God's Grand Family Reunion--May 13, 2026

God's Grand Family Reunion--May 13, 2026

Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely spiritual you are in every way.  For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all peoples to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps fumble about for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us..." (Acts 17:22-27)

We've been talking all year about how the church is like a "found family"--a community that includes people from every language, background, culture, nation, and ethnicity. That might seem impossible, futile, or at least uncomfortable--like cramming too many people into an elevator or forcing folks who have nothing in common to all of a sudden be roommates. But to hear Paul tell it, especially in this passage from Acts that many of us heard this past Sunday in worship, we are only being reunited into the family we were always already a part of.  The claim of the Gospel is that all human beings belong to a common family, and when God gathers us together in Christ, we are really only being brought back into the united family of humanity that we were always meant to be.  To be a Christian, then, isn't like being on an airplane with other passengers you have nothing in common with except a common destination of heaven; it's being brought to the family reunion in which all people everywhere have a place at the table.

This is a really big deal to let sink in, because sometimes we let ourselves be divided along lines of culture, language, or ethnicity as though those differences are more fundamental that our common humanity.  It is terribly easy to get swept up in a "Me and My Group First!" mentality that supposes the people who share my language, skin color, cultural traditions, or perspective are more important to God than those outside it.  It's easy to believe that we are supposed to look out for the interests of "Me and My Group First!" because "that's how the world is." After all, plenty of loud voices at a host of different podiums have told us so, right? But... Paul's speech here to the people of Athens begs to differ. He says that's how the world isn't, because we belong already from our creation to a common human family that binds us together into one more powerfully and more essentially than the differences which are often exploited to drive us apart.

In fact, from Paul's perspective, all human beings are doubly bound to a common human family--first, because God made us all, and secondarily from that, because God made us all from one common ancestor.  That flies in the face of many centuries' worth of pseudo-scientific racism which taught that various people groups were irreconcilably too different and came from different origins, and therefore, that one group could be ranked against another to determine who was "superior." An awful lot of terrible things have been done in human history, much of it far more recent than we care to admit, and were undergirded by the false theological claim that different tribes, cultures, or racial groups were not really all one underneath. And terrible things are still done, often with supposed religious justification, by the logic of "Me and My Group First." Paul rejects all of that as nonsense, because all human beings are members of one human family.  On that basis, the Good News of Jesus is meant to be shared with all people, even with all the ways we are different from one another.

Sometimes we can get so insulated inside our own little homogenous bubbles of "people like me" that we forget about the existence of folks who speak, dress, think, and live differently from us.  Or we can become so comfortable only ever interacting with folks who are "like us" that we start to see anybody else as a threat, a danger, or as an enemy in competition with me for the things I want.  The New Testament says a loud NO to that way of thinking, and instead reminds us that we Christ-followers are simply in on the early stages of God's grand design to host a family reunion for people of "every nation, of all tribes and peoples and languages," as the book of Revelation says it.  And the first followers of Jesus made the pivotal and faithful choice to follow the Spirit's direction to reach out and invite everyone they met to come to that family reunion and belong in the community of disciples in the present, not just in the future. Surely it was tempting at some points to think, "What if we only invited people who we already like, or already have things in common with?" Surely it meant choosing the often more difficult path of making accommodations with one another to hold space for people who didn't all speak Hebrew, or didn't all eat the same foods, or didn't grow up with the same customs.  But the early church of the New Testament era was convinced, as Paul's words here remind us, that the unity we find in Jesus is not a novelty but a return to the unity that all people have already by virtue of belonging to the one gigantic human family tree and as beings all made by the same one living God.

When we take seriously the Scriptures' claim that all people everywhere belong to a common human family, and that God's intention is to reach all of us with the love and news of Jesus, we can no longer accept the faulty "Me and My Group First" mindset that pretends the lines we draw between "us" and "them" are more important that the embrace of God around all of us. It just doesn't hold up.  And instead, we can see ourselves, like Paul, on the invitation committee of God's Grand Family Reunion everywhere we go--reaching out to anybody and everybody we meet, no matter where they have come from, how they dress, what language they speak, or what else makes them different from us.  Paul is convinced that anybody you ever meet is already in some sense a part of the family--sometimes folks just need to hear that invitation to belong.

