The Crucial Difference--January 30, 2026

The Crucial Difference--January 30, 2026

"For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." (1 Corinthians 1:18)

The world has some assumptions about how things get done. 

For example, the world's loud voices these days insist that the way to succeed is through brute force. You shoot first, and ask questions later... or preferably not at all.  You get the other guy before they get you.  You look out for your own interests, and you bully everybody else until they give in and surrender what you want.  Conventional wisdom calls all of that being a "winner," and it can't stand the thought of being called a "loser."  The loud voices, the talking heads on TV, and the bombastic barkers at podiums will all insist that in "the real world," this is just how things have to be--you resort to force, coercion, and threats, and you do it before the other side can do it to you.

To such a perspective, the notion of a God who saves the world by dying for it sounds like nonsense, pure and simple. It looks weak. It seems like defeat. It makes God to be a loser, rather than a winner. And the logic of the world just can't accept that.

It's interesting to me that one of the titles Caesar applied to himself was "Savior." If you asked the Empire what a Savior looked like, Rome's response would have been, "Salvation is when we come to conquer you, and the emperor leading the charge is the savior.  Hail Caesar, the Savior of the World!"  For the Empire looming in the background when Paul wrote this letter, "saving" was about applying brute force to make others do what you wanted them to do. The Romans were proud of "saving" the lands and peoples they conquered from any undesirable barbarian opposition. They were bringing "civilization," "prosperity," and "health" to all whom they conquered. And they seriously thought that made them the liberators, the good guys, the saviors.  I suppose if you tell yourself long enough that you are unquestionably the hero, you start to believe it--and from there, it's easy to assume that anybody you are opposed to is a villain, and your very act of vanquishing them is what makes you a savior.  It's terribly circular logic, but that's how empires think.

The Christian claim, by contrast, sounds completely bonkers to that sort of worldview.  Instead of the Savior as the one commanding armies, killing enemies, and defeating any and all resistance, the One whom Christians confess as Savior got crucified by the empire, praying for God's forgiveness for his executioners, breaking the cycle of violence, and laying down his life rather than taking somebody else's.  That's the crucial (literally) difference: the world insists that victory looks like zapping your adversaries to show them you are more powerful, and the message of the cross says that God's victory comes as Jesus puts his body between the murderous powers of death and those who are in its target sights.  There are two competing pictures of strength out there in the world, you could say: one insists that power means you obliterate your opponents to make everyone else fall in line, and the alternative says that real strength looks like offering up your life to shield and guard someone else and make sure that they are going to be ok. Paul insists that the power of God is the latter of the two, and you see it supremely in the cross of Christ.

To be a follower of Jesus is to be called to share in an upside-down point of view.  We are called, not just to recite a creed that Jesus is Lord and Savior, but to recognize that if we confess Jesus as Lord and Savior, then we are committed to his way of saving rather than the world's kind.  We will be the ones who lay down our lives for others, but we will not give in to bullying and intimidating others.  We will be the ones who shield others with our bodies, but we will not be the ones to threaten or harm.  We will interrupt the age-old cycles of violence and retribution, but we will not repeat them. And even when the loudest voices of the world tell us that we look like fools for that sort of cross-shaped way of life, we'll know that in truth we are tapped into the real power of God.

Today those two competing pictures of power are on display. The choice for us is this: whose version of strength will guide us today--the conquering sort used by every empire in history, or the cross-shaped kind revealed in Christ Jesus?

Lord Jesus, enable us to see the world through your kind of power--the self-giving love of the cross.

The Next Step--January 29, 2026

The Next Step--January 29, 2026

"What I mean is that each of you says, 'I belong to Paul,' or 'I belong to Apollos,' or 'I belong to Cephas,' or 'I belong to Christ.' Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?" [1 Corinthians 1:12-13]

There's a contradiction I live with every day, and I might as well say it out loud here at the outset for honesty's sake. I get Paul's point here, about not lining ourselves up into teams according to the names of people who happened to have taught us, people who happened to have been our initiators into the faith. I understand that there's danger in breaking Christianity into a million little shards, based on whose slightly different "take" on the gospel we follow, because it will lead us to--well, exactly where Christianity is today in the world, especially in the late days of the American empire: a bunch of people fighting with each other over both big and little things so often that they can no longer tell which are the differences they can set aside, and which are the ones holding the line for. I understand all of Paul's reasoning for why we shouldn't go around labeling ourselves according to whose school of thought we ascribe to, or which tradition or person we most associate with.

