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.

With Jesus-Tinged Lenses--August 25, 2026

With Jesus-Tinged Lenses--August 25, 2026

Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”  And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my Father in heaven."  (Matthew 16:16-17)

"Good news, Pete!  You didn't do it on your own!"

That sounds like sort of a backhanded compliment, doesn't it? 

When Jesus had asked his disciples the critical question, "Who do you say that I am?" Peter had taken the bold, audacious step of declaring, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God!" And for once, Peter's shoot-from-the-hip approach paid off.  He was right!  Maybe none of the other disciples had realized it yet, or maybe they were too afraid of being wrong to risk saying it out loud. But for whatever reason, Peter took the gamble and shouted his belief: Jesus is the Messiah, and indeed, the very Son of God.

And Jesus' immediate response, at least as Matthew tells the tale, is to say, essentially, "You get it!  You really do get it! But you didn't figure this one out by your own cleverness or spiritual insight, because you never would have gotten it on your own--God showed it to you."  So much for earning a gold star for a right answer, huh?

But of course, that's part of the whole point.  Recognizing who Jesus is never was a matter of getting a correct answer on a theology exam.  This was never a test, and Peter doesn't have to worry about getting a passing grade.  This was about allowing God to help him see what was right in front of him all along, but which his own perception wouldn't have understood apart from God's grace directing and expanding his vision.  If we thought that Jesus asked questions in order to determine who was smart enough to earn their way into heaven, Jesus releases us from that error in thinking by telling Peter that the only reason he came to recognize Jesus' identity as the Son of God was that God had already enabled him to see it.  The Christian life, in other words, is not about learning the right religious facts in order to secure ourselves a spot in the Kingdom as a reward. Rather, it's about letting God give us the vision to see God's presence in the unexpected and ordinary humanity of Jesus.  And from there, with Jesus-tinged lenses, we see the whole world differently.

This is a hard thing for many of us to accept, to be honest.  Some part of us would rather have a religion in which we have to get a certain score on a test to prove our worth, get a passing grade (or maybe even a big A-plus from the teacher!), and then tell ourselves we have earned our spot on the ol' Heavenly Honor Roll because we knew enough right answers.  Some part of us wants to be able to say we achieved our salvation because we figured out the right answer to the Big Question, "What is Jesus' secret identity?" and therefore win the prize.  And along the same lines, we want to be able to draw rigid lines between us "insiders" who have acquired our spot on the Good List by our spiritual smarts and right answers and those lost and forlorn "outsiders" who weren't bright enough to arrive at the correct response.  But if even Peter doesn't arrive at the truth about Jesus by his own insight or wits, then surely we don't, either.  We are going to have to accept that even realizing who Jesus is and placing our faith in him has to be a gift of God, one we wouldn't have arrived at on our own.

Today's verses, which many of us also heard in worship this past Sunday, compel us to recognize that our whole relationship with Jesus is only possible by God's grace, from beginning to end.  We Lutherans are famous for reciting the scriptural motto, "We're saved by grace through faith!" but sometimes we try to sneak the old transactional logic of earning in the back door through that last word "faith." Sometimes we take that phrase to mean, "We're saved because we believed the correct facts about Jesus, and in return, God has awarded us a spot in heaven for our correctly held doctrine." Or it becomes, "Did you pray to accept Jesus as the Christ/Messiah, and to recognize him as your Lord and Savior?" or "Can you recite the Creed by memory?"  The particular credentials might change, but the same scheme is underneath it all: to find some way, some angle, to see our being saved as something we earned--if not by our list of good deeds or acts of piety, then by the correctness of our theology or the strength of our faith.  But Jesus pulls all of that apart like he's unraveling a thread: even Peter's core confession, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God!" turns out to have been something Peter had to be shown rather than something he deduced like a geometric proof or a logical syllogism.  Yes, we are saved by grace through faith... but Jesus would tell us that even our faith turns out to be a gift of grace.  Even coming to recognize who Jesus is, we'll see one day, was always made possible because God revealed it to us, not that we sleuthed out the answer on our own.  There's no way around it: everything in our entire lives of faith comes as a gift, even that faith itself.