Who might you be led to speak a word of welcome and love to today?

Lord God, help us both to hear your assurance of our belonging in your family, and to speak it to others you are inviting to the party.

Jesus Knows...and Still Loves--May 12, 2026

Jesus Knows...and Still Loves--May 12, 2026

[Jesus said to his disciples:] "I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live." (John 14:18-19)

Without even knowing their context, these words of Jesus are absolutely a beautiful promise. It is certainly a great comfort to hear Jesus tell his followers that he will neither abandon them nor let death get the last word over them.

But when you realize that he makes that blanket promise knowing he is talking to people who will all abandon him and leave him to face death alone in order to save their own skins, it becomes a declaration of unfathomable grace.

These words, which were part of the Gospel reading for many this past Sunday, come from Jesus' last words to his inner circle of disciples on the night in which he was betrayed. This is the night many Christians recount each year in Holy Week as Maundy Thursday, and as John's Gospel tells it, is the night Jesus washed his disciples' feet, well aware that he was also washing the feet of his betrayer. This is the night we remember as Jesus' last supper with his disciples, in which Jesus tells his disciples [as Matthew tells the story], "You will all become deserters because of me this night." And in that scene, when Simon Peter insists he would never abandon Jesus, Jesus tells Peter that before the night is out, he'll have denied him three times. This is the same night when, John's Gospel later insists, "Jesus, knowing all that was to happen to him," still steps forward into the danger when the lynch mob and the temple police come, in order to protect the very disciples who will bail out on him and scatter in mere minutes.

And, of course, they do. Jesus' community of disciples--those who have become like a found family to him in their time together--do abandon him. To Jesus, it almost had to feel like being orphaned--losing the ones who had been his circle of support and love, all in a blur of their fear. The gospels, for all the different details they recount about that night, all insist that Jesus knows ahead of time where things are going. And yet, not only does he go through with it anyway, but he promises his disciples not to do to them what they are about to do to him. "I will not leave you orphaned," has a very different ring to it when you know the one saying it is fully aware he is about to be abandoned... and that he's saying it to the very same ones who will abandon him. "Because I live, you will live," hits our ears with different power when you realize Jesus is saying it to people who are about to leave Jesus to die in order to try and save their own lives. Jesus knows... and still loves.

This is what the Christian faith is really all about, though, isn't it? It's always been about God's love as we see it in Jesus, and that love simply will not let our failures set the terms for our relationship with God. Jesus will not let the disciples' impending desertion hold him back from sticking it out with them. He will not let the trouble and death they give him over to be the way he treats them. He will not hold their sins against them. And this story makes it clear that Jesus doesn't forgive sins in the abstract, as hypothetically possible infringements of celestial rules, but as one who knows personally what it is like to be hurt by those sins.

That also means that Jesus' teaching [and the teaching of numerous voices across the New Testament] not to return evil for evil has also been tried in the crucible of real-life experience. This is an important thing to note, because sometimes people will dismiss Jesus' teaching about loving your enemies and doing good to those who persecute you as a bunch of naive wishful thinking from someone stuck in an ivory tower. If you assume Jesus never had to actually put his money where his mouth is, you can give yourself permission to ignore those teachings about not seeking revenge and write Jesus off as someone who doesn't know how things are in "the real world." But when you realize that the Jesus who preaches against scorekeeping and bean-counting in the Sermon on the Mount is the same one who lives out that same kind of love when his closest friends abandon him, it is all the more compelling. Jesus never calls his followers to do something he hasn't done already first--and he calls us to a love that doesn't keep score because he has loved us the same way, all the way to a cross.

