The Crucial Difference--January 30, 2026

The Crucial Difference--January 30, 2026

"For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." (1 Corinthians 1:18)

The world has some assumptions about how things get done. 

For example, the world's loud voices these days insist that the way to succeed is through brute force. You shoot first, and ask questions later... or preferably not at all.  You get the other guy before they get you.  You look out for your own interests, and you bully everybody else until they give in and surrender what you want.  Conventional wisdom calls all of that being a "winner," and it can't stand the thought of being called a "loser."  The loud voices, the talking heads on TV, and the bombastic barkers at podiums will all insist that in "the real world," this is just how things have to be--you resort to force, coercion, and threats, and you do it before the other side can do it to you.

To such a perspective, the notion of a God who saves the world by dying for it sounds like nonsense, pure and simple. It looks weak. It seems like defeat. It makes God to be a loser, rather than a winner. And the logic of the world just can't accept that.

It's interesting to me that one of the titles Caesar applied to himself was "Savior." If you asked the Empire what a Savior looked like, Rome's response would have been, "Salvation is when we come to conquer you, and the emperor leading the charge is the savior.  Hail Caesar, the Savior of the World!"  For the Empire looming in the background when Paul wrote this letter, "saving" was about applying brute force to make others do what you wanted them to do. The Romans were proud of "saving" the lands and peoples they conquered from any undesirable barbarian opposition. They were bringing "civilization," "prosperity," and "health" to all whom they conquered. And they seriously thought that made them the liberators, the good guys, the saviors.  I suppose if you tell yourself long enough that you are unquestionably the hero, you start to believe it--and from there, it's easy to assume that anybody you are opposed to is a villain, and your very act of vanquishing them is what makes you a savior.  It's terribly circular logic, but that's how empires think.

The Christian claim, by contrast, sounds completely bonkers to that sort of worldview.  Instead of the Savior as the one commanding armies, killing enemies, and defeating any and all resistance, the One whom Christians confess as Savior got crucified by the empire, praying for God's forgiveness for his executioners, breaking the cycle of violence, and laying down his life rather than taking somebody else's.  That's the crucial (literally) difference: the world insists that victory looks like zapping your adversaries to show them you are more powerful, and the message of the cross says that God's victory comes as Jesus puts his body between the murderous powers of death and those who are in its target sights.  There are two competing pictures of strength out there in the world, you could say: one insists that power means you obliterate your opponents to make everyone else fall in line, and the alternative says that real strength looks like offering up your life to shield and guard someone else and make sure that they are going to be ok. Paul insists that the power of God is the latter of the two, and you see it supremely in the cross of Christ.

To be a follower of Jesus is to be called to share in an upside-down point of view.  We are called, not just to recite a creed that Jesus is Lord and Savior, but to recognize that if we confess Jesus as Lord and Savior, then we are committed to his way of saving rather than the world's kind.  We will be the ones who lay down our lives for others, but we will not give in to bullying and intimidating others.  We will be the ones who shield others with our bodies, but we will not be the ones to threaten or harm.  We will interrupt the age-old cycles of violence and retribution, but we will not repeat them. And even when the loudest voices of the world tell us that we look like fools for that sort of cross-shaped way of life, we'll know that in truth we are tapped into the real power of God.

Today those two competing pictures of power are on display. The choice for us is this: whose version of strength will guide us today--the conquering sort used by every empire in history, or the cross-shaped kind revealed in Christ Jesus?

Lord Jesus, enable us to see the world through your kind of power--the self-giving love of the cross.

The Next Step--January 29, 2026

The Next Step--January 29, 2026

"What I mean is that each of you says, 'I belong to Paul,' or 'I belong to Apollos,' or 'I belong to Cephas,' or 'I belong to Christ.' Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?" [1 Corinthians 1:12-13]

There's a contradiction I live with every day, and I might as well say it out loud here at the outset for honesty's sake. I get Paul's point here, about not lining ourselves up into teams according to the names of people who happened to have taught us, people who happened to have been our initiators into the faith. I understand that there's danger in breaking Christianity into a million little shards, based on whose slightly different "take" on the gospel we follow, because it will lead us to--well, exactly where Christianity is today in the world, especially in the late days of the American empire: a bunch of people fighting with each other over both big and little things so often that they can no longer tell which are the differences they can set aside, and which are the ones holding the line for. I understand all of Paul's reasoning for why we shouldn't go around labeling ourselves according to whose school of thought we ascribe to, or which tradition or person we most associate with.