When we take that seriously, we can stop trying to make salvation into a prize or a spot on the Heavenly Honor Roll and instead receive it as a gift.  And from there, we are freed from trying to draw lines between "good" people who were clever enough to figure out the right answer and "bad" people who got a big red X marked on their papers for wrong answers. Instead, we'll see that we, too, have only come to see the truth about Jesus because God has opened our eyes and pointed us in the right direction... and maybe that God is using us to help point to Jesus for someone else.

How could that happen today?  How might God use you to help someone else recognize that Jesus is the One we've been waiting for all along?  How might you be a part of someone else's story of coming to confess, "You are the Messiah--the Son of the Living God!"?

Lord Jesus, give us the vision not only to see you rightly, but to see the movement of grace enabling us to trust in you.  And let us be instruments that can help others come to faith in you as well.

We Speak With Our Lives--August 24, 2026

We Speak With Our Lives--August 24, 2026

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist but others Elijah and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:13-16)

This isn't meant to be a "gotcha" question on a history exam or a particularly tricky Daily Double on the Jeopardy! game show.  It's a question of orientation--and of reorientation.

When Jesus asks his disciples who they really think he is, this isn't a pop quiz out of the blue. He's not threatening to expel them from Disciple School if they get it wrong or smite anybody who doesn't recite the Apostles' Creed word for word as their response. This is one of those clarifying questions that compels his disciples to stop and ask themselves, "Just what do we think is going on here?  Who is this Jesus, really, and why have we turned our lives upside-down to follow him?"

After all, there are plenty of folks who have listened to Jesus from the periphery like spiritual tourists and decided they have no obligation to stick around.  There have been crowds hoping to get to see a miracle, or to have a wonder worked for their sick loved ones. There have been people who got a free lunch on the day with the loaves and fishes and are hanging around Jesus like an extended entourage hoping for more freebies.  And to be sure, there are some folks who have just been captivated by Jesus' teaching and find him to be a lovely and inspirational voice to listen to whenever they need a little spiritual "pick-me-up."  And basically, Jesus is nudging his disciples to say out loud what they think they are doing here.  "What is this, anyway, guys?  Are you like students auditing a class?  Are you fair-weather fans?  Are you prepared to let me change your lives?"

I think that's the real issue here, both in Jesus' question and implicit in Peter's answer.  If Jesus is only a nice rabbi, then you can take his suggestions when you like them and ignore them when you don't.  If he's just an interesting teacher of spiritual truths, you can listen in your spare time and then continue about your daily and weekly business unchanged.   If Jesus is just one guy offering his opinions, then you are free to agree or disagree with him as you like.  Jesus can be a sort of religious buffet, then.  You might like the talk of heaven and eternal life, but not so much the part about loving your neighbor.  You might agree with his position on not being so strict with the food rules, but then not like his instructions about loving your enemies.  You might be excited every time he mentions the "kingdom of God," only to back off when he insists he hasn't come to conquer like Caesar but rather to serve and wash feet.  If Jesus is just one ordinary fella giving suggestions, then we can walk away the moment he says something we don't like.

But if Peter is right--and Jesus' response (which we'll get to in greater depth tomorrow) certainly indicates that he is--then Jesus can't be ignored or shrugged off.  If Jesus really is God's "chosen" (the word "Messiah" means "anointed" and hearkens back to the way the new king would be anointed with oil as a sign of being chosen by God to be the next king to shepherd the people) then Jesus doesn't merely represent his own opinions, but the perspective of God.  You know how sometimes on a TV broadcast, there will be a voiceover indicating that "the comments and views expressed by individual commentators do not necessarily reflect the views of the network"?  Well, if Jesus is God's Messiah, then we can't say that about Jesus.  If Jesus is "the Son of the living God," as Peter declares, then what Jesus says is what God says.  

