jesus

Sermon 04/06/2025 – Worship and Service

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

John 12:1-8

Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’s feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. 

But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” (He said this not because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

Sermon Text

One of the more interesting episodes in scripture is the one which we just heard out of the Gospel of John. Jesus, having come to Bethany ahead of his crucifixion, is sitting at the table with his disciples. Suddenly, Mary sister of Martha comes in and anoints his feet with expensive perfume, wiping the excess with her hair. Judas objects, saying that they money used for this could have been used to help the poor (a claim John doubts was meant earnestly.) Jesus assures Judas that this was the right thing to do, that as Jesus goes to die he should be prepared for burial – and that Judas should not worry, “you always have the poor with you.”

To my mind, this is the only time we see Jesus seemingly discourage something being given to those in need. When the disciples question his giving before, he always waves them away and goes back to what he is doing. Yet here, at the end of his earthly ministry, he tells them that this time the money does not have to go to the poor. More than that, Jesus seems to address poverty as inevitable, a strange vision for the world coming from its savior. What are we to do, then, with a Messiah who leaves us with so many questions all at once?

The journey we take should begin with the context of how Jesus’s other teachings address how his earthly ministry differs from the ministry of the Church. Afterall, Jesus was upfront with his disciples that things would change when he had ascended into Heaven, they would not always have him physically and directly in front of them to tell them what to do or how to be. Naturally, this means that after Christ rose from the dead and then ascended into Heaven, the disciples would do things differently than they had before. Pray, the eucharist, all manner of acts of worship and service, would alter the live of those first few believers.

The most direct comparison between Christ’s words about the poor and his wider teachings comes in his words about fasting. Following the complaints of his religious rivals that his disciples do not fast like they do, Jesus explains that fasting is indeed holy and good, but that now was not the time for it. “When the bridegroom is here,” fasting was not necessary. In other words, during Christ’s earthly mission, his disciples did not need to escape distraction to see him. Only after he was no longer physically present would such a thing be required.

In the same way, Jesus seems here to not be giving us an excuse to frivolously spend our money in the Church or for “worship,” of God, but is instead speaking to an aspect of ministry unique to his time on earth. The disciples only had a few more precious hours with him, and they would spend most of that time sleeping or hiding. Mary alone seemed to appreciate the gravity of the situation, offering a personal gift to Jesus and showering him with worship while she had the chance. The gift of nard, the wiping of Christ’s feet clean with her hair, these were gifts given to a friend, a teacher, a savior and God, that she would soon no longer see face to face.

Jesus was not callously lauding comfort as more important that care for the poor, but speaking to the particular chance that was afforded to his disciples as they sat awaiting his final days. “The poor are always with you,” was not an attempt by Christ to legitimize poverty either, but a statement of the evils of humanity and the inequality they produce, always having victims.

In Christ’s time there was not an “economic system,” in a philosophic sense. Trade was still mostly by barter, and while the coinage of the empire allowed for standardized trade it did not reflect a radical shift in ideals about how business exists. In our modern era we throw around words like “capitalism,” “socialism,” “communism,” “distributism,” and many more to describe our economic ideals. Yet, I tell you this sad fact – not one economic system, ancient, feudal, or ideological has succeeded in erasing poverty. Some work better at it than others, but it does seem that anything other than deliberate community care cannot erase poverty or its consequences. “The poor are always with you,” is not a statement of defeat but of the reality not everyone cares enough about each other to change the way the world is… Not until Christ comes in final victory will we see poverty truly erased.

In that way, we will always have the poor with us, but in a much more important way Christ tells us that the poor are always with us because we owe them our service and our community. Christ does not say, “There will always be poor,” but that “the poor are always with you.” More specifically, Christ speaks to a degree of ownership – the disciples “had,” Christ with them, they had a relationship and not just proximity. The day was soon coming where the disciples would no longer “have Christ,” next to them, and so their attention would need to turn directly to Christ’s presence upon earth, “the poor.”

In Matthew 25, Christ puts forward that only those who care for the hungry, the stranger, the naked, the imprisoned, and the sick will have a place in his Kingdom. A few years ago it was popular to limit this to only apply to people in your Church, but that is not what it says. When Christ calls us to love “the least of these, [his] siblings,” he is speaking of all people who suffer in this world as it is. All of them are meant to share something with all of us. The Church and the poor, they can never and should never be separated. As long as we wait for Christ, we are to be in community with them.

