title: Eating Stones

themes: temptation pride need-for-a-savior take-up-your-cross discipleship you-are-not-alone admitting-need

text:
**Scripture:** Luke 4:1-13; Philippians 2:6-8; 2 Corinthians 1:3-4; Matthew 11:28-30
**Series:** Lent

> A Lenten sermon on Jesus' wilderness temptation (Luke 4:1-13) arguing that beyond particular, individual temptations lie two general ones—despair and pride—both of which are ultimately a loss of hope and the urge to be one's own messiah. Using the image of 'eating stones' (wishing stones were bread, wishing for another life), the preacher notes Jesus was tempted from weakness, not strength, and that Jesus' miracles complete and redeem rather than destroy. Against the false claim that God never gives more than we can handle, he insists God often does—but frees us from self-salvation through the cross (Bonhoeffer), calling us not to handle the world's brokenness but to love within it. Comforted by God (2 Corinthians 1), we are freed to comfort others, since good news must be good news for everyone.

**Illustrations:** chewing-rocks, dodo-birds-eating-rocks, bacon-aversion, bonhoeffer-come-and-die

---

# February 18, 2024
## Luke 4:1-13
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’ ” Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’ ” Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’ ” Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ” When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.“
Luke 4:1-13 NRSV

Have you ever chewed rocks? There really is nothing like it. It happens if you don't rinse your vegetables really well or you drop your food in a sandbox. You get a little sand in your mouth. Maybe a pebble. It hurts. It doesn't feel good. It feels like your teeth are about to crack (and they may)
Our bodies were not made to eat rocks. Dodo birds apparently ate rocks to help with digestion, and we see how far that got them. Given the option between rocks and food, most of us would choose food. It doesn't matter the circumstance, if there is a way to get food, we go towards food. Especially if we are hungry. Especially if we are desperate. Especially when there do not seem to be any other options.
Today we are going to think about temptation. Hunger and temptation go hand in hand. In the ancient world and in the modern one, hunger is used to describe desires of all kinds. You can be hungry for another job, a house, a person, as well as chocolate cake. We are tempted by our desires. Temptation is context based. Temptation is always tempting to you. That ‘to you’ part matters. It may seem redundant to say but it is totally necessary and often overlooked.
We are all unique with unique desires. What is tempting for me is not tempting for you and vice versa. Bacon, for instance, is disgusting for me. I would rather eat rocks than bacon. This is not the case with most of society. There are stores that only sell Bacon. We could go on and on.

Temptations are also isolating. To share with someone that you are tempted by something is to admit weakness in a world that demands strength. I mean, you can flamboyantly talk about the temptation of chocolate cake, but something real is much more difficult. It is easy to slip into being judgmental or to fear others being judgmental. If I say that I am tempted by something, you may think I am judging you for liking something.
So before we can really talk about temptations with anyone, we need solid relationships. Otherwise, temptations are private and lost to the ether.
So the phenomenon of Eating Stones on one level is the fact that we as a society struggle to grapple with the challenge of temptation, the fact that Jesus was tempted. Do you have anyone in your life with whom you can talk about temptation? Do you have anyone whom you can say with a straight face, "l am tempted by x" and they will take you seriously?
But eating stones gets to something greater as do Jesus' temptations. Most of what is spoken of as temptation is what I call particular temptation. It is just that. It is particular. It is different for you as it is for me. This is what I meant
The two general temptations I want to speak about today are despair and pride, they go hand in hand. By general, I mean that they can infect everyone, not that they always do.

Despair is literally a lack of hope. Despair is what the devil expects in the temptation narrative. Despair leads one to turn stones into bread, to call angels to rescue you, and to be king of the world.
Pride also is an absence of hope, not because you can't see it, but because you think you don't need. The proud have no need for hope because they think they have what they need. or if they don't have it, they possess the tools to acquire it.
Despair and pride, a lack of hope and hope in yourself, each is self-destructive. Each destroys communities.

When we look back at the scripture for today, one of the temptations of the devil seems to prefigure the feeding of the five thousand. Jesus is told to turn a rock into stone. The difference is, With the miracle of the feeding the 5,000, the bread and fish don't change, they multiply. The bread is not lost. When Jesus changes the water into wine, there is still water present.
To change rocks into bread would be to destroy what was created. Jesus doesn't destroy but complete, expand, redeem. The miracles of Jesus never change anyone: they make them whole.

When we are in the desert, and we see stones, it is so tempting to wish they were bread. It is so tempting to wish for another life, another place. It is so tempting to wish to be somewhere else, someone else. The horizon of despair is immediate. We can't think of how to change our reality, so we want to get away from it, What does it matter?
Why should I try to live my faith? Why should I try to stay here? Why should I get up on Sunday mornings when I can just as easily sleep in? Why don't people visit me? Why do people visit me so much? Why does pastor ask me to do so many things? Why am I not asked to do these things? Why am I included? Why am I excluded?
Yet these are all valid questions. I am not complaining about people. I am saying that we are tempted to despair. And all these questions could be concerned with pride. Why should I try to live my faith? (I am already doing great) Why should I try to stay here? (you all aren't worth it me) Why should I get up on Sunday mornings? (my time is more valuable than yours).
Despair and pride. They manifest for each of us in different ways but they are tempting. Despair makes us feel like we are in the deep end.
What is interesting about the Gospel reading today is that Jesus doesn't respond to temptation from a moment of strength but weakness. We all need to remember that. Most temptations do not come to us at our best but at our worst. They usually occur after a confluence of events usually outside of our control. Jesus is tempted after not eating for forty days.

Stuff happens. So much happens. So much is happening right now in your lives. It is unbearable. The Bible is often misquoted in saying that God never gives you more than you can handle. That is false. The Bible says that we are never tempted more than we can handle. There is an important distinction there. God often gives us more than we can handle. If you thought faith or being a Christian was about having an easy life, Jesus has some words for you about picking up your cross. I am going to preach about it next week, in fact.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer lays this out starkly:”When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die."
In Christ, we are freed from despair and pride because we are freed from trying to save ourselves. Thai is greatest temptation of the world: the desire to be your own messiah. But this desire comes up against the wall of life. There is a lot in life we can't handle. As Jesus says, The rain falls on the just as well as the unjust. Some people are horrible and ugly, sinful, stealing, and they are never punished and they seem to prosper. Children are abused. Innocent, beautiful children are abused, and it is horrible. There is brokenness in this world. There is too much for us to handle. I cannot handle it. I am sorry to say it, but I don't think you can either. God never tells us that we can handle anything. God tells us that we don't have to.
Lay your burdens down, Jesus says, take up my yoke and follow me. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. To take up the yoke of Jesus is to put down our own.
There is too much to handle in this world. We are tempted to give up. There is too much to handle in this world, we are tempted to deny it. We are in the deep end as a church, as individuals, as the human race.  It is all too much to handle. People die. Loved ones die or get sick who don't deserve it. It is all too much to handle.
"When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die."
The full quote from Bonhoeffer is helpful
> "The cross is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering which every man must experience is the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ. As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with his death—we give over our lives to death. Thus it begins; the cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die."
In this broken world that we can't handle, we are not asked to handle it, but to love. To love despite the brokenness. To not have all the answers but to still fight for justice. To not give up but our hope is not in our selves but in the one whom, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." Philippians 2:6-8 ESV https://www.bible.com/59/php.2.6-8.esv
The path is narrow that leads to life. The path of temptation is broad. The path of complacency is broad and easy and the inertia of the modern world drops us into it but you are free. We are free. Temptation does not rule us, be it to despair or pride,
We are free to not sell our soul. We are free to eat stones. Yet we are not alone nor can we stay alone. This deep end is not just for us.
As Paul says in 2 Corinthians:
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God."
Have you been comforted?
Can you now comfort others?
Have you been lost and now found?
God offers freedom not just to you or me. If you have been comforted, you are not the only one. If you were blind, if you were lost, you are not the only one. Good news is either good news for everyone or it is not good news,
In this broken world, we are not asked to handle it but to point to the one who has and who does and who will again.
You are loved. The deep end is not a sign of God's displeasure. God is with us here. We can be free.

Let us pray,
Heavenly Father, we thank you for your presence with us amidst all the lonely valleys of this life. During this season of Lent, may we pursue the path of Christ together and stay close to the one who is the way, the truth, and the life.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.


site: sermons

title: Eternal Life

author: Wilson Pruitt

church: covenant-umc

series: After Pentecost

themes: eternal-life hope-not-optimism cheap-grace antinomianism mercy-as-transformation new-creation kingdom-here-and-now

text:
**Scripture:** John 6:51-58; Revelation 22:1-4; 2 Peter 3:10-13
**Series:** After Pentecost

> Pairing John 6's living bread with Revelation 22's river of life, Wilson preaches on Christian hope for eternal life, insisting hope is not mere optimism (Eagleton) and that grace is not a 'cheat code' (the Konami code from Contra) that voids the consequences of our actions. Drawing on 2 Peter 3, he argues our works will be exposed, not burned away, and warns against antinomianism (Nixon's self-justification). Mercy is not a blank slate but transformation and conversion; the kingdom and new creation are present realities to be lived into now, not deferred to the future.

