The Same Melody--May 4, 2026

The Same Melody--May 4, 2026

"When they heard these things, they became enraged and ground their teeth at Stephen. But filled with the Holy Spirit, he gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 'Look,' he said, 'I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!' But they covered their ears, and with a loud shout all rushed together against him. Then they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him; and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. While they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, 'Lord Jesus, receive my Spirit.' Then he knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, 'Lord, do not hold this sin against them.' When he had said this, he died." (Acts 7:54-60)

If God's way of doing things looks like self-giving, enemy-embracing love for Jesus, then it shouldn't surprise us that God's way looks like this for the family of Jesus' followers. We are playing the same song--the tune Jesus taught us--each on our own instruments, but it is the same melody.

Let me take that a step further: Jesus' death on a cross isn't just one more in a line of countless rushed Roman executions. There were innumerable crucifixions carried out under the authority of the Empire, after all, and yet Christians are convinced that there is something unique and powerful about the death of their particular homeless, penniless rabbi, Jesus. For one, Jesus did not meet death fearfully bargaining, cursing his God or his executioners in a fit of rage, or despairing and despondent. He died, Luke told us (see Luke 23), at complete peace with God, praying from the psalms, "Into your hands I commend my spirit," and calling on God to forgive those who were holding the hammer that had put nails in his hands. Jesus' victory begins there--before we even get to Easter glory--because Jesus would not be broken by Empire. He would not give into the violence, hatred, and fear that Rome and all the other powers of history have used to get their way. And this is his victory. Jesus would not lash out to kill his enemies, and he refused to give himself over to their tactics. Before we even get to the stone rolled away on Sunday morning, Rome's power has been exposed as smoke and mirrors, and the power of death itself is already hamstrung, simply by virtue of Jesus' complete and utter faithfulness to the way of God rather than to the way of Rome, of self-centeredness, of fear, and of power.

And then second of all, of course, the New Testament would have us believe that Jesus' cannot be held in even by the grave. Resurrection breaks out, and Jesus rises beyond the power of Roman centurions, and even beyond the grip of death itself. The cross is a double victory, then, both because of how Jesus remains faithful to the way of God even all the way to death, and how Jesus rises from death after the cross.

So if that is true for Jesus, then here is something wonderful and awesome: the followers of Jesus share in that same victory, because we are called to face hatred the same way Jesus did. That's how Luke--the same guy who wrote the Gospel we call by his name--wants us to understand the stoning and death of Stephen (no relation). Luke wants us to see that when an angry mob got stirred up to kill this early servant-leader in the church, Jesus' kind of victory was visible again. Stephen has learned to die victoriously, and he has learned it from Jesus himself. He has learned to sing the same tune Jesus sang, to play the same melody with his own life.

Look at the last words on Stephen's lips here as Luke gives us the story. He is echoing Jesus! "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit," he asks, seeing the risen Jesus while the angry crowd roars to drown out a message it cannot comprehend. "Lord, do not no hold this sin against them," he prays, seeking forgiveness for the lynch-mob that has encircled him. Where do you suppose Stephen gets these ideas from? Who taught him this kind of response to this kind of hatred, this kind of ignorance that yells louder so it doesn't have to listen to what it doesn't agree with? Where of course, but Jesus? As Luke told the story, Jesus dies praying for forgiveness for his executioners ("Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,") and entrusting his life to God, ("Into your hands I commend my spirit"). Stephen is simply echoing what he first learned from Jesus, even in the way he dies.

Stephen's death--the first time someone died for faith in Jesus, according to Luke's storytelling--is a witness that the early church got it. The first followers of Jesus understood that Jesus' kind of victory isn't won by overpowering an enemy with bigger guns and more ammo, or more centurions and spears--it is won by suffering love that will not bend to the power of hatred, of fear, or of death. Stephen dies pointing to and echoing the tune, so to speak, of Jesus.