There is a time for worship of God, for piety to overcome the need to serve others. It lasts for about an hour on Sunday mornings and it lasts when we take a moment away to pray or to give praise or to study scripture. At all other times, service and care for others is more important than any other aspect of our faith. “There is no holiness, but social holiness,” and unless we can live our lives together, to overcome the many problems of this world, we will be no better than Judas. For Judas claimed to love the poor and yet only loved himself, how greater is our sin if we claim to love Christ but deny the poor he calls us to love. Love one another, serve one another, for there is no greater worship than this. – Amen.

Sermon 03/30/2025 – An Icon of Sin

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

2 Corinthians 5:16-21

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we no longer know him in that way. 

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. 

So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ: be reconciled to God. For our sake God made the one who knew no sin to be sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Sermon Text

 Last week we looked at the way that our images of Christ impact our Christian walk. If we engage with Christ as anything but who Christ truly is, the perfect incarnate Word of God, then we miss out on imitating that same God in our walk to perfection. There is another way in which Christ acts as an image, however, or more properly how Christ acted as an image. Christ, despite living without sin and living perfectly from eternity to eternity, became the perfect image of human sin, so that humanity might aspire to the perfection of his divinity.

That language is too technical though. We could dig into hamartiology (the study of Sin,) for years and not come any closer to the central and simple truth of what Christ was able to accomplish for us in his death. The work of the Cross, a perfect sacrifice offered once and for all, was the moment that redemption and resurrection became possible for humanity. Yet, what does it mean for Christ to have “become sin?” Furthermore, what about dying as this image of Sin was means that we are saved by Christ’s work in the first place?

The general way we talk about Christ’s saving work is with the moniker of “atonement theory.” We use this large net because it covers all the different ways that people talk about Christ’s work to save us. You see, when you have something as major as Christ’s death on the cross and subsequent resurrection, no one way of talking about it is enough. Most people have a singular explanation that they focus on when they talk about how Christ saved us but each has a little bit of the picture within their vision of Christ’s work. Imagine you have a bunch of clear projection papers, each with a few lines drawn on them. Each one you stack on top of the other will give you a little bit more of the picture, and all of them will complete the picture. In the same way, we talk about God by stacking images of God on top of each other until we can see who God is, and more often who God is not.

Christ’s becoming sin on our behalf is ultimately a completion of his work in the incarnation. By becoming human, Christ experienced everything we as humans experience: sickness, tiredness, temptation, hunger, thirst, pain, and even death. The only thing Christ never experienced was sin itself. In becoming fully human, Christ took on all of humanity. In going to the Cross, he took on the penalty for all of humanity’s sin, and in his death therefore removed the punishment from the rest of humanity. Though flesh may die still, the soul could be freed and the resurrection that Christ himself would take part in was promised to all others who had faith in that same resurrection.

The thing that most people disagree with is in what way Christ “became sin.” Some put forward that Jesus, like the scapegoat of ages past, literally became filled with the sins of all humanity as he hung on the cross. Therefore, all sin died with him on the cross. Catholic doctrine asserts that the agony he felt in Gethsemane came from him looking ahead and seeing all of human sin, and still choosing to take it upon himself. Others see it simply as Christ, though innocent, died for our sins and therefore “became sin,” in the sense of taking punishment on despite having none of the spiritual taint of Sin within him. The difference in those two ideas is subtle, but it does lead to some interesting nuance in how we talk about Christ’s death.

I remember when I was at a funeral once, there was a plant in the crowd. Very strange to orchestrate a funeral like that, but so it goes. The minister leading the service “noticed,” another minister in the crowd and asked him to pray to close out the service. “Lord Jesus, we thank you for your mercy and for you substitutionary death upon the cross…” He began. Substitutionary here means that Jesus died in our place, took on the punishment meant for us, and so satisfied God’s wrath in his death. This idea is reflected in Hebrews where it speaks of God seeing Christ’s righteousness and not our sin, when God looks upon us.

The problem with substitutionary language is that, while it is true Christ died in our place, if we leave it only at that – where do we stand now? Between the life material and the life eternal, there has to be something more to what Christ did for us. Did Jesus die to free us from the consequence of Sin, or did Christ die to fully reconcile us to God? If Christ is just a divine distraction from God’s wrath, then the crucifixion was a singular act with a singular outcome. That, to me, does not reflect the wider narrative of scripture in what Christ did for us.

