Playing to Lose--September 3, 2026

Playing to Lose--September 3, 2026

"Then Jesus told his disciples, 'If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?'" (Matthew 16:24-26)

Okay, a quick refresher, in case you're ever invited to my house for game night: the point of the game Uno is to get rid of your cards first.

Every so often when our kids were younger and we would get the family around the dinner table for game night, we would have to remind everybody (myself included sometimes) about how the game of the night works. Some games are about acquisition--you try to get as much as you can for yourself--a higher score of points for bigger words in Scrabble, a larger portfolio of investments and money in Monopoly, or even the whole deck of cards if you are playing War. A lot of games are like that--they are about getting... taking... accumulating. It can be easy, if you are used to playing those kinds of games, to just let that become your default mindset for every game, and then, without thinking, you end up stuck with a pile of cards in a game like Uno, and then it dawns on you--this is a different sort of game entirely.

It does take a certain amount of un-learning to play Uno, and other games like it, because we can get stuck in the mindset that winning always looks like "getting."

And maybe we have the same problem when we actually take the time to listen to Jesus, especially in a passage like this one, which many of us heard this past Sunday in worship. Because Jesus is convinced that being his follower means un-learning what the world has taught us about the "point" of life. Over against all the other voices loudly telling us that the point of life is to get as much as possible for yourself, and to look as tough and strong and threatening as possible in order to keep what you have taken, Jesus says that our kind of winning looks like, well, losing. Our kind of winning is Uno-winning--the victory that comes in giving yourself away. Our kind of triumph looks like a cross--not in crucifying or destroying our enemies, but in Jesus being crucified at the hands of his enemies and praying for their forgiveness as he bleeds out. To the world around, that looks like nonsense--but to followers of Jesus, it is the key to life.

Of course, the stakes are so much higher than a game. If I forget how to play Uno on family game night, the only danger is that one of my kids gets to say "Uno" before I do, and maybe they get bragging rights. But in life--oh, dear ones, the stakes are so much higher. It really is a question of what we orient our lives toward. It really is a question of whether we think the goal, the meaning, and the purpose of life is looking like a "winner," on the world's terms, or whether we see God's upside-down power and beauty in slf-giving love.

This feels to me like it should be already a settled subject. This talk about "taking up your cross" to follow is so essential to Jesus' teaching that it seems to me like every churchgoer, every Christian, everyone who has ever sat in a pew before or read from one of the Gospels before, should "get" that much. It is so very very fundamental that I really find myself getting frustrated and disappointed when other self-described disciples of Jesus speak and act in ways that run counter to this. And what saddens me--what truly disheartens me on an almost daily basis lately--is how frequently people I know, people with who I have prayed, people who name the name of Jesus and confess him as Lord alongside me, in their very next breath will say and do things that are mired in the "Me-First," "I-Need-To-Look-Like-A-Winner" mentality. I find myself grieved, more often than I would like to admit, over how easy it is for church folk to fall into using the language of "We've got to be tougher--we've got to show others how strong and powerful we are." I lament how often I see church folk smiling approvingly at (or liking and sharing on social media) the kind of angry bluster that peddles fear of "those people" who they think are a threat to our comfortable position... or who feel the need to make threats like, "There's a storm coming... and one day, we are going to rise up and take back what's ours!" while thinking they can baptize that thinking and call it holy.

That isn't the way of Jesus. It is the opposite. It is quite literally anti-Christ.

And to be honest, if I didn't already know Jesus better (from actually reading the gospels), if that kind of angry, boastful, saber-rattling attitude was my first introduction to people who called themselves followers of Jesus, I wouldn't want anything to do with Jesus, with his story, or with is followers. To be perfectly frank, it is religious people who talk about coercively "taking their country back for God" (whatever that means) that make it harder for me to be a Christian in this time and place. It's not some imaginary threat of atheists coming to take away my ability to pray... it's not some ominous "them" who are ominously coming to hurt the Bible or hurt God. It's not, as I also sometimes hear, weak or cowardly churches who are the problem by not being "tough" enough (again, whatever that means). No, if I can lay all my cards on the table here (so, "Uno!", I guess), what makes it hardest for me to be a Christian in this moment of history in this particular culture are religious people who shout about wanting to look like winners, rather than actually listening to Jesus himself saying, "Losing is the key to winning. Take up your cross. Let go of the rest."

