Author: John Langenstein

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.

A Tale of two Prefaces

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

“Why children, if you have woman’s rights, give it to her and you will feel better. You will have your own rights, and they won’t be so much trouble.” – Sojourner Truth

Two prefaces are provided in modern editions of RBMW, the first from 1991 and the second from 2006. They reflect the difference that fifteen years can make in the world, but also fundamentally play upon the same concepts, almost perfectly in step with one another. We will discuss each in turn before evaluating them together.

1991

            Four years before I was born, the first preface was written. It highlights the usual plight of the authors. Men and women are being treated as equal in society. The preface cites the “rejection of a unique leadership role for men in marriage and in the church,” as the cause of significant controversy in Christendom. This arises from “new interpretations,” (emphasis theirs,) of Biblical texts. The preface highlights that “selfishness, irresponsibility, passivity, and abuse,” have made the traditional stance unpalatable to many. This is, we are told, a widespread issue.

            Here, we come to one of the most confusing aspects of this kind of writing. We are told, “the vast majority of evangelicals have not endorsed the evangelical feminist position.” Within conservative texts, you will often find that the problems they address are described simultaneously as having taken over the world because they are more appealing than tradition, and also that most people reject them because of some concept of “common sense.” Both are held up as true. Men and women, it is argued, know that it is wrong to be social equals, and yet they also rush to embrace egalitarianism. I think a lot of writing about issues does this, but in traditionalist literature, the need to be winning because of the common people and also being crushed by liberalism are often paired as simultaneous realities.

            The 1991 preface takes time to highlight that it is not written to simply bash feminism, it is meant to be a critique of the movement toward egalitarianism while also acknowledging that evangelical feminists have shown the ways traditional gender roles hurt women. From this the term “complementarity,” is coined – a vision to “correct the previous mistakes and avoid the opposite mistakes that come from the feminist blurring of God-given sexual distinctions.”

            The preface is clear that it wants an audience of both men and women. That women need to know they are “fully equal to men in status before God, and in importance to family and the church.” They also wish for them to see in complementarianism a route toward, “wholehearted affirmation to Biblically balances male leadership in the home and the church.” This is similar to the desire that men know, “women are fully equal to men in personhood, in importance, and in status before God,” but with an additional note. The authors wish for men to support women’s ministry, “without feeling that this will jeopardize his own unique leadership role as given by God.”

            This highlights another element of this movement. While men are treated as being naturally lifted up as leaders, the sacredness of their leadership, and more specifically its violation, is described in terms of “offense.” A woman ought not to “offend,” a man’s sense of leadership. This will pop up throughout our analysis, but it has always struck me as strange that a man’s feeling of being threatened by women in power is often given as evidence that there is an “unbiblical,” balance of power. We will address this more when the arguments are actually presented regarding this matter.

            The 1991 preface ends with the main authors (John Piper and Wayne Grudem,) thanking their wives.

2006

A portrait of doom is revealed in the opening pages of the 2006 preface. “A conservative backlash against radical feminism has reverberated through pop culture during the last twenty years; simultaneously, egalitarianism is now the cultural norm.” The movement for complementarianism is more popular than it ever was, but also losing its battle on every front.

This 2006 preface spends more time pointing to churches as the cause of the decay in “biblically defined roles in marriage, family and the church.” Ministers have embraced egalitarianism, and no one believes or teaches what the bible says men and women are meant to do. “Increasing numbers of men entering the ministry have little or no formal training, so they lack a thorough grasp of biblical teaching…”

The main audience of this text as moderate or conservative evangelicals is highlighted in the image of a minister presented in these opening pages. The leaders of the church have erred in believing the main purpose of the church is to “empower women to serve more broadly and visibly,” so long as they are not pastors or elders (administrators,) in the church. This violates the God given tasks of men and women, but so does compromise of any kind which only results in “a repackaging of egalitarianism.”

