Author: John Langenstein

Sermon 01/16/2024 – Forgiveness, Freely Offered

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Jonah 3:1-5, 10

The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, “Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth…

… When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them, and he did not do it.

Sermon Text

Jonah is a prophet I used to feel like I could relate to. He is reluctant to follow God’s call and his entire adventure, briefly explored across only a few chapters of scripture, is about the consequences of his choice to run. By the end of the story, he has given into God, goes where he was asked to, and as our story tells us, saves the people of Nineveh through his preaching. It is a story that someone like me, someone who ran from ministry as long as I could, can relate to. However, the reasoning between my reluctance to go into ministry and Jonah’s were very different.

When I first thought I might be interested in going into ministry, I was on fire. I was willing to talk to anyone about my faith, I was willing to make brave declarations of what God was doing in the world, and the potential of what I could become was overwhelming. Like many people new to their faith, however, the intensity of that burning passion was too much, and it quickly flickered out. It became clear that I did not have the knowledge, the skills, and especially the tact, to be a minister and that early floundering pushed me into a place where I believed that the feeling I had been called was a mistake. I developed, and immediately gave into, a major case of imposter syndrome… The result was a major setback in my pursuit of my call.

This is a different kind of issue than what Jonah faces. Jonah, as a prophet, was already living into the life that God had given him. While many of us fail to pursue our call because of our perceived failings or lack of experience, Jonah refused to listen to God for another reason. The word of the Lord came to Jonah, and he knew that he could do all that was asked of him. His refusal to follow through was motivated, not by a feeling he could not do God’s work but by a refusal to do it. Jonah knew who God was and did not want to see God do what God wanted to. Jonah knew that God was good, and Jonah knew deep in his heart that he was not.

Jonah did not flee from God’s call out of fear or out of inadequacy, but out of pride and bigotry. When God said that there was enough compassion for a city like Nineveh, Jonah refused to accept that. Nineveh was one of the capitals of the Assyrian empire. Within a few generations of Jonah’s visit to the city, Assyria would form a new empire which would sweep across the Levant. Israel would be destroyed by the armies of Nineveh and Assur, and Judah would become a vassal of the same. Few nations had more of an impact on the history of God’s people than Assyria.

God knew this was in the future and still offered a chance for the people of Nineveh to be spared. In the divine mystery of mercy, even people who would cause harm to God’s people were worth preserving. Maybe the future where Israel fell to Assyria was not written in stone, the people of Israel and Assyria both had time to change. God, throughout the Hebrew Bible, despite being written off by modern readers as “wrathful,” is always extending mercy beyond the people of Israel, to people who have committed legitimate crimes of imperial might, and who would be easy to write off without a second thought.

There are legitimately harmful people in this world, legitimately evil people as well. Though the latter are rare, the existence of genuinely hurtful and genuinely reprehensible people cannot be denied. We are a culture that thrives off of stories of villains, and the surge in popularity of True Crime over the past few decades only serves to prove that something in us craves identifying monsters. I think something about obvious evil comforts us, it reminds us of the relative goodness of the people we know. It also allows us to focus our broad feelings of distrust into focus, a single person can take the load of all our anxieties and angers. Sometimes it is not just one person though – sometimes entire people groups can be scapegoats for our anger. What kind of people? That depends on the circumstance.

Following the 9/11 attacks, our nation found a major source of people to offload our anxieties upon. For most of my childhood, anyone who even looked middle eastern was treated with suspicion. People advocated for bombings of entire countries, to let the leveling of cities go uncommented upon – there was a war on after all. Whatever legitimate military engagements did occur, a national bloodlust was created – one that sought to destroy the “enemies,” of our nation. There have been shifts in this mindset over the past few decades, but to this day Muslims, Sikhs, and anyone who looks like they might have ancestry East of the Mediterranean still face discrimination. Gaza continues to burn, and people continue to excuse the deaths of innocents as a necessary causality.

In other eras, other peoples suffered. In the early days of the United States, Native Americans were maligned for the threat they posed to our Manifest Destiny. Chinese Immigrants were seen as an existential threat during the 1800s, followed by Germans during the World Wars, as well as countless Japanese-Americans forced into camps during WWII. Focal points of hate, sometimes foreign and sometimes domestic, give us someone we can blame for the troubles of this world. We rejoice in the pain of others, as long as their pain can give us an out for our general anxieties.

It does not have to be a nation either. The person you get frustrated with for seeming to fulfill what you hate about the world is also a focus of your general problems onto one person. The person you see paying with food stamps for a cart full of groceries you don’t approve of. The person with “too many,” kids trailing behind them. The person twitching in the parking lot. When we look at someone with contempt, write them off as too far gone, turn them over to suffer because we think they’ve earned it… When we do that, we have done an abominable thing. God is willing to embrace the entire world, why are we unwilling to do the same?

The sin of Jonah, that had him thrown into the sea and eaten by a whale, was that he had no regard for life. When he finally relented to God, when he went through the city of Nineveh and wound his way through the streets – he did so under duress. He refused to believe that the people he hated so much could ever do something his God would approve of. He sat up on a hill outside the city and waited to see the city burn under God’s wrath. Days passed by… And the city still stood.

Jonah realized that he was wrong, that God loved even the people he hated. These foreigners, these pagans, they were people God was willing to preserve – despite their sins. The genuine wrongdoings of the people may have been egregious, but clearly they were not so far gone that there was no hope. One of the problems of dehumanizing people is that we erase any real characteristics from them. They are cartoonishly evil or else so idealized as to be impossible. Human beings are human beings, there are no borders or genetics behind it, no separation of class or circumstance. All people are beloved of God, and all are capable of finding their place in God’s kingdom.

At the close of Jonah, silence is held for us to make our own conclusions about who we support – God or Jonah.[1] Jonah complains that Nineveh lived and that God dared to kill a plant that gave him shade. God complains that Jonah would have compassion for a plant that sheltered him, but not for the people and animals of Nineveh. Were some evil? Oh yes. Were some innocent? They must have been. Were some middle of the road? Absolutely. Yet, Jonah was willing to see them all burn – so long as his hatred was satisfied by God’s approval of his bigotry. We, God’s people, today must make the same choice. Do we believe that God is still extending forgiveness, freely offering it to all people? Or do we think it is only for us, here, and people like us? Grace extends beyond this door, into every aspect of our life. Let grace reign. – amen.

[1] Tzvi Abusch. “Jonah and God: Plants, Beasts, and Humans in the Book ofJonah” in Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions 13 (2013) 146-152

Sermon 01/14/2024 – Call and Response

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

1 Samuel 3:1-20

Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.

