2025

Sermon 02/09/2025 – Ensnare One Another

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

The Gospel Lesson                                                            Luke 5:1-11

Once while Jesus was standing beside the Lake of Gennesaret and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gotten out of them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat.

When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to burst. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink.

But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’s knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” For he and all who were with him were astounded at the catch of fish that they had taken, and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.

Sermon Text

What is it that lets people really meet Jesus? Its such a simple question, but I think it is one we struggle to answer. The communities that we serve are all around us – there are people who know about Jesus everywhere, maybe even people who once knew Jesus well – but I think we are all very aware that when it comes to an active and involved relationship with Jesus, people are really lacking a true connection with Christ. We live in a part of the world where most everyone will tell you they’re “Christian,” but few people actually could tell you what that faith actually does for them. Maybe it makes them feel a bit better about the world around them, but does it change the world around them? I’m not so sure.

I think that one of the largest problems is that, in the atmosphere of nominal Christianity, the Church took the perspective that it was inevitable. “Everyone goes to a church, if not now they will when they settle down and start a family, they’ll find their way eventually!” And yet, that just is not the case anymore. Even people who say they are Christian just do not see Church as something essential to their faith, they have no interest in joining a congregation, in finding a community, in taking on the mutual responsibility that comes with a community of faith, in knowing Jesus Christ through the body of Christ that is the Church.

The reason, people of God, is not a fault in the world around us. We are always ready to point the finger at young people or at a secular society or at any number of other external factors, but we have to make something clear. Christ never tells the disciples, “The workers are many but the harvest is really too difficult to take care of, so don’t feel too bad if things aren’t working out.” No, Jesus says, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.”[1] The Church is responsible for its own vitality and its own willingness to follow Christ and serve the world.

In our scripture today we see Jesus calling some of his first disciples. The disciples were out fishing, they had caught nothing all night, and Jesus told them that if they went out now, they would find their nets full. The disciples doubted, but the second that the net touched the water it began to fill, and fill, and fill. It was a miracle! But it also should no surprise anyone who knows what God typically is up to. There is a pattern we are given in Simon’s willingness to listen to Jesus, and if we follow that model we are going to see miracles in our own life.

Jesus came out and was preaching, and the people wanted to hear what Jesus had to offer. The crowd was pushing too much though, and Jesus needed a place he could stand where everyone could see him and where he could stand without being swarmed. Simon listened and gave him his boat as a pulpit. It was after this that Jesus sends him out to the waters to catch more fish, and after that that he tells Peter his job will be to catch people from now on.

The issue that initiates this episode is that people want to see Jesus. People still want to see Jesus, believe it or not. Christ is the center of everything – the source of all creation and the end to which every piece of creation aspires to. People want to hear Jesus, to know Jesus, to feel the redemption and the revivification that comes from Jesus. The Church needs to be a place that people can heart Jesus. More than that, we need to be a people that are willing to put up our anchor and move to make Jesus easier for people to hear.

We have wonderful outreach programs in this church, but everything we do is still attractional. We want people to come to us, but they’re not looking for us – they’re looking for Jesus! Simon Peter saw that people were looking for Jesus and gave his boat, he moved away from the work he was busy with, to meet the needs of what Jesus wanted to do to reach the people. What are we doing to break away from this building? Have we really chased any of the inroads we have into the community? We’ve got so many people around us that are never going to come into this building, so what are we doing to go out to them?

The vision of what can happen when we take the step away from our usual busywork is found in Jesus’s miracle in those fishing nets. So many people flood the nets that there isn’t enough room in one boat to fill them, multiple boats are needed to hold them. A ministry that goes out into the world, you see, may not bring people into a relationship with the congregation that first reaches out to them, but a good ministry will make people seek Jesus wherever they can get him, and a good ministry is humble enough to acknowledge that may be a congregation other than the one we ourselves come from. What matters, is not that the boat that cast the net receives the catch, it matter that the catch is caught at all.