Today, then, I need to ask--both for you to hold me accountable, and for each of us to commit to listening to Jesus again with open ears--that we allow Jesus to help us un-learn the garbage we've been taught about how life is supposed to work, and instead to learn his path. Help keep me honest, and when I slide back into the attitude that is centered on Me-and-My-Group-First, or on fear of losing a comfortable position, and on looking like a "winner," I ask you to smack me upside the head in love and call me back to take up a cross rather than to take up arms.

It will be hard sometimes for us to live this way, over against the other voices. It will feel like swimming upstream. It will look like we are giving all of our cards away when everyone else is playing to keep theirs. They will say we are playing to lose. The question to ask, though, is simply this: who knows best how this game called Life works? Maybe we should trust that Jesus knows what he's talking about. Maybe the point of life all along has always been about giving ourselves away in love.

I dare say it's worth a try. Help keep me honest about it.

Lord Jesus, turn us around when we are aimed in the wrong direction, and help us to unlearn the old ways of living our lives, to be pointed in your orientation toward self-giving love.

Refusing the Emperor's Offer--September 2, 2026

Refusing the Emperor's Offer--September 2, 2026

"Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." (Romans 12:21)

You can really learn a lot from a wicked space sorcerer, if you're willing to pay attention in the right ways.

Okay, I'm going to lay my late-twentieth-century-sci-fi-nerd cards on the table and share a Star Wars anecdote. You don't have to have ever seen one of the twelve-and-counting Star Wars movies to follow this, I don't think. But just to bring everybody up to speed, the ominous villains of the Star Wars movies are the evil Galactic Empire, headed most famously by the iconically masked enforcer Darth Vader, and above Vader himself, the mysterious berobed Emperor Palpatine. The Emperor is not only politically powerful (he is the Emperor, after all), but is a master of the ways of the Dark Side of the Force, which gives him seemingly magical powers like shooting lightning out of his hand, telekinesis, mind manipulation, and a host of other tricks up his long black sleeve.

Emperor Palpatine is particularly dangerous because he is willing to play the long game--he doesn't just think of immediate gratification or short-term wins, but strategizes for bigger victories even if they take years or decades to accomplish. He is insidious that way, and I think that's part of what makes the Emperor one of the all-time great movie villains.

But most insidious of all, I think--and this is where there is a lesson to be learned for us non-Jedi folks--is that the Emperor is most interested in getting his opponents to give into hatred--to "turn to the Dark side," as they say in that Galaxy Far Far Away--which allows them to become his minions. The Emperor wins if he gets good people to accept the ways of evil, even if he doesn't kill them. The Emperor wins by getting his enemies to allow themselves to fight him on his terms--to use hatred and anger as their means of attacking him. Because once they do that, they have already given him the victory. There's even a climactic scene in The Return of the Jedi where the hero, Luke Skywalker, is finally facing down the menacing Darth Vader, and while the Emperor watches the battle of clashing light sabers, he starts encouraging Luke to kill Vader--and to use his hatred to do it.

That's the master stroke--and I can remember as a kid seeing that scene and having it blow my mind. Why would the head villain be telling the good guy to kill the second-worst bad guy? Why would the Emperor be willing to sacrifice his fearsome apprentice, Vader, to the hero we have spent three movies rooting for? Because he knows that getting the hero to use hatred, fear, and anger means the hero becomes a tool of the Dark Side. Losing Vader but getting a new recruit with even stronger powers would be a strategic win for the Emperor, and so he cheers Luke on to kill Vader, and to let the hatred flow through him, to feel the power of that hatred, and to channel the power of his fears.

And it almost works.

This, I believe, is the biggest danger to our souls here in the real world, too--to be so fiercely opposed to the ones we see as "enemies" that we are willing to resort to hatred, fear, and anger to fight them. When we think we are fighting for good but allow ourselves to use evil as the means to accomplish it, we have already given the battle to the powers of evil. And the powers of evil in the real world are at least as smart as the ones from Hollywood blockbusters--the Emperor is only that clever because real people in the real world have experienced that same cunning pull of evil.

That's why it is such a vital move that Paul makes when he tells the Roman Christians, "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." In this concluding verse from the passage many of us heard on Sunday, he's not merely saying, "You need to out-muscle evil with your sheer brute force," but rather he's saying, "Don't let evil infect you so that you do evil things in the name of doing good." It's about refusing to accept evil as a means. It's about refusing to allow hatred, fear, greed, and selfish ambition to become natural to us. It's about refusing to resort to rottenness as a means to winning--because we know that once we have given in on that point, we have already lost the battle that really counts. The Emperor knows that in the Star Wars movies, and so he knows it is a long-game win if he can get Luke to kill Vader by giving into hatred. And the powers of evil right now know the same is true--if they can get us to be ok with hatred, to accept a strategy of fear, and to be willing to win at the cost of our character, then evil has already won.