At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was. Then the Lord called, “Samuel! Samuel!” and he said, “Here I am!” and ran to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call; lie down again.” So he went and lay down. The Lord called again, “Samuel!” Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call, my son; lie down again.” Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. The Lord called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, “Go, lie down, and if he calls you, you shall say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’ ” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” Then the Lord said to Samuel, “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle. On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end.

For I have told him that I am about to punish his house forever for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be expiated by sacrifice or offering forever.”

Samuel lay there until morning; then he opened the doors of the house of the Lord. Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli. But Eli called Samuel and said, “Samuel, my son.” He said, “Here I am.” Eli said, “What was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also, if you hide anything from me of all that he told you.” So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. Then he said, “It is the Lord; let him do what seems good to him.”

As Samuel grew up, the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan to Beer-sheba knew that Samuel was a trustworthy prophet of the Lord.

Sermon Text

There is something to be said for expertise. If I have someone coming to work on the pipes in my house, I want a certified plumber. The doctor I see, I hope, knows what they are talking about. When someone claims to be an expert, I want them to really be an expert. The problem, of course, is that we live in a world where pretenders to authority are common and it can be difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff of so called professionals.

I’ve talked before about how there is a tendency in the Church to spice up some of the more mundane aspects of faith with things that sound good but are ultimately based on nothing at all. During Christmas I still saw people claiming that there were special shepherds who wrapped the sacrificial lambs in strips of cloth and placed them in mangers to keep them safe – a myth that has been debunked for ages. I’ve been to funerals where fake little vignettes are presented as true stories the minster was present to witness. Books, movies, videos, and more are often put forward by supposed experts proving this or that aspect of faith, and often with the goal of making the person giving the message seem so much smarter and holier than the people hearing it.

Claiming to have something special, something unique that sets you apart is an easy way  to abuse people in the Church. We are people who have a legitimate claim to something unique – there is nothing like the Gospel and nothing like the Spirit. The problem is, if we believe that the Gospel and the Spirit are truly open for anyone to receive, than anyone can be an authority on matters of faith. If they earnestly pursue wisdom and knowledge, they can find it. That democratization of access is at the core of God’s revelation and it is a major threat to those who wish to establish themselves against and above other people.

Within the Church, I legitimately believe that the system of the United Methodist Church and its siblings is the best at addressing issues of hierarchy. We profess that all people – from a new member to a Bishop – are equally valid and equally called by God. The difference only comes in what we are called to do. Some are called to full-time ministry – Deacons and Elders that serve in Churches and ministries – and so pursue training to be the best they can at that. Some people are called to leadership on committees of the Church, the conference, or community. Still others, their call is to lead through work in the secular world, and to support the Church in participation, funding, and other non-leadership contributions. If a call is authentic, it is valid, there is no right answer to what is or isn’t a call otherwise.

The reason that I think it is important to emphasize the ubiquity of call to make it clear that there are no “right types,” of people that have a place in any aspect of the Church. God has called all sorts to be within the Church, and that means that all sorts will find their way into different roles. The only requirement that we have is that, once we know what are call is, that we strive to do it as best we can. I knew I had a call to ministry when I was in High School, but it took me almost ten years of personal and professional growth to be worthy or ready to live into that call. A call is not an automatic license to step into the roll we are called to.

Our scripture reflects this in more ways than the obvious, and very literal call of Samuel into ministry. In the opening of the passage, we are told that “The word of the Lord was rare in those days,” a reflection of the leadership of the time. Eli, the head priest and keeper of the Ark of the Covenant, had turned many of the duties of the sanctuary over to his two sons. This was necessary, he had grown old and when you get older other people take on different parts of what you once did. However, the brothers – despite a legitimate claim to the priesthood – had taken their call as an excuse to do what they wanted rather than to serve others.

They were lecherous, they were thieves, they committed every crime they could through their position as priests. They seem to have changed worship patterns in the tabernacle to make it easier for them to take what they wanted from those who came to the tent. They were so bad that the line of priests that tended to the work of God was completely wiped out, and in their place the role of itinerant prophet took precedence. Eventually the priesthood would return and for a time would be better suited to serve its role. The pattern of prophets correcting priests followed by priests correcting prophets would flow throughout the history of God’s people, even until today.

The future of the Church is not focused on clergy, but on the work of all God’s people. While I believe there will always be a role for people like me to help guide the work of the Church. what with my book-learning and specific expertise, the center of a Church should never be upon those in the pulpits. Cults of personality grow around ministers when they are the focus and that will kill a congregation given enough time. The heart and soul of a congregation has to be the people, or else it is nothing. We are in another season where priests must give way to prophets, and the people must be given the tools they need to do God’s work in this world.

I consider it my job as a minister to equip people to live their fullest life in Christ. This means getting people resources, training, and supplies necessary for that work. I encourage you all to seriously look into your heart and see what God may be calling you to take part in. Look deep within yourself, listen to the voice of God calling out for you to take action, and trust that your Church and your pastor will help you get what you need to live out that call. It may take time, it may take a lot of work, but the only person who can deny you your call is you. If it is a true call, if you are given the opportunity to discern it and to thrive within it, you will find your way to it. Listen for God’s call, and follow it wherever it leads you. – Amen.

Sermon 01/07/2024 – The Beloved

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Mark 1:4-11

… John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And the whole Judean region and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him and were baptized by him in the River Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the strap of his sandals. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove upon him. And a voice came from the heavens, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

Sermon Text

            Jesus began his ministry, not with a triumphal entry into the city, but by humbly submitting to be baptized. He came to John, he asked to be washed in the dirty water of the Jordan, and he – as the Gospel continues – was immediately chased into the Wilderness to face temptation. The start of Jesus’s ministry was a lot like his birth, easy to miss if you were not already looking for it. We are blessed, as inheritors of our faith, to know that this moment is of great significance, something that only Jesus and John knew about in the moment that the Heavens opened and Water and the Spirit poured down upon Jesus.

            Baptism is something we have talked about recently. We looked at how John the Baptist’s ministry was focused upon God’s grace being opened for all people to receive a new start. Today, we are not gathering to focus on the ritual of Baptism, but on the recipient of Baptism in our story. Jesus Christ, our savior, received the waters of Baptism and modeled our own reception of the Spirit’s grace through the sacrament. In this way, Jesus’s baptism greatly resembled our own. The difference comes in that heavenly voice calling out, “You are my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Today we are going to try to understand each of those terms and understand why we begin our year, and why Jesus begins his ministry, with these words resting upon him.

            Words have weight, even if sometimes we treat them carelessly. I do not think “proper” English is some vaulted virtue we all must aspire to, nor that dictionary definitions are the end all and be all of language, but it does matter what we choose to call other things and ourselves. If we speak well of things, they will often flourish, if we speak poorly toward them, we find them suffering. Likewise, if our language is vague, the stuff which we are referring to may seem like some other thing entirely.