Now, some people may rightly say to me, “Pastor John, I love our church, but you’re putting a lot of emphasis on the Church here. Faith in Christ is all that is sufficient for salvation, so why the emphasis on bringing people into a church community?” Thank you, theoretical worried congregation member. You’re right that faith is, “the one thing needful,” and you’re right! Membership and participation in a Church do not immediately equal a vibrant and engaged Christian life… However, I have seldom met someone who is thriving in their faith and does not have a faith community to support them.

We’re an individualistic society. We do not want anyone telling us what to do. We do not want to share our things with other people unless we have a good reasons. We’re content to build a bubble all around us and only ever work with the people we want to in the ways we want to when we want to. That is not, however, the society that Jesus is calling us to be a part of. When Jesus opens the door for us and invites us to participate in the Kingdom of Heaven, it is not something we do on our own terms or on our own time. When Jesus comes to the lakeshore, we have a boat to offer and we either let Jesus get in or we don’t.

A Church that follows Jesus is not worried about attendance on Sundays, but on a community of people who are connected and supporting each other. A community that reaches out to each other to make sure everyone has what they need, that they’re living the life Christ called them to live – not only in terms of holiness and service to one another – but in terms of Joy. A vibrant church is able to hold each other as we cry and lift each other up as we celebrate. When I say that people need the Church, I am also saying that the Church needs to act like the Church – not just on Sundays and especially not just in this room.

Christ calls us to be “fishers of men,” “catchers of people.” The word used here can also mean “ensnare,” and I think I like that word better. I like it because, if we are really showing people what Jesus is doing, what a Church that is living out the life Jesus called them to is doing, then they should not be able to get us out of their head. We should be a community everyone wants to be a part of, pushing against the lakeshore to see more of what they can see of Jesus through us. Whether that be on a Sunday morning, a Saturday evening, or at some other hereto unplanned congregational activity does not matter. However, we need to be people who are willing to show the world Jesus, and trust that Jesus is enough.

We need to plan for a church that goes beyond these walls more and more, and we need to be serious about sharing the hope we have. People want Jesus, why do we keep holding him in this room where no one can see him? We need to push our boat from the shore, and we need to see what happens when we let people see what God can really do. – Amen

[1] Matthew 9:37

Sermon 02/02/2025 – A Light to the World

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

The Gospel Lesson                                                                Luke 2:22-40

When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord”), and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.”

Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what was customary under the law, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying,

“Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.”

And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul, too.”

There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. At that moment she came and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.

When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom, and the favor of God was upon him.

Sermon Text

The world needs light. The world needs hope. The world needs something to testify to the fact that there is more than sadness at the end of the long road of life. Amidst hardships, amidst struggle, amidst the endless complications we face – there must be something that can give direction to the scattered particles of life. To paraphrase a favorite song of mine, “this page of strange gibberish [must] find a final punctuation mark.”[1]

Trouble is not unique to any age or any people, but shared across time and space. While we have been born into one of the most prosperous eras of history, at least relative to all other times, we are still faced with trouble. There’s the sorts of trouble that are seemingly universal and ever evolving: the increasing cost of living that shows no sign of slowing will continue to put pressure on each and every one of us, the weather will be increasingly unpredictable, global tensions show no sign of simplifying in our lifetime. Then there is the sort of trouble that never changes, but always takes on new forms for the people who face it – the threat of hunger and disease, the specter of conflict, and the very real and existential threats to life that come as a consequence of simply living.

The broken world in which we live, further orchestrated to be crueler by human sin, is the same world Christ was born into – simply in a different era of living out its troubles. Christ, who was born fully into humanity was also born fully into creation – a universe that is always changing, but essentially constant. The Hope of Christ is therefore unchanging, available to everyone in all ages equally – something that was clear to those with eyes to see from the moment he entered the world.

