Author: John Langenstein

Strength Enough for Today – Lectionary 08/08/2021

/ John Langenstein / 1 Comment

1 Kings 19: 4-8

But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.” Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, “Get up and eat.” He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again. The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, “Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.” He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.

Sermon Text

             Sometimes we reach a point in life where it seems best just to give up. Life can throw trouble after trouble towards us till we just cannot take it. Sometimes it’s a lot of small trouble, a bill deposits later than it should on the same day we need to make a car payment on the same day we forgot to eat breakfast because we were running late for work. Other times just a few things happen alongside a larger one – we snap at someone who bumped into us because the phone call we got that morning was only bad news. Then, of course, comes the terrible potential that we are not facing any combination of bad news, and we have instead suffered world shattering news and tragedy time and time again.

The perspective we take in our life is never static, especially when something goes wrong. Sometimes trouble bolsters us in some way, strengthening our resolve and making us better than we were before. Sometimes it breaks us down and remove any sense of comfort or peace we otherwise could depend upon. We respond to trouble differently at different points in our life and it is only when we begin to scale the mountains that we face that we begin to realize how we might do it.

Our scripture captures a moment in the life of the prophet Elijah in which he, fresh off his triumph over the prophets of Ba’al has landed at the lowest point he has ever been. The triumphant rain of fire that consumed the altars and offerings was initially enough to bring awe and certainty to those who saw it, but this quickly faded in their memory. When trouble began to brew, nothing could be certain. After the fire had burned to cinders, the anger of those in power raged against Elijah and he was forced to flee from them southward. We are not given a timeframe for this journey, but it would have been several days of walking, across over one hundred miles of hills and valleys.

Elijah stops briefly in Beersheba, the southernmost tip of Judah, to allow his servant to stay there. He then walks out several miles into the Negeb desert and this is where our scripture for today picks up. Having tried to end the idolatry that was rampant in Israel, having prophesied and seen the end of a drought, the threat of death was still real enough for him to throw all that aside. Elijah had done nothing wrong by fleeing South, he had work to do that he could only continue if he lived. Yet, after a week or so of travel and a plenty of time to think over the journey, Elijah was running out of energy and hope.

It is unclear if Elijah had any intention when he went out into the desert other than to die. The wilderness was not impassable, several nomadic tribes seemed to permanently inhabit the area, yet it was not the sort of place an individual could easily traverse. Wild animals, poisonous snakes, blistering heat, and overwhelming cold all threatened those who entered the Negeb. To me it seems that, having run away from death, Elijah could not imagine a future that did not end in his execution. Choosing between being killed by Ahab and Jezebel in Israel or dying to the elements out in the desert, Elijah looks up to Heaven and asks that God be quick in bringing about the end of his life.

This sort of thinking is what Elsa Tamez, a scholar of the Old Testament, describes as thinking “when the horizons close.”[1] This is a sort of resignation to the way things are that can be generative, pushing us to do what we can within the limited scope of opportunities we have. It can also bring us to become stagnant, paralyzing us and leading us to wallow in the desperation that sets in. The former, clearly better, is not always our first instinct. We can, however, find ourselves moving toward generative responses to trouble, but only if we are willing to take care of ourselves and accept offered help.

As a culture, we have gotten much better at acknowledging the fact that we are not always capable of acting at 100% capacity. Over the course of, even just this past decade, we have become more willing to discuss our problems openly and allow others to do the same. The concept of “mental health days,” is a testament to our willingness to give space for people to recover from the mundane and exceptional sources of stress in their life. While there is a lot of work to be done, we are much more willing to acknowledge the toll that trauma has upon our life.

The detail that stands out in this text we have looked at this morning is how honest God and Elijah’s interaction is. Elijah is willing to say he does not see a way out of his current situation, God responds by sending an angel to feed the prophet and to command him to rest. The long walk from Israel, through Judah, and into the desert, was enough to exhaust Elijah and to make him hungry, but a deeper purpose was behind this gift which God gave in this moment. God showed Elijah that there was a future, not by pushing him to abandon his worry or his pain, but simply by rejecting his plan for death by offering him life.

The impulse which many of us have when someone we know or love is hurting is to fix their problem. We want to flip a switch and make them better. While sometimes this is easy, removing something that hurts them or adding something that helps, it gets more complicated the larger the problem is. I have known people with chronic pain and chronic depression who have had countless people try to fix them with well-intended, but ill planned words. “At least its not… It could be worse… Be thankful that…” With more acute problems the impulse to fix becomes even worse. When a loved one dies or a friendship ends, “Chin up,” is not good enough.

God, being the perfect companion, does not offer this sort of comfort. God takes the long way round toward our well-being because God knows we must sort out our recovery as we go. When we cry out, God is not always quick to speak, because God is listening to us. God is not always quick to act because sometimes we need to cross a threshold on our own, to really see the other side of it.

This willingness to take time and to give us space to recover is not an excuse for inactivity. God is at work even in silence and in waiting for us to move. To return to our scripture, God sent Elijah an angel to care of him long before Elijah began his journey and longer still before God would speak to him at Sinai. God was preparing Elijah, God was caring for Elijah, God was active in loving Elijah through his grief, through his pain, through all his fear and doubt.

The care Elijah received in the wilderness was by no means extravagant. The food he ate was called “עֻגַת” (ugat) and seems to have been a simple bread that was cooked on top of hot coals. If you were lucky, that meant stones heated by coals, as the NRSV assumes. If not, then it meant the cake was more or less cooked directly upon the wood ash. These were not yeasted rolls, nor a flatbread. These were simple, and they were washed down with just a little bit of water. While last week we saw God lavishing good gifts upon the Israelites, this week our scripture acknowledges that sometimes we see just the simplest means by which to get by.

When I was in seminary, there was a day when a good friend and I were having particularly bad days. This friend, who goes by “Tater,” for reasons I don’t care to explain, had just left the cafeteria where we had picked over some food, but not really found anything satisfying either to taste or to restore our energy. When exactly in the evening this next part happened, I cannot remember, but it saw us going to a lounge on campus to study.

At some point, another friend of ours, named Grace (yes, that one,) brought pepperoni rolls into the lounge. Now, even in the Eastern Panhandle, we there was a reverence for pepperoni rolls. Likewise, Tater came from Big Stone Gap, a little town in Western Virginia that had adopted this tradition just as we had. Tater and I had eaten a meal in the refectory that did nothing to settle our minds or revive our spirits. Yet, in this simple packet of bread, cheese, and meat we found something greater than the sum of its parts. The blend of nostalgia and simple enjoyment these gave was mingled with another sensation. In receiving these rolls, we were reminded that we had a network of support, we had people who loved us.

When something goes wrong in life, it can take time to truly recover from it. The longer a problem persists, the harder it can be to reach that point. Yet, when we are willing to take time to get back to where we need to be, we might just find an all-around better outcome. God could have pushed Elijah back to Israel or chastised him for running, but God saw Elijah as a part of the divine family, not just as a servant to be ordered here or there. God took time to set his prophet back in good health before taking him to Sinai to meet him face to face.

Life is sometimes meant to be a celebration, but other times it is just a matter of getting by. We need rest, we need recouperation, we need to take time to become well. Thanks be to God that we have an advocate in that process. A God who hears us, who cares for us, a God that feeds and empowers us. The way to make it through life is not always triumphant, sometimes it is in asking God for just enough strength for today. Sometimes, it is enough simply to be sustained.

Yet, there is always a future on the horizon. Even when we cannot see it, we can make it past our own present troubles. For Elijah, that meant looking ahead to God’s Mountain and the literal presence of God in a still small voice at its summit. For us, it means trusting that the sun will rise, our sorrow will end, and joy can come back even when every last ounce of it seems beyond us. Let us trust God and give thanks for the strength we are given to make it through, even just to tomorrow. – Amen.

[1] Elsa Tamez. When the Horizons Close: Rereading Ecclesiastes.” (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock) 2006

Heavenly Bread – Lectionary 08/01/2021

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Exodus 16: 2-4, 9-21

The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”

Then the Lord said to Moses, “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day. In that way I will test them, whether they will follow my instruction or not.

Then Moses said to Aaron, “Say to the whole congregation of the Israelites, ‘Draw near to the Lord, for he has heard your complaining.’” And as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the Israelites, they looked toward the wilderness, and the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. The Lord spoke to Moses and said, “I have heard the complaining of the Israelites; say to them, ‘At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread; then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.’”

In the evening quails came up and covered the camp; and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground. When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.

Numbers 11: 4-6, 18-20

The rabble among [the Israelites] had a strong craving; and the Israelites also wept again, and said, “If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we used to eat in Egypt for nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; but now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.”

… Say to the people: Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat; for you have wailed in the hearing of the Lord, saying, ‘If only we had meat to eat! Surely it was better for us in Egypt.’ Therefore, the Lord will give you meat, and you shall eat. You shall eat not only one day, or two days, or five days, or ten days, or twenty days, but for a whole month—until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you—because you have rejected the Lord who is among you, and have wailed before him, saying, ‘Why did we ever leave Egypt?’”

Sermon Text

 Welcome to another week of talking about bread. Last week we saw how God uses the multiplication of bread, and the feeding of people generally, time and time again to show the goodness which is offered to all people. Today, we see that same goodness shown to the Israelites in the wilderness. Next week will take us to Elijah being fed, not only in the wilderness, but in the depths of his own despair. Wisdom will set a table for us the week after that, and we will conclude our block of stomach centered texts with a very cryptic command from Jesus about what we must eat. Food is an image and a reality where we seem to meet God again and again.