**Illustrations:** konami-code-contra-cheat, childhood-nintendo-video-games, eagleton-hope-without-optimism, nixon-president-not-illegal, curtain-rising-play-apocalypse

---

# August 18
## Eternal Life
### Revelation 22:1-4
### John 6:51-58

Then the angel showed me the river of life-giving water, shining like crystal, flowing from the throne of God and the Lamb through the middle of the city’s main street. On each side of the river is the tree of life, which produces twelve crops of fruit, bearing its fruit each month. The tree’s leaves are for the healing of the nations. There will no longer be any curse. The throne of God and the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. Night will be no more. They won’t need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will shine on them, and they will rule forever and always. Revelation 22:1-4

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day, for my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which the ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.” - John 6:51-58

I grew up at a great time for video games. When I was a child, my parents bought us, my brother and I mostly, an original Nintendo system. The eight bit Nintendo that came with super Mario brothers and duck hunt and little gun. It was a lot of fun.
I had a lot of fun playing those early games. I loved to play Mario. I was never super good at it, but I loved it. I tried my best. My friends down the street kept getting the other systems like Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis. We never got another system, which I think was wise on my parents part. I remember going to a friends house to play the first Mario cart, how fun that was. And then the Nintendo 64 and Goldeneye, the James Bond game and multiplayer. Another thing I got into was computer games. I especially loved role playing games that weren't super fast paced and didn't have a lot of quick decisions. They allowed for slow deliberation. That is what I really enjoyed about them.

We played board games and card games as a family. I played sports growing up, and loved them. I still enjoy playing basketball when I can. But something unique about computer game and video games, as opposed to other kinds of games, were the secret codes. The cheat codes.
The famous one that even I knew, growing up in College Station, was from this game called Contra, which came out a little after the Iran Contra affair. But I didn't know about that and thought it was just a cool game with a cool name. You play two mercenaries in the jungle with cool guns. And there was a secret code you could use at the beginning of the game and it would give you 30 extra lives.
It was Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A then Start at the title screen and voilà, you had 30 extra lives without even trying. It is called the Konami code and was created by the original game designer to make testing the game easier but it was still in the final build and the secret was whispered across the world.   Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start. 30 lives. When you used the code, you would no longer have as many consequences for your actions. I used it a few times, but I think the best kinds of games help you to form ways of decision-making and understanding which allow you to look at the costs and benefits of certain actions. And if you have the secret code, especially in Contra, it doesn't matter. There are no costs for any actions. You can do what you want. You can play what you want.
Now, what does that have to do with eternal life?

My friends, we are thinking about the hope for eternal life today. Jesus says “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever”. I want us to connect John 6 with the end of the book of revelation. In this really striking and beautiful passage of the heavens, the sending of a new heaven and a new earth, our hope is our ultimate destination in God. What does that look like? How is that going to happen?

The first thing to remember is that hope is not optimism. And Christian faith is not just about being optimistic in our future.

> “An optimist is not just someone with high hopes. Even a pessimist can feel positive on a particular issue, whatever his or her habitual gloom. One can have hope without feeling that things in general are likely to turn out well. An optimist is rather someone who is bullish about life simply because he is an optimist.”[^1]

Optimism comes from yourself. Hope can only ultimately come from God and seeking God. When we hope for something in this world, like rain, our hope is found in seeking the good of rain. And in seeking the good we seek God.

But these hopes are only a part of our ultimate hope in God, which we see in Revelation 22. The river of life. No weeping. No pain. This isn’t the only description of our ultimate hope.

In 2 Peter, there's an even more confusing passage that I've never got a good, clear answer about.

>But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. On that day the heavens will pass away with a dreadful noise, the elements will be consumed by fire, and the earth and all the works done on it will be exposed.

>Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be? You must live holy and godly lives, waiting for and hastening the coming day of God. Because of that day, the heavens will be destroyed by fire and the elements will melt away in the flames. But according to his promise we are waiting for a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.

Different people have different ideas about what it means. I tend to read it in the following way: the point is the holy and godly lives we should live now;  our material possessions will not follow us to the new creation. That awesome fancy watch or new boat or retirement account is not eternal. Peter writes that the earth and all the works done on it will be exposed. Nothing will be hidden. The backroom deals and oppressive and destructive practices of this world will be exposed. This is revelation. The world will be fully revealed for what it is. Our response should not be fear but holy living now. Living for God’s kingdom now. Loving our neighbors now. For our neighbor’s love is worth far more than that new watch or a new Jet boat. Our neighbor’s love will not burn away.

There is discourse like this in the prophet Ezekiel, Daniel and some of the Gospels, and throughout the Book of Revelation, about the future of the world and Christ’s future and Christ’s coming and what will happen after Christ's coming. I want us to be aware that sometimes Christians can speak about the future and speak about hope in a dangerous way by acting as if our hope in God is a cheat code on this life. Acting as if, when we hope in God and God's future, there are no more consequences for our actions. Acting as if mercy gives us a blank slate so we can do whatever we want, or we can do whatever we want until we're just about to die. And then we confess everything. And then we're, scot-free. It's kind of like a clichéd way that Catholicism is presented in the media. This is not an accurate view of any Christian faith or social teaching.

There is mercy which is offered to us. We proclaim the mercy of God. We are offered the mercy of God, but mercy is not about letting you stay the same in order to receive forgiveness again and again. Mercy is about transformation and conversion.
In the 18th century in England, when the first Methodists were preaching, some accused them of being antinomian. There have been antinomians throughout history, though Methodists were definitely not one of them.
It is a Greek term that means lawless. Nomos means the law and anti-nomos means no law. It's like people who live as if there is no law.
Antimonians think that as long as you want it, it is good. It is Richard Nixon’w line, “if the president does it, it’s not illegal.” Go ahead. It is like a cheat code on life. There are no consequences for any actions. I can do whatever I want because God already loves me. So I can steal my neighbors money because God loves me. I can cheat on my wife because God loves me. I can punch-in someone’s face for looking at me weird because God loves me. I am free to do whatever I want and whatever I want is good because I am good because God loves me. I have a cheat code. This, though, is not the love revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus does not offer a cheat code to get out of the consequences of our actions. In some ways, faith reveals even greater consequences for our actions. To believe in the love of Jesus means you have to start thinking about your neighbors in a deeper way.

What is so important for us to remember in speaking of faith and speaking of what we hope for is that hope is not a cheat code to get out of the consequences of our life. New life in God, resurrection in God, heaven, grace, a new heavens and new earth, Christ's second coming; none of these get us out of the consequences of our actions. There are stakes involved in faith. You can't just press up, up, down, down left, right left, right, start, and get a set of extra lives. You can’t shut down the game and start over when things aren’t going your way.
But that doesn't mean it's hopeless.

One of the ways that Christians have become antinomian is by not caring about the world around us, and that's a reality. Some people have preached that it doesn't matter what we do because God's going to destroy it anyway. They have taken 2 Peter 3 and totally missed the point of what Peter is saying. Our sins are not going to be burned away. They will be exposed.

As well, there are some Christians who have preached that it doesn't matter what we do to heathens because they're not saved. Anyway, I could go on and on in increasingly political and controversial statements about the ways in which faith has been abused and used to justify and rationalize actions contrary to scripture. Our hope in God, what we hope for is not just in the future, not just this world being made new sometime in the future. It is the world being made new here and now.
As much as anything, that is what the Book of Revelation is about. It's not about the future. It is about the present. It is about what do we do now? When the truth of reality has been revealed. Revelation means what is revealed. Apocalypse is the Greek word for revelation, for being revealed. It's what happens at the beginning of a play. When the curtain goes up and you see the stage and the set, what has been revealed, what has been revealed is that Jesus is Lord here and now. Jesus is not Lord of the future earth. Jesus is Lord of this earth. And there is strong continuity between here and our future. The kingdom of heaven is here and now. We can live into it here and now.
If we wish to spend an eternity with God, we should start now, don't wait. Start living holy and godly lives now. Don't wait.
You cannot save yourself. Don’t try. Seek God’s mercy, but don’t stop there. Don’t use mercy as an excuse to stay in the same place but as an inspiration to move and transform into who you were created to be. Mercy is about a transformation in your heart. Not just that you are forgiven for things, but that you no longer desire those things. You no longer desire what is broken. You no longer desire what is self-destructive.
Our hope is in God's action and salvation, but there are stakes involved in this. There are stakes involved in what God is doing, and we should not rely on ourselves, but in the God heaven and earth.
Let's seek the God of heaven. That is our hope. And that is happening now. You can live into it now. You can make a commitment to it now. You can change your life now. You don't have to wait. You are forgiven. Accept it. Hope in the Lord. Believe it. Transformation is offered this day, come and take it.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[^1]: Terry Eagleton, Hope Without Optism

method: authored, not translated

license_apparatus: CC BY-NC 4.0


title: Eye of the Camel

themes: wealth-and-greed letter-versus-spirit almost-christian self-denial suffering-and-divine-solidarity gods-unconditional-love

text:
**Scripture:** Mark 10:17-31; Job 23:1-9; Job 23:16-17
**Series:** After Pentecost

