthy of being shamed by them.

 Unfortunately, in the body of Christ, in churches, there is much spiritual blindness and this blindness has led to so many painful stories.   There are stories of those dealing with mental illness such as depression being made to feel like they do not fit in because their life is not as blessed as others sitting in the pews.   There are stories of those struggling with addiction, unable to share their struggle and get the support they need because they only find shame and judgement in churches.  There are stories of people who in trying to be their most authentic self are trying to find a place to belong but in church all they experience are people so busy hating the sin that they make no time to love the sinner.  All of these are stories of how churches have been blind to the people that God has put right in front of them.  

These are stories of when the people of God chose shame over grace.  They are all stories of how our spiritual blindness has impacted us.  Spiritual blindness is when we look upon others and instead of seeing the potential for God’s amazing grace, we instead only see reasons for shame.   This morning’s scripture challenges us to look deep into our hearts and ask how we might be spiritually blind.  How do we miss our opportunity to join in God’s work of bringing about reconciliation, healing and love in the world because our own bias and prejudice blinds us to where God is at work?   If we can find a blind spot in our compassion for others, then let us pray that the Spirit will open our eyes that we might see. 
               This morning’s scripture is one of the dozens of instances in the gospels where Jesus is the healer.   Jesus is still the healer today.   He does not just heal our bodies, but Jesus heals our souls as well.   If you have been hurt or shamed by others in life, then may you come to Jesus, because Jesus heals our hearts and souls. May the voice that you listen to the most be the one that says “You are enough” and then proved that on the cross.  If we have spiritual blindness, then may we come to Jesus because Jesus restores sight to the blind.  May we have eyes to see and open hearts to love.  May we see the people God is placing in front of us and may we love them like Jesus loves us.   May we be cured of our spiritual blindness so that our testimony is I once  was blind but now I see. 
 

Scripture:  Romans 5:1-11

I know there are some people who manage to read a book or more a week, and while I do not think that I will ever get to that level I do read quite a bit.   This will come as a surprise to no one, but my favorite genre of books to read is science fiction.  Famed Christian author C.S. Lewis, who is known for writing the Chronicles of Narnia, also wrote a trilogy of science fiction books often referred to as his space trilogy.  These books are less known than his other works, and lately I have been reading them for the first time.  Unfortunately, I am also learning that there is a reason why these books are not as well known, but I have also found the experience of reading them fascinating because these are science fiction from another era.  In these books a human from England visits Mars and Venus to find planets with atmospheres, water, and alien life.  Today we know that in their current states, both planets are unable to sustain life as we know it.  However, C.S. Lewis wrote these books in the 1930s, and at that time this was not a known thing.  In the nineteenth century it was thought that there was a good possibility that both planets could support and house life.   By Lewis’ time, it was believed the odds of Mars having life was not very likely, but speculation of Venus having life, and even being a swampy rainforest like world, persisted into the 1960s.  

Based on the data available at the time the scientific minds of the late 19th and early 20th century theorized that alien life on our closest planetary neighbors was possible, and those theories fueled the speculative science fiction of the first half of the 20th century.   As more data became available the understanding and theories changed, and this is exactly how it should work.   Our beliefs should be informed by data, evidence, and proof.   While the scientific method has given us a reliable framework to do that, the reality is that seeking data, evidence, and proof to inform our belief has always been a feature of the human experience.   This morning’s scripture points to that.   In this morning’s scripture, Paul points to proof that we can assurance that forgiveness and reconciliation with God is real.  His proof is the death of Jesus.   This morning’s scripture can challenge us to consider how we might be able to add to the proof that God’s love can and has changed everything. 

This is the third week that we are focusing on a scripture from Romans, and three selections have come from the same section of Romans.   As a reminder, the book of Romans is a methodical book.  Paul does not make his points quickly in Romans.  He takes his time unpacking them, constructing an effective argument and then building upon that argument for the next point he seeks to make.  The primary point that Paul is making in this section is that sin separates us from God.   The Jewish law found in the first five books of the bible, can inform us what is sinful, but the law does not have the power to save.  It is not our actions that are credited as righteousness, it is our faith.  Specifically, it is our faith in Jesus Christ, because it is Jesus who was the gift that reconciles us to God.   It is Jesus who undoes the power of sin that entered the world.  As Paul wrote in the scripture we read two weeks ago, “For just as through the disobedience of one-man [Adam] people were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man [Jesus] many will be made righteous.”

 It is in this morning’s scripture that Paul offers his proof.   Reconciliation with God, the forgiveness of sins, it is not something that we earn.  It is a gift born out of God’s love, and God proves this love because while we were sinners Christ died for us.   Paul’s proof of God’s love is that God did not spare Jesus from suffering the ultimate punishment for sin.  We have to remember that Paul wrote this letter, only a couple of decades after the crucifixion.  The death of Jesus was not just a story at the time of Paul.  Witnesses to that event were still very much alive.  It was an event that could be verified by those who experienced it firsthand.   