That means that "love your enemies" is not just one person's random opinion... but God's policy toward enemies.  And it means Jesus' unlikely announcement of blessing on the poor, the meek, the harassed, and the merciful come with God's authority.  It means that the inverted order where the greatest become the servants of all and the last are put first is actually God's way of rearranging the world.  If Jesus really is God's Son and promised Messiah, then we don't get to ignore the things Jesus says that overturn our preferred way of life.  To confess, as Peter does, that Jesus is the Christ, will mean that we can't dismiss the parts of Jesus' message, actions, and choices that make us squirm.  The way he welcomes outcasts and notorious "sinners" to his table is God's welcome.  The prayer of forgiveness for his executioners is God's forgiveness for them.  The choice to die for the sake of the world but not to kill for it is also God's choice.  All of that comes along with Peter's exclamation about who Jesus really is.

That's the question we have to wrestle with, too, then. Who do we say that Jesus is? And once we understand the implication of naming Jesus, like Peter does, the Son of God and Messiah, will we dare to confess the same?  Will we take the words of the creed seriously when we speak them Sunday by Sunday and declare as a congregation that we "believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God" if we understand that it means we can no longer treat him as an interested religious voice or harmless teacher of spiritual truths? Will we also see that every day of our lives is the place where we reveal what we truly believe about Jesus?

After all, if we have mouthed the words of the Creed on Sunday but then refused to answer evil with good on Monday, we're saying with our actions that we don't really consider Jesus authoritative in our lives.  If we call Jesus "the Christ" in worship but then spend our work week trying to dominate and exploit other people rather than serving them, we reveal we don't mean what we say. If we refer to Jesus as "Lord" but are more invested in our own "greatness" than in lifting up the lowly and feeding neighbors, we're admitting that we don't really take Jesus seriously. Even more than with our churchly formulations, we speak with our lives.  We confess our faith with our priorities, choices, and actions, as much as with our tongues.

So... what will we say about Jesus, both in our words and in our lives, in this new day?

Lord Jesus, let our whole selves confess you as Messiah, Savior, and Son of God, not only with our mouths, but with our actions.

Because God Is Not Pie--August 21, 2026

Because God Is Not Pie--August 21, 2026

"May God be gracious to us and bless us, and make his face to shine up on us, that your way may be known up on earth, and your saving power among all nations. Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you. Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth. Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you. The earth has yielded its increase; God, our God, has blessed us. May God continue to bless us; let all the ends of the earth revere him." [Psalm 67:1-7]

Sometimes on my day off I go down to one of my favorite spots by the river, and I am reminded that the world in which I live is not only filled with human beings, but with all kinds of creatures who are quite different from me.  I sit on a bench or walk down a trail, both of which are artifacts of human skill and invention. But then I see butterflies landing on the milkweed, or herons fishing at the bank and then taking to the air with their vast wings stretched wide, or the splash of a frog jumping into the water as I get closer... and I am reminded that I am not alone in that beautiful place.  There is abundance and beauty available to me in that spot, but it is also available to any other person who happens along the Maumee River, and it is also open to all the creatures large and small who make that place their home as well.  It is mine to enjoy, but not just mine.

Quite often we forget that about this world and the God who has crated it. We humans cut trees and clear paths and maybe even make some signs with the names we have given to this or that hillside, this or that river, this or that forest. But none of them are solely our spaces. We share the woods with the gnats, the birds, and the deer that live in them, like we share the river with the fish and the geese and the snails, like we share this beautiful blue-and-green-and-brown planet with all creatures and all people on it. This world is our home, yours and mine, but only a fool would think it is ours alone. It is not our private possession, and it never has been.

The ancient poet who wrote the song that we call Psalm 67 (although one wonders if at some point it had a catchier title attached to it) sees that it is much the same with God. The Creator of all things can indeed be called "our God," but that doesn't make God ours alone. In fact, as many heard this past Sunday (this was the appointed psalm for this past Sunday) the old songwriter says, this same one God guides all nations and reigns with justice for all peoples. The psalmist calls out for God to bless not just one nation, but all of them, and to bring salvation to all the peoples of the earth as well. Because of that, the poet calls on all nations to praise this one God, and to sing with joy. God is "our God" the same way my parents are "mine"--that is to say, not exclusively, because my brother can call them "his" just a surely as I can. My parents, in that sense, are mine, but not mine alone. Like the Earth is my home, but not mine solely, the God in whom I find a home is not my private possession.

