2026 – How do Blessings Work?

August 30, 2026August 30, 2026 / John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Matthew 5:38-48

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you: Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also, and if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, give your coat as well, and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to the one who asks of you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven, for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Sermon Text

God has a blessing for everyone. Those blessings are not all the same. The exact way in which blessings are dispensed is in itself a mystery. Yet, when the question rises, “How can I call myself blessed when life treats me well, when that necessarily implies other people are lacking in God’s blessing when they struggle?” An answer of some kind must be given. If God is the source of all good gifts, then we must grapple with the absence of these gifts in the lives of other people. Either Heaven becomes a very capricious place, where God hands out gifts at random, or Heaven becomes a meritocracy where God only rewards people based on criteria we have never been told.

The easy answer here would be to make all material blessings separate from what God is willing or able to give. God, in this paradigm, would give us blessings spiritually – eternal life, peace, patience, et cetera – but not materially – food, water, shelter, et cetera. If this is the kind of God we worship, then it is not the God of scripture. The God of scripture is constantly multiplying food, sending rain to water parched ground, and actively working to secure shelter for the needy. God the Father may be Spirit, as is the Holy Spirit, but the Incarnate God we worship through Christ is anything but purely spiritual. God is working at all times in this world, in all its material matters.

Another easy answer would be to equate all good things, uncritically, with God’s blessing. The rich would therefore be the most blessed by God, while the poor would be the least. If this were so, then I suppose that we would have a logically consistent argument at least. However, it would again not be a God I want anything to do with. There are people who make their money off of blood or worse, I do not want to think that simply because they have, that God is the one who has given it to them and called them, “Blessed,” because of it.

Our scripture today may seem like a strange place to start to answer the question of blessings, but it follows a section in which Jesus lists all those who, in his Kingdom, are blessed. Peacemakers, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, and those who are persecuted are among these blessed people. The blessings they receive are often antithetical to their status in the world. The humble, called meek, are given reign over all the earth. The Peacemakers, though war is waged against them, are truly called children of God. Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, though they are denied it in this life, will be filled in God’s perfected eternity.

All of these are end times or spiritual blessings, which seems to support option one for how God blesses, but that’s why we have all the Gospels. Luke presents an alternate rendering of this passage. “Blessed are the poor, for theirs in the Kingdom of Heaven.” Affirms that even a person’s material life can find answers in God’s blessings. “Blessed are those who hunger, for they will be filled!” We’re talking about the physical filling of bellies that had no food in them before. Clearly this is not a spiritual reality, but a material one. The blessings that God confers are therefore not limited to either a spiritual, invisible realm nor are they limited to the hard and fast bounds of our physical world.

The question then emerges, “If God is the one who gives blessings, then why is it that there are those who are clearly not blessed?” There are people who do not have Spiritual blessings in the sense of peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, et cetera; but more obvious than that is that lack of physical blessings all around us. People go hungry, people lose their houses, people get sick, people lack all kinds of things. What is God doing to bless folk when so many people are clearly lacking? We’re gonna start by addressing what God is not doing.

God is not only handing out good things to people who deserve them. We talked recently about how we do not deserve half the good things we have, but I’m going to say definitively that there is no blessing that a person can earn from God. It is all a gift. As Jesus puts it in our scripture, God does not think retributively, but redemptively. God causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust, and the sun to shine on the same. In other words, good things come to all people, because God cares for good people and for evil people. In one place to strengthen them, in another to call them to repentance.

The whole passage gives us a picture then, of how God metes out blessings, as least a glimpse of one at least. God gives good things to all people, regardless of whether or not they are earned. God blesses in particular those who are lacking in this life, and promises they will have their fill in due time. God also is not concerned with us working for additional blessings, nor is God giving them randomly, but with a specific and redemptive intent. God, unlike us, knows how to treat even God’s enemies well.

The problem comes in, I think, that God has built our world such that some blessings are conferred divinely, by providence, and others by human action. God calls for God’s people to be invested in each other’s lives because God seeks to redeem this world through the same humanity that is being redeemed. If a person is hungry and another person has food, God does not call for food to be made out of nothing, but for one person to share that food with the other. God does not ask for the sick to be healed out of nothing, but for his people to visit the sick and bring them relief. God asks us to be blessings to other people, because God has ordained the it is through humanity the world is to be blessed.

Now, does this let God off the hook for the inequalities of the world – not entirely. There is still the problem of evil in this world, that so much bad happens to people who have done nothing to deserve it. I cannot speak to that reality fully today, we’ll be doing that a bit during next week’s Sunday School hour. However, I want to make clear that the anthropic nature of blessing and curses, that human beings can cause both to come to pass, does not mean God is not involved in either.

I do want to address, however, what scripture says for the rich and powerful, in contrast to the poor and needy. While one is promised comfort and peace, if not through God’s people working good here and now than in the world to come, the other is promised only torment. To those who are respected now, loved for their greatness and good deeds, to those haughty people who demand to be loved, Christ says “You have already received your reward.”[1] Those who seek to be above others, holier and more blessed, reveal themselves to know nothing of God, and for them the best they can hope for is the lowest place in the Kingdom of Heaven.

For the rich, even more is stated. Not only are they held accountable for their starving neighbors, not only are they told that it is nearly impossible for them to enter the Kingdom, but they are told that their blessings of money – if not used for others – will be evidence against them on the day of judgment.[2] In his Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, Jesus places the rich man in Hell, suffering eternally while he gazes at the poor, homeless Lazarus, now resting in Paradise. When he calls up for a drop of water, Abraham replies from Paradise, “Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things and Lazarus in like manner evil things, but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony…”

Material good, therefore, is a burden that we must understand has been placed upon us. Every good gift, freely given, is not meant for us to hoard or to abuse. We are meant to support others with it, to love one another and feed one another and house one another. We are not called to be rich in this life, to be blessed with every material good, while any other person is allowed to suffer. We must work for the good of our neighbor, tangibly, because in every part of God’s word – whether it be the prophets, the law, the disciples’ teachings, or Jesus’s own words – the people of God are meant to confer blessings to the world around them, to each other, to all flesh.

So, can I tell you why one person is blessed and another person is not? No. Can I tell you confidently that, even and especially with your material goods you should give thanks to almighty God for it? Absolutely. Through faith you may receive every Spiritual Blessing on earth, but through the loving kindness of God alone you have received your livelihood. Give thanks for it, share it, and put it to bettering the lives of others. How many souls are left questioning why God does not bless this world, when God’s people are holding up those blessings like a dam? How many times have faith been crushed by worry, because God’s people were too busy building credit and not interested in building a community?

Do not fear calling yourself blessed, but if you claim God’s goodness today in any part of your life, take also God’s responsibility. “Do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.” – Amen.

[1] Matthew 6:1-21

[2] Luke 16:19-31

Sermon 08/23/2026 – So Nearly There

August 23, 2026August 21, 2026 / John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Matthew 16:13-20

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist but others Elijah and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

Sermon Text

Who is Jesus? This feels like an elementary question asked for kids in very young Sunday school classes. Without an answer, however, not much else matters – especially for the Christian. If we cannot give an answer to who Jesus is, then we are as lost as anyone else in this world. If we cannot properly answer who this God-man was, then what is the point in any other part of it? To know who Christ is, who we say Christ is, is essential.