> Pairing the rich man's encounter in Mark 10 with Job's bitter complaint, Wilson argues that we instinctively sanitize Jesus' hard call by hunting for loopholes, like the Renaissance patron who painted a needle-sized camel to escape the warning to the rich. Such loophole-seeking is the 'old person' before grace, still relying on self and clinging to the pre-grace life rather than letting go; it is Wesley's almost Christian who does everything right but lacks love in the heart. Turning to Job, he insists faith is not a peachy attitude or a storm-free life that pays out rewards; even when God feels absent, God is still there, and nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ, so we should stop seeking loopholes out of love and instead let go of destruction and despair to seek that love.

**Illustrations:** tiny-camel-needle-painting, medici-fugger-banking-wealth, patrons-in-biblical-scenes, speeding-ticket-intention, walton-microscopic-camel-lab, wesley-almost-christian

---

# October 13
## Eye of the Camel
### Job 23:1-9, 16-17
### Mark 10:17-31

Then Job answered:
“Today also my complaint is bitter;
    his hand is heavy despite my groaning.
Oh, that I knew where I might find him,
    that I might come even to his dwelling!
I would lay my case before him
    and fill my mouth with arguments.
I would learn what he would answer me
    and understand what he would say to me.
Would he contend with me in the greatness of his power?
    No, but he would give heed to me.
There the upright could reason with him,
    and I should be acquitted forever by my judge.
“If I go forward, he is not there;
    or backward, I cannot perceive him;
on the left he hides, and I cannot behold him;
    I turn to the right, but I cannot see him.
	God has made my heart faint;
    the Almighty has terrified me.
If only I could vanish in darkness,
    and thick darkness would cover my face!
- Job 23:1-9, 16-17

As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. You shall not defraud. Honor your father and mother.’ ” He said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” They were greatly astounded and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”

Peter began to say to him, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.” Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for my sake and for the sake of the good news who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.” - 10:17-31

The late middle ages and the early renaissance were a wonderful period for art. There was this burst of creativity and technique that allowed for a radical renewal of artistic traditions, as well as the creation of new traditions.

 There's also this expansion of wealth and banking families, like the the Medicis in Florence or the Fuggers in Frankfurt are starting to accumulate these huge amounts of wealth. It really was unimaginable for anyone before that time, unless you were a king. And suddenly these nonroyal people are able to have this huge wealth and purchase titles and even thrones.

One of my favorite details of this period is that rich people would pay painters to paint these biblical scenes. And they would ask the painters to paint them, the rich benefactors, in the biblical scenes. So it would be something like the baptism of Jesus and the rich guy is in the background and his family, or it'd be the circumcision of Jesus. And the rich guy's son is the face of the baby. All these interesting details. You can always learn a lot about a society by how they depict scenes from the Bible.

One of my favorite details from the renaissance is this painting where they have a needle in the corner of a giant canvas. It's a normal needle. And inside the needle is drawn a camel. A normally proportioned camel, though the size is a little off. The camel about the size of a camel emoji.

Not so subtly, the rich man who sponsored this painting is making a commentary on this passage from the Gospel of Mark. Jesus says that it is harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. And the rich dude is like, “I hear you, Jesus. I will make a really small camel. No, that doesn’t work? What about a really, really, really, really, really, really small camel? One that can go through the eye of the needle. Therefore, I, as a rich dude, can enter heaven.”

This detail is a great example about how all of us, in our own ways, try to sanitize the call of Jesus. It's human nature to do this, to see something as good and then try and distort it so we don’t have to change.

In our life and in our faith journey, we may come to this moment where, through grace, we realize that following Jesus is good and doing the things that Jesus says are good. We like the idea of Jesus. We like the love of Jesus. And then we come face to face with the words of Jesus, words that aren’t about other people. Words that are about us and our own heart.

What if Jesus meant what he said?

A man comes up to Jesus. He doesn't have a name in Mark. He comes up and says, “good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
Jesus says, have you followed the commandments? And he gives an example of a few of the commandments. Have you followed the law?

The problem of laws, whether religious laws or civil laws, secular laws, whether state laws or federal laws or community laws, the problem with the law is the words on the page. Intention only goes so far. If I get pulled over for speeding, for going 45 in a 30, it doesn’t matter if I did not mean to do it. The officer is not concerned with my intention. In part, because he cannot judge my intention. He can judge my speed.
Sure, there are some laws where intention matters, but stick with me. If there were a law that said that no rich people could enter a club unless a camel went through the eye of a needle, it would be a very restrictive law.
If you make a certain amount of money, you cannot enter unless you can bring a camel through this gravity. Right? That's the explicit thing.

And then there's somebody who has a microscopic camel that goes through a really large needle. Like, if the Walton family paid for a lab at A&M and they have been breeding camels for forty years and they finally get one small enough to go through a needle. Would that pass the test that Jesus gives?

Would Saint Peter say, Welcome. You made it through. You found the catch.

These are called loopholes. Loopholes are an ambiguity or inadequacy in the law that can be exploited. Loopholes are an unavoidable part of reality. The more we try to legislate out loopholes, the more loopholes people find. You close 1, another new one opens up.
The thing about a loophole is that it is a way to exploit the law in order to not have to follow said law. A loophole is a way to exploit instruction, to exploit a command so that you don't have to follow it.
This is where Jesus is tricky because he challenges directly the idea of using loopholes with our daily life, using loopholes of the Bible in order to get out of following the words of God. I mean, this is what Paul means in 2 Corinthians when he says that the letter kills, but the spirit gives life. When we are hyper focused on the letter to the point of finding loopholes, we're missing out on the spirit of what God is calling us to do and who God is calling us to be.

Because, the truth is, we shouldn't want to be the kind of people that exploit loopholes. This is the old person.
This is the person before grace, before faith, who is not relying on Jesus, who is still relying on themselves. Who is relying on themselves in order to find a way to keep hold of some aspect of their prior life, their life before grace, the life where they weren't saved, where they didn't know that they were loved, where they didn't know they were forgiven. They want to hold on to the aspects of that life into the new one. And Jesus is saying, you gotta let it go. You gotta stop looking for the deal. You gotta stop looking for the catch. Let go of the desire to win every contract.
Following what Jesus says is good. The way. Following the way is good, But it is not the end because we can still follow the way and distort it for our own ends and our own means and purposes and not for God, not for love, not for caring.

This is what John Wesley would call the almost Christian. The almost Christian does all the right things. They they're always at church. They tithe. They serve. They give to their neighbor. They volunteer. They do all the things.
But they don't have the love of Jesus shed abroad in their heart. Thus, they're almost a Christian and not an altogether Christian.

We can't see the heart of others. It's impossible. We can't X-ray someone's heart and see the love they have. We can’t know why someone does something.
What we can do is look inward at our own heart. Where is your heart? Another way to say this is, like, where is your desire? The heart is often a a metaphor for desire, for will, for longing.
And the truth of the faith of Jesus Christ is that you don't have to desire destruction. You don't have to desire acts of destruction. You don't have to desire to exploit others. You don't have to desire to alienate others. This is not who you are.
God has freed you from that. Life is found in this freedom that God has opened up through the blood of Jesus Christ. Opened up to you and to many that you are free.

The book of Job offers an extended meditation on suffering, and, thus, it is one of the more realistic books of the Bible. I asked Steve not to introduce Job so that the words could be shocking.

In the beginning of the book, Job has it all together. He has wealth, family, friends. And the accuser says that Job has faith because he's got all these good things. Job is accused of believing because of what God has given him. God says, no. Job believes fully. All the other stuff is just fruit. It's bonus. It's extra.

Then the trials of Job take place, and the suffering takes place.
Job is complaining here in chapter 23, complaining bitterly, feeling isolated and alone that he can't find God.

Job is not unfaithful here. In the midst of the struggle, in the midst of admitting the struggle, Job is not unfaithful here. Faith is not about having a peachy keen attitude at all times. If we go to church, believe in God in order to get stuff from God, we are going to be disappointed.
It is not going to work out. This is reality. The rain falls, as Jesus says, on the just as well as the unjust. The rain falls on the righteous as well as the unrighteous. Just because you believe doesn't mean the storms will not come.
The storms will come for everyone. Some people experience more storms than others, and it seems unfair. Our faith is not in a storm free life, but that the storms do not define us. That even when God feels far away. As Job said, if I go forward, he is not there.
Or backward, I cannot perceive him. On the left, he hides, and I cannot behold him. I turn to the right, but I cannot see him.