And yet, here I am, a pastor in a tradition named for a specific individual, who is not Jesus (Martin Luther), that helps to identify my particular understanding of the way of Jesus. Paul might very well be disappointed in me for being a "Lutheran" pastor, although he would then also have to be upset with every other Christian group--including the ones who think they have outsmarted him by just naming their particular brand "non-denominational" or "Christian" while still having all the same hallmarks of a denomination. Here we are, people whose way of being church is in direct contradiction to Paul's warning here about claiming that we belong to these other sub-groupings, still trying to wrestle a blessing out of his words and to see how we may need to change our way of being church in light of what he has to say.

And while we're at it poking bears and all, we should probably also note that contemporary Christianity has added a whole mess of other labels that are intended only to sound like neutral adjectives or general descriptions rather than denominations or groups, but in practice cause the same kind of division that Paul is upset about as he writes to the Corinthians. We have labels like "evangelical" or "Protestant" or "mainline" or "Pentecostal," or "liberal" or "conservative," or "progressive" or "Bible-believing," and as often as not those labels are used as sharpened weapons to criticize others (those you want to judge as "non-Bible-believing" or "too traditional" or whatever). Of course, at least those labels are honest, more or less, about the additional layers we are adding to our understanding of the Christian faith. Most dangerous of all, I think, is the temptation to assume my particular set of beliefs is the only right one, and therefore that MY group is the "true Christan perspective" and to call myself "Christian" without any other modifiers or labels because I'm convinced anyone who disagrees is damned to hell. At least a label, like "Lutheran" or "Methodist" or "Catholic" or "Ukrainian Orthodox" says something about the particular branch of the family tree from which you come without necessarily saying that everyone else is doing it wrong.

In Paul's day, the divisions were over different details, but the pattern is the same. When Paul had gotten word from an important church leader named Chloe about the factions developing in Corinth, they were lining up into groups according to which early Christian leaders had first brought them into the faith--Paul, a preacher named Apollos, Peter (Cephas in the Aramaic), or somebody else. And of course, too, there were people making the move of saying that they belonged to Christ, while giving a side-eye to everybody else as though they were NOT truly Christian. So we've been here before. I don't know whether that's comforting or disheartening, but we've been in the position of fragmenting since the beginning it seems. And Paul has been calling us to question those divisions, and whether they have cost us our allegiance to Jesus, for twenty centuries now.

I think that's the piece that we can't ignore in all of this. We may well find it helpful to own the traditions we come from, and the importance of those whose perspectives have shaped our own. It's helpful for me to be able to say from the get-go that I have been influenced by the tradition that grew out of Martin Luther, like it's helpful for folks who have been shaped by John Wesley or Saint Francis of Assisi or Gustavo Gutierrez or Teresa of Avila to be able to say that as well. But I think Paul's point is that these voices are never an end-goal for emulating. The goal for me as a Lutheran Christian isn't to become more like Martin Luther, but to become more like Jesus. The goal for my Methodist, Presbyterian, Nazarene, Catholic, Baptist, non-denominational, and progressive siblings in Christ isn't to become simply better at promoting our own brand, but to become more like Jesus, and more shaped by his love. Where my own tradition is helpful for that, great--I need to listen to my tradition for ways it helps me grow in the love of Christ and the way of Jesus. Where other peoples' traditions are helpful, especially in revealing the blind-spots and hidden corners of my own perspective, I need to listen to the input and voices from those other traditions to help me deal with the things I cannot see in myself that keep me from being more fully like Jesus. And where any of our traditions are hindrances, we need to be able to keep revising, re-forming (this is why traditions like those from the 16th century movement had a slogan "semper reformanda"--always reforming), and re-envisioning what it looks like to follow Jesus, to be loved by Jesus, and to love like Jesus.

