Jesus Is For Losers--October 7, 2026

Jesus Is For Losers--October 7, 2026

"More than that, I regard everything as a loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him…" (Philippians 3:8-9a)

The blustering voices at podiums and the talking heads who pontificate on television tend to look down on the ones they see as "losers."  But Jesus doesn't.  In fact, you might say that Jesus both looks for losers to follow him and calls his followers to become losers if they weren't already.  Paul at least thinks so.

Let me back up a second.  Follow me down a rabbit hole for a second. In one of my favorite songs by the band Switchfoot (a list which, I will confess, is a long one), Jon Foreman sings, “Only the losers win—they’ve got nothing to prove. They leave the world with nothing to lose,” and then he comes to the chorus, “I’ve got a plan to lose it all. I’ve got a contract pending on eternity. If I haven’t already given it away, I’ve got a plan to lose it all.”

A plan to lose… everything. It hardly sounds sensible.

We usually use the word “lose” to describe something accidental and unintentional, something regrettable and pitiable… not something you have a plan for. We say things like, “I lost my wristwatch again—can someone help me look for it?” or “I have felt just awful since I lost that gift they gave me. What a shame.” We talk about the stock market losing points on the day, when of course everyone would rather see a day when the markets close up for the day. We lament about losing time, losing chances, losing profits, and losing our minds—none of them very positive situations.

And in those rare and precious moments when we do bring ourselves to part with something intentionally, we reach for other verbs than “lose.” Your offering check put in the plate is a donation, or a gift or a tithe, but I don’t know anyone who says, “I lost money to the church today.” Losing sounds like surrender. Losing sounds like defeat. Losing sounds like something you stumbled into because of absent-mindedness (the misplaced wristwatch) or risky investing… not something you set out to accomplish when you get up in the morning.

Unless you have met Jesus, of course. Jesus is the reason that Paul, and the songwriter Jon Foreman, and countless disciples over two thousand years, have been willing to talk about—and sing about, too, I guess—our plans to lose it all.  Jesus, of course, in the Gospels often talks about those who "lose" their lives actually "finding" them, and those who try to hold onto their lives end up forfeiting everything.  And Paul talks about loss the way a personal trainer talks about the extra twenty pounds or so we are all carrying around that we could stand to shed. You do have to consciously plan to lose that kind of weight, which is precisely dead weight. You do have to say, “This is something I need to get rid of, something I need to lose, and something that is only holding me back and comparatively a waste.”

Of course, when we are just picturing twenty pounds of excess weight from our bodies, it’s easy to say, “I want to be rid of that!” The really radical thing about Paul is that he is willing to talk about things he used to think were great, and now to call them “rubbish.” (Actually, he calls them something even more graphic in his original Greek—something that could be politely translated as “dung”).  Paul isn’t talking about spiritual love-handles or a flabby soul—something that anybody might easily say, “This needs to go!” about. Paul is talking about all of who he used to be before Christ was a part of his life. His trophies and medals, his scorecards and gold-stars. All of it is so much garbage that ought to go to the junk heap. All of it requires a plan to lose, and the recognition that Jesus is for losers.

That flies in the face of our natural impulses. We all cling to the things we think give us worth, and here Paul is convinced that the grace of God changes all that. We are much more likely to want to try and preserve whatever we thought of as our accomplishments, rather than to be willing to let go of them. It's the frustrated early retiree, who worked hard at his job, only to be forced out when the business dried up, and all he can do now is lash out in emasculated anger at all the people he blames for his troubles, while he conjures up wishes for reliving his glory days. It's the sad, lonely mogul, who did great in business and made a fortune, but comes to a point where he realizes his money didn't make him happy and all his millions or billions were a waste of a lifetime since he feels empty inside. It's Al Bundy, reliving his high school football career and "that time I scored four touchdowns in a single game" because he is afraid to admit that none of that matters anymore. All of us are like that to some degree--we don't dare say that our best and most important achievements are "rubbish," because we are have a hard time believing that grace really does get the last word, and that in the end there will be no proving of our worth--only the free gift of God's love that is already yours before you've done a thing. It's hard to believe that Jesus really is for losers.

It is hard to do what Paul does here in Philippians, because we are afraid of admitting our best and greatest weren't all that great, and we would much rather clutch onto the things we thought gave us value and worth. It is hard to accept that I am beloved and precious and of infinite worth to God... even if my job went away, even if my industry is disappearing, even if I have had to be on unemployment, even if I need the help of others, even if nobody else remembers the four touchdowns in a single game from high school. But the New Testament does indeed dare us to quit putting our trust and our worth in those accomplishments, and instead to make a plan to lose them all.