And yet, here I am, a pastor in a tradition named for a specific individual, who is not Jesus (Martin Luther), that helps to identify my particular understanding of the way of Jesus. Paul might very well be disappointed in me for being a "Lutheran" pastor, although he would then also have to be upset with every other Christian group--including the ones who think they have outsmarted him by just naming their particular brand "non-denominational" or "Christian" while still having all the same hallmarks of a denomination. Here we are, people whose way of being church is in direct contradiction to Paul's warning here about claiming that we belong to these other sub-groupings, still trying to wrestle a blessing out of his words and to see how we may need to change our way of being church in light of what he has to say.

And while we're at it poking bears and all, we should probably also note that contemporary Christianity has added a whole mess of other labels that are intended only to sound like neutral adjectives or general descriptions rather than denominations or groups, but in practice cause the same kind of division that Paul is upset about as he writes to the Corinthians. We have labels like "evangelical" or "Protestant" or "mainline" or "Pentecostal," or "liberal" or "conservative," or "progressive" or "Bible-believing," and as often as not those labels are used as sharpened weapons to criticize others (those you want to judge as "non-Bible-believing" or "too traditional" or whatever). Of course, at least those labels are honest, more or less, about the additional layers we are adding to our understanding of the Christian faith. Most dangerous of all, I think, is the temptation to assume my particular set of beliefs is the only right one, and therefore that MY group is the "true Christan perspective" and to call myself "Christian" without any other modifiers or labels because I'm convinced anyone who disagrees is damned to hell. At least a label, like "Lutheran" or "Methodist" or "Catholic" or "Ukrainian Orthodox" says something about the particular branch of the family tree from which you come without necessarily saying that everyone else is doing it wrong.

In Paul's day, the divisions were over different details, but the pattern is the same. When Paul had gotten word from an important church leader named Chloe about the factions developing in Corinth, they were lining up into groups according to which early Christian leaders had first brought them into the faith--Paul, a preacher named Apollos, Peter (Cephas in the Aramaic), or somebody else. And of course, too, there were people making the move of saying that they belonged to Christ, while giving a side-eye to everybody else as though they were NOT truly Christian. So we've been here before. I don't know whether that's comforting or disheartening, but we've been in the position of fragmenting since the beginning it seems. And Paul has been calling us to question those divisions, and whether they have cost us our allegiance to Jesus, for twenty centuries now.

I think that's the piece that we can't ignore in all of this. We may well find it helpful to own the traditions we come from, and the importance of those whose perspectives have shaped our own. It's helpful for me to be able to say from the get-go that I have been influenced by the tradition that grew out of Martin Luther, like it's helpful for folks who have been shaped by John Wesley or Saint Francis of Assisi or Gustavo Gutierrez or Teresa of Avila to be able to say that as well. But I think Paul's point is that these voices are never an end-goal for emulating. The goal for me as a Lutheran Christian isn't to become more like Martin Luther, but to become more like Jesus. The goal for my Methodist, Presbyterian, Nazarene, Catholic, Baptist, non-denominational, and progressive siblings in Christ isn't to become simply better at promoting our own brand, but to become more like Jesus, and more shaped by his love. Where my own tradition is helpful for that, great--I need to listen to my tradition for ways it helps me grow in the love of Christ and the way of Jesus. Where other peoples' traditions are helpful, especially in revealing the blind-spots and hidden corners of my own perspective, I need to listen to the input and voices from those other traditions to help me deal with the things I cannot see in myself that keep me from being more fully like Jesus. And where any of our traditions are hindrances, we need to be able to keep revising, re-forming (this is why traditions like those from the 16th century movement had a slogan "semper reformanda"--always reforming), and re-envisioning what it looks like to follow Jesus, to be loved by Jesus, and to love like Jesus.

And Jesus does have a particularity to him. His way does have a particular direction. Jesus may not have left commandments chiseled in stone about the proper rate for the capital gains tax or the amount of water we should use in baptizing, but he does have a particular way of being in the world--marked by love for all, truth-telling even when it is costly, humility in serving, commitment to doing justice especially for the most vulnerable, and a welcome to the least, the lost, and the left-out. Where my tradition as a "Lutheran kind of Christian" helps me to embody that more fully, great, I should dig in deep and put roots down. And where my tradition keeps me from, holds me back, or gets in the way of living out that Jesus-shaped way of life, I need to be able to let go of the pieces that are obstacles.