Today, hear Jesus' words as spoken to you, and for you: he does not abandon us or leave us orphaned, no matter what we do or how we flake out on him. And at the same time, hear Jesus' silence where we might be tempted to insert guilt-trips or passive-aggressive jabs: Jesus doesn't say to his disciples, "I won't leave you or forsake you... unlike SOME people around here are about to do to me." He knows, but he doesn't weaponize that knowledge against them... or us. There is love spoken where we have not earned it, and silence where others might condescendingly scold. This, dear ones, is how we are loved.

This, dear ones, is the love we step into on this new day.

Lord Jesus, enable us to love as you have loved us first--beyond our failings, our fickleness, and our faithlessness.

The Promised Spirit of Truth--May 11, 2026

The Promised Spirit of Truth--May 11, 2026

[Jesus said to his disciples:] "If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you." (John 14:15-17)

It's easy to think that it's more "loving" to tell people what they want to hear, isn't it? After all, telling people what they want to hear, even if it doesn't line up with reality, makes us feel like we are being "nice." And we do have a way of confusing being "nice" with embodying love.

But on second thought, "niceness" has a way of staying shallow--talk about the weather and summer vacation plans, but nothing beyond the surface. But families--including the kind of "found family" that we call the church--are built on being genuine rather than staying on the surface. And genuine love insists on depth, which means being willing to tell the truth--and to hear the truth. That's why, even when it means having difficult conversations, Christ's kind of love will always seek to be honest. That's why in the disciple community, we need the One whom Jesus called "the Spirit of truth."

And that's why our conversation for today takes us here, to these words from John's Gospel that many of us heard this past Sunday in worship as Jesus prepared his disciples for a new chapter in their relationship together. Jesus is hours away from his betrayal, arrest, torture, and death, and he knows that even after the resurrection, there will soon come a point when he won't be with them as one person around the table as they've come to know him. So he prepares them for a new way to be in connection with God--and therefore with himself. He tells them that he is sending them the Holy Spirit. Church folks know the storytelling--every year we retell the events of Day of Pentecost, with the tongues of flame and apostles empowered to speak in other languages so that all could hear about "God's deeds of power." But sometimes we are so quick to assume we know that story that we miss out on something important about how Jesus talks about this Spirit, who is given to us. Jesus insists that the One whom we also call the Holy Spirit is also "the Spirit of truth." And I suspect it's worth unpacking what that means.

Jesus tells his disciples that they will not be left alone or orphaned, because they'll have "another Advocate," who will remain with them forever. And then he identifies this One who will come alongside them to counsel, to guide, and to defend them [the idea of an "advocate" here is like a defense attorney, actually, and someone who stands with you in solidarity] as the "Spirit of truth." This Spirit won't just be physically limited to being in one place at a time, as Jesus had been, but will be "in" you--present among all of the disciple community. That, of course, would be a huge help once the disciples found themselves headed in different directions to bring the Gospel to every nation and people in all directions. It meant that they didn't all have to keep going to back to some central location where the Spirit held office hours.

But the Spirit is more than just a warm fuzzy feeling of God's presence. Jesus is convinced that the Spirit has something to do with making us into truthful people: that is, people who do not merely speak accurately [although that's a part of it, to be sure], but who live in ways that align with the truth, and who are willing to see the worth truthfully, rather than through rose-colored lenses or the slanted bias of self-interest. The Spirit is the One who enables us to be pulled out of our own little myopic perspectives, which to be honest, can sometimes be uncomfortable. Nobody wants to admit they don't see the whole picture. Nobody wants to consider the possibility they might be wrong. And it is deeply frightening to most of us to entertain the idea that someone with whom we sharply disagree might have something to tell us that we cannot see from our vantage point. We are afraid, to be honest, of talking about truth if it means considering we don't already have all the answers under our control. And so Jesus promises the One who will be with us--who will not abandon us, no matter what--who will make us brave enough to face whatever uncertain things are ahead of us. God's Spirit is the Spirit of Truth because God's presence gives us the courage to admit we do not already know it all.

