2025 – Craving Falsehood

August 17, 2025July 29, 2025 / John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Jeremiah 23:23-29

Am I a God near by, says the Lord, and not a God far off? Who can hide in secret places so that I cannot see them? says the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord. I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies in my name, saying, “I have dreamed! I have dreamed!” How long? Will the hearts of the prophets ever turn back—those who prophesy lies and who prophesy the deceit of their own heart? They plan to make my people forget my name by their dreams that they tell one another, just as their ancestors forgot my name for Baal. Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let the one who has my word speak my word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat? says the Lord. Is not my word like fire, says the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?

Sermon Text

I am a strong advocate for truth. As obvious as that can seem, it often falls to the wayside in the rush of daily life in our world. All of us are prone, whether we want to admit it or not, to finding a version of reality that is more palatable than the one in which we live. We talked just two weeks ago about the fact that the cycles of life can exhaust us. In the midst of that exhaustion we can choose to chase after true hope or manufactured hope. Do we find our hope in the truth or do we create a false reality that offers its own false hope?

Despite my commitment to truth, I do acknowledge that many so-called “warriors,” of truth are just bullies. Growing up, I was blessed to have people on my television like Carl Sagan who explained concepts of science in terms that my five-year-old self could not quite understand, but which nonetheless opened me to the wonders of this universe. Now the people who are trying to educate people about deep truths of the universe are usually people who are trying to make money or build clout more so than people who truly wish to educate. We are a culture that is dependent upon bombasticity and upon people fighting each other for engagement, and so we do not often find people educating or revealing truth, so much as selling a narrative or offering confirmation of our own ideas.

As I’ve already said, the tactic of bullies is to take hold of this idea of an objective truth and then to beat people with what their perspective is. However, truth is separate from what we may have as a concept of what is right or wrong. A true situation can be good, or a true situation can be bad, the duty we have as interpreters of this world is to decide how we react to the truth. Truth, nonetheless, sits separate from our impression of it. A true thing might be good, or it might be bad, but it remains true.

What we read today out of the book of Jeremiah comes after a period of time in which Jeremiah has said some of his most devastating prophecies. If you read the book of Jeremiah, you will see a man who is constantly given the chance to advocate for his people and who constantly decides they weren’t worth the time. He stands in front of God and pleads saying that there must be righteous people in Jerusalem, there must be righteous people in Judah, and in the next chapter every time that he does this he is shown that there is in fact very little hope for the people he knows. The prophet is beaten down by the words that he has been given. He describes his bones as cracking, his stomach as boiling, his mouth as pouring out fire, even as his eyes are running out of tears to shed. Still, the whole time he is suffering under the weight of truth, there are other prophets selling a more convenient message.

We get a direct interaction with one of these prophets in Jeremiah 28. Jeremiah wore a wooden yoke around his neck to symbolize the oppression his people suffered under Babylon. A fellow prophet came in one day and broke that wooden yoke. He promises the people that, rather than suffering, they are going to be liberated through the work of their king. Jeremiah looks this prophet in the eye and says “Oh, that that would be true! However, the truth is that God has forecasted an even darker day for the people of Judah. I will be replacing this wooden yoke with one made of iron.” Jeremiah is proven right as the people are taken into exile and some of them forced to flee into Egypt rather than to face their annihilation. The prophet is not happy that he is correct, the message he brings is not a good one, but it is true.

I wish to put forward that there are two things we do to explain the state of the world that are harmful to truth. The first is that we deny when there are problems in this world and the second is that we create easy answers to explain the ones we do acknowledge. On one hand we look out at the broken things of the world and say, “They aren’t really that bad!” On the other hand, we say, “They are that bad! And its all because of those folks over there!” When we simplify the world and its problems, erasing them or making them someone else’s problem, we deny the truth that is plainly laid out around us.

When I was serving in Clarksburg, there was a fairly significant population of homeless folk. If you talked to people in authority in the city, they would tell you they were bussed in regularly by outside forces. They were people who were unwanted in the cities they came from and were sent to Clarksburg to become the city’s problem. This is a storyline many cities adopt, and it comes from a shred of truth. Some cities do choose not to help folk and instead move inconvenient populations in their midst. However, the truth in Clarksburg was harder to stomach. Of those surveyed during the shelter season, some 200 souls, a vast majority were locals. People who fell into a bad habit, or lost a job, or had rent raised above their means, and ended up on the street. The people out on the street were not someone else’s problem – they were our literal neighbors, pushed onto the streets.

Here we see a systemic denial of the truth and simultaneously an easy answer. “If we make it hard for these folks to live here, then they’ll just get on another bus!” That works if you assume people are maliciously being transited, but the reality that people fall into homelessness and poverty within our own community… That opens up responsibility on our part, on the community’s part, in order to make sure we’re doing all we can to care for one another.

The wider the circle, the more complicated the narrative becomes. When a Pandemic ravages the world it is easy to say, “It isn’t that bad!” or “I bet those people caused it!” When floods wipe out communities it is easier to say, “Those folks deserved it!” or “The planes caused it!” than to accept that disasters happen, and in preparation and execution to counter them, mistakes happen.

We are all participants in narratives: national, local, and personal. We will always pick narratives that make us have the least amount of culpability and discomfort with the way the world works around us is. At least, we will until we choose to pursue truth. Without a commitment to truth I will always assume that I was in the right in an argument, that my worldview is unimpeachable, that the people I disagree with are the root of every problem and the people I agree with have all the easy answers in the world… Unless I choose to search for truth, I will settle for something lesser.

Truth is made up of data and stories. It requires finding accurate reporting and reading through more than one article or report to understand a larger context. It requires meeting people from different groups, places, and perspectives rather than trusting stereotypes or assumptions. Truth is a gestalt of many pieces of life, and not just the pieces we decide are most palatable.

As Christians, we hold the most important truth in the universe in our hands. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is yours to reveal to the world. If we are left at the mercy of the tides of narratives, and not rooted in a true pursuit of truth… Why should anyone believe us? We are just selling another perspective, another narrative, not dealing with truth in the absolute sense of the word.

Truth is furtive. It’s hard to keep alive because it constantly is shifting under our own pressure for it to look more like this or more like that. Worse still, in falsehood we find none of the ambiguity of doubt that truth can cause. Yet, we must remember, “no matter how tender, how exquisite… A lie will remain a lie.”[1] If we wish to serve the God of truth, we must commit ourselves to truly be people of truth. Abandon the notions you have created to prop up your own desires, egos, and worldviews – embrace the messy things of this life, and find that God is holding a mop and bucket for those who wish to acknowledge the mess. – amen.

[1] Toshifumi Nabeshima. Dark Souls II. V. 1.10. Bandai Namco. PC. 2011

Sermon 08/10/2025 – That Better Country

August 10, 2025July 29, 2025 / John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible…

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance, and he set out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith, with Sarah’s involvement, he received power of procreation, even though he was too old, because he considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, “as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.”

All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better homeland, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.

Sermon Text

Faith and Hope are two sides of the same coin. Through our faith in God, we are convinced that the things we do not presently see are nonetheless real and forthcoming. When we believe that God is active and that salvation is real, then we naturally believe that its benefits and consequences are likewise real and active. Faith is not a basic admittance of belief in something, but a firm stance we come through convincement – by God and through other faithful people – to the truth of our religion.

While some people are squeamish about the use of the term “religion,”, I am not. Religion is, broadly speaking, any of the ways that we conduct ourselves in this life toward something bigger than ourselves. Whether we express our religious convictions in a legalistic way or with an eye toward a faith that frees us is a matter of choice. Religion is, therefore, not the end of our faith, but the way in which we express faith. The outpouring of what we believe into what we do, that is the essence of Christianity.