 The death of Jesus of Nazareth was Paul’s proof positive for God’s love and for grace.   Today, the crucifixion of Jesus still offers compelling proof to the love of God.   First, that Jesus died at the hand of Roman officials, is not something that most historians dispute.   While the gospels and Paul’s epistles were written with an intent purpose of sharing the story of Jesus, they are still primary historical sources.  The bible is not the only ancient source to tell of Jesus.  A Jewish historian name Josephus wrote a work called Antiquities of the Jews at the end of the first century.  One section covered the decades before the writing of the work, and there Josephus wrote:  “About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man.  For he was one who performed surprising deed and was a teacher. . .He won over many Jews and many Greeks. . .And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Pilate had condemned him to a cross.”

While secular historians may not ascribe much theological importance to the death of Jesus, the historicity of the event is not in question.   The death of Jesus is not just a story, it is not a fairy tale or a legend.  It is an event that happened, and it was Paul’s proof because he believed that it was not an accident it was evidence of God’s great love.  

This points to the second way that the death of Jesus is proof of God’s love, and that is that generations of Christian tradition have found truth in Paul’s claim.    The belief that God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While were still sinners, Christ died for us, is a core and essential belief of Christianity.  The belief that through the death of God’s son people were reconciled to God and we have saved through the resurrected life of Jesus are the beliefs which make Christianity unique.   This is core to what we believe, and it has been consistently so.  For instance, our United Methodist Book of Discipline contains our essential beliefs in the articles of religion.  Article VII from the Evangelical United Brethen tradition states: “We believe God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.  The offering Christ freely made on the cross is the perfect and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, redeeming man from all sin, so that no other satisfaction is required.”  

 There are a lot of different branches and understandings of how to best follow Jesus, but while the words we use and the aspects we emphasize might be different, nearly 2,000 years of belief, across different cultures upholds that Jesus’s death on the cross is the proof of God’s love, and it is through Jesus that people have been reconciled to God and redeemed from all sin.   Despite all that tradition, upholding Paul’s proof there are still a lot of people that have a hard time believing it.  The reason why many struggle with Jesus’ sacrifice proving God’s love makes me think of the movie Saving Private Ryan.   In this movie a group of soldiers risk their lives to save one other solider, whose brothers have all died.   One of the questions asked throughout the movie is what makes Private Ryan worth the risk and sacrifice of all the others.  At the end, Private Ryan is saved but at a great cost.  As the captain, played by Tom Hank is dying from a German bullet, he grabs Private Ryan and whispers in his ear, “earn this.”  

Do you know how much more comfortable it would be if Jesus said this to us?   We are really good at earning things.   We are really good at having a sense of responsibility and paying back our debts.    Earning something is very comfortable for us, we do a lot better with the idea of earning something than being given something.  The infuriating beauty of this morning’s scripture, of the gospel, is precisely that we cannot earn it.    Christ died while we were still powerless and he died for the ungodly.  
 
We cannot earn God’s love and salvation, but surely, we must respond to it.  Out of great love God sacrificed his son.  Through Jesus we are once again connected to God.  The wrongdoing, the sin, the evil that we are guilty of no longer separates us from our creator, because Jesus’ death satisfies the penalty we have earned, and Jesus’ resurrected life frees us from death, wins the victory, and provides reconciliation with God.  If we truly claim that kind of love in our life, then it must be life changing, we must respond and change in some way.   We cannot pay God back and earn it, so how do we respond?   Through Jesus we have been forgiven and God’s love has been proven, so perhaps the way that we can best respond is to forgive and in doing so we add proof to God’s redeeming love. 

An example of what it means to do this comes from Corrie ten Boom.  During World War II in Holland, out of Christian conviction, she and her family helped Jews escape the Holocaust.  They were caught and imprisoned for it.  After the war she became a great social worker, author, and a well-known preacher.   In a Guidepost magazine article entitles “I’m still Learning to Forgive” she told a story of living into grace.   The year was 1947 and West Germany was still under Allied occupation.   Corrie ten Boom had come from Holland to try and help the country heal by preaching a message of reconciliation.  In a church in Munich, she preached that God forgives, and when sins are confessed before God it is like they are cast into a deep ocean, gone forever.   After the service a balding, heavyset man in a gray coat approached her.  Fear began to rise in her, because she recognized this man. He had been a guard at Ravensbruck, the concentration camp she had been interred at, the place where her sister died.  The man told her it was a good message, and he added that she was right, he had been a guard at Ravensbruck.  However, he had since become a Christian.  He had asked God to forgive the evil that he had done, and to change his heart.   But then, as he offered his hand he asked her, “Will you forgive me?”

In the article she wrote:   “And I stood there-I whose sins had again and again to be forgiven-and could not forgive.-  Betsie, my sister had died in that place-could he erase her slow terrible death simply by asking?  It was the most difficult thing I ever had to do but I had to do it- I knew that.  And still I stood there with coldness clutching my heart.  “Jesus help me” I prayed silently “I can lift my hand.  I can do that much.  You supply the feeling.”