If genuine love requires us to tell and to hear the truth, rather than pleasant lies, then love is also what makes that truthfulness possible, because when we know we are loved unconditionally and irrevocably, we can bear to face even the truths that don't make us look good, and the insights we didn't know we needed. Because we have been given that love--promised to us by the Spirit who will not abandon us--we can be people who face the truth bravely, both to tell it and to hear it. Because we are held by the Love that will not let us go, we can endure coming to terms with facts that make us uncomfortable, realities that stretch our understanding, and truths that break open our prejudices and presumptions.

Today, we can lean on the Spirit Jesus has given to make us brave enough to be truthful.

Lord Jesus, let your Spirit's presence open our ears and eyes with what you would have us see.

Jesus' Way is God's Way--May 8, 2026

Jesus' Way is God's Way--May 8, 2026

Thomas said to [Jesus], “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own, but the Father who dwells in me does his works." (John 14:5-10)

Sometimes, learning about church history is embarrassing, and more often than not it is humbling.  When you think you have discovered some profound insight about the Mystery of God, frequently you find out that someone else not only said it already, perhaps centuries before you, but also that they said with more precision and elegance than you could muster. Other times, you shake your head in dismay at the tedious and picayune points of doctrine over which earlier generations fought--and often excommunicated each other, or even killed each other.

And then there are times when it becomes perfectly clear why those earlier generations of saints insisted on their theological positions and took the time to spell out precisely what they meant in the creeds and confessions they crafted.  This passage, which many of us heard this past Sunday in worship, reminds me of those times.  I say that because the early church truly struggled and wrestled with itself when it arrived at the conclusion that Jesus really and truly is the fullness of God in a human life.  The words of the ancient Creed, "God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God; begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father," might at first seem like they are belaboring the point, but there is something crucial about their insistence that Jesus really is fully God. They were, of course, just following the implications of what Jesus says here in John's Gospel--"I am in the Father and the Father is in me," and "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father." But they also understood that the Good News hangs on this claim: the Gospel loses its power if Jesus is simply another voice offering religious opinions or even a semi-divine heavenly Vice-President of Human Affairs.  If indeed, "whoever has seen [Jesus] has seen the Father," then God really has that close to our humanity, and God really has entered into our fragile, humble, finite existence as one of us. I can understand why the theologians and pastors of the early church didn't want to get that question wrong.

The other implication of these words of Jesus from his last night with his disciples before the arrest in the garden is what they tell us, not so much about Jesus, but what they tell us about God.  If Jesus is right that "whoever has seen me has seen the Father," then Jesus truly is a glimpse of God's character.  Jesus shows us what God is like.  He is, you might say, what God looks like when projected onto the screen of history, or what it sounds like to hear God played in the key of humanity. In other words, what Jesus is, that's what God is.  The way Jesus loves--that's how God loves.  The table fellowship Jesus keeps with all the "wrong" people, the sinners, outcasts, rejects, and mess-ups--that's God's choice of dinner companions.  The way Jesus refuses to answer evil with evil; the way he lays down his life rather than zapping his enemies; the way he puts himself in the lowest place to serve rather than needing to put others down for the sake of his ego--that's all what God is really like. Mere hours before Jesus lets himself be arrested and stops the disciples trying to fight back with their weapons, Jesus has told those same disciples, "I am in the Father and the Father is in me." It's hard to avoid the implication that God's way of dealing with enemies is not to obliterate them but to die for them.

And again, a claim like that is so big, so grand, and so audacious that I can understand why the first few generations of Christians wanted to take the time to get their wording right and be clear about what they really believed. It really does change everything if the words of Jesus here in John 14 are taken seriously.  It means that there are no lengths God was not willing to go to for our sake, and it also means that we can no longer pretend that God is as selfish, violent, greedy, and apathetic as we can be.  If God's way of responding to a dominating empire, a bloodthirsty lynch-mob, and a closed-minded religious establishment is to go to a cross for us all, then we can't turn God into our mascot to zap the people we don't like, or pretend that God is in support of our own empire-like tendencies. Or, to get to the heart of things, if Jesus shows us what God is truly like, then we can't keep mentally remaking God in the likeness of our own greed, cruelty, selfishness, and indifference. And we can't keep using that idolatrous false image to justify those sins in ourselves.  We'll have to admit that God simply isn't interested in "making religion big" in some generic or abstract sense, no matter how pious that might sound; God is interested in making us more fully Christ-like.