I don't want to be naive and suggest that all we need is just to try to be like Jesus more and all of our disagreements will fall away (and I'll be shown to be right in all of my particular beliefs, of course). But I do think that the only honest way forward has to keep Jesus at the center of our view. That will mean we practice a willingness to keep examining ourselves and being open to the possibility that we may be wrong about something, or that others may show us something that brings Jesus into focus more clearly. It will mean, too, that we constantly be willing to look and look again at whether we have made our particular social or political commitments more important than Jesus, or whether we have tried to baptize our agendas and then force Jesus to fit into the mold they make for him. It will mean recognizing that people of other cultures, languages, backgrounds, and life experiences have things to show us about following Jesus, or perhaps that they will be able to point out things getting in the way of our following that we don't even recognize are there. And it will mean surrendering our illusion that "my" way of following Jesus is the only way to follow Jesus.

That's the challenge for today--and again, it can't ever be the "last step," but it is maybe the next step for today--is to commit to looking at Jesus, and seeking for us to see what helps us to love more like he does, and what things in our lives (or our traditions, our culture, our background, and our politics) are keeping us from loving like Jesus. That at least keeps our focus in the right place.

Lord Jesus, we offer you our selves and all that makes us--our traditions and backgrounds, our life experiences, and even our sense of "right-ness." Help us sift through it all, to hold onto what is good, and to be able to let go of whatever has taken your place.

Where We Start From--January 28, 2026

Where We Start From--January 28, 2026

"Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you but that you be knit together in the same mind and the same purpose. For it has been made clear to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters." (1 Corinthians 1:10-11) 

I'll be honest: it's kind of hard for me to read these words, or to have heard them in worship like many of us did this past Sunday in worship, while also keeping my eyes open at the actual world in front of me. Here in this passage from Paul's first letter to the Corinthian Christians, he pleads for them to be "knit together in the same mind and the same purpose" with "no divisions," and the moment I turn on the television, read the news, or scroll on my social media feed, it feels like we are tearing ourselves apart in a host of different ways all at once.

Let's name one of the biggest elephants in the room as an example. We are living in a time of deep unrest erupting in places like Minneapolis, and now we have witnessed several lives taken, including those of American citizens, in recent weeks, shot by agents of our government as part of operations meant to crack down on illegal immigration. And part of what makes it especially difficult is knowing that there are folks who name the name of Jesus who view those events very differently--in ways that seem diametrically opposed.  Some watch the events in the news and their understanding of the faith frames it all in terms of protecting law and order and submitting to civil authorities. Others are outraged at the shooting of civilians or the detainment of young children and hear the words of Jesus, "Whatever you did to the least of these, you did to me," echoing in the background. We end up with people, who all go to church on Sundays, viewing the exact same events from very different perspectives, some cheering on the federal agents as they detain immigrants in the name of supporting God-given authorities and others supporting those who are trying to provide for their families or who put their bodies at risk to protect others from possible mistreatment because they see them all as God-given neighbors. It is awfully difficult to hear Paul's prayer for Christian unity when we see the events of the day, often including the same video footage, and have come to interpret them in completely different ways, shaped by different emphases in our our supposedly common faith.  That isn't just hard; it is often heartbreaking.

And of course, that feels like it is only the very freshest layer of discord between groups who all claim the title "Christian." We are fragmented along partisan lines and labels like blue and red states. We are fractured into Christian denominations, who seem increasingly unable (or unwilling) to work together, even within the same branch of the family tree. (I think of how even among Lutherans we have a splintered witness and cannot share common fellowship in many ways, not to mention our differences from other Christian groups.)  And you can add onto all of those the differences and disagreements we have on matters of taste and style: "traditional" versus "contemporary" worship, formal versus informal, "high-church" liturgy versus "low-church" seeker friendly atmosphere, and our perennial inability to agree on a color of carpet for the church social hall. All of these divisions seem to make a mockery of Paul's urging that there be "no divisions" among us who name the same "Lord Jesus Christ."

So what are we to do about all of this?  Is it all a naive pipe dream to imagine Christians having the "same mind and purpose" when we are split from each other on issues from the liturgical and the theological to the ethical and the political?  Is it empty wishful thinking that we could still be "knit together"?  After all, some observers today would even say that we cannot speak of a single thing called "Christianity" any longer, but of many different "Christianities," each of which has a claim of continuity with the twenty-century history of the church, even though they are often in sharp disagreement with one another? Are they all valid versions of Christianity? Does any building with a cross on the steeple have an authentic witness to the gospel? At what point are our differences merely matters of taste and preference, and where do they become matters over which Christianity stands or falls--and how would we know?  I find myself hearing these words of Paul's and sometimes feeling like he didn't know how hard we would have it, or what sorts of controversies we would face.  I find myself thinking, "Paul, it sure sounds lovely to imagine that all Christians could be of the same mind and purpose, but in our time it feels like we are living in completely different worlds from the folks who see things differently. We can't even agree on what the facts of reality are, so of course we can't agree on how to respond to them!"