It is a feeling Job has. It is a feeling most of us have had. But this feeling of Job is not the end of his story nor is it the end of our story.

And yet God is there.

And yet, God is there.

God is there for you. God is there for us. His love is there for you. Amazing love. How can it be that you, my God, would die for me?
So don't try and find a loophole to get out of love. Even when the darkness is thick, it is not the end of the story. The darkness cannot separate you from the love of God in Jesus Christ, nor can struggle or tribulation nor sword, nor flesh, nor things above, nor things below. Nothing can separate you from the love of God and Jesus Christ. You are claimed by God.
You are loved by God. So seek that love. Let go of destruction. Let go of despair. Seek God's love, and you will find it.

In the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit. Amen.


title: First Attempt (Temptation of Jesus)

series: Lent

text:
**Scripture:** Luke 4:1-13; Matthew 6:16-18
**Series:** Lent

> A Lenten sermon on Luke 4:1-13, the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. It opens by insisting that temptation is always tempting and always particular to the individual. It explores Jesus' 40-day fast (noting fasting makes Jesus stronger, not weaker, and contrasting with how low blood sugar weakens us, illustrated by the preacher's family and a study of a Pennsylvania judge's pre-lunch sentencing), then uses Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor to interpret the three temptations as miracle, mystery, and authority. It closes by arguing that because temptation exposes our weakness, admitting it is an act of faith while denying it is a lack of faith.

**Illustrations:** low-blood-sugar-family, pennsylvania-judge-sentencing, grand-inquisitor-karamazov

---

# February 18, 2024 First Attempt

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’ ” Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’ ” Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’ ” Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ” When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.“
Luke 4:1-13 NRSV

Very few people are tempted to eat rocks or to drink pond water. It's not one of those temptations that often comes up. People aren't often tempted to run through the woods blindfolded or to walk across I 35
An essential concept of temptation that we have to start with seems so obvious at first, but it bears repeating. Temptation is always tempting.
We have to start there. Temptations don't exist as this quality apart from the impact they make on our desire. A temptation is always tempting. If a temptation is not tempting to you, it is not a temptation to you. That, to you, part of the sentence matters just as much as any other. A temptation is tempting to you. Your temptation is tempting to you. It will not be, or it may not be tempting to your spouse or your child or your friend or your neighbor, but to you. What is tempting for one person is not tempting for the other.
After the baptism of Jesus, he goes into the desert. He goes into the area south of Jerusalem, the Negev, the wilderness. People don't live there. Even today, it is the most sparsely populated regions of the Holy Land.
He goes and he fasts for 40 days and 40 nights. The number 40 is significant in the Old Testament for the days in which Noah and his family and the animals floated in the waters.
Jesus fasts in the wilderness. I don't know how many of you have fasted.
Most of us have had to skip a meal before. That's the closest
reality of fasting for most of us. When you skip a meal or you have a later lunch than usual or a later meal than usual, your metabolic clock is telling you to eat, but you can't eat for another two hours. This situation doesn't put you in the best of moods. I guess some people might be different, but for many people in my family, we suffer from LBS when we don’t eat: low blood sugar. When we have low blood sugar, we do not respond to people in the same way.
We lash out more. We blame others more. The littlest things cause great reactions.
There was a study a few years ago that looked at a judge in Pennsylvania and his sentences. They didnt focus on the types of cases but the time of day when he ruled. Depending on the hour, his worst sentences were invariably delivered just before a lunch break. The lightest sentences were delivered just after lunch.
If you're going to deliver s
some hard news to someone, it is better to do it after a meal than right before it because we humans don't work that well on low blood sugar.
When Jesus describes fasting in the Sermon on the Mount, he tells the people who gathered around the Mount to wash their face and anoint their head so that others don't notice their discomfort. Hypocrites wear their fasting on their faces in order to receive pity from others. Jesus tells the people there that day to hide their fasting, hide their face.
Jesus is different from us. This is true, and the fasting of Jesus is different from most of the fasting people do today because it's centered around who God is.
Jesus doesn't get weaker by fasting. He becomes stronger.
In his calorie restricted and weakened state. Jesus is truly prepared for the temptations of the devil.
And so the devil comes with these three questions.
In some ways, Fyodor Dostoevsky's great novel, The Brother’s Karamazov, turns on these three questions.
They are at the heart of the Grand Inquisitor poem. In the middle of the novel, the main character, Alyosha, a young monk, is visiting with his older brother, Ivan. Ivan has just explained to the young monk why he doesn't believe in God. Ivan goes through stories of suffering he read in the newspaper, especially the suffering of children, the brutality of wicked parents and family members who have abused children.
He recounts these stories and then he recites a poem to his brother. It is in prose and includes a plot and dialogue, but Ivan calls it a poem.
The poem is about this hypothetical situation where Jesus returns amid the Spanish Inquisition and Jesus is taken and arrested by the Inquisition, not because they're ignorant of who he is, but because the Grand Inquisitor knows precisely who he is and still thinks Jesus must die.

>Thus you yourself, laid the foundation for the destruction of your own kingdom, and do not blame anyone else for it. It is this what was offered you? There are three powers, only three powers on earth, capable of conquering, and holding captive forever, the conscience of these feeble rebels, for their own happiness,— these powers are miracle, mystery, and authority. You rejected the first, the second, and the third, and gave yourself as an example of that, when the dread and spirit set you on a pinnacle of the temple, and said to you: "if you would know whether or not, you are the son of God, cast yourself down; it is written of him that the angels were will bear him up, and he will not fall or be hurt, and then you will know whether you are the son of God, and will prove what faith you have in your father. "But you heard and rejected the offer, and did not yield and did not throw yourself down. Oh, of course, in this, you acted proudly and magnificently, like God, but mankind, that weak, rebellious tribe,—are they gods?Page 255

The poem covers the rest of the temptations, but what is important for us to remember is that these are not three random moments of temptation. The three have great meaning: miracle, mystery, and authority.

The miracle was the bread, the authority the command of angels, the mystery the test about whether Jesus was the son of God.

Miracle, mystery, authority. We are tempted by things too good to be true. We are tempted by power. We are tempted by mystery when we test fate. We are all tempted by different things but all our temptations come back to one of these three things.

Culturally, temptation is split between food and sex. Temptations of these kinds fall under mystery and authority, thinking the rules don’t apply to us.

Temptation is sub-optimal. Temptation doesn’t fit into our life goals. When you plan out your year or career, rarely do you make space for temptation, right? When you made your New Year’s resolutions, I bet you didn’t resolve what you would be tempted by?

Because temptation is so particular, it makes it vulnerable to talk about them. If I tell you my temptation, I tell you my weakness.

We instinctively hide vulnerability. Sure, there are moments of performative vulnerability where we have calculated aspects of our life that we are willing to expose to the world.

Then there is the issue of judgement and a fear of judgment.

Even more to the point, they can be justified. You can rationalize it. You can deflect and place the blame elsewhere. It is an act faith to admit temptation, it takes a lack of faith to deny it.


title: Follow Me

themes: call-to-discipleship following-jesus grace-and-transformation humility spiritual-discipline ongoing-conversion body-of-christ

text:
**Scripture:** Mark 1:16-20; Joshua 24:14-15
**Series:** After Pentecost

> Preached October 6, 2024 at Covenant UMC, this sermon on Mark 1:16-20 (with Joshua 24:14-15) reframes discipleship around being a follower rather than a leader. Against a culture of leadership manuals, imperial figures like Augustus, and self-knowledge philosophy, Jesus simply says 'Follow me' to ordinary fishermen, offering grace not based on credentials. Following requires humility and surrender of control. Conversion is not a one-time moment but a daily decision; the pastor illustrates this with his own running habit and Matthew McConaughey's 'tie your shoes' advice, and points to John Wesley's stories of holy lives as models. The call is to start where you are each morning, echoed in the spiritual 'Give Me Jesus.'

**Illustrations:** military-leadership-books, augustus-caesar, jesus-of-smallville, elite-business-schools, delphi-know-thyself, palm-sunday-crowd-turning, freezing-brains-supplements, body-of-christ-cells, mcconaughey-tie-your-shoes, pastor-running-habit, wesley-holy-lives, social-media-high-performers, give-me-jesus-spiritual

---

# October 6
## Follow Me
### Joshua 24:14-15
### Mark 1:16-20

“Now, therefore, revere the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and in Egypt and serve the Lord. Now if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living, but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” - Joshua 24:14-15

As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea, for they were fishers. And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of people.” And immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him. - Mark 1:16-20

Up until about the last 50 years, published most leadership books were about the military, about generals or military strategists like Clausewitz or Napoleon and his marshals, Like Sun Tzu, and the book of five rings. This is what leadership consisted of: a set of axioms and ideas, about grabbing the initiative, about how a battle is won in the preparation, leading your men in to victory. There wasn’t one weird trick to victory but plans and strategies and tactics.