And that means evil's defeat continued into the community of Jesus' followers--it couldn't corrupt Jesus, and it couldn't corrupt his disciples into returning evil for evil. Much like Kipling describes in his poem "If," Jesus and his community "being lied about, don't deal in lies...or being hated, don't give way to hating." The powers of death, hatred, and evil couldn't get Stephen to go to his death cursing the ones hurling rocks at him, and in that, Stephen participated again in Jesus' victory. And that wasn't all--as Luke subtly notes, there was a young man named Saul watching all of this unfolding, holding the coats for the rock-throwers, nodding approvingly as they killed Stephen. But we know this Saul better by his Greek name: Paul. This same young man would be transformed before long (it takes another chapter of the book of Acts) to become a follower of the same Jesus, and Paul/Saul brought a message to the world that declared God in Christ loved his enemies and died for their forgiveness in order to save them. The angry mob intended to silence this Jesus and his movement when they stoned Stephen to death, but in fact, they only gave it more power to witness authentically to the love that lays down its life even for the enemy in order to save them. Jesus' strange kind of victory strikes again, even for the young man named Saul holding the coats at a stoning.

If you are looking for some scene in the Bible where Stephen gets to come back from the dead and get revenge on his killers in a final act of "victory" over them, I'm sorry. That never happens. That is not how Jesus' kind of victory works, and that is not the kind of victory his followers seek after. Jesus' kind of victory reconciles enemies, forgives sins, and gives up on attempts at revenge or "saving face." Jesus' kind of victory is bigger than all of that, and he calls us to be bigger than that as well.

So for us on this day, sharing in Jesus' kind of victory will mean looking like Jesus--the way he lays down his life forgiving his enemies, the way he asks for God's mercy on his persecutors, the way he can confidently commend his life into God's hands, the way he is at total peace with the way of God. And we have to know now, in advance, that the world will look at that and will not recognize it as victory. The world will see it and think it has won, just like the angry mob thought it had won over Stephen when the last rock was thrown, and just like the Respectable Religious Leaders and the Romans thought they had won when they nailed Jesus to a cross. They did not understand--how could they?--that they had actually sown the very seeds of God's kind of victory, a victory so large and wide and deep that it even swept up the very enemies of God in its embrace. They did not realize that their attempts to stamp out the movement of Jesus actually scattered seed into the whole world to make the Kingdom grow. They did not understand that Jesus' victory comes through giving yourself away.

But we are invited to see that, to understand it, and to stake our lives on it.

Today, let us share in Jesus' kind of victory--not giving into the hatred, the lies, the violence, the bitterness, and the greed of the world's way of doing things.

Today, let us surrender our old need for getting even or looking tough, and discover the great power that lies in refusing to sing the world's song, but rather playing Jesus' melody in our own key.

Today, let us look for ways to embody a love so big and wide that it defeats enemies by embracing them and transforming them into friends.

This is Jesus' victory song. It is our tune today, too.

Lord Jesus, let us reflect your kind of victory in the ways we lay down our lives today, too.

Moving with the Magnet--May 1, 2026

Moving with the Magnet--May 1, 2026

"So again, Jesus said to them, 'Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly'." (John 10:7-10)

Did you ever do that science experiment where you lay out a bunch of paper clips (or if you are really fancy, some good ol' fashioned iron filings) on top of a flat surface and then put a strong magnet underneath?  Can you picture what I'm talking about?  At first, the paper clips or flecks of metal suddenly lurch toward the spot where the magnet is held underneath them, as if spontaneously glued in place.  But then, the real trick comes when you start to move the magnet around, and seemingly out of nowhere, the paper clips or filings start to move, too.  If you didn't know that there's a magnet being held under the table, it might look like magic.  But if you are the one holding it in your hand beneath the flat surface, you know that the paper clips are only following where the pull of the magnet leads them. They have not gotten lost, confused, or scattered: they are being attracted by a magnet that is in motion. They go where it goes, precisely because the magnet itself is leading them along. They are simultaneously being held and moving, wherever the magnet goes.

There's something similar to the way Jesus fleshes out his extended metaphor about being a good shepherd for his people.  The routine for a shepherd, of course, is not merely to get the flock inside the pen once and then to leave them there.  They might all sleep inside a sheepfold within a fence, but in the morning you'll need to lead them out to graze in new fields, and you'll need to find more water for them, and they'll want some open space just to roam around.  So the shepherd draws the sheep to him, but then he goes out through the gateway in the fence, leading the flock around him, and they go out to do whatever is on the itinerary for the day: a little green pasture, a little still water, the whole nine yards.  The image is not of a stationary final destination, but of being simultaneously held and moving at the same time... sort of like our magnet and the paper clips.