So, here's the question for us today: are we willing to take Jesus seriously here?  Are we willing to follow the progression of his own words, as the wise and diligent minds of the early church did, to accept the implications of saying that if we have seen Jesus, we have seen the Father?  And can we dare to allow our understanding of God to be re-formed in the likeness of Jesus--the way he loves, the way he acts, the way he lays down his life?

If we do, it is likely to change everything.  And it is certain to change us.

Lord Jesus, help us to see the fullness of God in you, and to be remade ourselves in your likeness.

A Person More Than a Place--May 7, 2026

A Person More Than a Place--May 7, 2026

[Jesus said to the disciples:] “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. (John 14:1-3)

The "where" turns out to be defined in terms of the "who."

Did you notice that?  As Jesus comforts his closest friends during his final hours with them before the arrest from the authorities and the lynch-mob in the garden, he gives them hope based on being with him in the Father's house. But notice that even though we might be quick to just call that "heaven," Jesus doesn't exactly use that language.  He doesn't put the emphasis on going to a different location but rather on being with a particular person--himself, and thereby, to be in the presence of God. For that matter, there are no details about the accommodations, other than that there is enough room for plenty of people, since God's house apparently has "many dwelling places."  It sounds like a typical first-century multi-generation house, in which the father and mother of a family would have the original house and then as their children married and had kids of their own, often they would add rooms onto the same big structure. The house itself would expand to accommodate the new additions to the family who would marry into the family or be born into the next generation. That's the kind of imagery that Jesus gives us here.

But notice here, then, that the point of the image is on the relational connection--that we are all in one family house because we are all in one family--rather than on the cash value of the estate or the opulence of the furnishings.  An older translation of this passage rendered this as "many mansions," even though the word Jesus uses here is the word for "abodes," "dwelling places," or even "rooms." The emphasis, in other words, isn't on everybody getting to have their own fancy mansion in heaven--that sounds more like the materialistic focus of our age, in which we want to picture the afterlife as some sort of payoff for our good behavior.  You don't catch any hint from Jesus of these dwelling places have gates of pearl, driveways of gold, or gemstone-encrusted plumbing fixtures.  Jesus doesn't give us any description other than the personal one--this is the "Father's house" and we will be where Jesus is. That's what makes this a word of hope.  Like the old Dave Matthews Band lyric had it, "Turns out not where but who you're with that really matters--and hurt's not much when you're around."  Jesus seems to think in the same terms.

I think it is worth us considering this for a moment, because all too often in our culture, the Christian faith is framed as a means of transportation rather than a promise of Christ as the companion on the journey, so to speak.  An awful lot of Respectable Religious Folks will try and peddle their faith as "the way to get to heaven," which is decidedly about location.  It's a "where" sort of answer rather than a "who" sort; it makes the focus on the place rather than the person.  So we end up with hymns, songs, sermons, and artwork that focus on the fancy accommodations. "I've got a mansion over the hilltop," sings one famous one, "I want a gold one that's silver lined." And to me, that's a little bit like saying you're excited to go on your honeymoon because there are going to be free soaps in the hotel room--I mean, it's not necessarily wrong, but it does seem like it's missing the point. One hopes the newlyweds are happiest to get to be together, wherever it is they are traveling, and not nearly so much excited about the honey-roasted peanuts in the mini-bar or the complimentary mouthwash by the sink. It is about the person with whom you are sharing the space, not the point on the map or the appraisal value of the building.