Knowing that--and letting it sink in--does something to us. I think a lot of the time we operate with the (false) assumption that God belongs to one group, one ethnicity, one culture, one nation, or one political party. We end up treating God like a possession, a mascot, or a genie who lives in our lamp, rather than the Sovereign over all creation. We have a way of thinking God is only ever interested in helping Me-and-My-Group, or that God doesn't give good things to people whose language, skin color, culture, or lifestyles are different from our own. After all, we think, WE are God's people... and therefore, anybody who isn't part of OUR group cannot belong in the scope of God's care.

We are wrong.

It can be uncomfortable--threatening, even--to consider that God loves me but not ONLY me... and that God is not only working for the well-being of folks with my demographics, but also for people half a world away living in sub-Saharan Africa... and in mainland China... and in Central America. Part of our problem is that we tend to assume that God is a commodity in limited supply, like pie. And if someone else gets a bigger piece of the pie than I have, I feel insecure... or afraid... or threatened. But that's not how it works with an infinite God!

Sure, with the finite resources of other people in our lives, yes, there are limits. There is a certain inescapable zero-sum quality to your available time and energy and effort in this life, and it is the same with every other person you meet. Yes, to some degree, you and I have to choose who and what gets our time, our focus, our care, and our selves--the time you spend with your friend is time you can't spend at work... and the time you spend with your kids or your parents is time you can't spend with your book club or your drinking buddies (depending on your social calendar). Yes, for all of us, we have to make choices about who and what are most important to us, and whom we give the limited resource of time to. But that's decidedly NOT how it is with God. God, who is both outside of our experience of time and infinite in being, doesn't run out of love. God is not a scarce resource, such that I need to feel threatened when I realize that God loves and blesses you. God can be "my God" while at the same time being yours, and in fact, God reserves the right to love and bless and provide for ALL of us--all nations, all peoples, all languages, tribes, tongues, and cultures. And when we realize that God is not a zero-sum reality, I don't have to get possessive about God's goodness--I can in fact rejoice when God does good things for others, even when it doesn't directly benefit me.

We have been fed for too long the faulty theology that turns God into a private commodity. We have been told to pray for God to bless our land, our country, our state, our community, with the unspoken request for God not to bless those outside the imaginary lines we have drawn. But here are these ancient words, sung for centuries before even Jesus' birth, that remind us that God has always been invested in bringing the whole world more fully to life--that includes me, but it doesn't end with me. That includes my land, but it isn't just mine. That includes my society, but not only them. Because it turns out that life itself doesn't have to be thought of as a limited supply--when God blesses someone else with abundant life, it doesn't take it away from me. It just means the world has come a little more fully alive. That's good no matter what or where it happens.

Dr. King once famously said that "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere," and that is true. But so is the opposite--any place and any time where justice is done, where mercy is shown, where someone is brought more fully to life, it is good news for all creation. And instead of being upset or territorial or childishly possessive with God, maybe we can actually listen to these words from the Scriptures and learn to rejoice at every good thing, not just the ones that directly affect me. Maybe we can see, like the herons and the geese teach me when I go down to the river, that God's goodness is ours... but not ours alone. And instead of feeling threatened or impoverished by that truth (as though it meant someone was going to "take" some of our share of God's goodness), we can rejoice all the more to know that God's goodness is showered over all creation. Any goodness, any kindness, any blessing, any grace, shown to anyone, is something we can rejoice over--because we are connected to all the world which God loves, and over which God reigns in goodness, justice, and mercy.

Today, maybe it's worth taking an honest look at the ways each of us gets caught up in trying to make God our private possession, rather than being moved to awe and joy to know God loves and does good for all peoples, everywhere. Maybe we can be both humbled and exalted to know that God is our God, but not ours alone. God, after all, is not pie.