And this is worth our stopping and considering for a moment, because to be honest, I think a lot of the time we church folk try to oversimplify the Christian story to something like, "Jesus just came to get us into heaven."  And held against this passage from John 10, which many of us heard this past Sunday, it can sound like we are just reinforcing that little narrative.  "Oh, Jesus is like the shepherd. He leads us through the gate and into the sheepfold (heaven?) and that's the end of the story, right?"  Something like that, at any rate.  But that's not how Jesus talks here, is it?  He doesn't say, "I get my sheep inside the fence and then we never leave the comfort and security of the pen," but rather, just the opposite: Jesus says his sheep will "come in and go out and find pasture." That's not about leaving heaven, of course! And maybe that tells us that Jesus is talking about more than just events after we die.  Maybe Jesus has been talking all along about the lifelong journey of discipleship, and how he leads us on a regular basis to all the places he intends to go and work.  Maybe we are like the paper clips and iron filings, being pulled along wherever the magnet goes.

Well, in that case, we have to see the Christian faith as something more than just a race to the safety of "home base" (like kids playing tag).  Maybe it's a whole life of going where Jesus goes, rather than asking Jesus to tag along on our personal itineraries (like the old bumper sticker says, "If Jesus is your co-pilot, maybe you and he should trade places."). And maybe then we need to reframe our understanding of what it means to believe in Jesus. Maybe it's not just a matter of "I believe this list of facts about Jesus of Nazareth (from the Creed or Sunday School or the Bible), and as a result I know I have a ticket to a spot in the afterlife." Rather, maybe it's "I trust this living Jesus to lead me, along with the rest of the found family of his followers, to take us where we need to be, even when it's somewhere new." 

When our mental picture of our faith just feels like staying put in a comfortable spot, we may need to check back in with Jesus, who keeps describing us as both held in his grip and on the move with him at the same time.  We are held within Jesus' pull like paper clips with a magnet under the table, and we are also led along wherever he carries us. That will change the way we think of the actions we take as a part of living out our faith.  When we feed hungry neighbors, offer clothing, or make quilts and build beds for kids in our region without places to lay their heads, it is because Jesus is the One leading us there, and he is already committed to doing that work.  We go, because he is already going and pulls us along.  When we cross boundaries to offer welcome and love to people who have been left out and excluded, it is because Jesus is the One gripping us like a magnet to go where he is going first.  When we go out of our way to get supplies for migrant workers or expecting moms in a neighborhood that feels forgotten, it is because Jesus is spurring us on.  When we share our faith, listen to a troubled friend, or serve someone who needs our help, it's not about earning heaven points or getting good deeds put on our permanent record--it's about letting Jesus lead us where he is working. We aren't just left twiddling our thumbs in place waiting for an afterlife in heaven; we are led to all the places and people Jesus is going, because we are held in his orbit.

Today, let's dear to be sheep and paper clips (take your pick). That is to say, let's allow Jesus' pull to lead us where he is going, so that we can share in the adventure he has in store for us.

Lord Jesus, hold us in your grip, and lead us on your way.

Ignoring the Impostors--Devotion for April 30, 2026

Ignoring the Impostors--April 30, 2026

[Jesus said:]"The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers." (John 10:2-5)

I cannot stress enough how vital it is to ask the question, "Does this actually sound like Jesus?" before deciding whether to follow someone's direction or accept what they say. 

It might seem so obvious that it shouldn't even need to be said. And yet, Respectable Religious Folks like you and me quite often get hoodwinked into listening to voices who want our allegiance but who, honestly, sound nothing like Jesus.  Sometimes folks use religious language, symbols, wording, or even imagery to make themselves seem "Jesus-ish," but when we actually listen to what they are say, it's clear that they aren't really aligned with the way of Jesus, the shepherd who lays his life down for his sheep.  And the Real McCoy--the actual Jesus--summons us to listen well and discern whether those loud, often bloviating, voices out there are consistent with him, or whether they are the babble of fakers and counterfeits, thieves and bandits.

These words of Jesus, which many of us heard this past Sunday from John's Gospel, do have a way of making things pretty clear, don't they?  We who have been following Jesus for very long at all should come to recognize what he sounds like--and what definitely does not sound like the voice and way of Jesus.  The metaphor of sheep listening for the shepherd is so apt; the animals who have come to entrust their lives and well-being to the shepherd who cares for them will just know to move when that trusted voice calls to them.  And despite the many ways that sheep are not the brightest of barnyard animals, their refusal to just take the direction of impostors is important. They can distinguish the cadence and timbre of the shepherd's voice from the sounds of strangers, thieves, and pretenders.  They know when to stop in their tracks and say, "This doesn't sound like the voice of the one I know; and I don't have to obey just any old voice or follow any old directions given to me."  Jesus calls us to have the same kind of wisdom as well.