Faith is inseparably linked to hope, the anticipation of something unseen and yet promised. When we live out a life of faith, we do so because we believe that God is honest in projecting a future for us that is better than our current one. This “better country,” is not a temporal reality, but a spiritual and eschatological one. In the present age we are given assurance and strength to face the broken world around us. In the age to come all promises are fulfilled and all troubles cease. In the time between we live a life that makes the hope that our faith points toward break out in intermittent flashes. In our honoring of God’s covenant through faith in and Christ and our service to one another, we make the Kingdom of Heaven exist in the now, even as we wait for its fulfillment at the end of time.

As we talked about last week, the cycles of life can make it difficult to have hope. We get lost in the day-to-day hustle and bustle as well as the legitimate hardships that come from disease, and death, and greed. The systemic and personal evils of this world are such that I never begrudge a person who says they have struggled to find or keep it because of questions about the problem of evil. If I did not have a personal experience of Christ, I do not think that I would be able to come to faith naturally. Not raised in the Church, not brought up with a full understanding of who God is and what Christ reveals about God, I would have easily let my cynicism take me down the road of unbelief.

The thing that allows us to exist as people of faith is simply that we have met God. In our worship and our sacrament in our scripture and in our prayer, we have come again and again to the well of eternal life and found that its waters do not dry up. The only reason we can have faith is because of an act of God, through the person of Christ, and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. Apart from these gifts of grace, we would not be able to look at this world with the hope that we carry. Faith is a belief, begun by convincement, that God means what God says. Without the blessing of God’s presence at the outset, we would never find our way to faith at all.

The stories in Genesis, which the author of Hebrews pulls upon in describing faith, shed light upon the messiness of belief and the foundational need for God’s presence to produce it. Abraham went into Canaan after God called him to do so. He also fled into Egypt at the first sign of danger. Isaac was born to Sarah and Abraham, but only after they got tired of waiting and forced a slave to carry a child in her place. They answered the call in faith, but they also frequently ran into a situation that challenged that faith. Most importantly for our own stumbling walk toward God’s promises, they frequently met that challenge and failed to act as they ought.

Whether in fleeing Canaan, or in first involving and then chasing away Hagar and her child, Abraham sinned abundantly in his pursuit of God’s covenant. Yet, through him a blessing was shared with the earth. The culmination of Abraham’s work was the person of Christ born from his descendants and out of Heaven. The savior of the whole earth, even of the whole creation, was at the end of a long road of mistake after mistake, and yet Abraham held on in the midst of his failings, trusting that something better was coming down the road.

In our own life, there are many times we encounter challenges that make us question our faith. I think we would be delusional if we did not look at the suffering in this world and not have the question of, “Why?” creep into our mouths. Someday we’ll look at Job and how God blessed his interrogation of divine mercy, but that book gives us a clear message – faith is not diminished through questions, but enhanced. We cannot be convinced of God’s goodness unless we look at God in the face, unless we ask “Why?” and “How long?” and “What are you doing?” To meet God is to meet with the known and the unknowable. To know God is to grow in understanding the hope that hides beyond the horizon of each dark day.

I find it hard to talk about Hope without quoting Emily Dickinson:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers
– That perches in the soul
– And sings the tune without the words
– And never stops – at all,

When we find our hope in Christ, it is not always a loud and triumphant thing. Like Abraham, it meets us in the midst of deep darkness and unknowing. It sings a tune we do not know the words of, but that we can follow faithfully as the beat echoes in our chest. We go forward to live the life we do, so that we might teach the tune to those we meet. In kindness shown to others and in hard lessons of love we have learned and in an endless march toward that better country we have seen only in dreams and deepest prayers, in all these things we proclaim our hope through faith. Listen to the song of Hope within you today and let that song bring you closer to home. – Amen.

Sermon 08/03/2025 – Real Exhaustion

August 3, 2025July 29, 2025 / John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Ecclesiastes 1:2-14

Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.

What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun? A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises, and the sun goes down and hurries to the place where it rises. The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; round and round goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns.

All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they continue to flow. All things are wearisome, more than one can express; the eye is not satisfied with seeing or the ear filled with hearing. What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”? It has already been in the ages before us. The people of long ago are not remembered, nor will there be any remembrance of people yet to come by those who come after them.

I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. I applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven; it is an unhappy business that God has given to humans to be busy with. I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun, and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind.

Sermon Text

Mundanity is a killer. The sun comes up and goes down, the laundry always needs done, and the weekend ends just as soon as it begins. The ebb and flow of time leaves us reeling. How do we stop ourselves from being consumed by the endless repetition of the same old thing? Novelty is only temporary and the newest thing will always become old given enough time. The sunshine, the rain, the coming and going seasons, all can just be a bit overwhelming sometimes.

You may be saying that this is a strange way to look at the coming and going of things. If you read further in Ecclesiastes, for example, you come to a point in which the Teacher tells us that there is a season for everything under the sun. There’s a time to mourn and a time to dance, there’s a time to build and a time to tear down, a time to gather stones and a time to throw away stones. It’s all very poetic, all very beautiful, The Byrds even sang about it. However, at the end of it all, that passage is part of the ongoing theme in the book of Ecclesiastes. The succession of one season, to another, to another is an irritation, not a consolation.

This month I would like for us to take some time to look at several places in scripture that tell us about the world as it is – fundamentally broken – and also what they tell us about what the world can be. As we go through, I’m not going to hesitate to name the broken ways that we experience the world now. I’m not gonna leave you without hope each Sunday, don’t you worry, but I think we can only truly understand what the Gospel means to us if we look at the world now and draw conclusions from that about what work Christ is really undertaking in this world. Today we do that by looking at the book of Ecclesiastes, one of my favorite books in all of scripture, to talk about what this world can do to really exhaust us.

As we consider the book of Ecclesiastes, it reads as an honest assessments of ourselves and the world we live in. Admit it to yourself and find yourself freed by the admission that sometimes you’re tired of the way things are. It doesn’t have to be a profound realization, it doesn’t even have to be something that affects your life very often. The world is not the way it should be and it manifests in one-thousand tiny ways that makes us aware of that imperfection. The snide comment that we make towards the people we love that becomes a source of guilt in our heart. The offhanded comment someone else makes about us that we sit and think about and agonize over day after day wondering what they really meant. The seasonal bronchitis that rests in our lungs or the return from remission of one disease or another deep in our bones and in our flesh. The patterns of this life are not always a constant entering into something pleasant. Sometimes we take a step forward and find that our path is quite a rocky one.

Throughout the book of Ecclesiastes, the Teacher seeks to find some way to understand how to live in this imperfect world. We’re told that he tried literally everything he could think of. He tried womanizing, he tried drinking, he tried pouring himself into work. Any distraction, any vice, it was worth it in his mind to give it a go. Their conclusion is telling: every last bit of it was useless. “Vanity of vanities,” is the way that this is usually translated. Other translation put it as “Useless! Useless!” However, in my mind the best example of a translation comes out of Robert Alter, who puts forward the translation as “Merest Breath!” The Hebrew gives the impression of a breath breathed out early in the morning, the last bit of vapor fading away… That is how the Teacher viewed his journey for purpose.

More than just dealing with the troubles of life in the present moment, the Teacher looks beyond his life. Everything he worked on will be handed down to a relative and he has no idea if they will do a good job. He could become rich and comfortable one hundred times over, but he would be unable to take it with him when he died. Everything terminated the same way for everyone, the evil who lived far too long, the good who die far too young, are all gathered together into the same ground. Death is the only ending to the long succession of exhausting cycles we are trapped in.