Jesus was such a monumental figure in the history of the world that even secular bodies and other faiths have had to grapple with defining who he is. Whether it is in the Rabbinical texts that go out of their way to say that Jesus was not the Messiah, or the Qur’anic ones that establish Jesus’s unique prophetic role in Islamic teachings our two closest siblings in faith have texts which grapple with this question.[1] Looking beyond these siblings, you will often find that world leaders and thinkers have had to take up the person of Jesus and answers a simple question. “Who is this man who walked through Judah, and who is worshipped all these centuries later?”

The question is not unique to us looking back, it is something people who walked directly beside Jesus would have asked. The kid who ran around the streets of Nazareth, playing with other kids, but who would sometimes would say something a little too grown up. The teen helping his father in the woodshop, but who would disappear into a field to pray for hours. The man who came out of the desert one day preaching that the time had come for God to change the whole world. The same man who died just a few years later when he made a few too many people in power angry. That guy, the one they would soon claim was walking around again like nothing had happened, was someone everyone needed to try and define.

If we read our scripture today with the knowledge that a whole collection of scripture and several centuries of theology did not surround the person of Jesus when he asked his disciples what people thought of him, then their response makes more sense. The disciples do not have a list of acceptable answers for who this prophet they have been following is, existentially. They know he’s Jesus, they know he works miracles, and they know that they had to follow him when he asked them too. Beyond that, what is there to say about this mysterious figure?

Jesus asks them, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” This is, in itself, a title that Jesus often gives himself. While it is on one hand a confession of his own humanity, it is also hinting towards something divine. The Prophet Ezekiel was called, “a Son of Man,” to differentiate his humanity from the angelic beings he spoke to. Yet, the prophet Daniel also speaks about a “Son of Man,” a figure that would come alongside God in the final days of history to set the world right.[2] Shaped like a man, yet fully in the realm of the Heavens, this figure is not defined in Daniel in a way that takes any concrete shape. So, when Jesus says “Son of Man,” in reference to himself, he is telling his disciples that he is important, but letting there be some gaps they need to fill.

The Disciples fidget a little before they begin to list what people think of Jesus. “Some say you’re Elijah,” referencing a prophecy out of Malachi that Elijah would proceed the “Day of the Lord,” in which this world would end and a new one would begin. Other people apparently gave a different answer, “Some say you are John the Baptist.” John, cousin of Jesus and prophet who came in the Spriit of Elijah, had recently been beheaded, so the fact another miracle worker appeared after him may have made some think John had been raised from the dead.

I almost have to imagine that some other answers would have been given, though scripture records none of them. After Jesus has asked them what other people think, he turns the page on the matter. “Who cares what they say…” He seems to say, “What do you say I am?” Was there a pause, an uncertainty in the gathered people. Did the disciples have any idea how to answer? Whether stillness fell or the answer came abruptly, we know that the person who gave it was Simon Peter. “You are the Messiah. The Son of the Living God.”

Now, did Peter understand fully what that meant? To be a Messiah was to be the savior of God’s people, but did he know that Jesus was also coming to save the world? To be the Messiah was to be a King, and the King was called the “Son of God,” in the Psalms, but did Peter know that Jesus was literally born of the Holy Spirit? Likewise, did he know that this “Son,” was not created in the way most souls were, but had existed alongside God the Father for all eternity? Did Peter know that he had made a much bigger statement than just the fact he thought Jesus was going to clean house in Judea?

Hard to say. I think based on the rest of Jesus’s life, the betrayal that Peter and the other Disciples participated in by fleeing from him, and the slow realization they had of what the Resurrection meant, suggests that a few pieces were missing. Yet, even if Peter still had a long and troubled road ahead of him, Jesus does not take time to elaborate on his definitions. Instead, Jesus launches into some of the highest praise we could expect a person to receive.

“Flesh and blood have not shown you this,” in other words Peter has received this information through the Spirit and not through any cognitive ability of his own. He did not “figure out,” who Jesus was, God revealed it to him. “On this rock,” a pun, as Peter’s name means “rock,” I will build my Church. The term here, “ekklesia,” referring to a group of people called together, and not an institution. “And the gates of Hades,” that is, Sheol, the land of the dead, shall not overcome it.

If we can remove ourselves from the immediate context of Jesus talking to his disciples, there is something from this conversation we can and must apply to our own faith. The foundation of eternal life, the foundation of God’s church, the foundation of everything that will be in the World to Come, is found in the acknowledgement of Jesus as our savior. Not a perfect confession of Jesus’s salvation, not getting all the terms right, but in knowing that Jesus is the one who saves us, and knowing that Jesus is uniquely tied to God in the midst of his humanity.

I am a firm believer that theology is something that should not be kept away from folks sitting in pews. So many times we in the Church don’t talk about deep things, because we’re afraid that something too complicated will scare people off. I don’t think that’s true, I think that deep things are what we need, and I think that deep things breathe life into us in a way that the same shallow water never could. However, I also believe that there is a necessary truth that cannot be ignored. In faith, those things which are “needful,” for salvation, are as simple as can be. Faith in Jesus Christ, as our savior, professed and lived out. That is all that the Lord requires for us to be saved.

Our next month of worship is going to be spent digging into some harder to understand topics. Evil and the Trinity and Blessings and The End Times and so on and so on. Before we get complicated, though, we have to remind ourselves of something very simple. Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of Man, is the Messiah, our savior. Without whom we would be lost in sin and death, and through whom a gathered people has been brought out of all nations. This people, this Church, stands against death, and death can never overcome it. Praise God, profess his Salvation, and know that Christ who walked Judea long ago, is savior and messiah still today. – Amen.

[1] E.g. Surah Maryam; Sanhedrin 43

[2] Daniel 7

Sermon 08/16/2026 – A Salvific Slur

August 17, 2026August 17, 2026 / John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Matthew 15:21-28

Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed from that moment.

Sermon Text

Of all the scriptures in the Bible… This is certainly one of them. It tells a story that is uncomfortable to anyone who reads it honestly and is therefore turned into something far more palatable whenever it is read to a congregation. The motivation of Jesus, of the woman, even of the disciples is softened in a way that makes the harsh edges seem to disappear. Yet, at the same time the telling of the story, diminished in the way it is, becomes weaker with each alteration. No matter how we approach this interaction between Jesus and the Canaanite woman, we must do so honestly and without preemptive excuses.

In what seems to be a very out of character interaction, our scripture today shows Jesus seeming to do his best to ignore a woman in need. Traveling past Tyre and Sidon, two traditionally wicked cities, a woman emerges and begs Jesus to help her. She calls after him along the road, calling him the Son of David, acknowledging he is the Messiah. His Disciples, uncomfortable with this foreigner following them, ask Jesus to send her away. Yet, Jesus does not even look at her. He keeps walking in silence before telling his disciples why he keeps walking past. “I am sent only to the lost sheep of Israel…”

Undeterred, the woman throws herself at his feet, continuing to beg. Jesus here delivers his strangest judgment. “It is not right to give the food meant for the children to the dogs.” Now, here is where a thousand excuses usually enter the narrative about how it is actually normal to refer to foreigners as dogs or how Jesus is using a word that means something closer to “puppy,” or something like that. Yet, I can tell you, an honest reading does not allow for this. Jesus calls this woman a dog, and she responds by saying, “Even a dog may eat crumbs.” Jesus, without backing down from his insult or his mission statement, simply states that the woman’s faith is great, and her child is healed… What is going on in this scripture?!