It is fitting, then, that we discuss God’s gift of food on a communion Sunday. Though we celebrate communion with juice and bread that we bring to this table, it is a gift of God from beginning to end. The grain to make bread is watered by the rain which God brings, the vine is given the same gift, and even the paten and chalice are made from clay plucked from the earth God has placed us upon. The sacrament is not just its material components, but a spiritual exercise. We take the juice and the bread and find it somehow changed. While we will talk more in-depth about communion and its many facets in a few weeks, we must acknowledge today that some aspect of the meal we are preparing to share together is beyond the bounds of its earthly components.

It is not anything revolutionary to tie the gift of manna to the Eucharist. Jesus seems to do so in John 6 and Paul as well leans upon the idea that we in the Church eat our own form of manna in the eucharist. (1 Cor.10.) Strange though it may seem, there is something connecting the bread on this altar and in your packets, to the dusty and mysterious fragments of food that the Israelites collected long ago.

Looking back to that Israelite’s journey in the desert, we can only know so much. Forty years pass out in the land between the Red Sea and Canaan. Sometimes the people would come nearly into the promised land, only to turn completely around and lose decades of progress. Those forty years are recorded sporadically in the Torah, from Exodus to Deuteronomy. Sometimes the same story is told two or three times across those books, always with subtle differences that show different aspects of the interactions between God and God’s people. Our story for this morning, of God giving manna and quail, occurs elsewhere in both Exodus and Numbers. In Numbers the quail is given as a curse as much as it is a blessing. The greed of the Israelites is highlighted in their quest to obtain something they do not need.

Exodus, in talking about God’s gift of manna and quail, sees both gifts as a positive addition to the Israelite’s life. The people complain to God they are hungry, specifically they miss bread and meat, something they had very little of in their wanderings. God looks upon this request, not with anger, but with mercy. Even when this complaint could rightly be taken as an inability to see the good they have already been given, God is willing to give more to the Israelite’s than they previously had. God looks with compassion on our limited scope and feeds us good things alongside the bare necessities we need.

We need both tellings of this story. If we believed God only wants us to have more and more good things, then we would fall into the trap which the Prosperity Gospel has set time and again for people. This school of thought believes that material goods, wealth and status, define a person’s standing with God. This idea is contradicted throughout scripture, yet it is more popular than ever to believe God wants the faithful to be rich and that poverty is only ever the fault of the person going without. On the other side of things, if we believed God is always ready to turn against us, then our love cannot be complete. If we see God giving quail only out of spite, “until it comes out of [the Israelite’s] nostrils,” then we will doubt every good gift as a test. God becomes, not a benevolent God, but an exacting and capricious deity.

That balance, God as abundant in mercy and goodness and God as desiring us to be better, that is the life of faith in a nutshell. The goodness of God brings us to appreciate God as the source of life, light, and truth that God is. Yet, if we walk away from God’s goodness unchanged then we have not actually engaged with the same God who offered it to us in the first place. The mystery of our religion is that we constantly return, again and again, to the realization that God is good, and that we are not yet as good as God, and so we must turn more and more away from the things that are preventing us from being truly good. We do not despair at our lack of righteousness because God is good to forgive our sins, but we do not tolerate those failings in ourselves either, because the goodness of God motivates us onward toward righteousness.

I grew up in a church that had a lot of good going on with it. Yet, there was a prevalent teaching that was given again and again by one of the leaders for the youth group. “Nothing you ever do, will be good, because the best thing you could ever do,” and here I quote directly, “is like poopy, doo-doo rags to God.” The idea behind this comes from Isaiah 64, where Isaiah is trying to explain what happened to Judah to cause the Babylonian conquest. Isaiah sees God’s anger as the primary cause of the event and says that the people had transformed into something they did not use to be. Rather than being the light in the dark they were meant to be, they had become cruel and they abused one another. This transformation meant that, even their best deeds, now that they had fallen so far, “were like filthy cloths.”

I bring that teaching up because it never sat well with me. If God wanted to be with us, why would God continue to be so critical of the people God had saved? It seemed duplicitous to on one hand say nothing a person did was ever good enough and on the other hand claim to save them from that incredibly high standard. Yet, I believe that is often how we talk about God. We speak as though God sets a bar, we fail to meet it, and we are lucky that God cared enough to spare us, because we do not deserve one lick of kindness. It sounds scriptural, because it takes a lot from various spots of scripture and pieces them into a statement we can’t refute. These truths which we misrepresent are that we don’t earn salvation, we are sinners, and we are fortunate God chose to save us rather than start over.

Yet, that framing is one sided in presenting God’s approach to humanity. If God merely tolerates us, then it seems strange that God would have lifted a finger at all. If God is this exacting presence, waiting for a chance to flip over the hand we are seated on so we can fall into perdition, then God does not seem abundant in steadfast love. When we focus on our depravity and God’s judgement to too great and extent, suddenly I do not see the glory of Heaven, but merely the terror of any alternative. I do not see the goodness of God, but the terror of a judgment seat.

I bring up this judgment heavy vision of God because I nearly fell into that trap writing today’s sermon. You see I plan out my sermons a year in advance, so when I wrote down the scripture I would preach for this Sunday, I was expecting the text to carry me in a particular direction. The reason behind this, is that this story of God giving bread and quail, has always been told to me from the perspective of Numbers and not Exodus. I’ve always known God to give quail as punishment and bread as a gift. Even though I have read the two different accounts, not till I sat down to write this sermon did I know God gave quail as a gift anywhere in scripture.

I think of the passages, like Isaiah 64, like Exodus 16, that we have allowed to be conflated with the emphases that we or preachers or teachers we have known have put upon them. I like to use John 3:16 as a good proof of our general obliviousness to the full extent and meaning of a text, because its easily pulled up in our minds. Do you remember that that text is tied to the account of Moses putting up a metal sculpture of a serpent in the wilderness? (Numbers 21,) or that it in the larger context of Nicodemus asking what it means to be born again? Those are just surface level considerations as well. There is an awful lot about John 3 that reminds us to be watchful as much as it frees us to let go of our anxieties.

Tension is a word we always laughed at in seminary because it could be used to describe any discussion we ever have. There is a tension between any two extremes and finding the proper balance between them is never easy. It is important to remember that God is good to us when we don’t deserve it, as we see in our scripture today. It is also good to remember, God does in fact care what we do, and that we are expected to do better. To complain and find our needs filled is one thing, to find our needs fulfilled and continue to complain is another. Layers upon layers of depth emerge in our life of faith and I do not blame anyone for becoming exhausted along the way.

Life is, after all, a long journey. If we would like to style it as such, we could say it is a journey through the wilderness. We sometimes have reprieve by still waters or in the shade, but we often have to face difficult choices, difficult situations, uncertainty and fear and doubt. Like the Israelites we can feel like we are closer than ever to where we need to be. Our hearts grow stronger and more loving, our life more radiant in the things we are allowed to enjoy and blessings we can share with other, our faith clearer and more deeply felt than ever before. Then, in an instant, all seems to fall out from us. We slide backward in our development, and that promised land that seemed so close now feels thousands of miles away. We spin round the desert of this life, seeking the glory of something far beyond us.

We come today to one of those spots of relief. This table, set by human hands, but given in everyway to us by God. Represents a deep spiritual truth. God is the source of our life. God gives us what we need, and even sometimes what we want. God delights in giving us a reason to celebrate. We do not receive gifts so that we may become rich, in fact we are encouraged to resemble the poor more and more as life goes on. We take up the gifts God has given us, because they are what keeps us going. For the Israelites that was the heavenly bread that was manna and the physical sustenance that was quail.

This table of grace reminds us not only of God’s goodness, but of our own fallenness. Christ died because we could not accept his goodness, least of all could we tolerate his love. When presented with the opportunity to live in a new way, we chose to cling ever more tightly to what was. The blood of Christ was poured out for sinners, but it was also poured out by them. The body of Christ was broken for us all, but it was also we who broke it upon the cross. A tension is present in this table, we celebrate the truth of our freedom it represents, but we also mourn the burden, that we are the reason such a table ever had to be set.

Yet, God does not sit anxiously awaiting us to approach unworthily. God has prepared sustenance to carry us through this life. God has extended grace before we ever needed it. The blessing of God is greater than any anger God could ever feel, and the heavenly bread we partake of today is greater than any earthly food we could ever crave. As we walk through life, we must seek to rest in God, not so that we ever become stagnant, but so that we can better understand every aspect of this world we inhabit. There is abundant mercy in what God has given us and there is a lofty expectation for us to grow. We explore what this table means across the next few weeks, but today, we partake of it. As we lift chalice and paten, as we drink juice and eat bread. Today, we gather our own holy manna and find God’s abundant love prepared for us. – Amen.

God’s Favorite Sign – Lectionary 07/25/2021

/ John Langenstein / 1 Comment

2 Kings 4:42-44

A man came from Baal-shalishah, bringing food from the first fruits to the man of God: twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack. Elisha said, “Give it to the people and let them eat.” But his servant said, “How can I set this before a hundred people?” So he repeated, “Give it to the people and let them eat, for thus says the Lord, ‘They shall eat and have some left.’” He set it before them, they ate, and had some left, according to the word of the Lord.