“And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me.  And as I did, an incredible thing took place.  The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, spring into our joined hands.  And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.  “I forgive you brother” I cried “with my whole heart.”  For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and the former prisoner.  I had never known God’s love so intensely as I did then.”

When we were powerless, unable to save ourselves, while we were yet sinners, Jesus Christ died for us.  This proves God’s love, and in the name of Jesus Christ we are forgiven!   One of the ways that we can prove God’s love in this world is that we can forgive others as well.  This does not mean we have to forget, we can still maintain healthy boundaries, but it means we let go of the hate, the anger, and the wrath that has built in our hearts.   It means that, just like God did for us, we choose love for someone who has wronged us.  

One of the main points Paul makes in the book of Romans is that through Jesus Christ we are reconciled to God our creator, and that this is because of God’s great love.   The death of Jesus is the proof of this love; it is the evidence that we can be forgiven.   May you believe and know that God loves you so much that while you were powerless and still a sinner, Christ died for you.   As God did for us, may we be willing to take steps to offer forgiveness to others, not because they earned it but because our hearts are changed by grace and our lives can be proof positive that God’s love can transform everything.   
 
 

Scripture:  Romans 4:1-5; 13-17

For almost a hundred years it was the conventional wisdom and belief that it was not possible for the human body to run a mile in less than four minutes.  We really did not keep track of things like world records until the 1800s. The first person to be recognized as holding the world record for the fastest mile was Charles Westhall in 1855 with a time of 4:28. The fastest runners in the world kept getting the time lower and setting new records, but they could not get a time below four minutes.   In 1945 a Swedish runner seemed to confirm the impossibility of a four-minute mile by setting a new record with a time of 4:01.4.   In the world of sports, it became a given that a four-minute mile truly was impossible.  A four-minute mile was just impossible. . . until it wasn’t.  In 1954 Roger Banister of England broke the barrier and ran a mile in 3:59.4.   He had done the impossible.   Banister’s impossible feat stood in the record books for only forty six days, at which point Australian John Landy turned in a mile of 3:58.  Since Banister first ran a mile in under four minutes, the world record has been broken eighteen times, and currently the record for the fastest mile is 3:43.13, well below what experts once thought was physically impossible. 

The four-minute mile is often held up as an example of how what we think can hold us back.   Before Roger Banister some of the top runners who trained relentlessly and would run in the best conditions could not get their time under four minutes.  Banister was not a professional athlete.  He only trained part-time while pursuing a degree.   He also ran his record mile in less-than-ideal conditions.   It is often lifted up that the primary difference between Banister and the other top athletes of his day, is that Banister did not believe a four-minute mile was impossible.   Once he proved it was possible, within a few years at the highest-level track events it became standard for the winning time to be under four minutes.   It is often theorized that what kept runners from breaking the four-minute mile was not a matter physicality, it was a matter of belief.  They simply could not achieve what they believed to be impossible.    

 The story of Richard Bannister shows us that when we assume something is true, that belief can have influence over actions. Banister challenged the assumption of the less than four-minute mile, and once we showed it could be done that became the standard.   A similar dynamic is at work in this morning’s scripture.  The Apostle Paul challenges long held conventional wisdom about people’s relationship with God, and in doing so set a new standard for grace.  The new standard that Paul puts forth can continue to challenge conventional wisdom today. 

Last week we also looked at a scripture from Romans, so as a reminder in the book of Romans Paul is addressing the church in Rome that is made up of both Jewish believers and gentile, or non-Jewish, believers.   The primary point that Paul is trying to make in Romans is that despite their different cultural backgrounds all of the believers in the Roman church have the same need for grace through Jesus Christ.   Paul makes this case with a systematic approach that uses the philosophical wisdom and logic of his day.  This morning’s scripture is specifically addressed to the Jewish part of the congregation.  

We know this because Paul focuses on Abraham.  For the non-Jewish believers Abraham would not have had much relevance, but he was incredibly important to the Jewish believers.  We can read all about Abraham in the book of Genesis, and he is significant because it is with Abraham that God makes a covenant.  It is the covenant between God and Abraham that the Israelites traced back to make them God’s People.  Because of the covenant God was the God of Abraham, and as his descendants the God of Abraham was the God of the Israelites.  It was because of the covenant with Abraham that God gave the Israelites the law.  The conventional wisdom of the time at least in Jewish circles, was that they were the inheritors of the covenant.  One of the prevailing thoughts was that because of Abraham, because of the law they had a step up over others in being righteous, in right relationship with God. 

The whole point of this morning’s scripture is Paul pushing back against that, because if it is the covenant made that made him righteous and if it is following the law that saves, then it makes reconciliation with God, salvation, something that is earned.   This is the point Paul makes in verses 4 and 5.  If righteousness is earned, then it is like paying someone what they are owed, but our relationship with God is not something earned by our own merit.  As Paul writes in verse 5: “to the one who does not work but trust God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness.”   Paul also states in verse 16 “Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all.” 
 