If Jesus was just a person, I could accept the idea that people in that day and age would treat foreigners poorly and call them dogs. People treat foreigners poorly today and call them all kinds of horrible things. Yet, Jesus was not just a person. Jesus was, and is, fully God and fully man. Being the perfect human being and by nature of being God being without sin, Jesus cannot do something wrong at any point in his ministry. He is perfect in a way that is to be emulated for all eternity, because as God made flesh and as the perfection of humanity, Christ is incapable of sin and of doing wrong. Therefore, any description of this story that makes Jesus into a sinner must not be accepted nor can we accept a telling of this story that blesses insulting people for the conditions of their birth.

I wish I could, therefore, explain the conduct of Jesus in this passage, but it runs into a similar problem to the story of the Wedding at Cana.[1] In that passage, the wedding runs out of wine, and people are upset that there is nothing more to drink. Mary, Mother of Jesus, approaches her son and says, “Hey kid! You’re up, do a miracle!” Jesus responds, in a very relatable, but uncharacteristic way… Do we remember Jesus’s response? “Woman! It is not yet my time!” Now… Language changes… But imagine if you said to your mother, “Woman!” followed by anything… How’s that gonna go?

The two stories also share something else in common. Despite Jesus saying that this is not the time to work this kind of miracle… He does it anyway. Jesus makes water into wine at Cana and Jesus heals this woman’s daughter even though he speaks in what reads as a very frank, rude tone as to why he refuses to do so. Jesus, despite the fact the time is not right, still does the thing that is asked of him. What a strange look into the mind of God we are given.

The woman, unceasing in her prayer for her daughter to be saved, reveals something that we often forget ourselves. She never questions that a gentile is not worthy to receive God’s blessings. She accepts that she is unfit to be blessed in anyway. Yet, she does not cease to ask for it. Jesus has, at this point in his ministry, been preaching to people who are descendants of Abraham – inheritors then of a blessing that goes way back into antiquity. These folks are the closest to anyone that can claim a special status in this world… Yet it is those people who have rejected him again and again and again. They have, through lack of faith, given up on their inheritance. They have forgotten that they were not blessed because they deserved it, but because God was kind.

I do not know why this woman was called a dog, but I do know that she understood God’s economy of grace better than any of the “children,” who were sitting at God’s table. Last week we talked about holiness, about the need to approach God with an understanding of our own insignificance. This woman did just that. She humbly came forward, never claimed to be owed anything, and through that understanding received everything. Humility is an understanding of our status in the world, and when we realize all good gifts are ours simply out of God’s favor, out of a love that is revealed despite ourselves, we can truly enjoy God’s goodness.

I am a fan of doing Communion as often as we can. It is, after all, a meal in which we receive God’s grace to live a life worthy of our call. So many times I hear people oppose the idea of doing it too frequently. “It loses what makes it special!” “It takes too long!” “I need time to get ready for it!” “We used to do it once every three months!” Et cetera, et cetera. All these I could talk about for a long time. Yet, I think one of the key things that we forget about what we are offered in Communion is just how special it is.

God, not just a long time ago, but every time we offer up praise and thanksgiving over bread and wine, presents the sacrifice of Christ on the cross to us. Body and Bread, taken into ourselves, spiritual nourishment that connects us with Jesus Christ’s perfected humanity and sublime divinity. It is a meal that people long to eat, even if they do not know it yet. To be present with God, to share in that physical contact even for a moment, is worth more than just about anything.

I bring this up because the old communion liturgy contained a line I think we need to restore to our regular vocabulary. “We do not presume to come to this thy table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies.” That’s how it starts, but here’s the key piece, “We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy table. But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy…”

I do not know why Jesus calls this woman a dog. I do not know why Jesus sometimes seems to get angry with his disciples and family and respond to them in this seemingly rude manner. Yet, I know that regardless of the presentation of the action, it reveals two deep truths. Firstly, that we are, in fact, unworthy to receive God’s grace except by the love, mercy, and favor we receive from God through Jesus Christ. Secondly, that regardless of what is “proper,” Jesus never fails to show mercy. If the time isn’t quite right for a miracle, it can still be shown. If a person approaches the throne of grace “unworthily,” but does so full well knowing they do not deserve a crumb of that grace, then they will receive it in abundance.

I cannot speak for God, I cannot solve the unsolvable about the context of this story. Yet I can tell you today, God’s grace is here, it is being poured out on us all, and even as we strive to be holy and do right, it is available to us sometimes more than ever in the moments we do not deserve it. God is merciful, God is just, even to a wretched man such as me. – Amen.

[1] John 2:1-12

Sermon 08/09/2026 – A Divine Pageant

August 9, 2026August 17, 2026 / John Langenstein / Leave a comment

1 Kings 19:9-18

At that place he came to a cave and spent the night there.

Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.”

He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind, and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake, and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire, and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” Then the Lord said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram. Also you shall anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel, and you shall anoint Elisha son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your place. Whoever escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall kill, and whoever escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall kill. Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.”

Sermon Text

When was the last time you saw something holy? I do not mean something that felt spiritual or was awe inspiring. I mean something that was Holy. Set apart. Distinct. Terrifying because it was so much bigger and more powerful and more wonderful than you can imagine. To come into contact with the Holy is to feel small, smaller than you could ever imagine. To be afraid of something incomprehensible, and yet to not be consumed by either the fear or the smallness. To be in the presence of the Holy is to know all at once how insignificant we are and yet to see in the insignificance life rather than despair.

For myself, I can think of a few times when an encounter with the holy has really struck me. Once, when I was reading the book of Ezekiel, I had decided to read the description of the angelic beings that went alongside God. Things with multiple heads and hands and eyes and wheels and incomprehensible geometries. In the moment I read a certain line, the reality of that vision of the Prophet struck me. I was down on the floor in a second, I could not lift my head because the weight of this revelation seemed too heavy.

Once as I was presiding over Communion, as I lifted the cup and the wafer that I was using that day to recite the Agnus Dei, “Oh Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the World, have mercy upon us.” I felt the cup grow heavy in my hands. The true weight of that statement, that this was the body and blood of the savior of the world, shed for me and for all other people… I was afraid I was going to drop it when I saw just what this ritual was really doing.

I had a minister describe a time he had been praying with a mentor. They were both kneeling and when they had reached a certain point, he said he wanted to raise his hand, because he felt God had entered in that space. Yet, if he did lift it, he was afraid it would be consumed… This is what it is to be in the presence of the Holy.

Our scripture today captures a moment in which Elijah is fleeing his role as Prophet. He is not doing so because of mere exhaustion or worry, but because he has been beaten and bruised and threatened with death a few too many times. Most of his friends have either abandoned him or been killed, he is alone as a prophet of God. He flees into the desert and asks for God to kill him rather than let him suffer. Undeterred, God instead feeds the prophet for several nights. Elijah receives enough strength, not just to survive, but to seek answers. He leaves the bush he’s been living in and goes to Mount Horeb, another name for Sinai.