The “new generation,” must be told that complementarianism is the true and proper way to live their lives. “When male and female live and work together as God intended, there is nothing more beautiful, satisfying, delightful, and God-glorifying.” The fault of egalitarianism is that it fails to address “God’s creation design and redemptive calling of women.” I am curious at the outset what this “redemptive calling,” might be, but if I had a guess it has to do with 1 Timothy 2:15:

“Women, however, will be saved through childbearing, if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control.”

The shift in the culture since the 1991 publishing is reflected in the additional notes this preface gives on what must be done in the church. “we must promote healthy, heterosexual, monogamous marriages.” As Meatloaf said, “two out of three ain’t bad,” and I can stand by two of those endorsements personally. The important thing about this addition is that it suggests a slippery slope is created through endorsing egalitarianism. Later in the same paragraph we read, “egalitarianism is part of the disintegration of marriage in our culture…”

In general, this preface seems less evenhanded in who it wishes to reach. We are told that the church “must also lead Christian women toward a joyous embrace of godly, male leadership as we simultaneously direct their men toward a self-denying, other-serving embrace of the leadership role.” While this maintains the critique of men abusing their power, it is focusing much more on catechizing women into this worldview. They must be taught that they are meant to submit, is a lot different language than “we want them to give thanks they are a woman.”

The authors of this preface highlight that “until about 1970,” the culture was still largely Christian – in content if not in faith. The problem arose that “pagan worldview[s]” entered in. This is cited as being part of a compromise with post-modernism and secular mindsets. If the Church ordains women, if it erases distinctions between men and women, then, the argument goes, they will soon do away with essential doctrines of the faith. “The church has been called to counter and bless the culture, not to copy and baptize it.”

The preface continues in saying that opposing complementarianism naturally leads to a disbelief in biblical authority. Here we find the main issue we will have on this matter. Christians do not, on the whole, disagree about biblical authority – but they do disagree on interpretation. Complementarianism, and indeed most biblical interpretation frameworks, see themself as the “correct,” interpretation, and so to deviate from their teachings is to deny the word of God. “If we can wrest egalitarianism from the Bible, we can pervert it to say anything we wish.”

The argument goes on to say that egalitarianism is based, not so much in scripture, as it is based in “church history or elsewhere.” This external study is seen as an attack on scripture, as it requires that we learn from archaeology, history, and ancient texts outside the corpus of scripture to understand what the scriptures say. I would argue that if it is an attack on scripture to learn about its context, then no amount of biblical archaeology should be permitted, let alone heeded. If leaning on history, culture, and language pollute our interpretation, then we ought to only keep the Novum Testamentum Graece beside out bed and only use the Masoretic text for study of the Hebrew Scriptures. Translation is interpretation, archaeology is interpretation, if we are to be people who view scripture as needing no context – we must be fully consistent in that view.

The preface asserts complementarians stay in the fight for the culture in order to preserve the faith and especially the scriptures. This is the only way they can “raise masculine sons and feminine daughters.” The preface ends with an endorsement of the book itself, that it is still relevant, and with one final wish that people might see “God’s design for men and women.” This preface was written by J. Ligon Duncan and Randy Stinson.

A Tale of Two Prefaces

The content of these two prefaces is largely the same, but the tone is quite different. The language of the 1991 preface is that of people who earnestly believe that they have something to offer people that will improve their life. Whether they are correct in that assumption is secondary to the point that they are writing in a voice that say, “We believe God made men and women to have unique roles and that they can thrive in a world where they acknowledge that.” The tone of 2006 reflects the shifting culture around these kind of views. “We believe God made men and women to have unique roles and if we do not enforce them we will be destroyed.”

I do not wish to imply that some of this thinking was not present when the 1991 preface was written. As we go into the actual text of this book, we will find plenty of doomsaying and hand wringing. What I do wish to make clear is that, post 9/11, our way of talking about the left and right in the Church, in society, in the world – changes. Language becomes harsher, the need to strike out against dangerous new ideas becomes more urgent. In the eyes of many, the September 11th attacks were the result of America’s failings to be the people of God. Whether that is through unjustified military actions in the middle east or egalitarianism and homosexuality depends on your political slant, but the attacks made whatever distinctions we had between us sharper than ever.