Because Paul was so meticulous in the book of Romans he builds this viewpoint out in detail, and this morning’s scripture is just a portion of the overall section where he makes this point.   In the letter to the Ephesians Paul makes the same point as he does in this morning’s scripture a lot more succinctly.  In Ephesians 2:8-9 Paul wrote, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith- and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- not by works so that one can boast.” 

The conventional wisdom of Paul’s time is that it was through Abraham’s actions and making the covenant that he could be considered righteous, and it was the conventional wisdom that following the descendants of Abraham by living into that covenant and following the law would be saved, but in this morning’s scripture Paul challenges this conventional wisdom by pointing to grace not works.  Just like a sub-four-minute mile was impossible until it was not, this view of grace accepted through faith, rewrote the rules.  During the time of Paul this would have been considered radical, it would have been a case of scandalous grace.  Today, the understanding that we are saved by grace through faith and not through what we do or through the covenant that an ancestor made with God, is standard.    Yet, as this scripture points out it was not always the case.   Grace through Jesus Christ rewrote the rules, it made the impossible, possible.   Grace challenged conventional wisdom of Paul’s day, and I have to wonder in what ways does grace challenge some of the conventional wisdom today.   Just like it was in Paul’s day, there are still ways that grace might be a little scandalous.  

In this morning’s scripture, Paul points out that we are saved by grace through faith not works, and as followers of Jesus who seek to model our lives on grace I think there is a piece of conventional wisdom that grace can really challenge.   The conventional wisdom today is that “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”  The origins of this phrase can be traced back to the nineteenth century.  At this time, it was common for saloons to offer a “free lunch” to someone if they purchased a beer.  The food served was often not terribly filling and it had a high salt content, all of which encouraged the patrons to buy more beer.  As an opinion piece from a 1873 Newspaper quipped, “One of the most expensive things in the city- a free lunch.”   The phrase, “there’s no such thing as a free lunch” began as a warning to people to be on the lookout for marketing gimmicks, but even though bars stopped the practice of a free lunch long ago the phrase has hung around. The phrase gained popularity in the 1970s when it was the title of a bestselling book by economist Edwin Dolan.  Today the phrase is often used in economic context to convey the idea that everything has a cost of some sort.
 
  While that is technically true and thinking of hidden or unintended costs can be helpful or prudent, the idea of “no such thing as a free lunch” is often used cynically today.  It is most often used as a criticism of social programs that benefit groups of people more in need of help.  The phrase is often used to justify an argument that I should keep what is mine instead of it being used for the betterment of others or society. The wisdom of today is that there is no such thing as a free lunch, and people are incredibly concerned with others taking advantage of the system and getting something for nothing.   There is a lot of hand wringing today because a lot of people are concerned that someone else is going to get a free lunch at their expense.   But that is not a grace-filled way to approach life, because grace is never earned, it is a free gift without expectation.  
 
 Grace absolutely had a cost.   This morning when we celebrate the sacrament of communion, we remember the cost.  The body of Christ broken for us, the blood of Christ poured out for the forgiveness of sins.   The motivation of Jesus was not “what do I get out of this?”  The motivation was love, and that love for each of us is so strong, that even if you were the only person Jesus could save by his sacrifice, it is still a cost that would be paid without hesitation.   
 
The conventional wisdom of “there’s no so thing as a free lunch” is motivated by a point that put’s self-first, it is a viewpoint that is about keeping what is mine.  Grace is the exact opposite.  It is motivated by being other focused.  It’s motivated by selfless love.   In Paul’s day grace challenged the conventional wisdom by pointing out that grace may be guaranteed to all and today grace challenges us to be focused on others with selfless generosity. 
 
Over the past few years, a number of churches have found ways to put grace into practice.   One of the greatest worries that Americans have is related to expenses from a medical emergency.  Medical debt is an American problem, with one quarter of households reporting they have difficulty paying for medical expenses in the past.   Churches have found ways to address this issue in a way that leads with grace.  A few years ago the mega-church Northview Christian in Carmel, IN paid off $7.8 million in medical debt for almost 6,000 families.  
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The Carmel church did not raise almost $8 million to do this, what they did was buy unpaid debt from medical institutions.  They were able to buy the debt at pennies to the dollar, and then instead of trying to collect the church forgave the debt.   Dozens of other churches in Indiana have also done this as well as hundreds around the country.   They are not all mega-churches with vast budgets.  A Couple of years ago Acton United Methodist Church outside of Indianapolis which has an average attendance of a little over 100 raise around $20,000 to pay off $2 million of medical debt.  
 