This, people of God, is the world as we know it. Now, here I could do a really easy thing and turn this around in a few words. “God shows us the world as it could be! The resurrection changes all that!” And I would be right to say it. However, I do not think that you or I would be completely satisfied with so quick an answer. We need better answers than, “mysterious ways,” and “it will be better by and bye,” we need to actually wrestle with the brokenness of the world. If we are going to say the Gospel makes a difference, we need to talk about what the Gospel does to change these things! There is hope for this world, and that hope is in Jesus Christ, but it will take us the rest of this month to even start to address just how Christ gives us freedom from the drudgery of this world.

If I can spoil the ending of Ecclesiastes for you, though, I can say that the Teacher comes to two simple conclusions. Firstly, that we should live each day in the knowledge that we only have today as a guarantee, and only have one life to live on this side of eternity. Do not focus on “legacy,” or career to the detriment of enjoying this life and the people you have around you in it. Do not chase a hedonistic lifestyle of getting whatever you want, whenever you want it either, extremes are usually bad. No, instead we should all be willing to say, “My time on earth is limited. I will take none of my money with me when I am gone, my resume shall not go before me in the grave. I have today to do what it right, to care for those around me… That is more than enough.

Secondly, the Teacher decides that of everything he did, only his commitment to God really mattered. We cannot regret time we spend in prayer or in worship. We cannot regret service to those around us done for love of God and neighbor. We cannot regret the things which God has placed in front of us, because those things alone have any true lasting power. Through God, the mundane is made into something holy. G.K. Chesterton puts it well, “God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never gotten tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore.”[1]

As we speak of the mundane being made holy, we must turn our minds to the meal we are about to share. If you are like me and get tired of this world’s many problems and the relentless ebb and flow of time, then this table is here to give you strength. Christ came into the midst of this world’s mess, not standing from far off and yelling platitudes at us, but taking on the same troubles we faced. Christ drank deep of the mundane troubles of this world, took on the pain of disease and injury, lost friends and family, and even died at the convergence of all these struggles. In death, in the fullness of solidarity, Christ secured his right to rise again, and lift all of humanity with him.

Today, we have mostly stated a problem. We take up this spiritual food and drink to continue on in the midst of that problem. Yet, I believe, and I hope you do too, that by the end of this month, we will not find life to be “mere breath,” but so much fuller and worth living than that. – Amen.

[1] G.K. Chesteron. “The Ethics of Elfland,” in Orthodoxy. (John Lane ; The Bodley Head, Limited. 1926.) 107

Sermon 07/27/2025 – Fight for Mercy

July 27, 2025July 18, 2025 / John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Genesis 18:20-33

Then the Lord said, “How great is the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah and how very grave their sin! I must go down and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me, and if not, I will know.”

So the men turned from there and went toward Sodom, while Abraham remained standing before the Lord. Then Abraham came near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will you then sweep away the place and not forgive it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?”

And the Lord said, “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will forgive the whole place for their sake.” Abraham answered, “Let me take it upon myself to speak to my lord, I who am but dust and ashes. Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?” And he said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.” Again he spoke to him, “Suppose forty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of forty I will not do it.” Then he said, “Oh, do not let my lord be angry if I speak. Suppose thirty are found there.” He answered, “I will not do it, if I find thirty there.”

He said, “Let me take it upon myself to speak to my lord. Suppose twenty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it.” Then he said, “Oh, do not let my lord be angry if I speak just once more. Suppose ten are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.” And the Lord went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place.

Sermon Text

What are you willing to fight for? I think that is a valid question we all have to ask ourselves. Many people are so conflict avoidant that the answer is “Nothing! I don’t want the trouble!” Yet, even at our most anxious or complacent I think there are certain things we care about enough to pick a fight if we have to. I am not talking about violence, I am not talking about anything mean spirited, I mean standing up for something, taking a position on something, and accepting the consequences for the action we take.

If you live with anyone – a spouse, a child, siblings, whatever they might be to you – then you know that there are certain disagreements that naturally come about from inhabiting the same space. You also are well aware that not every conflict is worth actually having words about. It does not actually matter, for example, the way that my wife loads the dishwasher as long as the dishes fit and are done. It does not matter, likewise, the strange order of operations I have when I do the laundry. In these things we clearly differ, but we understand that the end is much more important than the means.

If we think hard, and probably not as hard as we would like, we will quickly think of various examples of when we have had an unnecessary fight with someone in our life. We let our own weakness, tiredness, or sadness at something in the world, lead us to lashing out. We took comfort in the briars and barbs we placed around ourselves and forgot the people closest to us are closest for a reason. We have many times stood up against imagined offenses in our lives – how often, I wonder, are we willing to stand up for those things that truly matter? Are we willing to fight for mercy? Are we willing to go against the powers that be, if it means a better day for the people around us?

In our scripture today, we read what happens after Abraham has been promised a child. Having given food and drink to three travelers, they reveal themselves to be none other than God and two angels. How this pre-incarnate appearance of God works mechanically is unimportant, but what matters is that when this conversation over dinner ends, God turns toward the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. God speaks aloud, perhaps wanting Abraham to hear, and names the evils of the city. “A great outcry,” has risen from the people around the cities, and now God is going to do something to clear away that wickedness.

This passage is one of several places where the Hebrew Bible, and especially the Torah, expresses skepticism over the existence of cities. Whether it is in Babel, Sodom, or later Jerusalem, there seems to be this idea that the way cities exist in inherently exploitative. In an agrarian society the city depended on the farms around it, and most of those farms were tenant farms. Since serfdom defined most of the commerce of the era, we can assume that most farmers were taxed heavily for their right to eke out a small living on the land. Add to this the rent they paid, and soon they had barely a leg to stand on. No wonder, then, that Ezekiel names the sins of Sodom as having, “… pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it.”[1]

God sends angels ahead of this wrath, to investigate the city. Yet, even as the men make their way across the plain, we see Abraham come up to God. The father of nations looks God in the eyes and asks a direct question, “Do you really plan to kill a whole city? The righteous and the unrighteous all at once?” Though layered in respectful language, there is no doubt that Abraham is taking a risk in questioning God’s decision. The two then seem to engage in protracted haggling – “For fifty will you spare them? Fifty isn’t much more than forty-five, how about that? Forty? Thirty? Twenty? Ten?” Abraham looks God in the eye and says, “I believe you are merciful, prove that to me.”

Would you be willing to do that? A pious answer might be, “No! Far be it from me to question God!” Fine, maybe Abraham has a special pass. Have you ever asked it of anyone else in your life though? How many times have we seen someone treated harshly and just shrugged it off? Let the cruel comment or reprisal pass by uncommented upon? When local government, or state, or federal even, target the vulnerable, have we opened our mouths to ask why they think their conduct is acceptable? What line in the sand are you willing to draw before you stand up for people around you?

The prophets have a tradition of standing up to God in the face of judgment. Moses begs that God forgive the Hebrews, Jeremiah pleads for the life of his fellow Judeans, and even Christ speaks of the people persecuting him and their needs, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.”[2] In the face of even well earned judgment, the character of a person who knows God’s heart is to advocate for mercy, not punishment. Divine justice is based in mercy, they are not separate ideas, and so we need to learn to advocate for those around us, for the people trampled down, for those the world has rejected.

This is not, I should say, a satisfying venture. More often than not, power wins out over righteousness. People go to death row whether letters are written to the governor or not. Benefits are cut to those in need, even if the phones of senators ring off the hook. Family members you forgive and give another chance may well betray you once again. Mercy is not a pleasant exercise, but it is a necessary one.