Every so often in our lives we have those turning-a-new-chapter rummage-clearing times of our lives, when we sort through the “stuff” that has accumulated and decide what we need to keep and what we do not need. We might fill up a back of clothes for goodwill, or finally get rid of those broken small appliances we had been meaning to get around to. Or we might find something that had gotten buried at the bottom of a closet or storage tub and rediscover something of value. It does happen.

But then there are the markers of achievement. The collected report cards or merit badges from childhood. The certificates of achievement from work or letters of commendation from our supervisors. The actual plastic trophies from childhood wins and school victories. When we win them—the big trophy for the year your team won the championship, or the perfect attendance award from your fourth-grade class—they seem like they are of great value and that we will never want to part with them. Funny, though, how by the time you have to move a couple times in life, you get tired of unboxing and re-boxing the same pieces of tarnished, gaudy plastic with stick-on nameplates. Funny how these things that once seemed so important become one more piece of junk you are willing to part with—to pitch because it is of no use to anybody else, and because your present-tense life doesn’t need it anymore. I remember the day I finally parted with my second-grade Pinewood Derby trophy from my short-lived Cub Scout career—and the way I looked at the yellowing faux-gold of its plastic topper and said to myself, “Who do I think I need to impress with this anymore… and am I really fooling myself to think that it would impress them?” Pitching the trophy was loss, in some sense of the word, but it was also really freeing, because it meant I was losing one more instance of trying to make myself good enough to be acceptable. One more idol dethroned.

There comes a point where the new life you are standing in is worth more than the trophies from your past that mark where you used to be. There comes a point when you realize you would rather have a few more free moments now than the time it takes to dust your old school trophies. And so, at some point… out they go. It’s a loss, but not a pitiable one. Nobody says, “Oh, what a shame—I wish I had more of the faded clutter from my childhood that rewarded me for meaningless contests.” But it does take the conscious action, the chosen willingness, to pitch them when it’s time. It takes a plan.

The Christian life is like that. It is the conscious plan of disciples of Jesus to do an ongoing inventory of our lives and to be free enough to pitch the clutter of personal points and tired trophies which never really earned us anything in the first place. It is the daring plot to pin our whole lives on Christ and to see that in this present moment with Christ we no longer need gold stars to be loved. In fact, we never did.  Because, of course, Jesus really is for losers.

When that becomes real for us—when the reality of grace smacks us upside the head like that—all of a sudden we find ourselves free to lose it all… because we recognize that, more importantly, we have been found.

Lord Jesus, you have claimed us as we are. Let us dare to trust it and plan to lose the dead weight we have been carrying around.

Stepping Off the Hamster Wheel--October 6, 2026

Stepping Off the Hamster Wheel--October 6, 2026

[Paul writes:] "If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ." (Philippians 3:4b-7)

You can spend your entire life racking up achievements, merit badges, and accolades in the relentless quest to prove yourself "good enough," but it's a losing game.

Seriously, it's just not worth it to play, "Prove Your Worthiness to God," for two reasons: for starters, none of us can rack up enough piety points or righteousness rewards to win, and more importantly, because we never needed to earn what God was already giving away for free.

Don't take my word for it--this is from the Apostle Paul himself.  As many of us heard this past Sunday in this passage from his letter to the Philippians, Paul has tried playing that game, and it was Jesus himself who led him to quit playing.  As he recounts some of his former life story to the congregation in Philippi, he starts rattling off his religious credentials, and all the things he used to think were useful for earning him the acceptance of God.  And that was a long list: he had been circumcised according to the Torah's instructions, and came from a good upstanding family in a respectable tribe of Israel.  He was no Johnny-come-lately convert, but had come from generations upon generations of devout and observant members of the covenant people.  He kept the commandments, even to the point of belonging to a particularly zealous and stringent sect called the Pharisees that strove to go above and beyond the bare-minimum requirements of the Law.  He had even gotten swept up in a violent strain of fundamentalism that sought to round up Christians and either put them in prison or put them to death for what they thought were heretical beliefs.  Paul had an impressive resume of biblical bona fides, all of which an earlier version of himself thought were equivalent to a student getting gold-star stickers on his report card.  He didn't know it, but that version of himself was really more like a hamster running forever on a wheel that gets you nowhere.  You wear yourself out constantly trying to play the game of earning your status of acceptability with God, and you don't get anywhere for all the sweating and huffing.

What happened to Paul that led him to get himself off of the hamster wheel of trying to earn his place in God's good graces?  In a word, Jesus.  Jesus happened to him.