Horeb was a sacred mountain, and anyone who touched it could be put to death. Yet the prophet was unafraid to approach this holy place. He climbed the mountain until he found a cave. Entering in, he waited until God spoke. After stating his fears, God told Elijah to stand on the face of the mountain. The Prophet did not, however, go to see the Divine Pageant that passed by. Fire burned, earthquakes shook, wind blew, and then, only when silence fell, did Elijah exit. He covered his face, he left the cave, because he now knew that God had entered into this place.

Usually we focus on the idea that God was in the stillness as a reminder for us to find places of quiet in our life. God is not in the noise and the wonder and the awe, God is in the silence of our quiet reflection and contemplation. Sure, God comes to us in the midst of silence, when we put away all other distractions. Yet, the silence here is not necessary for Elijah to see and hear God’s presence, it is a consequence of God’s presence. The silence is not the means by which Elijah hears God, it is the place in which God is found.

What’s the difference. Well, the difference is that God coming into this place was signified by a great deal of noise and displays of power. Fire, lightning, earthquakes, were the attendants to God’s royal arrival. They burned and raged to declare the glory of the thing that they were heralding. Clearing a path – destroying stone and air and any other obstacle.

The silence that surrounds God is not a statement about where we can find God, but a statement of what God’s presence does naturally. It clears a path because when something Holy enters into a space, there is no choice but to make way for that holy thing. Nature is not blinded like we are, it is fully aware of the holiness of its creator, and so it naturally moves from the place that God’s presence has inhabited, it is fully aware that it is smaller, and less good, and less worthy, than the one who made it.

We lack an understanding of God’s holiness these days. We are, as I often put it, “Drunk on God’s grace,” fully aware that Christ has forgiven us all that is past, we take the command of the book of Hebrews that we should, “boldly approach,” God’s throne; forgetting that we are only meant to do so because we have understood what it means to work out our salvation with “fear and trembling.”[1] Put in the simplest possible terms: God’s love is so great that we have no reason to fear coming to God with the deepest desires of our heart. Simultaneously, God is so holy that we must never forget that it is only God’s love that allows us to approach God without being destroyed. The natural consequence of Holiness is that it repels all other things, that we can approach God at all is a testament to God’s goodness.

Elijah gives us a model for this across his journey to Horeb. He seeks release from his pain and prays to God to just let him die. God cares for him instead. Elijah is strengthened by this care and does what seems impossible, he climbs the holy mountain, the place forbidden that anyone should touch. He enters the heart of that mountain and waits. He waits for the holiness of God to drive away everything around it… Only when the stillness of the void surrounding the holy of holies falls on the world does Elijah cover his face and approach God for help.

In your heart now is the very Spirit of God. If you are a Christian and you profess your faith, you are a Temple to God. Holiness is in you, and it is burning against all unholiness within you. Every thought and word and action that works against the will of God is at odds with this Spirit within you. This same Spirit, however, allows you to enter into its presence, because God is abundant in patience and care. We are not eaten up from the inside, because the Spirit of God hopes to see us made holy through this indwelling, not to see us destroyed.

How do we become more fit for the holiness that lives within us? Firstly, by taking time to acknowledge the holiness around us. When you pray, do not do so flippantly, as if you are having a conversation with just anyone. God is a friend, God is a father, God is sibling, and confidant to us – but God is still God. Give space, and time, and weight to your prayers and see them do much more for you because of it. When you come to worship, likewise, let the hymns carry you to the throne of Grace – even the annoying ones you do not like personally. Let the word of God, the prayers we offer, the space we fill, be a holy thing for you, not just a checklist to be completed.

The thing about holiness is that it asserts itself, we are simply meant to let it do what it will. Do not think you can only meet God in the manicured silence of a long planned out moment. When God appears, you will know it by the widening gap in space, time, and sound God’s presence produced. In a crowded room, as you suddenly feel smaller, when the fear of something more immense strikes you, but somehow that excites and strengthens rather than consumes… When the hymn you have sung a thousand times suddenly seems to swell… When the prayer you pray brings you to the throne of God and yet you never leave your seat…

God is making space, the Pageant is passing by… Let it do its work and clear a path in your own heart and your own life. – Amen.

[1] Hebrews 4:16 c.f. Philippians 2:12

Sermon 08/02/2026 – Eat What is Good

August 2, 2026August 17, 2026 / John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Isaiah 55:1-5

Hear, everyone who thirsts; come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your earnings for that which does not satisfy?

Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. Now you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you, because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you.

Sermon Text

Imagine a perfect world. What images come to mind? I’m sure for many of us we imagine a world with no violence or disease. Summers that are not too hot and winters that are not too cold. We dream of a Utopia and see in it the perfection of our present world. We are right to do so. Scripture is clear again and again that the next world, perfected by God and bringing together Heaven and Earth forever, will not be the erasure of what currently is – but a continuation and rebirth of it in totality.

I think our dreams often reflect an understanding of the privileges we have known in life as well. Sometimes we fail to mention things that a perfect world absolutely would have, or else we imagine our own desires carrying over into heaven in a way that misses the point. Ask any teenager struggling through puberty what their worry about Heaven is and they will probably point to sex, because that is the occupation of a teen’s mind. Ask an older person and their focus will be on reunions and the cessation of pain, because that is the occupation of their minds. Our images of Heaven are as dependent upon our own cognition and concerns as any writ of scripture.

This was true of Ancient Israel too. In the pre and post exilic period, the writers of the Bible seldom talk of what happens after we die. They just weren’t worried about that in the way we typically are. For them, they imagined what a perfect world on this earth looked like. This is why the New Testament does both – it addresses our spiritual existence beyond physical death and that the spiritual and physical will one day rejoin in the resurrection. When God speak to the prophets, however, the image that is painted is strictly terrestrial. The Divine Truth of the New Jerusalem and the marriage of Heaven and Earth is not denied or contradicted, but it is not fully revealed. The Old Testament speaks of God’s final victory in earthly, national terms.

There are a few key points to these prophecies. Firstly, the lost people scattered across the earth will return to the Land.[1] Secondly, the land will be healed and never again suffer invasion or blight or famine.[2] Finally, the land will be so wonderful that all people will seek to come and enter into it, either for worship or to enjoy the fruits of the land.[3] A person who lives to be one hundred will be considered young.[4] It is a beautiful dream, limited only by an imagination that did not have subsequent revelation to build upon. God showed the people what they could handle of the perfect world that was to be born, and they would have plenty of gaps to fill in themselves.

Of all the promises that I see in scripture, one returns again and again. That is that God will create a world where no one goes hungry. Food takes a primary focus time and time again in God’s work. When God comes to Abraham, Abraham shows his righteousness by making God a meal. Moses instituted a memorial in the form of the Passover dinner, a recreation of their hasty preparation for the flight from Egypt. Joseph fed the world and was declared its savior. Again and again, food is a way that God’s kindness, and the kindness of God’s people is shown.

