Called into Foolishness--February 4, 2026

Called into Foolishness--February 4, 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. For it is written,
'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.'
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has God not made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolisness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishess to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and wisdom of God. For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength." [1 Corinthians 1:18-25]

Let me rattle off a few of the basic tenets of "common sense" that I regularly hear tossed around. There are plenty of variations, but I bet you've heard enough of these that you could sing along, too, if you like. The "pearls" of convention wisdom that we've all heard before go something like this:

"You have to look out for Number One--yourself!--in this life."

"You have to get THEM before they get YOU in this dog-eat-dog world."

"The only people who really matter are the 'winners' of life, and you can tell who the winners are, because they have more money, more influence, more power, more fans, more muscle, and more stuff."

"If you're a winner, you can do anything you want. The losers are forgettable."

If that isn't conventional wisdom, I'll eat my hat. And it is that kind of conventional wisdom that leads people to bully and intimidate others into bending to their will. It's the mindset that shows up when folks bellow and fume in inane and childish fights on social media. It's the rationale for always wanting to have a bigger stick... or sword... or rifle... or cannon... or nuclear missile, so that you can get the other guy before he gets you. We are drowning in the sea of conventional wisdom.

So it shouldn't surprise us that when God sends us a life-preserver on those billowing waves, the watching world thinks that God's way looks weak and stupid. God knows that's what the world thinks. God just doesn't care about conforming to it. And even more significant, God won't get lured into a petty shouting match with the world that thinks God's way of saving the world looks like losing. God is big enough not to need to answer every childish taunt or idiotic comment from the world, and God won't be baited into sinking to that level. (This by itself should make it clear that God's way is NOT the prevailing conventional wisdom of the world's so-called powerful and expert classes.)

Now, to hear Saint Paul tell it, that is exactly what the cross is all about--God has chosen to rescue a world full of powerless nobodies and unschooled anybodies whom the world labels "weak" and "losers," precisely by becoming one of those "weak losers" too. The cross looks like utter defeat, and it sounds like nonsense to say that the way to save anybody (much less the world) is by getting killed by your angry enemies. The world, both the sophisticated minds of the intellectual crowd, and the folks who want shows of power and greatness, sees a man getting executed and says, "That's a terrible shame--if God had wanted to mount a rescue operation, God should have consulted us for advice and muscle." The world's assumption is that the way to get things done is by having more force, more power, more guns, more missiles, or more money--possibly all of the above. It looks at the cross and figures that Rome must be the hero of the story because it killed a troublemaker who was foolish enough to let himself get called "king" without bringing an army to back him up. Jesus, the crucified one, must be the defeated opponent.

But Paul teaches us to see just the opposite. These words from First Corinthians, which many of us heard this past Sunday, make it clear. It's true that the cross of Jesus doesn't look ANYTHING like what the world calls "greatness." But that's not a design flaw on God's part--it's actually the whole point of everything! It's the world that's got it all wrong and bass-ackwards, as they say. It's the loud yellers of conventional wisdom who bark about "winning" who are really so pathetically out of touch. God's way of saving the world is decidedly NOT to play by the world's rules--those rules about winning and losing, about "greatness" and "weakness," they are at the root of the problem with us all in the first place! Of course God doesn't redeem the world at gunpoint with an army or a masked assault team in riot gear or a team of lawyers and a pile of money--that stuff has never worked to solve things. That would be like telling the drowning man that what he really needs is a lead weight tied around his ankle and a tank of water dumped over his head. God refuses to use the expected methods of "conventional wisdom" because conventional wisdom is really so often just our way of defending our own sinful selfishness. What we need--and what God does at the cross--is to rescue us from the terrible death-dealing morass of what the world calls "conventional wisdom" and "greatness."