            One of the first major conversations most serious relationships will have between its members, is what each person in the relationship means by certain things. For example, if someone tells me that they are “Fine,” I assume something is deeply wrong and they are either deathly ill or on the verge of a meltdown. To me, the word “fine,” carries a connotation of veiled negativity. Grace now knows, four years into our marriage, that if she says she is “Fine,” I will be trying for the rest of the day to fix a problem that may or may not exist. For my own part, my choice of words have made it so I will often confuse people as to whether I am complimenting or insulting them. Words, thrown about without thought, are a dangerous thing.

            God does not carelessly use words, thankfully, and so each of those applied to Jesus at his baptism matter a great deal. We should begin with the first, “You are my Son…” For Jesus to be God’s son does not mean that Jesus is God’s biological child in the way that I am my father’s son. God the Father and God the Son are both the same being – God – in two persons, a concept we can wrestle with when we get to Trinity Sunday later this year. This means that Jesus is not just God Jr. but is entirely God, albeit only a single person of God’s larger self. So why does God use the term “Son,” anyway? Just to make ministers have to tangle their words on a Sunday morning?

            The Sonhood of Jesus is many things – a statement of his willingness to follow the Father while on Earth and a general way of describing his relationship within the Trinity to the Spirit and the Father – but it is primarily a statement of Kingship. For someone to be the Son of God is for them to be a Davidic King. In Psalm 2, God speaks to the King and says, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you.” This is not meant to make the King into a demi-God or to elevate them beyond mere human status, but to say that God cares for the King, and the King for God. Jesus, in being called the Son of God, is being established as the King, not just of Judea, but of all the world. Up to this point, only a few Magicians from a far off country and a mad tyrant ever gave Jesus this title – but now it is confirmed from Heaven.

            The second title, Beloved, reflects two realities. The first is that Jesus is loved by God, obviously, but it also connects to Jesus’s sacrificial nature. The word for “Beloved,” is “Αγαπητος,” (Agapetos,) and it means exactly what you would expect “One who is loved.” However, Biblically, this interaction calls to mind another Heavenly voice, one that Abraham had received long ago. When Abraham was called to offer up Isaac on the mountain, the Greek version of the story shows God calling out, “Take your Son, the Beloved, the one you love…” language so similar to the naming we see of Jesus here. Jesus, like Isaac is someone who, from obedience and from a greater love than self, is offered up. Unlike Isaac, however, Jesus is the one offering himself, freely, no one makes that decision for himself.

            Finally, God describes Jesus as a recipient of his approval. The Father is “Well pleased,” with the Son, approving of him in the plain sense, but perhaps we see something more in here. God the Father is happy with God the Son. There is a pleasure shared simply from being in proximity with one another, something that only comes from the kind of intimacy that comes with knowledge of one another. The final declaration, that God is pleased by Jesus, is a summary of what has been stated previously. God, who has placed Christ in rulership over all Creation, loves Jesus, and because of that love and through that love, enjoys being a part of Jesus’s life.

            The Son, The Beloved, The One who Pleases God. Three titles given to Jesus all in a few lines of scripture, but each worthy of their due consideration one after the other. The Baptism of Jesus in one way establishes all the ways that Jesus is like us, but there are three specific things that sets Jesus apart from us in the same moment. Christ alone carries each of these titles to their ideal, but perhaps there is not so great a separation between what God says here of Jesus and what Jesus allows us to become in ourselves…

            We are not Kings, nor should we aspire to rule. I exclude myself and all Christians from aspiring toward this aspect of God’s declaration toward Jesus. However, we believe that those who have faith in God become adopted into God’s family. We become siblings of Christ, and in so doing, we know the love and care that God shows to those God calls family. We are able to enjoy a relationship with one another, with Christ, with God the Father, because in Baptism we declare a faith that makes us all one family.

            This family relationship makes obvious the love that God showed for us in the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Christ – indeed in all the work of God in all ages. God loves all people, with a passionate love that overcomes all obstacles. We are Beloved by God, and as the Beloved of God we, like Jesus, enjoy God’s good pleasure. This love is expressed long before we embrace our faith, before our baptism, but it is confirmed in both through the transformation that only grace can bring about. The Incarnation, Baptism, the Eucharist, and so many more statements of love are carried out by God’s continual work in this world.

            We as people of faith are called to embrace all that is revealed to us through participation in God’s economy of grace. We grow as beloved members of a divine family, we know what it is to feel God’s goodness well-up inside. We too are called to live sacrificially in every way we can. Though we are not the uniquely existing Son of God, brought into the world to redeem it through our unique existence, we are still called to be a part of its redemption. Christ, in being Baptized, gave an example for how we ought to live. What a blessings that the word of God can convey so much in just three little phrases. As we start our year, let us remember Christ’s baptism and our own, and live fully into all that we are called to take part in through it. – Amen.

Sermon 12/24/2023 (Christmas Eve,) – The Now of God

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Luke 2: 1-20

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no place in the guest room.

Now in that same region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them, and Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, just as it had been told them.

Sermon Text

We are here, gathered on Christmas Eve, to proclaim the presence of God in this world. When darkness fell over all the Earth, sin obscuring God’s presence in the shadow of transgression, a light burned dimly in the midst of deep darkness. Goodness, bursting out in moments of righteousness. A spark here or there, the pure ring of harmony in the midst of dissonant existence. There is chaos all over, and then, bursting out like nothing had before, a light shone out from Judea, and has never ceased to shine since.

The infinite light of God, that had always existed, was now visible. Not in the brilliance of a nova or the pomp of any worldly display, but in a birth easily lost in the midst of everything else happening in the world. War waged on and famine was still a threat. Sickness still came and went, taking with it the security and health of people all over the world. The hardships of life did not end all at once, and yet the cure to these ills had entered into the world. God, so long invisible with creation, had taken on flesh and bone, and the world would never be the same again.

In this small Child, in the person of Jesus Christ, God took on the burden of human life. Pain was now a possibility for the eternal God of the universal. The cold could nip at his tiny finger, hunger would soon call for him to cry out for food, and the threat of soldiers’ swords would soon chase the family from their homeland into a foreign place, to a kingdom not their own. God the Son, full of power and authority, the creator of all things, gave it all up to make sure that we could be saved. More than just saving us from afar, God chose to take the burden of life on alongside us, to live and love up close, and not just from afar.

Advent is a season for waiting, but Christmas is a time to take hold of what God is doing here and now. God is with us, God has come to save us, and we as God’s people get to take part in the redemption of the world. Love one another, serve one another, and proclaim hope into a  world that is in dire need of light. Jesus Christ is born today, Praise God, Hallelujah. – Amen.