And then something happens.

For one, when I read these words of Paul's, it occurs to me that he is also writing at a time of deep divisions within the early church--and it probably felt even more precarious to him because there was no track record of the church enduring through those divisions when he wrote.  I can at least point to some glimpses of persistent, enduring Christianity over the last two millennia, in spite of all of our schisms and splits, while Paul and the church in Corinth was very much making all of this up as they went along.  Paul, too, knew that the church of his day was splintered along lines of culture, language, practice, politics, and practice.  Paul, too, had to watch groups forming at the First Church of Corinth, and he was worried that the splintering might never stop.  Oddly enough, that gives me hope--because it reminds me that Paul was not naive when he wrote his plea for being "knit together." He didn't live in some idyllic time of perfect Christian unity and assume it was easy to maintain--he lived through a time, just a few years after Jesus' own ministry, when it felt like the Christian experiment might break apart as it spread to include formerly outcast Gentiles and learned to appeal to citizens of the Roman Empire beyond Judea.  That Paul--the one who has wept and struggled and suffered for the sake of holding the Christian community together--is the one who hasn't given up on the prayer for being "knit together" and having "the same mind and purpose." Even at my most despairing, I can't forget that.

The other thing that hits me as I read these words of Paul's in context with the fragmentation of our own time is that the apostle does give us direction for where our shared mind and purpose will come from: he points us to the particularity of Jesus.  Not merely as a brand-name or a mascot or an empty vessel for us to fill with whatever meaning or value we wish. Not as a means of baptizing our own agendas and calling them "God's will" because it's what we wanted to do already.  But Paul keeps pointing us to Jesus, and the particular character of Jesus' way in the world, as the thing that will hold us together. He doesn't merely throw his hands up with a shrug and say, "We will just have to agree to disagree on everything, as long as we can recite the Creed and wear our cross necklaces." Paul is convinced that the way of Jesus has a certain trajectory to it, one which is always characterized by self-giving love, care for the most vulnerable, and a willingness to lay down our lives for others rather than to dominate them. That means something. It gives clarity to how we view the events unfolding around us and our place within them.

In Paul's own day, for example, that meant that the Christians in Corinth were called upon to share some of their resources with the folks around Jerusalem who were living through a famine (see more about that later in the Corinthian epistles). Following Jesus had a certain trajectory to it, which would lead Christians to give toward others' need rather than hoarding for themselves alone.  Or when it came to including Gentile foreigners (non-Jewish people) into the church, Paul again was convinced that the character of Jesus was the definitive reason why all were now to be welcomed rather than just people from one language, nation, or culture.  Paul was convinced that the way of Jesus really did--and still does--give us the clarity to shape our perspective in the world.  It leads us always to compassion rather than cruelty, always to answer with good rather than evil, always to heal rather than to wound, and always to lay down our lives rather than to take the lives of others. That will help us as we face the events of any given day to know what truly fits with the perspective of Jesus... and what does not.  

Paul reminds us that it is the particular person of Jesus Christ through which we see the meanings of events and decide how to act within them.  And Paul sure does seem to believe that the particularity of Jesus really can give us the guidance to make sense of the world without being fragmented into countless feuding factions.  The question we might need to ask--and to keep asking, day after day and generation after generation--is how the perspective of Jesus frames the way we will see the day before us.  Rather than starting with what the talking heads on television tell me I should believe about an event or a headline and then looking for ways to slap a cross on it, we are called to start with the kind of love Jesus embodies and to let that become the lens through which we see.  Paul is convinced it really will make a difference to let Jesus be the place we start from. I won't pretend that is always easy, or that simply invoking the name of Christ will make our disagreements vanish into thin air like a magic spell. But I do believe, and with Paul I think, that the particular character of Jesus really does give us direction for making sense of the world if we are willing to see all of life through his lens.  

And because Paul gives us the witness of his own time when the church struggled through division, we know that this isn't merely a naive wish.  It is possible to do the hard work of seeing life through the lens of Jesus.  It is possible to find common ground where we are, if we are willing both to ask how folks who see things differently from us are trying to act in light of the way of Jesus, and if we are willing to ask that hard question of ourselves.  Sometimes the people we have the sharpest disagreements with really are trying to live out of their faith, and they have latched onto a different element of our Christian heritage. Even if we don't see eye to eye, it does make a difference to see that others are doing their best to try to follow Jesus.  From there, we can ask the deeper questions of what values are priorities for Jesus, and which things are secondary or on the periphery for him.  But it does something to humanize those we struggle with the most to ask, "How did you get to this conviction?" and for those who share our faith in Christ to ask, "Help me to see how you see your faith in Christ leading you to this conclusion?" When we can listen and answer that question ourselves, at least we are starting in the right place.