That's also why the early church was so unswervingly committed to a policy of loving their enemies, from the days of Jesus himself on throughout the New Testament and early church (somewhere along the way this was forgotten or silenced, but that's probably a conversation for another day's devotion). The idea of loving enemies doesn't mean you help your enemies do evil things, but it does mean that you won't do evil things to them as a way of fighting their evil. It means we will tell the truth, so far as we know it, even when it may make people squirm--but we will not tell lies as a way of getting ahead. It means we will advocate for what we think is right, but we will not sell out for the sake of getting power or influence. It means we may disagree with people, but we will not allow ourselves to hate them. It means we may speak directly and argue passionately for what we think is right, but with the willingness to be shown where we are wrong, rather than to ignore anything that doesn't already reinforce what we want to be true. It means we can own where we think we are right, but also that we be willing to let others show us where we have failed or fallen short. It means refusing to turn some group of people into scapegoats for others to be afraid of, and instead seeking the good of all. And it means once and for all being done with Me-and-My-Group-First thinking that is used to justify hating anybody who falls outside the boundary lines. It means that every day, we are Luke Skywalker, having to make the choice of whether we will resort to evil means as a way of winning, or whether we will be wise enough to know that option smells of sulfur and would actually make us tools of evil itself.

All of that is what Paul has in mind when he writes, both to those first-century Christians and to us reading over their shoulders two millennia later, "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." The moment we tell ourselves it's OK to nurse a little hatred or sell our integrity for the sake of personal or political advantage, we have already let evil win. So don't let yourself play the game by the rules evil has handed you. You do not have to accept those terms. None of us has to listen to the Emperor's smiling lies.

You and I, we are free--free to love.

Lord Jesus, give us both the wisdom and the courage to know how to say NO to the strategies and tactics of evil, and instead to say YES to your path, all our days.

Recovering Our Reputations--September 1, 2026

Recovering Our Reputations--September 1, 2026

"Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine; I will repay, says the Lord.' Instead, 'if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink, for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads'." (Romans 12:17-20)

For at least the first several centuries of our history, this was a pretty good summary of what Christians were known for: refusing to answer evil with evil, giving up the right to revenge, seeking the good of all (not just our own little group), and striving to live in peace with all people.  I wonder (or maybe I have a pretty good hunch I'm afraid of confirming it) what we are known for today.

These words which many of us heard this past Sunday in worship continue a reading from Paul's letter to the Romans in which he has been sketching out a picture of "authentic love" (Rom 12:9, which organizes this whole passage).  And right off the bat it is clear in today's verses that the Christian understanding of love is NOT just for people who are in my "in-group" or even people who are neutral toward me.  A Christian understanding of love seeks not only what is good for fellow disciples of Jesus, but also neighbors... and strangers... and even enemies.  And here is the apostle Paul, in the midst of a letter that he is using to make a good first impression with his readers in Rome whom he has not yet met in person, just laying it out there without blushing or apologizing for it: we Christians do not answer evil with more evil, and we do not "get back" or "get even," even with those who have done us great harm.

It seems from the way Paul writes that this is such an obvious and clear element of the Christian life that he doesn't think he has to make a case for why we wouldn't seek revenge or hit back against those who have hit us first (or hit them "pre-emptively" because we are afraid of being hit first).  He doesn't soft-pedal this teaching or have to give a long, drawn-out defense of why this is the Christian position.  It just seems so wholly consistent with the calling to love and the model of Jesus' own kind of love that all Paul has to do is to say it once.  We don't answer evil with evil. We don't seek only our own good, but what all will recognize as being noble and virtuous.  We don't get revenge. And instead, we live in peace with everyone as fully as we are able to.

For what it's worth, this passage is not an exception or an outlier in the New Testament, either, but shows up in multiple places in Paul's letters as well as in First Peter, in the examples of Christians retold in Acts, and of course repeatedly in the Gospels on Jesus' lips (and in his actions).  But not only that, in the first several hundred years of Christian history, we have evidence both from the writings of Christian leaders and those of outside witnesses living in the Empire that the church was known significantly for its refusal to return violence for violence or evil for evil, and instead had a positive reputation for taking care of all, not only their own in-group members.  In the middle of the second century, maybe just fifty years after ink from the latest books of the New Testament had finished drying, Justin Martyr wrote of his fellow Christians, "We used to hate and destroy one another and refused to associate with people of another race or country. Now, because of Christ, we live together with such people and pray for our enemies."  Another early Christian writing from about the same time period, the Didache, literally begins with a quote of Jesus' teaching to bless those who curse you and pray for your enemies in its opening sentences. Even in the fourth century, the Roman Emperor Julian ("the Apostate"), who hated Christians and wanted to restore Rome to a supposed earlier golden age of "greatness" had to admit that we Christians, whom he referred to as "impious Galileans," were known for caring not only for their own poor but for the poor who did not share their faith in Christ. Further examples abound--all of which is to say that in the first few centuries, for whatever other things might have been true about Christians, we did have a reputation for love that included strangers and enemies, rather than just looking out for "Me and My Group First."  That much in indisputable, from both Christian writers and our most severe critics of the time.