In our scripture today, Jesus is taken to the Temple by Mary and Joseph. Mary is going to pay the price given in the Torah that a woman must pay after giving birth, Joseph is going to pay the five shekels (as best I can calculate, equivalent to half of a day’s wages for a carpenter,) required of a first-born son.[2] The two are going to do “everything required by the law of the Lord,” showing their obedience to God. However, they are gifted something far greater than the trifling amount of money they paid. They receive Hope in the form of two prophecies, given by two lay people in the Temple.

One of the things left out of the story is who was holding Baby Jesus in the midst of these prophecies. Women could not enter the inner court where Joseph would pay the redemption price, and likewise Joseph would not be likely to linger in the Court of Women. I believe that the first encounter with Simeon the two parents were together and the second encounter with Anna, Mary was alone. What does this matter to the story? Very little ultimately, but as we shall see, Anna’s words are not recorded while Simeon’s are. I believe whatever praise of God which Anna gave was something private, secret to her and Mary, something that was shared between two women in the outer courts of the Temple long ago.

The one prayer we do hear is from the mouth of Simeon, a prophet not by birth but by the gift of God’s Spirit. He knew that he would live long enough to see God deliver the world from its present troubles, but he did not know what that deliverance would look like. I’m sure he pictured God redeeming Israel the way many others did at the time. A king would appear and destroy their enemies, the nation as a political entity would be revived, a new era would break out of greatness among God’s people. Whatever his vision was, in the reality of the infant Christ he saw something grander. Taking the infant in his arms, snatching him from his parents, the Spirit showed him just what Christ was going to do.

Firstly, he gave peace to the old man – he could now after years spent worshipping God in the Temple. Secondly, the salvation which Jesus was to bring into the world was going to go far beyond God’s people in Judah. Jesus was a light to the nations, a hope for all people, and though he was “prepared,” in Judah, he was meant for the whole world. Salvation, complete and total redemption of creation, would be a light of redemption to the world, it would show God’s presence to the people of Judah, this child would change everything.

With what I have to imagine was a heavy heart, Simeon also saw the hardships the child was to face. Disease, death, poverty – common troubles faced by all people – yet still greater hardships than anyone could imagine. Death on a cross, a redemptive sacrifice that was necessary for life to conquer darkness. The child he now held in his arms, would face the most incredible pain… In giving the child back to his mother, his words must have been frightening, “a sword will pierce your soul too…” Mary would know loss that no one should have to face, the loss of a child and the constant burden of the falsehoods spoken about him.

This child, our savior, is a hope we still bring into the world. If we are willing to make Christ’s presence among us known, we have to do as Simeon did and see Christ as Christ truly is. The sight of Christ made Simeon see a salvation beyond himself, a salvation that went beyond Israel to all nations. The sight of Christ made Simeon see a suffering messiah rather than a triumphant King. Simeon met Christ and changed his view of God, and in seeing God as God truly was, found hope.

We cannot replace Christ’s image with false images of our savior. We cannot diminish the universal nature of Christ’s offer of salvation, creating any distinction that would force us to separate ourselves from the essential truth revealed in Paul’s writings, “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.”[3] We build up walls to separate ourselves, portioning salvation and pouring it as we see fit. Christ has called for something far greater – for grace to be poured out again and again, on all people, as many as would receive it.

The table that is set before us is clothed simply, but the moment we join together in Holy Communion, it will be the most important piece of furniture in this room. On it, bread and juice will become the Body and Blood of Christ. We who take it will receive grace to empower us, encounter our God directly. We like Simeon will take Christ into our arms, in passing the peace of Christ to one another we will look the image of God in the face again and again… Will we allow ourselves to be changed by that? To offer hope to the world after having received it ourselves? That is the choice we must make today. Christ is among us, let us act and proclaim as if we believe that to be true. – Amen.

[1] “Let’s Get this Over With” track 1 on They Might Be Giants, I Like Fun, Idlewild, 2018.