Lord Jesus, we long for clarity in the midst of the many kinds of disagreements and divisions among us--and the stakes are very high.  Give us the humility to listen, the courage to speak, and the willingness to let you shape our common vision in the light of your particular way in the world.

The People Jesus Chooses--January 27, 2026

The People Jesus Chooses--January 27, 2026

As [Jesus] walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fishers. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of people.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him. (Matthew 4:18-22)

You can tell a great deal about a person by the people they choose.

Whether it's the sort of people you pick to be your closest and most trusted friends, the profiles of the prospective employees you select to work with you, the character of the person you marry, or the individuals appointed to specific offices in the government, the kinds of people who get tapped in each of those situations reveals something about the person doing the tapping. When your favorite team spends all their money on acquiring the talents of a single extraordinary player, it sends the message that they are pinning all their hopes on one person to carry the franchise and generate ticket sales rather than building a team.  If the newly-elected governor gets rid of long-time civil servants in important roles and replaces them with campaign donors, you suspect they are more interested in repaying cronies or getting favors than with good governance.  Or when the new company CEO who promised to hire the best and the brightest instead only seems to hire or promote their own family members and friends, you can't avoid the feeling of nepotism. 

Maybe even deeper, the kind of people who are chosen sends a message about how the chooser sees the world or their purpose in it.  In the old days, if the king's council of advisors only had generals and military commanders in it, you could tell he was preparing for war. If the king was primarily appointing merchants, moneylenders, and money managers, you could infer he saw the world more in economic terms of wealth and poverty.  And if you had a king who surrounded himself with artists, poets, and philosophers, well, it would send a different message still. We might debate what precise mix of culture, coin, and combat is the ideal balance, but the point stands--the people you choose to share in your work reveal something about what you believe your work really is.

On that count, I think Jesus is no different. There is purpose and intention to all of Jesus' choices--even when those choices surprise us or seem foolish in the eyes of conventional wisdom.  In other words, when Jesus calls the likes of Peter, Andrew, James, and John, as many of us heard in worship this past Sunday, he is saying something about the kind of community he intends to build.  The twist, of course, is that Jesus doesn't choose anybody because of their skill, their smarts, their strength, or their savoir-faire. The first disciples aren't experts on the market or military tacticians. They are neither pious priests nor cunning conquerors. There's reason to believe they couldn't even read. The reason Jesus chooses them is precisely their ordinariness, which includes their frequent fear, regular doubts, and more often than not, their astonishing ability to miss the point. This is how Jesus begins his movement--intentionally.

Why would Jesus do something like this, when he conceivably could have only admitted the best and the brightest, the rich and the famous, or the ones who looked like "winners"? I'm convinced this is the way Jesus makes it clear that God's Reign is for anybodies and Jesus' everybodies. Look at these grubby fishermen, who probably smell like seaweed and sweat as Jesus calls to them--these are the first-round draft picks?  The conclusion is obvious: Jesus' community is not an exclusive country club for the well-heeled or a boot camp for an angry army of the Lord. It's a found family of outcasts and ordinaries, of sinners and screw-ups and people just struggling to get by. We do not audition to prove our worthiness to get in, and we do not have to worry about messing up so bad we get kicked out. What makes us belong is that Jesus has called us--and that is enough.

And to push this just a bit further, then, I'm convinced that these first disciples whom Jesus calls are also a statement of what Jesus is not about.  None of these guys have political power; none of them are being recruited to form a brute squad to dominate people in Jesus' name. Jesus isn't looking for wealth, for smarts, or for social standing, and he's not raising up his own private army to fight off the empire or take back his country in the name of God. None of those are Jesus' intention. Instead, the choice of ordinary anybodies like Peter, Andrew, James, and John signals the beginning of a movement that includes all kinds of people, just as we are. And Jesus' clever pun about making these guys into "fishers of people" simply points to his intention to reach even more people through them.  Jesus is about building a community where all kinds of people are welcomed, where all kinds of people receive love from God and from other people, and where all kinds of people are formed and shaped to live the Jesus way of life by doing it together with others who are learning along with them.  That's how Jesus changes the world. That's what he's showing us about himself by the people he first chooses: they remind us that there is a place for you and me in Jesus' community, too.

Someone you meet this week is waiting to hear that kind of welcome--just as they are, with whatever baggage and blessings they bring to the table.