So we cannot avoid the question we began with today: what are we Christians known for at this point in history, in our time and place?  I ask it because I have a hunch that many in the watching world do not see the same commitment to love enemies, seek the common good, and to reject fighting evil with more evil.  In our day, plenty of loud religious voices would have us believe that being Christian means only looking out for "Me and My Group First," that it is foolishness to do good to people outside those lines, and weakness to love those who are our enemies. In our time, those talking heads say we look like "losers" if we don't hit back, or even hit first (to show 'em that we mean business!).  The trouble is that the New Testament itself calls us to a different way--one in which we refuse to get even and we actively seek a good bigger than just our own.  That's what love was always supposed to look like for us.  It is, for that matter, what we were known for in those first several centuries, too.  It is only in later days that Christians have become publicly identified with the same meanness, violence, and selfishness as the empires of the day.  It is only in our own time when Respectable Religious Voices could say, "Christians are not obligated to care about outsiders, strangers, foreigners, or enemies" without being laughed off the stage. But here we are.

What would it take for us to be known once again for being people of Christ-like love?  What kinds of changes would you and I have to make in our own lives, our choices, and our actions so that what was said of our older siblings in the late Roman Empire could be said of us?  What would you and I do differently in this day, we wanted to leave the impression that disciples of Jesus seek the good of all, refuse to answer evil with evil, and strive for peace in our communities and world?

I bet the answers to those questions are not difficult to think of.  The only real question is whether we are willing to do them, and to let them become our way of life.

A Rolling Boil--August 31, 2026

A Rolling Boil--August 31, 2026

"Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are." (Romans 12:9-16)

What does the Spirit move us to do?

To love. Loving... wider, fuller, deeper, until every relationship in our lives, every connection point with anyone else at all, is drenched in real, authentic, more-than-just-endorphins-in-the-brain-or-greeting-cards-on-the-rack love.

But to understand what this "love" looks like, this genuine love that the Spirit causes to overflow through us and spill out over everything else, we need a closer look at what is buried here in the fast-flowing directives of this passage from Paul's letter to the Romans.

I'm not usually one to spend a lot of time getting lost in the weeds of differing translations from the Greek of the New Testament into English... but sometimes, I just have to stop. Because up above, the New Revised Standard Version, for all of its other strengths or weaknesses, really misses something about how this passage works in the interest of trying to make simple English sentences. So, forgive me for a moment, but we need to dust off this translation a bit.

First off, in English, most translators make each phrase into its own command, which makes each thought appear like it is a separate sentence, unconnected from the others as though Paul is just randomly firing off imperatives. "Do this!" "Don't do that!" "Now do this!" But really the Greek is all something like a long run-on sentence that all flows out of the opening directive about genuine love. It really feels more in the Greek something more like this:

"Here's what genuine, unhypocritical love does: saying no to what is evil, clinging to what is good, loving one another like you are a family, going over and above and before each other to show honor, not being lazy in your dedication, boiling over in spirit..."

Right off the bat, you can see how that changes the feel--instead of this being a hodge-podge of unrelated commands, this is a sketch, a picture, of a whole way of life that hangs together. In other words, all of this is what love looks like. We don't get to be selective and pick just the ones that are easier for us to do and say, "Look how loving I am--I was nice to the people I already like!" or "I'm great at feeling love... so long as I don't have to actually do anything that makes any sacrifices..." No, instead, Paul says that if love is genuine, it will play out and spill over into all of these kinds of actions and attitudes. It will mean sharing with others who are in need, welcome for strangers and outsiders, empathy for those who are heavy-hearted, refusal to return evil for evil, and not giving up or bailing out on people just because it gets hard. That's what genuine love is all about--all of those, because love drenches every part of us, every relationship, every facet of who we are. We have a way of being much more selective with our love--we limit who we deem worthy, or we are unwilling to be inconvenienced, or we refuse to take the risk of sharing someone else's sorrow or need. That's easier to justify if we read Romans 12 as just a shotgun approach to lobbing out random instructions, but if these are all part of one reality called "genuine love," we can't be so hit-and-miss. Paul has in mind a love that pushes us wider, fuller, and deeper to overflow from the bounds of our lives as the Spirit keeps leading us.