The living Christ encountered Paul, even while he was dead-set again the Jesus movement and had blood on his hands from trying to snuff it out like a flame, and it was Christ's gracious embrace that changed things for Paul.  He discovered that not only was the formerly-crucified Nazarene alive again, but he was claiming Paul without holding his track record of persecution against him.  Christ's own enemy-embracing love had already accepted Paul, as he was, and had set aside the list of good and bad deeds on his supposed "heavenly permanent record."  And instead, on the basis of Christ's own goodness, Christ's own love, and Christ's own righteousness, Paul was given the status of belonging in the family of God as a free gift.  

There had never needed to be a list of accomplishments.  

There had never needed to be a proving of worthiness.

There had never needed to be an endless marathon on the hamster wheel.

And of course, Paul's point as he writes these words to the Philippians is that we don't need any of those things, either. Paul's is not a special case: he is made right with God the same way any of us are--as a gift of grace. Not a one of us on God's green earth has to prove we are good enough, or make ourselves look better than someone else by comparison, or present a list of merit badges we have earned.  We have been given all that is Christ's--his own goodness, his own righteousness, his own status as Child of God--as a free gift, regardless of where we were born, which family we come from, how long we have been members of the church, or how well we keep the rules.  And when you realize that this is how God has really operated all along throughout all of history, then all of our attempts to impress, achieve, and earn our way into God's embrace look pretty pathetic.

What if today, we dared to leave behind the hamster wheel we've been on?  What if we dared to trust that God has given us already what a paper full of gold-star-stickers never could?  And what would we be freed for if we didn't have to constantly worry about whether we were getting credit for our good behaviors on some imagined permanent record?

The Apostle Paul is here to tell us, "You don't need to even say the 'What-If?' part.  You are already free."

Lord Jesus, enable us to trust your free gift apart from our earning or achieving, and to step out in the world freely to love like you.

God Gets Past Our Defenses--October 5, 2026

 God Gets Past Our Defenses--October 5, 2026

"Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard:

My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.

He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines;

he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it;

he expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.

And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem, and people of Judah,

judge between me and my vineyard.

What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it?

When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?

And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard.

I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured;

I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down.

I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed,

and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns;

I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.

For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel,

and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting;

he expected justice, but saw bloodshed;

righteousness, but heard a cry! "(Isaiah 5:1-7)

T.S. Eliot famously wrote, "Humankind cannot bear very much reality." He was right.

As a species, we seem to want to dodge, ignore, and spin the things that make us squirm--especially the things about ourselves that make us uncomfortable. We have a way of set up blind-spots to miss our weaknesses, and we develop selective memories about our past, all to guard us from having to deal with unpleasant truths. It's the impulse evident when a long-married couple starts arguing over who said what to start the fight (and each has very distinct recollections of how it happened), and it's the same instinct of alcoholics or drug addicts in denial, who convince themselves (and really do believe what they tell themselves) that they don't have a problem... that they can stop any time they want, and that things are fine the way they are. And on a larger scale, it's how nations and people-group willfully forget things from their histories that would make them uncomfortable... and choose to ignore realities that are staring them in the face but which they do not want to see.

What a pitiable species we are: so afraid of being made uncomfortable that we willfully ignore or deny what is in front of us.

How is someone supposed to get through to us when we are in that willful, blissful ignorance? How does any voice of truth ever get through? Or are we doomed forever, we human beings, to live inside the anesthetized insulation of our own creation, like sleepers who cannot wake up from their own dream?

Maybe a difficult truth can be snuck in--like a parent sneaking vegetables into the pasta sauce to get their kids to eat more vitamins--when our guard is down. Maybe, like Emily Dickinson's famous bit of verse puts it, you have to:

"Tell all the truth, but tell it slant

Success in circuit lies

Too bright for our infirm delight

As lightning to the children eased

With explanation kind

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind."

In other words, sometimes we need someone to tell us the unpleasant truths we don't want to face, but in a way that gets past our defenses. Then we can deal with it.

That's actually what the prophet Isaiah is doing here. This passage (which many of us heard this past Sunday in worship) is an old dreamer's attempt to get his people to see the truth about themselves and their history in a way that they can bear without running away or sticking their heads in the sand. He tells a story, hoping that his hearers won't realize until they are already hooked that it is a story about them, and their whole nation. He makes it into a song--a love song--with the hope that his people will hear the deep love of God alongside the heartbreaking disappointment of God at how they have turned away from God's good ways.