[2] There’s several problems with my calculation. Firstly, I’m using the Tyrian shekel as my basis which may or may not be the same measurement. Secondly, I’m using the average weight of a silver denarii to compare to a shekel. Thirdly, I’m using the income of a carpenter taken from the Edict of Diocletian to determine the daily salary of someone like Joseph. Joseph was probably paid by job, and so probably made much less than this. This approximation of income is, therefore, a conjecture that tries to tie the ancient numbers and measurements to modern concepts – like spending half a day’s pay.

[3] Galatians 3: 27-28

Sermon 01/19/2025 – Endocrine Dreams

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Because of continued cold weather, this is actually the lection for next Sunday 01/26/2025, but for various reasons it needed to be moved to today.

1 Corinthians 12:12-31a

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot would say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear would say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members yet one body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect, whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then deeds of power, then gifts of healing, forms of assistance, forms of leadership, various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work powerful deeds? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? But strive for the greater gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.

Sermon Text

            There are a lot of different kinds of people in the world. Given the size of the globe, I don’t think we can be overly surprised about that. People speak different languages, come from different parts of the world, and practice cultures that are sometimes strikingly different from one another. Even in a single country, there are huge differences in the way people speak in one place as opposed to another – how they celebrate holidays and mark the year. Here in West (by God,) Virginia, we have plenty of our own practices that separate us from the rest of the United States.

            Our reverence for the Pepperoni Roll stands out, of course, but it is more than just the way we stuff bread. West Virginia has more folk tales than most places. I don’t just mean the famous cryptids the world has recently fallen in love with – Moth Man and the Flatwoods Monster and the like – I mean family Lore that is passed down generation to generation. Prayer practices that are passed down in families by a strict order of succession alongside tales that remind us there is still mystery in this world. My Great Uncle, I know, saw a black panther on the hills around his farm. Personal stories, recipes, traditions, all these things make this patch of land, just a little different from other parts of the United States.

            Even within the culture of our state, there are demarcations. You have people who move in, bringing their own traditions that mix and match and contrast with our own. You have people who left for a while and then came back, likewise syncretizing their experiences into a gestalt that shifts the larger culture, enforces it, and challenges it. People of different races and incomes and experiences come together and are not subsumed into one another, but instead form a contrast with one another that brings about something even more beautiful. In the presence of difference, the virtues of each person and way of life shine.

For Paul, a Roman citizen, a Greek Speaking Jew, and now Apostle of the Risen Lord Jesus Christ, he sat upon the borderline of many different traditions and cultures. His parents wanted him to embrace his Jewishness, so they sent him off to Jerusalem where he changed his name to Saul and became a zealous defender of Judean faith practices. His parents had, however, understood the best way to protect their family was to become Roman Citizens, a practice that gave them privileges their neighbors would not have. Jesus, of course, changed everything. Paul was poised to persecute the Church, but Jesus called him to embrace his roots – to reclaim his Hellenist background – and to become an apostle to the Gentiles, bringing still more diversity into the body of Christ. Paul stood at the center of many cultures, and to many cultures he was sent.

Today, the Church does not reflect much diversity at all. While globally we can say people of all nations, languages, and cultures are in the Body of Christ, the local level just does not reflect that. The most segregated this country is in the modern era is on Sunday mornings – when black folk go to black churches and white folks to white church, Thai Baptists go to Thai Baptist Churches and the Orthodox Church separates out into dozens of ethno-religious offshoots. Sunday morning the body of Christ self-segregates and it shows something awful about us.

Likewise, we are separated by our politics and by our status. Most churches will have memberships of relatively similar incomes – maybe a few people with much more or much less – but almost always the church finds a median income and that is where most people will find themselves. The Church in particular is meant to be a shelter for those who society rejects – and few people are rejected like the poor – and yet few churches make room for poverty in their membership. The argument was not uncommon until recently, “who needs those people… Not like they can tithe.”