Now, that brings up one other thing in this passage that needs to be dusted off and held up to the light. The rather tame translation from the New Revised Standard Version just say, "be ardent in spirit," but the Greek is much more energetic. The verb is more literally, "boiling over" or "seething," and it's unclear whether Paul simply means "the spirit" as in "the human spirit," or means "the Spirit" as in the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit of God who brooded over the waters in creation like a divine wind. Of course, even if Paul is only referring to "the human spirit," he would surely say that our [human] spirits will only be boiling with passion and energy if they are stirred up by the Holy Spirit, like the wind of the Spirit at Pentecost set the apostles loose on the world like someone had shaken up a can of Coke and let it spray all over. Either way, then, the Spirit of God is at work behind all of this--the Spirit adds the fire, you could say, that brings our lukewarm hearts to a boil and sets them to overflowing, like a pot you forgot to keep an eye on while cooking the spaghetti that spills over when it gets to a rolling boil.

To be enlivened by the Spirit of God, then, is to be invigorated with love that acts, love that spreads, love that embraces not only the people I already liked, but pushes me to treat all the followers of Jesus as family, and stirs me to offer genuine welcome and inclusion to those labeled outsiders and strangers, and leads me even to act with grace toward people I would otherwise call my "enemies."

You miss all of that if all you read in your Bible is "be ardent in spirit," like it's one more random command in a list of unrelated helpful religious suggestions. But if we read this passage rightly, we'll see it's all about love... it's always been about love. And the kind of love to which we are called takes practice and commitment to get better at, to be sure, but it is also always something that pushes us a bit further, a bit wider, a bit more real and vulnerable, than we would have been comfortable with on our own.

That's part of how you know it comes from the Spirit of God turning up the heat on these tepid hearts of ours--we would always be satisfied with a love that is "less than" or "just for some" or that can be confused with just warm, fuzzy feelings. But when the Spirit of God, the giver of life, turns the burners up on us, we find a love boiling up inside of us that cannot be contained any longer, and that pushes us beyond what we were comfortable with yesterday.

When the Spirit sets us to boiling, love cannot be restrained inside mere feelings or niceness-to-people-I-already-liked--love spills over and drenches neighbor, stranger, and enemy and draws us all into the stirred-up waters over which the Spirit still broods.

Turn the heat up on us, O Spirit of God, and set us to boiling over with love that doesn't pretend.

Jesus Redefines Everything--August 28, 2026

Jesus Redefines Everything--August 28, 2026

"Then [Jesus] sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah."(Matthew 16:20)

At first blush, this looks terribly confusing.  Let's just say it.

We've been walking through this passage all week, after many of us heard it this past Sunday in worship as well.  And you'll remember that we began with Jesus putting the question directly to his disciples, "Who do you say that I am?" After considerable build-up and learning that other people thought of Jesus in terms of the prophets of John the Baptizer, Peter had exclaimed, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God!" And Jesus had acknowledged that Simon Peter didn't figure that out on his own, but it had been revealed to him by none other than God the Father. In other words, Peter's notion was correct!  Jesus really is the Messiah!

So, wait--then why is Jesus immediately forbidding any of these disciples to say what Peter had just gotten a gold star for saying a second ago?

Well, maybe the trouble is in the unnamed and unchecked baggage that comes along with that word, "Messiah."  In the first century in Judea and Galilee, everybody knew the word "Messiah" (or, in Greek, "Christ").  It literally means "anointed," as in with oil on someone's head, but it was a shorthand title for the long-awaited and divinely-promised Chosen One whom God would send, to restore and renew God's kingdom.  It was the title they used for the old kings of Israel and Judah, who had been "anointed" to the throne like we inaugurate presidents.  And for many people the expectation was that the Messiah would be a conquering king like good ol' King David of blessed memory, who rode into battle and slew his enemies.  In Jesus' day, the assumption of just about everybody was that when the Messiah came, he would raise up an army, fight off the Romans, kill the enemies of God, and build himself an empire with divine authority and might backing him up.  The details were open to interpretation--some thought the Messiah would rally his fighters from among the Zealots, and others thought he would command supernatural angel armies, for example. But the general expectation for the Messiah was of a divine warrior who would back his country for God and bring national "greatness" for one select group of people.  In other words, everything Jesus was NOT.