And Jesus does have a particularity to him. His way does have a particular direction. Jesus may not have left commandments chiseled in stone about the proper rate for the capital gains tax or the amount of water we should use in baptizing, but he does have a particular way of being in the world--marked by love for all, truth-telling even when it is costly, humility in serving, commitment to doing justice especially for the most vulnerable, and a welcome to the least, the lost, and the left-out. Where my tradition as a "Lutheran kind of Christian" helps me to embody that more fully, great, I should dig in deep and put roots down. And where my tradition keeps me from, holds me back, or gets in the way of living out that Jesus-shaped way of life, I need to be able to let go of the pieces that are obstacles.

I don't want to be naive and suggest that all we need is just to try to be like Jesus more and all of our disagreements will fall away (and I'll be shown to be right in all of my particular beliefs, of course). But I do think that the only honest way forward has to keep Jesus at the center of our view. That will mean we practice a willingness to keep examining ourselves and being open to the possibility that we may be wrong about something, or that others may show us something that brings Jesus into focus more clearly. It will mean, too, that we constantly be willing to look and look again at whether we have made our particular social or political commitments more important than Jesus, or whether we have tried to baptize our agendas and then force Jesus to fit into the mold they make for him. It will mean recognizing that people of other cultures, languages, backgrounds, and life experiences have things to show us about following Jesus, or perhaps that they will be able to point out things getting in the way of our following that we don't even recognize are there. And it will mean surrendering our illusion that "my" way of following Jesus is the only way to follow Jesus.

That's the challenge for today--and again, it can't ever be the "last step," but it is maybe the next step for today--is to commit to looking at Jesus, and seeking for us to see what helps us to love more like he does, and what things in our lives (or our traditions, our culture, our background, and our politics) are keeping us from loving like Jesus. That at least keeps our focus in the right place.

Lord Jesus, we offer you our selves and all that makes us--our traditions and backgrounds, our life experiences, and even our sense of "right-ness." Help us sift through it all, to hold onto what is good, and to be able to let go of whatever has taken your place.

Where We Start From--January 28, 2026

Where We Start From--January 28, 2026

"Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you but that you be knit together in the same mind and the same purpose. For it has been made clear to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters." (1 Corinthians 1:10-11) 

I'll be honest: it's kind of hard for me to read these words, or to have heard them in worship like many of us did this past Sunday in worship, while also keeping my eyes open at the actual world in front of me. Here in this passage from Paul's first letter to the Corinthian Christians, he pleads for them to be "knit together in the same mind and the same purpose" with "no divisions," and the moment I turn on the television, read the news, or scroll on my social media feed, it feels like we are tearing ourselves apart in a host of different ways all at once.

Let's name one of the biggest elephants in the room as an example. We are living in a time of deep unrest erupting in places like Minneapolis, and now we have witnessed several lives taken, including those of American citizens, in recent weeks, shot by agents of our government as part of operations meant to crack down on illegal immigration. And part of what makes it especially difficult is knowing that there are folks who name the name of Jesus who view those events very differently--in ways that seem diametrically opposed.  Some watch the events in the news and their understanding of the faith frames it all in terms of protecting law and order and submitting to civil authorities. Others are outraged at the shooting of civilians or the detainment of young children and hear the words of Jesus, "Whatever you did to the least of these, you did to me," echoing in the background. We end up with people, who all go to church on Sundays, viewing the exact same events from very different perspectives, some cheering on the federal agents as they detain immigrants in the name of supporting God-given authorities and others supporting those who are trying to provide for their families or who put their bodies at risk to protect others from possible mistreatment because they see them all as God-given neighbors. It is awfully difficult to hear Paul's prayer for Christian unity when we see the events of the day, often including the same video footage, and have come to interpret them in completely different ways, shaped by different emphases in our our supposedly common faith.  That isn't just hard; it is often heartbreaking.

And of course, that feels like it is only the very freshest layer of discord between groups who all claim the title "Christian." We are fragmented along partisan lines and labels like blue and red states. We are fractured into Christian denominations, who seem increasingly unable (or unwilling) to work together, even within the same branch of the family tree. (I think of how even among Lutherans we have a splintered witness and cannot share common fellowship in many ways, not to mention our differences from other Christian groups.)  And you can add onto all of those the differences and disagreements we have on matters of taste and style: "traditional" versus "contemporary" worship, formal versus informal, "high-church" liturgy versus "low-church" seeker friendly atmosphere, and our perennial inability to agree on a color of carpet for the church social hall. All of these divisions seem to make a mockery of Paul's urging that there be "no divisions" among us who name the same "Lord Jesus Christ."