In the next chapter, after the angels save Lot from Sodom (though Lot was far from righteous himself,) we are told Abraham went out and looked toward the city. He saw the five cities, Sodom and Gomorrah at their center, burning in fire. He looked out and saw that, despite his plea for mercy, not even ten righteous people could be found in the city. How many tears did he weep over the city? We are not told. Yet, I believe his heart would ache, that his hope in humanity was larger than their righteousness in reality.

Yet, I do not believe Abraham would mourn the mercy he exerted. Nowhere in scripture is mercy treated as a weakness. If anything, the lack of mercy is what leads to disaster – time and time again. When we take up the life of a Christian, we put aside the ability to seek revenge, and instead take up a cross that bears the blood of a Christ who died for us while we were yet sinners. If God died for us when we were enemies of God, then I think we all have room to grow in terms of our capacity for mercy.

Concerned souls may worry that seeing the world primarily through a lens of mercy, “Lets people off the hook.” Certainly, I think it could be possible to become laissez-faire, but mercy is not the same as eliminating consequence. If someone steals, they should be expected to repay the damages of what they stole. If they kill, they should lose time and freedom as a result. Those are not controversial ideas. The character of mercy, however, acknowledges that punitive measures do not actually serve the good of anyone. You cannot bring back the dead through killing, you cannot repair property through mass incarceration, you cannot heal a broken heart by retribution of any kind. Consequences are one thing, wrath is another entirely.

We are told in scripture that God’s primary disposition is toward mercy. Our old eucharistic prayer puts it nicely saying, “… thou art the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy,” even as we acknowledge our own faults.[3] To be like God, we must learn what it is to be merciful, and we must be willing to stand up for people, even when they cannot repay the favor and sometimes even when they do not really deserve that consideration. Mercy is either poured out on all flesh, or no one at all. We have to live as people who have been redeemed, not as the world would otherwise permit us to. No more, “an eye for an eye,” but now “turn the other cheek.”

Think on the fights you have been willing to have… How many have been for the good of others? Really, for the good of others? I bet the list gets smaller. I bet it shrinks down to very few if we are honest about it. So quick to strike out, we forget what it is to love. So quick to judge, we forget that we ourselves have been freed by the one judge who has the right. So quick to plot revenge, we neglect the weightier parts of the law. God is a God of mercy, and Abraham was willing to ask if that was really true. Will we, the people of God, recipients of that same mercy, apply even an ounce of that energy to question those who do harm to others in our own place and time? – Amen.

[1] Ezekiel 16:49-50

[2] Luke 23:34

[3] The Ritual of the Methodist Church. The Methodist Hymnal. 1935

Sermon 07/20/2025 – Icon of the Father

July 20, 2025July 15, 2025 / John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Colossians 1:15-28

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him, provided that you continue securely established and steadfast in the faith, without shifting from the hope promised by the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven. I, Paul, became a minister of this gospel.

I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church. I became its minister according to God’s commission that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generations but has now been revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. It is he whom we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone in all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

Sermon Text

A few weeks ago, although you all would not know this, I preached a sermon on idolatry.[1] In it I came very hard against visual depictions of God. Despite this, I am not truly an iconoclast. I have art all over my parsonage – some of it is secular and strange and others are sacred and intentional. In my son’s room I have an icon of Mary holding an infant Christ, a reminder that Christ, who was an infant, cares for my infant son. Likewise, I have a picture of Christ triumphant outside my bedroom, a reminder at bedtime that whatever problems I have can wait till the morning, for Christ has overcome the world.

The imagery we use for God is important, lest we misrepresent God in art or media. The truth is, however, that any image of God is unnecessary, because we have already received the greatest and most perfect image of God. Christ is the “image,” (in Greek eikon (εικον,) of the invisible God (that is God the Father.) In seeing Christ, we see God, one is essentially identical to the other. We do not have to speculate about the nature of God if we are able to see who Christ is and to understand what Christ does.

The question we have to ask then is how we can engage with who Christ is. What is necessary to know more of what Christ is like? How may we uncover the fullness of God, and, having done this, find ourselves transformed more fully into the image of God? We need to see how we are able to see God face to face in our own lives and take full advantage of Christ’s proximity to us. This should sound familiar, because this is the idea we started to consider last week. To put it in a single question: How do we fully enjoy the presence of God?

There are three primary, ordinary ways that we encounter God in our day to day life.[2] The first is in the scriptures, the second in prayer, and the third in our celebration of the sacraments – especially communion. When we engage with these means of grace and especially when we enjoy them together, we see God – in glimpses – face to face. I do not think we can rank these in terms of importance, but I would like to look at them each for a moment, and hopefully we can acknowledge that even the most obvious way we meet God only takes on meaning when we engage with it intentionally.

Scripture, the way most of us learn about Christ, seems like it would be the easiest way for us to look at who God is. Reading through the Gospels we can read Christ’s own words, see the things he endured, and the life he lived. Each of these paints a picture of God’s priorities in the world. When Christ stands against unjust authorities, we see that God opposes the abuse of power. When Christ cares for the poor, we know that they are given as an inheritance for us to care for as well. In teachings, in miracles, in work after work, we are shown the character of God through what is revealed to us about Christ in the Gospels.

The thing about scripture, though, is that it is far more expansive than just the Gospels. We have the entirety of the Hebrew Scriptures – the Torah, the Prophets, the Writings of God’s people – all of these reveal God and, almost equally important, how God’s people knew God in times of abundance and in times of trouble. Beyond this, the New Testament is much more than the gospels. The book of Acts tells the story of the Church in its infancy – its first miraculous successes and its first tumultuous failures are recorded across just a few dozen pages. The letters of Paul, Peter, John, and all the others tell how these people from all manner of backgrounds and lives found a way to be the people of God in this world. Scripture, in recording the work of God and of God’s people, is so much more than a list of what Jesus said and did.

We understand scripture, and truly the wider fullness of life, only if we temper it with a good measure of prayer. Everyone close your eyes and answer truthfully with a hand in the air: How often do you pray? Daily? Twice a day? Three or more times a day? Final question: Do you take intentional time to pray, or do you just pray when you have time? Ok, hands down eyes open. I ask all these questions because we are asked to, “Pray without ceasing.” And if you are anything like me you are not anywhere near ceaseless prayer.[3] Prayer is one of the most fruitful ways that we can connect with God, transform our perspective, and shape our heart, but it is often one of our most underutilized.

Christ prayed constantly, disappearing for what seems to be hours at a time just to have uninterrupted access to the Father in prayer. Wesley, in his covenant service, gives the specific injunction for Methodists to, “set apart some time, more than once, to be spent alone before the Lord.” This time needs to be intentional, because without that intentionality we will not develop actual virtue through prayer, not even a habit of prayer. If we only pray when we happen to remember, then we will make prayer, and therefore God, a part of our life only during our spare moments.

In my personal life, I have made steps to set aside intentional time for prayer at least once a day. I take that time to pray for at least five things in my life I am presently concerned with. I also end that time of prayer with a prayer thanking God for the good things in my life and then I sing a hymn. For me, this highly structured format has worked to make me more prayerful in general, and it has changed how I pray outside of my end of day examen. I would encourage you, if you do not have a program of prayer, make one. It will make you better at praying generally.

The final place we ordinarily see God is in the sacraments. We Methodists hold to two sacraments – baptism and the eucharist – and otherwise believe in various “sacramental,” parts of life. In baptism we are greeted by God’s grace which has been with us our entire life as we join the Church universal, in the eucharist we are taken to the moment Christ broke bread with his disciples for the last time, we stand at the foot of the cross, we see the empty tomb, we anticipate his coming again to set all things right. In the eucharist, all of time and space are compressed into a single phrase, “Do this in remembrance of me.”