As stories go, this little scene Isaiah sketched out isn't very complicated. The "beloved" (God) plants a vineyard, and he does what any decent farmer raising grapes would do: he clears a plot of land with good soil, plants good vines, and sets up all the necessary structures on it a watchtower, a wine vat a hedge, and a garden wall. And having done all that, the vine-grower expects good grapes--and gets bad ones!

Well, what's a vintner to do? Isaiah asks his audience--what would you do if this were you? And the moment they start to formulate their answers, the prophet has them hooked. "You would tear down your vineyard, and maybe try and start over somewhere else!" you can hear them mouthing under their breath. "You would give up and try raising cattle--or goats--or zucchini!" Now Isaiah comes to the conclusion of his slanted-telling of the truth: this is a dull story of disappointment from a grape-grower, but rather the history of Israel and Judah. This is the history they don't want to face about themselves. Isaiah pulls off the mask like he's ripping off a band-aid: "This story isn't just about grapes!" he says, "The vineyard is the people of Israel and Judah--you are the ones God was expecting good fruit from, and instead all you've given back to God is sour grapes!" Isaiah wants his people to see that their whole national history is rooted in "bloodshed" instead of "justice," and that where God wanted "righteousness," there were only the cries of victims. He goes on in the verses after this passage calling out the ways the wealthy squeezed out the poor, making their McMansions and estates bigger and bigger so there was no room for low-income housing and small farms (see Isaiah 5:8-10). And then after that, Isaiah forces his audience to come face to face with the ways they cheat and steal and use their wealth to avoid prosecution (Isaiah 5:22-23). It's all an uncomfortable truth that the people don't want to hear, but he's already got them hooked from his love-song; now they will have to bear the truth about themselves and their national history.

I know this doesn't sound like a very cheery passage to read on a Monday morning. But let's be clear: Isaiah is coming from a place of love. And that's because he's convinced that God is coming from a place of love. It is because God loves the people--including the ones who have been repeatedly stepped on for too long in their national history--that God provokes the prophet to say the things no one wants to admit. It is because God is the lover of Israel and Judah that God prompts Isaiah to write his love-song to get the people's attention and help them to face their past and present, so that they can create new systems, new ways of living together, and new patterns for life. It is because God loves us that God insists we come face to face with our own histories--individual, communal, and national--and own the patterns of crookedness, violence, and injustice in those stories, even if we have made a great effort to pretend they are not there. Love doesn't let us off the hook for facing the truth, even when the truth is unpleasant or convicting; to hear the prophets tell it, sometimes the greatest mark of love for their people is when they compel them to face the ghosts of their past and the injustices in their present. It is not because the prophets don't love their own nations of Israel and Judah that they raise their criticisms; it is precisely because they love their people--and because they believe God loves them, too--that they will not let them turn away from their past any longer.

This is a reality we need to be really clear about, because the impulse to turn away from the unresolved messes of our past isn't just an ancient-Israelite thing: it's a human thing. And sometimes we fall for the very tempting lie (let's call it what it is) that if we really love our communities we will only see the positive in our stories, not the broken places. Sometimes we get so afraid of dealing with the ways our past has set up and perpetuated that brokenness in the present that we just get defensive when God raises up a prophet to tell our stories honestly to us. But love never means a selective, happy-and-easy-things-only view of those we love, the same way you expect a doctor to tell you the whole truth about what your diagnosis is.

In these days, it seems we are being invited once again to engage in an honest retelling of our own histories--the histories of our families, our churches and denominational bodies, and our nation as well. It is tempting to cover our ears any time someone raises a part of our history that makes us uncomfortable. It is tempting to just shout and interrupt any time someone calls us out on something we did not want to have to face. And it is just as tempting to imagine that the failures and hurts of past are all dealt with and done, rather than lingering and languishing in the present still. Part of what Isaiah did in his time was to compel his listeners to see that their patterns of greed and violence in the past had ongoing consequences that over time didn't go away, but just became socially acceptable. Maybe we need to have some uncomfortable truth-telling as well where we are, and then have the important second half of the conversation by addressing the question, "What do we do about it now?" as well.

Whether it's an individual finally coming face to face with their addiction, a congregation dealing with the decades of dysfunction that have turned it into an exclusive social club, or a nation dealing with the undead threat of racism and white supremacy, it's always scary to face the truths we had spent a long time burying. But as much as Isaiah's incisive story here forces us to see that we'll have to work up the nerve to face our own past and present, Isaiah also reminds us that we don't face them alone. God insists we face the realities we didn't want to deal with, but the same God promises to face them with us and to give us the courage to do it. That's what real love does: it empowers us to face the truth rather than helping us to hide from it.