Jesus was born under the reign of Augustus Caesar. Augustus was the nephew of Julius Caesar. Augustus had defeated  the other claimants to authority in Rome after the death of his uncle. And in that process, he had built up an Imperial image of himself as a leader, as the leader, as the figure around which everything in the empire revolved. The emperor was not a king. Rome didn’t have kings. The emperor was the leader of kings. The emperor ruled.
If Augustus Caesar was a leader, who was Jesus of Nazareth?

Nazareth alone makes Jesus radically different than Augustus. It’s Jesus of Nazareth, not Jesus of Jerusalem, not Jesus of Athens or Jesus of Rome, Jesus of Nazareth, a backwater town that has no record outside the Bible before around 200 AD. Jesus, of basically Smallville, comes to this village, this beach with a few houses by the sea of Galilee, also a region of not much importance; a place of small fishing villages, of subsistence life. This is not where leaders are usually found. And Jesus goes to the side of the lake shore and comes across two fishermen, not military geniuses, not guys who scored high on personality tests.They didn't go to the McCombs school or the booth school or the Wharton school. Jesus doesn't give them a test. He doesn’t ask for references. He doesn't offer a probationary period of employment. He simply says, follow me.

Very few leadership books today talk about the importance of being a follower. They are about how to make a name for yourself. How to put yourself out there. Not how to be a follower.
Followers aren't self-starters; they're sheeple more than people.
Jesus doesn't come to fishermen along the sea of Galilee and say, “be independent. Think for yourself” He doesn't say, γνῶθι σεαυτόν, know thyself. The words of the Oracle of Delphi, the words that guided Greek philosophy from Heraclitis to Plato, to Aristotle, to the Stoics. Jesus says, “follow me! I will make you fishers of men. I will make you fish for something greater. Right now you're fishing for fish. You're fishing to support yourself. You can be a part of something greater. You are worthy of being a part of something greater, but you've got to lay down your nets. You've got to be willing to listen to someone other than yourself, you gotta be willing to not rest on your laurels.”

Laurels came from crowds and crowds can turn quickly. As we see in the life of Jesus, as we see in holy week, the crowds cheering him on Palm Sunday, were jeering him and crying, “crucify him” on Maundy Thursday. We all like to think of ourselves as separate from the crowds. We are unique. They are the followers. We define ourselves as unique so it is hard to realize when we are the ones jeering the others, crying “crucify him.”
Jesus shows us is that our life is not a competition with others, even when we want it to be. Football games fade away, businesses rise and fall, property value rises and falls. We can build our treasure here on earth in a lot of different ways, none of them will last forever. We could freeze our brains or take all the supplements in the world and it won’t matter.

Jesus says something else; he says: Follow me.

The simplicity of the call of Jesus is its greatest challenge. You cannot get around it. Either you drop your nets or you don’t. Jesus doesn’t talk with fancy words or assumptions. He lays it bare before us.

To truly follow someone takes humility. It takes admitting that they may know something you don't know. Jesus comes to the disciples on the seashore and offers them a new way of life.
That is not based on who they have been or what they have done. It is not based on who their parents are or on their career prospects. It is grace all the way down. To receive grace fully means taking a step.

It is that step towards God, hearing the words of God, “follow me,” and admitting to ourselves that that is what we need to do.
God is calling us to be sheeple for Jesus.

Now that doesn't mean that we're all going to look the exact same or not have any free will. The amazing thing about God's love and God's creativity is that we are not called to all act and look and do the same things. The body of Christ is a body of Christ. It's not all the same kinds of cells and organisms. Some people are called to be hands, some feet, some eyes, some legs. We all need each other to be the body of Christ. God knows how we fit together. The point is not for the church to be a hyper efficient military unit, but to witness to the transformation of this world made evident in Jesus rising from the dead. And that the transformation of this world starts right where we are in our own life.
That's what following Jesus is all about, it is about being willing to be transformed. The call of Jesus to the disciples on the seashore was not just a one-time event. This is how we often think of it. Jesus comes to meet you. You have this moment on Emmaus or a youth event, or later in life or earlier in life, and you realize that God is real and God is true. And God has loved you and forgiven you and then you commit or recommit yourself to following Jesus. Being a follower, that is being someone who relinquishes control over your life, because you realize that God is in control anyway. And whatever control we claim for ourselves is a lie and foolishness.

So if you have had that moment, that is great. And I pray to God that you've had that moment. And if you haven't, I'd love to talk to you about that more if you're willing to. But if you have had that moment, God is not finished with you yet.
We respond to the world in different ways. We relate to the world in different ways. And the transformation of God that occurs on that seashore or on that mountain top is aiming for a total transformation for all of us to be made new. We can’t assume the person we are today is who God has created us to be. We can’t assume that God is finished with us.

If you think God is done with you, you are missing out, because God’s love and God’s call is not a one time thing, but an everyday thing. Waking up in the morning, every day, we decide who we're going to be.
I started running for the first time after college. I started running more because it was just easier to run and I could do it without a fancy gym. You didn't need any equipment. You didn’t need to make an appointment. You didn't need to commute anywhere. I could just start running. But I would struggle to find a good time of day to do it. It took me a while to find a good time to do it. I remember visiting a friend's house and there was a Men's Health article about Matthew McConaughey, you know  ‘All right. All right. All right.’ And his advice about running was to tie your shoes. It still sticks with me. I found the original article online. He says, “It's that simple. You tie your shoes, man, you know you're gonna do it." And it was great for me because I realized that if I could get out the door as soon as physically possible, I would run. But if I make it more challenging, I'm going to find a reason not to do it. I needed to eliminate as many excuses that I could possibly make. To do that, I had to realize that I was probably going to make an excuse, realize that it wasn't going to be super simple, that I had to struggle against myself, because my human instinct of not trying, of not working, of not doing things, was pretty strong. What also helps me is realizing, even in getting up in the morning, that if I get up as soon as my alarm goes off, it will make the next day easier. Every morning I try to make tomorrow a better day.

For all of you, though, I encourage you to find a pattern with your body and your Bible that lets you start each day with gratefulness. This is one of the reasons we give this book to our kids. And we are going to do that again on October 27 for Children’s Sunday. The words here can change a life. They are old words but they are made fresh every we time we open ourselves up to listening to them.
How we choose to respond to God in our day to day life matters. And we can decide to follow Jesus. We can decide to look at our life and see what we are doing in connection to God's will for us, in connection to God's love for us, how we have been forgiven and loved and given purpose. We don't have to do it alone. We don't have to figure it out alone. We can look to other examples of great lives lived.
The early Methodist movement was filled with stories of holy lives. John Wesley would share them again and again and again, not his own life, but other people who had experienced grace and transformation. Not only to show how awesome God was, but to offer models of living a faithful life. Kind of like how social media is filled all the time with the daily routine of high performers like CEOs or Olympic athletes. When John Wesley shared about the lives of holy people, he wasn’t trying to increase the efficiency in English factories but to transform lives. You don’t have to invent the wheel. Learning from others is not weakness. Who is someone you admire here? How do they start their day? Have you asked them? Give it a shot.
 The one weird trick God offers us this day is follow me. You don't have to figure it out today. Peter and Andrew did not know where Jesus was going but they knew they had to be there. You don't have to be a Caesar or an Alexander the great to be a faithful Christian. You don't have to move mountains on your own. Start right where you are. Start every morning when you wake up. Find a rhythm for you that let’s you say in the words of the old spiritual,
In the morning when I rise / In the morning when I rise
In the morning when I rise / Give me Jesus
Give me Jesus / Give me Jesus
You can have all this world / But give me Jesus

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.


title: Healing Wounds

themes: the-wounds-of-christ healing wrestling-with-god powers-and-principalities forgiveness us-vs-them serving-the-least

text:
**Scripture:** Mark 6:53-56; Ephesians 2:13-14; Genesis 32:22-32; Matthew 25:40
**Series:** After Pentecost

> Drawing on a vacation injury at Petrified Forest, the pastor distinguishes wounds that heal quickly from those that linger, applying this to both physical and spiritual wounds. Spiritual wounds include lies told about God and the body, and the slander of the devil (diabolos = slanderer) and the powers and principalities. Using Jacob wrestling the angel and being renamed Israel, he argues Christ's healing is a wrestling match within the heart between who the world says we are and who God knows we are. Christ breaks down the dividing wall (Ephesians 2) within our souls. Wounds cannot be healed against our will; we must admit our need, and forgiveness and mercy are the heavenly balm. We touch the hem of Jesus's cloak by serving the least of these (Matthew 25), giving, and ceasing to hide our wounds.

