god

Sermon 03/23/2025 – Golden Calves, Bronze Serpents

/ John Langenstein / 1 Comment

1 Corinthians 10:1-13

I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, and they were struck down in the wilderness.

Now these things occurred as examples for us, so that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not become idolaters as some of them did, as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and they rose up to play.” We must not engage in sexual immorality, as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by serpents. And do not complain, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. These things happened to them to serve as an example, and they were written down to instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages have come. So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall. No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it

1 Kings 18:1-6

In the third year of King Hoshea son of Elah of Israel, Hezekiah son of King Ahaz of Judah began to reign. He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign; he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abi daughter of Zechariah. He did what was right in the sight of the Lord, just as his ancestor David had done. He removed the high places, broke down the pillars, and cut down the sacred pole. He broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it; it was called Nehushtan. He relied on the Lord, the God of Israel, so that there was no one like him among all the kings of Judah after him or among those who were before him. For he held fast to the Lord; he did not depart from following him but kept the commandments that the Lord had commanded Moses.

Sermon Text

Growing up, in my home church, I was caught between two extremes. On one end was the hyper-contemporary services my family attended. They would always go to either the service that met in our church’s multi-purpose building or a local community gym. All around were normal fixtures of business – standard seating and bare walls, basketball hoops and industrial fans. In these places of baren utility, however, God’s spirit still found a way to people, and without the frills of anything “churchy.”

However, that was not where my heart rested. When I was old enough, I would go to a different service than my family. Even though the service was the latest in the morning, I didn’t go so I could sleep in. Instead, it was the content of the service that enticed me. Hymns, organ music, doxologies and unison prayers were shared week after week. I found that I was drawn to the more historic expressions of the faith. When I came to them, I found a deep well that I could pull from. It was no more legitimate than the services my family attended, but for me I couldn’t turn back once I found my niche. I was home, and throughout college and seminary, I found myself settle more and more into the trappings of traditional expressions of worship.

One of the most treasured aspects of the Church, throughout history, has been the art and iconography we use to express our faith. When we picture “Christ,” we usually have pictures in our head drawn from stained glass in churches we’ve sat in for years. When we picture “the Last Supper”, it is Da Vinci’s impractical table setting that jumps into our heads. More recently, “The Chosen,” and its depictions of Christ shape how people see Jesus and his works. The way that Christ and the various figures cast throughout scripture are depicted in popular culture, in art, and in our own spaces of worship and homes shapes our perspective a great deal.

However, there is a danger in representing God – mainly that by representing God we are suddenly opening ourselves to “mis-represent,” God. Removed from the context and intent of the author or artist, depictions of Christ with an intended message or symbolic purpose, simply become our de facto image of our savior. Films replace scripture in our recollection of Christ’s life, and bit by bit we are given a lesser version of the riches that are freely revealed through the real source of knowing Christ – the fellowship of believers, the sacraments, the study of Scripture, and the visitation of the Holy Spirit. These and other “means of Grace,” are where we truly meet Christ.

Let me take you back to my home church for a minute, where I first fell in love with God. Behind the altar, up at the back of the chancel, was a massive picture of Jesus. Christ appeared life sized, seemingly stepping out of the painting and into the sanctuary. It was a powerful image, and for many it defined the presence of Christ in the building. However, that painting was the thorn in the side of every minister I ever knew to stand in that pulpit. The picture, beautiful as it was, had become a focus of the people’s worship, and the second it became the focus of their adoration it became the most insidious thing an image can become. It had become an idol for the people of that church, a sacred thing that must never be touched.

Our scripture today, the Epistle reading firstly, tells us the cost of idolatry. I used to always find it strange that scripture lumped “idolatry,” in with a variety of other sins. In particular, Paul is focused upon sexual consequences for idolatry, interpreting the “play,” of the Israelites in carnal terms. I don’t know if I agree with Paul’s reading in this instance, but over time I have begun to understand his and scripture’s broader prohibition against idolatry – and more particularly of images in general. Idolatry leads to sin, not because the pieces of wood or canvas or metal that is being worshipped impacts the people, but because the lack of God’s real presence does.