Of course, for us, it's not simply the sound of a literal voice. We don't know, after all, what the human voice of Jesus of Nazareth sounded like--whether he was a tenor or a bass, slow and deliberate or nervous and frantic, monotonous or with a variety of tones and cadences.  For that matter, very few of us would understand the ancient Aramaic that the historical rabbi would have spoken.  So the litmus-test is not, "Whoever can do the best impression of a first-century Judean rabbi must be in line with Jesus' teachings." Rather, the question is, "Do the voices clamoring for our attention speak with the character of the living Christ?" Jesus is calling us to be discerning enough to know what sounds like his vision, his kind of love, his courageous truth-telling, and his daring way of reaching across boundaries to meet the outcast and restore the broken... and what sounds like the world's usual bluster dressed up in a bible-times costume. He doesn't want us to fall for that anymore.

And honestly, quite often the voice of Jesus is pretty easy to recognize and to distinguish from its opposite. What orients us toward love of God and love of others is definitely in line with the way of Jesus; what justifies selfishness with "Me and My Group First" logic is not.  What looks to lift up the lowly, bind up the broken, welcome back in the outcast, and honor the least is consistent with the character of Jesus; what boasts about its own importance, belittles others, or treats outsiders with default suspicion feels out of character. What spurs us on to love that includes not only strangers but also enemies sounds like the voice of Jesus; what refuses to see the image of God even in our staunchest adversaries sounds like a counterfeit. What seeks to make peace and to do justice fits with the priorities of Jesus; what seeks to dominate, conquer, and exploit does not.  In other words, if we are paying attention, we will know who to listen to... and who to ignore.

So maybe this is the critical thing for us to own up to today: often, we aren't really paying attention.  We don't do the difficult work of listening to the actual voices that demand our ears and then asking, "Does this fit with the character of Jesus?" Without that critical discernment, we'll end up getting bamboozled into throwing our support for agendas and actions that are completely opposed to the priorities of Jesus, and we'll think we're being virtuous because the voices who fooled us knew just enough of how to dress themselves up in the trappings of piety. But this isn't meant to be difficult--Jesus seems to think that it will be as natural to us as it is for sheep to discern whose voice is calling them. And if they know not to go following after a fraud, we can be discerning enough to ignore the impostors vying for our ears, eyes, hearts, and minds, too.

They say that one of the best ways to become skilled at identifying counterfeits is to know the genuine thing so well that any deviation becomes obvious.  So one of the ways we get better at recognizing Jesus' voice among the fakers and pretenders is to spend more time listening, reading, praying and getting familiar with the voice of Jesus, the Authentic Shepherd. The more we are immersed in his way of seeing the world, his way of treating neighbors, his way of relating to God, and his way of loving others, the better we'll be able to recognize the hucksters and hoaxes, no matter how much "religious" language they use.

Today, let's listen closely for the voice of Jesus, so we'll know which other voices we can disregard. And let's be ready to ask the vital question, "Does this actually sound like Jesus?"

Lord Jesus, help us to recognize your voice and follow it, and to distinguish it from the counterfeits that do not reflect your character.

Restoration Is the Goal--April 29, 2026

Restoration Is the Goal--April 29, 2026

"[Christ] himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, having died to sins, we might live for justice; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your lives." (1 Peter 2:24-25)

Nobody walks through the halls of the hospital telling the patients to feel guilty for being sick or needing surgery for their broken bone. The focus is on healing whatever it is that is hurting.

And no self-respecting shepherd attempts to lecture the sheep who just got rescued after getting separated from the flock. The important thing is finding what was lost.

The goal in both situations is simply restoration. There are no hidden threats, no unsolicited guilt-trips, and no dredging up the past to beat somebody when they are down.  Rather, the hope of good physicians, nurses, and shepherds alike is to move forward with helping their patients or their flock to be whole, well, and where they are supposed to be. The past doesn't get hung around anybody's neck like the proverbial albatross from the old poem. There is no need for that.