The other thing that happens when we put the focus on the "where" of an afterlife eternal destination rather than the "who" of Christ who promises we will be with him is that it can turn this life into just something to be gotten through as quickly as possible, rather than a gift to be savored, appreciated, and used to the fullest now.  We are not just waiting until after our death to experience life in the abundant way Jesus intends, and we are not just supposed to keep our heads own and sneak through our years as quietly as possible either.  We are sent, with Jesus beside us, to serve... to witness... to love... to enjoy.  If I only see the Christian life as a matter of getting my ticket so that I can eventually end up somewhere else,  I will miss out on the ways I am called to share in the mission of Christ now, as well as the beauty and blessedness of each day's journey.  But if I think of every day as another opportunity to be with Jesus, since I trust his promise to accompany me now as well as beyond death, then the present moment will be richer, more precious, and more important to make the most of.

I've got to be honest: I really don't know a great deal specifically about the literal details or metaphysical workings of life beyond death. I don't know (because I don't believe the Scriptures are terribly interested in giving us this sort of detail) how our "resurrection bodies" will work, what they will need or not need, or whether we will give any thought to things like clothing, shelter, food, and drink.  I have a suspicion that the off-hand references we get in the Scriptures of the great banquet or the people in clean white robes are less intended as literal predictions and more intended to describe in physical and tangible terms things that are beyond the realm of human language. But what we do get, over and over in the Scriptures, is the recurring promise that whatever life is like beyond the grip of death, we will be with Jesus--and Jesus will bring us into the full presence of God. Maybe that's what really matters, rather than comparing "mansions" or measuring pearly gates. Perhaps like seeing the full moon, without shadow, cloud, or eclipse, we will see that we have been in the presence of God who has always been there all along, but without any hindrances to our eyes.

Today, how could we see our lives of faith less in terms of "How do I use Jesus in order to get into heaven?" but rather, "How will I experience Jesus being with me now, and how will my confidence of being with Jesus forever give me courage to face this day's work and opportunities?" I have a hunch that the second question will make for a life well-lived even now.

Lord Jesus, allow us to trust today in your promise of being with you forever, and let that be enough.

God's Refugee Policy--May 6, 2026

God's Refugee Policy--May 6, 2026

"But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.  Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.  Beloved, I urge you as aliens and exiles to abstain from the desires of the flesh that wage war against the soul." (1 Peter 2:9-11)

"Every heart," says Leonard Cohen, "every heart to love will come... but like a refugee."

That lyric from the haunting Cohen classic, "Anthem," gets it right.  And, even more to the point for the followers of Jesus, that means acknowledging that we are the refugees.

The whole of the Christian story, according to the New Testament letter/sermon/treatise/mission-statement that we call 1 Peter, is the story of God in Christ calling and claiming a band of refugees and welcoming them into this Christ's country, making them his own people. Many of us heard these words this past Sunday in worship, but maybe it's worth slowing down to consider what is being said here. To be a Christian, 1 Peter would tell us, is to be a refugee and to be honest enough to say it out loud.  We are refugees, aliens, and exiles, people without a home in the world around us, who have been given a new identity and belonging in Christ.  Almost like a whole new creation story, 1 Peter says we had been called "out of darkness" and into God's "marvelous light." 

We were "not a people," he says.  That doesn't just mean individually we were regarded as "nobodies," (although that may be true, and it certainly does seem that the God of the Scriptures has a particular concern and love for the people treated as "nobodies" by the world), but it means also that we weren't a people--we had nothing on our own to bind us together to give us identity, belonging, or a place of home.  I remember several years ago, during a previous summer Olympics, when there were athletes competing who had been forced to flee from their home countries as refugees and who competed together as a team representing a "refugee nation." They had a flag--designed in orange and black as a symbolic callback to the life-jackets many had to wear in escaping war zones or disaster areas in boats, and even a "Refugee National Anthem" that a composer had written.  It was this real-life picture of the longing we all feel to be "a people," to belong somewhere, and to know that we are not alone.  Well, 1 Peter says that is our story--all of us.  Aliens in the world, exiles, strangers--trusting the promise that we will be brought to Love, but knowing that it will, as Cohen sings it, "like refugees."