And in that sense, even having to wrestle with the things we are not proud of (or should not be proud of) is a way, not of punishing us, but of bringing us more fully to life. Like Baldwin says, "Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." Today, may we be given the courage to face what we have been afraid to see, and may we be given the prophetic voices like Isaiah's to point us in the right direction.

Lord God, give us the courage we need to own our past and our present honestly, as individuals, in our communities, in our country, and in our church.

All the Difference--October 2, 2026

All the Difference--October 2, 2026

"Let the same mind be in your that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, assuming human likeness. And being found in  appearance as a human,  he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross." (Philippians 2:5-8)

If I stop and think about it, this is really why I am a Christian.

This verse, this sentence, this idea, and the radical notion it conveys are why, for all the ways that organized religion can be such a disappointment (plus, we're not all that organized! Ba-dum-bum!), this is why I continue to be a part of the community called the church and a Christian, rather than just an admirer of the teachings of Jesus. And the crux of the matter--quite literally--is that it is no less than God who has come to us in the person of Jesus.

Look, the world is full of other role models and positive examples. If my only reason for being a Christian is that Jesus gives me a hero to look up to, well, the glut of superhero movies and movie universes has given me plenty more "heroes." There's a new flavor every week. I can have my own personal favorites, my spouse can have her own, and my kids can each pick a favorite or two. We can pore over the pages of history and find heroes to look up to as well, or to our favorite figures from literature (I've always been fond of Don Quixote and Cyrano de Bergerac, for example, and tenth-grade me was greatly impacted by meeting early Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird).

But for whichever role models, fictional or historical or some of both, on whom we pattern our lives, let's be honest, we will always be chasing after some impossible goal of being "enough like them" to be worthy, to be good enough, to be acceptable. And we're never going to do it. I'm never going to have Bruce Wayne's vast fortune or tech savvy; I'm never going to work up the never to actually fight a windmill; and I will never have the physical strength or agility to be Black Panther. And if saving the day requires me to be adequately good enough or close enough to any of them, I will fail... and the day will not be saved.

And honestly, if all religion is boils own to, "Keep trying to be good enough--here, look at another biblical role model," then we should be honest that religion is about saving ourselves with good behavior.

But that's not how this passage from Philippians, which many of us heard this past Sunday in worship, opens. This ancient passage from the hand of Saint Paul himself, which is actually probably a quotation of an even earlier hymn or prayer, starts with God. And that makes all the difference. Yes, Paul's point includes us patterning our minds and mindsets on how Jesus is an example for us to follow. But the first move is God's, not ours. The outrageous claim of the Gospel is that none other than God came to us in Jesus, walked barefoot and homeless in Jesus, and was executed by the state as a threat to the empire and Respectable Religion in Jesus. The radical claim of Christianity is not, first, that we have to try to be as good as God in order to get into God's good graces, but rather that God has become one of us because we are already held in the goodness of grace. And that means, further, that at the heart of God's character is the choice NOT to maximize privilege or status for God's own sake, but for the good of others--including us. At the heart of who God is is decidedly NOT the motto, "Me First" or the song "My Way," but rather the choice to put others first--and a whole world full of us others, too.

Before we get to how we respond to that (and we are called to respond), it's important that we get the horse before the cart. What makes the Gospel different from every form of self-help religion in human history is that it starts with God's choice not to preserve privilege, not to pull rank, and not to stay safe, but to lose everything for the sake of what is not God--us. It's not about us reaching "up," but about God coming close, even though that means letting go of power, comfort, prestige, glory, and respectability.

The heart of the Christian gospel is a God who goes to a cross for us in Christ, rather than crucify his enemies.  That means, too, that it is theologically right to substitute the word "God" everywhere you see the name "Jesus," in the central story of our faith--the cross and resurrection.  It is God who endures suffering for us, from the torture at police headquarters to the shame of the cross to being buried in a borrowed grave. It is God who gets mocked by the religious and politically powerful (who are afraid of losing that power, while God was willing to surrender power in Christ). It is God who is stripped naked and strung up on a tree. It is God who cries out in godforsakenness. It is God who moves first in Jesus. 

Whatever else we say about ourselves, then, is always a response to grace, never a prerequisite for it. And that makes all the difference in the world.

Jesus is more than a hero, and more than a self-help role model. Jesus is what it looks like when God is prepared to lose it all for the love of us.

Lord Jesus, let us recognize in your face the very face of God... even when it wears a crown of thorns.