Sermon 12/24/2023 (Advent 4,) – The Start of Justice

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Luke 2:1-14

And Mary said,

“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowly state of his servant. Surely from now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name; indeed, his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.

He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.

He has come to the aid of his child Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

Sermon Text

Across this Advent, we have looked at what Christ coming into the world means. The death of the broken things in this world and the start of a world built upon grace and redemption. The work of God in this world and the next is transformative, leaving no stone unturned. Last week we was that there was redemption in this new world for all people – for the righteous and the unrighteous, for Jew and Gentile, for literally all people willing to gather together at God’s table.

The eventual reclamation by God is not something that sits fallow, waiting for the day Christ returns in final victory. It is something that actively is worked at in the here and now. The work we embark upon every time we show mercy, every time we forgive, and indeed every time we participate in something God begins, we see the Kingdom of God enter into this world – one small act of love at a time. Like a drop of dye into a sea of water, it may seem to disappear at first, but overtime the color of the sea will change as more and more dye enters into it. The Kingdom of God expands further and further with ever act of goodness we participate in.

The Kingdom breaks out on the margins, in places it is least expected to be found. When Christ was born, it was not in riches and splendor, but to a poor family who came to rest in a home for animals. When Christ ministered to the world, it was not among the well-to-do in the Temple, but to sex workers, to the poor, and to those who had been written off by the wider society. Even in the Hebrew Bible, we are told that God chose a small nation, not any great empire, but a small people in a backwater part of the continent. Even among that small group, God chose the poorest among them and decreed that they were the closest to God’s heart. The Kingdom of God is not something that breaks out in palaces and the halls of government, it breaks out in the alleyways and the bars, in mission houses and factory floors.

Before Christ was even born, we had a glimpse of what his time on Earth and his eventual reign would look like. Mary, after hearing from her relative Elizabeth that the child in her womb is really as amazing as the Angel who had foretold their birth said they would be, begins to sing. The song she sings is a promise to all generations that God is abundantly good, that God is always reaching out to restore those in need, and that God prioritizes the hungry over the full. The work of the Church flows from the promise and mission which begins in Christ’s incarnation – God is with us, and God is always asking us to turn away from the heights of beautiful, worldly abundance, and to look directly into the eyes of want and brokenness.

For Mary, her Child was themselves a sign of God’s favor. For her to become a vessel of God’s redemption was something that she saw as a sign of God’s care for those in need. Though she was born into a poor family, scarcely able to offer anything at the Temple when times of sacrifice came, she was going to be the one who brought God physically into the world. She, an unmarried, poor, pregnant woman was going to be the beginning of a universal shift, the rewriting of the history of the world to be centered on grace, mercy, love, and compassion.

Mary’s Song is uncompromising in its approach to God’s glorious work. God topples the powerful from their thrones, removing empires that threaten the good of all people. God feeds the needy and turns away the ones that stole food from them in the first place. God scatters the proud and ends their works, all so that the meek can inherit the world that was always meant for them. When Mary praises God, she praises a God who is willing to get into the messy parts of life and work to change the systems and circumstances that keep people suffering. God is inherently political in God’s work on earth, the politics are just not what we are used to. God is not a partisan player, but a principled ruler, one that promotes the good of all over the desires of the rich and the few.

God’s Justice does not have a definite start date. From the moment the consequence entered the world, when Cain killed Abel, God was working justice. His expulsion of Cain, and even his protection of the world’s first murderer, were both acts of justice. We often discuss Justice and Mercy as opposing forces, but one naturally births the other. There is a unity of the virtues that cannot be undone. In tending to the Children of Abraham, in welcoming Ruth and protecting Esther, in all places and all times, God maintained a justice that always kept the scales even through the promotion of those that the world had so long pushed to the bottom of the pile.

Yet, as Christians, we see in Christ the culmination of God’s work. Everything that happened in creation up to Christ’s birth was prelude. When Christ entered the world, the entirety of Creation had reached its vertex, and now it was ready to expand out infinitely once again. Our duty, in Christmas and in everything, is to proclaim the goodness of our God, and to reflect that goodness in what we do. Across Advent, in each proclamation of Hope and Peace, Joy and Love, we have come back again and again to that truth. Perhaps it seems redundant, but I would say that more than that we are forgetful. It is easy to lose track in the hustle and bustle of life of this singular truth – our life belongs to God, and God asks us to live our life for other people.

The first person to embody this, in our modern Christological age, was Mary. She who received Christ within herself, who carried Christ into the world, and offered Christ up to a life and death that redeemed the world. We too are bearers of Christ, we too carry redemption into the world. God is the savior, God does the work, but we are asked to step up or step aside as we are called to. We, the people of God, must embrace an attitude like Mary’s. We must proclaim a world that is topsy turvy to the expectations of the status quo. We must be bearers of Christ, that Justice may reign in our kingdom of peace.  – Amen.

Sermon 12/17/2023 – The Start of the Kingdom

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

John 1:6-8,19-28

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.

This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” He confessed and did not deny it, but he confessed, “I am not the Messiah.” And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.” Then they said to him, “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” He said,

“I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ ” as the prophet Isaiah said.

Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. They asked him, “Why, then, are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?” John answered them, “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandal.” This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing.

Sermon Text

As we have made our way through Advent, we have looked at the endings that Advent points to. There is an end to Pain in this world, even an end to the World as we know. However, Advent would not mean much if it was just a season of negation. We do not look forward to the End of all Things, but to the Rebirth of Creation. Advent is a season of looking forward to a new beginning, not a meditation on endings.

The Gospels all attest to the ministry of Jesus beginning with someone else baptizing on the banks of the Jordan. John the Baptist, a cousin of Jesus through Mary’s relative Elizabeth, took on a prophetic ministry on the banks of the Jordan. There he proclaimed that God’s Kingdom was coming soon, and that another would rise up to lead God’s people into this new world. To mark this coming kingdom, John began to use the muddy water of the Jordan. In being washed in that water, people received as special kind of grace – they made a statement of their faith, but more than that God met them on the banks of that river and affirmed their choice.

Baptism is a complicated ritual to trace to its beginning. Many faiths throughout history have included ritual washings in their practices. At some point, a form of baptism entered Judaism as a way for converts to join the faith, but this developed at some point in the first century.[1] Greek mystery religions also developed a practice of ritual washing to show a person being born into a new life in the protection of their patron deity.[2] Yet, on the whole, these rituals are seen as being contemporaneous with the Christian ritual of Baptism. More than that, the person who first preached about being washed in water as a singular statement of one’s intention to be born again, is almost always said to be John the Baptist.[3]

Baptism comes from the Greek word βαπτιζω (baptizo,) meaning “to dip,” “to immerse,” or “to drown.” From the beginning of the Church it was practiced primarily by two means – the first was full immersion in water, the second by the pouring of water over a person’s head or “affusion.” A final method, sprinkling, is not attested to in early documents of the Church, but carries equal validity in the development of the ritual throughout history. All methods of Baptism are equally valid, and all methods work to the same goal – initiating people into the new work that God is doing. It is a powerful sacrament, given to a person only once in their life, as a testament to God’s grace that brought them to faith.