**Illustrations:** petrified-forest-fall, unnoticed-injury, diabolos-satan-slanderer, jacob-wrestles-angel, come-o-thou-traveler-unknown, climbing-jacobs-ladder-hymn, risen-christ-scars, teacher-forgiveness-medicine, more-things-dreamt-philosophy

---

# July 21
## Healing Wounds

“But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.” - Ephesians 2:13-14 NRSV

“When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.” - Mark 6:53-56 NRSV

When we were on our vacation at the end of June, we went to Petrified Forest National Park in Northern Arizona. This is the national park that most people pass through in the country. Not visit, that would be Great Smokey Mountains National Park in Tennessee and North Carolina. No, more people pass through Petrified Forrest because it is right on I-40 between Albuquerque and Phoenix. It is an older park, named to the system in 1906.
A lot of people pass through but very few people camp there or stay there. Even on the website, it says,

There is no RV, car, or front country camping in the park. There is no boondocking, dispersed or “primitive” camping, or just pulling off into a parking area. There is only backpacking…

So we were in the backcountry, and I was running. I didn't have a pack on, but I was running. And I tripped and fell and crashed down on a pile of rocks. I didn't hurt myself, but I cut out up my hands pretty badly. I was in a hurry and just because I fell didn’t change the fact that I was in a hurry so I kept on going.
Didn't clean them up. I didn't even wipe them. I just kept on going.
Blood was dripping a little bit. Eventually, it all got sorted out. I cleaned up my hands and bandaged them up. I had a really a deep cut on my thumb that was bleeding a lot and a small cut on my palm with almost no blood. There were a few other abrasions, but those were the ones that I needed to cover in order to keep from getting infected. The cut on my palm wasn't very deep, and it didn't bleed a lot. The cut on my thumb had a little flap and a lot of blood. Once the bleeding stopped though, my thumb healed fairly quickly. The cut on my palm did not bleed very much, but it took a lot longer to heal.

Some wounds that we receive take a lot longer to heal. At the end of Mark chapter 6, Jesus and his disciples are still around the area of Galilee. This is where Jesus was raised and where he spent nearly all of his early ministry in the northern part of what is now Israel. The people are here to listen to him and see him and they are coming in droves. The people want healing. They have wounds that need to be healed, and they are seeking Jesus.

There are some wounds that heal up on their own. You don't have to do anything with them and then they go away on their own. There are other wounds that linger and linger and linger. And I think we should understand wounds here as both physical and spiritual. There are physical wounds and spiritual wounds.

One of the funny things about cuts and wounds is that sometimes they don't hurt until you notice them. Many times in my life, I'll find some blood on my pants and be like, “where did that come from?” And then I see a gash on my arm or on my head or wherever it would be. Only then would I start to feel the pain. The body is a curious thing.

How can that work? How can you be injured without realizing it. You can go a long time without realizing the injury that you have sustained. I think that this is especially the case with spiritual wounds. We can be wounded spiritually for a long time without realizing it.

Now some examples of spiritual wounds are important for us to make sure we are talking about the same. I think spiritual wounds include being told false things about God. Being told you're not good enough or being told you must be perfect in order to be loved. Being told you must fit inside a certain box, being told you must do certain things in order to be loved by God or by other people. Being told that all love is conditional and that anyone telling you otherwise is selling something. I think these actions can cause spiritual wounds. One of the lies of this world is that our bodies must adhere to certain norms or be marked deficient. It is a lie and a spiritual wound.

We must also acknowledge and admit that there are spirits of this world, there are more things than are dreamt of in our philosophy. All of us have seen moments that cannot be fully explained. The word devil comes from the Greek word for slanderer, diabolos. Satan, or Shayton in Hebrew, terms the accuser.

There are cinematic and cultural understandings and images of devils and demons throughout the past 2000 years, but we shouldn’t get too far away from the original language to make sure that we are following the bible and not culture.

And I think that it is centrally important to remember that the devil original describes slander, not possession. It describes words against us, tearing us down. The serpent in the garden. Satan bargaining with God in order to test Job.

The evil spirits in the Gospels that possess certain individuals and groups slander and accuse. They tear down. The people don’t turn into robots or puppets. They act against their community and their people.

The Gospels also develop the structure of the world as governed by forces contrary to the will of God, described in places as the powers and principalities of the world.

They wound us with temptation. Temptation like the temptations of Jesus. They offer us the world, power, adoration. They wound us with false expectations.

We need healing. We need to be cleansed.

Last week, we sang Come O thou Traveler Unknown. And we shouldn’t sing old hymns two Sundays in a row, even if I like them. The song is about the wrestling of Jacob with the angel in Genesis. If you remember this story, this is before he sees his brother Esau, so the long of it. Esau and Jacob are the sons of Isaac, and Isaac is elderly, and Rebecca, their mother, prefers Jacob to Esau.
Esau is this burly man of the fields in the country, and Jacob is a man of the hearth and the hope. And Rebecca tells Jacob to get their father's blessing by and Jacob puts on sheepskin to be as hairy as his brother, and he goes in to receive a blessing. So then there's this animosity between Jacob and Esau. And it continues and continues until they're older. They're both wealthy.
Jacob is finally coming home after many years working for his uncle, Laban. This is also after he'd also deceived his uncle by painting sheep in the night in order to take most of his uncle’s property. Jacob is married to Leah and Rachel, and he's coming home. He hears word that his brother, Esau, is across the river. And like the coward that he is, Jacob sends all his property, and his wives, across the river and he stays on the other side just in case Esau is not in a friendly mood.

 And before he sees his brother, he has a vision, or maybe he doesn't. It's often interpreted as a dream. There's a previous dream of Jacob's Ladder. That's a great old song. We are climbing Jacob's Ladder. We are climbing Jacob's ladder. We sang that earlier. And then there is a confrontation between Jacob and this unknown figure.
Before this moment, Jacob is a fairly unsympathetic figure. I mean, he lies to his father. He lies to his brother. He lies to his uncle. He is deceived by his uncle. His marries a woman that he didn't love, but stays with her, keeps her around so that he can marry the woman he does love, who happens to be the first woman’s sister. He ends up with 4 wives. Again, not a super sympathetic figure.
Then at this moment, this confrontation, he struggles with an unknown figure, maybe an angel, and the figure touches Jacob's thigh that wounds him and overpowers him, but Jacob still does not let go.

Jacob goes from a deeply unsympathetic figure to the father of a nation. He is ready to receive healing from God for his wounds.

He is blessed by the wound. His name is changed from Jacob that day to Israel, because he struggled with God, and did not give up. Sometimes wounds are the result of struggle.

They take place after a journey. Wounds can also affect other aspects of us. Our bodies can be wounded. Our spirits can be wounded. Our pride can be wounded.
In this way, there are good wounds and bad wounds. Right? A wounded pride is humility, and this is good. A wounded heart is sorrow, and that is bad. When Christ heals our wounds, it looks a lot more like Jacob wrestling the angel than it does going to the doctor and getting shot.
When Christ meets us where we are, there's a wrestling match that needs to take place. Between who the world thinks we are and who God knows we are. And it's gotta take place within our heart. If it doesn't, we will never be healed.

In Ephesians, Paul describes how in Christ “you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.”

 This works for different groups, different bodies. I think Paul also is speaking directly to us, the dividing wall inside our soul, where we wall off ourselves from other people, where we wall off ourselves from loving our neighbor, where we wall off ourselves from loving ourself, from seeing God in us. Christ breaks down that wall.
There can be a struggle. And yet in the midst of that struggle, God is with us. God is offering us life. God is offering us purpose and peace and hope.

Some wounds linger. Some wounds heal quickly. Yet amazingly, Christ in the resurrection showed his scars. His wounds were not erased. His experiences were not erased.

All our wounds can be healed, but they cannot be healed against our will. The gaping hole in our leg will not close up if we refuse treatment. And it might not heal in the way we expect or the world expects. We could look broken to the world and whole to God. Nevertheless, we must admit a need before we receive healing God has for us.

The spiritual wounds we have undergone will not be healed if we refuse to acknowledge them.

Forgiveness and mercy are the great heavenly balms against spiritual wounds.  Even the slanderer, the devil, cannot handle mercy. The devil wants conflict. Which is why Jesus teaches us to turn the other cheek. Turning the other cheek is not about weakness but faith in a God bigger than our power of revenge. Taking revenge is a lack of faith in God’s justice. Mercy, Forgiveness is an act of faith in God’s justice.

