Author: John Langenstein

Sermon 11/02/2025 – Eternal Hope

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Ephesians 1:11-23

In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.

I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may perceive what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Sermon Text

All Saints’ Day marks a time when the Church acknowledges that its membership is larger than just who sits in the pews. The Church is not just those baptized members that work and walk on the face of the earth, but all those who are present with God beyond the veil of death. As the Church on Earth awaits the resurrection, so those present with God await the same, looking for the day where heaven and earth, physical and spiritual, new and old are all mixed together into a new, perfected creation.

There is, surprisingly, very little within the scope of scripture that describes what sort of life the dead participate in. We know that faithful people, upon their death, are present with God in some meaningful way.[1] We know that they are conscious and that they are actively worshipping God and awaiting Christ’s final victory at the end of the age.[2] Beyond this, however, we do not know exactly what it is like to be physically dead, yet spiritually alive and present with Christ. The time between our physical death and the future resurrection is not something the early church seemed very concerned with. Later writers would develop all sorts of concepts of the “intermediate state,” and of “the beatific vision,” granted to the dead. However, from a standpoint of scripture, very little is revealed to us about the nature of our afterlife.

I think it is intentional that scripture does not fixate on the nature of our existence between death and resurrection. Our duty is to do what is right now, to worship God as we live, and to go into the world to proclaim the good news of Christ in all that we do. To focus on something that we cannot participate in until we actually get there would be to miss the point of the here and the now. We do not get an exact guide to what death brings.

Yet, we are given an abundance of assurance. Christ’s immediate presence with us in death means that, not only is death nothing to fear, it is a gift. Paul says in Philippians that, if he had a say in the matter, he wished he could die sooner rather than later. Yet, he did not see his life as a burden either. He says, “To live is Christ,” meaning it gives us the opportunity to imitate and better know the savior, “to die is gain,” meaning that we get to be present with Christ in a fuller, more direct way.[3] The Christian is not meant to crave death, but we are not to see it as something great and terrible either. For us, death is just a transition from one state to another, a changing of the self from the physical to the spiritual, until the day we rejoin our physical self once again in perfection.

It seems to me that the Church has lost some of its ability to be fearless in the face of death. The process of dying is hard, it does not always go smoothly, but it is not the end of us. There are many things death robs us of – opportunities we could have taken but did not, time with family on this side of eternity we cannot get back – but death is still only a temporary separation. If we believe that, then it should hold no sting for us. While we can, and should, mourn that the people we love die and that they are no longer beside us, we should not “mourn as those without hope.”[4] We believe Christ has marked us, that our faith has confirmed us, that we have a future even beyond death.

Still, I believe people hope that they might be immortal. On one hand this manifests in recklessness, but on the other, and just as dangerously, it manifests as a obsessive pursuit of wellness. New vitamins, new supplements, new exercise regiments, new procedures, new this that and the other, just to deny that one day this life must end. Why are we fearful of growing old? Of wrinkles and stretch marks and grey hair? Why do we chase after youth that has already passed by? It is ok to be as old as we are, to enjoy the benefits and to face the hardships every era of life brings. There is no shame in aging, in frailty or in strength we are all of us significant, all of us still beloved by God. Death comes to everyone, and there is no shame in it.

It can seem a grim topic, to address death so straight on. Yet, it is an important part of life. Christ came and lived and died, in large part so that we would have a companion in every step of life. When we come to the end of this life, we die. Born into eternity in that moment, we see things in a new way. We are present with God, with all the saints who went before us, and we join them in something new. We wait for God’s redemption of the world as people who have seen it closer than anyone else. We behold Christ face to face, we see the power of the resurrection right in front of us. We pray for the day all people can know its power.

On All Saints’ Day, we acknowledge that the Church consists of both the living and the dead. We also acknowledge that we too shall someday die. We will be a name in an obituary, a carving on a grave stone, a face on a poster. Yet, that is not the end of us. In dying we join the feast which Christ set long ago, and we eat and drink and celebrate God’s glory with people from all of space and time. Even today, as we take bread and cup and declare Christ’s salvation through these elements, we do so in the presence of the many witnesses who have gone before us.

Let us find God’s glory at work in every part of our lives. Those of us who are young, rejoice in your youth and vitality! Those who are old, let every achy joint and grey hair testify to the good things that have brought you thus far. Those of us in between, do not mourn the transition from one era to another. For in all times, and all places, in life and in death, God is with us. Praise God, all you people, for God is with us forever more. – Amen.

[1] Luke 23:43

[2]  Revelation 6:9

[3] Philippians 1:21

[4] 1 Thessalonians 4:13-14

Sermon 10/26/2025 – God of Abundance

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Joel 2:23-32

O children of Zion, be glad, and rejoice in the Lord your God, for he has given the early rain for your vindication; he has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the later rain, as before. The threshing floors shall be full of grain; the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.

I will repay you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army that I sent against you.

You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never again be put to shame. You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel and that I, the Lord, am your God and there is no other. And my people shall never again be put to shame.

Then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female slaves, in those days I will pour out my spirit.

I will show portents in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved, for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls.

Sermon Text

Disasters happen regardless of any preparation that goes into preventing them. The terrible fact of life is that, even if everyone does what they’re supposed to, there will still be problems. Mitigation in the face of floods, hurricanes, or tsunamis can save countless lives, but the destruction wrought will never be non-existent. With the increasingly complex climate we find ourselves living in – seasons not lining up properly, hundred-year floods happening yearly, and so many other troubles – the reality of disaster cannot escape our minds.

One of the most disappointing things that came out of the catastrophic flooding in Texas this year, alongside the raw pain of those displaced and suffering, was that not everything had been done to help people escape these troubles. Institutions from local, state, and federal levels had all remapped flood zones, cut funding, and generally created an environment where these disasters did more damage than was necessary. We allowed ourselves to believe that disaster was only a possibility, not an inevitability. Likewise, after the disaster struck, some sought to explain the flooding itself as being caused by bad actors. The idea that this kind of thing can just… happen, seemed foreign to us, despite the fact it frequently does – just not to us.

Moralizing disaster is a dangerous thing. The difficult balance we face as a society comes from acknowledging that a drop of prevention is worth an ounce of cure, but that no amount of prevention can eliminate all possible harm. Fire will burn, floods will wash away, and diseases will ravage – bad things can happen even if everyone does everything they’re supposed to. Sometimes we have to admit that the troubles we face in life are nobody’s fault, they are simply a consequence of living in a world where disaster is possible. Sometimes an outcome will be bad, and sometimes not much can be done to avoid it.

Joel writes to the people of God after a series of disasters had devastated Judea. An incursion of locusts had decimated the crops in the region. An ongoing drought had dried up all but a few water sources. In the midst of that dry weather a fire had begun, destroying entire stretches of farmland. The scene is not unlike some of what we have seen in our own lives. The fires that burn in California, the floods that ravage our state, destruction that wipes out entire communities. Into this horror show the prophet steps and seeks to interpret it to his community.

Joel spells out the disaster as a consequence of the people’s sin. He lacks some of the specificity of other prophets. He seems generally upset with the conduct of his people and so calls on them to repent. The horn of alarm is transformed into a horn calling the people to repentance. They must change how they act if they hope to escape the disaster. The dark days of the past will come to an end, but only when all God’s people know what they ought to do and do it. With urgency he calls all to repent, all to change, all to see the way forward in their life.

I am unwilling to say that the disasters we see today are divine punishment. I am no prophet, and no such word has been given to me by the Spirit. Certainly, our impact on the climate and upon our intervention programs has caused some of these disasters to be worse – poor administration of forests that allow fires to spread, aforementioned redefining of flood zones, and climate change that pushes hotter oceans to produce worse hurricanes. However, I am not convinced God divinely punishes in the way the prophets once forecast God to. If so, it is a mystery that can only be answered in eternity.

What I do know is that Joel’s words at the end of our lection today, where he speaks of the Spirit of God falling on all flesh, is something that we as Christians believe has happened. The Pentecost long ago saw the people of God receiving the ability to speak in other languages, a miracle unseen before or since. The end of human misery is therefore in sight, but is not yet complete.

The promise of Joel is that abundance returns where disaster takes over. The fire that burns cannot prevent crops from growing again. The floods that wash a community away, cannot stop them from being rebuilt. The good earth produces more than enough, if only God’s people could find a way to share it appropriately. There is a great deal of suffering in this world, a great many disasters that happen almost constantly, but the thing that truly would mitigate them is if we could just find it within ourselves to band together, to advocate for one another, to stand up to the evils around us.