And of course, that's what First Peter is saying about Christ, who is the "shepherd and guardian of our lives," too.  Christ has found us when we were lost, healed us when we were sick, called us to back to life when we were Lazarus in the grave.  And at no point is Jesus' plan to keep weaponizing the past against us, rubbing in how many times we have failed, or belittling us with guilt or shame for not measuring up.  Jesus has taken our sins from us, not so he can keep digging them up and reminding us about how bad we are, but in order to free us from their power.  He has healed us, even at the cost of his own life, absorbing the worst of our rottenness, violence, and cruelty in the cross and refusing to throw it back at us.  And he has found us, even if we have gotten ourselves lost again for the millionth time, because sheep keep needing to be sought and rescued.  Jesus' goal has always been to restore us, in whatever ways we have needed it.

That's an important part of the story, too.  Jesus' heals us with a purpose: so that we might be more fully alive--or as he says in John 10, "that they might have life in abundance." Much like the hospital staff is focused on getting the patient well enough to thrive once discharged, Jesus' goal with us is for us to be holy, faithful, good, and loving, like him.  We are meant to live for "justice" (or "righteousness," which is the same word in the original Greek); that is, we are meant to be done with the old crooked, selfish, and cruel ways that were killing us. And we are instead nursed along to live in new ways--ways that look like the character of Jesus. God's goal with us is always for us to be moving forward, not to berate us for our failures to move fast enough or to harangue us for the ways we've messed up in the past.  

Sometimes we church folk forget that. Sometimes we get it in our heads that we should be collectively miserable in order to show God how sorry we are for our sins, rather than seeing sin as the old dead-end we have been pulled out of because God's intention is for us to be led into joy.  Sometimes we can get so ingrained with the "I once was lost" part of the old hymn that we forget the good news "but now am found," or we hold other people down with the baggage of their past rather than celebrating when they have started over. Plenty of folks have heard, "You'll never be anything more than a no-good rotten sinner," so often and so intensely that they cannot dare to believe the news that God in Christ is relentlessly committed to our being healed and found. But here it is in the Scriptures: you have been claimed. You have been found.  You have been healed. We are moving forward from there.

Do we mess up again? Of course.  Do we get ourselves lost repeatedly? Without a doubt.  Do we have relapses of the disease in our lives we call "sin"? To be sure.  But when those things happen, again, it's worth noting that First Peter here doesn't start wagging his finger with the intention of making us miserable. He doesn't bully or beat us up with a recitation of infractions from our Heavenly Permanent Record. He helps us to look at the present moment and ahead of us, with gratitude rather than fear or shame. That is, after all, the point of forgiveness--that we can start over, leaving the record of our past wrongs behind us, and going in a new direction. Sometimes we forget that God isn't merely some traffic officer hiding at the roadside and looking for reasons to pull us over and issue a citation, but rather God is actively seeking for us to thrive and grow. God isn't merely an impassive judge doling out sentences for rulebreakers but rather, God is the One who keeps going to great lengths to turn us around and restore us when we have made a mess of ourselves. And that is the God who has claimed us to belong to the family of Christ.

That changes how we face the day ahead, doesn't it? We don't have to be hung up on our failures and infractions; we are freed to start new today, knowing that God isn't trying to yank us back to wallow in our past. God is moving us forward toward restoration.

Lord Jesus, make us new today, and bring us into fuller joy by making us like you.

An Alternative to Monstrosities--April 28, 2026

An Alternative to Monstrosities--April 28, 2026

"It is a commendable thing if, being aware of God, a person endures pain while suffering unjustly. If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do good and suffer for it, this is a commendable thing before God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps. 'He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.' When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly." (1 Peter 2:19-23)

I'm not often one to quote the 19th century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (especially since he detested Christianity), but he did make a particularly haunting point when he wrote, "He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster."  He was right.  It is so terribly, damnably, easy for us to do monstrous things if we have told ourselves we are just getting back at those who have committed monstrosities against us first, or if we tell ourselves that we are the heroes and they are the monsters. So, fair point, Freddie.

But we didn't have to go reading German philosophers to learn that lesson; the New Testament has been saying it to us pretty clearly for twenty centuries (so Mr. Nietzsche is a bit late to the party), and many of us heard these words from what we call First Peter just this past Sunday. The writer of our Second Lesson from Sunday is calling the followers of Jesus not to return evil for evil, abuse for abuse, or monstrosities in exchange for monstrosities.  We are a people called to the way of Jesus, which answers hatred with love, speaks blessing in answer to cursing, and seeks the well-being even of enemies.  As another New Testament voice (Paul, writing to the Romans) said it, "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." That's not just a bonus side project of Christianity or a higher-level goal for the spiritual heavyweights; it's at the center of the way of Jesus.