The churches do not end up knowing the families they helped, but these families were relived the burden of massive debt because of the kindness of followers of Jesus.  Yes, there is a cost to this kindness, but that should not be a hinderance.  This morning’s scripture helps point out that what makes grace be grace is that it is fa free gift to the receiver, it is never earned or deserved.  But if on the cross Jesus paid it all for us, then grace challenges us today to consider how we might selflessly give out of love to help others.   There are many ways to do this, and paying off medical debt is one way that some churches have found that they can put grace into practice today. 
 
In this morning’s scripture Paul challenges the conventional wisdom of the day by point to grace.   Grace was scandalous then and grace is still scandalous today, because to take grace seriously means we have to admit that we cannot save ourselves and that we are in need of the gift of God’s forgiving love.    Grace is also scandalous because if we are going to live as followers of Jesus, then we must also lead with grace like Jesus does.  This means that focus is on others and motivation is selfless love. So may we lead with grace, because it is grace that saves us.  May we lead with grace because it is due to grace that faith is credited as righteousness.  May we lead with grace, because that is what this world needs now more than ever.  

Scripture: Romans 5:12-19

It used to be called consumption.  This is because for a lot of the infected people who were symptomatic the disease would slowly progress, consuming more and more of the person’s health and vitality until it eventually killed them.  In the 1800’s, as industrialization led to more people being  packed tightly together, the threat of consumption spread.  At its height it was responsible for a quarter of all deaths in Europe.   Special facilities called sanatoriums were built specifically to treat and house afflicted patients.  In the United States more than 1,000 of these facilities were built.  We no longer call disease consumption today, because today tuberculosis is curable.  A vaccine was created in 1906 and in 1946 antibiotics offered an effective cure.  

Despite there being a vaccine for more than a century and a cure for eighty years, tuberculosis has never been eradicated.  Worldwide, the disease continues to be an ongoing issue.  In fact, it was estimated in 2024 that there were around 10.7 million new infections, and annually tuberculosis kills more than 1.2 million people, making it the leading cause of death from an infectious disease.  It is a tragedy and an absolute failure of our global systems that a curable disease still causes so much suffering.   The world has the technology and the collective resources to get the deaths caused by tuberculosis as close to zero as possible, but so far global leaders have not made the choice to do so.  

 It is unfortunate that a disease with an established cure still causes so much harm in the world today.   Yet, for much longer the same has been true about the spiritual lives of people.   As this morning’s scripture points out, sin is a spiritual affliction with a 100% infection rate.   It is a spiritual affliction that causes untold suffering and real harm in the world.   This morning’s scripture also points out that God has provided a cure.  Jesus Christ is the remedy for that which ails us.  

 The book of Romans can sometimes be a hard book to approach, because it tends to be one the denser books in the bible.  In Romans Paul seeks to bridge the divide between Jewish and Gentile believers in Rome’s Christian community, and he seek to do so through doctrine and theology.   As such, Romans is a methodical book constructed with philosophical logic.  Each layer builds upon and then expands the layer just laid down.   This structure can make it difficult to consider in part, because whatever scripture we read from Romans it is likely deeply connected to the surrounding section and cannot be easily pulled out.   We find that dynamic in this morning’s scripture.  

 It is in this morning’s scripture we find the conclusion to one of Paul’s points and the introduction to what will be the major focus for the next several chapters.   Paul was trying to bridge the gap between two different cultures, so one of the beginning arguments in Romans is the importance of the Jewish law.   Paul makes the point that the law, found in the first five books of the bible, is helpful and necessary because it defines what is right and wrong.  It gives a clear direction to what righteousness looks like.  While this would have been old news to the Jewish believers, Paul made a meticulous case for the importance of the law for the gentile believers as well.  However, he points out there is a problem.   The law does not save.  As Paul wrote in Romans chapter 3, “There is no difference between Jew and Gentile for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”   The law of God found in our Old Testament, is helpful for knowing what is right and wrong but it is powerless to save us from the power of sin when we fall short.

 I have had the privilege to teach confirmation classes a number of times over the years.  In teaching young people, the basic beliefs of Christianity and the unique aspects of our United Methodist heritage, we will talk about sin.  I will ask them for an example of a sin, and every single time I have taught confirmation the very first answer given is murder.  It makes sense, because it is something we all know to be wrong-and it is something that we likely believe we will never do.   When it comes to sin, we try to make short cuts by creating list of sinful behaviors, and often the least tempted we are to do one of the behaviors the more likely we are to hold it up as a clear example of sin.  

Sin is more than just a list of behaviors though.  There are many ways to define sin.  Perhaps the shortest is that sin is willfully doing what we know is wrong.   A more complete definition of sin would be that sin is any thought or action that fall short of God’s will.   The greatest consequence of sin is that our sinful actions separate us from God.  So, any actions that move us further away from God is sin.   This is why this morning’s scripture begins by focusing on Adam.  The creation story found in Genesis tell us of Adam and his partner Eve.   We can read in Genesis chapter 3 how they chose to take a step away form God, and how that act of rebellion put sin into the world, polluting the relationship of people with God. 