It’s difficult to say which message is more important – the hope that plenty can follow emptiness or that such a blessing is only truly fulfilled when we share in that work together… Perhaps both need to be proclaimed. It goes beyond national disasters, beyond flood or fire, it cuts into our own lives. The little disasters that dry up any trace of hope within us, that make a desert of our souls, they too pass into abundance. They pass into abundance when we share our struggles and our triumphs, when we all are able to take what we need, and not a mite more. When we lift one another up, when we stand side by side. When God’s people act like God’s people, something changes in the fabric of this world, and it becomes just that little more holy. Take with you today the knowledge that God will bring life to the desert places of your life. That even in the face of overwhelming disaster, there is still hope. Somehow, in ways we cannot begin to comprehend, a day dawns in the presence of God’s Spirit. As the world awaits rebirth, looks for portents above and below, it still knows the grace of God. There is hope, even as devastation seems to reign. Hold onto that hope, that comes from our Abundant God. – Amen

Sermon 10/19/25 – Wrestle with God

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Genesis 32:22-31

The same night [Jacob] got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, yet my life is preserved.” The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.

Sermon Text

If you’ve read the story of Jacob in scripture you read the story of somebody who really  is not a hero. When we’re introduced to Jacob he is fighting his brother in the womb. Later on he defrauds his brother not once but twice, taking everything from him in the process.  His brother is angry enough at this to chase him from his home. Jacob flees to his uncle Laban in the distant city of Charan, and there begins to learn his lesson when his uncle actively defrauds him. When he leaves to return to Canaan he has two wives, a large flock of animals, plentiful slaves, and a collection of his uncle’s household gods that he and his wife stole as they fled the city.

Jacob literally means, “heel-grabber,” evidently a term for someone who usurps power from others. His life was dedicated to taking advantage of those around him for his own gain. Whether it was in convincing them to sell their inheritance for a bowl of soup or stealing their blessing in disguise, he was willing to do what it took to get what he wanted. He was a cheat, a thief, and all around a troublesome person. Yet, he was also a descendant of Abraham, a recipient of his covenant with God. Through Jacob, it was promised, all people would be blessed, and yet he showed none of the signs that he would ever conform to such a high calling.

As he returned to Canaan, he knew that he would be coming face to face with his brother Esau. His brother had grown in power since their parting. He had a veritable army at his disposal, as well as a multitude of his own flocks and slaves. To Jacob, the march to Canaan was not a simple walk to return home, but a very real risk. If he ran into his brother, he was fully expecting that his life would be forfeit. He needed a way to distract him, a way to win him over.

He sends his family ahead of him. Firstly, across the river, and then on the day of their confrontation. Does he send them ahead as decoys? As offerings in his place? Or out of a desire his brother will see his dependents and be merciful? No one can say, because we never hear his rationale.

The night before the confrontation, Jacob sends his family and his possessions ahead of him and sits alone. We do not know how long he sat there in silence, but eventually a man suddenly rushes onto the scene and begins to grapple with him. While the man should have been able to take Jacob down in mere minutes, somehow the struggle continues for hours. At daybreak the specter decides it must flee, so it dislocates Jacob’s hip bone and blesses him in exchange for freedom. The blessing is strange, “You shall be named Israel, for you have wrestled with God and humans and have prevailed.” The being refuses to give its name, and yet when it leaves Jacob knows it was God who met him that night, as he names the place “Peniel,” “God’s face,” in remembrance of the event.

It’s a strange story. Why does God need to leave before sunrise? Why can Jacob successfully wrestle God for hours? What does it mean that God has, once again, appeared in a human – but definitely not incarnate – form for the second time in the book of Genesis? These questions naturally come to mind reading the story, but they are ultimately unhelpful for us as interpreters in understanding why we are given this story.

We are inheritors of Jacob’s struggle and that is what we have to understand behind all of this. Though we are not as comically devious as he was, we are all of us still people who have tried again and again to get our way in life, and have sometimes resorted to backward methods to get there.

Sure, we try to do right, but I doubt seriously that attempt to do right always succeeds to overcome our more selfish inclinations. We are all recipients of God’s gifts, inheritors of the covenant, and yet somehow the kind of folks who might smuggle some other gods out of our uncle’s house if we were given the chance, just in case things do not quite work out. We don’t have the literal idols to hide in our wife’s saddlebag, that’s true, but who knows what we’re turning to other than God.

Jacob was where he was precisely because he was good at ripping people off. His journey to Charan was an exercise in being humbled by force. His uncle tricked him into acting with propriety, asserted that he should start acting like a civilized person and not just a thief. When he fled, he came to his brother’s territory with the ever increasing sense that he was not strong enough to face him head on. He could not fight him, could not trick him, he would have to be far more humble in his reunion. Finally, when God came to him, the struggle against him was more than he could overcome. God met him at his level, and only when his hip was out of place would Jacob relent to let go. Jacob was someone who needed humbled by external forces before he could do right.

Jacob walked the long walk from Penuel to his family across the Jabbok. He met up with them and sent them ahead to meet his brother. He had sent his property ahead as an offering to his brother, but his wives and children were sent directly ahead of him. Two groups, split up in case Esau chose to kill one of them, were sent ahead.

His favorite wife and son, Rachel and Jospeh, were directly in front of him. As he walked toward Esau, only the noise of the animals would have risen above the field. Jacob limped across the distance between them, as his brother broke into a sprint. When the two met, Jacob no doubt expected the worst, but Esau fell on him with love and not hatred.

Those years that humbled Jacob had also softened the heart of Esau. Esau saw the riches of his brother, his large family, and saw a reason to rejoice – not to be angry. Esau accepted the gifts from his brother only after Jacob pleaded with him, and when the two parted ways Esau left some of his best behind to make sure Jacob’s family had enough. Jacob would return to Canaan, and settle just a little ways from where his father had settled in Hebron, settling in Shechem with his family.

If we walk with God, we will find ourselves humbled – either of our own choice or through God’s intervention. Looking at my life, short though it has been, I know that the closer I come to God, the more I realize my smallness. It is not that my self-concept has diminished entirely, I know that I am better today than I was a year ago, but its more that my self-concept is being compared to the appropriate scale. I am better than I was, but I am nothing without the God who got me here. I am dependent on God, on the people who have loved me into being, and the circumstances that have brought me to where I am.

In my life, truthfully in all our lives, we wrestle with God. We want to say that we know better, or see more clearly than God does what is really going on. We kick and fight and push and pull, but we cannot get away from God. The struggle lasts throughout our life and only in the moments we stop and we let God win, do we truly see things for what they are.

At the Jabbok, long ago, Jacob was given the name Israel to remember his fight alongside that river, but it is a name with dual meaning. Israel can mean, “He who wrestles God,” but it can also mean, “God who prevails.”[1] We fight with God, but God wins – one way or the other.

An element I have grown to love in this story is that God refuses to give Jacob his name. Yet, when the stranger leaves, Jacob knows that he has seen the face of God in fighting alongside that river. Something we often do in life is look back on a difficult time and suddenly see that God was alongside us the whole time. Sometimes shepherding us through, sometimes dragging us kicking and screaming, but never relenting. To wrestle with God, to be humbled in the practice, is to learn who God truly is. As Charles Wesley notes in his hymn based upon this text, our entry into humility is our entry into this truth, “Pure, universal love thou art; To me, to all thy passions move; Thy nature and thy name is love.”[2] Wrestle God, be made humble, and learn the love of the same. – Amen

[1] Robert Alter gives the most succinct argument for this in his translation of the text, but the exact etymology of the name “Israel,” continues to be a matter of academic debate.

[2] Come O Thou Traveler Unknown UMH #386

Sermon 10/12/2025 – Skipping the Best Part

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Jeremiah 29: 1-11

These are the words of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining elders among the exiles and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. This was after King Jeconiah and the queen mother, the court officials, the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the artisans, and the smiths had departed from Jerusalem. The letter was sent by the hand of Elasah son of Shaphan and Gemariah son of Hilkiah, whom King Zedekiah of Judah sent to Babylon to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. It said: Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon:

Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let the prophets and the diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to your dreams that you dream, for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, says the Lord.

For thus says the Lord: Only when Babylon’s seventy years are completed will I visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.

Sermon Text

Jeremiah 29:11is probably one of the most quoted scriptures in American Christianity. The promise of God’s foreknowledge in our lives is comforting. That the plans God lays out ahead of us are good, all the better. It is on walls of churches and house decorations and many a twitter bio… The problem is that it is not a very good verse to style your life around.