Sermon Text

 If we had all the power in the universe, what would we do? For some that question is exciting. We imagine trips to the stars, the creation of new and amazing animals, the cessation of some societal ills. For others, it is quite terrifying. We see our faults, the way our own proclivities drive us to evil, and we dread the idea of power. Power, after all, is not in itself corrupting, but the enabling of our own flights of fancy, if our intent is not truly toward good, that can be quite corrupting. The good we do is ultimately only meaningful if it is the good, we practice. The good we practice; is the virtue we develop. The virtue we develop, is what aligns us, truly, with God’s righteousness.

We are all of us, quite luckily, finite beings. We cannot do all the good we want, that’s true, but our failures do not manifest universally either. If we err, we err on a much smaller scale than being all powerful would allow us. We can still cause a great deal of trouble, of course, but we are mercifully limited. Yet, the question has to be asked, what would the life of an all powerful being truly look life. What would their actions tell us about their nature? What is behind the wall of our conceptions and in the domain of that of which no greater thing can be conceived?

We Methodists have, in the past century, adopted a framework by which we describe what we do and do not know about God. Though not original to John Wesley or Philip Otterbein, it is now nearly synonymous with the Wesleyan and Brethren movements. This is the so-called Wesleyan Quadrilateral – the quaternary means of revelation available to us in the form of Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and Experience. STRE, in those four letters is the sum of our knowledge about God, about Christ’s work on earth, the cross, and in Heaven, it is the means by which the Spirit inspires us to live the life we are called to live.

To understand God, we begin in scripture. Across all the pages of the Bible we see people embarking upon the same journey that embark upon today. How do you describe the indescribable. I once I had a professor describe our attempts to describe God as an act of stacking up transparencies on a projector. We take image after image after image, and only when we look at them stacked on top of one another, do we begin to see the image of God through them all. God is like a Shepherd, like a King, like a mother hen, like sculptor working in clay. In Scripture we see people who have met the divine reaching for any word or image they can to describe that amazing God they now know.

Scripture also records what has happened to the people of God throughout history. Not only that, but it provides multiple perspectives. The two books of Kings tell the story of David and his descendants in different terms than the two books of Chronicles. Ezra-Nehemiah capture the return in a different way than do any of the post-exilic prophets. We are gifted an account not only of what God did, but how people reacted. Not only how people reacted, but how they then began to rationalize the work of God in their life. The dull cynicism of Ecclesiastes is next to the delighting wisdom of Proverbs, precisely because both respond to God’s instruction is such radically different, yet valid, yet inspired ways.

Whether we know it or not, we read the word of God through the lens of all that we have been taught in life. Tradition, sometimes a bad word and sometimes idolized in Churches, is the inheritance of all readers of scripture who came before us. Tradition, interpreting scripture, is where we get many of the doctrines we hold today. The communion of the Saints, our Eucharistic liturgy, our particular stances on baptism – originate in the theological examination of centuries of Christians seeking to know what scripture holds for us. We read the scripture, not with fresh eyes, but with the help of everyone who ever held those pages before us.

As recipients of that tradition, we are not forced to take everything at face value. We reason through the commentaries we read, the books we collect, and then we assimilate them into something we can understand and use. The core doctrines of our faith are often fairly absolute – we cannot reject the Trinity or Christ’s divinity and still fall in orthodox Christianity – but outside of those core features are a great of discussion and disagreement. On my shelf in my office, I have many books (some of which I’ve even read!) that disagree with one another, some that I love their work, and some I wish were never written. My job as a reader of tradition and scripture, is to synthesize them rationally into a framework to understand life and God and everything. We all take that task on, but as a minister, it is especially important to be rational, because if I come up here and spout nonsense, there’s a danger someone might believe that nonsense, and then it just disseminates outward from there.

Finally, God acts in our life, God shows us God’s goodness in tangible ways. We experience the God of our salvation. Sometimes this experience is nothing short of miraculous, a healing that just doesn’t make sense or a last-minute call that erases our anxieties. Sometimes the experience is mystical – a vision or a voice that shows us some divine truth we had not previously known. We test these against our reason, against the tradition of the Church, and always against scripture, but in our own encounter with God we uncover much that simply hearing or reading would not teach us.

So, why have we talked about the quadrilateral, outside of the fact its an easy list to remember and it fills some space on my notes. I bring up the quadrilateral, a tradition I have inherited and often criticize for being overly simplistic, because it lets us know that God is not in fact too far away from us to begin to understand or know. We can, through a variety of tools, encounter God, learn about our savior who loves us, and develop into more spiritual people.

The reality of God is that God is a person, well three people in one being, but for simplicity lets not get into trinitarian theology alongside our already long discussion of epistemology. We can know God, because God is not an impersonal force. I can learn about gravity, I can understand nuclear forces, but I can’t know them. I have never met an atom, but I have a degree that claims I know how they work. It would be easy to say that those who live in church or study religion know about God, but it’s another thing entirely to say that they know God, you know?

There’s a phenomenon that was first discussed in radio and television but that has exploded with the ubiquity of the internet. This is the concept of the “para-social” relationship. In this relationship a person begins to feel that they know someone personally who they really have likely never met. It can extend beyond celebrity or internet personality to a barista or server at a restaurant who, might know your name enough to put it on a cup, but does not know you beyond passing familiarity. It is a problem for many reasons, chief of all when the person pouring energy into a non-existent relationship realizes they have actually just imagined the entire thing.

Some people have envisioned religion as something like this. That we faithful are chasing to know a personality that, if they exist, would be disinterested. The premise of deism, one of the most popular theologies in John Wesley’s day, and by extension the colonial United States, depended on the idea that God created the world, set things in order, and then disappeared to be a, a best, mildly interested observer. Today more secular forms of faith see God, or the Universe, as benevolent, but largely impersonal. There is a disconnect between the immensity of God and the smallness of us. We cannot perceive God truly cares about us, certainly no enough to take action on our behalf.

Yet, if we believe that God is interested in creation, and that God is a personal being we can know, then it seems to me that we must begin to understand God, as we claim to do anyway, by looking to scripture. What can the record of this book tell us about God? More importantly, what does that have to do with us? If it sounds like I have re-invented theology, then I am happy to report, yes, we have essentially taken a winding road to get back to the very basic premise of our faith. Yet, by the long road, perhaps we can appreciate how, unsimple, the whole experiment really is. Yet, this truth remains, God seeks after us, and we seek after God, these pages are the first steps we take to meeting in the middle.

If you want to know about a person, you should what their favorite things are. What do they listen to? What movies do they like? Books? While these are not the sum of a person’s character, they give indications. I am a massive of the band They Might be Giants, I’ve even quoted them in sermons. That tells you a lot about me if you know the band, mostly that I’m a fan of absurdism. Favorite painter? Salvador Dali. Favorite book? Slaughterhouse-five. See, an image emerges of the man behind the pulpit. Yet, that image remains incomplete, there are many blind spots yet to be filled in.

For God, I begin by seeking what God most loves to do. What is it that God does again and again throughout scripture? Well, as you may have guessed from our reading, God feeds people. God made a Garden in the East, and filled it with what? All good fruits. God sent a people into the wilderness and rained manna upon them to sustain the journey, splitting rocks open to give them water when they were thirsty. God brought rain to water the crops of the ground, the fruit of the vine and the wheat-stalk fed the famished peoples. Here, in 2 Kings, we see God feeding his prophets with multiplying bread. Just earlier in this chapter? He feeds and widow and her son by multiplying wheat and oil. Purifies a poison soup for others to eat.

God is a God who feeds, who sustains, who gives life. Should it be any surprise that the only miracle described in all four Gospels is the feeding of a multitude? Jesus, like Elisha in Baal-shalishah, takes a few pieces of bread and feeds all who gather around him. Jesus, God on earth, shows us what God has always been about, by breaking bread and sharing it with those around him. Elisha, and all the other times we see before, prove just how important it is to see that no one goes hungry, and confirms God’s eternal commitment to see all people fed.

The sum of God cannot be described, with the above observation that God loves to feed the hungry. Yet, by acknowledging that, I know more about God. In turn, I might even begin to imitate that quality of God. I’ve been with my wife three years this October, we’ve been married for a year and half next week, we’ve known each other five years, and across that time our mannerisms are working toward a singularity. We speak more similarly, respond to things more alike, and frustratingly finish each other’s sentences even as we are struggling to think of the words we want. To love something or someone, means to let them transform us, and for us to in some way transform them.

God loved us enough to take on flesh, and addition to the Spiritual body that had existed before. We now take on Spirituality, we work alongside God’s spirit to overcome the troubles of this world and our own sinfulness. Let us resemble God in all we can, but never forget God’s continual display of God’s seemingly favorite sign. We cannot call ourselves Christian if we are not seeking to end hunger in the world, because to feed the hungry is so dear to God’s heart. Let us commit ourselves everyday more and more, to seek the good of those around us, to actively sustain their lives through food and clean water and let us never stop seeking to know our Lord better. God has set the table for us, time and time again, will we set a spot next to us, so our siblings without may not only live, but thrive and rejoice in God? – Amen

Fear No Evil – Lectionary 07/18/2021

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Psalm 23

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff— they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.