As a teacher of mine said,
>“Forgiveness thus involves the personal and intimate connection of God and the one who he made in his image. There is…one healing. The all-powerful medicine can heal us from any sickness and any wound, whichever it is, because something incurable does not exist for it, but still must we wish to be healed: God] cannot save us in-spite ourselves.”

We must reach out and touch the hem of Jesus’s tunic to be healed.

How do we do that?

As Jesus says in Matthew 25, when you do so unto the least of these my brothers, you do unto me. Serve. Give. Share. Offer. When you reach out to touch someone in need of Jesus, you touch Jesus. When you give of yourself, you receive. When you let go of yourself, you find yourself.

Because Jesus has found you. Stop trying to save yourself. Stop trying to hide your wounds. Stop pretending that you are fine. Admit your reality and seek God’s peace by giving, by serving, by loving.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.


title: How not to make Jesus King

themes: refusing-worldly-power kingdom-of-god feeding-the-five-thousand wesleyan-general-rules love-of-neighbor means-of-grace

text:
**Scripture:** John 6:1-15; Ephesians 3:14-17; 1 Samuel 8:4-5
**Series:** After Pentecost

> Preaching on the feeding of the five thousand (John 6:1-15), Wilson argues the often-missed point is kingship: after the miracle the crowd tries to seize Jesus to make him king, and he withdraws alone to the mountain. Tracing the human longing for a king to 'pass the buck' from 1 Samuel 8 through King James, Charles I, and the English Civil War, he shows Jesus refuses worldly power and instead gives a heavenly kingdom marked by Paul's prayer in Ephesians 3: other-focused, humble, rooted and grounded in love. Wanting Jesus as king means wanting someone else to do the hard work of loving neighbors. The remedy is to make Jesus king of our own lives, measured by Wesley's three General Rules: do no harm, do all the good you can, and follow the ordinances of God (the means of grace). To avoid love is to avoid God.

**Illustrations:** washington-declines-third-term, king-james-edits-kings-translation, english-civil-war-charles-i, swimming-pool-rules-metaphor

---

# July 28
## How not to make Jesus King

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.”
Ephesians 3:14-17 NRSV

“After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, “Six months' wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.” When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.”
John 6:1-15 NRSV

This is a sermon about kings. When you first read this passage, kingship does not jump of the page. We have a famous story about feeding the hungry, but a question of kingship is going on here.

Kingship hasn’t been a political question in this country since about 1796, when George Washington declined to run again and offered the first peaceful transfer of power in this nation’s history.

There are two books of kings in the Bible. King David is a very central figure of the Old Testament and of the new. The fact that Jesus is of the line of David is very important.

In the book of 1 Samuel, the people want a king. There are tired of life under Torah and the Judges and that want a central figure to rule over them and to make all the decisions for them.

In 1 Samuel 8 it says:

> 4 So all the Israelite elders got together and went to Samuel at Ramah. 5 They said to him, “Listen. You are old now, and your sons don’t follow in your footsteps. So appoint us a king to judge us like all the other nations have.” (1 Samuel 8:4-5)

They want the king to judge them, to make decisions for them, they want a king who will look like the kind of ruler that other nations have so that they can look like the other nations around them.

Kingship has a unique position in the history of biblical translation. The most famous english bible is named after an English King, James I.

He didn’t translate the Bible. He organized a set of astonishingly erudite scholars to do it. But James was no slouch with the languages. He was fluent in Hebrew and Greek. He read over a draft of the whole thing and gave back notes to the translators. The only part of the translation that he quibbled with was 2 Kings and 1 & 2 Chronicles concerning the descriptions of the Kings. He felt that the Geneva Bible and The Bishop’s Bible (the lawful Bible of England when James was crowned), he felt that both of them were too harsh on kings and that they might give people a bad idea about the importance of kings. This was a theological point to James. He saw his kingship as divinely ordained so if people had a low view of kings they would have a low view of God.

The English Civil War began over King Charles, James’s son, meddling in the church of Scotland. Charles had a high view of kingship like his father and he had a friend revise the prayerbook to take away some of the presbyterian elements of the church and bring back some high church effects like altar rails.

The Scots had a different view of kingship than Charles did. They rebelled. Charles sent in an army that was crushed. Charles then called for a parliament to raise funds for a new army. That parliament raised an army, but they also questioned the legitimacy of the king, eventually leading to the overthrow of Charles, the trouncing defeat of his armies at Naseby in 1645, his execution in 1649, and the commonwealth of Oliver Cromwell.

This led to England going 10 years without a king. The English Civil War directly led to the colonists in 1776 realizing that they didn’t need a king to live: existence did not demand a royal sovereign. Yet the desire to have one person solve all of our problems has not gone way.

Many humans in history have decided that the solution to all of their problems is to make someone else do it. Pass the buck.

In scripture, this happens after one of the most famous scenes in the Bible: the feeding of the five thousand. This miracle takes place in each of the four Gospels. Like a lot of things, the John episodes is slightly different from the others.

The preceding chapter, John Chapter 5, takes place in Jerusalem. Chapter 6 brings Jesus back up to the Galilee area, which is interesting because it is the time of Passover. Later, Jesus will famously head to Jerusalem for Passover. But in this passage, he goes back to his familiar territory for Passover. People have gathered around him because of his miracles.

Jesus feeds the five thousands. Jesus doesn’t let anyone go home hungry, and  then they try to make him king.

As John writes, “Therefore Jesus having known that they intended to come and snatch him in order that they might make him king, he went away again to the mountain, himself alone.”

Jesus doesn’t want to be king. Jesus doesn’t practice the politics we expect. Jesus doesn’t want the trappings of kingship. Jesus doesn’t want the authority of kingship. Jesus doesn’t want any of that.

He withdraws to the mountain by himself. He would rather be in a solitude than in worldly authority. Jesus does not seek power, he literally runs from it. They are trying to make him a king and rightfully so. He is the most qualified king in history. He is the prince of heaven, but he is not the king of this world.

Jesus never tries to occupy worldly structures. He seeks to give us heavenly ones. The kingdom we are given is not of this world. It is not based on scarcity, like the kingdoms of this world. It is not based on good guys and bad guys. It is not based on the haves and the have-nots.

The heavenly structure that Jesus gives us is the kingdom of heaven. It is where the poor are blessed, the hungry are satisfied, mourners are comforted, the lost are found, the blind see. It has where the past does not dictate the future. Where are mistakes do not define us. Where our errors don’t chase after us.

Paul articulates the kingdom of heaven quite well in his letter to the Ephesians read earlier.

>“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.”

A few things to take away from this.

First, Paul is concerned about others. Paul isn’t first looking out for himself. Paul isn’t trying to avoid responsibility but to care for others.

Second, Paul begins by offering worship to God the Father, the source of all authority in heaven and earth. Paul humbles himself before God the Father and claims nothing beyond what has been given by God.

Third, Paul asks God to strengthen this other person that they may be rooted and grounded in love.

The kingdom of heaven is other-focused, humble, and rooted and grounded in love. These aren’t just what the kingdom is but what it does. Being a part of the kingdom of heaven is to do these things based on what God has done for you.

The desire to make Jesus king is the desire to make someone else do the hard thing. It is the desire to ask other people to love their neighbors. It is the desire to ask other people volunteer.

You are loved and forgiven by God. You are given new life in Christ’s heavenly kingdom. But this is not a passive gift. It is an active one. Like Paul, Jesus wishes you to be rooted and grounded in love in all things and in all activities.

There is no part of your life in which you should separate yourself from love.

This is what the people do when they try to make Jesus king. They want him to take care of the obligation to love people and Jesus sees the error. Loving your neighbor is not just for a certain few who can handle it.

Instead of trying to make Jesus king of this world, we need to make Jesus king of our lives so that our lives are guided by love. How do we measure that?

John Wesley had a set of general rules that he gave out to people to help them live a Christian life. The rules are not like rules at a swimming pool: no running, no diving in the shallow end, et cetera. The general rules are a tool to help us follow through with God’s promise on our life.

First, do no harm. We start by making sure we aren’t currently in a state of harming our neighbor. If we have been saved by the blood of Jesus. If you realize you are forgiven by God, we start living for people beyond ourselves, and we have to start that by making sure we aren’t hurting anyone around us.

Second, do all the good you can. Not just some of the good. All of the good. You do it. Not someone else. It is not your neighbor’s job to love their neighbor. If you claim Jesus as Lord, it is yours.

Finally, follow the ordinances of God. This is an awkward, 18th century phrasing that some have paraphrased as “stay in love with God.” I don’t like the paraphrase because it is passive. The point is not to stay but do. Act. Give. Serve. Love. Share. Follow the ordinances of God means, worship, pray, serve, give, do these concrete things. John Wesley calls them the means of grace. We believe that God works in a myriad of ways, but also that God works through these specific ways and that we should not avoid them. In fact, we should do all we can to do them as much as we can.