Christ did indeed die and take on the full consequences of sin, but as our scripture says in dying he became “Sin,” not merely the consequences of that sin but the idea in itself. In dying, Christ destroyed Sin in its entirety, leaving a shell of what the evil had been before. As John Wesley put it, when Christ saves he does not save by “mere deliverance from Hell,” but by completely freeing us from the weight of Sin and from its hold in our life.

A fully regenerated Christian, washed in the water and the blood, filled with the Spirit, has nothing in them that means that must sin. Ignorance or thoughtlessness is the only cause that must necessarily result in sin in our life. All other sin is a consequence directly of our habits that engrain sin within us, our conscious choice to sin despite knowing better, or our brokenness misleading us into acting in sin rather than facing our trouble directly. We who are saved do not sin out of powerlessness, we sin because we have allowed sin to be our nature even though sin was destroyed once and for all on a hill far away.

In John Milton’s Paradise Lost, he paints the image better than most. In the poem, after Satan decides to go to Eden and tempt Adam and Eve, he approaches the gates of Hell which are guarded by Sin and her horrible child Death. The gates of Hell are sealed, not from the outside, but the inside. Satan, Milton puts forward, chose his imprisonment, and in the same way we decide again and again to submit to sin rather than be free in Christ.

Christ lived a life of perfection, not only as a highlight of God’s goodness, but to demonstrate to us what was possible once we were freed from Sin. Christ was fully human, inclined to the same temptations and weaknesses we are, and yet Christ overcame sin in maintain his perfection of will as a human and as God. When Christ took on sin – literally or consequentially – he took on every aspect of it. He broke the chains that had held us forever in bondage, and offered us the key again and again through his grace. In descending to the dead, Christ suffered the fate of all who taste sin, proclaiming the Gospel even in the grave. In rising again, Christ was forever victorious over death – the ultimate consequence of sin.

The Gates of Hell were forever taken off their hinges. The vice grip that death had on humanity was shattered and the beast reduced to a whelpling. Satan was crushed and all his minions reduced to shades in a kingdom of shades. Christ, the Icon of Sin in death, is now the eternal emblem of God’s grace, power, and mercy – perfected humanity forever wed to the perfection of Godhead. All things began, and found their natural end and purpose through Christ’s journey to the cross and from the grave.

Whether we talk in terms of substitution or moral exemplars, in Christus Victor or ransom, Christ died for our sins. Christ in that death took on Sin in a substantial and real way. That taking on of our sin allowed for us to be freed from all of Sin’s power in our life. We can, in other words, be perfected, and Christ gladly will lead us toward that perfection if we willingly submit to the work Christ sets before us. Having been redeemed, justified, saved through Christ’s work on the cross – Christ now offers us the Spirit and the Church, and asks that we live so that we may know true abundance. Abundance of love, or mercy, of holiness… Life is born out of death, because Christ changed everything… Praise God, praise God, praise God! – Amen.

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 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 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]

Sermon 12/17/2023 – The Start of the Kingdom

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

John 1:6-8,19-28

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.

This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” He confessed and did not deny it, but he confessed, “I am not the Messiah.” And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.” Then they said to him, “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” He said,

“I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ ” as the prophet Isaiah said.

Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. They asked him, “Why, then, are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?” John answered them, “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandal.” This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing.

Sermon Text

As we have made our way through Advent, we have looked at the endings that Advent points to. There is an end to Pain in this world, even an end to the World as we know. However, Advent would not mean much if it was just a season of negation. We do not look forward to the End of all Things, but to the Rebirth of Creation. Advent is a season of looking forward to a new beginning, not a meditation on endings.

The Gospels all attest to the ministry of Jesus beginning with someone else baptizing on the banks of the Jordan. John the Baptist, a cousin of Jesus through Mary’s relative Elizabeth, took on a prophetic ministry on the banks of the Jordan. There he proclaimed that God’s Kingdom was coming soon, and that another would rise up to lead God’s people into this new world. To mark this coming kingdom, John began to use the muddy water of the Jordan. In being washed in that water, people received as special kind of grace – they made a statement of their faith, but more than that God met them on the banks of that river and affirmed their choice.