Sermon Text

            There are few scriptures that are as well known as the 23rd Psalm. Though it is ultimately not helpful for us to rank the ubiquity or popularity of scripture in popular culture, it is certainly the case that the scriptures which people know tells us a lot about how the world sees us. The more common a scripture is the more that its truth is disseminated into the world, and, in theory, the better an understanding there should be about the truth that scripture delivers to us. However, I would also say that familiarity can breed its own kind of ignorance and apathy. If I begin to say, “For God so loved the world…” I can expect that when I point to you, I can hear a chorus in reply, “that he gave his only begotten son…” (John 3:16) Yet, if we were sat down to explain not only that verse, but the full context and message of the passage it is contained in, we might suddenly find neither the knowledge or inspiration to do so.

            The 23rd Psalm contains some of the most evocative language that we could ask for. Both as a message of reassurance and as a summary of reality, Psalm 23 is direct in stating how things really are. The opening is an assertion of God’s goodness. God is my shepherd; I shall not want. The center of the Psalm then speaks to the reality of the past and the present suffering we all face. “Though [we] walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” we are asked to trust in God. Even when all light seems to have gone out of the world, we hope. Not because it is easy, but because it is necessary.

Finally, the Psalmist closes the Psalm by looking to the future and its signs in the present. The abundance of God’s goodness is not just found in physical sustenance, but in spiritual security and the communities of mutual love we form for ourselves. “Our cup runs over,” not because we have much, but because of God’s presence here with us. The grace of God, that transformative force that sends us into the world as a holy and reconciled people, this is what goes before us and beside us into all creation. This Psalm, in its few lines and words, can offer us a lot of consolation in the midst of hardships.

There’s much to be taken from this Psalm, but I want to focus in on one particular claim that it makes. The idea that, “Though [we] walk through the valley of the shadow of death, [we] fear no evil; for [God] is with [us.]” This line challenges us to live into the peace which God offers to us. This Psalm is claiming that God’s blessings can be so plain to us that, even in our deepest, darkest struggles, we can maintain hope. That, to me, is amazing. Yet, I would also say it is not an easy thing. When I think of my life, my own dispositions, it is far easier to be frightened or to live in despair than to hold onto hope.

Fear is not a negative thing in itself. Like all our emotions and instincts, it is given to us by God for a purpose. Fear lets us know when there is danger, when a situation is not as it should be. When the truck in front of us veers into our lane, fear triggers the necessary biochemical response to cause us to brake or steer away from them. When we smell smoke coming from somewhere it should not, fear drives us to investigate and eliminate the potential danger which that smell indicates. Fear is there to guide our response to the potential dangers we face, and even though it is often unpleasant, it exists to keep us safe.

Fear, it should also be said, can be a pleasant experience. Does anyone here like horror movies? I do, I love the stuff. The internet in particular has produced a modern horror experience in the form of ARGs and Unficition stories, stories told as though they are really happening across social media and audio-visual mediums. This fear is pleasant to us because it makes the big and scary concepts of the world – death, evil, uncertainty – into a monster or thing we can be afraid of. It gives a face to the nameless fears we hold onto in life.

On the opposite end of this spectrum is the “fear of God,” something described throughout scripture that, many modern interpreters, attempt to soften by turning into, “respect,” or “admiration,” of God. I do not think that it is good to fear God, after all, God is our comforter. However, God is scary in a different way. In terms of categorizing horror, God is a Cosmic Horror, in the sense that God is bigger than we can imagine. God thinks like we could never think. When we meet something so incomprehensible, we can only tremble in fear at the enormity of the being we have just realized exists. Thankfully, the next revelation God offers to us outside of God’s enormity is God’s goodness. “Be not afraid,” and “steadfast love,” turn the unknowable and immense deity before us into a source of comfort rather than fear.

Fear, then, is a complex thing to discuss in any context. It is good, but as with anything in life, too much of it or too little of it can hurt us. The Psalmist making a claim that the faithful, “will fear no evil,” is then a bit strange. It is good to have some concept of fear, otherwise we would be reckless. Remembering that “evil,” in Hebrew is not just the opposite of good, but any physical disaster, we are left with a bigger question. When disaster comes, what should we do? Last week we saw that the Psalms allow us to express our discomfort with the present moment, to ask questions and voice our complaint to God. Likewise, we saw that we could be hopeful in the midst of that desperation. What, then, are we to do about fear?

As we said a moment ago, too much or too little of a thing can be dangerous. What I believe the Psalmist means here is that the hope of God allows us to never be overcome with our fear. It is natural that in the moment we may be afraid, that we, looking forward, may worry about real dangers looming overhead, but in all things the Psalmist is hoping that we can trust God enough to not let those worries or fears consume our life. We dig deep into the foundation of strength God gives us, and we find strength to make it, even just a little further, along life’s road.

There are things that can complicate this ability for us to not fear. Firstly, fear doesn’t always feel like fear. Sometimes fear is sadness, a hopelessness that nothing can ever change in life. Other times, fear manifests as anger, a desire to destroy the thing we have decided is a risk to us. It seems to me that, when we become afraid, we can manifest that fear in as many ways as we can feel anything. So, to really understand fear, we have to investigate many of our more intense emotions and try and seek out their root. Am I mad because some boundary has been violated in my life, or because my fear has convinced me that has happened? Am I truly out of options, or has fear led me to believe that is the case?

Let’s complicate matters a little more. Some of us, have brains that actively work against us having pleasant or normative responses to anything. I myself suffer from a condition that was once known as dysthymia, literally “Bad spiritedness.” I don’t like that translation, but the condition is now called, “Persistent Depressive Disorder.” It means that, unlike other depressive disorders defined by intense, periodic depressive symptoms, I always have low-grade depressive symptoms. The sun doesn’t shine as brightly for me, sensations are often muted, my enjoyment of a thing has a set limit. Sometimes, that makes it hard to do anything but languish. It is very easy for me, mild as my symptoms are, to think hope is lost, others have it worse.

There’s treatment for me, and for other who have faced these struggles. I encourage anyone who is on the fence about psychological treatment to seek it out, it does a great deal of good. Yet, having made clear that I do not mean to demean mental health struggles, I want to focus on why it is important for we as Christians to be people of hope. Fear, though God given and helpful at times, can be twisted to cause a great deal of harm. Entire industries depend upon keeping people scared so that they are constantly spending money to prevent problems that are either non-existent, or extremely unlikely to occur. Unfortunately, many find a home in the Church.

In 2020, Rev. Ed Stetzer, a Southern Baptist minister, author, professor, Billy Graham Chair of Evangelism at Wheaton University, and then contributor to Christianity Today, revived a discussion he had begun in 2017. This centered on the idea that Christians seem to disproportionately believe false narrative which are thrown their way. The exact reason behind this is unclear, but many fear-mongering tactics can be used to harm the Church and its witness, and we tend to excitedly grab hold of them. For Stetzer in 2017, it was the rise of the Q-Anon conspiracy and #Pizzagate he was writing against, in 2020 it was COVID-19 conspiracies linking the virus and the vaccines to all manner of unfounded, malicious, and even Satanic origins. Fear manifested in anger and despair, but fear ruled over many minds.[1]

We as Christians are told again and again by Christ and the apostles to be “watchful.” We are to guard our heart, we are to look for Christ’s return and the salvation of creation writ large, we are to keep an eye always on the horizon of what could be. I believe this state of vigilance, something Scripture asks of us so that we can live better lives worthy of our calling, does make us susceptible to abuse. Even Christ seems to warn against this, admonishing us to look out for false claims that the End has come (Matt. 24: 1-8) and to be careful of those who would use our faith to abuse our wallets (Luke 16:1-9.)

Manufactured fear is a powerful industry. Since its inception in the 90s, global antivaccination groups have funneled millions from research through misinformation. Medical skepticism has funded an entire industry based on alternative and sometimes dangerous cures. End times speculation leads to people hoarding resources in their basement, it fueled the grocery shortages we saw early in the Pandemic, it robs us of our ability to act, because it is built off of fear someone else made just for us. In attempts to be faithful, how do we so often become fearful?

Many people far smarter than me have analyzed these phenomena, but I think it comes back to the premise we began with. Life is hard, and sometimes scary. Fear, the God given mechanism by which we react to a stimulus and determine whether it is good or bad, can become twisted and used against us. Sometimes it is our own mind warring against us. Sometimes it is circumstance rightly leading us to worry. Sometimes, it is someone pulling strings to make us as scared as we could possibly be. Fear, like all of God’s good gifts, is easily perverted.

What then of our Psalmist? What words do they have to comfort us? “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” That is not, as some might read it, a command to never worry or be afraid. Instead it is the aspiration we all have to know that God is really beside us in the hard times. The deepest darkness cannot snuff out the light of God’s hope and we need to cling tightly to it. Last week we talked about how hard it can be, in the midst of despair, to leave bed. The problem does not stop there. We have to go through our day, our week, our life, living into the hope God has given to us. That precious oil on our head, the wine that spills over and out of our cup.

We of the Church must pursue truth, and not give into falsehood. We must also simply hope, to believe God is good, and pursue God even when we cannot see God active around us. For some of us, that means we visit our psychologists, and we take our meds, and we are stronger for it. For some of us, that means thinking long and hard about the Facebook post we are thinking of sharing, evaluating its truth rather than the way it makes us feel. Most importantly, and for all of us, the hard times must not be an off-ramp of our faith. We must see it as part of the journey we are taking. We do not call suffering good, but in the suffering, we seek the goodness of God. We walk through the valley because we know a green pasture is waiting for us. We take the long way home, because the Lord is our Shepherd, and we know that no evil will ever overcome the goodness of our Lord. Fear no evil, for God is with you, yesterday, today, and every day, even to the end of the world. – Amen.