You can be one more voice through whom Jesus' love reaches... everybody else around.

Lord Jesus, you have drawn us to yourself like the first disciples you called by the sea. Use us to draw others into your community and into God's Reign.

The Fuse--Devotion for January 26, 2026

The Fuse--January 26, 2026

"Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali.... From that time Jesus began to proclaim, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near'." [Matthew 4:12-13, 17]

If Jesus' ministry is like a burst of fireworks (or a powder keg), this is the fuse.

That is to say, as Matthew retells it in this passage which many of us heard this past Sunday, the event that kickstarts Jesus' public ministry is the arrest of John the Baptizer. Jesus is aware that John's habit of speaking truth to power (in particular, speaking up against the crooked decadence of the Roman puppet king Herod) got him into trouble, but like another John from twenty centuries later (the late John Lewis) would call it, it was always "good trouble." And when that landed John the Baptizer in one of Herod's prison cells, Jesus makes the choice to pick up the mantel of the wilderness prophet John.  

This scene is such a powerful one, and it's worth spending a moment to unpack what is going on here, and what it means for our lives and our calling as followers of Jesus.  John the Baptizer had brought a central message, according to the Gospel writers: "Turn around, because the Reign of God is here!" He was announcing God's new in-breaking kingdom, and that also brought him to speak up against the inadequacies and vices of leaders like Herod, who claimed the title of "King of the Jews" but revealed that he didn't care much at all for real justice and mercy. John made it his job to bear witness, whether that set him against Herod and his soldiers, the Respectable Religious Leaders, or anybody else. And so when John's message landed him in shackles (and soon enough, awaiting an unjust execution without trial), it was clear what the costs could be for this kind of stand. John would pay with his life... and likely so would anybody else who carried on with John's work.

And that's why this moment in the Gospel is so pivotal. Jesus now knows what the stakes are, and up to this moment, he could have reversed course.  He could have decided to settle back down for a quiet life in Nazareth and started a construction business like Joseph had worked in, or maybe raised a family.  He could have been a non-controversial rabbi like the Respectable Religious Leaders around him, too, and just avoided any risk of getting himself into trouble.  But instead, Jesus chooses to continue precisely in John's work, echoing the Baptizer's message and deliberately picking up with it when John had been arrested--in other words, precisely at the point when John could no longer continue his public witness.  So rather than leaving John's message behind, Jesus takes up John's announcement (including the way it provoked pretenders and blowhards like Herod) in a word-for-word echo of the Baptizer: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near." Jesus knows precisely what he is doing here, and he knows the danger of doing it.  But he does it anyway.

Tyrants and authoritarians like Herod inevitably attempt to silence the ones who stand as a public witness against them, hoping that if you get rid of one troublemaker like John the Baptizer, it will scare everybody else into keeping their mouths closed. Jesus, however, is fully aware of what Herod's forces have done to John, and he willingly steps up to be next in line. Jesus chooses to continue witnessing to God's Reign as John had, knowing the cost. Of course, the word "witness" in the New Testament is "martyr," and as Walter Wink once put it, martyrs "are not helpless victims, but fearless hunters who stalk evil out into the open by offering their bodies as bait." Jesus and John both know that they are risking their lives in their confrontation with the powers of the day, but they take that risk at least in part to make those crooked powers show their hand and reveal their rottenness, so that the Reign of God may be seen more clearly in contrast.

I am reminded, too, of how the marchers and participants in the non-violent demonstrations of the Civil Rights movement used the same strategy. They knew that the police would likely turn the fire hoses on them or turn the dogs on them. They knew that they would be arrested, likely beaten, or even killed for their witness. Some were.  But they also knew that if someone else was jailed for the cause, it fell to the next person to take their place and continue their witness of nonviolent resistance. Jesus picks up John's place in much the same way: carrying the same message precisely at the point when John has been arrested, so that their witness to God's Reign will continue.

These days, we are watching similar choices being made by those who risk their lives as witnesses even when it is costly.  Others have faced arrest, injury, or even death, in the attempt to witness to God's Reign and to hold the Herods of the day to account.  At some point the question falls to us--what will be our witness, and how will we carry on with the work Jesus (along with John) have begun?  We are, after all, called to follow in the way of Jesus, even though we know full well that Jesus will often lead us into his kind of good trouble.  We are called to be witnesses of God's Reign for the world, which often means pointing out how God's arrangement of things is different from the order of Herod, Caesar, and their ilk. When we see others who have stepped up in such moments being treated like John the Baptizer, will we let it push us into fearful paralysis, or let it spur us, like Jesus, to pick up their work and message?