Jesus tells his disciples not to use the word "Messiah" at this point because everyone will first have to unlearn the wrong meaning of the word before he can show them what he has truly come to be and do.  As we'll see moving forward in the Gospel (stay tuned for this Sunday and the week to come), Jesus insists that his way of being the Messiah doesn't look like conquering anybody, but rather like the suffering love of a cross.  He hasn't come to build an empire, establish a dynasty, or take over territory. He has come to lay down his life.  He is willing to be crucified, but not to cast himself as the crucifying empire or the soldier who holds the hammer and nails. In other words, the term "Messiah" means something like the opposite of what Conventional Wisdom thought it meant.  Jesus can't go around calling himself the Messiah if that conjures up images of a ruthless warlord or a power-hungry tyrant in people's minds.  He will first have to remove that faulty mental picture and replace it with a new, correct one.  To follow Jesus will mean we allow him to redefine everything, including the words we used to define him.

And of course, if we are honest, we'll admit that Jesus is always daring us to see the world in different categories. He is always taking our old view of things and turning it upside down and inside.  He is always redefining words in light of his unique divine perspective.  In Jesus' terms, after all, the last are the first and the first are the last!  The "blessed" include an unlikely list including the poor, the brokenhearted, the persecuted, and the hungry (see the Beatitudes). Strangers are treated as welcome guests. Enemies are recipients of love usually reserved for family members. The key to greatness looks like lowly serving.  The places of honor at Jesus' right and left hands are ultimately reserved for thieves on crosses at either side of him on Calvary.  And the ones who should be most worried and woebegone are the well-fed, the comfortably numb, and the Respectably Religious.  Even death itself is transformed into the birthplace of new creation by Jesus.  All the things we thought we understood and had pinned down are revised and redefined in Jesus.  It should come as no surprise, then, that our old understanding of the term "Messiah" needs to be overhauled as well.

The question in front of us on this day, then, is simply this: will we allow Jesus to continue to redefine our way of seeing everything, even if it feels like turning our world upside down?  Will we allow all of our perspective to be made new in light of Jesus, even if it means letting go of what we thought we knew about the world, about ourselves, and about God?

Perhaps before we go spouting off all that we assume is true about God's ways, we need, like the disciples to close our mouths first and let Jesus teach us again.

Lord Jesus, redefine what you will among us, in our minds, in our hearts, and in our deepest selves.

The Trajectory of Jesus--August 27, 2026

The Trajectory of Jesus--August 27, 2026

[Jesus continued his reply to Peter:] "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:19)

Okay... so what exactly is going on here?

Let's just start by admitting that Jesus' statement to Simon Peter here, continuing the passage that many of us heard this past Sunday, is unclear at first blush.  What precisely is Jesus giving, and to whom, specifically?  These words, after all, have been taken to mean very different things by different groups within Christian history, all convinced they've got The Right Answer.

For example, is Jesus speaking only to Simon Peter the historical figure from the first-century?  And in that regard, is Peter given a special authority that the rest of Jesus' disciples don't have and never receive?  Is it, as later Roman Catholic doctrine has taken it, that Peter and his successors (since Peter is named as the first Bishop of Rome, and thereby all later Bishops of Rome, also known as popes) have this supreme power to "bind" and "loose"?  Is Jesus really talking to all the community of his church, which at this moment in the story is still technically comprised solely of Simon Peter, if our definition of "the church" is "the people who confess Jesus as the Messiah"?  That's possible, too.

And what are these "keys" Jesus talks about?  Is this literal hardware for a door?  Is Jesus offering Peter control over who gets in and who is kept out of heaven?  Is this more of the imagery we heard yesterday about setting people free from captivity and releasing people from being held within the gates of death and Hades?  Or, as some have suggested, is this "binding" and "loosing" language the central idea--and is this about Jesus' ongoing community being given Jesus' own authority to interpret his teachings and commandments, which in first-century rabbinic speech was often described as "binding" or "loosing" particular commandments as applicable or not applicable to different situations?

There are so many possibilities, but it's not clear at first blush what is going on here.  It's like we are all pretty sure that something important is being said, but we're just not very clear on what that actually is.  We cannot just ignore the verse and pretend it's not there (because it really does seem like Jesus is saying something of substance here; it's not an extraneous detail).  But on the other hand, neither are we free to just assume that this verse means anything we like, either.  So what are we to do, and what are we to make of Jesus' words here? Well, here's how I would suggest navigating these waters...