The argument of 2006 is closer to the fights we see today. Slippery slopes are everywhere, or at least so we are told. “If we embrace trans folks, then everyone will think they’re animals next!” Just like in 2006 it was common to hear people say that if gay folk could get married they would be marrying animals next. In terms of men and women the slope we are given is, “If men and women are fully equal in society, then you might as well throw away all the Bible!”

Personally, I do not see a need to throw away the Bible over egalitarian issues. The scripture is the bedrock of my faith, and I am honest about when something I believe is not drawn purely from them. I am a Methodist, I went to a Pentecostal Church for a while, I’ve been in non-denoms and I listen to Catholic Radio. Every one of those influences mixes together to make something that is not always 1:1 with scripture, but I do my best to make it so. The worst thing we can do as Christians is baptize our own views as infallible, because then we make ourselves sole arbiters of God’s words. We all have baggage, assumptions, and preferences that shape how we read scripture, admitting that is the first step to living a life like Christ.

I should also say that I see little of Christ in these prefaces. Christ makes one statement about gender dynamics, and that is in reference to men divorcing their wives without cause. Outside of that, we see his ministry involving men and women, and while I think it would be a stretch to call those early assemblies “egalitarian,” they were definitely more like that than they weren’t. In the letters of Paul, we see indications that both liberation and constraint existed in the early church regarding the role of women, as did abolition and the continuance of slavery. The New Testament, the Church, has always had a messy job of relating the incarnate God to the world we live in. However, just because it is messy does not mean that we should not attempt it.

The prefaces largely speak for themselves in terms of their goals, but it is in the actual chapters that we will be able to engage more directly with ideas. I hope you stick along with me as we dig deeper into RBMW and hopefully find something we can use in our discourse around these topics, nearly forty years after these texts first began to come together.

Stay safe, stay sane, and tell someone you love them.

Sermon 08/31/2025 – Mud Holes and Warm Springs

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Jeremiah 2:4-13

Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel. Thus says the Lord:

What wrong did your ancestors find in me that they went far from me and went after worthless things and became worthless themselves? They did not say, “Where is the Lord, who brought us up from the land of Egypt, who led us in the wilderness, in a land of deserts and pits, in a land of drought and deep darkness, in a land that no one passes through, where no one lives?”

I brought you into a plentiful land to eat its fruits and its good things. But when you entered you defiled my land and made my heritage an abomination. The priests did not say, “Where is the Lord?” Those who handle the law did not know me; the rulers transgressed against me; the prophets prophesied by Baal and went after things that do not profit.

Therefore once more I accuse you, says the Lord, and I accuse your children’s children. Cross to the coasts of Cyprus and look; send to Kedar and examine with care; see if there has ever been such a thing. Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for something that does not profit.

Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked; be utterly desolate, says the Lord, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water.

Sermon Text

I am out of town on vacation this week. Which means I get to write a sermon that will pretty much just exist between me and the couple dozen who read this blog. I like these moments, because I get to think about the sermon as a thing which is read, and not something I will have to say.

It is also an opportunity for me, as I get about once a year, to talk about the imagery of springs in Biblical Literature. Growing up in Berkeley Springs, WV, water bubbling up from underground is an essential part of my world. The springs, since the days of Francis Asbury, have been a place folks go to in search of peace, healing, and life itself. Within those tepid waters are a variety of microorganisms, tadpoles, guppies. The occasional bird flits down to visit the waters, to drink or to wet its feathers. Out of the aquifer just under the limestone, life itself is given to the surface.

Springs like this occur in most parts of the world. Wherever an underground water deposit happens to get too close to the surface, such that it can be pushed up by pressure into a small pool or stream, there a spring will form. Like many springs, the springs at Bath are “warm springs,” maintaining a temperature of about 75 degrees all year round. They are beautiful, they are carved out of the earth, and they are permanently part of my being.

The scripture out of Jeremiah can give many lessons. It gives us a lens to the status of cultic worship in Jerusalem – the presence of Baal alongside Adonai is just taken for granted. Likewise, we cans see the concept of sin “spoiling,” the land – God’s position as the source of fertility is confirmed when the land does not give produce due to the repeated sins of God’s people. Yet, for myself today, I think that the image of springs and cisterns, specifically in terms of God’s people choosing “no gods,” is compelling.