We are blessed that we do not know hunger. Our neighbors do though. It seems impossible, in the wealthiest country in the world that anyone could go hungry, but they do. Things will only get worse as time goes on. Jobs are getting scarcer, but there’s still people who need to eat. Food scares increase as FDA funding is cut. Global conflict and changing climate make prices climb such that people cannot afford their daily bread. Globally, locally, as near as our next breath – a food crisis persists in this world. The table of God, set so beautifully in front of us today, cannot be the only food and drink we offer to the people around us.

Locally we have two food banks that help make sure people have what they need. Some of their goods are sourced locally, some are supplied by the state. Feeding America, through Mountaineer Foodbank and similar entities, has made sure folks here in West Virginia have access to food. However, the Federal dollars were cut down in 2025. One billion dollars, were cut from TEFAP and from subsidies that let food banks buy from local farmers.[5] Based on the numbers provided by Feeding America, that’s equivalent to three meals a day for 4,563,084 families of four. So much was lost when that spending was cut.

In West Virginia, we see a horrific dichotomy. The average income for the state is (I think generously,) reported at about $60,000.[6] Care to guess how much the cost of living for a family of four is? About $65,000-$70,000 on average.[7] Lest we get excited and hope that folks have hope of government intervention at that range, I am sad to report such a household is at 150% of the Federal Poverty Level, and so will have few, if any, aid programs they qualify for, unless there is a local or state organization that allows that threshold.

Times are tough and I think we are foolish to imagine they are going to get better. There is only one thing that we can do in the face of a world that hostile to existence. Take care of each other. God’s people had feasts, festivals, and public worship spaces so that they could share resources as much as celebrate God’s goodness. When you sacrificed an animal, you took some of the meat home with you to eat, or else ate it there at the temple. You, the Priest, and God, were sitting and having a meal – that’s what sacrifice meant in those days. When you held a feast, everyone was invited, relative, neighbor, friend, even people you didn’t like, because God’s gifts were meant to be shared.

For us, we can keep a close eye on the people we know. Step in and help when they need it, even if sometimes we have to fight for a while to get them to accept that help. It means that we support local nonprofits doing good. When the government cuts one billion dollars, we cannot give that much, but we sure can give some more time and energy to making sure our pantries never empty. We can have events here, like our hot dog cookout, where we offer food to people, regardless of anything except the fact that all people can eat, should eat, and that we who have are obligated to help those who do not.

I have never gone hungry in my life. Even when the pantries would go empty at home, there was always a little something for us to throw together into something that kept us going. My grandparents did not have that luxury. Yet, looking back, they tell similar tales. That they always had just enough, because they had family that stuck together and helped them in the thick of it all. For us, now, we can be that family, that support to our community which needs us to reach out a hand and help to fill hungry bellies.

How fitting this be our scripture, and that this be our lesson, on the day we offer up praise and thanksgiving, and likewise receive the grace from God’s offering of Christ. God could have chosen anything to be a memorial of Christ’s passion, yet he chose bread and wine. Bread which is a means by which we are sustained – full of nutrients we need to live. Wine, a sign of celebration and as Ben Franklin put it, “Proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” Today we take spiritual food and drink to the preservation of our bodies and souls, but do not think our responsibility to set a table ends with this paten and chalice. The world is hungry, and the Church must feed it. – Amen

[1] Isaiah 11:11, Ezekiel 37:21, Jeremiah 23:7-8, etc.

[2] Amos 9:15, Jeremiah 42:10, etc.

[3] Isaiah 2:3, Zechariah 14:18, etc.

[4] Isaiah 65:20

[5] https://www.ipm.org/news/2026-03-05/food-banks-short-on-food-amid-stall-in-federal-funding

[6] The difference between a true “average,” vs. Median income is a matter of debate among statisticians I do not have a firm grasp on. However, census data supports that ca. 46% of family households in West Virginia are below the $60k earnings point, so I feel that the median income reflects a good idea of the upper limit of most “average,” West Virginians. https://www.neilsberg.com/insights/west-virginia-median-household-income/

[7] Simulator from https://livingcostindex.com/regions/west-virginia-us/, calculated to exclude recreational spending.

Sermon 07/26/2026 – Family Messes – A Lament Reflection

July 26, 2026July 26, 2026 / John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Ephesians 6:1-4

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother”—this is the first commandment with a promise— “so that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.”

And, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Sermon Text

The reality of our world is that family is not guaranteed to be good. People have children who have no ability to raise them or no desire to care for them. Children can grow up and, regardless of raising, make decisions that are cruel or uncaring, or that simply break a parent’s heart in any other number of ways. C.S. Lewis once said, “To love at all is to be vulnerable,” and in the case of family we are already made vulnerable by our relation to one another. The pile of complications only grow deeper as the tangled mess of our own choices, and the choices of others, pile up on top of each other.

One of the most dangerous things we can do as a Church is stand up and read scripture without reading the world around us. The words of God are indeed unchanging, and they contain truth that is valuable to us at all times, but without a willingness to engage them directly in our own life, we will lead ourselves astray. No verse is more fraught that the one we read today. “Honor your father and mother,” is something that has been used as a weapon for centuries. No matter the offense, no matter the horrific things done to a child, this verse is pulled out as if it magically makes all things better. A child is reduced to their parent’s property and the consequences of the parent’s bad behavior erased… All by those few words.

The context of scripture is twofold. Firstly, that those scripture was being written to were always oppressed by the powers and people around them. There was an understanding that if you went out on the street and offended a Roman Citizen, you could be dead that same day and you had no legal right to do anything about it. If they found out you were a Christian, forget it!

The teaching of the Church, therefore, was that in a world where you are going to be oppressed by the powers that be, it is better to suffer and to die at their hands, and show the insanity of their cruelty, than to resist them. A Christian was to be all forgiving, all loving, and all suffering, on behalf of the people who would kill them without a second thought.

There was a second context for these writings though, the community of the faith. Within this community, Christians were called to be all loving, all forgiving, all sufferings… Together. In other words, a person could not abuse another person and expect forgiveness without consequence, because as a member of the Church they were responsible not to hurt that person in the first place. The early Church would expel people for violating the trust of the community, for mistreating their family, for failing to act as Christ called them to act. A Christian is not allowed to sin and then ask for forgiveness without changing their behavior, because they know better.

Our families, an extension of our reality as Christians, are likewise meant to be reciprocal places. If a parent has no love for their child, or that love becomes destructive, and that parent does not change – then the child cannot be expected to suffer. The parent is not given a universe excuse to do their child harm because scripture tells their child to “honor their mother and father.” Likewise, a child who is old enough to know better cannot hurt their parents and not expect that their be some amount of distance or consequence. “Parents, do not provoke your children to anger,” is not an excuse for them either. We are all trying to figure out the right way to act, to be, to live.

Today, as we come into this room, we are taking time to acknowledge the hard things about our family situations. Maybe you had a parent that never treated you right. Maybe a child who has grown distant. Maybe one who is making all the wrong choices and you cannot help them. I’m not here to baptize those situations and call them secretly good. I’m not here to tell you that you have to ignore those very real problems in the name of Jesus. I’m not here to tell you why things are the way they are… I’m here to tell you that it is ok, that things are not ok.