[1] Ed Stetzer. “On Christians Spreading Corona Conspiracies: Gullibility is not a Spiritual Gift” in The Exchange. 2021 Christianity Today. Available at: https://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2020/april/christians-and-corona-conspiracies.html

Righteousness and Peace – Lectionary 07/11/2021

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Psalm 85: 1-13

Lord, you were favorable to your land; you restored the fortunes of Jacob. You forgave the iniquity of your people; you pardoned all their sin. You withdrew all your wrath; you turned from your hot anger.

Restore us again, O God of our salvation, and put away your indignation toward us. Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger to all generations? Will you not revive us again, so that your people may rejoice in you? Show us your steadfast love, O Lord, and grant us your salvation.

Let me hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his faithful, to those who turn to him in their hearts. Surely his salvation is at hand for those who fear him, that his glory may dwell in our land.

Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other. Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky. The Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase. Righteousness will go before him, and will make a path for his steps.

Sermon Text

Our scripture this week is a Psalm and next week we will also read a Psalm. The two in particular address how we hold onto Hope in the midst of trouble, and how God empowers us to make it through. The Psalms, from the first to the last, are all songs offered up in worship to God. Some are happy, some are sad, one even flat out ends in despair. Yet, all 150 of these Psalms tell us one of many ways we can pray to God. They give us words when words simply cannot come into our minds. They are God’s gift to the tongue tied, they are a prayer book given for the benefit of us all.

This Psalm specifically, is ascribed as a “Korahite” song. This was a specific guild among Levites that worked within the Temple. The instructions toward “the Leader,” indicates it was meant to be sung in public worship. Based on these details and a few others contained in the Psalm itself, we can determine it was written or finalized after the greatest disaster in the life of the Jews as recorded in Hebrew Scripture – the Babylonian conquest. After years of vassalage to Assyria, Judah was first conquered and then completely destroyed by Babylon. The Babylonian empire took the nobility and the administrative classes to help run the empire, they enslaved the lower castes for menial labor, and they scattered and disenfranchised the remaining populace of the province. In the midst of this disaster, hope was a precious commodity. Yet, through prophets like Ezekiel and Jeremiah the people kept the faith, even if that faith asked much of them.

When the return from exile finally came, several generations had already passed. The children of the exile’s children were the ones to re-enter Judea. While we will come, time and time again, to this return from Exile, there is one particular aspect of it we will examine now. This is the simple truth that, despite all hopes, the return to exile was not the end of Judea’s problems. Having struggled for so long, having been separated from their ancestral home, there was an expectation that in the moment they first stepped back into Judea everything would be suddenly perfect. Yet, more than a few troubles were immediately made manifest in their lives.

Buildings needed constructed, conflict between groups needed negotiated, even paperwork is recorded as being sent off and approved of in Scripture’s treatment of the return. The most prolific trouble which our Psalm implies was affecting the community was famine. The crops they had planted were not growing like they should have been. The rains did not come, the dew was not settling on the roots of the crops, and nothing could grow. Without food, there can be no life, and in the midst of our quest to survive we can become desperate, and desperation with it brings many evils.

The prayer of the Psalmist is voiced in the midst of this hardship. They open by calling on God to act as God had acted before. “You were once good to us, be good to us again!” They shift their prayer to question, “Are you made at us? If so for how long?” The questions presume that God is listening, active, interested. The Psalmist speaks as though they will be heard and they beg that God will speak life into the world – that salvation will be made plain in the world. They wanted to see God’s goodness laid out for anyone who sought it to see.

The faith in God that the Psalmist holds is rooted in a few specific qualities of God. God is faithful – literally true to the words which God has spoken. God is righteous – giving to all humanity what is due to them, life and life abundant. Finally, God is described as having, “steadfast love,” toward all of God’s people. God is described consistently through the Hebrew scriptures as having חסד or “loyalty,” toward those in covenant with God. This loyalty is the basis by which God acts in justice and righteousness toward all people.

I would suggest that, while by no means identical, the past year and a half has been similar to the Babylonian captivity in many ways. We all went into March of 2020 with the expectation of quick returns to normalcy after things began shutting down. In the Panhandle, the churches I served were some of the first in the region to close and we earnestly expected to be back by the end of April. That, did not prove to be the case. Each day I collected local, national, and international data and plotted the progression of a devastating pandemic.

All of us faced difficulties across the last year and a half. Some were minor inconveniences – plans (like my honeymoon in Paris,) had to be canceled or postponed. Others were far greater – the loss of loved ones due to the virus or other causes made worse by our inability to mourn them properly. Others of us faced loss of jobs or income things that strain our trust that tomorrow will find us fed and sheltered and healthy. Even joy across that dreadful span of time was diminished, a great weight hung over everything we did.

Like the Judahites, we had a hope that there would be a great rebirth on the other side of the Pandemic, of our own captivity. Like them, we now see it is not so simple. For Judea, building projects and Persian rule kept their post-exile joy from being complete. For us the issues are ever evolving. Vaccines hold great promise to cut off this virus and its variants, but there is still hesitance to receive it that must be overcome. Our love for healthcare workers and “essential workers,” has faded, apathy reigns again. Beyond these, we step out of the cloud of the darkest days of the Pandemic and see that more clouds rumble, another harsh winter could bring any number of new or returning interruptions.

I mentioned a moment ago that hope is a valuable thing. It was valuable in Judea when famine raged at a time when feasts should have been planned. It is valuable now in a world that has one foot in a world beyond COVID and another firmly planted in the midst of it. These are all of us just the problems that we are facing as a group, what about the ones we face individually? The treatment that did not go as planned. The empty dinner table seat. The dream crushed at its beginning. When do we step beyond the trouble we are in and into the joy that comes next?

I do not know. I cannot tell you. I could step down from this podium and suddenly fall over dead, I could live one hundred years. The novel coronavirus, through increased vaccination or other medical intervention could fade away in a few months, or return again and again across years. Anything could get better or it could get worse. We simply do not know, beyond our best intuition and modeling, what lies down the line for us. Tomorrow is a mystery and sometimes it is a scary one.

Yet, we have hope. That precious resource we have chased is not far from us. Our Psalmist, having presented God’s previous acts, after asking about God’s anger, makes a simple request of God. They do not ask for the famine to end or for God to rush them away from it. They ask God to speak. “Lord, tell me things will be ok. Speak peace to us, because if you say it I will believe it. Please, God, just speak.”

I do not know what tomorrow, or next week, or next year will bring. What I do know is God has been good to me and if God did it once I bet God can do it again. That does not mean it won’t be hard. That does not mean that the distance from our bed to the floor won’t feel like the longest distance our feet can travel. What it does mean is that we can take that long hard journey, because we know the person leading us is dependable.

The vision of this Psalm is not just of a world where things are, “Ok.” God’s truth and loyalty are seen as coming together before all people. Peace and Righteousness share a scandalous kiss. The deep waters of the earth and the showers of heaven are overcome, not with life ending floods, but life giving, living waters of grace. God will come, God will save. God will do it.

Next week, we will look at Psalm 23, and specifically its claim that we should “Fear no evil.” Yet, this week, I would ask us all to be honest about our fears and doubts. To see the ways life isn’t quite how we hoped it might be. I give you permission now, if you’ve been seeking it, to not be ok with how things presently are. I also give you this hope, that the God who was good to you before is good to you now, and will be forever. Righteousness goes before our Lord, who brings us peace. Let us trust our God who delivers us from all evil – Amen.

Tend the Flock – Lectionary 07/04/2021

/ John Langenstein / 1 Comment

John 21: 15-19

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, “Follow me.”

Sermon Text

First sermons are a unique experience a person has with a congregation. As I scan the pews to discern reactions and you all listen in intently to understand just what sort of teachings I plan to bring to this pulpit. In normal conversation we would exchange words back and forth, get to know one another through an our responses to one another. Yet, at the pulpit the message is in a singular direction, our exposition of God’s word consisting mainly of my voice. Yet, from my singular voice and my position at this pulpit, I hope we will walk together through the scriptures and in so doing, truly begin to understand what God has given us through them.

Our scripture for today captures a conversation between Jesus and Peter. Jesus, having died, having been buried, and having risen again, has been with the Disciples several times. This morning, after some fishing, Jesus and Peter are seated together talking over the remains of their breakfast. Jesus looks at Peter and questions him, time and time again. “Peter, do you love me?” The exact form of his question, how he identifies Peter, shifts a time or two, but across its three repetitions Jesus does not waver in the intensity of the question. Twice Peter responds he loves Jesus, twice Jesus asks him to follow through on that love by “tending [Jesus’s] sheep.” Only on the third repetition do we see significant change. Peter despairs over Jesus’ repeated questioning, and Jesus changes his wording. Jesus simultaneously commands Peter to feed Jesus’s sheep, but also foretells his eventual death on an inverted cross decades later.

This exchange, though it barely takes up a paragraph, shows us the moment that Jesus and Peter truly come together again. Peter, as we know, had rejected Jesus before his trial. The triune denial he gave then rebutted by the three declarations of love he makes here. Jesus had been with the disciples for some time, the work of the cross complete, yet the work to bridge the gap between Peter and Jesus, that could only be accomplished by the two speaking together.