In the elements of bread and wine, we are transported into the presence of Christ. The first part of our scripture speaks to the various works of God, and in the eucharist we see them laid bare for us: Christ as creator, as incarnate God, as willing sacrifice, as triumphant and risen savior, and as eternal and ever living redeemer. In all ways that we can understand Christ, the eucharist stands out as being representative of everything that Christ is. We are not called to rank the way Christ appears to us, but in this I personally find the most obvious presence of Christ in my life.

How will we know if this all works? How will we know that we have seen Christ and begun to look more like him in our way of being? The answer comes at the end of our scripture for the day. Paul, having seen and fully acknowledged Christ’s true self, Christ’s true nature, becomes a suffering servant like Christ had been before him. Can we take on the mantle of suffering servants? Are we willing to give up our comfort and our abundance for the good of others? I hope we are, because that is the only true response to God’s grace we can take and still be obedient to Christ. The icon of the Father, the true face of God is ready to meet us here and now. Will we follow him to the cross? Or will we just wither away on our own? – Amen.

[1] John Langenstein. “Golden Calves, Bronze Serpents,” 03/23/25 available at: https://teachusto.com/2025/03/23/sermon-03-23-2025-golden-calves-bronze-serpents/

[2] This idea is adapted from Wesley’s Sermon The Means of Grace. Available at: https://wesley.nnu.edu/john-wesley/the-sermons-of-john-wesley-1872-edition/sermon-16-the-means-of-grace/

[3] Thessalonians 5:16

Sermon 07/13/2025 – No Excuses

July 13, 2025July 5, 2025 / John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Deuteronomy 30:8-14

Then you shall again obey the Lord, observing all his commandments that I am commanding you today, and the Lord your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all your undertakings, in the fruit of your body, in the fruit of your livestock, and in the fruit of your soil. For the Lord will again take delight in prospering you, just as he delighted in prospering your ancestors, when you obey the Lord your God by observing his commandments and decrees that are written in this book of the law, because you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

“Surely, this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you, nor is it too far away. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will go up to heaven for us and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?’ No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe.

Sermon Text

Proximity makes a difference. Moving to the Panhandle, I am much closer to family, just knowing that makes a difference. When you can take a step outside and see plants, animals… Nature in all its glory! You feel more alive yourself. On the other end, proximity can cause trouble too. Living by a dump will confer its stink onto you. If you go into a nuclear site or swim in a coal run-off pond, you are going to have your health affected. Everywhere you look, how near a thing is to you will have an effect.

It should not surprise us, then, that our proximity to God makes a difference in our life. While God is present in all places and all times, I think we all experience that truth to different degrees throughout life. Many of us come into God’s presence, in worship or prayer or scripture, and do not really realize the magnitude of what that presence means to us. We do not open ourselves up to know God more, or to be known by God. We shut ourselves up, refuse to take advantage of the moment. It is like seeing a dear friend, and scrolling on our phone the entire meal you share together. We meet something precious, and we let the moment pass.

We are not unique in this trouble. All of Scripture and all of Church history shows people neglecting the reality of God’s presence. At Sinai the thunder and fire on the mountain did not prevent the people from making the Golden Calf. In Canaan, the words of the prophets did not stop the people from abusing one another. Even Christ being near his disciples did not prevent their many mistakes, and of course did not prevent Judas from his betrayal. From the Garden to today, the simple truth is that we are excellent at ignoring God.

Our scripture today is part of Moses’s farewell address to the Israelites. Looking out at the people, he would be remembering all the amazing things they had seen together. The torrenting water shutting behind them as they fled Egypt, the miracle of Mana appearing in the wilderness, the giving of the Law itself. He also would remember their many failings. Their bitter complaints at Meribah, their demand for excess meat, their actual rebellion at Korah… Thousands of highs and lows, all culminating in a final chance to share God’s words to the people.

As Moses works through his preamble to his second giving of the law, he reflects on God’s unique status in the world, on the people’s need to be devoted to God, and seeks to remind the people that they can, with God’s help, meet the high calling of what God has called them to. Moses knows that if the people follow God’s laws, they will flourish – because the laws are not based on obligation, they are based on what is good. If the people care for each other, for the poor, for the foreigner, for the oppressed – their lives and the lives of everyone they meet will be made better. God has given a gift, and they have the chance to do something with it.

There was a time in my life, before I had worked in churches and had a child, when I would read Moses’s words in this passage as judgment. “You all have made me walk up a mountain, time and time again, but I’m done! You want God’s teachings. Too bad! This is what you’ve got, make us of it or get over it!” I am sure he was frustrated after all these years, but I do not believe that this was Moses’s energy in his farewell address to the people. I think it was more similar to a frequent situation I find myself in with my son.

He has a habit of going under tables, chairs, or crawling into the corner of a room and thinking that he is stuck. He has the ability to get out, but he cries waiting for us to come and rescue him. I will sit down on the floor near him, and cheer him on. “You can do this! Just turn around! You aren’t trapped, you’re just confused!” I see that energy in Moses’s words. “You do not need to crawl up that mountain, you are not that far gone! It is so close to you! You’re almost there!”

We are not given any excuses to not follow through on what God has called us to do. We are called by Jesus to pursue perfection, being, “perfect as your father in Heaven is perfect.”[1] Yet, despite how high that calling sounds, it manifests in our life through a fairly simple paradigm. Does our daily work promote the good of our neighbors? Then we have loved our neighbor. Does our daily work bring us closer to God, and honor the holiness to which we are called? Then we have loved our God. Those are not easy, I cannot lie to you and tell you they are, but they are not beyond our power either, not with God’s help at least.

For God’s people at Sinai and beyond, they had the Torah to lead them. For us, Gentiles brought into the faith through Christ, we have Christ himself. The scriptures we read, the continual presence of Christ through the sacrament, the fellowship of the faithful, and the Spirit that dwells within us – all these facilitate our pursuit of God’s will. The Word of God is truly not too far from us, we do not need to chase it down, because the Word came down from the Heaven, dwelt among us, and showed us what can happen when we make use of the grace that is imparted to us.

God continues to come near to us. God is with us now in this room. Will we draw near, open our hearts, and embrace what God can do to transform us? Or will we ignore God and continue life as if nothing is happening around us? I hope we choose to meet God and be transformed by God. To be more peaceful, patient, kind, gentle, and self-controlled – in all things to embody all that God calls us to be. “… the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe.” In prayer, in action, in the deepest part of our being… Let us make use of our God who has drawn near to us. – Amen.

[1] Matthew 5:48

Sermon 07/06/2025 – Multiplying Ministries

July 6, 2025June 17, 2025 / John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go on your way; I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals, and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’ And if a person of peace is there, your peace will rest on that person, but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near…’

“Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”

The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!” He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. Indeed, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

Sermon Text

I am never sure what to do with my first sermon in a new church. Do I show a side of my preaching that’s a little out there, inoculate you folks to mu peculiarities? Maybe go for something to show off my doctrinal chops, a refresher of the Nicene Creed or something that shows that I have a few letters after your name, that could work… I can never really figure out a good way to prepare the first Sunday to be something incredible and self-revelatory, so today my regular old preaching will have to suffice.

I still want to be able to introduce myself and to touch upon my philosophy on ministry. What does it mean to serve God through the work of the Church? What form do we expect our ministries to take? More than that, what do we as participants in that ministry need to model, to become, to embody in our ministry to all the world? Our scripture out of Luke has given us a powerful image of what ministry looks like.