As a Church, we often let ourselves become absorbed into a terminal positivity. We cannot say one negative thing without following it up with, “But that’s fine!” We feel like we need to make everything a lesson, everything must have a cure, a punchline to take away the sting… Yet, we know that’s not true. Scripture, likewise, knows it is not true. The Bible is full of chapters, and books, and entire tracts about how human suffering is real, and bad, and it does not always make sense that things happen the way they do. So what does the sum of those scriptures lead us to understand?

Firstly, that we have ever right to weep, to mourn, to be upset about the way things are. Don’t feel like you need a mask of positivity to cover every bad thing in your life… Let the bad be bad, and feel that fully. Secondly, God listens to our tears. Jesus wept at Lazarus’s tomb, Jesus was rejected by his family, and Jesus prays for us still today. Let God know that you are upset, there’s no point hiding that fact. Finally, and most importantly, there is always hope. Things may not come back to what they once were, or what we ever wanted them to be, but God has a way of finding us reaching something new, and different, and often better.

Sometimes we get a second change to set things right – to make amends to the children we’ve hurt, the parent’s we’ve wronged. Sometimes people set things right with us – they come and seek forgiveness and truly do change, or at least actually try to… Sometimes, the situation is just what it is… All these things are blessed, not because they are good, but because God sees, hears, cares, and gives grace for us to face them. Offer up your troubles to God today, and ask for direction on what you can do, or should refrain from doing, but more than anything… Just say it to God, and be set free. – Amen.

Sermon 07/19/2026 – Weeds among Wheat

July 19, 2026July 20, 2026 / John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Matthew 13:24-30

He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field, but while everybody was asleep an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he replied, ‘No, for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’ ”

Sermon Text

Two weeks in a row where Jesus wants us to talk about gardening. I could not feel more out of depth. Yet, if the Lord thinks it is an image we need to keep in our head… Who am I to disagree?

Like last week, Jesus is asking us to see the Kingdom of Heaven as an agricultural experiment. God has gone out and planted, but alongside the good seed that God has planted, weeds have been thrown. The workers of the field ask if they should start pulling the weeds, but the farmer in his wisdom tells them to wait. When the time for the harvest comes, the wheat will be separated from the tares, and one will go into storehouses and the other into the fire. Yet, to keep the wheat safe, there must be a period in which the two grow together.

This parable provides one of scriptures more unsatisfactory explanations for a real problem we face. If you look around you in this world, and even in the church, you will see people doing what they ought not to. This is not always just self-destructive acts, but real and serious evil toward others. We often ask, “God why could you not just get rid of all this evil?” And the answer we see, in this parable at least, is that there would be no way to do that that would not harm innocents as well.

God is a God who is not restrained by anything, God has the divine freedom to act upon anyone and anything how God likes. Yet, we know that God has created this world with certain rules. We have free will to do good and bad. God respects this innate will and does not force changes upon us, we must accept and follow God’s leading. Likewise, God in God’s abundant patience, gives people the opportunity to repent, to change, and to try to make right the things they have done wrong. God could change all evil with a snap, but it would not be consistent with the world God has created, therefore only forceful removal would be possible.

A person may say, “Well, how bad could it be! If God could just wipe out evil people, then let God do it.” Well, God did do that once… And God chose never to do so again. The Flood, in all its brutal terror, is a story about God wiping the sleight of creation clean, except for a small subset of humans and animals preserved out of mercy. The story of the Flood is not just a story of wrath or mercy though, it is an object lesson in why “eradicating evil,” cannot be done through violence. The Flood happens, Noah and his family exit, and within a single chapter we are told they go back to the ways of their neighbors. War continues, theft continues, violence of all kinds continues, the Flood did not work to end evil.

I do not believe, fundamentally, that God’s intent with the Flood was to end evil forever, that is what Christ’s incarnation was for. Yet, the fact that God took steps like that at all serves as an eternal reminder that redemption, and not destruction, is the essence of God’s mission in creation. While I cannot give a completely coherent explanation for why God allows evil to exist in the way it does, I do know that God has told me through scripture that if God were to eradicate by force, that eradication would be complete and total and would not leave anything on the earth. God has said that the evil and good must coexist for a time, to spare the good until the time comes for the evil to be erased.

I was curious, as I read this parable, if there was a specific kind of weed involved in this story. Sure enough, the “tares,” that the enemy planted are a specific plant. It is called, “darnel,” and it is a plague on wheat farmers even till today. Darnel is a weed that mimics the appearance of rye, and so it grows in rye fields and propagates. It looks just like rye, until the very moment it produces corns. When the fruit of the plant shows itself, then one can be told from the other, not a moment before.

I read this truth to suggest that maybe God is not saying, “I have plans to take care of all this evil, deal with it until then.” I do think that God is asking us to trust that all evil will be punished someday, but I do not think that God is abandoning us to just sit and deal with this either. The weeds that are in this parable are revealed by one specific thing – their fruits. The things that come from a person, the things that their actions produce, are a valid means to evaluate their nature. This is the lesson of this parable as much as any end times hope it provides.

Do you know someone whose actions you have tried to excuse based on some appeal to their core nature? Maybe it is time to stop. I’m not saying they’re beyond redemption, or that they are without any sort of hope or need for compassion, but I am saying that if someone shows themselves to be consistently in the wrong… Maybe we should acknowledge them for what they are. Call a spade a spade, and do not excuse wrongdoing just because it is easier to tolerate it than to speak to it.

We are not like wheat, we can change what our fruits are. I know I have had times in my life where I have been more trouble than help to the people around me… But it did no good for those people to ignore that I was going down the wrong path. Looking back, I wish more people had called me out for my behavior – not in anger or to reject me – but out of the concern I needed to hear to know I needed to change. Not that I would have listened necessarily…

Next week, we will look at how we can mourn situations we have no control over, specifically family situations. Yet, before that week where we hand so much over to God, I want us to remember our part. Find the tares in your own heart, and start pruning them back so that the fruits of the Spirit can grow. Do not be afraid, if fruits of evil have shown in your life or in another person’s to do something about it. In all things, remember, resemble, and give thanks for the God that gives us time to be transformed, and does not burn the innocent to spite the evil. – Amen.

Sermon 07/12/2026 – Sow Without Ceasing

July 12, 2026June 29, 2026 / John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Matthew 13:1-9

That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on a path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched, and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. If you have ears, hear!”.

Sermon Text

I believe one of the most important things you can do with your study of scripture is to involve other people. If you are sitting in your room reading the Bible, you will learn a lot. I think that that is one of the things we most neglect in our lives, just taking up the Bible and reading what it has for us. Yet, if we read it alone we miss out on some of the deeper truths it reveals. The truths that come from us engaging with scripture and with each other. Until such a time that we are able to see the words of God, reflected in the Image of God, in the person sitting across from us, the word will not fully come alive.

In this Church, one day in Sunday School, as we were going through the parables of Jesus, one of our very own said something that stuck with me. As Jesus taught about a sower going out and throwing seeds wherever they went, they described the farmer with a single word. “Irresponsible.” I like that word to describe the work of the sower.