For the Israelites wandering in the desert, they had just witnessed God’s amazing saving power. They had seen plagues afflict their oppressors, they had seen the Red Sea part, water came from dry stones and quail fed their appetites even beyond God’s provision of Mana. They were given every good gift, but they were still not sold on God. When Moses went up to the mountain to receive the Law, they began to worry that the Moses would never return. They feared they could not hear from the true God again, and so in desperation they cast an idol of that same God, an image of a bull cast in gold.

We know from archaeology that bull imagery was commonly associated with the God of Israel, indeed scripture confirms the same.[1] Yet, when Aaron held the calf aloft for the people to adore, he did not say, “Behold, this is a representation of the God who brought you out of Egypt.” He said, “These are the Gods that brought you out of Egypt.” The people immediately replaced the true God with a lesser facsimile. The true God thundered above them, ready to give them Teachings that would give them new Life, but instead they decided to embrace a lesser image of divinity – to doom themselves to a half-life lived in imitation of an imitation.

“But,” a concerned listener may say, “The images we use in Church and in our homes are different. We do not intend for them to be Gods in their own right, just reminders of Christ’s presence in our lives.” I hear your concern, and you are right to name it. I am not so iconoclastic as to oppose any image of God. John of Damascus argued that as Christ was the Icon of God’s invisible substance, so iconography provided us a window into Heavenly things. In my own house I have a pantocrator, a picture of Christ in triumph, to remind me that God prevails over all troubles. I have an icon of Mary and Jesus in my nursery, to remind me that Christ who once lived as a child, watches over my own child. Yet, I would destroy either image the second they became all consuming to me, the moment I saw God’s presence in them, the second I made them into idols.

Well intentioned images often are the first things to become idols. In the wilderness, God commanded Moses to break the law against graven images and create a bronze serpent. That serpent was lifted into the air, and whenever people were bitten by the “Nachashim Seraphim,”
“the flaming serpents” they would look on it and be cured. This serpent eventually found its way into the Temple, where it served as a reminder of God’s salvation… Until it became something else. People began to worship the serpent, offering it incense, transforming the emblem of salvation into a source of destruction.

The Church in my hometown, the one with that picture behind the altar, were forced each Sunday to imagine Christ within the confines of that image. They looked up at his blue eyes, his pale white face, his long brown hair, and they never could see from it anything but a savior that reflected back their own visions of respectability. The Christ that hung above the altar would not live on the streets as the real Christ did, his robe was too clean. The Christ that hung above the altar would not reach his hands to heal the sick, they were too properly manicured for that. The Christ that hung above the altar was not just a flawed representation of the Christ that hung on the Cross – they had nothing to do with one another.

The images we form of Christ are not just in paintings or in statues though, no they are in the stories we tell and in the testimonies we give. When we present Christ to the world, are we truly presenting the Christ of scripture? Or are we presenting a therapeutic presence, a God that makes us feel good and that makes death a little less scary? Do we see in Christ a figure that is great than ourselves, that calls us to be better tomorrow than we are today, or do we see a divine yes man that is constantly patting us on the back for all our good work? Are we willing to meet the real Christ, and not the sanitized image that we have enshrined in our hearts?

So what do we do now? Go home and burn all our paintings and crucifixes? Of course not! What good would that do? It would not change our hearts. No, instead today I call us all to search our hearts and see what idols we have put up. What half-baked images of Christ are we accepting rather than the one, true Christ who reigns now and forever? If that half-baked image has a physical form, by all means get rid of it, cast it far away from you. I would wager though that it probably isn’t on your wall, it is more likely in your heart, in your mind, in the capitulation to “the world as it is,” we are all prone to. We all have idols to smash, people of God, and we had best find them before they ruin us. – Amen.

[1] C.f. 1 Kings 12:28 with the Kuntilat Arjud Pithos depicting “’HWH and his Asherah.” Available at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ajrud.jpg

Sermon 03/16/2025 – Enemies of the Cross

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Philippians 3:17-4:1

Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us. For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things.