Paul’s vision of the Church has broken apart, and it is not entirely our fault. We are the inheritors of decisions made hundreds of years ago in some cases. However, we are responsible for the path we chart ahead of us. How do we embrace a future that is more expansive of the entire body of Christ? How is it that we go against the river of history rushing behind us and telling people they must find a path separate from one another? Where in a rapidly advancing culture of the individual, do we find an answer to all this mess? The answer, I believe, is in the humble thyroid.

Yes, the thyroid, but more especially the endocrine system on a large level. You see, of all the body parts there are, none are more integral than these glands placed throughout the body. They regulate our appetite, our weight, our development in our childhood, and most every other aspect of daily life. Yet, at the same time, these body parts are something you don’t usually think about. Not unless something goes horrible wrong with one of them. Unlike the eyes and the ears and the mouth, body parts we see everyday and esteem as important, these are silent participants in our wellbeing – they are rarely seen and yet always needed.

There has been a trend in all the history of the Church for people to find positions that guarantee they will be seen in what they do. People will proudly point to what they paid out of pocket for in a sanctuary. Windows and altar settings, furniture and classrooms. They will speak of how under their leadership so many people found their way into the Kingdom of Heaven, how such work was possible because they achieved it. They will speak to the wonders of their people and the work that they did, of the continued excellence of their tradition and of their lineage. And the narrative becomes so grand, that you would think they were the ones who saved our souls.

Among the many different problems in the Church is the tendency to seek to be better than other people. We are not concerned with simply doing what we do as well as we can, we want to win. Therefore, denominations have pushed out people they do not see as worthy of their work. The poor are not given privilege, and so do not feel at home in our sanctuaries. Racial minorities feel that they are regarded as different, and so self-segregate where they can feel like they belong. We fund the ministries we have taken part in and that we like best, but refuse to acknowledge the good work others do. We cut and cut at the body of Christ, until only the parts that look and sound and act like us remain.

Imagine if the human body tried to exist that way. Imagine if the noble pancreas dreamed of a day it was supreme. It removed itself from the eyes, the ears, the spleen, and the intestines. It moved from the constraints of the human stomach and went on to exist on its own… It would perish in a second. No blood to feed it, not eyes to guide it to the sugars it needs to have purpose and feed its work… It would fade away in an instant. Yet, in the midst of its final Endocrine Dreams, I’m sure it would think to itself, “How dare all those other body parts do this to me…”

Bizarre metaphors aside, I want us to do what Paul asks of the Corinthians here. Rather than being obsessed with getting things done our way, rather than privileging our own culture and traditions above those of others, let us resolve to do what we do well, the best we can do it. We’re a church that has many gifted people in it. Lean into that gift and do it to the best of your ability. Still though, there is a more excellent way for us all that we all can enjoy. It shouldn’t surprise you to know, 1 Corinthians 12 leads us into 1 Corinthians 13. The way we all must grow and the thing we all must perfect is and always will be love – the fruits of the Spirit living themselves out in our care for one another. If we perfect love, if we accept difference as strength and lean into our gifts together – then we will truly be the Body of Christ, redeemed by his blood. – Amen.

Sermon 12/12/2025 – All that God Requires

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

The Gospel Lesson                                                            Matthew 3:13-17

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw God’s Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from the heavens said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

Sermon Text

Today we gather together to celebrate Christ’s Baptism in the River Jordan. Though we sometimes replace this celebration with an observance of Epiphany, remembering the visitation of the Magi, it is always important to take time to remember that Christ was Baptized. Why is it important? Well, we have to look at the text itself to find out.

As John the Baptist says, it is a strange scenario to see Jesus be baptized. Jesus, who is God, did not cease to be God in his incarnation – just to be fully human alongside his divinity. Yet, in Baptism Jesus receives the Holy Spirit from the Father. The Trinity is always acting in concert with each other, never making decisions without the participation and input of the other members of the union, so this has to be an intentional act. When Jesus comes and is washed, we have to see that Jesus was doing something important. The Spirit gives its power to the God-man, and that Father affirms he is blessed… But why?