In the Gospel, Christ calls his disciples together and laments that there is so much work to be done and so little people to do it. Looking at the twelve, he sees that they cannot handle the ministry on their own. So, from the midst of Christ’s followers emerge seventy-two other capable ministers. Their instructions are specific: go in, preach the word, heal the sick, make no money and hoard no food, and move on when your time is done. That basic formula – do, subsist, and move on – can be a powerful lesson for ministry. Likewise, when the seventy-two return and are overjoyed that they have power, Christ’s warning for them to not celebrate power but instead their identity as God’s people, is a lesson we likewise should not forget.

Ministries are meant to be relevant, efficient, and transient. Each of these feed one into the other into the other. A relevant ministry will meet the needs of the people around it, when that need is met, it will ensure people wish to support it, and when the need or the support dries up, then a new ministry should begin off of the inertia of the first. Failure to acknowledge this triune relationship is bound to cause trouble. Each has there only pitfalls, and we can explore just a few.

A ministry that is not relevant does not seek to meet the needs of the people around it. Sometimes these kinds of ministries are born out of desires in the congregation, to meet their own needs rather than those of the people they’re meant to reach. Other times, ignorance – intentional or accidental – leads to the creation of ministries that just miss the point. I met a minister who worked on the Pine Ridge Reservation once. He told the nightmarish story of clothing drives churches would hold without talking to his mission center first. The well-meaning churches across the country would gather literal tons of clothes, dump them off at the reservation, and then leave him and his staff to sort, clean, and – given the quality of the donated clothing – dispose of, what had been sent in. The ministry failed to address the people it needed to serve, and so in assuming their needs, there was a yearly cycle of waste.

A ministry that does not work efficiently will also falter. I do not mean strict budgeting or regimented working hours, but general sense for acquiring, using, and sourcing resources. If you have a food pantry, but no way to get food, then you are not going to have a food pantry for long. If you have one person who is passionate about a ministry and they establish no successor, then when they move on for one reason or another, that ministry will probably die out too. Ministry must do as the seventy-two did – meet the people, help them in the midst of trouble, and not take more than it needs or meander between too many disparate ideas. To truly be in ministry to all the world, we have to find a niche and embrace our participation in it.

Finally, a ministry must be transient in the sense that it will have its time to exist, and its time to fade away and make way for something new. Many times, a ministry will linger long past the time it is doing its best work, because the people involved are attached to it. We remember when we had hundreds of people involved with it, and we believe that if we just can keep doing things the same way for a few more years, they will all suddenly appear again. The flow of time, of people, of circumstances, means that sometimes a ministry will run out of people to serve, resources to serve them, or just fizzle out. There is no shame in that, just the life cycle of things.

The final point Jesus makes to the seventy-two is that they should not rejoice that they have been given power from Heaven, and I think that touches upon our general love of ministry. We love to do God’s work, to serve the people of our community, but sometimes love of doing supplants love of people. I am a busy body, for sure, I need to be doing something constantly. This is dangerous and has gotten me in trouble at home. Cleaning the house, I throw away things my wife needs, because in my desire to get things done, I clean off her desk and mix up the trash pile for the important document pile. I sometimes get caught up in doing, so I forget that doing serves a higher purpose.

Let me put it another way. I take an anti-depressant. The anti-depressant helps me to function because it traps Serotonin in my brain for a little longer, helping my body actually use it. I need this pill to lead a normal life, but I do not actually have a particular affection for it. Someday, I will need to up the dosage or change the drug, or maybe take two instead of one… but that’s fine because the pill doesn’t matter, its outcome matters. In the same way, the ministries we form are a treatment for the troubles we see in the world around us. The ministry’s form, its composition, and its lifespan – all are in service to doing the good work of the Church to further the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I cannot fall in love with the ministry itself to the detriment of the good that it does.

As I come into this church, I am certain that there are ministries we have not done in ages. Perhaps, the time has come for them to be revived. Likewise, maybe there are some ministries we cling onto, that need to be retired. More amazingly, and exciting for all of us, I bet there is work in this community that is not being done. Things this church has not tried, that no other church has tried, that could really make a difference. Up and down the streets of Keyser, I am sure there is something that the people need… How can we bring it to them?

I get to learn, hopefully for a good many years, all about this church’s past, about the people of Keyser, and about the ministry we owe to them. The Spirit of the Lord is moving in this world, as they have been from before time began. If we follow that Spirit, we will find life and not only life, but abundant life. We are told in the gospels that the springs of eternal life never run dry.[1] If we believe that, let us find new ways to invite people to the font, to drink deep of God’s grace, and find ourselves restored in the process. – Amen.

[1] John 4:13-14

Sermon 06/29/2025 – A Homeless God

June 29, 2025June 17, 2025 / John Langenstein / Leave a comment

The Gospel Lesson Luke 9:51-62

When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to prepare for his arrival, but they did not receive him because his face was set toward Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But he turned and rebuked them. Then they went on to another village.

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” And Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Sermon Text

The passage we read today captures what I believe is a moment of frustration in the ministry of Jesus. He is coming to the end of his earthly ministry, and the reality of the cross lingers darkly on the horizon. As Christ begins to make his way to Jerusalem, he does so knowing that the end of that path is the end of his life. Regardless of the eventuality of the resurrection, Jesus was going to face death in full, and that is not an easy cup for any person to drink. We are given an account of Jesus being denied entry into a town of Samaritans.

We are told they did not want him in town because he was going to Jerusalem. Why would that stop them from welcoming him? Some of them may have seen his journey there for his final Passover as a betrayal. He had led a long ministry of inclusion of the Samaritans, and now he was going to break bread with their oppressors. Maybe a more sympathetic perspective was in their mind, perhaps they knew Jesus was going to his death and they thought they could stop him by not offering a place to stay. Perhaps, most simply, they just did not like him.

Regardless, we see the disciples react to the news of their rejection angrily. They call for Jesus to send fire down from heaven to destroy the town. Jesus does not feed into their anger, but quickly shuts it down. The image the scripture draws a powerful image of Jesus’s frustration with his disciples. It specifically says he turns, in other words this is a discussion being had as they make their way down the highways of Judea. Christ, literally ahead of the offending disciples, spins around and stops their march to his own death. Luke does not record the words of his rebuke, but it should not be hard to imagine what Christ might say.

“What is wrong with you?!” He booms, “When have when been in the business of carpet bombing cities? When have you ever seen me, mistreated as I am, ever raise my hand to strike someone, let alone to kill?!” Christ, who has just told his disciples that they must take up their cross and follow him, is realizing that his entire ministry with his closest companions has not changed them, not fully, not yet. They are still clinging onto things that keep them from knowing the fullness of who Christ is.

The next few interactions Christ has with people that cross his path seem to reflect the general state of his ministry. People keep coming to him, but they do not know what they are signing up for. “I will follow you wherever you go!” is met with Christ’s harsh truth, “Unless you want to be homeless, then this is not the life for you.” When he meets someone who he sees is ready to join his ministry, he is told that he must first return to his family for his father’s burial. “The people you leave have no hope, and so they should be left to attend to the funeral alone. You have the duty, having seen the Kingdom of Heaven, to bring people to life!” Finally, someone sentimentally asks to be able to go home and tell their family goodbye, Christ responds, “If you have your doubts, then this cannot be the path you walk.”

I do not think that Christ was pushed over the limit, was speaking an unfiltered perspective. I am not implying Christ was flying off the handle as he walked the streets of Judea, but I do think that Christ’s hardest teachings were intentionally placed next to each other like this. We are meant to see Christ looking us in the face, and scolding us for our own failings, as much as we are supposed to hear the specific instructions he gave to specific people centuries ago.