But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.

Sermon Text         

I’ve said it before, and I will say it many times more before I am done on this earth – Philippians is my favorite book in the New Testament, perhaps the entirety of scripture. This letter captures the final words Paul has for one of his beloved congregations, he speaks to them so earnestly and honestly that we see an image of the Apostle we don’t usually get access to. Paul is confident, but he is not unafraid. Paul is secure in his salvation, but he is not unaware of his own weakness. He is staring death in the face, and in the midst of the anxiety and uncertainty of his earthly life’s end, he writes one of the clearest and most beautiful expositions on faith ever put to paper.

Though there is some debate about the matter, I agree with older scholarship that places Paul’s writing of Philippians to his time in prison in Rome. Having appealed his case before Herod Agrippa, Paul had set up the series events that would lead to his execution. Agrippa was prepared to release Paul, but Paul saw an opportunity to share the gospel in Rome – the city he never made it to in his own wanderings – and even to speak to Caesar, or Caesar’s representatives at least, on matters of faith.  Paul had freedom from bondage, freedom from the chopping block, in his hands, and he gave it away willingly – just so God’s word might find a new audience.

In this place, where Paul has decided to imitate his savior through giving his life for others, Paul encourages the congregation of Phillipi to do the same. “Be imitators of me,” he says – not out of pride but out of the awareness that he has nothing left on earth but the work of Christ. He wants them to follow him, to take up their cross, and be willing to minister to the Gospel in ways that are unafraid of the consequences. When eternity is promised to you, death is a temporary setback rather than the end of all things.

Paul warns, however, of a group which he calls “enemies of the Cross of Christ.” We are not given specific identifiers for who this group is. Some point to the local pagan authorities in the area, others to rivals to Paul in Jewish society. Personally, however, I think the context suggests that Paul is worried about the congregation picking the wrong role models. When we are asked to “imitate,” Christ, we usually do so through the framework of people and teachers we know. We can only learn by example, and the most obvious example of Christian virtue will be found in the Christians in our own congregations – the ones who model what it is to be a faithful follower of Christ in thought, and word, and deed.

Yet, there are those in the Church, and often in leadership, who do not earnestly seek to imitate Christ. While all of us fall short, some have distorted their image of Christ into something primarily self-serving -something we’ll discuss in depth next week. These are the people of whom Paul says, “Their God is in their belly.” In other words, they worship the things they want to have and the acquisition of that thing rather than worshipping the God who brings both good gifts and adversity to those who follow the narrow road.

I think of those ministers who promise that God will bless you, if you only give a little more money. The minister who tells us that God agrees with what we think, and disagrees with all the people we also disagree with. “God loves who you love, God hates who you hate – how holy you are for being right!” Worse still are those who have made God into an economic system – pay in your devotion, your faith, your time – and receive a custom made blessing. The Gospel of prosperity, the Gospel that seeks to make the average churchgoer feel good at the expense of their own goodness – this is the worship of our appetites, of our belly, that will lead to our destruction. If we are to be imitators of Christ, we cannot lean on the teachings of subpar ministers and church-folk as the basis of our Christian walk.

I grew up in a ministry that was led by someone who I can confidently say was unfit for the role of minister – especially to a minister of young people. Vain, controlling, and singularly bent on manipulating people to support their every wish. In their mind, they spoke for God – and to contradict them was to contradict the Lord. I grew in holiness despite him, because I learned at some point that while he held some of the key doctrines of faith in his hand – he did not practice them. For that I had to look to others in the congregation.

I remember the sweet older women of Berkeley Springs, the kindly grandmothers and great grandmothers who had learned long ago that prayer really did change things. The 85 year old man who would climb up ladders to repair rooves – and only once broke every bone in his body by falling off one (he got better!) In particular, I remember one person in the congregation – she seemed spacey at times. She was quiet, often sitting silently in the back of a room. Yet, when she spoke – you listened – and the words she spoke were the words of Life.