There is a tension within the scriptures regarding the existence of deities other than the God of Israel. Paul in some letters of the New Testament implies that idols are just empty stone shells, elsewhere he seems to imply a spiritual reality to the Greco-Roman pantheon. Likewise, God is described in the Hebrew Bible as being the chief of the “Gods,” having taken his place at the summit of the universe and divvying up nations between the other Gods, choosing Israel for his own. He fights with Chemash at one point, he actively opposes Dagon in his sanctuary, he appropriates and subverts the language of Marduk. Yet, as Jeremiah shows us here, many other times the foreign Gods are treated as non-existent, as phantoms, as “no Gods.”

While I do not think this would be a helpful thread to follow in discussions of interfaith dialogue, I do think that this can be helpful to understanding a persistent problem within Christianity. We adore creating other Gods, in establishing pantheons of fear, all so that we can feel more secure in our own strength and abilities. We empower the circumstances of the world around us with supernatural agency and power and create Gods to fight against our own. While some may argue this creates a more compelling narrative of a “conquering king,” image for our God and Messiah, I think it weakens our witness in an attempt to secure our own positions and hegemonies.

I speak directly against the idea that this world is inhabited by “Spirits.” Constantly you hear folks in Church contexts use the term “Spirit,” to instill personality in problems. Depression is difficult, it exists at the crossroads of mental, behavioral, and environmental causes. A “Spirit of Depression,” which is easily rebuked by a faithful person requires no questions. Add “Spirit of,” to just about any problem and suddenly the day to day struggles we face become Spiritual battles. More than that, they can become battles that you can win, if you just assert your positive affirmation of faith over them. It’s The Secret, baptized and dressed up for Sunday Service.

I believe that spiritualizing these matters is not inherently problematic. Depression, division, doubt, and all manner of evils beyond this have a spiritual element to them. The problem is that these Spiritual conditions are not personified conditions. My depression impacts my spirituality, but an evil smoke monster does not sit on my shoulders and whisper bad things to me. In my mind, the modern formula of, “I rebuke the Spirit of X,” is the creation of a new kind of magic. We are using the language of religion to try and make God act at our discretion. We have created enemies for God to knock down, but often times the enemy is simply something we have invented.

A Spirit of Division is easier to oppose than the complex web of misunderstandings, egos, and legitimate concerns that cause Church conflict. A Jezebel Spirit is more marketable than telling a woman you disagree with to sit down and shut-up. So on and so forth, et cetera, et cetera. We take the complex web of human experience, human relationships, human sin and outsource them to invisible phantoms that we can claim to chase away with a single word. Do I believe in Spiritual Forces of Evil? Yes, but I cannot accept this phenomena in the Church honestly deals with those forces.

In establishing a complex web of demonic, anti-social Spirits we are ultimately committing the same superstitious mistake that the Medieval Church did. We are making new “Maleus Malifarcarum”s to identify witches in our midst. We write out exhaustive grimoires so that we can name the Spirits of our own invention and make them bend to our will. We come up with ritual and with incantations, to defend against the Gods of this world… The God who we must honestly confess are, “no Gods.”

Superstition is one of the primary dangers faced in the Church today. Having lacked a true Spiritual core, Protestants, Catholics, and all streams otherwise have fallen into lesser manifestations of spirituality. We are in a never ending Satanic Panic that sees the devil in every book, movie, stage performance, or opening ceremony. We fear that by accidentally misspeaking or striking a yoga pose a dark creature may enter our hearts. Yet, there was already a creature in our heart all along working evil within us. We are our own worst enemy, “The heart is devious above all else…”[1] We do not need an evil spirit to lurk on our shoulders, because our own evil and sin-sick spirit is capable of plenty of evil.

