2025 – Consequence is Coming

September 21, 2025September 15, 2025 / John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Amos 8:4-14

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sermon Text

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sermon 09/14/2025 – A Mind Toward Mercy

September 14, 2025September 13, 2025 / John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Exodus 32:7-14

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

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

Sermon Text

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[2] 1 Corinthians 13:12

Sermon 09/07/2025 – Two Paths

September 7, 2025October 20, 2025 / John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Deuteronomy 30:15-20

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

Sermon Text

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[1] Matthew 7:14

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

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

August 24, 2025August 17, 2025 / John Langenstein / 1 Comment

Hebrews 12:18-29

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

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

Sermon Text

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[2] All data provided through MissionInsite.

Sermon 08/17/2025 – 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

Teach us to Number our Days

A Walk through the Lectionary

2025

Sermon 09/14/2025 – A Mind Toward Mercy

Sermon 09/07/2025 – Two Paths

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

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