Not every message from Christ was one of hope, at least not on the surface. When people realized what God had to offer, it was a serious matter if they turned their back on it. When his disciples desired to kill, rather than accept that they had signed up to die the moment they joined him – that was a serious sin. When he called someone to follow him, and they wanted to linger in town another week, Christ knew they were seeking an escape. When someone asked to go home before they followed him, he knew they did not truly wish to follow him at all, not without comfort at least.

In our own life, we will not often find an opportunity to do ministry like what Christ would offer. You are not present with Christ in the limited time he walked the earth if you serve Christ now. However, you are still bound to devote yourself to the work you agree to take on. When I took my vows to pursue the life of a minister, I gave up many rights and freedoms because of it. When a person joins the Church, they renounce evil and injustice and sin and all worldly inclinations. To follow Christ is to take up our cross, to serve our God without ceasing, to understand that we are made free only in joyful obedience to the one who calls us.

There is a time for words of consolation, for us to be reminded that God is a God of rest and a God who asks us to care for those close to us. However, that must be tempered with the harsh reality of the ministry we are called to. Christ was homeless, how uncomfortable am I willing to be? Christ suffered alone, am I willing to be lonely sometimes if it means spreading the Kingdom? Christ never moved from his path to his destiny, except to save others from themselves, how devoted are we to finishing what we start?

In the life of faith, I think that daily examen is helpful, not only to foster growth, but to acknowledge our sticking points. What have we been unwilling to give up for the good of the Kingdom, and ultimately for our own good.

Now, the word of caution here is that God does not ask us to give up our family or our other responsibilities. “But the man who was burying his father! And the one who was not allowed to go home!” In one case the father was dead and in the other the man was not told he could never return home, just that he needed to leave town now. More than that, Christ specifically forbids us from using God as an excuse to abandon our familial responsibilities.[1] When I speak of giving up for God, I mean giving up the comfortable parts of life, not just the ones that free up time for ministry. Invariably, those who give up on their family to pursue “ministry,” do so because they think ministry is easier than family life, and they would rather do one as a free person than the other with limitation.

What we need to do, in examining our life and the way we live it, is not to look for excuses or easy ways out. We have to look into the face of Christ, to pray earnestly, and acknowledge that the God we worship is a homeless God. Not once on earth did Christ seek to settle, as soon as he could go on the road he did, and that path led him straight to his death. If we worship a God who gave up all comfort for the good of the people who misunderstood, hated, and ultimately killed him, what can we do to even partially account for the ways we worship our own interests in place of him? If I must stand before Christ and give a full account of my life someday, I hope it is not of the many missed opportunities I had to serve Christ, but that were too inconvenient for my life to pursue.

I do not write these words to criticize any one of their readers. I am guilty of ever crime I have written of within this text. The knowledge of that guilt compels me to ask others to name it too. We do not have to be trapped in our own sin, to be lost in complacency which we call “comfort,” or “life as it is.” We can accept the cross Christ offers us, to give up our desire for vengeance and comfort and a status quo that ultimately benefits us. Let us love radically, sacrificially, and ultimately in a way that resembles the God we serve. – Amen.

[1] Mark 7: 9-13

Sermon 06/22/2025 – An End to Difference

June 22, 2025June 17, 2025 / John Langenstein / Leave a comment

The Epistle Lesson Galatians 3:23-29

Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be reckoned as righteous by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

Sermon Text

Here we are, at the end of this long road. It has been four short years, and yet in those years we have achieved much. The Spirit of the Lord is at work, and the Spirit of the Lord will not be quenched. For my final message, I wanted to look at Galatians and see just what God asks of us in being born again in Christ. Firstly, though, I wanted to go back to the beginning, to the first message I shared with you all. On July 4^th, 2021, I concluded my sermon like this:

“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.”

For you Temple folks, our first message together ended like this:

“This is the day that the Lord has made, and we will rejoice and be glad in it. Today, and always, Methodists are one people, and we will show the world what power that unity can bring.”

Service, Unity, and the particular Methodist configuration of a Charge – these ideals are foundational to the work of the Church. Each of them helps us to live out the love that Christ has given us, called us to embody, and sent us out into the world to become in every way we possibly can. We are one people, we are sent to love and care for all people, and we are given a story to tell the nations that can change everything for everyone.

We talked recently about the way in which the Pentecost removed barriers of separation between the people of the world, but ultimately the Pentecost was a single moment in history. Though the Spirit continues to work within us, the particular miracle of glossolalia which allowed the disciples to preach to people of all nations is not a common manifestation of the Spirit’s power. Something deeper than miraculous translation has to shape how we as Christians live out our calling to be one people. We have to become a family.

Every person who calls upon the name of Christ is no longer primarily identified by their circumstances or background, but by God’s parenthood over them. Through Christ’s work we have been made into children of God, siblings therefore of Christ. The Spirit has taken hold of all who believe, transforming people from all times and places into one people, Christians are siblings in the same divine family. This truth should transform every aspect of our lives, because like all aspects of the Gospel it demands we see things differently than we do now.

Paul was a radical about his perspective on Jewish and Gentile relations of the early church. Though he was an observant Jew, and Acts tells us he maintained his devotion to Judaism his whole life, he was willing to allow far more latitude than others did. While saying his Judaism was, “an advantage,” he also saw it as a secondary status to his identity as a follower of Christ.[1] Likewise, he saw little issue with former pagans maintaining some of their practices, as long as they did not cause other people to mistake them for pagans.[2] This contrasted the decisions of the Early Church in various circumstances, who took more moderate stances on some of these issues.

Yet, most radical of all was Paul’s assertion that every aspect of a person was secondary to their faith. “Man or woman? Who cares, they are a Christian. Jew or Gentile? Who cares, they are Christian. Slave or free? Who cares, they are a Christian.” We could augment this in our daily life in a thousand different scenarios, but the truth remains the same. For the Christian, looking at our siblings by their secondary characteristics should be treated for the ridiculous thing it is. We are all one in the faith, all united as one family, why do these other features matter?

The world, of course, does regard people by their race, their language, their background. Indeed, the Church is not forbidden from celebrating differences in our midst either. I can tell you that the Thai Baptists I knew were very different form the African Methodists or the Black Baptists, but all were Christian. Primarily and fundamentally, they were people of God. I could celebrate the fact each brought something unique to the family of God, while not ranking them based on which I found most palatable to my sensibilities. All were equal in dignity before God, and all of them had something unique to offer to the Kingdom.

Acknowledging that the Church, in all its diversity, is still one people united in God’s family naturally changes our perspective of other people too. It should not shock you, but the truth that unites all of us as Christians is freely offered to everyone. Therefore, all people can have a place at the table of grace, and therefore we are called not to regard anyone as more significant than anyone else. James puts it well, saying, “My brothers and sisters, do not claim the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ of glory while showing partiality.” In his context, James was talking about treating rich, respectable people, as more important than the poor. In our own life though, we show favoritism is so many ways.[3]

We are such a bisected culture, dividing over everything we possibly can. We cannot live in such a way, especially not in the Church. Yet, we are as factious as anyone. I saw at General Conference how people lied and ranted and railed to try and tear down the church, and I came home to people trying to do the same thing in Clarksburg! Differences of opinion on implementation of policy is natural and good, but what we try to do in our infighting is fundamentally wrong. Whispers convey more questions and rumors than frank and up front conversation brings truth. Hatred brews in the judgmental eyes we cast across sanctuaries and across aisles – literal and political.