If you look at it, it’s a specific verse for a specific people. God is not making a sweeping statement about plans for everyone’s life, though I am sure God has them. It is a promise to God’s people in exile, to trust that while things are currently bad for them, keeping to the counterintuitive instructions God has given them will be for their own good. The promise of the “plans,” being good is given not as a vague allusion to God having influence over their lives, but as a specific message about something God has already told them to do.

While I do not disagree with people’s desires to use this verse to reassure themselves that God cares about their wellbeing, I also believe that we do ourselves a disservice in ignoring what specific plans God is laying out for the people. As we have seen on other Sundays, Jeremiah is a book that consists largely of horrible news for the people of God – that this section takes such a sharp turn toward something positive should tell us that every word of it matters. We cannot just take Jeremiah 29:11, or any part of scripture, out of its fuller context and expect to really understand what it is telling us. Most of us, I have to say, have been skipping the best part of this chapter.

As a reminder of our Biblical History, the book of Jeremiah takes place during the Babylonian Conquest. Israel existed as a sovereign nation for a relatively short time during the reigns of King Saul, and then David and Solomon. After Solomon’s death, the country split in half between the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah. Israel would later fall to the Assyrian Empire, with Judah becoming a vassal-state. In time, Assyria would fall to the Neo-Babylonian empire, who would take over all their land.

The Babylonians first made a vassal-state of Judah, then destroyed it entirely after a failed coup. Jeremiah 29 captures the moment after the initial conquest and deportation of many Judahites to Babylon, but before the complete destruction of Jerusalem and the larger second deportation. Jeremiah has two goals – firstly to reassure the now scattered people of God that God is still caring for them, and secondly to chastise the leaders of the people and their prophets. The latter part of the chapter captures the prophecies against the kings and false prophets and spells out the destruction of the city and the removal of its people. The first section, however, the one we are talking about today, lays out something of how God works within a broken world.

The deportees in Babylon are living in a mixture of situations. Some, those who are literate or artisans, have been placed into jobs within the imperial machine. Those who make specific goods are now making them for Babylon, those who recorded legal matters are now doing it for the empire. These folks are not “free,” but they are granted certain benefits that come from their skills. They are being used by empire and have been inserted into the existing middle and ruling classes as the empire sees fit. Poorer folk were sent in as slaves and field workers, feeding the empire with their labor. Both faced troubles, both were uprooted from their home and their religious life, their unique circumstances only changed the severity and flavor of their torment.

To these people, Jeremiah writes the words we have plastered all over our lives. The plan of God to redeem them after their time in Babylon comes with specific instructions for how to live in the meantime. The instructions are revolutionary, they change the way God’s people are to live forever, and yet they are something that, within a few generations, God’s people would throw away for their own purposes.

God gives them the instruction to marry and give in marriage. The people are to put down roots! More than this, the implication comes that they are to marry into the people of Babylon.

At different stages in its history, Judah had different concepts of how intermarriage between ethnic groups could be done, but here we see a full endorsement of it. God also asks that the people support the cities that they have found themselves in, to labor for the good of their neighbors, for doing so will ultimately help them as well.

For we today, as American Christians, we do not suffer from displacement. Many people in this world do, and for them these teachings are immediately relevant. However, as citizens of Heaven who sojourn on the earth, as we all hope to be, then we must see a parallel. We are not called as Christians to distance ourselves from other people, to see them as something apart from ourselves. While I do think Christianity makes unique demands upon our lives, those demands are open to all people. Racial divides, for example, have no place in the Church. Despite our long history of segregation and our contribution to anti-miscegenation and integration throughout history, the Church is meant to be a place where all people become part of the same family.

Likewise, we are not truly citizens of this world, and yet we are meant to contribute to the good of the place where we live. I think Jeremiah is intentional in saying the people are to support the “city,” in which they live and not Babylon as a larger entity. The delicate support of upholding the laws and welfare of the place you live, while not absorbing the evils practiced within, is a tale as old as time within the Church. Christians lived, worked, and paid taxes to Rome while Rome was hunting and killing them. Today, our culture commits many evils, targets many vulnerable people, and often times with the sanction of those in power. We can support Keyser, West Virginia, even the United States, without blindly aligning ourselves to any evil which society perpetrates through them.

The biblical ethic of seeing all people as our “neighbor,” demands that we do some literal work for our literal neighbors. We are commanded to care for each other, because our mutual welfare is part of God’s plan.

We cannot despise the people around us and expect that any good will come of that. So many cities, towns, even smaller communities like churches, become lost in a deep sense of distrust with each other. We lose sight of the idea that we are meant to love one another, because it is far easier to fear each other. Everyone is seen as a potential threat, an obstacle to be overcome, and not as fellow human beings walking this earth together.

God does indeed have plans to prosper people, but that plan includes the simple act of working together for the general welfare. Today in our hyper partisan world, that is hard to imagine being possible. We have people who legitimately hate each other. Every problem is sourced to people groups – the republicans, the democrats, immigrants, trans people, gay people – anyone really, as long as the label can stick to an accusation. It is harder than ever to live a full life – costs are up, companies are getting record profits, jobs are down as AI and automation replaces humans – in a world where more and more people are suffering, more and more will be looking for people to blame.

There is blame of course. Tools of industry, businesses founded on stochastic incitement, and rampant consumption are just a few sources of our troubles. Nation uses each trouble against nation, and none have clean hands in the fight. However, the most powerful thing we can do to counter these forces, those who benefit from division and who want us to distrust one another, is to do the radical thing that sits in front of us at all times. Embrace God’s plan, see those around you as a neighbor, and live accordingly. That sort of plan, that can truly be for our good. – Amen.

Sermon 10/05/2025 – On Supererogation

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Luke 17:5-10

The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.

“Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here at once and take your place at the table’? Would you not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me; put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink’? Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!’ ”

Sermon Text

One of the ways that I know that people do not often actually read scripture is that I do not, as a pastor, get more questions about slavery. When you read through the scriptures, you see that throughout the Old Testament, the New Testament, and, if you’re feeling especially exotic, the Apocrypha, there is a lot of talk about slavery and very little discussion of how it is a bad thing. There’s a lot of reasons for this, entire books about it even, and we sadly do not have time to go into it today.

I am not going to spend a lot of time explaining, or explaining away, the Bible’s treatment of slavery. Obviously, as people who live in the modern era, we acknowledge the fact that slavery in any form is despicable. Yet. as people who have never in their lives suffered a loss of freedom because of this institution it can be easy for us to not take a moment to acknowledge its presence throughout scripture. Others in this world are not so lucky, whether they live in an area of the world where slavery is still very real or they are descendants of those who had lost their freedom, or been born into a system that never allowed them to have it. Today, we are discussing a parable of Jesus within its context and from it I hope we can understand a little bit more of how we interact with the world and if you’re interested, we can come back another time and talk about why that context makes us bristle as much as it does.

In our scripture, Jesus is talking to his disciples. Firstly, he looks at the group of them and says in response to their demand that he increases their faith, “If you all had faith the size of a mustard seed, you would be able to do, intense, but still basic gardening with it.” Something that is lost in the English translation is that Jesus is not saying if each individual had faith the size of a mustard seed they could do this, he is saying that if all of them together could muster up even that much faith it would be sufficient to rip up a single tree.

 This is very different from what Jesus tells us in Matthew. There we read that faith the size of a mustard seed would be able to move mountains.[1] In truth, I think Jesus probably gave his disciples both of these teachings at different times. Matthew’s version captures a moment of Jesus delivering this message out of hope for his disciples. After spending years with these people and seeing them grow very little, the messaging necessarily changes to a call for action on their part. Jesus, having faced his disciples constantly arguing with each other over who is the greatest and who is best at doing this or that, finally seems to have a moment where he looks them in the eye and calls their bluff about why they are doing what they’re doing.

Jesus looks at them and gives them a parable that for our modern eyes is uncomfortable and was probably equally so for his disciples, just in different ways. “Who among you,” Jesus asks, “would be willing to have your slave come into your house, set the table, and then pull up a seat next to you.” Jesus knows his disciples are more likely to be slaves than own them, but still he expects them to answer like any good Roman subject would. “A slave’s place is not at the dinner table. They eat only after the master is done eating and they eat in their own quarters.” Perhaps they are hoping Jesus is about to subvert their expectations, and so they remain silent. Jesus does not though, and instead tells them they should be like slaves, and not expect to be praised for doing what is expected of them.

Within theology there is a concept called supererogation. It means, “to work above,” and refers to the belief that a Christian can do something above and beyond what is asked of them by God. We in the United Methodist Church actually have a specific belief about supererogation within our Articles of Religion.[2] The language comes from the 1600s so it’s a little antiquated, so allow me to modernize it. “It is impossible for a Christian to work beyond what is asked of them by God because God asks for everything from a Christian. Therefore, no amount of work or devotion can exceed what is expected of them when God expects everything.”