That's what I think these days when I hear someone make a remark like, "Why would anybody risk their own comfort or well-being to protect a total stranger who was in danger?" It's what I think any time I hear someone say, "We have to put ourselves and our own interests first--that's just common sense!" It's what comes to mind when I hear parents teach their kids to 'punch the other kid before he punches you' to avoid looking weak." And it's what I need to remind myself of, too, every time I catch that same voice in my head that wants to judge the success of congregations by who has more people or more money or more followers of Facebook. All of those, from the need to have more missiles to blow up the world than your enemy, to the worry over whether your neighbor will think your kids are "weak," they are all evidence of the conventional wisdom of the world, which is the very thing we need rescuing FROM in the first place.  And we are called into something different--something better.

Of course, the way God mounts a rescue operation will look different from the world's standard operating procedures--they're the thing that's killing us in the first place. That's why it makes its own kind of perfectly upside-down sense that God's way of saving us is through death, through weakness, and through loss: because the un-ending race to "win" and look "strong" has really been killing us with a slow, terrible death.

Now, if we dare to take the message about the cross seriously, it is going to dramatically change how we see everything else--including our own lives. Paul talks about us as being "called" into this new way of life, and that brings with it a change of perspective. We are called into the foolishness of God. That will mean we care less and less about looking tough or impressing our neighbors. It will mean we no longer need to rely on having more sticks or sabers or shotguns or surface-to-air missiles to feel secure or keep us safe. It will mean we no longer have to call attention to our titles, our degrees on the wall, our professional status, our tax bracket, or our kids' varsity jackets to make us feel acceptable. In fact, we won't need to seek our own advantage anymore, because we will see that God's way of saving the world frees us from that tired old rat race once and for all.

Taking the upside-down perspective of the cross is going to mean serious revision to how we evaluate our lives, and that will take work. Maybe a lifetime of rethinking what has mattered all along. So maybe for today it is enough to begin to ask the question: what things have we accepted as "the way the world works" that are actually killing us? What things have we assumed to be true because we were told they were "common sense" but are really at the root of our pain as humans? And what might it do to the day in front of us to let the Crucified Christ turn our old picture of victory upside down?

What if we just didn't have to care anymore what the world thought "success" or "greatness" or "winning" looked like... and what if instead we could simply look to the cross for a new vision? What if we answered the call to share in God's foolishness?

Let's dare it today.

Lord Jesus, turn our old vision of the world upside down in the light of your way of saving that same world.

A Blessed Alternative--February 3, 2026

A Blessed Alternative--February 3, 2026

Jesus said to his disciples and the crowds:
 “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
  Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
  Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
  Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
  Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matthew 5:7-12)

Sometimes they'll say being merciful makes you look like a "loser." Or that peace is only possible through brute force. Sometimes they'll say "You won't get into trouble if you just do what you are told and comply." And sometimes they cast folks who were doing good as villains in order to take the focus off their own rottenness.  Jesus knows not to believe any of it.

And instead, Jesus offers a blessed alternative to all of that misguided thinking and misdirection.

In this second half of the Beatitudes, which many of us heard in worship this past Sunday, we get further illustrations from Jesus about the upside-down values of God's Reign.  And as we saw with the first section, in which Jesus announced blessing on folks likely to be looked down on (the "poor in spirit," the "mourning," the "meek," and the ones who have been denied justice and are therefore hungry to see things put right), once again Jesus reveals a set of priorities at odds with conventional wisdom.  In both the first century and the twenty-first, all of those folks are typically viewed as pitiable or pathetic, not blessed with divine favor.  Now here, Jesus again uplifts values that the Roman Empire (and all of its copycats ever since) would have dismissed as nonsense.  

Being merciful, for one, means refusing to use your power or leverage over somebody else but rather showing compassion to help them--even when they can't pay you back in return.  The Big Deals of history would say, "No! When you've got 'em over a barrel, that's the time to squeeze them for all they're worth and press your advantage!"  But mercy says, "This is someone loved by God, who has shown mercy to me as well.  If I were in their shoes, I would need compassion shown to me." Being merciful means leaving possible "advantage" on the table unclaimed in order to show favor to someone without concern for whether they have earned it or whether you will get anything out of it.  Being merciful requires being able to see the world in more than merely transactional terms where everything is a deal.