In their original context, these words from First Peter were written specifically to the enslaved population within the Christian community, in response to situations of abusive masters. And while we might wish that Peter had come down more clearly to call for the outright abolition of slavery (as Christians eventually did in the ancient empire, and then later after the emergence of the African slave trade), it's worth recognizing that he's speaking to people who do not have the power to end slavery as an institution within their society, but who do have the choice of who to respond when they are mistreated.  When their "masters" act like monsters, abusing them or hurting them (or even just in enslaving them in the first place!), they have the choice of answering that evil with more evil, or of refusing to keep the cycle of retribution going.  First Peter says, without saying that slavery is acceptable or endorsing its cruelty, that the followers of Jesus are called not to give into the temptation of meeting that cruelty with more cruelty of their own.  We are called to be different: we don't answer the world's rottenness in kind. We don't inflict abuse in return for abuse or threats and angry bluster when those things are lobbed at us.  In short, even when others act monstrously, we will not let ourselves become monsters. We do not sink to the level of those who will use violence, spite, or force to get their way; we do not have to cooperate with them, and we do not have to use their tactics.

It is a truly radical thing, if you think about it, that the first followers of Jesus were so strongly committed to this counter-cultural way of life. It is so tempting, so fitting with "conventional wisdom," to conclude that when your adversaries are doing terrible things to you, that you have no choice but to do the same (or worse) terrible things back to them. But of course, that's really just letting the adversary win, because you allow their mindset to infect yours, and their tactics to overpower your own strategy of responding.  As First Peter shows us, the Christian community is different. Instead of saying, "Well, the other guys are mean, cruel, and abusive, so we can do the same," the family of Christ said, "No, our calling is to be like Jesus, who answered evil with good, hatred with love, and cruelty with compassion." Jesus would not let himself be goaded into becoming a monster, and so we are not to let ourselves, either.  We may not be able to die for the sins of the world, but we can let our willingness to endure suffering rather than inflicting it be a witness to the way of Jesus.  We can let our lives become embodiments of the kind of cross-shaped love God has shown to us by bearing our violence and cruelty there. We can even let our deaths be witnesses to such love.  Like Walter Wink put it so well, "Martyrs are not helpless victims, but fearless hunters who stalk evil out into the open by offering their bodies as bait." Our refusal to give into the tactics of monsters is what will bring the monsters out into the open and expose them.  And our willingness to show love in the face of cruelty is what shows to the world that there is an alternative to monstrosities.

Even more than that, our willingness to answer evil with good and hatred with love gives people a glimpse of the Gospel itself, since the heart of the Good News is God's own willingness to endure our evil and hatred inflicted on the cross and God's choice to answer it all with self-giving love and mercy. As First Peter says, Christ suffered for us, which is to say that God chose to bear suffering at our hands. Our willingness to do the same rather than return evil for evil isn't just about following Jesus' example; it's also about being a witness to the Good News.  The message we bring to the world of a God who loved us despite our violence, spite, and cruelty (as we inflicted on Jesus) becomes real for people when they see in us the willingness to live by that same kind of love.  

So yeah, the old philosopher's warning holds true: we should be careful not to let ourselves become monsters in the name of fighting the ones who act monstrously.  Instead, we are called to embody the character of Jesus so that others will see the family resemblance in us and come to know the way God's love has reached out to all of us, even at our worst. We have the opportunity to be such witnesses today, in small and big ways, right where we are. That's how we overcome evil with good, even on this day.

Lord Jesus, give us the courage to respond to the violence and cruelty of the world in your way of self-giving love, so that our lives might bear witness to your goodness.

A Joyfully Shared Life--April 27, 2026

A Joyfully Shared Life--April 27, 2026

"Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the good will of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved." (Acts 2:43-47)

It really is a gift to be able to sit down with your family and share a meal together. For all the additional work it takes to coordinate schedules, to get the food cooked, to get young hands to help set the table, and to pause the distractions and busyness of the day for even a half an hour of synchronized eating, it truly is worth all the work that goes into making it happen.

It is a gift of grace to share a table for an ordinary Monday dinner, regardless of what is on the menu, because it is in that shared meal that we share our lives. Make no mistake about it: it is a holy and blessed thing to take the time--and to get to take the time--whether it's over fish sticks or filet mignon, to share a table with the family.