A Realignment of Our Minds--October 1, 2026

A Realignment of Our Minds--October 1, 2026

"If, then, there is any comfort in Christ, any consolation from love, any partnership in the Spirit, any tender affection and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or empty conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus..." (Philippians 2:1-5)

When we say that the gospel is counter-cultural in a society with slogans like "Me-and-My-Group First," this is what we mean.

When we profess that the way of Jesus points in the opposite direction of those who insist on pursuing their own "greatness," this is what we mean.

When we confess that God directs us to seek the good of other people even before we seek our own interests, this is what we mean.

And of course, all of this sounds subversive, foolish, and completely against the grain of what passes for conventional wisdom, whether in the first century or the twenty-first.  But here it is, right from the pen of the apostle in these words that many of us heard this past Sunday. To follow the way of Jesus will mean a reorientation of our minds to be pointed in the way of Jesus, which will always mean seeking the good of others before ourselves.  

In the ancient Roman empire, this sounded ridiculous.  The Greeks and Romans didn't consider "humility" a virtue, certainly not the way Paul (and the rest of the New Testament) thinks of it.  The word that gets translated for us as "humility" here has the feel of "lowliness," "submission," "being put lower," or "being a nobody."  By contrast, the Greeks and Romans thought it was better to make a big deal about yourself, to boast of your accomplishments, and to bring glory and fame to you and your family name.  The people associated with "humility" (again, read "lowliness" in their minds) were the ones they called "weak," "losers," and "backward."  It would have sounded preposterous to the "common sense" of the imperial mindset to suggest that being "humble" was something to strive for, and it would have sounded like lunacy to put others' interests before your own.  After all, how was an empire to grow unless it put its own success ahead of the lives of those it conquered? How was Rome to rule ever greater territory if it didn't think its interests matter more than the kings and kingdoms it subjugated?  How would anybody recognize how "great" you were unless you were constantly promoting yourself and drowning out the other voices around you?  Paul's counsel here completely flies in the face of the whole mindset of the Roman Empire.

Not that things are any different twenty centuries later, honestly.  We still live in a time when the loudest voices are often the ones barking about putting "Me-and-My-Group-First!" as though it were a self-evident truth that needed no explanation.  We still live in a world where self-interest is seen to be the unquestioned and unquestionable bedrock principle of "how things work." And we still live in a culture that teaches us to see everybody else on the planet as a threat to be eliminated, a competitor to be defeated, or a danger to be suspicious of, rather than neighbors to be loved.  For twenty centuries now, the New Testament has been calling us to a very different way of life--one which puts others' interests ahead of our own, because it is Jesus' mindset.

I think it would have been baffling to the apostle Paul if he could have somehow seen the way plenty of churchgoing Respectable Religious people today try to completely ignore this message.  I think he would be dumbstruck to hear people who name the name of Jesus and confess Jesus as their "Lord and Savior" also insisting that their interests were more important than those of the homeless in their city, or the refugees seeking a home in their country, or those whose homes have been reduced to ash and rubble from wars being fought half a world away.  I think Paul would sit us down and ask us, "Have you actually read ANY of what I wrote?  What part of 'seek the interests of others' is unclear to you?  How can you not see the direction that Christ's mindset points us in?" And if the apostle did give us that sort of a talking-to, I think he would be spot-on.  One can either shout "Me-and-My-Group-First" or one can confess, "Jesus is Lord," but you can't do both and mean it, because the way of Jesus inescapably involves a realignment of our hearts to seek the interests of others before our own.

If we take that seriously, yes, it will change everything about our lives. We will be less invested in making bigger piles of money for ourselves and more committed to making sure our neighbors get to eat.  We will be less envious or suspicious of the strangers who cross our path and more attuned to seeing the face of Christ in them.  We will be less obsessed with the fear that other people are taking "our share of the pie," and more convinced that the world is not a zero-sum game where your gain must mean my loss. We will indeed be changed.

But what did we think would happen by letting Christ not only onto our lips and not only into our hearts, but also into our minds?  

How could he not transform the entire way we see the world?  

And what sort of Lord would he be if he did not?

Lord Jesus, come transform and reorient our minds to seek the interests of others the way you did, and the way you still do.

The Parade of Beloved Mess-Ups--September 30, 2026

The Parade of Beloved Mess-Ups--September 30, 2026

Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him, and even after you saw it you did not change your minds and believe him.” (Matthew 21:31b-32)

How's that for proof that God doesn't hold our past against us? Jesus pictures the line of people queued up into the kingdom, and says the prostitutes and tax collectors are at the front of the parade, while the Respectable Religious people are at the back of the procession. The folks everyone in Jesus' day would have branded as the most notoriously sinful and salacious people around were the ones who took up the invitation to a new beginning when it was offered to them, and God was willing to put aside any hindrances that would have stopped them from coming. Meanwhile, it was the people who projected piety in public who never thought they had a need to start over, and so they passed by the chance to begin again.