When John began to baptize on the Jordan, he was changing how the world understood God’s grace forever. The call of Isaiah we discussed last week, to make a way in the wilderness for God was fulfilled in this ministry of repentance. The people called out to the banks of the Jordan were as different from one another as could be. Sinners and Saints both came to the water and asked to be washed clean. When Pharisees and Sadducees, enemies of one another and critics of John, came to the waters – even they were allowed to take part in this new movement of the Spirit. This was not a new start for only one kind of person, it was opened up for all people to take part in and to see God’s grace at work.

The Kingdom of God has always been expanding in its scope. What began only as a thing shared by two people, Adam and Eve in the beginning of time, became a covenant to all flesh under Noah. God’s redemptive mission to the broken creation was then focused in on Abraham and his descendants, and then through prophet after prophet, expanded to reclaim the diverse people who had been born from the expansion of humanity across the Earth. God’s Kingdom, it seems, was shaped like an hourglass. It became its most restrictive in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, and has since then been growing outward with great speed, reaching out into infinity.

The Start of the Kingdom of God could have been restricted to just a few people, the best of the best, but it was not. God opened the Kingdom to all people and was sure to make it clear again and again. Among the first to proclaim Jesus’s divinity were Priests from a distant land. The first person we are told was baptized by the Apostle’s was a native Judean, but an Ethiopian. Peter was told again and again that all things were being reconciled to God, and Paul’s ministry to the Gentiles proved this once and for all.

The start of earthly Kingdoms are almost always born out of violence and exclusion. An army forms and pushes the existing power structures out of the way for another to take their place. The Kingdom of God, in opposition to this pattern of the world, began with something far more powerful. God, seeking to redeem all things, called for all people to willingly join into the work God was beginning. Rather than excluding, God’s work asked even the most wicked people to change their ways and take part in the coming salvation of the world. Baptism, a gift of God, marked the moment that a person jumped into this new life – a life focused on God, on the good of others, and on the Kingdom that has no end.

Today, may all of us remember our Baptisms, and may those of us who have not been washed in the waters of baptism consider seriously taking that step. It is not a thing to be taken lightly, but it is a gift that begins a whole new world within our souls. Praise God for the gift of a new start, and for the waters that freely allows grace to pour over us all. – Amen.

[1] The Mishnah ‛Eduyyoth describes the disagreement between bet Hillel and bet Shammai about how to handle proselytes; how long one is to fast before immersion and circumcision, how much water to be used, etc.

[2] Ferguson. “Washings for Purification in Greco-Roman Paganism” in Baptism in the Early Church. Location 1045

[3] Kaufmann Kohler & Samuel Krauss“Baptism” in The Jewish Encyclopedia ed. Isidore Singer. (London: Funk & Wagnalls 1916) accessed by: http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/2456-baptism

Sermon 12/10/2023 – The End of Pain

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

There are few things in human life more universal than pain. From our birthing cry to our final breath, we are surrounded by things that are painful. We pray every week for all those in our lives who are in trouble. That wouldn’t be necessary if we were not surrounded by pain. The Psalms are constantly crying out in pain to God, because they trust that God is listening and ready to act. In a world that is broken, in a world that is harmful to seemingly everything within them, how do we survive?

Jesus put forward an interesting solution to the despair we feel at life’s pain. Jesus looks out into the world around us and asks us to counter despair with simplicity. Why be afraid of where food will come from? God feeds the sparrows and they don’t work for their food. Why worry about where your clothing will come from? Flowers are better dressed than any person, and yet they never have to work to make their clothing. Place any part of natural into this equation and the same answer comes out – God provides, and that is often sufficient.

The response that many people have to this teaching is simple. What do birds have to do with my problems? How is it remotely helpful for me to look at flowers when I’m cold at night? In the midst of all our problems, just looking at something else thriving does not magically make us feel better about our circumstances. In fact, the seeming protection and care that God shows every part of creation can make it seem like our own struggles are even more of an aberration. God has cared for everything, and yet I am here in the midst of trouble and pain! Rather than taking these words and finding peace in them, we instead build up a case against ourselves. The darkness of the world that we sit in bleeds into a positive image like this, and poisons it – creating a new way for us to criticize our own hearts.

This is not something unique to this one teaching, or any other aspect of our faith. Paul speaks about how God’s good gift of Torah on Sinai are turned into a curse by our own understanding. When we know what we should not do, we are sometimes more likely to do it. Unless the lesson imparted by a rule or teaching is internalized inside us, we will find loopholes and ways to violate the spirit of a thing even if we do not violate the words of the text themselves. Negativity births negativity. No matter how nice a thing is, putting it in the midst of something bad seldom makes the bad thing seem better, just the nice thing seem worse. I do not enjoy okra anymore because it is breaded and fried.

For someone in the midst of trouble, platitudes, even divinely inspired ones, are not what are needed. This is why scripture so often gives multiple answers to the same question. For the person who is fretting about what might be, the simple things of life can be a way to remember that God’s goodness is not just for one season. However, for the person in the valley of death, that same lesson will probably not accomplish the same thing. There is a rightness of speech to every situation, and the same cure is not meant for every disease. Not every teaching will land in fertile soil in our hearts and produce fruit given the place we are in.

Our scripture we have read together this morning, where Isaiah promises that God is coming to bring peace to God’s people, is written for people in the midst of troubles. Rather than calling for the people to take up songs of praise and to cheer despite pain, the Prophet establishes a pattern.

The Prophet proclaims that the people have suffered, before The Prophet proclaims their deliverance. When we acknowledge the pain that we have faced and hear that acknowledgment reflected in the people who care for us – a lot more healing can happen than would come from denial. God calls out, “Comfort, O Comfort, my people!” Because that is the first thing that the people need, is comfort.

God then moves quickly into a promise of what is to come, a restoration but more than that a setting aside of what was for something new. The call of the Prophet begins, asking us to make a pathway in the wilderness, to clear a way through the uncertainty and danger of the world and see a highway to deliverance for all people. The Prophet’s hymn about God’s control over life and death in the midst of this passage may seem a departure from the theme, but it carries something heartening within it. God, the God who brings life and death, is the God who loves us and cares for us. The hope of our redemption is present in God’s ability to overcome obstacles we find impossible – even obstacles as large as death are nothing to God.