Was it just an act? I do not believe so. God is not a showman, although Jesus is a powerful presence wherever he speaks. His power is not in being entertaining or in orchestrating a good scene, it is in his authentic authority. Jesus speaks and you know that Jesus is being true to himself, and therefore showing us the truth of who God is and how God is. To come here and receive baptism, Jesus is doing something that is truly and authentically good, as Jesus says here to John, “it is proper not to fulfill all righteousness.” Jesus is doing something for the good of us in being baptized, and the specific good that this achieves is usually separated into two schools of thought.

The first, and the more general and mystical idea, is that Jesus made all water holy through his baptism. Rather than there being strict requirements for what kind of water someone should be baptized in, Christianity would allow all water to be used to bring people into the Church. One of the earliest texts we have in the Church The Didache, gives us a series of preferences for baptismal waters. The best is cold river water, the next best is warm river water, then a cold stream, then a warm stream, and so on and so forth. All water, even just a sprinkling of water, is sufficient to baptize a person, and availability of that water defines the mode of baptism used. I prefer affusion, dumping large handfuls of water onto people’s heads, but I don’t fault folks for choosing to sprinkle and save the mess.

We are also blessed by this to be able to give thanks for our baptism anytime we interact with water. In washing out face, in drinking a cup of water to start our day, in the rain that falls from the sky… All these thing give us an opportunity to reflect on God’s grace. Wherever there is water there is grace, and wherever there is grace there can be baptism.

The second thing that Jesus did in being baptized, the one that holds more water (heheh,) is that Jesus gives us an example of how to live. Jesus was not washed because he had to atone. The sinless son of God did not need to be washed to be part of God’s family. Yet, Jesus shows us how we are supposed to make our way home to God. Jesus “fulfills all righteousness,” by taking part in all aspects of life that we as sinful humanity must take part in. Jesus is technically exempt from the requirements of faith, being the author and perfector of faith itself, yet he gives it to us as a gift.

Baptism is the starting point of our faith. While many of us in our tradition will have received Communion before our Baptism, it is baptism that properly makes us part of God’s Church. When I gave my baby son the dripping juice off my finger when I took Communion, he received God’s grace in that sacrament, but when he is baptized in six months he will be properly joined to God’s church. It is a position he will affirm when he is older, deciding whether or not he will continue on in God’s family, but it is a gift received directly from God from beginning to end.

In Baptism we are reborn into God’s Kingdom, God’s family, and as such we in the Methodist Church only baptize once. We are born into life once from the womb and we are baptized into God’s Church once. Whether we receive that washing at birth, at six months, and eighty years old, or in the moment we leave this world – our baptism marks that we are part of what God is doing. Baptism reflects that God has been working with us our whole life ahead of our rebirth, that God’s grace is all over every part of our life. When we commit ourselves to the Church, or else our family makes the commitment to raise us in up the faith, we receive a special kind of grace.

Jesus showed us what Baptism means, by showing us that our work continues beyond being washed of our sins in the water. When we join the Church fully, whether in baptism for the first time or rededication of ourselves to God’s will at any point of our life. We like Christ need to take time, periodically, to go out into the wilderness of our lives and prepare for what God is doing. When we study, when we practice righteousness, when we “fulfill all righteousness,” then we do what God requires of us. Still more, it is important for us to show others what it means to live this life. To raise up children to know the love of God and neighbor, to teach them the doctrine of the faith, and to model faith such that they find joy in living within God’s family.

Today we celebrate Christ’s baptism, the washing that set in motion our own entry into God’s kingdom. Let us praise God for paving the way ahead of us, and let us live fully the life we are called to as member’s of God’s divine family. – Amen.

Sermon 01/05/2025 – To See God

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

The Gospel Lesson                                                                John 1:1-18

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ ”) From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is the only Son, himself God, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

Sermon Text

            The dawn of a New Year asks that we reflect on the year we just saw pass. I challenged us all to wake up each day with the same goal in mind, “To be more Good today than I was yesterday.” Now, as the year dawns, we join together to pursue the righteousness together, through a rededication of ourselves to God in the form of a Covenant Prayer spoken in unison.