The exchange is easy to dismiss as just a callback to Peter’s denial. Jesus, knowing he had been denied three times, asks for Peter to affirm his love three times. That would be a simple quid pro quo. Peter satisfying the damage he had caused between himself and Christ through an equal affirmation. Yet, more than that is happening here. On one hand, relationships are not accounts to be balanced. If we treat loved ones poorly, we cannot just give them good things and cancel out the poor treatment. On the other hand, Jesus does not seem the type to me to take someone’s transgression and treat it flippantly. Jesus must have another reason for asking Peter three times whether or not he loves him.

The answer, at least in part, might be found in how Peter responds. Reading the English of this text, we lose a key difference in what Jesus asks and Peter says. Jesus asks, “Peter, do you love me,” using the term αγαπη (agape.) This word is the most commonly used in the New Testament. Peter responds each time by changing the word used for. He tells Jesus, time and time again, “I love you,” using the term φιλέω (phileo.) I do not want to overemphasize the difference between these two words (as we often do in the Church,) but the demarcation of one and the other is important.

What Peter does with each repetition of the question is attempt to go beyond what Jesus is asking. Jesus asks, “Do you love me?” and Peter’s response can be understood to say, “Love you? You’re like family to me!” In a way, his insistence on using a separate word from what Jesus uses is an attempt to demonstrate how intense his feelings really are. He not only loves Jesus, he sees Jesus as someone close to him, he and Jesus are part of the same community. He wants Jesus to know that the love he feels for his savior is not just your run of the mill affection, it transcends any of that. It is the closest and most vital thing he holds within himself.

Jesus, in his response to Peter is therefore not just rehearsing a threefold rebuttal to Peter’s earlier denial, but is asking Peter to understand what he is truly saying in claiming to love Christ in the way he does. To love Jesus so dearly, is to care for the people Jesus cares for. To love Jesus so dearly, is to risk everything to see the work of the Gospel is completed. To love Jesus, it is to live a life completely oriented toward Jesus and with that, toward the cross. For Peter, the termination of his life’s journey was a literal journey from his fishing boat in the sea of Galilee to an inverted crucifix in Rome. What might it look like for us?

We are blessed to live in a country where we do not know persecution. In fact, we live a country where the majority of people in power and in the population still claim, at least in name, to be in the Church. Theoretically then, we have all the means possible to see the world filled with people living a cruciform life. Love for one another should be the dominate sentiment we see expressed. The word of God, pure and life giving, should be on the lips of everyone of us. Yet, that is clearly not the case. The Church shrinks year after year, Christianity becomes more and more divided month after month, and no denomination, not even a single religion, in all of the United States is growing day by day.

Why is that? It would be easy to point fingers at anything and everything but ourselves. However, as you will learn about me, I do not like to point fingers at anyone other than myself and the institutions I am a part of. It is easy to say, “the media,” or “Hollywood,” or any other number of scape goats for our own guilt have led people from the faith. I do not believe that to be the case. The enemy of the Church is not found outside our walls, it is not found in some grand conspiracy or decadent culture. No, it is found much closer to home. It is found in the simple truth that Jesus sits beside us, asks us time and time again, “Do you love me?” And despite our enthusiastic “Yes! More than anything!” We do not follow that claim with action.

The mistake that Peter made in trying to overstate his love for Jesus, is that he was, intentionally or not, trying to show off his love rather than live into it. He loudly stated again and again, “I love you, Jesus!” But did not address the core message of what Jesus was leading him to. The key to Peter’s confession of faith was not that he could say the word love as many times as he had said, “I don’t know him!” But that he could acknowledge what love looks like. Love looks like caring for one’s siblings in Christ. Love is reaching out to your neighbor and making sure they are well. Love is praying for those near and far, but also reaching out and helping in real tangible ways.

When I heard that this church had a food pantry, I was thrilled. This past Thursday I got a chance to see it in action, although, if I’m honest, I got distracted by some office work part way through. It is that sort of initiative that the Church needs to enact everywhere. However, it is not enough in itself. The second that we are ever content that we have done enough good is the moment that we forget the enormity of life’s struggles, and the needs that must be filled to relieve them. I think Jesus uses the image of sheep because you are never done taking care of a sheep, not for its whole life, in the same way we are never done caring for those around us.

I hope that as we spend time together over the next few years, we can get to know one another. More than that though, I hope we can embody Christ’s love to all the world around us. We must feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give shelter to the hot and the cold. In whatever forms it takes, in whatever ways we can, we are called to tend to the flock which Christ has called his own. The flock of all people, every soul on this earth. We must love Christ, and not only do so with our words, but in our every action. Christ calls us today, asks us to love him with all that is within us, and if we truly wish to say that we do. We must then take a step out from ourselves and care for this broken world. The flock is all around us, let us tend it well. – Amen.

Making Way for the Kingdom – 06/20/2021

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

2 Corinthians 6:1-13

As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. For he says,

“At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you.”

See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation! We are putting no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see—we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

We have spoken frankly to you Corinthians; our heart is wide open to you. There is no restriction in our affections, but only in yours. In return—I speak as to children—open wide your hearts also.

Sermon Text

The greatest obstacle to people accepting the Love of God is often the Church. Now, some may quibble with me that anyone who is obstructing God’s work is not truly acting as “the Church,” but I disagree. I am still my mother’s son, even when I do something she raised me better than to have done. Yes, we in the Church, even at our most faithful, can obstruct the grace of God which is meant to freely flow upon all the earth.

The Corinthian Church has, by no intentional design of my own, frequently appeared in our Sunday and Wednesday services. The draw of this congregation to our modern eyes is that they dispel any notion of the early church as being perfect. They are not holy beyond belief, not united in mind and heart. They are as divided and unsure as we are. Yet, like us they are full of faith in God – constantly seeking to do what is right even in the moments they are utterly unsure. There is no pretense of perfection, only the reality that we know about ourselves. The reality that we have room to grow.

The Corinthian Church was struggling to define itself, working not only against pressure outside it, but within it. A group of teachers had arrived from Judea claiming authority that was greater than Paul’s – maybe even than any other apostles. These teachers carried letters of recommendation and were sure to list what exactly made them qualified to assume this position over others. The continued conflict in Corinth built upon previous questions of Apostolic authority which began when some people favored Apollos or Paul, one over the other.

Paul returns again and again in 2nd Corinthians to the idea that he and the other workers of the Gospel are not to be identified by anything but the results of their work. The grand gestures of the “super-Apostles,” were empty shows of boasting and their actions worked to split the faithful again and again. Paul counters the well-manicured image projected by his opposition with the reality of Christian living. The true believer is like an earthen jar that carries treasure, they are like a tent easily torn down. The power of Christ – not the vitality or mystique of its bearer – is what makes an apostle authentic or compelling.

The shift in Paul’s writing from re-establishing the authenticity of his work and the work of his peers toward specific instructions is found in our reading for the day. Paul calls on the Corinthians, once again, not to be lost in factions or prestige, but to rejoin the wider communion of the faith. Paul looks at the grand displays that have defined the Corinthian dissenters and refutes them with the troubles he and the other gospel workers have faced. The defining characteristics of evangelism is not praise and accolades, but in trials and tribulations.

Paul would not have done anything exceptional through this comparison, not compared to his other writings. What sets this apart is his discussion of the grandstanding of his opponents as “[an] obstacle.” The word he uses here “προσκοπη” (proskope) is used here in distinction to the similar word, “σκανδαλον” (skandalon) which we usually translate as “stumbling block.” The latter is usually used to describe something difficult, but inherent to a thing. Some parts of our faith – whether they be the crucifixion, the resurrection, or some point of doctrine – can act as “stumbling blocks,” that people struggle to get over. In contrast, an “obstacle,” is something erected specifically to keep people from accessing God’s grace. The obstacle that he cites here, the one epitomized by his Corinthian opponents, is one of prestige and opulence.

There is much about our lives that, if we live into what Christ asks of us, may seem off-putting to the world around us. Sometimes this will be a matter of simple disagreement, other times it will precipitate into very tangible consequences. For Paul, this meant all the various struggles he had cited in this text. These and many more indecencies have been suffered by the faithful throughout history. Many, today as well as then, follow Paul and before him Christ to the ultimate sacrifice of their life for the sake of the Gospel. For those who face persecution, it is clear how they can choose between respectability and sacrifice. Yet, for us today where we stand – in a comfortable place in a comfortable church – how do we live authentically into our faith so that we do not become an obstacle for those who wish to enter into it?

As we have discussed before, the solution is not to seek out or manufacture persecution. The solution is to be willing to give away the abundance given to us by God (something we will discuss in depth next week,) and to remove any pretense we hold of being above other people. The only things, says Paul, that anyone has any right to be proud of in their ministry is the things they have sacrificed in order to serve God. The indecencies Paul lists made him a pariah to many, he gave up any status he may have had, all for the work of the Kingdom.

When I think to those I know who are not part of the Church, it is seldom the Gospel itself that keeps them from the pews. I would go so far as to say that many people never get so far as truly hearing the Gospel even when it is spoken to them. Are they blocking up their ears? It would be easier if they were. Instead, I believe that we who have received the grace of God have become obstacles to those who might hear of it and receive it. We are obstacles in the incongruity of our high calling and our usual behavior. We are obstacles in our love and worship of a poor, homeless Messiah that somehow has not softened our hearts to the poor and unhoused among us.