Similarly, to be "pure in heart" will mean a willingness not to always seek your own advantage or your own self-interest in what you do. As Soren Kierkegaard once put it, "purity of heart is to will one thing." And if we are supposed to be committed to seeking God's will and aligning our hearts with God's, that will mean there is no place for a self-interested side-hustle of grabbing for ourselves in addition to that.  And again, that just sounds foolish to the thinking of many.  "You've got to look out for Number One!" the thinking goes.  "It would be crazy NOT to take advantage of every situation you're in for yourself!" they say.  Jesus knows that to many, it seems like common sense to blend our devotion to God with some strategic self-interest. He knows that for a lot of folks, "Me and My Group First" sounds like an article of faith.  He just doesn't agree.  Instead, he points us to a different set of values--where we seek God's will rather than muddying the waters with our own corrupt impulses on the side.

Peacemaking, too, sounds preposterous to the thinking of the Powerful Empires and the Big Shots.  At least, genuine peacemaking does.  Rome, of course, was happy to tell its subjects that it was bringing peace--but what the Empire meant by "peace" was really conquest.  They meant, "If you give in to our demands, we will stop stomping on your neck." And again, history keeps showing us that every empire and strongman since has tried to use the same playbook.  What is really radical is Jesus' call not to use the language of "peace" as a talking point or propaganda, but to actually do the hard work of reconciling with other people, whom we treat as equal dialog partners rather than pawns.  To the world's mindset that thinks of peace as something you can only enforce by intimidating your opponents at the point of a sword or the barrel of a gun, Jesus' call to peacemaking is outlandish.

And those final two statements of blessing--about those who are persecuted, reviled, and defamed for the sake of doing justice (the same word as "righteousness" in Greek) and for being associated with the name and way of Jesus--those are countercultural, too.  You know as well as I do how often conventional wisdom says, "If you just obey what the authorities say and don't make waves, you won't get into trouble." And you know as well how often those who get into such trouble are often blamed as though they brought it on themselves: "They should have complied. They should have kept quiet. They shouldn't have stepped out of line." That was the advice of people in the Roman Empire whose neighbors got crucified or flogged as a public example. It was the same criticism aimed at the ones who worked in the Underground Railroad to help the formerly enslaved get to freedom at great personal risk, just as it was lobbed at the ones who helped Jewish neighbors escape the Reich when they came knocking on doors in the 1930s.  And it was the same conventional wisdom used to condemn the Freedom Riders, sit-in participants, and marchers across the Pettus Bridge in Selma, and throughout the Civil Rights movement.  Criticism was aimed at those who were arrested, beaten, hit with firehoses, or who lost their lives, as though such punishments were only ever doled out to wrongdoers.  Jesus knew better, and he knew full well that sometimes you get vilified for doing the right thing.  Sometimes your faith in Jesus leads you to speak up, stand up, or act up--and when the powers of the day do not like it, not only will they try to stop you, they'll try to inflict pain and cast you as a villain in the process.  Jesus tells us in advance: don't worry about what they say about you--you just stick to pursuing what you know is right, what is just, and what corresponds to the way of Jesus.

If we dare to actually practice this set of values, we will look strange in a world that keeps telling us to keep our heads down and only to look out for our own interests.  We will certainly seem odd and against the grain of what is expected.  But of course, that's the whole point.  Jesus has called us to be a part of the Reign of God, which is always a blessed alternative to the self-serving bullying and calculated cowardice of The Way Things Are.  We are called to be different--to live deliberately out of step--in the ways we practice mercy, the ways we make peace, the ways we keep our integrity, and the ways we risk our reputations for the sake of doing right.

That might just turn some heads if we dared it today.  What do you say?

Lord Jesus, enable us to live as your blessed alternative in the world.

God's Policy Priorities--February 2, 2026

God's Policy Priorities--February 2, 2026

"When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he began to speak and taught them, saying:
  Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
  Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
  Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
  Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled..."(Matthew 5:1-6)

Every winter, Americans go through an annual ritual, as mandated by the Constitution, in which the current president of the United States addresses a joint session of Congress, along with the Supreme Court, special guests, and a watching television audience to inform us all about "the state of the union."  You know how this goes, I'm sure, even if you are not a regular watcher of the annual speech.  It is a bit of political theater, with pauses for applause, choreographed pageantry, and in more recent years, a prepared response from the opposition party as well. To be honest, I don't expect that a State of the Union address reaches as many people these days as it used to, since now our public figures are on television already all the time, as well as using social media, press secretaries, and pundits to push their perspectives on the other 364 days of the year as well.