Lord God, help us to see that you were never our private possession, and instead allow us to rejoice over your goodness everywhere and at all times.

Mercy All Around--August 20, 2026

Mercy All Around--August 20, 2026

"Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience, so also they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they also may now receive mercy. For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all." (Romans 11:30-32)

In the last chapter of the whodunnit, you finally find out the identity of the culprit, the details of their clever plot, and the underlying reason for their scheme.  The detective, whether Miss Marples, Hercule Poirot, Sherlock Holmes, or a modern cinematic invention like Benoit Blanc from the Knives Out movies, finally unravels the motive for whatever elaborate ploy the criminal mastermind devised over the course of the story. We find out which clues were red herrings meant to misdirect us, which details were important all along, and, of course, the real question driving us to get to the last page:  why?  Why did the killer do it?  What was the purpose behind the conspiracy?  What was the motive for the caper?  And, of course, a good mystery writer can keep you guessing all the way until the final reveal. And once the "why" has been answered with a "because," readers of good mysteries typically find themselves satisfied, now able to see connections they had missed before, recognize the reasons for the twists and turns, and relish how the whole plot drove toward that one inexorable conclusion.

Well, in a manner of speaking, Paul has been doing the same thing here in this section of his letter to the Romans, spun out over the course of three whole chapters (ch. 9 through 11) as he reflects on what was surely a pretty thorny theological mystery.  The question was this:  If Jesus really is the long-awaited Messiah of Israel promised to the descendants of Abraham and Sarah from long ago, and if by and large most of those descendants (the people of the Jewish faith in which Paul himself had been raised) had rejected that claim, then what on earth was God up to?  Did God not see that rejection coming?  Did God make a mistake and somehow incorrectly assume that the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would recognize Jesus as the Messiah, only to get it colossally wrong when the mob called for his crucifixion?  Or, was God giving up on those people because they rejected Jesus, and no longer going to keep the ancient promises to love and bless them forever?  What was really going on?

It really was a pretty frustrating puzzle, especially in the first century when Christianity was still very much figuring itself out and discerning whether it was a movement within Judaism (like the Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, or Essenes) or something new and different.  At first, when the church was mostly made up of Jewish believers, with just a few Gentile (non-Jewish) newcomers, it was easy to treat those outsiders as exceptions, but still to say that Christianity was "aimed" at reaching only people within Judaism.  But as more and more Gentiles came to faith and wanted to be followers of Jesus, the question became more and more pressing: what was God doing here?  Why would God allow so many of the covenant people to miss the One they'd been waiting for?  And what did it mean for them--was their hope, blessedness, and salvation now rescinded because they didn't believe in Jesus?  

Neither option sounded very appealing, theologically: one seemed to be saying that God was not intelligent enough to realize that Jesus would be rejected by so many of his own people, and the other sounded like it was saying that the promises of the covenant were not reliable if God was just going to break off relationship with the covenant people who had rejected Jesus.  Neither seemed to "fit" with the character of God revealed in the Scriptures, who is portrayed as knowing us better than we know ourselves and also deeply faithful in keeping promises, even in the face of our unfaithfulness.

Paul spends three chapters raising the issue, framing the question, offering data from Scripture, presenting premises, and building toward what we hope will be a whodunnit-style unmasking like the end of an episode of Scooby Doo. And finally at the end of what we call Chapter Eleven in the Letter to the Romans, Paul comes to a conclusion.  Addressing the largely Gentile audience of the Christians in Rome, he says this:

"Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience, so also they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they also may now receive mercy. For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all."