The reality of God’s existence, of the power that we are given over evil in this world, is most powerfully reflected in two things. Acknowledging, firstly, that there is no other source of life and truth except God. We may delude ourselves, may create self-aggrandizing narratives and incantations, but at the end of the day we are wholly dependent upon the God from whom we come and to whom we earnestly seek to return. We do not need to invent conflicts, because the conflict of God fighting the forces of sin and death to reclaim our souls is more than enough. It plays out in our hearts every day, God fights back evil within us every moment. The truth of God’s struggle for our heart is enough.

The second thing we must acknowledge about God’s reality is that we are the antagonists of the story. Whatever Spiritual Wickedness there is in the world, it does not constitute hob-goblins tricking you into pacts. The evils of this world are fed by our own human will and cognition. We choose evil, constantly, and we are left the lesser because of it. Humanity is the core driver of wickedness in this world, not the false Gods we wish to blame for it. In the mirror every day you see the image of God reflected back to you, and every day you have the choice to live like that image or against that image. We are the villains, Christ is the protagonist, and all of life is the story of how villainous humanity is redeemed.

Back to the initial imagery of springs. God tells Jeremiah that in worshipping the Baals, the people have traded a spring of living water for a muddy cistern, cracked and incapable of even holding water. I maintain that this is true of our Christianity when we tack on superstition to it. We trade a sacrificial faith that asks us to examine ourselves, to chase after the lifegiving waters of God’s instruction, grace, forgiveness, and blessing – we trade all that away for a series of spells and superstitions that satisfy our daily ennui, but fail to grow us as people. If I think all my problems are external, the work of Spirits that I have to constantly watch out for and say spells of protection against, then I will never look inside, never correct my own faults, never seek the true belief and true repentance I need to find life, and life abundant.

I have cast my life upon the altar of the one God of Heaven and Earth. I shall not elevate artificial divinities to that same level. No Spirit of human invention can overcome the One Spirit that dwells within me.[2] No manufactured tulpa is worth worrying over when I am earnestly struggling to see that my name, written by God’s grace in the Lamb’s Book of Life, is not written with an asterisk beside it attesting to my inability to become worthy of the call to which I am called.[3] When true Spiritual Evil appears in my life, I want to truly be prepared to face it, not left to the mercy of my own half-baked hero narrative. God is in his Heaven, and above all the “no Gods,” he holds his court. I shall not create a graven image to oppose him, I have shown myself opposition enough, time and time again. I want the springs of life, not that muddy pit… Amen.

[1] Jeremiah 17:9

[2] Luke 10:20 c.f. 1 John 4:4

[3] Revelation 20:12 c.f. Ephesians 4:1

Introduction

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

“There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” – Galatians 3:28

This is perhaps my most ill-advised project, and yet one that I have wanted to tackle for a while.

In my final years of seminary, I became fixated on understanding the current landscape of Christian theological discourse. In particular, the way that the Church discusses gender and sexuality seems to be self-defeating to the point that something must be fundamentally flawed at the root of these discussions. Conservative ideology clashes with progressivism, and very little productive biblical interpretation is embarked upon to find any sort of reconciliation point for Christian Ethics.

Even now, prominent voices in the Evangelical movement such as Ed Stetzer have come forward to say that views on LGBTQ rights in the Church are not subject to debate. This comes from a foundational belief that, “creation accounts [in scripture,] set the theological foundation for understanding God’s purposes for gender, marriage, and sexuality.”[1] Indeed, arguments regarding traditional views of human sexuality, and by extension gender and marriage, tend to focus upon three pillars. Firstly, the natural and God ordained institute of heterosexual, monogamous, marriage. Secondly, the inerrancy of scripture. Thirdly, the cultural practice of masculinity and femininity as cross cultural, yet culturally distinct.

Entire books are written to address each of these topics on their own. Yet, as I have taken it upon myself to read conservative theology texts (when I think they sound interesting,) I notice that there is very little in them (or in progressive texts,) that is even trying to address the opposite viewpoint at their own level. Perhaps we have an inherent understanding that the ground between us has grown too large, that the chances of finding any sort of reconciliation that does not deny the rights and dignity of queer folk on one side and the desires for orthodoxy on the other are very slim… More optimistically, however, I think we just have a very vague understanding of the theological foundations that bring folks to one conclusion or the other.