Jesus’s parable of the worthless slave is not without irony. When we read through his other teachings, we know that Christ is actually the kind of person who sets a table for slaves. Reading through Jesus’s teachings, we know that when we enter Heaven, we will receive the words, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”[3] However, Jesus’s harsher words here are necessary for us to understand something that we often forget about faith. We are not doing anything special by responding to Christ’s words with obedience and a desire to be good. Yes, it may not be everyone’s response to do these things, and yes, it may make us a far happier and holier person because we have done them, but in doing what we are supposed to do we have not earned ourselves any special favor.

If Christ was the kind of teacher, the kind of God, who looked at his disciples and lavished them with praise for each thing they did, I don’t think that we would exist as a Church today. The life that the disciples had to live, one in which they were constantly persecuted, denied basic human rights, sent out into the world to suffer the way they did, that kind of life can only happen because they did not expect anything for the work which they did. They were following the example of their savior after all, “who took on the form of a slave,” to save them.[4]

I often tell the story of my great uncle. He was an atheist. One day he was helping repair a roof on a church. As he was up on the ladder a Deacon of that church came out and told him to come down and talk to him for a while. The Deacon asked him how much the church was paying him to do the work and my uncle said, “I like what you all do, I’m doing this for free.” The Deacon looked at him and said, “Now you really ought to get some money out of this, I would never do this kind of work for free.” My uncle looked at him put his hand on his shoulder and said, “Sir, I don’t know how you Christians work, but I’m an atheist and we believe in doing things just cause they’re right.”

I tell that story because my uncle had a better understanding of what it means to do the right thing than most Christians. I do think that it’s important that we as individuals and as a church show people appreciation for the work they do. I think it would be very easy to abuse this teaching of Jesus to say that you should never give anyone a positive word because that’s not why they’re doing what they’re doing. However, as with so many things, we can’t throw out this teaching because it could be abused. The teaching is still good even if people have used it for evil. It is important to ask, what would the church be like if it took the attitude my uncle did more often? If we did good work, because it was right to do it, and asked for nothing else?

Today as the church celebrates World Communion Sunday, we acknowledge the fact that we are not the only Christians to exist. So often, we assume the only “good,” Christians are the ones just like us. The truth is more complicated than that. At this table, to all who earnestly seek it, there is more than enough grace, if only we can acknowledge how freely it is given, and how little we can contribute toward it. The worst thing we can do at this table, is presume that our seat at it has been earned, or that the grace we receive is something due to us.

I always find myself remembering the words of the old communion liturgy. Before the merger of ’68, Methodist and EUB churches would pray each Sunday before we took communion, saying, “We do not presume to come to this, Your Table, O Merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in your many and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table but you are the same Lord whose mercy is unfailing.”[5]

Today this table, for those who truly wish to take it in earnest, is a chance to start over. If we can humble ourselves and acknowledge the fact that we are not special, not in the way we often want to be, it will bless us richly. We must acknowledge we are as dependent upon God’s grace as any other person in the world and just as liable to sin and as likely to fail. True freedom comes from the acknowledgement of our dependency, and when we can remove that presumption of righteousness from ourselves, then we find our faith producing fruit. The fruit of righteousness, the fruit of mercy, and the fruit of grace that we have earnestly received.

We are not special, not even one of us, but that does not mean that we are not beloved. It does not mean that we do not still have a place in this world that needs us. It simply means that we do not have a privilege over any other human being. For we are sinners all and all of us are dependent upon the feast which is set before us by a God who welcomes every humble heart with grace upon grace, joy upon joy, at the seat we never thought we could sit down at. – Amen.

[1] Matthew 17:20

[2] Articles of Faith of the Methodist Church. Article XI

[3] Matthew 25:21

[4] Philippians 2:7

[5] Adapted from “The Rite of The Lord’s Supper or Holy Communion” in The Methodist Hymnal. 1964

Sermon 09/28/2025 – Real Treasures

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

1 Timothy 6:6-19

Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it, but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.

But as for you, man of God, shun all this; pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and for which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. In the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you to keep the commandment without spot or blame until the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will bring about at the right time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords. It is he alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see; to him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.

As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches but rather on God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.

Sermon Text

Money truly makes the world go round. Don’t believe me, don’t believe Joel Grey, believe the writ of scripture itself. “Money answers all things,” is a lesson straight out of Ecclesiastes.[1] Are you hungry? Tired? Need friends? For a little bit of money, these and more can be yours! Money cannot buy happiness, but it should not surprise us that people’s happiness is usually correlated to their income.[2] When you have money, you have few things to worry about, but when you don’t life can be a struggle even just to keep a roof over your head.

There’s a story, Greek in origin, of a slave who longed for his master’s wealth. The master decided to allow him to have his wish for a day. The man enjoyed the lavish food and drink that his master had every day. He celebrated in the midst of it all… Until he looked up. Dangling on a small thread above him was a sword, spinning slightly in the draft of the room. The lesson of this parable, “The Sword of Damocles,” is that the wealthy constantly have to fear thieves and traitors, and so it is wrong to desire what they have, because it is so hard to have it… The Sword of Damocles is a piece of propaganda that has lodged deep into our psyche.

The simple fact is that money makes life easier. The more of it you have, the more likely you are to have your problems taken care of. A rich person has the time, the ability, and the power to exert their will on the world in a way that the average person would never have. Their children get access to better schools, better equipment, better chances compared to anyone else. The cycle carries from one generation to the next, the rich beget the rich, and they take and they take until there is nothing left for those beneath them. There are far more Dives in this world than there are repentant Scrooges.

Money, the messy thing that it is, is described as the “root of all kinds of evil,” in today’s scripture. Truthfully, the way it is usually quoted, “The root of all evil,” is also a fine translation. In Greek it is rendered “ ‘ριζα γαρ παντων των κακων” (hriza gar panton ton kakon.) This can mean, “Money is the root of all kinds of evil,” or “Money is the root of all evils.” Though I do endorse the traditional reading as valid, I think the idea that money can, and often is the source of every kind of evil is more accurate.

Evil predates the existence of money by hundreds of thousands of years. In the Garden, humanity did not disobey God because cash was offered to us. Evil predates money, so it cannot be its true source. However, I believe that wealth, whether monetary or otherwise, is indeed a nutritive source – a root – of every kind of evil there is. An evil-minded person, given the resources that wealth allows, can commit all manner of evil with very little effort. To have is to have opportunity, and to have opportunity is to face temptation. A heart that is not prepared for that temptation will live out a life of selfishness when given access to sufficient means to do so.

People say “power corrupts,” but monetary or social power does not truly corrupt – it enables. A good person, given the means to do good, will do more good. A person who is primarily invested in themself will spend their resources toward that goal of self-aggrandizement. We are meant to work on our goodness, our thriftiness, our gregariousness, at all times simply because we do not know what tomorrow may bring. Whether we are poor, rich, or thoroughly stuck in the middle, we are all of us at the whims of chance. Tomorrow we could have everything change for us, one direction or the other, and we must be prepared to do right regardless.

The “great gain,” which Paul describes in Timothy comes from “godliness combined with contentment.” The one aspect, Godliness, is meant to reflect that when we have excess resources in life, we use them according to godly principles. We do not waste our money, we save what we can when we can, but never to a point that we neglect to be charitable. The other aspect, contentment, means that we do not chase after more money regardless of where we are at. While money makes life easier, we are not made to accumulate it, we are made to live – and money is the tool by which we live our lives.

Now, here comes the kicker. Pretty much all of us in this room are wealthy. Now, give me a second here. I’m not saying all of us, but I am saying most of us have more money at our disposal than most people in the world, and a good chunk in this country. Who here owns their house? You have more square footage and more equity than most people could ever dream of. Who here has more than five thousand dollars in savings? You have more money than some people make in a year, just sitting there in case you need it. How many people here have no debt? How do you exist in the year 2025?

As we all have some amount of wealth, we are expected to contribute some of it to the good of others, especially those most in need. St. John Chrysostom, a fifth century preacher, put this idea quite well in several of his sermons. The shorter quote from Chrysostom is simple, “[N]ot to share our own riches with the poor is a robbery of the poor, and a depriving them of their livelihood; and that which we possess is not only our own, but also theirs.”[3] His longer quote is built off of the Gospel of Matthew, but it says in better words than I can muster exactly what I mean.
            “Do you wish to honor the Body of the Savior? Do not despise him when he is naked. Do not honor him in church with silk vestments while outside he is naked and numb with cold. He who said, “This is my body,” and made it so by his word, is the same that said, “You saw me hungry and you gave me no food. As you did it not to the least of these, you did it not to me.” Honor him then by sharing your property with the poor. For what God needs is not golden chalices but golden souls.