Sin, fracturing the relationship with God, has created the spiritual reality we find ourselves in.  It is not that people are born naturally sinful, but we live in a world, corrupted by sin, and because of that we cannot escape the corruption ourselves. Theologian Randy Maddox, who sought to define John Wesley’s practical theology in his book Responsible Grace, calls this state inbeing sin.  Being separated from God distorts our nature and inclines us to sinful actions that move us further from God  Like a virus, we are all inevitably infected by sin.   In trying to summarize John Wesley’s viewpoint on this Maddox wrote, “From this spiritual corruption, spring our actual sins, which affect all . . .relationships definitive of human life.  We no longer consistently love and serve other humans; . . .our own happiness and self-acceptance drain away.” 

This is spiritual state, infected by sin, that we find our world in.   It should not take a lot of convincing to the truth of this.  We can see the evidence all around us.   We can the systemic abuses that enrich the selfish.   We see the suffering that pride and greed create.   We see oppressive systems that target vulnerable and marginalized communities, and it seems that cruelty is the point that motivates far, far too many.   This is not the way that it should be.  This is not the way that God created the world to work.   This is the result of rebelling against God, it is a result of countless individual, selfish choices that have moved people further and further from God.  Sin might have entered the world through one man, as this morning’s scripture states, but at this point we are all guilty.  We have all chosen ourselves over our neighbor, we have our stepped further from God through our actions.   There is no difference between us and Adam and Eve, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. 

 If sinful behaviors are the result of separation from God, and sin is the cause for that separation, then Jesus is the remedy.  This is the main point that this morning’s scripture seeks to make.  The gift of Jesus, the grace poured out through him overflows and covers the sins of all.   So that all who accept him as Lord and Savior are reconciled with God, have a blessed assurance that their sins-even theirs- are forgiven.   It is Jesus who reconciles us, it is Jesus who brought about forgiveness, and it is Jesus who defeated sin and offers us the ability to be righteous, in right relationship with God our creator.   

 In Romans Paul uses doctrinal arguments to convince the Jews and Gentiles that regardless of their cultural backgrounds, they are all in need of the saving grace of Jesus Christ.   Scriptures like this morning’s have led to our doctrinal beliefs about the nature of sin and our continued need for Jesus today.   This morning, in this place we all fall into one of two groups.   For the first group, perhaps the idea of our separation from God, the infection of sin, and the need for a savior is new to you.   Perhaps it is not new, but it is only been an abstraction, it has been a theory on paper, and not your lived in experience. Perhaps, God feels distant to you and has always felt distant.  If that is you, then the truth of this morning’s scripture is that God will continue to seem distant without Jesus.   We can not know and fully experience the immense love of God that justifies us and then sanctifies us without Jesus in our lives.   Without Christ all of us are separated from the full love of God, and it is only through following Christ that we can experience the forgiveness of sins.  If you have never in your life truly committed to following Jesus and believing that he is the savior of the world, then it is my most sincere prayer that you would hear this morning’s scripture.  That you come to believe that Jesus is the remedy.  If you are in that group, and you want to take a step in faith then there is nothing in the world I would like more today than to have that conversation with you.  

 For the second group, this morning has mostly been review.  It has been review because you have made committed your life to following Jesus, you already consider him as your Lord and Savior.  You have already experienced the blessed assurance that comes from knowing that your sins are forgiven and covered by the amazing grace of Christ our Lord.   If you are in that group, then I hope this morning has helped provide clarity to what you already know or helped give you the ability to put what you believe into words.  If you are in this group, then I think the question before us is, what do we do with this morning’s scripture?  How do we let it impact and shape our lives today?  

In this morning’s scripture Paul makes the case that sin has separated us from God, but through the obedience of Jesus and the gift of grace offered though him forgiveness of sins, reconciliation with our creator, and a new life, a righteous life, is possible.   Perhaps the way that we let this scripture impact our lives is that we let our actions reflect the grace of Christ.   Because the world we live in, it is still infected with sin, it is still broken and fallen.   If grace and forgiveness through Christ is the remedy to this affliction, then we can be agents of grace and forgiveness.  Because when we model grace we ultimately point back to Christ.     

 A good example of what it means to model grace is what happened in Pennsylvania in 2006.   For reasons only known to him, Charles Roberts  burst into an Amish school house where he eventually killed five girls before shooting himself.   This was a senseless, inexplicable act of violence and the Amish community responded in the exact opposite way, with an inexplicable act of grace and forgiveness.    The family of Charles Roberts, who had no idea this was coming, were horrified and confused.  Mere hours after shooting, the family found members of the Amish community-including parents of the murdered children- at their doorstep.  They were not there for vengeance; they were there to comfort, to love, and to offer forgiveness.  In that dark hour the family of Charles Robert found the very people he had wronged the ones who were there to meet their needs.    The Amish community even set up a charitable fund to help the family of the shooter.   In the face of unspeakable evil, the Amish community of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania modeled forgiving grace.  