Baptism is a complicated ritual to trace to its beginning. Many faiths throughout history have included ritual washings in their practices. At some point, a form of baptism entered Judaism as a way for converts to join the faith, but this developed at some point in the first century.[1] Greek mystery religions also developed a practice of ritual washing to show a person being born into a new life in the protection of their patron deity.[2] Yet, on the whole, these rituals are seen as being contemporaneous with the Christian ritual of Baptism. More than that, the person who first preached about being washed in water as a singular statement of one’s intention to be born again, is almost always said to be John the Baptist.[3]

Baptism comes from the Greek word βαπτιζω (baptizo,) meaning “to dip,” “to immerse,” or “to drown.” From the beginning of the Church it was practiced primarily by two means – the first was full immersion in water, the second by the pouring of water over a person’s head or “affusion.” A final method, sprinkling, is not attested to in early documents of the Church, but carries equal validity in the development of the ritual throughout history. All methods of Baptism are equally valid, and all methods work to the same goal – initiating people into the new work that God is doing. It is a powerful sacrament, given to a person only once in their life, as a testament to God’s grace that brought them to faith.

When John began to baptize on the Jordan, he was changing how the world understood God’s grace forever. The call of Isaiah we discussed last week, to make a way in the wilderness for God was fulfilled in this ministry of repentance. The people called out to the banks of the Jordan were as different from one another as could be. Sinners and Saints both came to the water and asked to be washed clean. When Pharisees and Sadducees, enemies of one another and critics of John, came to the waters – even they were allowed to take part in this new movement of the Spirit. This was not a new start for only one kind of person, it was opened up for all people to take part in and to see God’s grace at work.

The Kingdom of God has always been expanding in its scope. What began only as a thing shared by two people, Adam and Eve in the beginning of time, became a covenant to all flesh under Noah. God’s redemptive mission to the broken creation was then focused in on Abraham and his descendants, and then through prophet after prophet, expanded to reclaim the diverse people who had been born from the expansion of humanity across the Earth. God’s Kingdom, it seems, was shaped like an hourglass. It became its most restrictive in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, and has since then been growing outward with great speed, reaching out into infinity.

The Start of the Kingdom of God could have been restricted to just a few people, the best of the best, but it was not. God opened the Kingdom to all people and was sure to make it clear again and again. Among the first to proclaim Jesus’s divinity were Priests from a distant land. The first person we are told was baptized by the Apostle’s was a native Judean, but an Ethiopian. Peter was told again and again that all things were being reconciled to God, and Paul’s ministry to the Gentiles proved this once and for all.

The start of earthly Kingdoms are almost always born out of violence and exclusion. An army forms and pushes the existing power structures out of the way for another to take their place. The Kingdom of God, in opposition to this pattern of the world, began with something far more powerful. God, seeking to redeem all things, called for all people to willingly join into the work God was beginning. Rather than excluding, God’s work asked even the most wicked people to change their ways and take part in the coming salvation of the world. Baptism, a gift of God, marked the moment that a person jumped into this new life – a life focused on God, on the good of others, and on the Kingdom that has no end.

Today, may all of us remember our Baptisms, and may those of us who have not been washed in the waters of baptism consider seriously taking that step. It is not a thing to be taken lightly, but it is a gift that begins a whole new world within our souls. Praise God for the gift of a new start, and for the waters that freely allows grace to pour over us all. – Amen.

[1] The Mishnah ‛Eduyyoth describes the disagreement between bet Hillel and bet Shammai about how to handle proselytes; how long one is to fast before immersion and circumcision, how much water to be used, etc.

[2] Ferguson. “Washings for Purification in Greco-Roman Paganism” in Baptism in the Early Church. Location 1045

[3] Kaufmann Kohler & Samuel Krauss“Baptism” in The Jewish Encyclopedia ed. Isidore Singer. (London: Funk & Wagnalls 1916) accessed by: http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/2456-baptism

Sermon 12/10/2023 – The End of Pain

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

There are few things in human life more universal than pain. From our birthing cry to our final breath, we are surrounded by things that are painful. We pray every week for all those in our lives who are in trouble. That wouldn’t be necessary if we were not surrounded by pain. The Psalms are constantly crying out in pain to God, because they trust that God is listening and ready to act. In a world that is broken, in a world that is harmful to seemingly everything within them, how do we survive?

Jesus put forward an interesting solution to the despair we feel at life’s pain. Jesus looks out into the world around us and asks us to counter despair with simplicity. Why be afraid of where food will come from? God feeds the sparrows and they don’t work for their food. Why worry about where your clothing will come from? Flowers are better dressed than any person, and yet they never have to work to make their clothing. Place any part of natural into this equation and the same answer comes out – God provides, and that is often sufficient.