…It is such a slight thing I beg…nothing very expensive…bread, a roof, words of comfort. [If the rewards I promised hold no appeal for you] then show at least a natural compassion when you see me naked, and remember the nakedness I endured for you on the cross…I fasted for you then, and I suffer for you now; I was thirsty when I hung on the cross, and I thirst still in the poor, in both ways to draw you to myself to make you humane for your own salvation.”[4]

For the Christian, we have only one true treasure – salvation given freely by Christ. All other treasures are distractions. We must not cling to wealth, but willingly give as often as we can. We must not seek after money no matter the amount, because our fortune is not in dollars and cents, but in Heaven. We must not cling to worldly things, but know that real treasures come only from God. Look out on the world, see how broken it is. You can help with that brokenness, but only if you are of a generous spirit. Give richly to people in need, to charities that serve them, and find that you are less weighed down by the false wealth of this life. Find true freedom, through trusting in Christ, and contentment that comes from living without covetousness or greed.

People of God, count your blessings, and see that your wealth testifies against you. Find ways to expand your care for this world, at the expense of luxuries for yourself. In doing so, perhaps we all can find ourselves a little closer to the vision God has for us all. – Amen.

[1] Ecclesiastes 10:19

[2] Killingsworth, Matthew A., Daniel Kahneman, and Barbara Mellers. “Income and Emotional Well-Being: A Conflict Resolved.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 120, no. 10 (March 1, 2023). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2208661120.

[3] John Chrysostom. Discourse 2 on the Rich Man and Lazarus.

[4] John Chrysostom. Homily 50 on Matthew.

Sermon 09/21/2025 – Consequence is Coming

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Amos 8:4-14

This is what the Lord God showed me: a basket of summer fruit. He said, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the Lord said to me,

“The end has come upon my people Israel; I will spare them no longer. The songs of the temple shall become wailings on that day,” says the Lord God; “the dead bodies shall be many, cast out in every place. Be silent!”

Hear this, you who trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land, saying, “When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath, so that we may offer wheat for sale? We will make the ephah smaller and the shekel heavier and practice deceit with false balances, buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and selling the sweepings of the wheat.”

The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Surely I will never forget any of their deeds. Shall not the land tremble on this account, and everyone mourn who lives in it, and all of it rise like the Nile, and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?

On that day, says the Lord God, I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight. I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth on all loins and baldness on every head; I will make it like the mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day.

The time is surely coming, says the Lord God, when I will send a famine on the land, not a famine of bread or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. They shall wander from sea to sea and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it.

On that day the beautiful young women and the young men shall faint for thirst. Those who swear by Ashimah of Samaria and say, “As your god lives, O Dan,” and, “As the way of Beer-sheba lives”— they shall fall and never rise again.

Sermon Text

The threat of punishment is considered to be one of the least effective means to prevent bad behavior. Teaching people to do something only because they might get punished for it tends to teach the wrong lesson. Instead of learning “Do not do this thing,” they learn, “Be good at hiding the fact you did.” The resulting ethics that this mindset creates is that anything is permissible as long as we can, “Get away with it.”

In our daily life we live this out constantly. “No one saw me leave the empty gallon of milk in the fridge, so there’s plausible deniability I did it.” “The road was empty when I was going 90 in a 50, so as long as a cop isn’t hiding behind the next turn, I’ll be fine.” Et cetera, et cetera, and so it goes. This kind of thinking is tied intrinsically to “Obligationism,” the idea that we do something because we are told to do it, and if we do not we are punished for our disobedience. In religious circles, Obligationism is one of the most common ways of understanding the way we are to live in this world, and I would argue it also grows most easily into legalism.

As I have already said, if I do the right thing so as to not break a rule, I will spend most of my time finding ways to do it that are technically correct. God says to honor the sabbath and keep it Holy, so I decide that that includes exceptions for the work I choose to do on the sabbath. Scripture says not to loan money for interest, but our economy is based upon interest so for the good of everyone within that economy, I cannot oppose usury, clearly. I find the ways to wiggle and worm out of every listed rule and as a result I create a patchwork ethical code. I become more invested in the appearance of holiness rather than its execution. The things I do are not for good or for love or for God, but for adherence to the rules set before me.

Counter to this idea of morality is the idea that a things ethical value is defined by its proximity to the absolute Good. As Christians we believe that the absolute standard for good is God, and that God and the Good are therefore synonymous. To be like God is to be Good, and to be Good is to be like God. For this reason, I think the best way to talk about “moral teachings,” in scripture, is always to talk about morality as the cultivation of virtue. The more we practice goodness, the better we are at being good. Rules help us to cultivate that goodness, but they are simply a means toward that good.

Ok, enough philosophy, let’s get to the meat of the issue. Our scripture is a long and scary list of all the different, fatal punishments that the people of God faced in the Babylonian conquest. More than that, it is a list of specific infractions that led to their punishment. Are we to believe then that God is an obligationist? That God sits and metes out punitive measures to enforce an ethical code, thereby encouraging people to sneak around those codes in an attempt to escape punishment?

Scripture seems to suggest this is not the case. God often expresses dissatisfaction with this simplistic idea of morality. Yes, there are commandments that God has given are violated and God points to them as reasons for the troubles God’s people face, but the focus is seldom on the rules themselves. A good example is in our scripture which we have read here today. Let’s look at this section again.

Hear this, you who trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land, saying, “When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath, so that we may offer wheat for sale? We will make the ephah smaller and the shekel heavier and practice deceit with false balances, buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and selling the sweepings of the wheat.”

            The first thing highlighted in the sins of God’s people is that they “trample the needy,” and the following offenses build on that theme. In other words, the individual offenses are less important than the virtue that has been violated. “I gave you laws to ensure you would care for each other,” God seems to say, “You have failed to care for each other, because you have kept the letter but not the spirit of my law.” The people keep the festivals and Sabbaths they are commanded, but only because they would be punished if they did not. “When will the [Sabbath,] be over so that we may offer wheat for sale?” The Sabbath is not being kept for the sake of devotion to God or care for their own health, but out of reluctant obligation.

            The corruption of God’s people was found in their abandoning the truth God gave them for a sense of righteousness that comes from following the rules in the strictest sense of the word. At the same time, they skirted any kind of regulation regarding the price of goods by changing the definition of their weights and measures. To put it in modern terms, the dollar kept being worth less, and the bags of flour kept weighing less, even though the bag still said “one pound,” on the corner. More than this, we’re told what was sold was poor quality, basically dust off the floor of the storehouse. Workers were treated as slaves, and those with the least were treated the absolute worst.

            God was not content that the people kept the Law, because the law was not an end to itself. The obligation of the Sabbath was to allow people to rest, the rules surrounding care of the poor to ensure everyone had what they needed to live. All of God’s teachings had a point and a purpose that pointed to something that nurtured goodness in the people. By being given guidelines for charity, they could learn to be charitable. By being given guidelines for rest, they could learn to be restful. God did not demand obedience simply out of an exercise of power and authority, but for the good of those who pursued that kind of faithful obedience.

            There is, nonetheless, a consequence for failing to be obedient to the deeper truths of what God instructs us to do. This idea is easily abused, but it remains true even if it is often taken to a harmful extreme. When we fail to take care of the poor, we court not only the degradation of society, but the wrath of God. When we live a life of legalism, devoted to the letter and not the spirit of the law, we break down our own hearts until we are left with only the image of propriety, and none of the substance of holiness.

            Scripture, both the Hebrew and Greek Testaments, are clear that a failure to pursue goodness in a life of faith has consequences. Out of fear of suggesting we are saved by works, we in the Church often downplay that fact. We do not talk about Christ describing the road to Heaven as narrow and straight, because it suggests more than just lip service is necessary for our salvation. When we read the prophets, we focus on idolatry as a sin, because it is far harder to imagine ourselves committing that than failing to care for the needy. We hope for a faith that allows us to dig only just deep enough, only just safe enough.

            It is also important to note that scripture does not direct these messages of doom to people outside the faith. Jesus speaks of the Kingdom of God as opening doors for folks who do not yet know God’s redemption, but for the people who are within the circle of the faith already his words are harsher. Failure to meet the expectation laid by Christ is expected of those who do not know them, but for those who have heard them, and yet chosen to pursue another road… Doom is inevitable.