When we eat together, we talk to each other. You find out what the best part of someone else's day was. You hear what is on the mind and on the heart of the other people around the table. You build the common experiences, the memories, the household traditions, of certain foods and certain times. You share. You pass the mashed potatoes and you split the last serving of meatloaf. And in the passing of the platters, the family practices its own kind of economics, without talking about who "earned" the food, but only the joyful concern to make sure everyone gets to have enough on their plate. And those meals, whether with just a nuclear family or five generations and their bonus friends who got the invite, those meals become the threads that bind our lives together.

You and I know as much from having eaten at tables like that before. We know what it is like to be the one included even if you don't share a bit of biology with anybody else, but simply on the basis of the principle of "The more, the merrier." We know what it is like to find comfort from each other even when our hearts were heavy, and then to find that sharing a meal together lifted us back up again. We know what it is like to teach children the importance of taking care of one another by modeling the passing of the rolls, the waiting on seconds until everyone has gotten a first helping, and the value of waiting for everyone to be at the table before we eat. We know what it is like to see the common meal flow almost seamlessly into the common labor of clearing the table and washing the dishes. And that is why we keep gathering around tables, even though there are times when it is tough, or when personalities clash, or when we are already so hangry (that is, "hungry-angry") that we get on each other's nerves before the drinks are already poured, or when we are each so busy that it can feel like trying to align the planets to make the gatherings happen. But we keep at it, we and our various families, because in a very real sense, those meals bring us to life and sustain us for the times when we aren't all around the table.

Now, if we know the value of that kind of shared experience at a dinner table with our families, it won't surprise us that the first followers of Jesus saw the same power among them as well. They were not biologically related--and yet they made the effort to share tables and break bread with one another. They didn't "have to" all share meals together, at least not in the sense of some kind of religious law or requirement of their piety--but the practice of sharing meals together was so life-giving and so essential from the beginning that the first Christians did it without anybody "making" them. They had not yet invented all of the layers of liturgical sediment or shiny gold accessories as the later church would get saddled with like great-grandmother's china that nobody knows what to do with--and yet they held the common meal as of great importance. 

The first followers of Jesus knew that sharing tables with one another was part of how they learned to love each other. It's part of what it means to belong in the "found family" of God. You learn to love the people you pass the mashed potatoes to. You get in the habit of asking about their day or their dreams. You become accustomed to sharing the common work before and after the meal. And all of that is really what it looks like to love each other. Nobody has to enforce it as a rule, but the common table and the common life become so obviously important that it is worth it to make the effort to set up the chairs and put out the serving dishes.

That's the way I think we have to hear these verses from the beginning of Acts, which many of us heard in worship this past Sunday. And really, as much as it seems obvious to anybody who has had a family dinner in their lives, it's important for us to say this out loud. And that's because we can be so afraid of making this shared meal and shared resource thing into a "rule" that we ignore passages like this from Acts altogether. I can't tell you how many times in my life I have heard people, upon reading these verses from Acts, blurt out like an alibi, "But this isn't a requirement! Not all early Christians lived communally like this, and we don't have any proof they ever did it outside of the city of Jerusalem here in the first few chapters of Acts!" And while it is of course technically true that Jesus issued no commands that his followers "had to" eat together every so often, that seems almost willfully to miss the point.

Can you technically be a family and still never eat together? Sure. But either you have to make the effort of finding other ways and times to share each other's lives, or you just slowly succumb to drifting apart. You'll still be a family, at least in name or DNA, but you will have missed something beautiful, something blessed, something essential. Well, it's the same with us as the family called church: the more we share our lives with one another, including breaking bread "with glad and generous hearts," the more we find our lives strengthened and enriched. It's not a matter of "have to" or "you can't make me"--it's a matter of what love does. And love shares food, passes the mashed potatoes, and then shares the labor after dinner--that's just what it does.

In the day and time in which we live, is SO easy to insist that nobody can "make" us share our abundance with someone else, or that nobody can "compel" us to give up our stuff so that someone else can have enough. It is so easy to become resentful when someone else gets a break that you didn't get. It is so easy to become bitter and possessive, and to start digging in our heels about how someone else is getting something they didn't earn while I feel like I'm getting passed over. That is exactly how the culture in which we live teaches us to see the world.... but it is not how it works in a family. And even though there is no requirement for salvation to share X-percent of our resources, or to give up Y-number of possessions, or to share so many church dinners together, we know that sharing our tables and our stuff is part of how family works... and we are a found family together, we followers of Jesus.