So what are we to do about all of this?  Is it all a naive pipe dream to imagine Christians having the "same mind and purpose" when we are split from each other on issues from the liturgical and the theological to the ethical and the political?  Is it empty wishful thinking that we could still be "knit together"?  After all, some observers today would even say that we cannot speak of a single thing called "Christianity" any longer, but of many different "Christianities," each of which has a claim of continuity with the twenty-century history of the church, even though they are often in sharp disagreement with one another? Are they all valid versions of Christianity? Does any building with a cross on the steeple have an authentic witness to the gospel? At what point are our differences merely matters of taste and preference, and where do they become matters over which Christianity stands or falls--and how would we know?  I find myself hearing these words of Paul's and sometimes feeling like he didn't know how hard we would have it, or what sorts of controversies we would face.  I find myself thinking, "Paul, it sure sounds lovely to imagine that all Christians could be of the same mind and purpose, but in our time it feels like we are living in completely different worlds from the folks who see things differently. We can't even agree on what the facts of reality are, so of course we can't agree on how to respond to them!"

And then something happens.

For one, when I read these words of Paul's, it occurs to me that he is also writing at a time of deep divisions within the early church--and it probably felt even more precarious to him because there was no track record of the church enduring through those divisions when he wrote.  I can at least point to some glimpses of persistent, enduring Christianity over the last two millennia, in spite of all of our schisms and splits, while Paul and the church in Corinth was very much making all of this up as they went along.  Paul, too, knew that the church of his day was splintered along lines of culture, language, practice, politics, and practice.  Paul, too, had to watch groups forming at the First Church of Corinth, and he was worried that the splintering might never stop.  Oddly enough, that gives me hope--because it reminds me that Paul was not naive when he wrote his plea for being "knit together." He didn't live in some idyllic time of perfect Christian unity and assume it was easy to maintain--he lived through a time, just a few years after Jesus' own ministry, when it felt like the Christian experiment might break apart as it spread to include formerly outcast Gentiles and learned to appeal to citizens of the Roman Empire beyond Judea.  That Paul--the one who has wept and struggled and suffered for the sake of holding the Christian community together--is the one who hasn't given up on the prayer for being "knit together" and having "the same mind and purpose." Even at my most despairing, I can't forget that.

The other thing that hits me as I read these words of Paul's in context with the fragmentation of our own time is that the apostle does give us direction for where our shared mind and purpose will come from: he points us to the particularity of Jesus.  Not merely as a brand-name or a mascot or an empty vessel for us to fill with whatever meaning or value we wish. Not as a means of baptizing our own agendas and calling them "God's will" because it's what we wanted to do already.  But Paul keeps pointing us to Jesus, and the particular character of Jesus' way in the world, as the thing that will hold us together. He doesn't merely throw his hands up with a shrug and say, "We will just have to agree to disagree on everything, as long as we can recite the Creed and wear our cross necklaces." Paul is convinced that the way of Jesus has a certain trajectory to it, one which is always characterized by self-giving love, care for the most vulnerable, and a willingness to lay down our lives for others rather than to dominate them. That means something. It gives clarity to how we view the events unfolding around us and our place within them.

In Paul's own day, for example, that meant that the Christians in Corinth were called upon to share some of their resources with the folks around Jerusalem who were living through a famine (see more about that later in the Corinthian epistles). Following Jesus had a certain trajectory to it, which would lead Christians to give toward others' need rather than hoarding for themselves alone.  Or when it came to including Gentile foreigners (non-Jewish people) into the church, Paul again was convinced that the character of Jesus was the definitive reason why all were now to be welcomed rather than just people from one language, nation, or culture.  Paul was convinced that the way of Jesus really did--and still does--give us the clarity to shape our perspective in the world.  It leads us always to compassion rather than cruelty, always to answer with good rather than evil, always to heal rather than to wound, and always to lay down our lives rather than to take the lives of others. That will help us as we face the events of any given day to know what truly fits with the perspective of Jesus... and what does not.  