If we wish to fully live into the grace filled love of God, then we must not be an obstacle to those who might also receive God’s grace. To “receive Grace in vain,” can be understood in two ways. Firstly, the superficial receipt of God’s grace – an appearance of holiness but nothing more. Secondly, an ineffectual reception of grace – we are saved “but only as through fire.” We do not grow and we do not share the Gospel meaningfully with those around us. The Gospel becomes an empty thing, a badge of honor, and old trophy collecting dust on a shelf.

The transformation required for us to truly know the fullness of the Gospel is to welcome discomfort as a colleague and friend. We must be willing to form tangible connections to the world around us. We must not desire to be respectable or proper in the worldly sense. We must be authentic, holy, and down to earth. We are not rulers or nobility; we are slaves of the Gospel. We serve God only so much as we are willing to shed our benefits in life and hand them off to others.

Paul here has made it plain to us, ours is not a life of fame or glory. It is love lived out anyway it can be. The power of God is given, not for us to become mighty, but for us to make much of Jesus. Our wealth belongs to the poor, our time to the needy, our visitations to the sick and the lonely. Only if we can remove the impression so many have of the Church, the great obstacle that is our conduct, will the Gospel come freely into the ears of all. We must not live as a social club collecting members in order to be more prominent. We must live and share the Gospel, we must make disciples through love and forgiveness, and we must look to God for spiritual guidance. If we keep to that, then God will truly make fruitful the Gospel we so often render inert. – Amen.

Growing the Kingdom – Lectionary 06/13/2021

/ John Langenstein / 1 Comment

Mark 4:26-34

He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”

He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.

Sermon Text

            The vision which Christ gives us of the Kingdom of God is powerful. Like seeds, it finds its home where we would not expect. Like wheat it grows up out of nothing into a full bloom. Then, from that one singular plant, many more may be born. The reduplication goes on and on, a harvest of one batch producing – not only fruits – but the means for another harvest entirely. Lest the image of wheat proves too specific for us, Christ paints the picture another way. The Kingdom of God is like a tree that, born of something small, spreads out and makes itself large – providing shelter to all that seek it.

These two images are not the only way that Jesus gives us insight into how God’s kingdom grows, but they are often the ones we bring to mind. The idea of the mustard seed in particular sticks with us. It was so compelling an image, that Jesus uses it elsewhere to describe our individual faith. The miniscule seeds of mustard, the fledgling trust of God we demonstrate through faith, these things whisper to us and show us something deeply relatable. Parabolic speech has this advantage for us, we seek after images more readily than words. We cannot say definitively what the Kingdom of God is, but we can say what we it is like.

The deep mystery of faith is that it seemingly works independent of our attempts to grow or squash it. It is grown in us by the grace of God and nurtured by the environment around us. Though we certainly have some part in its growth – some of our greatest backsliding can happen surrounded by Saints and other times we simply stumble into holiness unwittingly. Spiritual growth can come from discipline, but it seems that God holds something that catalyzes our growth. The grace which we receive is the beginning and end of our Spiritual journey and without it we are like grass that withers, trees that never grow beyond saplings.

The personal understanding that we form concerning growth must also be made plain in our communal ethics of the same. If we wish to see the Kingdom of God expand, mature, and shelter all the world, we must not see faith as happening only in our hearts. The work of faith is communal, the Kingdom is defined by a people called to be together and work toward the same divinely appointed end. We have to seek the Kingdom together, because definitionally it is not a monolith. No, the Kingdom is found wherever the Spirit is at work, whenever the seed is planted and permitted to grow.

The seed which is planted is the believer, having received the word they are thrown into the world to go forward and grow. As they mature, they produce fruit, the nutritive aspect of God’s kingdom is made clear. The believer not only brings about other believers but supplies the earthly needs of those around them. The hungry are fed, the naked clothed, the lost find comfort. Grain is grown to sustain life and so the Kingdom meets the needs of those within it. As we grow together, we ought to care for one another. If we cannot do this, we will wither away.

A division emerged in the 1900s in, mainly American, theology over whether the business of the Church was in saving souls or helping the poor. Jesus was clear – it is in both. We cannot tolerate starvation and poverty and we cannot blame the victims of either for their situation. The Kingdom is the grain that sustains all people – it gives the word of God for the soul and tangible aid for the body. To neglect one calling of the Church for the other is to forget how high the expectations really are. Like wheat we must produce abundance, but like wheat we must not keep that abundance to ourselves where it will perish. We must send our bread upon the waters that it may return us after many days.

Yet, the kingdom is not just a place for nourishment, nor is it kept to a single location. Whereas the first parable of today’s scripture can be read to mean that we individually must grow up together and work to produce a harvest, the second casts the entirety of God’s kingdom in a different way. The Kingdom is described, not as multiple seeds, but as a single seed. From this one seed grows the massive sheltering presence which gives a home to all who seek it. Jesus speaks this parable early in his ministry, when the disciples are few. The Kingdom has potential to grow large, but at present Jesus looked out at a handful of early members. The small seed had been planted – now it would only be a little while before it grew.

The last message we shared together spoke of the danger of schism, but here we see Jesus lay out the wonderful alternative to breaking apart. Jesus asks us to imagine a tree, and from that tree many branches spreading out to cover the earth and give shelter to those beneath it. The ideal of differences in the church is that, even if it causes us to part ways, our differences should not stop us from accepting one another. The rise of ecumenical dialogue over the past sixty years has led to a resurgence in our understanding that Baptists, Methodists, and any other denominations are not truly separate – but all answer to one God.

We are beginning, fragile though our understanding is, to see the branches we stand upon all have one source. If we look at our personal convictions and expressions of faith, we can likely see how we ended up where we are. I could not be a presbyterian – I will not ever be convinced of Calvinism. Likewise, I could not be a Pentecostal, the fire of the Spirit does not burn in that way within me. Yet, though I am thoroughly Methodist, I can acknowledge God’s ownership of both groups. I can look to my time working in the D.C. Baptist Convention and to my time attending a Pentecostal Church, and my Presbyterian colleagues and see the Spirit shining through them. We share one source, and if we could only acknowledge that we would accomplish much in this world. I sit on my Methodist branch, another soul on a Catholic one, but our roots are in Christ alone.

The radical nature of this of this is not relegated to denominations or even congregations, we all have unique features as individuals that can bring people in to be sheltered by God’s love. Think of the labels you apply to yourself. For example, I would describe myself as a nerdy alt-rock fan who can best describe their personal aesthetic as “Eldritch Prairie Home Companion.” I like reading, British Murder Mysteries, and science (mostly chemistry honestly.) My politics include – actually no, my manuscript here just says, “Best not get into that on your way out.” So I’ll trust my past self and move on. Still, you get the point. We are all called to be part of the Church and as a Church, as a charge, and as a denomination we offer chances for people to meet God and know God’s love in ways we would not if we all alike.

Now, today we have discussed how these two parables can give us insight into the growth of the Church. On one hand we grow into a source of material and spiritual help to the world, by being that source of help. On the other we grow by being diverse and allowing diversity of personality, viewpoints, and even certain points of doctrine to give shelter to all who seek after Christ. Both these perspectives are dependent, at their root, on God’s grace. If we do not thoroughly apply ourselves to depend on God, then we will go adrift.

Jesus casts the growth of wheat as a mystery. Like the farmer, no one can look at the Church and instantly know what caused it to be as it is. The best laid evangelism and discipleship programs can be overthrown by chance and the most haphazard attempt at service may be the most fruitful. The only definite steps we can take is to live as Christ taught us to. If we do this, then growth will come. Let us feed all the world and let us shelter all manner of people. Let us pray earnestly for God to bring growth to the seed that has been scattered from the hand of Jesus. Let the Kingdom grow from something small to something great. Let God be blessed this day and always. – Amen.

Uniting the Kingdom – Lectionary 06/06/2021

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment


Mark 3:19b-35

Then he went home; and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.” And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.” And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.

“Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— for they had said, “He has an unclean spirit.”

Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.” And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

Sermon Text

As is often the case, there is much in our scripture we could discuss. Gathering as we are in celebration of Holy Communion, it seems appropriate that we should investigate the most consistent thread throughout this Mark reading, the idea of unity in the Church. A united household is the only one capable of surviving conflict. This unity testifies that the Spirit of God is good, and that our lives together are defined by the will of God we live out and share with one another. God has called the Church to stand united against evil in this world. The question for us today is whether or not we are united as the Church, and if not, if we can become united.

The story of Christianity is like any history we might survey. It is not often that we can identify true “good guys,” or “bad guys,” within it. Though we certainly try to see a Hegelian spiral of successive narratives, with us standing as victors at the end of that story, history is a human science. The raw data of the past is scattered through the prism of personality and what caused a thing to happen, let alone the goodness of that thing, is difficult to figure out.

In the early days of Christianity there were distinct schools of thought regarding faith. These were usually defined by which apostle or what minister began the church the various groups were a part of. We know Paul and James differed from one another in how they taught about the Gospel, as did Apollos. In Asia Minor the apostle John taught a faith that at times seemed alien to that of the other apostles. Yet, all stayed united by the reality of Christ’s incarnation and resurrection. The early conflicts within the Church were focused on people who challenged either of these tenets and that threatened the unity of the Church.