"But now," says the old apostle... but now we are no less and none other than God's people.  We have been made citizens, granted a welcome, graced with permanent belonging, within the Kingdom, the Reign, of the living God.  That is not something you achieve--it is something you are given.  It is a matter of what the Ruling Authority of the Realm in question says about you.  And of course, that's just it--the Ruler of the Realm has the authority simply to declare that you belong, by calling you a citizen, a member, a part of the realm.  That is easy to do--it is simply a question of whether a Ruler does, or does not, have the will to do so.

But so that we are perfectly on this, 1 Peter says that every Christian--every last sister and brother who names the name of Jesus--is in fact simply a refugee, an alien, whom Christ has claimed and called to belong to his realm, his kingdom.  Jesus' word is enough to make us belong.  That is because Christ is a good and decent Ruler--his is the kind of Reign that not only makes room for strangers and aliens like us, but actively seeks us and calls us his own, even though we all come from varied places, languages, backgrounds, nations, and abilities. The Jesus Administration has a clear policy of welcoming refugees and making them permanent citizens, you could say--there's nobody in Christ's Kingdom who isn't one!  There is nobody in Christ's family who isn't a foundling--someone who belongs, not on the basis of DNA (or language, skin color, culture, or national origin), but on the basis of his love that claims us to belong to him.

It's important for us--no, vital--to understand that this is how the Bible itself describes us, because otherwise we end up thinking that Jesus' call is reserved for just some--some nationalities, some languages, some skill-sets, some income-levels, or some skin colors.  We end up thinking that "Christian" is a synonym for "people who look and dress and shop and think like I do... because, after all, I am a Christian, so they all must be like me."  But that's not how 1 Peter sees it.  These verses remind us that "once we were not a people"--that is to say, we are not Christians because we share one language or music style or hair color or facial complexion or culture.  Rather, we who have been gathered from all over creation, who were never really at home, have been given a new kind of belonging and a new identity in Christ.

That's precisely how the early church saw itself, mind you.  In the second century, a letter now known simply as "The Letter to Diognetus" was written as a sort of self-description of the growing Christian movement. And here is how the anonymous author describes us, we followers of Jesus:

"Christians are indistinguishable from other people either by nationality, language or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life. Their teaching is not based upon reveries inspired by the curiosity of humans. Unlike some other people, they champion no purely human doctrine. With regard to dress, food and manner of life in general, they follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living in, whether it is Greek or foreign.... And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labor under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country.”

We have a way of confusing "Christian" with "American" or "middle-class" or "people who also buy their jeans at Wal-mart like I do," and then assuming that Jesus is only interested in calling people who are like that to belong on his team.  We have a way of assuming that churches are only supposed to grow by bringing in more of the same kind of people "like me"--as though "Christian" were a nationality or an ethnicity, rather than being a radical in-gathering of aliens and exiles declared to be citizens of the Reign of God. But the call is always wider and bigger than we want to make it.  It takes us, from our varied locations, lifestyles, loves, likes, lands, and languages, and makes us belong in a new kind of realm, a new kind of citizenship altogether.  

Jesus isn't just looking for people like me. He calls all of us from wherever we have been and he draws us into the Reign of his love. Like being called from a war-zone into a safe new country--and told you can call it "home" now, forever. Maybe even like being called out of darkness, and into a marvelous light... and marvelous Love.

And indeed, like the song says, every heart... every heart, to such Love will come... but like a refugee.

Lord Jesus, remind us again of just how big your Kingdom is... and just how varied and beautiful the people are within it, we whom you have called together to make into a people.

Jesus, the Chief Misfit Toy--May 5, 2026

Jesus, the Chief Misfit Toy--May 5, 2026

"Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." (1 Peter 2:4-5)

Let's start here: if you've been rejected before, Jesus still seeks you out and wants you. If you've been told you're not acceptable, Jesus doesn't hold other people's opinions against you and sees you as he always has--beloved. If you've been kicked out, left behind, or had the door closed in your face, Jesus invites you to be a part of his new construction project--and in fact, to get in on the ground floor.