True religion is not found in someone telling you everything is going to be ok. Nor is it found in someone congratulating you on already having all the answers, in being right before you even tried. True religion challenges us, and asks us to be better than our instincts. To give up the “fleshly,” part of ourselves, that God in our stomachs, and embrace what Christ wants us to know. When Paul introduces the idea that his disciples should imitate him, he says what is, to me, the most beautiful summary of Christianity there could be.

“I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”[1] Paul did not want his disciples to imitate him in that he was especially holy or perfect, but in that he had realized what Christianity was about. Not triumph, but sacrifice, not profit, but emptiness. To serve the Lord was to offer everything up on the altar, to accept losing in this world, for the glory of the World to Come. True compassion, true repentance, true transformation, requires the end of our ego and the beginning of us fully embracing Christ’s humility. “To die to self, and chiefly live, by [His] most Holy Word.”

Half measures are not enough. The triumphalist religion of the past hundred years is not enough. “When Christ calls [us,] he bids [us] come and die.”[2] To be an enemy of the Cross is to deny that the Cross is asked of us at all. Comfort is our destruction, the desire to avoid awkward conversations or dissenting stares is our end. Only in embracing Christ, the radical love and piety that comes from devotion to a World we don’t currently know – that is the only way forward. “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”[3] Have we even gone so far as to put our hand on the plow? Have we, really?

We are called to be imitators of Christ, and to do that well, we must find our role models among the holy – and not the marketable. It is not in pulpits flushed with the most money that God’s presence rest. Not in the Facebook Vloggers who make the most people angry in the name of so-called “religion.” Only in those who imitate Christ can we find our inspiration. The meek, the mild, the humble, and the servants – those who desire peace and challenge those who oppose it. People of God, you will be influenced by those you place in high esteem – make the right choice in who you follow. Let yourselves be led by those who resemble Christ, and not the powers that be – only then will you find the life that comes through suffering alongside Christ, and through the resurrection which is promised to all people who have faith. – Amen

[1] Philippians 3:10-11

[2] Dietrich Bonhoeffer. “Costly Grace,” in The Cost of Discipleship

[3] Luke 9:62

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 11/10/2024 – How Easily we Brag

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Mark 12:38-44

As [Jesus] taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

He sat down opposite the treasury and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

Sermon Text

Pride is one of the most dangerous things that exists in this world. We’ve talked before about how our language does us a major disservice in not separating out, “pride,” as a sinful state of being from “pride,” as having high esteem for something good in our life. I think, however, that the two are more related than even I would like to admit. There is not a huge leap between legitimate feelings of happiness about something good in our lives and an unhealthy fixation on it. Sometimes even legitimate pride become an unwillingness to acknowledge our individual and corporate failings or even our to see our dependency on God.

Throughout scripture one of the most consistent opponents to God’s good work are prideful people of faith. The prophets were usually up against the priests and fellow prophets they had worked with their whole life. Ezra and Nehemiah were heroes and villains in their own time – butting up against other members of God’s people who they did not think had the right pedigree to be part of the exilic community. Jesus most of all is documented as fighting against some of the most important people in the religious community of his day. He opposed scribes, pharisees, and sadducees. These groups were not inherently evil, he did not oppose them out of principle, but because of what they so often let themselves become.

Scribes were the literate in society, and held power as legal recorders and lawyers. Pharisees were the pastors of their day, giving God’s word to the people and instructing them in daily life. Sadducees were tied to the Temple, and they provided a moderating presence – ensuring the Torah was respected and clung tightly too. Yet, in each of these positions, with power and influence on the line, people would often begin to sin simply by investing importance in themselves and their way of being and doing that ultimately only served their own interests. Pride snuck in, pride made them self-interested, and pride led them to destroy their community.