 We can all choose grace.  We can all choose to forgive, and when we do we show what it looks like for sinners like us to be made righteous through Jesus the son.    The world is sick with sin, and while we cannot cure it, we do need to.  Jesus is the cure.  The good news of this morning’s scripture is that he has already won the victory.   So may we show the world what grace looks like lived out.  May we be living examples that state there is a solution to many of the problems and suffering in this world.  May how we live point to the beautiful truth that Jesus is the remedy.   May we show just how amazing grace is.  

Scripture:  Matthew 17:1-9

While I have never been, I understand that Iceland has some of the most beautiful landscapes in the world.  With black sand beaches, grand glaciers, and waterfall laden highlands there is a lot to see.   For this reason, there are all kinds of travel companies that will offer excursions, outings, and bus tours of the best sites to see.   In 2012 though one of these tour groups experienced a scare.  The tour bus had stopped in a wilderness area in Southern Iceland to allow the tourists to see the country’s natural beauty.  As people returned to the bus and it was getting set to leave, some of the passengers reported that a woman was missing.  The tour organizer called the local authorities to report the missing person.   Law enforcement officers were dispatched.  A search and rescue helicopter was readied, but deployment was delayed due to weather.  The local police led volunteers of tourists in search parties and fanned out to look for the missing woman.  After several hours the search was quietly called off when it was realized that the missing woman was part of the search party looking for herself. 

If you look up articles on this event, most of them will poke light fun at the woman for failing to realize it was about herself, but the description of the missing woman was incredibly vague and could fit literally any bilingual Asian woman.  If there is any fault to be assigned for this mishap it would be the American tourists who reported her missing.  At the stop the woman had changed clothes, and when she boarded the bus, she sat in a different seat.  The American tourists who reported the woman missing, were unable to recognize her because she changed clothes, and then a headcount error caused the situation to spiral into an hours long search for a woman who was not even missing.  

 People spent hours searching for a person who was right there with there in front of them.  It is a funny story, but it echoes what can be a common faith experience.  Over the years people have sought Jesus, but they often miss him when he is right in front of them.   Throughout Church history, Christians have struggled with understanding who Jesus is.   He is a historical person who we can read about, but Jesus is also the Word of God through which all things have been made. Jesus is the son of God born into the world like anyone else, yet Jesus is also fully God-united with the Father and the Spirit in perfect Trinity.

 Throughout the years biblical scholars, theologians, and individual believers  have sought to find the real Jesus.  Like the woman from the Iceland tour group, what happens is people end up missing Jesus is in their midst, because instead they are looking for a form they are comfortable with.  One of the things we should be cautious of in our faith is that we craft a savior who fits our wants instead of seeking to know Jesus for who Jesus is.  This morning’s scripture can help us guard against that pitfall, because in this morning’s scripture we get a glimpse of Jesus as he truly is, the glorified son of God. 

 This morning’s scripture captures an event commonly referred to as the transfiguration because Jesus is transformed before the disciples and it is a story that appears in three of the four gospels.    While it is not named, biblical scholars often identified the mountain this took place on as Mount Hermon.  This is the highest mountain in the region of Galilee, and the top is often capped with snow.  This is a fairly isolated placed, and Jesus did not bring all his disciples but only his three closest: Peter, James, and John.  It is in this isolated place with the people he trusts the most that the glory of Jesus is revealed.   Jesus meets with Moses, the keeper of the covenant that makes God the God of the Israelites and the Israelites the people of God. In this, Jesus is revealed as the fulfillment of the covenant.   It is through him that all people can become God’s people.   While transfigured Jesus meets with Elijah as well.  The prophet Malachi declares that Elijah will come before the day of the Lord.   It is on the mountain while transfigured that Jesus confirms and reveals what Peter had declared in the passage before this morning’s scripture: Jesus is the Messiah, the son of the living God.   

 Despite this morning’s scripture giving us a glimpse of who Jesus truly is, there are still common viewpoints that seek to see Jesus as something else.   While there are numerous examples of people looking for the real Jesus and not finding him because they are looking for something else, there are a couple of these viewpoints that are more common.   For a couple of hundred years one of the more common ones that comes up time and time again is the quest for the historical Jesus.  The historical Jesus is a vain scholarly quest to isolate Jesus as a first century Jewish man.   The notion of the historical Jesus is one that seeks to define Jesus only by his historical and cultural context.   In essence the historical Jesus uses all the tools that scholars have to completely define the humanity of Jesus. 

One of the earliest and most famous examples of this is the book The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth but it is more commonly called the Jefferson Bible.  U.S. President Thomas Jefferson was not comfortable with the supernatural aspects found in the gospels.   So, he made his own version.  He synergized the gospels into one narrative and cut out the more supernatural aspects that he disagreed with.  He literally did this; he took scissors to his bible and cobbled together his version of the story of Jesus.  Unsurpisingly, this morning’s scripture did not make the cut. 