The proclamation of the Prophet, “Here is your God!” Flows into God’s taking up of the title of Shepherd. Throughout scripture God’s care is described in pastoral terms, as an attendant to those in need and as a protector from the troubles of the world around. The acknowledgement of our pain naturally has matured into a promise of our deliverance and the realization of that deliverance in God’s hands.

Advent is a season that celebrates Christ’s coming into the world long ago to set this world on the course it needed to be, a moment when the work began to make a way in the wilderness. Advent is also an acknowledgement that we wait for the day when Christ returns and, as a shepherd, puts an End to all Pain that we might face. For the Church that waits for Christ, we are caught in a space where pain and the end of pain are smashed together in strange juxtaposition. We know from where our deliverance comes, but we do not know when it might be here.

For some of us, the words of hope and promise may seem bitter, our broken hearts, breaking even joy into something lesser. To those of us in this place, let the first part of Isaiah’s prophecy rest in your heart. “Comfort, O Comfort, my people,” is God’s word to all who struggle, to rest in the care of God and of God’s people. For others, the words of God’s promise should fill us with an excitement we’re not used to feeling.

There is an end to trouble, Glory to God that we will get to see it! Faith sustains us in the midst of brokenness, because we know that we have a good shepherd, and that shepherd is actively working in this world and the next to make things right. For all of us, the words of the Prophet make our job in the meantime clear, “Prepare the way of the Lord.” Clear the wilderness of all obstacles to the people who are seeking rest, and God bless the work as we embark upon it. – Amen.

Sermon 12/03/2023 – The End of Time

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Mark 13:24-37

“But in those days, after [the destruction of the Temple], the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven,  and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

“Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels and gather the elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.

“From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

“But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, keep alert, for you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Therefore, keep awake, for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening or at midnight or at cockcrow or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”

Sermon Text

Prophecy is weird. I have no hesitation in saying that. When you look at the ancient words uttered to criticize the powerful or project what will happen in the future, you will inevitably run into some strange details. The ability to look ahead, to sometimes discern the signs that were present in the world around you, and to cast a vision for what was going to happen was not something unique to one or two persons in an era, but it was something that only a few really succeeded in. The prophets that we still discuss are the ones that said something that did actually come to pass. Moses, after all, gave his clearest instruction regarding prophets when he said, “If it comes true, that’s a good sign they’re the real deal.”

The prophet is not just a person who can predict the future though, they are someone who has to be acutely aware of the present. Abraham Joshua Heschel, philosopher of religion and general genius, wrote a huge two volume book on what it means to be a prophet. He captures, I think, something that we can see as the heart of religion itself and especially the work of the prophet. A prophet, he says, is a person who loses the concept of God as someone who interacts with the world, but the world as something that orbits, interacts with, and depends upon God.[1] The difference sounds small when we say it like that, but it is pretty revolutionary.

The prophet has to understand the event of God as much as the person of God. They understand that meeting God is always around, always active, and that we choose to cloud our vision of that reality. The Prophet does not think about God, but hears God’s thoughts, they do not “know,” except in attaining knowledge of God. Someone who fully becomes a prophetic voice is someone who is completely turned over into God’s reality that surpasses our own.

That is a bit complex of an idea though. I think that our usual language fails to capture what it means to be a prophet. Many people I know have reduced the role of prophet to someone who offers social critique and points toward an alternative possibility for their society. A prophet does this, absolutely, but they cannot be a mere political analyst. There must be a divine spark, something that hears God’s anger at injustice and captures God’s joy in goodness and righteousness. The work of a prophet is in transforming the world, through the speaking of the Spirit into it.

Christ, our Lord and Savior, is very intentionally called God’s “Word,” or in the Greek “Λογος” (Logos.) Christ was the ultimate prophet because he was God. He was the most real a person could be because he was fully invested with God’s divinity. On Earth, Christ only displayed the fullness of divinity after his resurrection, but it was always latent within him. Every action, every word, every thought of Christ was a thought of the eternal God of creation, injected into the human experience in his incarnation. The prophecy of Christ was not just in words, but in action and deed. Every movement of Jesus was a movement of the Spirit and of the Father, a perfectly coordinated dance between the person of the Trinity.

Christ came to the Mount of Olives, having come to Jerusalem to face his crucifixion and death, and he stood there as Zechariah said he would. He looked at the Temple, standing tall on a raised platform in the city, and he spoke against it. He said that it would be destroyed, that in the aftermath of its destruction his followers would be persecuted, and that when the stones of the Temple fell it meant that the countdown had really begun to the end of all things and the start of a creation made into what it was always meant to be. Christ went into that city, he died and rose again, and he ascended into Heaven. His disciples waited for the day his prophecy was fulfilled, and saw it come to pass… And then they waited.

We recently talked about the way that we all get excited at times at the prospect of Christ’s return. We eagerly await the restitution of our broken world. We look forward to the incredible signs Christ forecast, of sun and moon disappearing into sackcloth and blood, and the extinguishing of the great cosmic lanterns above us. We await this because we believe in prophecy, we believe in what Christ gave us to hope in. We know what it means to be saved, to feel Christ within us and proclaim that truth out loud. We know the Spirit’s movement deep in our hearts, the opening of a door into something new. We know so much, but we always have more to learn.

We proclaim a faith that necessitates that, someday, time will meet its end. Our proclamation is not that the world is building up toward an entropic destruction – where energy grows tired and settles into a cold cosmic soup. Instead, we proclaim a revivification of this broken world, a birth into something new. We are not like those without hope, who see the world only as the inert matter it is made of. We see beyond the dark materials of creation into the brilliant light of God’s work, of God’s beauty. We stay alive, awake, and alert as people who know our Master will be home any minute, and we do so in the joyful knowledge that what is to come is much better than what presently is.

As we enter into Advent, as we drink from the cup and eat of the bread of remembrance we call Holy Communion, let the grace of God take hold of you. Surrender completely to a world in which we do not have to be the focal point, but where we are just one thing in orbit of something far greater and more wonderful. Remember that the infinite God of all time and space, in order to bring all of time and space into harmony once again, came to live among us. As we prepare for Christ’s advent in the world today, we prepare to celebrate the time long ago he was born as a human that lived around us. Drink deep the grace of God, and find your voice. – Amen.

[1] Abraham Joshua Heschel. “Conclusions.” in The Prophets: Two Volumes in One (Peabody: Mass. : Hendrickson Publishers.) 2021

Sermon 11/19/2023 – Concerning Times and Seasons

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. When they say, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them, as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and there will be no escape! But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief; for you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness.”

“So, then, let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober, for those who sleep at night, and those who are drunk get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober and put on the breastplate of faith and love and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.