It is with this in mind that I launch this new project. Decoding Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Complementarianism is designed to go, chapter by chapter, through the foundational text of the modern complementarian movement, Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism. As a staunch advocate for Egalitarianism, I am one such “evangelical feminist,” as is referred to in the title. I am, likewise, a person committed to orthodoxy, even as I advocate for LGTBQ inclusion and all sorts of other liberal positions. According to this book, that second statement makes the first one a lie, but this book says a lot of things I do not agree with, so I’m not going to let that stop me.

My goal with this project is not to be mean-spirited or libelous, but to honestly evaluate each chapter as I read them. Where I see thoughts worth entertaining, I shall entertain them, and where I see something born of Hell and Capital I will treat it as such. I do not promise perfect analysis, I do not promise to be above my own convictions and biases, but I do aspire to be thoughtful and honest at every turn.

This project is going to take a while, and I am not constraining myself to any timeline. This book is long and takes strange turns. At one point John Piper takes a long time talking about how muscular women are sinful, but also that he finds them incredibly attractive (I will talk about that at length when we get there.) I will release articles when they’re done, and not a moment sooner. In the short term, I will be writing an analysis of the Preface to the 2016 edition in the very near future.

Till then, be well, be safe, and tell someone you love them.

[1] Ed Stetzer. “Can Faithful Christians Agree To Disagree on Sexuality?” available at: https://churchleaders.com/voices/512232-agree-to-disagree-christian-sexuality-gender.html

Sermon 08/24/2025 – Where no One has Gone Before

/ John Langenstein / 1 Comment

Hebrews 12:18-29

You have not come to something that can be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that not another word be spoken to them. (For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even an animal touches the mountain, it shall be stoned to death.” Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.”) But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

See that you do not refuse the one who is speaking, for if they did not escape when they refused the one who warned them on earth, how much less will we escape if we reject the one who warns from heaven! At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven.” This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of what is shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe, for indeed our God is a consuming fire.

Sermon Text

In 1917 Rudolf Otto wrote a book that redefined the philosophy of religion. His book Das Heilige (Localized as: The Idea of the Holy,) is focused on the way that we as human beings experience the presence of God. Otto calls this experience with something greater than ourselves “the numinous,” and he takes for granted the reader knows what he means when he talks about experiencing the presence of God. After two chapters of introduction, he begins a new one with this instruction “The reader is invited to direct [their] mind to a moment of deeply-felt religious experience… Whoever cannot do this… is requested to read no farther; for it is not easy to discuss questions of religious psychology with one who can recollect [every part of their life,] but cannot recall any intrinsically religious feelings.”[1]

It is not usually a very productive method of selling books to tell your audience to stop reading on page eight, but for an author who does not want to waste your time I think I can appreciate it. Our faith is easily turned into something purely social. We are Christian less because we have met our risen savior, and more because we like the people who attend the church with us. Certainly, we are to like each other, called to be a family in the truest sense of the word, but we cannot just be a social group. Paul says that we are to be pitied if our faith is revealed to be false, but I would say it is also pitiable if our faith becomes just a reason we get together on Sunday mornings. If we believe we have seen God, and we believe that we have something to share with the world, we have to do more than just get together from time to time.

The writer of Hebrews was writing to his community at a time when they had to decide what their identity was after a significant shake-up. Though it is not exactly clear what lead to the writing of this letter, there are two likely situations. Firstly, the destruction of the Jerusalem temple and, secondly, the expulsion of the author’s community from their synagogue. It is unclear if one or both is involved, but the author is trying to explain to the people how to exist away from one they always knew to be the only way to serve God in their life.

Without a temple, how can you meet God? Without the synagogue, how do you connect with the people of God? For the first generation of Christians, those who were Jewish, existing in a space outside Jewish worship norms would have been incredibly uncomfortable. How do you worship God, when the way you have always worshipped God is suddenly locked away? The people needed assurance that they were doing something more than just existing as a social subset of Judaism. They needed to know that there was something beyond themselves that defined their faith.