Paul reminds us that it is the particular person of Jesus Christ through which we see the meanings of events and decide how to act within them.  And Paul sure does seem to believe that the particularity of Jesus really can give us the guidance to make sense of the world without being fragmented into countless feuding factions.  The question we might need to ask--and to keep asking, day after day and generation after generation--is how the perspective of Jesus frames the way we will see the day before us.  Rather than starting with what the talking heads on television tell me I should believe about an event or a headline and then looking for ways to slap a cross on it, we are called to start with the kind of love Jesus embodies and to let that become the lens through which we see.  Paul is convinced it really will make a difference to let Jesus be the place we start from. I won't pretend that is always easy, or that simply invoking the name of Christ will make our disagreements vanish into thin air like a magic spell. But I do believe, and with Paul I think, that the particular character of Jesus really does give us direction for making sense of the world if we are willing to see all of life through his lens.  

And because Paul gives us the witness of his own time when the church struggled through division, we know that this isn't merely a naive wish.  It is possible to do the hard work of seeing life through the lens of Jesus.  It is possible to find common ground where we are, if we are willing both to ask how folks who see things differently from us are trying to act in light of the way of Jesus, and if we are willing to ask that hard question of ourselves.  Sometimes the people we have the sharpest disagreements with really are trying to live out of their faith, and they have latched onto a different element of our Christian heritage. Even if we don't see eye to eye, it does make a difference to see that others are doing their best to try to follow Jesus.  From there, we can ask the deeper questions of what values are priorities for Jesus, and which things are secondary or on the periphery for him.  But it does something to humanize those we struggle with the most to ask, "How did you get to this conviction?" and for those who share our faith in Christ to ask, "Help me to see how you see your faith in Christ leading you to this conclusion?" When we can listen and answer that question ourselves, at least we are starting in the right place.

Lord Jesus, we long for clarity in the midst of the many kinds of disagreements and divisions among us--and the stakes are very high.  Give us the humility to listen, the courage to speak, and the willingness to let you shape our common vision in the light of your particular way in the world.

The People Jesus Chooses--January 27, 2026

The People Jesus Chooses--January 27, 2026

As [Jesus] walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fishers. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of people.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him. (Matthew 4:18-22)

You can tell a great deal about a person by the people they choose.

Whether it's the sort of people you pick to be your closest and most trusted friends, the profiles of the prospective employees you select to work with you, the character of the person you marry, or the individuals appointed to specific offices in the government, the kinds of people who get tapped in each of those situations reveals something about the person doing the tapping. When your favorite team spends all their money on acquiring the talents of a single extraordinary player, it sends the message that they are pinning all their hopes on one person to carry the franchise and generate ticket sales rather than building a team.  If the newly-elected governor gets rid of long-time civil servants in important roles and replaces them with campaign donors, you suspect they are more interested in repaying cronies or getting favors than with good governance.  Or when the new company CEO who promised to hire the best and the brightest instead only seems to hire or promote their own family members and friends, you can't avoid the feeling of nepotism. 

Maybe even deeper, the kind of people who are chosen sends a message about how the chooser sees the world or their purpose in it.  In the old days, if the king's council of advisors only had generals and military commanders in it, you could tell he was preparing for war. If the king was primarily appointing merchants, moneylenders, and money managers, you could infer he saw the world more in economic terms of wealth and poverty.  And if you had a king who surrounded himself with artists, poets, and philosophers, well, it would send a different message still. We might debate what precise mix of culture, coin, and combat is the ideal balance, but the point stands--the people you choose to share in your work reveal something about what you believe your work really is.

On that count, I think Jesus is no different. There is purpose and intention to all of Jesus' choices--even when those choices surprise us or seem foolish in the eyes of conventional wisdom.  In other words, when Jesus calls the likes of Peter, Andrew, James, and John, as many of us heard in worship this past Sunday, he is saying something about the kind of community he intends to build.  The twist, of course, is that Jesus doesn't choose anybody because of their skill, their smarts, their strength, or their savoir-faire. The first disciples aren't experts on the market or military tacticians. They are neither pious priests nor cunning conquerors. There's reason to believe they couldn't even read. The reason Jesus chooses them is precisely their ordinariness, which includes their frequent fear, regular doubts, and more often than not, their astonishing ability to miss the point. This is how Jesus begins his movement--intentionally.