Today, then, instead of the knee-jerk impulse to say, "Nobody can MAKE me share--not a table, and not my treasures!" what if we were the people who saw in the example of the Acts 2 Church a picture of a more joyful life together? What if, instead of scrambling for excuses of why we don't "HAVE to" take the time or make the effort to share our tables and share one another's troubles, we chose to say, "It's not a matter of whether we have to or not, but we are missing out on something good and beautiful if we don't keep gathering at table and sharing our abundance." Glad and generous hearts--that sounds like what I want to be. Why would we not make the effort and keep the commitment to share our tables, to share our resources, and to share the time doing the dishes afterward, too?

Come to the table. And if there isn't one already set up to come to, then you be the one who sets up a table and invites others around to join you.

Lord Jesus, give us the fullness of life that unfolds from breaking bread and passing the peas, as well as sharing our abundance with one another because we have discovered we are family together.

We Will Love--April 24, 2026

We Will Love--April 24, 2026

"Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart. You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God." (1 Peter 1:22-23)

What do you do once you realize you don't have to keep looking over your shoulder?

What do you do when it occurs to you that you don't need to run and hide from divinely-thrown lightning bolts to smite you for some past secret sin?

What would you spend your energy on if you knew you didn't have to save it all for carrying the weight of every past failure on your back?

Or, to put it in the classic wording of the late Gerhard Forde's question, "What will you do, now that you don't have to do anything?"

We will love.

To hear First Peter tell it, it's just that obvious, and it's just that simple. We love--deeply and genuinely--because we no longer have to live under the constant worry of being condemned by God. And with that fear put away and left behind, we find we really are freed to love.

With yesterday and today's devotions, we've been taking a closer look at a passage many of us heard this past Sunday in worship. And First Peter has been abundantly clear that God has chosen not to hold our sins, our mess-ups, and our worst moments against us. We have been set free, First Peter said, like captives held for ransom and liberated. And even more amazingly, First Peter has told us, God made that choice not to hold our wrongs against us from before the foundation of the world, but rather set in motion the whole sweep of salvation history to rescue us. All of that is the starting point, the given, of the Christian story.

And now the question is, what next? What do people do who know that they are not being targeted from on high or condemned from some celestial throne room? Well, we are finally able to love others genuinely without trying to calculate whether we are being "good enough" to cancel out some of the red marks on our permanent records. In other words, the train of thought isn't complete until it arrives at love, like the plant hasn't arrived at maturity until the new shoots give way to blossoms and then in turn to fruit. Love is where the Christian life is headed, and forgiveness is what makes it possible for us to love others genuinely.

Understanding that is key, because we are otherwise likely to make one of two big theological mistakes in our lives. One is stopping short and reducing the whole of the Christian faith to simply, "You're already forgiven, so go ahead and be a selfish jerk--there's nothing more to following Jesus than just hearing the sentence that you're forgiven. See you in heaven." And the other is to get it all backwards and think that forgiveness of sins can be achieved by being loving enough, like getting paroled for good behavior.

First Peter help make it clear for us: the next step beyond hearing you are redeemed is to realize that you are now freed for something--for love. And it always goes in that direction: grace makes us capable of loving, because grace is what assures us we don't need to use our good deeds as bargaining chips to get time off of our sentence. There is no jail time. You are not condemned. You do not have to worry about someone finding you out and reporting you to the Heavenly Prison Warden, and you don't have to hope that you get bonus points for helping that senior citizen across the street or returning that five-dollar bill you found on the street corner. You don't have to worry about "points"--God has already decided not to keep score or count beans, so you are actually free to love people for their own sake, not as props in your merit-badge-earning.

When we treat loving others like it's a way to impress God, it turns out we aren't impressive and we're not actually loving others, either--we're just using them as means to an end. But when we start from the point of knowing we don't have to earn points, then love for others is at long last actually love--the conscious choice to seek the good of others for their own sake, not just for our own ulterior motives.

Today, then, knowing we are free from having to impress God or reduce our sentence, let's use this day well, wisely, and freely... for love.

What will we do with this day, this moment, this chance?

We will love.

Lord God, you have already freed us from sin's grip--enable us to see ourselves as freed for the embrace of love.