Having killed more plants than I care to admit, I can tell you I am no authority on farming. However, even I know that it is necessary to plant in good soil and to water and tend to the thing you have planted. In my garden right now, I have two distinct plants doing very differently in terms of their health. One, my beautiful tomato plants that are thriving despite my incompetence. Planted in buckets filled with potting soil and watered regularly, they are thriving in a way I have to assume I have very little to do with.

Across the way, however, sits a lonely amaryllis. It was planted haphazardly, because I did not think it was necessary to open a whole new bag of potting soil to plant it in the ground. After all, that’s where all the dirt is! Needless to say, that thing is withered and half dead, and I’ve all but abandoned any hope of it growing into anything. We all know, that if you want to grow something, you need to plant it in the right kind of soil.

This parable, then, becomes a therapeutic piece for Christians. When we read it, we are assured that the people who have failed to join the Church, despite our best efforts, are not our fault. No, the word of God has just found poor soil to grow in. This parable becomes a way to explain why ministry does not always succeed. It is a consolation more than it is an instruction. I do not think this is the best way to read this parable.

Jesus was not in the business of giving us a reason for failure so much as explaining what we should do. If we use the parable primarily to explain our failures, then why did Jesus bother to teach it at all? No, there is another lesson to take from this parable and that lesson is found in that word that one of our own folks used. “Irresponsible,” gardening is the most important kind when the thing you’re trying to grow are the fruits of the Spirit.

You do not have the power, now or ever, to control another person’s heart or circumstances. No matter what you do, they will be their own person and you will be your own person. Thus, as you tell about your faith or share the gospel, you can never be sure how the person you talk to will receive it. Maybe they will hear the good news and become a member of a church! Maybe they will show up to a few events and then disappear, or maybe they will spit in your face for the trouble. There is no way to know what will happen, until the leap is taken and an attempt is made.

Jesus describes the parable later in the scriptures and defines each category of soil as a different kind of person. The seed the falls on the road and is trampled are those who never accept the word, those that grow among rocks are those who accept the word and then, without a root, leave. Those that are choked by weeds are those who are taken in by the worries and pleasures of this world and fall away. While those who grow in good soil are those who hear the word, and develop roots, and become part of God’s church.

The thing about the parable is that Jesus never says to seek out good soil. Jesus says that this is the nature of proclamation, that it will not always be accepted or acted upon. The point of the parable is not to carefully wait for the perfect moment and person and place to share God’s word. It is to do it, whenever you can, however you can, and trust that sometimes the result will be someone being saved by your effort. The word of God never returns empty and even if it not taken to heart and allowed to transform a person, the exercise of sharing what God has done in your life will at least strengthen you, personally.

I want to return to my garden for a moment, because I think it provides an apt image to tie into this parable. I told you about that amaryllis I carelessly planted… Well, that darn dead plant started growing again after a few good rains. I started adding it to my rotations of plants to water, knowing that it isn’t fully dead… It is shooting up new sprouts, putting forward the start of flowers, and getting ready to become more than just a brown, dying lump in my front yard. I planted that flower recklessly, but I had no idea if it would find good soil until it started growing up.

Talk to people about your faith. You don’t have to be eloquent, you should never be forceful, and ideally you should practice often enough you aren’t terribly nervous. When you can, how it makes sense to, share what God is doing and has done for you. There is always a need to testify to God’s goodness, and there are always people who need to hear it. So, be irresponsible with God’s grace, throw it everywhere you can until you can’t anymore. If you do that, then you might just see some growth in the lives of the people around you. – Amen.

Sermon 07/05/2026 – True Liberty

July 5, 2026June 29, 2026 / John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Galatians 5: 13-26

For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become enslaved to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.

Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another.

Sermon Text

250 years of America. That’s a prominent anniversary if ever there was one. Two and one half centuries have passed and in that time, we as a nation have seen highs and lows, ebbs and flows, in our prosperity as well as our morality. We are a nation, but more than that we are an ongoing conversation. In 1776, as the Continental Congress came together to finalize the Declaration of Independence, they enshrined a set of principles that all people would, ideally and progressively, gain access to. Of these principles, none were more clearly stated that the belief in a God given right to, “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” If the Law and the Prophets hang upon the love of God and neighbor, then the American experiment hangs upon the fulfillment and practice of these three ideals.

I am here to tell you, as both a student of history and of religion, that we have never succeeded as a nation in living up to either set of ideals. At the outset we established a democracy that evaluated a person’s access to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” as being dependent upon other features of their life. Voting rights are the easiest to track, as only white men with property were free to vote for a majority of our history, with people of color and women only having the right for less than half of our existence. Yet, beyond these rights, many other have been taken, or hidden, or denied. The “Indian Savage,” that was denied their homeland, systematically eliminated, and cast aside suffered too. Each generation bore a new opportunity to do what was right, and in denial of the goodness they could have done, took up a sin to bear at the same time.

The seeming contradiction of our quest for liberty was not lost on the people who walked the streets of Boston and Philadelphia long ago. Methodist ministers were some of the most vocal in bringing our great contradiction to mind. “How can you fight for liberty?” They asked, “While keeping the poor in poverty and slaves in chains?” Even Thomas Jefferson, writer of the Declaration and lifelong slave holder, knew in his heart that the sins of his age would not be forgotten, “Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?.. Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever… The almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest…”[1]

We are not in the era of slavery, and so we can do little to change what marks it has made upon our nation. We are not in the era of Indian removal, though we are obligated to tell the story of the Trail of Tears. We are born into the era we now live, with all the opportunity and pitfalls it affords. Will we see the ways that God calls us to liberty? Will we reject the sins of convenience that we are prone to enjoy at the expense of others? This is the choice we have to make today.

Scripture only speaks of liberty a scant few times. In a world where you had an emperor who controlled everything, our world of democracy and essential rights would seem completely alien. Yet, when we are told about liberty in scripture, it is always given a major caveat. “You are free,” the scripture says, “so that you may do good.” We are freed from the expectations of the law, from the burden of working out our own salvation, from the weight of our sins… Yet, none of this freedom is a warrant to do whatever we want.

How different would the history, not only of this nation, but of the world be if people did not take their liberty and use it to the detriment of their neighbor? How many atrocities could be prevented? I know that when I think of the things that make me proud of my country, it is not the excesses of any person I commend, but the willingness to serve and sacrifice for the good of our neighbors and even of strangers.

Think of those stories out of history that you most value. In my own life, I find the most patriotic I feel is when I remember the way people in my own life have lived out the ideals of our nation. My great grandfather worked hard as an engineer in the Army, protecting infrastructure at the risk of his own life and limb. When he returned home, he continued his work on the railroad, raising a family and learning to sew to help keep them clothed. He was always living for his neighbors and serving the people around him. My grandfather, similarly served in Viet Nam, a tenure that eventually cost him his life many years later due to his exposure to Agent Orange. He suffered, he died, and he did it for the good of the people he loved.

Domestically, I think of those I know who work in advocacy. Who spend their time and money to make sure that the people in the state legislature and in Congress vote for the good of their constituents. A fellow minister friend of mine, Rev. Dr. Starlette Thomas, who is working without ceasing to promote a future without racial separations. All those people I know who serve food in soup kitchens, box up food at food pantries, and do what they can to meet the needs of the people around them. These are the principles that America thrives off of, and that secure “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” as a real and present possibility in their life.