            Covenants are not something that we talk about much these days. We often talk about them in terms of legal agreements, contracts drafted between two interested parties. However, the concept as explained in Scripture is much more than signing a contract – it is devoting every part of one’s life to each other. The term in Hebrew is “בְּרִית” (Berith,) and this reflects every aspect of the relationship between the members of the relationship it represents. The terms which the relationship are founded upon are only part of the relationship. God speaking to the people gathered at the base of Sinai did not capture every aspect of their life together in that moment. Those of us who are married can attest, “I do,” is far from the complete story told by a marriage.

            [The Christian life is defined by the work of God. However, our enjoyment of the Christian life and our ability to grow is dependent on our willingness to take part in God’s work. We participate in God’s grace and are drawn into it. The gifts of God enable us to take more and more on. This does not mean that we get more and more work piled on us, but that we take on more of God’s goodness, hone our skills to act out what God has set us apart for. We do not live our Christian life by exhausting ourselves, we live it out by knowing ourselves and God enough to work to our fullest.

            That each of us take on particular calls in life is natural. Some of us are called to work in service industries, others in production, other to work directly in the work of the Church. Whatever the vocation that we choose in life is, we do so as Christians participating in God’s vision for the world. There is a lie that we choose to believe that we serve God only when we pray or only when we proclaim the Gospel. While both of these are aspects of the Christian life, simply pursuing excellence in what we do is a form of service to God. It shows that we wish to contribute to the goodness of others, to work earnestly to help others.

            Outside of working to the best of our abilities are the ways that we should serve one another. Helping one another by lovingly serving those we are community with – whether we know them through work, as part of the church, or as our friends and family. We serve those around us by doing what we can to further their good. This means helping them in times of need, supporting them in their pursuit of a good life, and meeting their emotional and spiritual needs. We should be a people that speak with one another, that pray for one another, that help one another. We cannot be passive participants in one another’s life.

            Our community is not limited to those we know, not even to those we like. The stranger, those who pass through our life for only a season or even a day, these people we have obligations to. While we can never truly treat someone we do not know with the same fullness as those who we know well, we can show them what God has put on our hearts. When we meet the eyes of those who are begging on the streets and in the medians. When we give to honest charities and to people we know need it. When we fight for the rights of people who are not like us, or who we will never meet. These are all expressions of our love of those we do not know, of hospitality for those outside our households.][1]

            Our Scripture may seem separate from these discussions of Covenant, but I think that if we think more closely about it, the Incarnation fulfills and expounds upon God’s Covenant in ways nothing else could. God, not content to remain in Heaven came and became a human being among us. This God-Man was not given a life of luxury, but lived in poverty and hardship. The creator of every person, the imprint of God’s image within every person, was now treated as a stranger wherever he went. Though the Light had entered the world, and though it was not snuffed out in becoming part of Humanity, Humanity did not recognize its presence among them.

            Christ chose to take on this life of obscurity for our Good. In doing so God made it clear that every stranger on Earth, more than ever, was now inextricably tied to God’s image. The basic imprint upon all people was now enhanced. To love God, to know God, to see God face to face, a person now had to seek out those society pushed away. More than that, those once known as enemies would soon become family. “Stranger,” began to erode away as a category of person and only “sibling,” would remain.

            The way that love should be carried out was reflected in the way Christ lived. Feeding the Hungry, praying constantly for Himself and Others, living alongside friend and enemy alike. Every part of the Incarnation shows us something more about who God is, and every part of our vows we take before God are meant to show us the way we can become more Godlike. Today as we gather to recommit our life to God, I pray that we will take seriously the words we are about to share together – for in them is life and life abundant, as long as we truly believe them and do all that God requires of us. Let our words be true, and our Covenant be renewed today and always. – Amen.

[1] Sections enclosed in brackets are revised from an earlier sermon, preached 12/29/2019 to the Shenandoah Junction Charge