The future of the Church must seek to end hierarchy outside of administrative necessity and it must acknowledge diversity as real, present, and necessary. We as a Church have members who are gay, who are straight, who are trans, and who are cis. Why not see in that the work of God bringing us together to something more? We have people of various political leanings. Why be silent on our diverse opinions, when we could in love work for a better future for all, through honest discussions with one another? Everyone in this pavilion, everyone who will receive this in a letter, who will read it online, all are called by the same Spirit – God has called us all to be one family together. I think we should embrace that family identity all the more, to see no more difference between ourselves, and to in all things, prioritize the divine image within one another, above and beyond any artificial distinction of merit or worth we have invented.

Christ has called for an end to difference, not that we all become uniform, but that we all become one. I hope that these churches will continue to embody a future focused upon that idea. Put your arms out, embrace your neighbors, and find that all of them have something deep inside – the image of God imprinted upon their hearts. Let the Spirit flow from you to them, uniting you, strengthening you, and ultimately saving us all. Let today, the end of one era of the church, mark the birth of a wider, more lovely one. Let today be the day we commit ourselves to greater love, to greater service, to be the family of God in every way we can. – Amen.

[1] Romans 3

[2] 1 Corinthians 8

[3] James 2:1-13

Sermon 06/15/2025 – The Work of the Trinity

June 15, 2025June 9, 2025 / John Langenstein / Leave a comment

The Epistle Lesson Romans 5:1-5

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Sermon Text

We are blessed as Christians to profess that Christ is our king, our God, and our ruler in every aspect of life. We are blessed as well to have a heavenly Father, somebody who watches after us in every aspect of life, to make sure that we as people bound by our limited human form still know the parental goodness of something that is greater than ourselves. Likewise though we are but physical bodies, we are allowed, through the visitation of God’s Spirit, to be blessed with a spiritual nature as well so our worldly nature. Slowly but surely, every aspect of ourselves is transformed from fleshly thoughts and fleshly nature to a spiritual nature binding together our physical form and our spiritual.

As Christians, we can proclaim this faith because we believe in the Holy Trinity. We profess that God is three persons and that those three persons somehow are one united being whom we call God. Though there are complicated formulas to explain this – things that talk about light, and the source of light, and the warmth of light; or else the roots of a tree, the tree itself, and its branches – the essential nature of the Trinity is that it is mysterious. We do not exactly know how God exists in three persons and yet is one God, but we know that it is true. We are blessed as God’s children to be in on this secret and to enjoy the benefits that come from it.

As I have already said in my introduction, we experience three unique ways in which God loves the creation. Lately, it has been put forward that God acts as the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of all things, with each person of the Trinity somehow taking on one of these aspects. However, we are misguided if we think that each person of the Trinity only has one job. While it is true that the Spirit has unique work, as does the Father, as does the Son in God’s economy of grace, God only acts in the world as a united force. More than that, God cannot be limited in any way. God is free because God is freedom.

The Trinity then is not something by which we define God. We do not say God is three persons and therefore we know exactly how God works and in what exact ways God does this and to whom God is willing to serve. Instead, what we are given is the simple truth that God, in this singular multiplicity, loves us in every way possible. through every means possible, as the three persons of God’s singular self. Are we all thoroughly lost in the weeds? Are we ready for a bit more of a concrete discussion of what God’s work?

In the time before Christ came into the world, God’s people only knew of God as God the Father. While it is true that the Spirit was the one mediating discussions between God and God’s people, there was no talk of God as multiple persons, only as God being a single person. When we hear in the Shema, “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God! The Lord is one!” That is not any sort of complicated statement about the Trinity, that is simply the view of Moses as he spoke to his people. Even the one closest to God, Moses, the giver of the law, did not fully understand the triune nature of God.

It was only through the revelation of Christ’s incarnation that we understand that there are in fact three persons of God. Christ the eternal Word of God preexisted everything and through him all things were made, (we talked about this just a few weeks ago.) The Spirit of God speaking through and to the prophets was alongside God and God’s people through every moment of eternity. God the Father, a spiritual person somehow overseeing and yet coequal with these other two persons, all together are called “God.”

As we read our scripture today, we see a Trinitarian argument about what it means to be saved. Paul tells us that, because Christ came and lived and died and rose again, we are now no longer enemies of God, but at peace with God. All those sins that we had committed against God’s divine majesty every aggressive impulse we had against each other no longer has to be the thing that defines us. Now we are granted this new status under Christ we can become children of God and as children of God we are able to develop a new way of understanding life. The hardships that we face no longer have to be overwhelming because God who suffered alongside us has proven that we can somehow find in suffering a way to grow forward. We know that even those parts of suffering that are irredeemable at least have God’s solidarity alongside us through the person of Christ to comfort us in the midst of hardship.

Through this understanding of the world, we can develop virtue in a way that we would not be able to otherwise. Rather than being overwhelmed by a world that is broken we are instead able to accept the broken parts of it as a consequence of the world as it is and grow our own souls and our own communities to be closer into alignment with the world as it should be. This transformative approach to the trouble of the world allows us to see God doing something new even in the midst of a world that has been broken from the very beginning. When we acknowledge that the broken state of the world is a consequence of sin the trouble that we face in that world allows us to see why it is necessary to be more holy and to understand that holiness ultimately comes from helping others in the midst of this broken world.

The final thing that Paul speaks of in this part of the epistle is about how we are able to do all of this because we receive love through God’s spirit pouring that into us. It is hard to overstate how much of the work of the church comes down to love. It is a word that is cheapened in our own culture something that we use to describe any great affection for things as minimal as a certain kind of hot dog to as incredible as the love between family members friends and of course God for us. Scripture also struggles to capture this using different words in different contexts to give slightly different flavors to the kind of love that we experience. Ultimately love cannot be summarized in a singular word, but it must be experienced and the many different colors that it gives to the world around it.

Eager to understand the work of God whether we put it in trinitarian terms or just speak of God in terms of the singular and understand that there is something a bit more complex to it if we really sit down and think about it. If we are trying to understand how God works in the world we do so from the basis of a being that has loved since before anything existed. The father has always loved the son has always loved the spirit and so on and so forth in the infinite combination of their trinitarian relationship. When the creation was made God did so out of love and crowned that creation with the ultimate object of God’s affection human beings. To understand the work of God we must understand love.

This coming Saturday I will stand with a family as they join another family and we will proclaim the importance of love as something that does not envy or boast as something that is patient and kind that does not keep record of wrong of something that is infinite and that is expressed best and the simple sacrifice of oneself for another. Oftentimes love is seen as most profound in marriage or else and the love between a parent and a child the truth is though that the most profound love there is, is always between God and us. All other loves draw inspiration from God’s love for us, and all other loves are secondary to it. If you want to understand the work of the Trinity you must first understand love and there is no greater love than the love that God showed us in Christ presence upon this world dying for us while we were yet sinners and then the visitation of the spirit which is continually with us gifted to us to sanctify us and connect us to God and to one another. As is always the case it all comes back to love and today I ask you people of God to recover your first love to recommit yourself to God in every way that you can so that in all aspects of life you may see the benefits that come from knowing God the father the son and the Holy Spirit and that God’s continual love for you.

Teach us to Number our Days

A Walk through the Lectionary

Author: John Langenstein

Sermon 08/17/2025 – Craving Falsehood

Sermon 08/10/2025 – That Better Country

Sermon 08/03/2025 – Real Exhaustion

Sermon 07/27/2025 – Fight for Mercy

Sermon 07/20/2025 – Icon of the Father

Sermon 07/13/2025 – No Excuses

Sermon 07/06/2025 – Multiplying Ministries

Sermon 06/29/2025 – A Homeless God

Sermon 06/22/2025 – An End to Difference

Sermon 06/15/2025 – The Work of the Trinity