            We are under an obligation to pursue goodness, because outside of goodness we will destroy ourselves. If we chase after evil, evil will consume us. If we chase after good, we will know growth and abundant life. We must care for those around us, we must care for ourselves, we must pursue a true and social holiness in all things. Consequence is coming, every second it draws near, if we do not cling to goodness, we will drown within falsehood. Do right, train yourself in virtue, and be the people of God for this world. – Amen.

Foreword – A look at Sex and the Single Christian

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

“This I say by way of concession, not of command. I wish that all were [single] as I myself am.” 1 Corinthians 7:7

The Single Christian

John Piper writes the foreword to our main text (yes, we have two prefaces and a foreword.) Here he writes a series of arguments, mostly quoting single folk, about why being single is not actually a bad thing. When writing a book that focuses primarily on the dynamics of men and women, husbands and wives, there is a need to establish where single people fit into your dichotomy. Piper believes that male leadership is not just a personal thing between married folk, but extends into society and into workplaces, so this does not mean that single women escape this paradigm either. However, he does lay out, I think, some very good defenses of single lifestyles, especially among ministers/missionaries/church folk.

I. Marriage, as we know it in this age, is not the final destiny of any human.

            Piper opens with the most obvious defense of singleness in Christianity. Christ is clear that marriage does not exist in Heaven or in the world to come. Christ says in the resurrection people, “neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like angels.”[1] Piper draws from his own experience of having a mother who died in 1974 and a step-mother some time later. If marriage is only an aspect of this life, then expecting it to be mandatory of any person is strange. Love, especially romantic love, is perfected in the resurrection such that we transcend the current bounds, expectations, and limitations which earthly life put upon us. Piper, I believe correctly, states that a single person is therefore, “[made] a candidate for greater capacities for love in the age to come.” Because they have trained to live sacrificially in a way married folk do not.

            I am married, and I love my wife more than just about anything. We are good friends, partners, and coconspirators in life. We embody the idea of becoming “one flesh,” in that we are always trying to help each other, even if we do so imperfectly. I cannot imagine at this point in my life what eternity will look like, when marriage is abolished and we evolve to some deeper love of each other and of the world and people around us. In the resurrection, where we are no longer husband and wife, what can that possibly be like?

            I do not know. Yet, I think it is an important consideration as part of our discussion of human sexuality and gender relations. All aspects of this life are transient, and someday in perfection even the categories taken for granted in this book will no longer exist. Piper quotes missionary Trevor Douglas as he closes this section, “The social cost of not fitting in a couple’s world will be exchanged for socializing with Jesus around his throne.” Douglas sees every part of his earthly life which he gives up as being enhanced through Christ somehow. He does not have a wife, but he has fathers and mothers in this world. He does not have children, but he has spiritual children, et cetera. There is, therefore, a strong Christian argument for singleness.

II. Jesus Christ, the most fully human person who ever lived, was not married.

            Piper opens this section by discussing his disbelief in “safe sex,” and his opposition to advertisements for condoms in the midst of the AIDs crisis. This is a good time for me, the writer of this blog, to say that I am not in a good position to talk about LGBT issues. I am a cis, white, straight man. I will do my best to point things out when they come up, but I will mostly focus on my main wheelhouse of heterosexual, cis, relationships throughout this critique. That being said, I feel like starting an argument about how Christ’s singleness is a sign of the legitimacy of singleness in our lives with a bad take on public health is a strange starting point.

            Piper brings this up, from his perspective to highlight his argument that “extra-marital sex and homosexual activity are destructive to personhood, to relationships, and to the honor of God…” Objectively, however, I believe he brings this up only to provide the quote from a letter he received in response to his article. “… we think a life of slavery to virginity,” the letter said, “would mean being only half human.” From this, Piper gets to his actual thesis, “The most fully human person who has ever lived, or ever will live, is Jesus Christ, and he never once had sexual intercourse.”

            We will have time to talk about Piper’s argument about “destructive,” sexual behaviors elsewhere in this book, so I will not tackle that just yet. I want to focus on the issues regarding sexuality as an aspect of human nature for now.

            What part did sexuality have in Jesus’s ministry? Christ was fully human, so he had the same hormones and neurotransmitters we did. Christ had the same capacity for sexual desire and conduct that we do and yet we are presented with a, seemingly, sexless messiah. It makes sense on one hand – how can an infinite God, placed into a human body, possibly experience desire for anything in the world which he had created? On the other hand, if Christ truly faced all temptation and was truly human, there must have been something in his mortal frame that desired touch, connection, intimacy.

            The exact make-up of Christ’s human will is unknowable to us. We do know, however, that Christ’s humanity was perfect – therefore he could live as we will only live in the resurrection. Christ’s perfect love transcends marriage, sex, friendship, into something else. Piper is right to point to this as a justification of singleness, because to live as Christ lived must naturally make us more like Christ. Quoting Cheryl Forbes he completes this section, “Jesus is the example to follow. He was single. He was born to serve…”

III. The Bible celebrates celibacy because it gives extraordinary opportunity for single-=minded investment in ministry for Christ.

            These subject headings are too long…

            Building off of 1 Corinthians 7, Piper argues that singleness is a great advantage to ministry. When you are single, you do not have to worry about how your family will react to your ministry work or how to balance their needs and the needs of a ministry. Anyone who is actively in a relationship and in ministry knows this is a hard balance to strike. How many nights can I miss bedtime in a week and still let my son know I am there for him? How many weekends can you plan a ministry event before you deprive your kids of time with you away from work?

            Risk is also a factor. You cannot be involved in advocacy, or in ministry in dangerous situations in the same way as a married person (especially with children,) that you could as a single person. Quoting Rhena Taylor, “Being single has given me freedom… And this freedom has brought to me moments that I would not trade for anything else this side of eternity.”

            Piper ends this section with the additional note that single persons still need boundaries in their life. “This thinking [that singles are “expected” to do constant work for ministry,] can turn into an abusive situation.” It is easy to put eternal significance on work in and for the Church, and Piper is right to highlight the way churches will take any availability a person has and run them into the ground with it. Burnout is not just for clergy, but for anyone who volunteers for a position in the Church and finds they are then expected to do it till they die… And preferably after if they can work it into their schedule.

IV. The Apostle Paul and a lot of great missionaries after him have renounced marriage for the sake of the Kingdom of God.

            I do not feel the need to comment on this section or to add to it. The argument is simply that there have been many missionaries who choose singleness for the sake of the Kingdom. I think that is just a reiteration of the previous point, with more stories about folks who have followed through on it.

V. The Apostle Paul calls singleness a gift from God.

Piper’s explanation of singleness as a gift of God begins with praise of a specific kind of fortitude that chaste singleness develops. Firstly, he quotes two separate people who highlight how they have not lost anything by lacking sexual contact with others. The first (Margaret Clarkson,) specifically describes themselves as losing a desire for sex precisely because they abstain from it. Appetites are developed as much as they are innate and so, the argument goes, if someone does not feed into a desire for sexual contact, that appetite will weaken over time. The second testimony (Ada Lum,) is less enthusiastic about the celibacy, but nonetheless agrees that they are empowered to fulfill this role through God’s help.

This section then goes on to counter opposition to singleness. Specifically, it pushes against the notion that Genesis 2:18 demands for people to find partners (“It is not good that man should be alone.”) Piper answers this by raising the possibility that, if humanity had not fallen, we all might have had perfect matches for each other. Without sin, all humans could be with their help-mate and all would be well. In a world of sin and the potential for bad matches, however, singleness can be preferable to a bad relationship. Secondly, Piper points out that marriage does not ensure a lack of loneliness. Many married people are miserable, and so marriage does not automatically fix this problem.

I do not know if there would be a better place to answer those criticisms of singleness, but I think this is a strange section to highlight the potential pitfalls of marriage. “Singleness is a gift,” seemingly because it avoids the potential troubles of marriage. I tend to understand a blessing of God as cultivating virtue more often than it avoids trouble. A thing is good because it promotes growth and goodness in an individual, not just prevents them from experiencing difficulties. This section argues, however, that the primary blessing God confers in singleness is avoidance of trouble that comes from marriage… That seems strange to me.

VI. Jesus promises that forsaking family for the sake of the kingdom will be repaid with a new family, the Church.

This section begins with a very poorly worded response to the Jesus’s words in Mark 10:29-30:

“I tell you the truth, no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mothers or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields-and with them persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life.” (The parenthetical is seemingly added by Piper.)

“Many singles have discovered these hundreds of family members [promised by Christ,] in the body of Christ [the Church.] It is often not their fault when they haven’t. But many have.”