Jesus talks about the scribes in particular in our passage. He says they wear long robes – why does that matter? What do you think a long robe indicates? Besides having a lot of fabric, therefore being expensive to make – long robes make it impractical to do manual labor. To wear one in public makes it clear that you are not someone who has to dirty their hands. Long sleeves added to this affect, and it is widely believed that the “coat of many colors,” which Jospeh wore was meant to show his brothers that Joseph was too good for the maula labor they were made to do out in the fields.[1]

Scribes are also described as praying long prayers in public, seated with the best people in worship and at parties. This is a criticism levied at the Pharisees as well, who are also described as wearing large phylacteries known as tefillin. These boxes containing scripture tied to the wrists and forehead.[2] Jesus is not saying it is a sin to pray, or to dress in robes, or to wear outward signs of faith like the tefillin. The sin came in doing these things for the sake of appearances rather than faith. If you ask me, the average offender probably didn’t realize when the things they had done changed from something they were doing for God and what they were doing for themselves.

As Christians today, we often read these warnings with a quiet nod. We know what its like to meet those overblown, holier-than-thou types. They’re insufferable! There’s no way we would ever do anything like what they do… Unless, we already do it without thinking. Unless we’ve become so accustomed to our faith being a badge we wear to congratulate ourselves rather than a way of life we embody, that changes and challenges us.

Think though, of what Christian culture is so often about. We wear hats on our heads, bracelets on our wrist, loud and proud declarations of our faith. T-shirts convey messages that let people know that we are Good Christian folk. Everything we see on Facebook that tells us we need to share it or else we’re secretly ashamed of God has to be shared! We have to let people know we’re Christian and that we’re not like all those other people in the world! We’re better through our faith, we’re more proper and we believe exactly what we should.

Is it wrong to wear a Christian slogan on a hat, or a bracelet, or a shirt? No, of course not. As long as it’s an actual good sentiment and not something antagonistic or improper. Is it wrong to share a prayer you read on Facebook that moves you? Absolutely not. Like the Pharisees of old, a Christian who shows their faith publicly is doing exactly what they should… Until they switch to showing off to people and not showing up for God. The shift from one to the other can be simple, slow, and yet it consumes us entirely.

How do we prevent that? How do we know which box we fall into? Firstly, I would say that self-awareness is always the first step to proper action. If we are willing to ask ourselves why we do the things we do, we will have a good answer. I’ve written out long posts on Facebook about my strong conviction as a person of faith… and then deleted them. Sermons likewise that I’ve thrown out, because I realized that I was not writing them for the good of God, but out of some strange sense of pride. I wear very plain clothes, only breaking out my clergy outfit when it matters that people know who I am.

True faith, true piety, true holiness that a person can be rightly proud of is self-evident. Prayer in public that comes from a natural belief God listens to our prayers and acts on them will be different than something we do to let the people know at the other tables around us that we’re good Christian folk. Sharing our faith for the purpose of glorifying God will look different than chasing down people and beating them with scripture.

Finally, I think that anything that truly inconveniences us bears the mark of an action that is hard to do out of selfish pride. If you have to give of yourself, and in ways that you truly find unpleasant, but you persist out of love of God and neighbor than it is hard to do that work out of pride. Christ humbled himself to the point of dying on the cross, and did so while actively dreading the terror ahead of him. While we do not face a cross, when we give till it hurts, that is a mark of our true faith.

The widow is at the close of this story, not to give us an excuse to give less to initiatives the Church is working on, but to remind us that there is a proportionality in faith. The widow gives very little to the offering, but to her that offering was a huge part of her livelihood. She felt that coin dropping in the plate, it was a real sacrifice that meant she had to go without. The rich who gave lavishly still had plenty to live off of, they didn’t feel a thing when they cut the cheque. How often are we willing to give till it hurts? Of money, of time, of resources. To do that is to humble ourselves, and to establish that we are doing the kind of work that is without pride, that is rooted in what God would have us do.

Thankless and difficult, that is often what the work that God calls us to do looks like. It does not demand others to look and laud us for it. It is quiet and humble, it does not insist upon itself. While others may see it and praise it, true pious action is often kept quiet. Seek to live a life that is full of God, full of actions that you can be proud of. Yet, do not let your hand slip from the pulse of your work, the authenticity of it, the true reason why you are embarking upon it. Let your piety be true, let your heart be humble, and do away with the parts of you that demands the approval of others. You will find Christ closer than ever in this. – Amen.

[1]

[2]