The response that many people have to this teaching is simple. What do birds have to do with my problems? How is it remotely helpful for me to look at flowers when I’m cold at night? In the midst of all our problems, just looking at something else thriving does not magically make us feel better about our circumstances. In fact, the seeming protection and care that God shows every part of creation can make it seem like our own struggles are even more of an aberration. God has cared for everything, and yet I am here in the midst of trouble and pain! Rather than taking these words and finding peace in them, we instead build up a case against ourselves. The darkness of the world that we sit in bleeds into a positive image like this, and poisons it – creating a new way for us to criticize our own hearts.

This is not something unique to this one teaching, or any other aspect of our faith. Paul speaks about how God’s good gift of Torah on Sinai are turned into a curse by our own understanding. When we know what we should not do, we are sometimes more likely to do it. Unless the lesson imparted by a rule or teaching is internalized inside us, we will find loopholes and ways to violate the spirit of a thing even if we do not violate the words of the text themselves. Negativity births negativity. No matter how nice a thing is, putting it in the midst of something bad seldom makes the bad thing seem better, just the nice thing seem worse. I do not enjoy okra anymore because it is breaded and fried.

For someone in the midst of trouble, platitudes, even divinely inspired ones, are not what are needed. This is why scripture so often gives multiple answers to the same question. For the person who is fretting about what might be, the simple things of life can be a way to remember that God’s goodness is not just for one season. However, for the person in the valley of death, that same lesson will probably not accomplish the same thing. There is a rightness of speech to every situation, and the same cure is not meant for every disease. Not every teaching will land in fertile soil in our hearts and produce fruit given the place we are in.

Our scripture we have read together this morning, where Isaiah promises that God is coming to bring peace to God’s people, is written for people in the midst of troubles. Rather than calling for the people to take up songs of praise and to cheer despite pain, the Prophet establishes a pattern.

The Prophet proclaims that the people have suffered, before The Prophet proclaims their deliverance. When we acknowledge the pain that we have faced and hear that acknowledgment reflected in the people who care for us – a lot more healing can happen than would come from denial. God calls out, “Comfort, O Comfort, my people!” Because that is the first thing that the people need, is comfort.

God then moves quickly into a promise of what is to come, a restoration but more than that a setting aside of what was for something new. The call of the Prophet begins, asking us to make a pathway in the wilderness, to clear a way through the uncertainty and danger of the world and see a highway to deliverance for all people. The Prophet’s hymn about God’s control over life and death in the midst of this passage may seem a departure from the theme, but it carries something heartening within it. God, the God who brings life and death, is the God who loves us and cares for us. The hope of our redemption is present in God’s ability to overcome obstacles we find impossible – even obstacles as large as death are nothing to God.

The proclamation of the Prophet, “Here is your God!” Flows into God’s taking up of the title of Shepherd. Throughout scripture God’s care is described in pastoral terms, as an attendant to those in need and as a protector from the troubles of the world around. The acknowledgement of our pain naturally has matured into a promise of our deliverance and the realization of that deliverance in God’s hands.

Advent is a season that celebrates Christ’s coming into the world long ago to set this world on the course it needed to be, a moment when the work began to make a way in the wilderness. Advent is also an acknowledgement that we wait for the day when Christ returns and, as a shepherd, puts an End to all Pain that we might face. For the Church that waits for Christ, we are caught in a space where pain and the end of pain are smashed together in strange juxtaposition. We know from where our deliverance comes, but we do not know when it might be here.

For some of us, the words of hope and promise may seem bitter, our broken hearts, breaking even joy into something lesser. To those of us in this place, let the first part of Isaiah’s prophecy rest in your heart. “Comfort, O Comfort, my people,” is God’s word to all who struggle, to rest in the care of God and of God’s people. For others, the words of God’s promise should fill us with an excitement we’re not used to feeling.

There is an end to trouble, Glory to God that we will get to see it! Faith sustains us in the midst of brokenness, because we know that we have a good shepherd, and that shepherd is actively working in this world and the next to make things right. For all of us, the words of the Prophet make our job in the meantime clear, “Prepare the way of the Lord.” Clear the wilderness of all obstacles to the people who are seeking rest, and God bless the work as we embark upon it. – Amen.