And not only is all of that true, but Jesus himself knows what it is to be rejected by humanity... and still he doesn't hold that against our race or give up on us. He is still intent on making something beautiful and good out of all of us. Jesus is not embarrassed at all that his family looks a lot like the Island of Misfit Toys--he himself is the chief misfit toy, and he still seeks out even the ones who rejected him alongside others who have been turned away before.

If that sounds too good to be true--too great a love, too wide an embrace, too inclusive a welcome, maybe--then it's time to take a closer look at exactly what the voice we call First Peter says in this passage. In these words, which many of us heard this past Sunday in worship, the biblical writer makes two bold and gutsy claims. First of all, he issues a blanket welcome, "Come to him"--that is, to Jesus. You'll notice that there aren't other qualifiers there, no fine print, and no asterisks, either. First Peter doesn't say, "Come to him, if you're at least making B average..." or "Come to him, provided that you pass the morality exam..." or "Come to him, as long as you're from the right family, the right neighborhood, or the right political persuasion." He just says, "Come to him," taking it for granted that there's a welcome there.

Right off the bat that is a big deal, not only in the writer's original setting of the first century, but in our own time as well. In the early church, of course, the growing Christian community had really wrestled with the question of who was welcome in the household, and whether they were supposed to be more like a Country Club for the Saints or a Community Kitchen for Sinners. And despite the fact that it broken open old assumptions about what who was "good enough," the Christian community realized eventually that the Spirit wasn't just including people of Jewish background, but people of every ethnicity, culture, ancestry, and language. Samaritans, who had long been seen as enemies and outcasts, were welcomed in. Gentiles, who were deemed outsiders, pagans, or worse, were also to find a place among the followers of Jesus. The church really meant it--at least in its best moments back in the first century--that Jesus' welcome was inclusive of anybody and everybody.

That's still a tall order for most folks to imagine in this day and age. Especially in a time like ours that feels so polarized, so splintered, and so quick to slap labels on us, it's hard to believe that the Bible itself is the voice leading the charge to open the doors wide and say, "There's room for all of you, so come to him...." And yet... that's exactly what these verses say. It's a broad invitation without hoops or hurdles, and it's meant to include people who have been told before that they weren't good enough, didn't measure up, or didn't fit the cookie cutter mold. So, yeah, if you've been told before that you weren't acceptable, the Scriptures themselves here are saying, "Well, God doesn't think so. God isn't going to let the opinion of other people get in the way of your coming to Jesus. Come--the only One whose vote counts already says you belong."

Like I say, that by itself is a radical word that we too easily forget (or ignore) in our own day. But the next move that First Peter makes is the coup de grace, because the One to whom we are drawn has also been rejected before. The way First Peter describes Jesus here is as "a living stone, rejected by mortals but chosen by God." That's Jesus we're talking about--Jesus, the very Son of God, knows what it is to be rejected. Jesus can relate. He identifies with every last one of us who knows what it is to be last picked, first cut, or stood up. He knows what it feels like to be ghosted by admirers and abandoned by friends. And yet Jesus keeps putting himself out there, at the risk of great pain and heartbreak to himself and repeated rejections all over again, for the sake of getting through to us. Like I say, he's the Chief of the Misfit Toys, gathering all the rest of us to belong with him, as he builds something good and true and beautiful out of all of our chipped edges and broken parts. And nothing--not humanity's past rejection of Jesus, not other people's rejection of you--is holding him back from reaching out his hand to you and to me.

This is not only how you and I are loved--it's how everybody you meet is loved, too. And honestly, for a lot of people we meet, who have only heard condemnation, rejection, or dismissal from Respectable Religious People before, maybe it's time they heard a different word--one right from the Scriptures--that reminds them all of the truth. Jesus himself knows what it is to be rejected, and he still seeks us out. And Jesus himself makes the invitation to people who know how it feels to be dismissed and declared unworthy or unacceptable. And to all of us who have ever been in that place before, he simply speaks this invitation: Come to me.

Lord Jesus, let us speak your wide welcome and open-armed embrace to everyone we meet--especially the ones who know, like you, what it feels like to be rejected.