But I will grant this about a State of the Union address, even in these late days of our republic: it's still a pretty good place to get a feel for the policy priorities of the current administration for the year ahead.  The things that get mentioned in this speech are the places that the executive branch will be giving special attention to or turning greater resources toward.  That doesn't mean that other areas which don't get specifically named in the speech aren't happening or are unimportant; it just means that the ones mentioned by the president are particular priorities. Sure, there will be unexpected events that might redirect or change the government's focus.  Sure, there will be pushback and opposition from the party on the other side of the aisle.  Sure, a set of priorities is not the same as getting legislation passed or getting action taken.  But if you want to know at the start of a calendar year what the current regime thinks is important, the State of the Union is a good place to start.

So, I mention all of this because the Gospel of Matthew gives us something with a similar feel and meaning here in the opening of the fifth chapter.  Jesus gives the first large block of teaching in the gospel here, which many of us heard in worship this past Sunday, in what we often call "the Sermon on the Mount." And because this is the beginning of Jesus' public ministry, this has the feel of being a sort of "State of the Union" for Jesus' mission.  Jesus has already begun telling people that "the kingdom of heaven" or "the Reign of God" is at hand; now he tells us what that means and what makes God's agenda different from the kingdoms and empires of the world.  In a very real sense, the Sermon on the Mount is like a State of the Union address. And beginning with the Beatitudes, Jesus reveals that God has a very different set of priorities from the need for power, status, wealth, and domination of the world's regimes.

The Beatitudes, in other words, are not a checklist for us of things we have to be or do in order to earn ourselves a spot in the Heaven Club; they are a list of policy priorities for the Yahweh Administration. And instead of seeking what the world calls "greatness" or "winning" or "strength," Jesus reveals God's heart for the hurting, the lowly, and the empty-handed.  That's especially clear in this first half of these statements of blessing.  Jesus doesn't say that wealth, abundance, or ambition are signs of God's blessing, but rather the opposite. God's priority is on showing kindness to the runs who are running on fumes... to the ones whose hearts are broken... and to the lowly and softspoken.  It doesn't mean that God doesn't love other people, not any more than a State of the Union speech names the only things a government will do in a given year.  But they both do point to priorities.  God's priority, you might say, is to lift up the ones who have been stepped on, the ones who are weary, and the ones who are aching for the world to be put right--precisely because they have experienced so much of what is wrong in the world. Howard Thurman, the great theologian of the 20th century who was a mentor for Dr. King, would say that God's blessing is turned especially toward "the ones with their backs against the wall" and "the disinherited."  Gustavo Gutierrez, a Peruvian theologian of the second half of the 20th century, used to talk about it as "God's preferential option for the poor." It doesn't mean that God doesn't care about others; it does mean that God's heart is for the ones who are most in need and hurting.  That's where God's policy priorities are focused, Jesus says.  These statements of blessing are not about what we have to do or endure in order to earn a spot on God's good list--they are declarations about what especially matters to God, and how God cares for those who are most often overlooked and underserved.

The Big Deals of the world's regimes have a tendency to focus on their own interests, their own power, and their own legacies.  They build monuments to their greatness, ignore the vulnerable, and try to accumulate more "stuff" for themselves.  That same tired list of priorities gets dressed up with new slogans and marketing in speech after speech, year after year, and we all know that nothing much is different when we hear it repackaged again out of the next person at the podium.  Jesus, however, turns everything upside down. He shows us what--and who--matters with special concern to God, in the hopes that our priorities will be shaped by God's.  He reveals what God is "up to" in the world, so that our character will be formed in the likeness of God's.

How will our hearts be turned toward God's priorities today--and how might we be attuned to the needs of those whose backs are against the wall right now?

Lord Jesus, realign our priorities to fit with your own.

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.