Sermon 11/05/2023 – A Glimpse of Heaven

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

The light of Heaven bursts out all around us. Hard as it can be to see it, there are remnants of it in every drop of atmosphere and every word which we utter in love to one another. It might seem quaint, even trite, to say that the everyday things around us carry such divine revelations, but I don’t mind being either of those things if it means I am telling the truth. We began this morning with one of my favorite songs, “Morning has Broken,” and while that hymn is most famous for Yusuf Islam’s version, I know it from a little show called Pushing Daisies. In that show, the aunt of one of the characters sings the song when something changes within them, the long pent up fears about life melt away, and in the light of a new day that are reborn to go out and pursue what they have long written off as impossible.

Heaven, the realm in which God resides, is something we have talked about a lot this year. Visions of Heaven and what Heaven is actually like and the universal desire of people to know about Heaven… These topics keep coming up to me and out from this pulpit. We are people who are always wondering, always seeking, and so it is no great wonder that our eventual place of residence is a major concern to us. Yet, even our understanding of Heaven as it is is incomplete, because we are not yet in a place where Heaven has taken its final form.

Our scripture asserts that someday we will all be gathered together with a great crowd of people, too numerous to count. There we will join together in praising God before the Heavenly throne. The people there will speak all languages, worship in all styles, have a lifetime’s worth of customs and ideas that all coalesce before that majestic throne. The great enormity of the people of God becomes clear, the distinctions we make between ourselves fall apart, and all at once there is a great display of God’s grace made manifest – the body of Christ, gathered together once and for all.

Yet, this vision is not of the final home for the blessed. No, this is still before the world has been reborn later in the text of Revelation. We are still in the current heaven and the current earth. There is something better still in the works. God will take a great wrecking ball to the metaphysical walls of existence. Heaven will come crashing into Earth and Earth will come crashing into Heaven. There will be a great rushing of reality, like when a dam is suddenly opened and water spills through it. There will no longer be rails and screen keeping what is sacred from what is holy, not in any part of this world, for all will be sacred once again.

The celebration of All Saints’ Day is an ancient feature of the Church. It has not always sat on November 1st, nor has it universally been practiced for one day alone. Yet, from the moment that the people of God saw those around them passing from this life into death, from eternity into eternity, they began to take intentional time to remember their legacy. In South America this merged with local customs to become Dia de los Muertos, a celebration of the deceased through memorial offerings. In the United Kingdom, various traditions came together to form what we now call Halloween, again an acknowledgement of the veil between life and death thinning, and intention moments were set aside to remember those we dearly miss.

This year, we gather to celebrate during a time of great unrest in the world. Ongoing conflicts continue to take lives of innocent people. The Israel-Hamas war has claimed the lives of over 8,000 Palestinians and nearly 2,000 Israelis. The Ukraine War has seen an estimated 10,000 civilians killed in the conflict. In our own nation, the innocent suffer from shooting and from poverty, from preventable diseases and so many other terrible truths of this world. We are in a world that is far from Heaven, and yet we as people of faith assert that Heaven is reaching out to us. There are footholds in this world where God has made the mundane Divine, and we must enhance their efficacy whenever we can.

We are all, as people of faith, Temples to God. The Holy Spirit rests within you, testifying to God and to your own Soul the truth of the Gospel. That truth is a comfort in times of trouble, not because we are promised any of it will suddenly disappear, but because we are told it has its end. This present world, the order of things that always ends in tragedy and pain, it will not stand forever. God is at work, God is pushing back against the overwhelming darkness, and it will someday be conquered. We are a people who trust that Christ is not done with the world, as often and as easy as it is to write it off as long gone. There is still hope, a light still burns in the darkness and the darkness has not, cannot, and will not overcome it.

Today is a day of remembrance. We will name the people we know and who we miss. Let us also turn our hearts to those who are in mourning that we do not know. There are people across this world who are hurting today. Some the pain is new, others long and drawn out. Yet, for all of us there is hope. There is a God who brings about resurrection and redemption. Death is not the end for those who believe, nor is the world to come something to be afraid of. There is, in this life, a dim feeling of hope that permeates all things – that in the hereafter becomes a blazing light that no one can deny.

Today when we take communion, drink deeply from your cup, because it is a reminder of what Christ has done to make this hope possible. When you take the bread in your hand, remember that you hold a piece of the Body of Christ – not just in that mouthful but in your entire being. When we take the two together, we will do so with all who believe, across space and time, and we will assert proudly that there is hope in this dim and dismal world. Let us love, let us hope, let us pray, so that everyone who sees us gets a glimpse of Heaven. More than that, let the someone who needs to be reminded, be you. Let God renew your heart, that you may be made secure against all the torrents of sadness that define our world. – Amen.