First off, the wider context of the gospel seems to suggest that Simon Peter is not being singled out for always getting it right or having the correct answers.  Peter is often the first to speak up, but he puts his foot in his mouth at least as often as he stays something profound (see, for example, blurting out his wish to walk on water, incorrectly bragging that he will never abandon Jesus, and then actively denying Jesus three times on the night of his betrayal).  For that matter, in just a few more sentences (in the Gospel passage many of us will hear this coming Sunday), when Jesus insists that being the Messiah will mean he goes to the cross and dies, this same Simon Peter who is given these "keys of the kingdom" will rebuke Jesus for such a notion. And in response, Jesus will famously say to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan!" and chastise him for putting his mind on "human things" rather than "divine things." That's quite a turnaround in the space of thirty seconds' worth of conversation.  So I don't think we can take this verse as the basis for saying that Peter, or his successors, or anybody else for that matter, is infallible in their faith or choices.  As much as later medieval church teaching tried to claim that this was the basis for saying that Peter, and thereby popes or papal pronouncements, were infallible in declaring truth or getting people in or out of heaven, I don't think we can make that claim.  Peter himself reveals all too quickly that sometimes he is completely wrong and in urgent need of Jesus' correction and reorientation.

Okay, but then what is going on here?  Sure, we could point out that in the parallel versions of this story in Mark 8 and Luke 9, Jesus doesn't mention any of this "keys of the kingdom" business, but it's still here in Matthew.  So we can't ignore this verse because it's an outlier or we just don't know what to do with it.

I do thing there is something going on here that has to do with the continuing community of Jesus' followers--those who recognize him as God's Son and long-promised Messiah/Christ--and our responsibility to speak with Jesus' authority in the world.  I don't thing that is the same as saying we have the power (whether pastors, bishops, council presidents, or congregational votes) to vote people in or out of heaven.  I don't think that we are empowered to go inventing new commandments ("No white shoes after Labor Day!"  "Thou shalt wait an hour after eating before swimming!" or whatever else we might imagine), and I don't think we are authorized to add other idols to be worshiped, whether ancient ones like Zeus and Poseidon, modern ones like the flag or the dollar, or even seemingly religious ones like saints, bishops, Bibles, or statues.  But I do think Jesus is charging us, his continuing community of disciples, to keep speaking his word of liberating good news, declaring the forgiveness he has already given to us and empowered us to speak to others, and to continue teaching in new situations what it looks like to live the Jesus way of life in new settings, times, and places.  The content of the Gospel and the Jesus-Way remain the same, but we will continue to find new ways to speak it and new situations in which to live it.  Here Jesus gives us the clear direction and authority to keep doing that, day by day and century by century.

For Peter, for example, part of what that looked like was being an authoritative voice in the early church to include Gentiles as Gentiles (see the story of Cornelius in Acts 10 and following).  He wasn't inventing a new religion or claiming to be infallible, but he was trying to speak the content of Jesus' teaching and message to a new situation and new question (namely, "Are we letting in THOSE people to become followers of Jesus, and on what terms?").  Similarly, the church would wrestle with other questions over time, like whether it was permissible to serve in Caesar's army and burn incense in Caesar's honor (the consensus was "No" on that), or whether it was right to speak of Jesus as fully divine and fully human (the council of Nicea decided "Yes," and we still profess the words they arrived at in the Nicene Creed on many Sundays).  The church has continued to take on new questions and situations, from speaking against slavery to advocating for peace and justice to new questions that arise in our own day, like how we respond to wars, or artificial intelligence, or social media.  The world keeps presenting us with new situations about which we need to speak and into which we need to live--and Jesus is empowering us to continue to speak, witness, live and love in his way.  

We are called to continue the trajectory of Jesus in the world. We will sometimes get it wrong (Peter sure did sometimes), but we will also sometimes get it right (the Spirit is still with us). And we are not permitted to just give up on that work simply because it is hard.

I'm not 100% sure that I've got this all figured out, not even just in this one Bible verse.  But if I'm even anywhere in the right ballpark, our calling for today is clear enough, with enough light for the next step in front of us.  We are empowered by Jesus to continue speaking his good news and embodying his way in the world, no matter what new situations, people, or issues we encounter.

Let's go.

Lord Jesus, guide us along the way today, and give us your words and vision for facing it all.

Another Divine Jailbreak--August 26, 2026

Another Divine Jailbreak--August 26, 2026

[Jesus continued his reply to Peter] " And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it." (Matthew 16:18)

Jesus and his community are in the business of busting people out of captivity to death.