If we want to be a nation that lasts another 250 years, we need to prioritize this kind of good work and communal attitude. We also, it must be said, need to do something to fix our politicking. We cannot develop as a country if every four years the new administration undoes everything the last one did. We cannot see our nation thrive if every administration works to put more and more money and power into the hands of the rich. We cannot support our current form of government where our politicians are looking to produce sound bites to get reelected, and win symbolic cultural battles, rather than working for the good of their people.

In his encyclical Magnifica Humanitis, first American Pope, Leo XIV, asks us to see the danger that comes from our current political landscape. “When politics abandon a long-term perspective,” he says, “and reduces itself to short-term calculations or sterile polarizations, then the language of the common good loses credibility… social inequalities and divisions grow.”[2] It is not a popular or common thing to care for your neighbor, to love the stranger, to be American in practice and not just in a vague cultural aesthetic. The America I believe in, that I endorse, that I strive to be part of, is one that welcomes strangers, cares for its neighbors, and actively works to ensure all the good things of life for every person that walks on its storied streets.

Our generation will hold a good deal of evil within it that historians will be shocked by. Some of it is obvious, some of it only history will be able to speak to. Yet, if we have any hope of history remembering us well, telling our stories with the bittersweet smile that only history affords, then we must commit to service and love and denial of self. You have been given liberty, by God as an innate right, and by the government through acknowledgement of the same. Do not let anyone take that from you or from anyone else. The second liberty is denied to one person, it is in peril for all others.

250 years, what an achievement. What wonders we have achieved, and what horrors we have tolerated… We cannot change the past, for good or for ill, but we have a hand in establishing the next chapter of our history together. Love, live, serve, give. This alone will make us into the nation we all wish to be part of. – Amen.

[1] Thomas Jefferson. Notes on the State of Virginia. (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: H.C. Carey and Lilea. 1825) 221-223

[2] Pope Leo XIV. Magnifica Humanitis 2.63 2026

Sermon 06/28/2026 – What Shall I Offer?

June 28, 2026June 29, 2026 / John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Matthew 10:40-42

“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous, and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

Sermon Text

The gifts we offer to God allow us to receive gifts in turn. To give to God is to receive, in due measure, the same value of our gift again. Scripture is clear that God does not neglect the work or resources we invest into the work of God and God’s church. Yet, I think, our worldly view of the matter often corrupts our vision of what God is willing and capable to do with our gifts and with the reward that is owed to us. We hear the promise Jesus makes in our scripture, that helping a righteous person means we will be owed the rewards of the righteous, and that the same is true of someone who helps a prophet, and as a result we dream of every dollar we give being multiplied and ever hour of work repaid with two more of leisure. We assume what our reward looks like and we neglect what we are truly being given.

There are many ministers who preach many sermons encouraging people that if they give their money freely, then God will bless them with expansive bank accounts and no worldly troubles. There are many people who, in order to try and leverage God’s goodness, will cut checks to charitable causes to try and tip the scales in their favor. There are many who, when told not to lay up treasures on earth, put a large asterisk next to it and say, “Unless you write it off as a gift from God.” We have decided that God wants us rich, healthy, and equipped with all worldly happiness – but I am convinced that the God who offers us that easy road is not the God of scripture.

What we have read this morning is Jesus sending his disciples off with one last instruction. After telling them to work without pay, to trust in God’s protection, and to expect a great deal of opposition, Jesus tells his disciples that anyone who helps them will be blessed. As they work as prophets, God will reward those who help them to speak God’s word. As they work righteousness, God will reward those who help that justice roll down like water. Even the simple act of giving a child a glass of water, when done in the name of Jesus, is transformed into something far greater.

The disciples were the righteous, they were the prophets, and if we want to see what sorts of rewards they received for their work we just have to examine their lives. They were not rich, in fact they lived in poverty. They were not powerful, they were trampled on by everyone they ever met. They did not know peace, they were persecuted and killed and maimed, all because of and not despite their devotion to God. The reward that Jesus promises for our participation in God’s good work is not plenty nor power, but goodness, mercy, and, in eternity, the fullness of God’s presence.

As the Church grew and someday found a home in the upper classes of Roman Society, aspects of its teachings were subdued. Jesus’s insistence that we are to live a life rooted in care for others at the expense of our worldly goods is not popular with the rich in any time or place. Likewise, the idea that generosity is expected and does not correspond to immediate and reciprocal rewards is not going to sell many books. We expect a transaction out of our faith and God is offering us something far less concrete and far more relational. God, who offers to us the full abundance of eternal life, does not try to win us over with petty gifts, but invites us to be truly transformed by the work we embark upon.

If I give to those who are in need, I will not in turn be made rich – I will be made more generous. If I support those who are doing what is right, I will not be given power and fame, but I will be more like those righteous people. If I help facilitate the preaching of God’s word and the rebirth of souls, then I will benefit from that life giving word in due time. When I give water to the thirsty and food to the hungry, Christ will not forget the kindness I have given to them. God is not offering us a personal development plan, God is offering to make us new.

I do believe that God will not punish us for earnest and good stewardship of our gifts. If we give to those in need, we will find enough to feed ourselves. If we support the work of the Church, the Church will support us in due time. If we devote ourselves to the work of ministry and the alleviation of pain for others, we will find comfort in our times of need. This is only possible if we learn to do two things well. Firstly, to give without expectation of tangible reward and, secondly, to steward our gifts reasonably and with a mind toward generosity.

The first is self-explanatory. If we give, we should not expect immediate rewards of money, power, or circumstances. That second one is harder though. If we are to give properly, then we need to actually keep track of our money so that we can give freely. We need to deny ourselves and live simply, so that we can always have the money available to help others. I’m not saying we need to get rid of every comfort or every amusement, nor that we need to go without essentials, I simply mean we need to budget so that giving is one of the first things we plan to do and not the very last thing.

As I have said previously, I am on a pretty rigorous program to pay down my debts from seminary, and that prevents me from giving as much as I would like to. However, I still make a definite plan each month for my expenses to always allow me to give to worthy causes. Sometimes that means I get to give toward someone’s GoFundMe or meal train, sometimes that I get to put money in the plate toward something this or another church is working on, and sometimes it means that I can simply bless someone with some small kindness. If we are to be blessed, in any form, for our generosity, then our generosity cannot be an afterthought.

I encourage you, therefore, to take an accounting of your expenses from this month. Review everything you bought and did not buy, those subscriptions you don’t use… Etc. Look at each aspect of your life, and see what you can do to better steward your generosity. – Amen.

Teach us to Number our Days

A Walk through the Lectionary

Author: John Langenstein

Sermon 08/30/2026 – How do Blessings Work?

Sermon 08/23/2026 – So Nearly There

Sermon 08/16/2026 – A Salvific Slur

Sermon 08/09/2026 – A Divine Pageant

Sermon 08/02/2026 – Eat What is Good

Sermon 07/26/2026 – Family Messes – A Lament Reflection

Sermon 07/19/2026 – Weeds among Wheat

Sermon 07/12/2026 – Sow Without Ceasing

Sermon 07/05/2026 – True Liberty

Sermon 06/28/2026 – What Shall I Offer?