Sermon Text

We are in another season of apocalyptic expectations. Whenever there are major world events, natural disasters, or astronomical happenings the amount of people worrying about the end of days increases dramatically. In the United States, we first fell in love with apocalyptic speculation after a series of happenstance events. The Great Awakenings produced a generation set on “fleeing the wrath to come,” and then a national disaster seemed to spell out that God’s great wrath had finally been poured down on the Earth. The Civil War, a moment where Christ’s words that “Brother will turn against brother,” seemed to be fulfilled in striking and terrible detail, meant that as America entered its adolescence, it did so with existential angst. The “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” takes most of its words from Revelation for a reason after all.

So far the twentieth century has been an era of constant turmoil. In the United States we began the century with a large scale terrorist event in the form of the 9/11 attacks. The resulting conflict added to existing struggles in the Middle East. Add to this global economic downturns, an ongoing acceleration of climate change and ecological disasters, and ever complicating political dances between nations and the proxy wars they fight between each other… Is it any surprise that every other week someone, somewhere is telling us that the signs of the end times are upon us and we just have to wait for some date on the calendar, some star in the sky, or some cow in a barn to see Jesus triumphantly return to set things right?

The Church is always waiting for Christ’s return, there is a reason it features so prominently in our Communion Liturgy. “… That we may be the body and blood of Christ until Christ returns in final victory,” is the hope of the Church in all seasons. We are always called to be God’s presence on Earth until such a time that God appears and sets the world to right. This has and will always be the call of the Church.

We’ve talked before in this room, and in Bible Study as well, about the idea that we are always in the End Times. It is my firm belief that the Church has not existed in a time period that is not on the knife’s edge of eternity. We are like a gas stove, the knob turned to light the propane pouring out of the hob. One spark will bring about the conflagration that defines our new era, but which spark will be the one to catch the flame is a mystery to everyone but God. We as the people of God have become jumpy around the various sparks that seem to pop up all around us, and that has hurt us greatly in our witness to those outside our walls.

I grew up in a Church culture, not unique to my home congregation, that the end was imminent and the signs obvious. Those signs were so obvious, in fact, that many people were sure that Christ would return within the very year they were talking to one another… And when that year was over their prediction rolled over again, and again, and again. The “definite signs,” of the end were always based on something on TV, or in the news, or in a movie they saw. When the president was Bush everything he did was a sign of the end, when the president was Obama the same, and with Trump and Biden in the last few year people continue to see every act of our national government as God’s signature on the order to bring about Armageddon.

Now, imagine that you are an outside observer. You see people constantly jumping at every headline. People claiming that the people they like are placed by God to get us through the coming tribulations and the people they dislike are the anti-Christ or worst. People who are spending so much time trying to align symbols in Daniel and Revelation to the modern day, that they forget that they have influence over the happenings in this world and could work to prevent the conflicts that spring up, time and time again. People who, when proven wrong about solar eclipses, hurricanes, and earthquakes being the trumpet blast of an angel creating a new world, just point somewhere else with the same claim. How trustworthy do you think we appear to the world, when we so quickly jump to conclusions that time immediately proves wrong?

The witness of scripture, in matters of the End (Eschatology if you want the $0.50 word,) is that the Church is to be a non-anxious presence in the midst of disaster. We are called to help people in trouble at all times, to face a world that is at war with itself with the calm assurance that God will one day set things right. Paul, Jesus, the epistles and Revelation all openly talk about the fact this world is going toward an End Point where it will be reborn into something new, but they only ever do it to tell us two things. “Be not afraid,” and “Stay awake!” This alertness is not asking us to be glued to speculation, calculating numbers based on gematria or esoteric prophecies, but to be active in pursuing holiness.

If we believe, truly, that the Church is the body of Christ for all the world, and that it has been an End-Times witness for all two thousand years of its existence, should we not take more seriously the responsibility we have been handed. Should we not be testifying that God is good, to a world that no longer hears that truth regularly? Should we not be trying to be holy, not just in appearance of in social standing, but in genuine acts of love and support for one another? Should we not be trying to advocate for the rights of all people, in solidarity with our Christian siblings still persecuted across the world?

We are Children of Light, not of the Darkness. We do not need to look to anything esoteric to understand what God is doing, God reveals these things plainly to us. When we open scripture, it should not be to eke out a way to read the newspaper more spiritually. We should be reading scripture so that our hearts our changed, and that we should go out and do as God has asked of us.

There has been, and always will be, an interest in the End of this Age in the Church – we are founded on the premise that Christ is coming to do just that. Sometimes that interest explodes into fervor centered on figuring out the secret signs all around us. That fervor always dies down, the fruit it produces always a transient thing. Whether it dies out in the deserts of ancient Syria, the battlefields of Crusading armies, or in an America that is tired of being pulled to-and-fro with every news cycle it does not matter. The enduring fruits of the Church, of the Spirit living within us, are not founded in popular tides of speculation – but a deep and abiding understanding that God is with us and the Church has work to do.

We are told to “test every Spirit,” and to be unafraid of questioning a prophet, especially if they ask for money as they prophecy. We must reawaken a Spirit of discernment within ourselves. Just because someone quotes scripture, does not make them correct or holy. Just because a meme says that something in the news or on TV is foretold of in scripture, does not make it so.

I provide you now with a simple guide to avoid supporting Apocalyptic Grifters:

  1. If they cite scripture look it up! Read the whole chapter and not just the verse they point to, you’ll often find it says something a lot different than what they suggest it does.
  2. If their prediction ties into a book deal, or other promotion, don’t believe it! If it was really so important, they’d make it freely available and not behind a paywall.
  3. If its about how “The Devil doesn’t even have to hide,” or some vague appeal to the culture then read it as you would people who complained about “rock and roll.”
  4. If the prediction absolves them (and us,) of a need to help others.
  5. If the prediction is rooted in exclusion, hatred, or violence that is counter to God’s vision of a diverse and Spirit-filled Body of Christ.
  6. If any of their teachings or rhetoric are counter to the example and teachings of Christ.

I could probably write more, but six bullet points is probably more than enough. Beyond these action items, I do actually encourage Christians to think of the nearness of Christ’s return. We do not do this, however, as people afraid of some great and terrible storm on the horizon. If we believe that God is working to bring Heaven to Earth, then the only thing for us to do in the meantime is to pave the way ahead of God. We should be working to build a stronger, more loving, more grace filled Church. A place where all God’s people can grow in holiness together. We do this, not through chasing rabbit holes of esoterica, but in open and honest work together in pursuing God’s will.