That's probably not the usual way we talk about the mission of the church, but it's actually pretty close to the sense of what Jesus says here in this passage that many of us heard again this past Sunday in worship, which we've also been re-examining in our devotions this week.  For all the mission statements and slogans that congregations, focus groups, and consultants put together in order to energize churches, Jesus has his own take here. We are empowered by God to set people free from the grip of death like an organized resistance movement breaking prisoners out of their jail cells.  We are like a strike team sneaking into the armored stronghold of an enemy power to rescue those who have been wrongly detained and held captive.  And Jesus says that this enemy power--Death itself--won't be able to thwart us or keep its victims behind bars.

So often, we settle for so much less in our vision of the church's mission and purpose.  We talk about having lively programming and fun children's activities, or about increasing brand recognition of our church's name in the community. Or maybe we just lament what seems to be a lessened public influence that Christians have in the wider culture, and we think that our job is to help the church to exert more leverage and have more "pull" in society.  But Jesus pictures something more urgent, more vital, and more radical, honestly.  We are a part of God's insurgency against the power of death itself.

Maybe we need to back up a bit here to make sense of that claim, because it does sound more dramatic than our typical ways of talking about the church.  There are two important details I want to focus on here in this verse from Matthew.  The first is the word "Hades." Earlier translations might have rendered it as "hell," but that's really a different word Jesus uses elsewhere, and even that doesn't exactly mean what popular culture tends to assume it means.  The word "Hades," however, is the Greek word for the realm of the dead.  Think of it as "the underworld." Not so much a place of punishment or reward, but just the place where the dead go. In the Greek sense (and remember, the Gospels were first written in Greek), Hades holds the dead in its grip like they are its captives.  When you die and go to the Hades, you can't break out and get back to the realm of the living.  It's like you are imprisoned in its fortifications or detained within its walls.  

And that brings us to the other word we need to talk about: "gates." Again, the imagery here is sort of like a prison door, or a barred access that is meant to hold people in.  Picture it almost like an ancient fort or castle where enemy prisoners are held indefinitely.  In other words, gates are not offensive weapons; they are defensive tools used for keeping your captives incarcerated.  So the whole sentence has Jesus saying to Peter that his assembly of people, his community of disciples, his "church," will go toe-to-toe against the powers of death, and those fortress gates won't be able to hold us in.  You get the idea that we are sent as covert operatives into the heart of the Enemy Territory of Death in order to infiltrate it and then lead an escape plan, setting everybody free.  And Jesus says we will be successful--even the gates of death themselves won't be able to stop the Jesus movement from breaking people out and setting people loose.

The Eastern Orthodox branch of the Christian family tree speak and talks like this pretty frequently, actually.  Jesus is often depicted in icons of the resurrection breaking two elderly figures, a man and a woman, out of chains from an underground chamber beneath the cross.  They are supposed to be Adam and Eve, and the visual idea is that in Jesus' resurrection, he sets free all of humanity that is held captive to the power of death.  Jesus' resurrection is like busting into the Enemy Fortress of Death and opening all the doors, breaking all the bars, and releasing all the prisoners.  And in that sense, then, our calling as the community of Jesus, the "church," is simply to continue with the evacuation of Fort Grave.  It's another divine jailbreak, releasing captives and setting people free--in other words, just the kind of thing that Jesus himself had said he had come to do (see, for example, his quoting of Isaiah 61 in his hometown sermon in Nazareth, back in Luke 4).

The stakes, in other words, are so much bigger than we usually realize.  We aren't just here to drum up new members for our religious club, recruit volunteers to lead our committees, or increase our numbers to keep our institution stable.  We are here, empowered by the God of resurrection to help break people out of death's prison.  We are here as active resistance against the powers of the grave.  We are here, putting explosives on the locks and sawing through the iron bars, as Jesus sets humanity free from the clutches of, well, Hades.  We are here alongside Jesus subverting and undermining the power of death to hold humanity in its grip.

That's so much bigger than just keeping our social club going, isn't it?  It is daunting, but also compelling.  If we are here just to have a group to share our vaguely religious hobby with, that's not worth giving our lives to.  But if we are a part of God's underground resistance community looking to bring down the tyranny of death?  Well, that is something I want to be a part of.  That's the adventure of a lifetime.

How could you and I live this day with that sense of the importance of our words, our actions, our love, and our witness?  How could our choices in this day help pull people out of the grip of death, and into new life?  How might Jesus use us to set people free? How could we be a part of another divine jailbreak today?

Lord Jesus, use us to be a part of your work setting the world free from captivity to death.