I am not offering a substantive critique here but look at that. “Many people benefit from this promise… Not everyone… And who could blame them if they don’t? But a lot do, nonetheless.” If I was an editor here, I would ask John to maybe take another pass at that one.

Piper lifts up Bonhoeffer as an example of a single Christian who, “knew the needs of single people for family, and was moved, in large measure for this reason, to write his little book, Life Together.” Bonhoeffer, firstly, was single for a good chunk of his life… But he did get engaged before his imprisonment and execution. Life Together, is written within the same context of many of his other books, namely the Nazi Regime. I think it would be accurate to say that Life Together is influenced by Bonhoeffer being single at the time of its writing, but I think the primary cause for it being written was to rebuke Nazi ideology and popular theology of the time, not to instruct the Church in its conduct toward single people.

Ellisabeth Elliot is the second voice called upon to speak for the blessings of a church family. Elliot, the widow of Missionary Martyr Jim Elliot, is one of the strongest pillars of Biblical Womanhood. Her book Passion and Purity, is the inspiration for I Kissed Dating Goodbye, and so has indirectly touched many a millennial Christian in ways they probably never knew. We will read some work directly from her later.

She is asked how a single woman can become a mother if she is single. “She may be a spiritual mother,” answers Elliot. Why a woman must have the experience of motherhood is not elaborated on here, but we will grapple with this as we go. Piper, generally, is advocating for us to understand that relationships can exist, meaningfully, outside of our expectations of romantic relationships. That is true, even if poorly argued here.

VII. God is sovereign over who gets married and who doesn’t. And He can be trusted to do what is good for those who hope in Him.

This section is more quotes and affirmations of the kind of thing expressed above. It does not try to answer who God chooses to marry or not marry. The people quoted are toward the end of life, so I believe it is meant to be an affirmation that they do not feel that singleness has been a bad life. However, this is a section that asserts its title and then is written assuming you agree with that assertion.

VIII. Mature manhood and womanhood are not dependent on being married

“Man does not become man by being married. Woman does not become woman by getting married.” This statement from Piper summarizes this section and is a succinct way of understanding the gender essentialism of the Biblical Manhood and Womanhood movement. A man is always in a position of authority over women, but how that manifests is dependent upon his relationship to her. A woman is always in a position of affirmation of male leadership, but that is dependent upon her relationship to him. Quoting Paul Jewett, Piper affirms that “At the human level there is no “I and thou” per se, but only the “I” who is male or female confronting the “thou,” the “other,” who is also male or female.”

This section also sees the first use of the term “sexuality,” as a term to mean “our whole personhood as man or woman.” (Ada Lum.) This will be used in tandem with “sexuality,” as a term for sexual attraction, so do not take this to mean every time I or anyone I quote uses the term “sexuality,” they are using this definition, but it does mean we will have to police our terminology a little closer to be sure what is meant where.

The idea that manhood and womanhood are essential, defined conditions of the self, expressed in specific ways is the philosophic root of all that this movement discusses and seeks to be. Chapter 1 attempts to define this paradigm to a certain extent, but it is taken for granted here. Women, regardless of marriage status, are to be “homemak[ers]”  and curators of beauty. (Cheryl Forbes) Cooking, cleaning, gardening, warmth and comfort are all the things that women are expected to create in their lives and the lives of others. Men are to discuss, “masculine things in masculine ways.” They are to be leaders in any group that they are in, especially if they are given the opportunity to lead women.

Piper is deeply concerned at what he sees as a denial of the “reality,” of gender differences in the face of secular society’s “impersonal competencies and gender-blind personality traits.” This book, as will be said again and again, is meant to firmly educate the reader that there are differences between men and women, that they are essential to their character, and they must be taught, encouraged, and, ultimately, enforced to properly produce human flourishing.

Conclusions on Singleness

            It is hard to address many of Piper’s assertions here, because he has not laid out his argument for his central thesis yet – namely that men exist to lead and women to follow. Until he lays out that argument, I can only respond in my own terms to it, which would not be fully fruitful without knowing his particular arguments. I can, however, say that I support the spirit of this foreword, insomuch as it supports the legitimacy of single life.

            In life, singleness is often seen as a curse. In the Church especially, where marriage and family is often emphasized to the point of obsession, it can be debilitating for a person to see themselves stay single for very long. Many have rushed into relationships, marriages, children, and subsequent divorce because they felt compelled to be part of the family that was sold to them by the Church. It is good to affirm that you do not need to be in a family with 2.5 children to live a full life.

            However, Piper fails to make this argument really work given his framework. Unless you are a missionary or a minister, being in a relationship is the most natural way to fall into a specific gender role. If you have this sort of essentialism at the root of your ideology, then the only way you can talk about the positives of singleness is in terms of chastity and avoiding the negative aspects of marriage. Fundamentally, that is just not a compelling argument for singleness. In summary, I like the theological reflections on mission and Christ-likeness among single persons, it falls apart once you talk about gender performance and the single person.

[1] Matthew 22:30

Sermon 09/14/2025 – A Mind Toward Mercy

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Exodus 32:7-14

The Lord said to Moses, “Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’ ” The Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. Now let me alone so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, and of you I will make a great nation.”

But Moses implored the Lord his God and said, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’ ” And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.

Sermon Text

Our scripture today is something I alluded to back in July when we talked about the time that Abraham requested that God be merciful toward the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. Moses, in the face of God’s anger toward the Hebrew people, asks that God spare them. Specifically, Moses appeals to God’s reputation, saying that it would look bad for God to kill his people after bringing them out of Egypt. As an episode in the history of God’s people and as a presentation of divine will and theodicy and other theological questions, it’s a bit strange.

We did not talk about this too much with our previous discussion of prophets asking for God to be merciful, but the ability to convince God of anything opens up a lot of questions. If we believe that God is “that beyond which nothing greater can be conceived,” and that this manifests in God being all good, all powerful, and all knowing, then it is strange to imagine that God can just… change God’s own mind.[1] If God is perfect, and that includes a perfect cognition, then this should be outright impossible. Yet, repeatedly in scripture, we are told of God, relenting, or regretting, or turning away from a decision God had previously made.

Today, we are looking to understand the character of God’s mercy and how it can produce moments like this. While we are not going to uncover the mystery of God’s mind or the fullness of how moments like this can occur in the scriptures, we are going to establish some things we know about God, God’s actions, and ultimately the all-encompassing nature of God’s mercy.

To begin with this discussion of God’s retraction of a punishment, we must begin with the first prophecy of doom given in scripture. In Genesis 2 the first human is given specific instructions not to eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, lest they die. The human, later split into the first humans – Adam and Eve – fail in this prohibition. They do eat of the tree and are not, surprisingly, struck dead. While many interpreters, including John Wesley, point to the spiritual death they experienced as a consequence of this transgression, I think we can also see this as the first moment of mercy entering the story of God’s interactions with the world.

God denies the couple the Tree of Life because of their disobedience, establishing that they will some day face death. Sin naturally leads to death, this is echoed throughout scripture. However, God does not kill them outright, refusing to just restart this experiment in creation. God sends them out of the Garden, clothes them to keep them safe and warm, and then keeps close tabs on them. Their children still speak openly to God, God hears and knows their sorrow at the death of Abel, God does not abandon them – but loves them in the midst of their wrongdoing.

Despite God’s divine care, humanity continues to fall into deeper sin. We are told that the evil of humanity, especially their violence, was so great that God devises a flood to restart the entirety of creation. The description of God’s creation in Genesis 1 and 2 is reversed, water floods the earth, and God is ready to start all over again… Except that God did not make a clean sleight, God still loved what God made enough to preserve parts of the creation. Noah preserves humanity and other creatures along with him, allowing for a new start for the created order.

Again and again, God chooses to restrain the punishment that could be inflicted upon the world. The mercy of God in the face of legitimate evil is sometimes overwhelming. When we read the story of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – all of them do some downright awful things. Yet, God sustains them and gives them the chance to make things right. God wants to be merciful.

Whether scripture gives us these discussions as a narrative tool or God gives them as a lens into the divine nature, I could not really say. Either way, the moments when God expresses one emotion, only to act contrary to that emotion, seems to be a chance for us to see a different aspect of God than what we might have imagined God to have. I am talking in circles a bit, so let me steal an analogy from Paul.

Paul describes our faith as like looking, “Through a mirror, darkly.”[2] Mirrors in the Biblical period were made of polished brass, capable of producing surprisingly clear images. However, brass mirrors tarnish over time, when removed from light they lose their luster, in a thousand different ways the image can dim and distort. While we have unprecedented access to God through Christ, there is still an immensity to God’s character. In Scripture, in our life, and in our prayers we encounter moments of God, glimpses of the nature of something far beyond our comprehension.