"Follow the prostitutes!" What an invitation from Jesus!  Follow the prostitutes into the kingdom--they were the ones who took the offer of grace, while the Celebrity Spiritual So-and-Sos never wanted to admit they were desperate for that same grace.  So often we look down on people we see as irredeemable or assume that they have chosen the lives they are currently in--but quite often, people end up in unsavory situations in life because they felt like they had to choose between two bad options.  Do I starve, or make a living at the world's oldest profession?  Do I give up on the hope of putting a roof over my head and the heads of my children, or do I sell out and work for the empire collecting taxes? Lots of people find themselves in the position of not feeling like they have any options, and they would just love the chance to start over, to be free, and to be relieved of the stigma of everybody else's glaring eyes of condemnation.  Jesus simply says here that's exactly what he's been giving--and John the Baptizer before him, too.

And notice here, Jesus doesn't make those who were labeled notorious sinners into second-class citizens of the Reign of God. He doesn't say, "Well, of course, the religious people still get top billing, because they were already so holy. I'll pity you sell-outs and sex workers and let you in the gate, but you'll have to be at the back of the link after all the truly 'good' people are in..." Jesus really is convinced that God isn't holding anybody's past messes against them, no matter how complicated or deep-rooted those messes have been. When the invitation to turn in a new direction, to be a part of the Reign of God, was offered, the people who felt most at a dead end were the quickest to take the offer. And so, like the thief on the cross next to Jesus, desperate for a lifeline and leaping out into the arms of grace, it was the outcast and ostracized folks who jumped at the chance to be included after spending so long on the outside looking in.

This is what makes the Gospel good news, and not just a program for self-improvement. It's in God's promises to give us a truly brand-new lease on life that frees us from the things others don't want to let go of. It's not about having to feel a certain amount of guilt or jump through enough hoops of remorse to rid ourselves of the shame of where we've been--it's all about the promise of God not to keep track of how many times we got lost on our own in the far country. It's rather like that line from Mumford and Sons' song, "Roll Away Your Stone," which goes:

"It seems that all my bridges have been burned,

But you say that's exactly how this grace thing works.

It's not the long walk home that will change this heart,

But the welcome I receive with the restart."

That's just it--the Reign of God offers a welcome and a new beginning, despite the ways we've gotten ourselves stuck in dead ends and ditches. And by releasing us from those things, it really is like a brand-new life offered to us, a resurrection in the present moment, rolling away the stone that had kept us in the grave and letting us at last be free.

Now, here's the thing: someone you know is just aching to know that kind of new beginning. Someone who might cross your path tomorrow, maybe even today, has been looked down on for so long and written off as a hopeless screw-up, and they have a hard time not agreeing. But you could be the one who speaks the new beginning--you could be the one making the invitation to them into God's grace. You might be the one today who doesn't treat them like a second-class citizen or a "less-than" sort of person, and you can be the one who tells them they have permission to begin again.

Maybe as church, too, it's time for us to stop once and for all trying to make ourselves look holier by kicking out the ones with too much scandal attached to their stories. Maybe it's time to quit pretending we don't need the new start of grace ourselves. Maybe it's time to set aside our starched and saintly black and white dress clothes and to follow behind the motley and multicolored rainbow procession of anybodies and everybodies, the "dropouts, the losers, the sinners, the failures, and the fools," as Jon Foreman sings it in "The Beautiful Letdown." Maybe today's a day to quit pretending we're holier than anybody and just take the free offer of a new beginning, even if we've been playing the religion game for decades.

Maybe today's the day to get in line behind the tax-collecting schemers and sellouts, and follow the prostitutes in the parade of beloved mess-ups into the kingdom of God.

Lord Jesus, give us the courage to believe you are not holding our failures against us, and give us the love to help others set aside the baggage they are ready to leave behind, too.

Beyond the Performances--September 29, 2026

Beyond the Performances--September 29, 2026

[Jesus said:] “What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ He answered, ‘I will not,’ but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same, and he answered, ‘I go, sir,’ but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first...." (Matthew 21:28-31a)

So here's the thing: Jesus is just not interested in performative piety. He never has been, and he still isn't today.