For Jesus, after all, the arrest of John didn't stop him or snuff out the spark.  It was the fuse.

Lord Jesus, give us the courage to carry on in your witness to God's Reign, whatever the cost.

Over the Fakes and Frauds--January 23, 2026

Over the Fakes and Frauds--January 23, 2026

"I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you so that you are not lacking in any gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the partnership of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord." (1 Corinthians 1:4-9)

The God who has called us is faithful. That's why we don't give up.

One of my frustrations about ministry that feels like it has kicked up in the last several years is the rise of scammers pretending to be a pastor (it's happened to me, and it happens to colleagues of mine all the time, too) and reaching out to congregation members, sometimes by email, sometimes by text message, or even sometimes by hacking social media, and then soliciting money, merchandise, or some other help.  There's always a cover story: sometimes the scammer pretending to be me will say we need to collect gift cards for someone in the hospital, or to call back about an urgent matter that can't be discussed by email or text.  I've even had versions where a colleague who was being impersonated claimed to be in some foreign country and in trouble and needing money wired.  Once you know to be a little cautious around messages that seem fishy, you can usually prevent being taken advantage of. 

But the thing that upsets me the most is the possibility--even if it is only a possibility--that the scammers pretending to be me will affect the people I care about being able to trust the real me.  Even if you know the scammers and their strange counterfeit phone numbers and email addresses aren't the real me, it would be very easy for some of that doubt and skepticism to seep into people's minds when they actually do need to talk with me.  It angers me that someone might read a message that is claiming to be from me and rightly ignore it, but then be a little less trusting on the occasions when the real me does call or email about some genuine matter (although, to be clear, I will never solicit money or merchandise from you--I promise!).  It's frustrating when the person calling, texting, or emailing isn't reliable--when they aren't faithful. And when there are counterfeits and frauds out there claiming to be a pastor as a means of scamming people, it makes it that much harder to trust the real deal.

I've been thinking about this lately, not just because we seem to have gone through another round of fake text messages in my circles lately, but because of the way the apostle Paul writes to the Christians in Corinth.  He grounds everything in his letter on the character of God: "God is faithful, by whom you were called into the partnership of his Son, Jesus Christ." Paul wants to be crystal clear: the God who has called us is trustworthy.  This God is not fickle and not a fraud.  This God doesn't say all the right words and then leave us hanging.  This God doesn't spew a bunch of big talk and then have to walk it back.  And this God doesn't turn out to have been scamming us out of self-interest.  Unlike the crooks and schemers who claim to be someone they are not by phone, text message, or email, the God who has called us really is trustworthy.  The Christ in whose family we belong really is who he says he is. In a world full of phonies and frauds, that's what keeps us going.

We are not lacking for examples of the scammer and snake-oil salesmen. We have heard them making big promises from podiums. We have seen their talking heads on television. We have viewed their ads on screens of every size.  And after having been exposed to so many voices who told us they had our interests in mind but were really only looking to line their own pockets or use us for their own advantage, it can be hard to trust the promise of a God whom we cannot see.  It's hard enough to admit when we've been bamboozled or manipulated before--maybe harder still, once we've faced that truth, to then place our trust all over again in God, just because we are still nursing old wounds of past betrayals from others.  

That's why Paul is so insistent here at the start of his letter: God is faithful.  You can count on this God.  You can rely on the promise that the same God who brought you into the community of Jesus' followers will not bail out on you and will not just use you, no matter how many times others have tried to deceive you. Without that assurance, we might as well give up hope.  But with that promise--and the reality of a God who is willing literally to go to death and back for us in order to keep that promise--we have reason to keep hoping, to keep living faithfully in response, and to put one foot in front of the other each day. On the days when we wonder if it's futile to be kind in the face of so much cruelty, to be honest in the face so much deception, or to be decent in the face of so much indecency, we look to God, who has both called us into this life, and who will be faithful to walk with us all the way.

No matter how many times or how many ways you have been let down by frauds and counterfeits before, the living God is the real deal. And the Christ who has called us is trustworthy.

Lord God, give us the ability to trust in you over the noise of all the other fakes and frauds out there trying to get our attention. 

Because God Says So--January 22, 2026

Because God Says So--January 22, 2026

"Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Corinthians 1:1-3)

Despite all of our efforts to the contrary to make it one, the church is not a social club.

Regardless of our culture's way of seeing everything as a product to be consumed, the church is not merely the assembly of paying customers.

The church is not merely an employer for which we must get ourselves hired, nor a team for which we must try out. We belong in this community because we are called.