These Gentile/outsider Christians hearing his letter see that prior to their coming to faith in Jesus, they had been pointed away from God and estranged from God's goodness in their old devotion to the gods of the empire like Zeus, Apollo, Poseidon, Jupiter, Artemis, Mars, and even Caesar himself.  But God showed mercy to them and had pulled them into the divine embrace as they had heard the news about Jesus and God's love that went to a cross for them.  And how had those Gentile Christians come to hear about Jesus in the first place? Well, in many cases, it had been that when traveling apostles like Paul had come to their towns, they had first gone to bring the message to the Jewish community in the local synagogue and were often met with rejection there, which led the apostles to spread the news to everyone else, too.  In other words, the Gentile "outsiders" came to hear about Jesus typically because the message had first been rejected by the "insiders." Paul sees this as a bit of divine jiujitsu: God used the rejection of the gospel by one group to become the vehicle that leads to the inclusion of outsiders in the gospel's embrace.  Like Jesus' story about the guests to the wedding banquet who refuse to come to the party, leading the host to find other guests who will come even if they are poor, sick, homeless, or underdressed, Paul says that the "disobedience" of the religious insiders (rejecting the news about Jesus) is the thing that leads to the "mercy" shown to the religious outsiders.

But wait--that's not the only reveal!  Like a clever mystery wrapped inside an enigma, or a plot with a double-twist in the final pages, Paul keeps going.  He says that since the rejection of the Gospel by so many of the ancient covenant people led to the inclusion of the Gentiles, God will now also be able to include those who have rejected Jesus on the same terms.  The Gentiles had formerly been turned away from God but had been drawn close to God through the Gospel, and so in the very same motion, God can choose to show mercy on the covenant people who have rejected Jesus and still drawn them into God's love yet. That's the ultimate reveal at the end of this long and twisty section of Romans: "God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all." 

The goal, Paul says, all along, from God's perspective, has been to "be merciful to all." It may have taken a great many unexpected plot twists and curve balls to get there, but that has been God's grand design all along. God's motive in allowing history to unfold the way it has, including the manifold rejection of Jesus and the surprising embrace of outcasts and outsiders, has been to hand out mercy all around.  To all.  Religious "insiders" secretly covering over their hypocrisy and impious "outsiders" who were pointed completely the wrong way.  The ancient covenant people who had still managed to miss the Messiah when he came into their midst, and the brand-new still-dripping-wet-from-their-baptism-yesterday Gentile newbies who were still learning the story of Jesus.  The folks who had been keeping kosher all their lives but who couldn't bring themselves to believe in a crucified Christ, and the ones who had been sacrificing goats to Zeus the other day before hearing a new story that changed their lives.  God's real motivation all along--throughout the entire course of biblical and world history--has been to show mercy to everybody in the end.  That's the destination Paul sees everything driving toward, even when it took a winding path to get there.

That might surprise us if we have been picturing God as primarily an angry and vengeful executioner looking for any excuse to lob a lightning bolt at sinners. But like you experience when you get to the end of a mystery story and see how all the threads and all the clues had been there all along, in a sense, it is no surprise that the God of the Bible intends to show mercy to all.  That seems to be God's modus operandi all throughout the Scriptures: always pushing the boundaries wider, always reaching out to include the unworthy and unacceptable, always extending grace to sinners and providing grace for the mess-ups.  Here in these verses Paul just comes out and says that this is not a curious fluke that crops up in a couple of places in the Scriptures, but rather this has been God's design all along.  The whole goal has been to show mercy to all, by God's design.

When you see it laid out that way, it is both a startling surprise and also somehow the most natural thing in the world, you know?  And when we take Paul's claim seriously it shapes our understanding for how we live out our lives of faith, too.  The whole goal, always, is for ways to show mercy.  God's intention is to reach everybody.  God's design is to show all of us the truth that none of us can earn our way into God's good graces, so that when God's love does reach everybody we won't be foolish enough to think it was something we had to achieve.  

Maybe it takes a while to reach that conclusion, but that's how a good story works. Like making our way through the plot twists of a mystery novel, we eventually come to the big reveal at the end. God has been leading the whole human saga to the place where God could show mercy all around.

You and I have just gotten a two-thousand-year-old spoiler about the last page of The Story: Paul says it has all been leading to mercy for all, all along.

How will that change the way you see every face who crosses your path today?

Lord God, prepare our hearts for your surprising mercy and the breadth of its reach.