Thus, in scripture, moments like this show us diverse aspects of God all at once. We can be shown God’s anger at idolatry, and God’s capacity toward mercy. That second aspect, the mercy, wins out because it is a more essential part of God’s character even than holiness. For in the midst of God’s holiness, the unapproachability of the numinous fire at the center of creation, there is the love of a God who desires to walk alongside that same creation. God who burns with a fire that cannot stand impurity, works time and time again to make pure the unclean things of this world. God has a mind toward mercy, and that is something expressed in tandem with and at the center of God’s desire for justice, holiness, and purity of Spirit.

Next week we will have an opportunity to look closer at the judgement of God, so do not take me for someone who does not think that God has the capacity or right to express anger or to punish it. However, I think that we need to ground all discussion of God in the reality of God’s gracious mercy. Even when anger, punishment, and consequences are deserved – God seeks a way to redeem rather than to wipe away. God wishes to wash rather than to burn. If we believe that, it should shape our walk in faith, because it reminds us that we do not worship a God who wishes to throw us away, but a God who has worked hard to bring us close.

Jonathan Edwards, a minister during the Colonial Era of the United (States and the grandfather of Aaron Burr,) famously wrote the sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” This sermon focuses on the wrath of God, serving as the prototypical “Turn or Burn,” style sermon. Yet, Edwards gives us one of the most powerful images of God’s grace. God, Edwards says, is under no obligation to be merciful – God after all is the only truly, fully free entity – but God sustains even the wicked, “by [God’s] mere pleasure…” Edwards uses this to emphasize the precarious nature of God’s mercy, but I think it paints a far more enduring image.

God holds in hands larger than space, the fullness of creation. The creation yearns for rebirth, it seeks to enter into a new way of being. Yet, God does not hold onto it out of obligation or necessity, but out of love. Mercy is the most essential character of our God, and we know this because in the midst of holiness, otherness, impossible distance, God continually moves to close the gap between us and the divine. God has a mind toward mercy, and that ought to inspire us toward the same. God has a mind toward mercy, and that ought to reassure us in our failings. God has a mind toward mercy, and that is the foundation of our faith, our trust, our hope in this life. – Amen.

[1] I often use this definition of “God,” and it comes from Anselm of Canterbury’s “Ontological Argument.” More about that available here: https://iep.utm.edu/anselm-ontological-argument

[2] 1 Corinthians 13:12

Sermon 09/07/2025 – Two Paths

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Deuteronomy 30:15-20

See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you do not hear but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall certainly perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him, for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.”

Sermon Text

As I have said many times, I am directionally challenged. While I can map out physical space fairly well, figuring out where North, South, East, and West are without issue, I am completely useless at figuring out where one road connects to another. It does not help that here is West Virginia, roads developed around hills – you cannot assume a grid layout for a town anymore than you can assume that a road that ends in one place does not start up several miles down the way.

If I can tell a story that will serve as our parable for the day, I would like to cast the vision of the road to Bridgeport – our metaphorical Heaven – and the road to Flemington – our metaphorical Hell (I do not feel strongly about either town, this is an appraisal of their respective roads.)

When I would go to visit the Bridgeport Nursing Home, I would inevitably come to a crossroad. At that crossroad, I could turn left toward Flemington, or drive straight ahead to Bridgeport. The road to Bridgeport would take me up to Emily Drive, where there were a bunch of stores and therefore a great deal of traffic. Going that route was never my ideal, and with the intense amount of roadwork happening at the time, I especially wanted to avoid it. Looking at the path I had ahead of me, I chose what I thought would be best – to drive down to Flemington and then cut across back into Clarksburg.

The problem is that, while Flemington did run parallel to Route 50, which was my goal to reach, it never actually connected to Route 50. I could drive for over an hour and I would only find myself on the interstate for my trouble, completely removed from my goal of reaching home. To follow the road to Flemington was to follow the road to being more lost than I ever could be if I just learned to deal with the road work.

In our walk of faith, we are also presented with two paths. One is the straight and narrow path that “few find.”[1] The other is broader, flatter, and much easier to saunter our way down. What I want us to understand, especially today as we launch our fall season here at Grace, is that the choice we make to follow one path or the other is not as simple as saying, “Yes,” once or “No,” once – but requires us to reevaluate our life again and again. For me on my way home I could go one way or the other, meanwhile we have a thousand roads that move us toward God or away from God, and sometimes we will drift slowly down the wrong path without even realizing it.

Every day we have thousands of interactions – digitally, physically, and even mentally – that shape our souls and the souls of people around us. When we stop into the gas station and look the attendant in the eye and treat them like a full person, that makes a difference. When we walk by the beggar on the street without even acknowledging they exist, that makes a difference. When we sit in our house and stew over something someone said or did, that makes a difference. Again and again and again, life gives us routes we can choose to take or not take, and the difference in the major ones are what we usually focus on. However, it is in those little byroads we get the most lost.

When I look back on my life, I see major departures I could have taken. If I accepted I was going to be a minister when I first felt that was my call, back in High School, what would have changed? If I had avoided the disastrous relationship I had in college that threatened to rip my family apart and that ended several key friendships in my life, what would that do? If I had known far earlier about my depression and had it treated, what might I have done?

These big turning points stand out to us, but they usually are more complicated than a “Good” or “Bad” choice. My call to ministry was put on hold by my unwillingness to accept it, but because I went into chemistry first, I was much better equipped to talk to folks throughout the pandemic because of my background in science – plus I have been able to tutor people! My disastrous relationship caused all kinds of trouble, but it also taught me an awful lot about myself, about forgiveness, about the need to be good to people and not accept when someone wants you to be something other than who you truly are. In every path that seems to me to be an obvious binary choice, I see that God took me down the road I needed to go down, that still led to the path I needed to take.

The key difference in the path that leads to life and death is that you can imperfectly do good, but there is never a good way to do something bad. Driving to Flemington would never bring me to Route 50, but going to Bridgeport I had two or three different roads to lead me home – some better than others. In the same way, we have to acknowledge which roads we take in life that lead us to greater life and fuller understanding of God, self, and neighbor – even imperfectly – and which ones only cause us harm.

Cruelty is the most obvious road that will not save us. If we ignore the needs of others, excuse injustice of any kind, and generally allow ourselves to hold onto disdain for our neighbors – even our enemies- we will destroy ourselves. Self-indulgence is another way to destroy the self. If we never tell ourselves “No,” then we will demand more and more and more. We do not always need a new phone, just cause an upgrade is available. We do not need to eat out every time we do not want to cook. We can spend our time, our money, our social battery a little better and suddenly find ourselves better at regulating our self and managing our world.

I do want to say that there are still obviously bad choices in life. If we struggle with addiction and refuse help, then we are setting ourselves up to continue to suffer. (The sin here I should say is not addiction, which is a medical issue, but denying the problem.) If we are edging our way toward infidelity – emotionally or otherwise – we will destroy our relationships. If we are actively working to harm people, to steal or defraud them, to do all manner of things we know to be wrong, then we are setting ourselves up for a fall.

The thing about our daily, incidental mistakes, is that we can usually recover from them. If I snap at my wife because I am frustrated about something, we can work that out after I apologize. However, if I feed into that decision to take things out on her, I will destroy our marriage given enough time. When we make mistakes habitually, such that they become conscious choices, we move away from detours and onto a deliberate and direct path toward oblivion. For some things the solution is just to turn around, to desist, to try something else.

The good news is that we are always able to turn around. Repentance in Hebrew is “Shuv,” which literally means to do an about-face. We go in the opposite direction and move back toward the right way of being. It is a long road back sometimes and repenting does not make us not have to face the consequences of our actions – in fact a true attitude of repentance will require us to make amends fully for the wrong we have caused. I was never going to get to my house by driving through Flemington, I had to turn back around, that is true for some things in our own life too.

Today, we are given the same choice that the Hebrews were given long ago. Take the path toward life and abundance, or the road that leads to destruction. The road toward life is a harder road, it requires honesty and repentance and all manner of goodness. The road to destruction will give you everything you want, when you want it, but leave you empty, for the “worm quenchest not.”[2] I pray we choose the right path, and turn from the ones we need to, which are leading us to destruction.

[1] Matthew 7:14

[2] This is a misquotation of “the worm diest not,” from Mark 9:48; combining the worm’s immortality with the unquenchable fire mentioned later in the verse. I find myself saying “the worm quenchest not,” more often, and so I have preserved my malapropism here.