That makes a world of difference to the ways we live, work, pray, and love together in this community of Jesus' followers.  We are here because God has called us and Christ has claimed us, not because I won the audition or used my influence to get in.  Our belonging is a gift, and it comes from God. That's where we start our identity in Christ--not as audience members who have shelled out money to be entertained, but as a community which God has made holy.  Customers and audience members call the shots--after all, "the customer is always right" in our culture. And they can come and go as they please; if another brand is selling something flashier at the store down the street, you can just take your business elsewhere, because you are the one in charge.  But if we are here because God has called us, then we aren't in control--God is.  If we are here because God has given us both a place to belong and a vocation to live out, then we aren't consumers, but partners in a community.  If we are here by God's call, then I don't get to judge somebody else's worthiness to sit at the table with me--God is the One who has that prerogative, and God has drawn them to be there.

For the early church, that distinction was what set the church apart from the countless other social organizations, guilds, tribes, and other groups in the Roman Empire and the wider Greco-Roman world.  And you can hear Paul leaning into that distinct character in these opening words from his first letter to the Corinthians, which many of us heard in worship this past Sunday.  Paul describes himself in terms of being "called"--he is an apostle, not because he had the best test scores, not because used his influence and leverage to force his way onto the Board of Directors to get himself that job, and not because he just wanted to be one. Rather, Paul is an apostle--a person "sent" by Christ as a witness to the world--because God called him into that identity.  (You might remember, in fact, that Paul really only got into the Christian community because the risen Christ got a hold of him on the Damascus Road and pulled him, sometimes kicking and screaming into the arms of grace.)  So Paul himself starts from a place of being called.  There's not a whiff of "I earned this spot" or "I paid for this title" or "I'm just doing this for as long as it's fun, and then I'll bail out and take up underwater basket-weaving." Paul is here, not because of his influence, status, goodness, or even his volunteering for it--but by the power of God's call.

And then Paul says the same about the Christians to whom he is writing. For all of their many differences--there are rich and poor, Jewish and Gentile, enslaved and free, educated and uneducated, women and men, high class and no class--they all belong because they have been "called." And in fact, they have been "called to be saints"--that is, to be holy, distinct, and unique in the world by the ways they come to reflect God's character.  You don't hear Paul trying to work the crowd with a sales pitch or intimidating them into joining the church through bully tactics. He simply says, "You all have been called by God into this new way of life--God's call is what makes you saints, and God's call is what says you belong."

Like I say, that is so different from the ways our culture still typically thinks about belonging in groups.  In our society, I might join a club if it seems fun to me, or if my friends are already in it, and then what makes us belong is the pull of my social capital or our likemindedness or common interests.  In our society, I might go to the movies or a concert as a paying customer, but if I don't like the story or the sound, I could go and find something else to entertain me next time.  In so many social situations for us, you go as long as it's convenient, and you stay as long as you think you are getting your money's worth (because you see yourself as a consumer). But within the community called "church," it's different: we are here because we are called, and we stay because God's call pulls us together. For all the ways we are different, all the things we disagree about, all the diversity of our stories, backgrounds, viewpoints, and situations, what brings us together is God's call.

Belonging in such a community is, honestly, countercultural. To be a part of the church--to be a disciple of Jesus--is to say, in effect, "I'm not just here when it feels good, or when I feel entertained at the moment. I'm not here because I think I've earned this spot through my achievements or pulled some strings with the gatekeepers to get into a club. I'm here because God called me here, and I can't not answer." In a culture like ours where folks bail out on obligations when it gets difficult, or where I'm used to "taking my business elsewhere" when someone says something that challenges or stretches me, it is a counter-cultural thing to say, "I belong here, even when staying is challenging, because God has called me here.  I continue to serve here because God has led me to this place and there is work to be done."  It is countercultural to admit, "I'm not calling the shots; I have been called to this place, and God intends to make something of me that I cannot make out of myself on my own."

In the end, the Christian community is less like a fraternity or sorority you pledge to get into (and endure hazing in order to earn a place there), and less like a paid membership to a country club (which you can always leave to join another that boasts a bigger golf course or fancier decor); it's more like the old Elvis song, discovering that you "can't help falling in love" with the God who has called you, and the other people who are also called by this same God.  And if you are tired of the shallow-commitments of club membership or the fearful fragility of groups from which you can be kicked out if you don't fit in well enough, that is deeply good news.  We belong in Christ because God says so.  In fact, we belong because God has called our names.

Lord God, open our ears today to hear your call to us, assuring us that we belong, and summoning us to serve with one another for the long haul.