That much comes through loud and clear from these verse that many of us heard this past Sunday in worship.  Whether it's the folks who make a big to-do out of praying in public, to the cars plastered with religious bumper stickers (that then don't align with the character of the people who drive in those cars), to the impulse to "virtue signal" with the right "Christian" posts on social media, to talking in church jargon without living in ways that reflect God's love, Jesus is just not interested in a show where we say all the right words, but don't actually live in line with God's heart with our actions.

Of course, a lot of Jesus' teaching and commentary is directed to the folks who posture themselves as Spiritual Experts and Members of the Respectable Religious People's Guild. He sees through the hypocrisy of the people in his own day who make a point of going out to the street corners to pray in big loud displays so that they can be seen, or who get melodramatic about their practice of fasting, or who make big donations so that they'll be recognized for their generosity and get their names engraved on monuments and such.  And he regularly criticizes the people who like to say they are committed to doing God's will, but whose actions don't really seem to align with what actually matters to God.  Jesus just has no use for that sort of play-acting (which is really what the word "hypocrite" originally meant, as it turns out).

You have to guess that Jesus still sees through all of our modern-day religious performances, too.  Sometimes it's framed as "We Christians need to reclaim the public square and pray to take back our dominance," while folks make a big deal of being seen praying in various public places.  Sometimes it's dressing up a political party's agenda in religious language to make it sound devout--and to imply that people on the other side of the aisle can't really love God by virtue of the fact that they are members of the wrong party.  Sometimes it's just making a show of wearing faith-branded jewelry, clothes, or accessories as a way of trying to look pious.  We keep inventing new ways of doing the same old song-and-dance, but Jesus was never really a fan of any version of it in the first place.

That's the gist of this short little parable, I think--or at least, it is a part of its meaning.  (We'll look at more sides of it tomorrow with the verses that follow.)  Jesus points out that if one has to choose between saying-the-right-words and actually doing-the-right-actions, between putting on a performance and authentically doing God's will, it's always better to get the actions right rather than putting on a show.  Saying the right words is empty if it's not backed up with actually doing what we have said.  So if we are going to publicly say we care about doing God's will, but then instead we try and baptize our same old selfish "Me-and-My-Group-First" nonsense, Jesus is sure to tell us, "No thanks--not interested." But if we realize that we've been turned the wrong direction and finally decide we are ready to let God's way of self-giving love become our way, then we've got something.  Hence his story about two sons, one of whom says all the right words but doesn't ever get around to actually helping Dad out in the vineyard, and the other of whom at first rejects his father's request but later actually goes and does the farm chores.  If you have to make a call about which one of these sons has actually done the father's will, it's clearly the one who actually goes, regardless of whether he said the right words at the start.  Jesus simply dares us to take that seriously in our own lives, too.

Now, let me also be clear about what is not being said by this parable.  This is not about who gets "in" to heaven or who is kicked "out" of God's family based on poor performance.  After all, the metaphor Jesus has chosen in this story is about a father with two sons--and you cannot lose your belonging in a family, no matter how useless you are.  If the other story Jesus tells about a man with two sons (you know, the one where the younger runs off with his share of the inheritance and comes home after wasting it all, only to find the arms of his father wrapping him up in love) assures us that you cannot lose your son-ship for actively bad behavior, then surely one cannot lose your place in the family for doing nothing, like the son in this story who says he will work but then does not.  This is not a veiled threat from Jesus that if we don't pull our weight he will cast us out into the pit of hell.  This is not a theological thesis teaching that one is saved by their good works.  Rather it is Jesus' way of saying, well, that if you actually care about doing God's will, he is not interested in our just paying lip-service.  Both the son who goes to work in the vineyard and the son who says he will but stays home still belong in the family--but only one of them has actually lived in accordance with the will of their father.  And when you love someone--as presumably children and parents love one another--you would think you would want to do the things that bring them joy.  You cannot lose your belonging in the family, but you can make choices that either do or do not align with the priorities of the parents.  And apparently, in both the fictional family of Jesus' story and the household of God, the Father would rather we live out God's kind of love, generosity, and goodness instead of just putting on a loud show of our piety in the public square. It may be that we have been turned the wrong way for a long time, but right now we are given the chance to turn a new way, beyond the performances, to actually practice God's kind of mercy, kindness, and peaceableness (what we sometimes call "the fruit of the Spirit").

Today, if you and I see places in our own lives where we have just been mouthing the "right" words but not acting in light of God's character, we have the chance to begin again--not because we are trying to earn our way into (or back into) a club, but because we want people to be able to recognize the family resemblance with the God who has already claimed us as children.

Lord God, move us today from empty words and shows of religiosity to authentic love in our words and actions.