The author of Hebrews answers these concerns by calling them to consider a life beyond the Temple, beyond worship as they once knew it. I personally lean to the destruction of the Temple as the trigger for Hebrews’ writing because of the emphasis upon the Temple throughout. The book constantly orbits the idea that Christ now acts as the High Priest of believers. Whereas other priests were born, only to die and be replaced, Christ was an eternal priest who stood in the presence of God as no one had ever done before. As is always the case, the person of Jesus had to be the center of the new life the Jewish Christians had been forced into.

In the person of Jesus we are have someone who stands before God, “with a loud voice and tears,” advocating for us. Christ prays unceasingly in the presence of the Father for the troubles that we face. Christ also, we are told, through his death, secured for us the means by which we can, through, faith, be redeemed from our sin. We need not succumb to our failings, we need not continue on causing harm to ourselves and others, we may truly escape the burden of wrongdoing within and around ourselves. Finally, in approaching the mystery of the faith, we meet the person of God. Beyond the mundanity of life, beyond the excesses of our sin, in the deep darkness of truest truth, there is God. This is the blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, our scripture speaks of – the overwhelming presence of God – now freely available to be known.

If we believe that this is what we encounter as Christians, then we cannot just be another social group. We cannot allow ourselves to be lost in the sea of options people have. We must offer people what we truly have, and irreplaceable understanding of God and God’s presence in this world. If we believe we have come to the “thing that cannot be touched,” which Otto called Numinous and which we call Christ, then we need to share that revelation with others. It must mean more to us than just a group to be aligned with, a box to check, a surface level identity to separate ourselves from others.

Last week I shared a summary of census and research data with our Council on Ministries. It highlighted a few truths of people in our area. Firstly, that 75% of people in the Keyser area are not associated with a congregation. More than that, only about 5% of people in our area are likely to change that – either by joining or leaving congregations. Secondly, among those who are not presently in churches, the main opposition they have to attending is that Churches are too focused on money, and that they are too judgmental. Thirdly, despite not being affiliated with churches, about 70% or people do consider religious to be at least somewhat significant in their life. Finally, among that 70%, a majority believe these two things: Christians should act as Jesus did, and Church is not necessary for them to practice their faith.[2]

This paints an interesting picture of our ministry area. While we often project the main struggle in religion these days as between trendy non-denoms and mainline establishments, the data seems to suggest that we are facing a more nuanced landscape. When religion is turned into a social gathering, then it becomes optional, and so people naturally will choose non-participation. The majority of people in our area believe in God, they identify with the person of Christ, but they cannot see themselves as part of Christ’s Church, because the Church has failed to be a place that acts like its savior or that reveals the mystery of Christ to the world. Indeed, if we are no more than place people come to read scripture and hear a sermon, then why shouldn’t people just stay at home?

A strange artifact of this practice is that, while 75% of people say they are not affiliated with churches, an equal proportion claim to attend weekly worship. Yet, I believe firmly that we are not meant to be solitary creatures. I cannot worship at home and say that I have fully engaged with all God has to offer. The fullest expressions of who God is are found in the moments we learn to be God’s people together. How can I become a loving person without folks to love? How can I know I have grown in holiness unless I encounter temptation and overcome it? How can I be active in the world as the presence of God, if I flee to be alone at the first chance I get?

We are here together because we have all seen something we cannot neglect acknowledging. The Spirit of God moved in our life and we are not willing to ignore that movement. We feel it in our bones, in the midst of our flesh there is something enlivened by God’s very breath. We have a story to tell the nations, oh yes, but more than that we have the experience of it to offer. In gathering together, we are meeting mystery, in following Christ we go where no one has gone before. In being the Church, we discover what it means to truly thrive. Live with the truth, live with hope, break out of life’s mundanity. – Amen.

[1] Rudolf Otto. “The Elements in the ‘Numinous’” in The Idea of the Holy. Tr. John W. Harvery (Oxford University Press; London, England. 1958) 8

[2] All data provided through MissionInsite.