The third president of the United States was not the only one to do this.  Back in the 1980’s and 1990’s a group of biblical scholars gained some prominence and essentially attempted to do the same thing.  Calling themselves the Jesus Seminar, this group of scholars also sought to create their own version of the gospels that they believed contained the scriptures that represented only the historical Jesus.  Again, it is not surprising that this morning’s scripture did not make the cut.  Even to this day every couple of years a new book or TV special will come out seeking to define the historical Jesus.  For people who take this perspective the historical Jesus was a man who greatly changed the course of history but little else.  

 It does have to be acknowledged that Jesus was a man who lived in first century Israel under Roman rule.   The context of the land, the political climate, and the culture of the time are significant aspects to study to more fully understanding the gospels.  The fatal flaw with the quest for the historical Jesus is that it emphasizes the humanity of Jesus but completely loses the divinity of Jesus.   It is Jesus without the Christ.   Jesus was a man who occupied a certain place in history, but Jesus is also much more than that.  The historical Jesus is a form of Jesus, but it is not the full picture.  A strictly historical Jesus is not the real Jesus. 

The historical Jesus is a version of Jesus mostly encountered in academic or non-church settings, but there is another incomplete representation of Jesus that is common today.  This form of Jesus is humorously brought to light by Will Farrell when he plays NASCAR driver Ricky Bobby in the movie Talladega Nights.  Towards the beginning of this movie there is a scene where Ricky Bobby leads a prayer with his family, and he stars it by saying, “Dear Tiny infant Jesus.”  Throughout his prayer he elaborates on this, “Dear Tiny Jesus, with your golden fleece diapers” and he ask for a blessing of “baby Jesus powers”.   In the scene his wife interrupts his prayer to point out Jesus did not stay a baby but grew up.   To this Ricky Bobby responds, “I like Christmas Jesus the best.”

While very few people address prayers to “tiny infant Jesus”, there are a lot of people based on how they express their faith like Christmas Jesus the best.  A Christmas Jesus is an adorable version of Jesus that does not challenge us.  A Christmas Jesus is a version of Jesus that is one that is all about giving us stuff to make us happy.   It is a savior that exist solely for our personal pleasure.   This version of Jesus ignores the teachings of Jesus that might make us uncomfortable like loving the least of these, forgiving our enemies, or going and sinning no more.  Christmas Jesus is a heretical view of the Christ that keeps the supernatural power of Jesus but removes everything else. 

These are just a couple of ways that people have sought to find Jesus but missed the real Jesus in front of them.   In this morning’s scripture the three disciples got to see Jesus is in his truest, transfigured form.   However, they also received some instruction on how to ensure they did not lose sight of the real Jesus.   In verse five of this morning’s scripture from a bright cloud the disciples heard the voice of God the Father tell them “This is my Son, whom I love, with him I am well pleased.  Listen to him!”  

We are best equipped to find Jesus when we listen to him, because Jesus tells us who he is.   In the gospels he states that he is the bread of life, that he is the living water, that he is the light of the world.   Jesus says he is the good the shepherd, the is the resurrection and the life.  He is the way, the truth, and the life.   When we look beyond the gospels we find descriptions of Jesus that capture as he appeared in all his glory in this morning’s scripture.  He is the prince of peace.   He is the Lord of Lords, the King of Kings.   He is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.  He is the Christ, the Messiah, and the son of the one true God.   He is the author and perfecter of our faith.  He is the head of the one true church.   He is the lamb of God, the canceler of sins, and the one who paid our debt.   He is the savior who was and is and is yet to come.   He sits at the right hand of the Father in all honor, glory, and power forever and ever.

The gospels and all the bible tells us who Jesus, the real Jesus is.   If we want to be sure we are following the real Jesus, then, again, the way we do that is to listen to him.   We do what Jesus told us to do.   We love our neighbors as ourselves, we seek first the kingdom of God, we stand up to oppressive power, we reach out to those who have been pushed to the margins, we grant grace and mercy, we forgive, we put others first, and we sacrificially give to meet the needs of the least of these.   We follow Jesus not just on paper, not just in theory, but in daily lives-lived out through our actions.   When we do this then there is no doubt we will find and know the real Jesus, because we will be following in his footsteps.  

  Years ago, a pastor was traveling India and visited the Missionaries of Charity headquarters in Calcutta.  It just so happened that the timing was right and he got to meet the legendary Mother Teresa in person.  This was early in the man’s career, so he asked her “what advice might you have to offer a young preacher?”  She replied, “Preach Jesus, the true Jesus, the real Jesus, the resurrected Jesus, and not the Jesus of people’s imagination.”   May we seek to be followers of Jesus, the real Jesus, the resurrected Jesus.   May we align our hearts not with a version of Jesus that makes a comfortable, but with the son of God, with whom the father is well pleased.   May we listen to him.   May we serve others the way that he served, and may we love others the way that he loves us.   Just like Jesus was transfigured into his full glory in this morning’s scripture, may following Christ transform us so that we can be a shining beacon that shares Jesus, the real Jesus, with our world.