The focus on unity began to degrade over time. With the Edict of Toleration, the emperor Constantine set a precedent that would make Christianity the eventual religion of the Roman Empire. His reign, and that of his successors, eventually lead to a Western shift in the faith. Rome had become one of the major centers of Christianity and political and creedal divisions eventually led to the first major split in Christianity – the Great Schism of 1054. Now Christianity was split along two major factions. Conflict would further splinter Western Christianity as various Catholic factions grew up alongside nation states.

The Protestant reformation solidified these informal separations. Now every country, except those that remained Catholic, claimed their own church. The various churches would then split again, and again, and again. If we were to drive even down the main street of our own town, we will see the evidence of this fracturing. Even Shenandoah Junction, as small as it is, has three churches from three denominations, on each of its three main corners. The house of God is divided, can it hope to stand?

The root of our divisiveness is not unlike what we see in Mark. We see other Christians engaging with God in ways we do not agree with or understand. Perhaps we blame leadership for acting one way or another. Legitimate disagreements are sometimes behind these conflicts, but we historically have the initial impulse, in the midst of struggle, not to try and come together but to threaten to leave. The scribes who saw Jesus did not understand Jesus and so labeled him as evil. Why? Because it was easier to write off him off as a dissident than to figure out what God was doing through his ministry. It was easier to leave him there and fracture God’s people, then come under a banner of mutuality.

The nature of the Church is such that when we disagree on even the simplest matter, we are able to convince ourselves that our side is not only correct, but that the cause we stand for is the difference between salvation and damnation. “The other side” must be in league with the devil because we are clearly in the right. Priests of the opposing faction are labeled as demonic and their leadership as antichrists. We see all wicked things in them and all goodness in us. Whether we divide over matters of Calvinism and Arminianism, sacramentality, ecclesiology, meat eating during Lent, or whatever else may motivate us to part ways, we see ourselves as heroes and the other side as villains. More than that, we will employ our most effective tool to try and persuade the opposing side that they should reconsider.

One of the reasons we default to leaving one congregation to go to another as the Church is because we know it has such a strong effect on our community. People begin to question if they too should leave, the trust the community had built up begins to fracture, soon everything is in question because the community has confessed its willingness to implode if its demands are not met. Oftentimes the damage is done, one group leaves, another stays. Both are dismayed to look at their opposing faction and find out that God is still working the Gospel through them, even as they continue to label them as in league with Satan.

In our division and our accusations, we commit a grand sin. We label those that God has called to serve the world as demonic, and in so doing we accuse the Spirit. Not content with weakening the Church through our actions, we grieve the Spirit directly. Think of all the churches you have known, with rare exception God uses them to do good. With rare exception the Spirit finds a way to take sinners like you and me and make them instruments of peace. I would go so far as to say that it is the schismatic that is the greatest threat to Christianity – more than most any other worldview or disposition.

Jesus defines the family of the faith as anyone who does God’s will. There are plenty of people I know who do God’s will whom I disagree with. Sometimes this disagreement is intense, the issue along a binary, and yet both those who agree with me and disagree with me are servants of God doing what they can to bring about God’s will on earth. It is only in threatening to leave, to destroy the unity of Christ, to end rather than continue these conversations, that we do damage to the Church.

The United Methodist Church is planning to split. That is a wretched thing. We have the chance to do it gracefully, but in setting out detailed plans on how we will split, we have admitted defeat. The Global Methodist Church will not be magically cured of its problems, nor will the Post-Separation United Methodist Church, or any of the other denominations that fracture off of this latest implosion. If we believe our present solution, which is that all parties take their ball, stop playing, and go to their respective homes will fix anything, then we are fools. A house divided cannot stand, and the actions we take over the next few years will divide the Church still further. When the dust settles, when will still have not grown and all our troubles are still there, even if every congregation changed church signs, will we then acknowledge that schism has never saved a single soul?

We gather soon to take the body and blood of Christ. We remember our savior who died for us. We were baptized in one baptism to be a part of one body in worship of one Lord. Can we find in these accidents of bread and wine an unmistakable and unbreakable substance? One savior, for one Church. A Church that is in the world presently broken, divided, and standing but by the grace of God. Let us repent of our divisiveness, let us stand together even in conflict. Let us praise the work of the Spirit even and especially in those Christians who think differently than us. – Amen.

One of Unclean Lips – Lectionary 05/30/2021

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Isaiah 6:1-8

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.”

The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”

Sermon Text

Last week we explored the importance of maintaining Vision in our life. The Spirit works within us and pushes us to find the means by which God will set the world right. The vacant stare of our cloudy eyes is made whole when God reaches down and sets a future in our heart to hope for. Beyond the darkness of the unknown, there is the faint light of God’s truest intentions for us. We see at a distance, as though through clouded glass, what life could be. Heaven is just a little ways off, but we can draw it closer if we are only willing to accept that God too wishes to draw us near.

The problem that can come to us, regardless of any other barrier erected, is that we are flawed and limited human beings. We tend to twist even the purest intentions of our hearts in one way or another. Our good works which we are meant to do in secret are turned into publicity stunts. The missions we go out to do become trips of tourism. Our works of mercy are made to scold rather than to embrace and love. The many acts of the Church throughout time have been marred, not by God’s part in them, but our own.

We do not have to live in this diminished state. The Spirit that works among us is also the Spirit that purifies us. The Justification we receive through God’s work in Christ and that is sealed in the Spirit prepares us to be sanctified to take the long road to perfect our intentions and in that perfection of will, find our actions likewise transformed. Though they may never be wholly sanctified, they are made nearly faultless, as faultless as any person could ever be.

We can only begin to see ourselves reach this purified state if we are honest about our own need to be made pure. The sick person who refuses testing will never know what the proper treatment is. If we cannot do the difficult work of introspection, then we will not truly root out the evil desires that have made themselves at home in the midst of our goodly ones. Like weeds among flowers, we must be discerning in how we cut and prune – always maintaining an honest conception of self.

We typically think of this revelation of our fallenness as something that happens at the outset of our faith. While it is true that God’s goodness and our own depravity inspires the first pivotal moment where we realize our need for salvation, that is not the only time we come to this realization. Periodically, we will feel the Spirit reminding us of some part of ourself God is still not welcome within. These deep bits of ourself are the growing edges that must be made smooth. Through Christ they can be made into something new, redeemed and reclaimed for God.

Today our scripture captures one such moment when a person of faith (a prophet no less!) realizes their need to be made right before God. Though this is usually seen as the start of Isaiah’s ministry, it is important to make note of two aspects of Isaiah’s life. Firstly, being a prophet in the Ancient World was a profession, and Isaiah had likely been called to this work long before he received this vision from God. Secondly, five chapters of introductory prophecy come before this event. This could be a simple mixing of chronologies, but it seems to tell a story. We receive many calls from God throughout our life and our present call does not deny the arrival of another.

Isaiah, standing in the temple, is greeted by the sight of burning angelic visitors. The Seraphim, literally “Burning Ones,” are angels that attend to God’s throne room throughout scripture. The exact nature of their form and function is unknown, but their appearance is always a serious matter. The angels surround and worship God. God is seen seated upon a throne that fills the temple near to bursting. The Glory of God, defined by God’s presence, cannot be contained by anything or anyone. Yet, through a wonderful act of mercy, God appears to us in a way we can discern and conceive of. God fills the Temple, who could otherwise not be held by the entirety of creation.

Isaiah is immediately overtaken by this glorious sight, crying out that his unclean state will be the death of him. The prophet who spoke God’s word was still far from perfect. There was still much left unsaid and what had been said was not yet wholly intelligible. The truth can remain true when it is not fully formed. The identification of a flower as a flower is not a falsehood, even if it is more properly called a daffodil. There is much more to be said, and Isaiah knows he is not in the proper place to proclaim it just yet. His realization is in itself a request to be made whole.

As soon as this plea leave his lips, an angel flies down and purifies Isaiah. The burning coal of incense represents many things, but perhaps most obviously it represents prayer. The words of our heart are given form and are carried by God’s Spirit. We are able to begin healing and recovery only in the moment when our acknowledgement of that need is offered up to God. We are carried out of darkness, set up to act in righteousness, and prepared to engage with God in a new way. We find our ears opened and hear God calling out to us, asking us to go out and prophesy to the world. We hear the call, what will be our answer to it?

If we say yes or as Isaiah puts it, “Here I am!” Then we will find ourselves taking part in God’s plan to renew creation. The vision we cast of what could be, will be transformed from potential to reality. Each of us, equipped with a purity of heart, intention, and focus, can truly bring about change in this world. This is all accomplished through God, the source and sustenance of all our life. We who have been set right will not fail, and even when we fall short, we will find God is good and revive our efforts.

The presence of God should be enough to inspires us to honestly assess our walk in this life, but we must be willing to do that work. Unless we can admit our faults, they will not be healed. Unless we see where sin has regained its hold on us, we cannot recommit these things to Christ. The power of the resurrection equips us to pursue God without ceasing. Let us therefore be prepared to run our race without additional weight set on our back.

Our return to God, our ministry on earth, all matters under the sun, are tied up into how we live our life. We ought to be holy as God is holy and run from evil wherever it presents itself. If we do the hard work of growing in faith, we will not be disappointed. For in the hands of God are peace and abundance and that peace transcends all else in this life. Let us see this peace inspire us to fearlessly repent. May that repentance reinvigorate our ministry to all the world. – Amen