For our closing Amen, I ask us to take seriously the mystery of faith we proclaim every time we take Communion together, the same mystery we will proclaim at our Parish meeting this evening. “Christ has died. Christ is Risen. Christ will Come Again.” Join me as we, in remembrance of these God’s mighty acts in Jesus Christs, offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving as a holy and living sacrifice, in union with Christ’s offering for us, as we proclaim the mystery of faith: Christ has died; Christ is Risen; Christ will Come Again. – Amen.

Sermon 11/12/2023 – More than Enough Contempt

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Psalm 123

To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens. As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God, until he has mercy upon us.

Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us, for we have had more than enough of contempt. Our soul has had more than its fill of the scorn of those who are at ease, of the contempt of the proud.

Sermon Text

Today’s Psalm is a word of extreme comfort and of dire warning. Oftentimes, those two things come hand in hand. For God to have control over all the Earth means that those who are suffering trouble now can trust that God has the power to set things right. For those who are comfortable now, and do nothing to help those who are in trouble, the pendulum slides the other way. The words of scripture commonly group people into two categories – the righteous and the wicked. What I find most interesting in how scripture orients itself in matters of justice is that what makes a person wicked is not usually what they do, but what they do not do.

I think it is easiest to see this in Jesus’s words in Matthew 25. Looking to the end of history, Jesus separates all of humanity into two groups. On his right there are sheep ready for eternal rest and on the left goats that are fit only for destruction. What separates the two? Is it a denomination or affiliation? Doctrinal purity and contribution to Church treasuries? No! It is in one simple capacity – mercy. When you saw someone hungry did you feed them? Someone naked did you clothe them? Someone in trouble and you helped out any way you could? These alone are the qualifications put forward in the great judgment set forward by Jesus.

Salvation is a free gift of God, but it naturally bears fruit. That fruit is something that we should constantly be cultivating and growing. I am famously bad at gardening and one of the reasons for that is that I am forgetful – shocking to many of you as that might be. I forget to move the plant from the sun or to add nutrients to the soil. When the frost comes, the cover it needed to survive sits unused by the door… No plant ever crosses my threshold without being given a death sentence. Yet, for many of us, our salvation faces a similar problem. We are content with having said the right words, and being splashed with water in just the right way, and we do not care at all to develop the amazing gift we have been given.

In the history of God’s people, the Psalms became a book used in worship during the Babylonian exile. The people were scattered across the Babylonian empire. The rich were placed in positions in government in the new world, not free but not put to hard labor either. The poor were put to that labor that the rich were not fit for. Those who remained in Judah became serfs to regional authorities, those in diaspora to other people in power. For this scattered people, the poetry and songs of their people became essential for survival. While the Psalms we have today are those primarily used among the people in Babylon, many more are likely lost to time that gave them strength.

Throughout scripture, God is presented in terms that are used to describe worldly leaders. God is King, or Emperor, or Feudal Lord, all based on the language of the people who are writing that scripture. The reason for this verbiage is not to make God another ruler among many, but to establish that God is different from worldly rulers. Early Christians, for example, would describe Jesus as Δεσποτης (Despotes,) the word from which we get “Despot.” This was not to say that Jesus was just another ruler like the Caesars that abused them, but to say that there was only one person who could claim to rule their lives – that Caesar was not their Despot, instead Christ was.

In our Psalm, we see the Psalmist doing this exact same kind of linguistic dance. The Lord is enthroned in Heaven. They look up from the ground to the open hand of their God. The enslaved People of God say that they look up to God like a slave looks to their Master, again taking the language of oppression and applying it to God to take away its sting. They look to God who is in Heaven, and they beg for mercy, because the world has not given it. They have been mocked by those who are at peace because they are not. They have been cast aside by the wealthy because they have nothing.

The Psalm carries an implication with it. For those who are mocked, there is hope of redemption. For those who are cast aside, there is a place of welcome. The God we worship is a God who prioritizes the Losers over the Winners. Whether it is the second born son of a patriarch in Genesis, or the nations of Israel and Judah against Assyria and Babylon, God does not side with the powerful, but with the powerless. For those of us who face hardship – economic, health related, or social – God is on the side of the downtrodden and promises to raise up all who suffer unjustly in this world. Looking back a few weeks, this should echo what we spoke of previously in Leviticus.

The Blessing of God’s care for the downtrodden is that we can never be too low to know God’s goodness. There is, however, a stern warning that is implied in this passage. What happens when we take the spot of the person who put us down all that time? When we make enough money to be secure, where previously we were troubled, what do we do with our prosperity? When the hard times pass into moments of ease, are we willing to reach out and lift others up, or are we comfortable pulling the ladder up after ourselves?

I have become more sure of the goodness of God each year of my life. I see in the Gospel a promise that there is always a home I can come to, always a place for me in God’s heart. I also am sure, more and more, that that means there is a place in God’s heart for everyone else too. No one is beyond the Grace of God, no one is unclean in the eyes of a God who is making all things new. Am I, the person God has chased down across the ages and brought out of death, willing to accept that as true. Can I devote my life to loving all people, because God was willing to do everything possible to love me? To paraphrase Paul, “It’s one thing to die for someone you know and like, but dying for someone wicked you haven’t met… That takes a love like Jesus’s.” Yet, as large and powerful a love that is, it is the love we are called to take part in.

Our Psalmist cries out that they have had more than enough contempt. They were chased away by the well off and mocked by those with their life put together. Maybe we are in a season where we feel cast off or like the only words we ever hear are said to mock us. If so, we can trust that God is there to take hold of us and see us through those troubles. For those of us at ease, the burden is shifted onto us. If God is on the side of rejects, then maybe we should be too. There are obvious ways we take the side of people in need – supporting programs that feed and give resources – but is there more we can do?

Prayer is the starting point for any work of God’s people. If you need direction, prayer can give you a path forward. If you need to decide whether it’s your place to do something, God will help in discernment. If you know what you need to do, and just do not want to, prayer is always a good place to start. From that jumping off point of prayer, there is usually an action that will present itself. Sometimes that action is to defer to someone else to do something, but there will often be some way in any given moment to show love to someone. The true essence of our work is always that we are seeking to reiterate God’s love in this world. Beyond action in the moment, we should support people who support the downtrodden – with more prayer, with funds, and yes sometimes our votes.

It is often said that the opposite of love is not hate, but apathy. Our scripture supports that. God’s mercy is put in contrast with the scorn and “contempt,” of the people of this earth. “Contempt,” here is used elsewhere to mean something that is set aside and forgotten. Most notably to describe a lamp that someone leaves by their table as they sleep, but that they quickly grab a hold of when they are afraid they might fall down the stairs. If nothing else, we should be a people who make sure no one is forgotten. While we may forget the faces and names of those in need, God does not. May we never let apathy overcome our love for one another. – Amen.