Jesus did not wish to be made king. He did not come to be made a king but to save us so that we could live out his kingdom here. Don’t avoid loving. Don’t avoid doing good. For to avoid love is to avoid God.
 Let us live like Paul

>For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.”

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.


title: How to Say Thank You

series: Christmas

themes: gratitude-to-god incarnation covenant presentation-in-the-temple evangelism loving-enemies

text:
**Scripture:** Luke 2:22-40; Colossians 3:12-17; Genesis 12:1-3; Luke 2:38
**Series:** Christmas

> Pairing the Presentation of Jesus in Luke 2 with Colossians 3, the sermon asks how we respond to the incomparable gift of the Incarnation. Starting from teaching children to say thank you, Wilson dwells on Christ's circumcision as God fully entering (and satisfying) the covenant with God, citing Milton and Chrysostom for its immensity. He then offers three models of gratitude we can never fully reciprocate: Simeon's hymn of praise, Anna's words of hope as the first evangelist, and Catherine of Siena's call to love our neighbors and enemies since we cannot repay God directly. The charge for the fourth day of Christmas is to sing praise, share hope, and show mercy.

**Illustrations:** kids-saying-thank-you, manners-like-riding-a-bicycle, milton-upon-the-circumcision, chrysostom-nativity-sermon, simeon-nunc-dimittis, anna-first-evangelist, catherine-of-siena-love-neighbors

---

# December 29
## How to Say Thank You
## Colossians 3:12-17
## Luke 2:22-40

When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord”), and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.” Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Messiah. Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying, “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.” And the child's father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.” There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.”

Luke 2:22-40 NRSV

It is important to teach our kids to say thank you. It is important for each of us to know how to say thank you. My kids are blessed each Christmas to have gifts from family members so they get to practice how to thank you. We have tried to frame manners as a way to think about other people. We practice saying thank you and sitting down at the table because we care about the people in our life.

Manners are habits, like riding a bicycle. The point of teaching our kids to do them when they don’t want to is so that they will practice saying thank you to the point that it is second nature to them. Manners are not about controlling our kids but teaching them ways of showing love. One of those ways is saying thank you. Every gift is not the most exciting and surprising but it is helpful to act as if it were, so that we can learn to see the gift not as the object in front of us, but as the act of giving itself and our relationship with the giver. We all know what it is like says (sarcastically), Oh, wow, thank you. We try to avoid sarcasm in the thank you.

Yet what do we do when the gift actually is amazing? How should we respond to the greatest of gifts?

## Response to Jesus
The first folks who respond to Jesus, the shepherds, don’t really understand what is going on. They are like, “this is awesome, this is cool!” This is what happens right after Jesus is born, but then Mary and Joseph take the infant Jesus to be circumcised on the 8th day. This is the point where Jesus enters the covenant of Abraham. It is an important thing. An essential thing, because before the circumcision of Jesus, he was not a part of the covenant. Even though he was born of the people of the covenant, it is at this moment that the God who became human in Jesus Christ enters the covenant fully.

John Milton, the English poet and author of Paradise Lost, wrote a short poem titled Upon the Circumcision of the Lord,  and I want to quote a few lines from it.

> For we by rightfull doom remediles
Were lost in death, till he that dwelt above
High thron'd in secret bliss, for us frail dust
Emptied his glory, ev'n to nakednes;
And that great Cov'nant which we still transgress
Intirely satisfi'd,

The Bible doesn’t show value by length. That is, the longer a story doesn’t mean that it is more important.
The circumcision of Jesus is an immense thing that has happened. One verse in the Gospel of Luke, but an immense event. God has entered into the covenant with God. To rehash the story, God makes this promise to Abraham, this covenant:

Genesis 12:1-3
> “Leave your land, your family, and your father’s household for the land that I will show you. 2 I will make of you a great nation and will bless you. I will make your name respected, and you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, those who curse you I will curse; all the families of the earth will be blessed because of you.”

This covenant is continued with Moses and the giving of the Torah, the Law, the Way on Mount Sinai. The way that is offered for people of the covenant to live a faithful life.

And then, at this brief moment of the circumcision, Jesus enters into that covenant. God become flesh enters into the covenant with God. So now God is in covenant with God. In the language of Milton, it entirely satisfies that covenant. And we will see on the cross the ultimate satisfaction, but that is for another day. It is the immensity of this gift that we must begin to comprehend today. The immensity of this gift on Christmas.

In the early Church, Christmas was not a big deal. By the early church, I mean the first six hundred years. Birthdays were not celebrated in Judaism. They were seen as pagan occurrences.

Easter was seen as the holiest of days. Christmas was not lifted up, until a preacher named John Chrysostom in the 7th century, celebrated it with quite a sermon. Here is an example.

What shall I say! And how shall I describe this Birth to you? For this wonder fills me with astonishment. The Ancient of days has become an infant. He Who sits upon the sublime and heavenly Throne, now lies in a manger. And He Who cannot be touched, Who is simple, without complexity, and incorporeal, now lies subject to the hands of men. He Who has broken the bonds of sinners, is now bound by an infants bands. But He has decreed that ignominy shall become honor, infamy be clothed with glory, and total humiliation the measure of His Goodness.

What John Chrysostom tries to show us is the immensity of this gift. The immensity of the birth and the immensity of Christ entering the covenant.

Okay, so what we have at Christmas is a gift we cannot possible reciprocate. We cannot possibly say enough thank yous for it, and yet we try.

Today, we can look at three responses. Two from our text and another from the tradition.
## Simeon
The first response is Simeon. He is a wise man. An elder, that many folks respected. He sees the child and responds with a song. This song has been song every night somewhere in the world since at least 516 AD and many nights before then.

Lord now you let your servant go in peace Your word has been fulfilled My own eyes have seen the salvation which you have prepared in the sight of every peoples. A light to reveal you to the nations. And the glory of your people Israel.

So we have this one example of Simeon who sings, who sings as a spontaneous response to realizing the gift that God has become human, taken on the covenant, taken on our sins, and is ready to live and satisfy the Torah fully so that we can enter into the bosom of Abraham, so that we can enter into the life of God.

## Anna
Anna is the next one.  Anna was a prophetess who lived in the temple. She lived and prayed all day. She slept in the temple. She ate whatever was given to her. She prayed without ceasing. When Jesus goes to be presented at the temple, now she understands why she has been praying all of those years. Luke writes, “She approached at that very moment and began to praise God and to speak about Jesus to everyone who was looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.” Luke 2:38

Simeon sings praise to God. Simeon feels like he finally understands the point of his life. Anna shares anew the story of God and the redemption of God in the world found by the child Jesus. Both are attempts to say ‘Thank you’ to God. Neither of them fully reciprocates God’s gift. Yet all we can do is make these attempts. Both of these are good. One attempt to say thank you is that we worship. One attempt, one response to the amazing blessing of God in Jesus Christ, the amazing miracle of God taking on flesh at Christmas is to sing praise to God, to see ourselves and our lives fulfilled in Christ. Another is to share the good news as Anna did, the first evangelist. She is the first human to share about the redemption found in Jesus Christ.
## Catherine of Siena
And finally, we have, a few centuries later, a holy woman in Italy named Catherine, who writes about God becoming human. Catherine writes that we can never reciprocate Christ’s love for us. In a dialogue, she speaks to God, “I ask you to love me with the same love with which I love you. But for me you cannot do this, for I loved you without being loved.” And then God replies, “This is why I have put you among your neighbors: so you can do for them what you cannot do for me—that is, love them without any concern for thanks…and whatever you do for them I will consider done for me.”

 We are never deserving of God’s love, in the fullness of it. But what we can do, as a response to that love, is love those people in our lives that also do not deserve our love. What we can do is love our enemies. What we can do is love the people that we already don’t like. What we can do is love the people who annoy us and bother us and vote differently and act differently and look differently; the people we can’t stand. May we try to love our enemies, not because we are so awesome, but because God is so awesome. It is impossible on our own love our enemies. You cannot do it. I cannot do it. It is not a skill you can get. It can only occur in a life infused with grace, so today you have to ask for it, you have to ask for the spirit to come into your life to offer mercy in your life, because God has loved you undeservedly, you can go forth and love others.

So we have these three ways of saying thank you at the birth of Jesus: hymns of praise, like Simeon, words of hope, like Anna, and actions of mercy, like Catherine. My brothers and sisters, my hope for you in this Christmas season, and it will be Christmas until January 6. You know, the 12 days of Christmas start on December 25. The world likes to move away from Christmas as fast as possible, but we don’t have to.

And so on this fourth day of Christmas, let us try to respond in every way. Let us sing songs of praise, let us share words of hope with each other, let us seek to love people in our lives who are unlovable.

We cannot fully say thank you, what we can do is try. Let us take a step of faith this day to thank our Lord for his everlasting love.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.