Why would Jesus do something like this, when he conceivably could have only admitted the best and the brightest, the rich and the famous, or the ones who looked like "winners"? I'm convinced this is the way Jesus makes it clear that God's Reign is for anybodies and Jesus' everybodies. Look at these grubby fishermen, who probably smell like seaweed and sweat as Jesus calls to them--these are the first-round draft picks?  The conclusion is obvious: Jesus' community is not an exclusive country club for the well-heeled or a boot camp for an angry army of the Lord. It's a found family of outcasts and ordinaries, of sinners and screw-ups and people just struggling to get by. We do not audition to prove our worthiness to get in, and we do not have to worry about messing up so bad we get kicked out. What makes us belong is that Jesus has called us--and that is enough.

And to push this just a bit further, then, I'm convinced that these first disciples whom Jesus calls are also a statement of what Jesus is not about.  None of these guys have political power; none of them are being recruited to form a brute squad to dominate people in Jesus' name. Jesus isn't looking for wealth, for smarts, or for social standing, and he's not raising up his own private army to fight off the empire or take back his country in the name of God. None of those are Jesus' intention. Instead, the choice of ordinary anybodies like Peter, Andrew, James, and John signals the beginning of a movement that includes all kinds of people, just as we are. And Jesus' clever pun about making these guys into "fishers of people" simply points to his intention to reach even more people through them.  Jesus is about building a community where all kinds of people are welcomed, where all kinds of people receive love from God and from other people, and where all kinds of people are formed and shaped to live the Jesus way of life by doing it together with others who are learning along with them.  That's how Jesus changes the world. That's what he's showing us about himself by the people he first chooses: they remind us that there is a place for you and me in Jesus' community, too.

Someone you meet this week is waiting to hear that kind of welcome--just as they are, with whatever baggage and blessings they bring to the table.

You can be one more voice through whom Jesus' love reaches... everybody else around.

Lord Jesus, you have drawn us to yourself like the first disciples you called by the sea. Use us to draw others into your community and into God's Reign.

The Fuse--Devotion for January 26, 2026

The Fuse--January 26, 2026

"Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali.... From that time Jesus began to proclaim, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near'." [Matthew 4:12-13, 17]

If Jesus' ministry is like a burst of fireworks (or a powder keg), this is the fuse.

That is to say, as Matthew retells it in this passage which many of us heard this past Sunday, the event that kickstarts Jesus' public ministry is the arrest of John the Baptizer. Jesus is aware that John's habit of speaking truth to power (in particular, speaking up against the crooked decadence of the Roman puppet king Herod) got him into trouble, but like another John from twenty centuries later (the late John Lewis) would call it, it was always "good trouble." And when that landed John the Baptizer in one of Herod's prison cells, Jesus makes the choice to pick up the mantel of the wilderness prophet John.  

This scene is such a powerful one, and it's worth spending a moment to unpack what is going on here, and what it means for our lives and our calling as followers of Jesus.  John the Baptizer had brought a central message, according to the Gospel writers: "Turn around, because the Reign of God is here!" He was announcing God's new in-breaking kingdom, and that also brought him to speak up against the inadequacies and vices of leaders like Herod, who claimed the title of "King of the Jews" but revealed that he didn't care much at all for real justice and mercy. John made it his job to bear witness, whether that set him against Herod and his soldiers, the Respectable Religious Leaders, or anybody else. And so when John's message landed him in shackles (and soon enough, awaiting an unjust execution without trial), it was clear what the costs could be for this kind of stand. John would pay with his life... and likely so would anybody else who carried on with John's work.

And that's why this moment in the Gospel is so pivotal. Jesus now knows what the stakes are, and up to this moment, he could have reversed course.  He could have decided to settle back down for a quiet life in Nazareth and started a construction business like Joseph had worked in, or maybe raised a family.  He could have been a non-controversial rabbi like the Respectable Religious Leaders around him, too, and just avoided any risk of getting himself into trouble.  But instead, Jesus chooses to continue precisely in John's work, echoing the Baptizer's message and deliberately picking up with it when John had been arrested--in other words, precisely at the point when John could no longer continue his public witness.  So rather than leaving John's message behind, Jesus takes up John's announcement (including the way it provoked pretenders and blowhards like Herod) in a word-for-word echo of the Baptizer: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near." Jesus knows precisely what he is doing here, and he knows the danger of doing it.  But he does it anyway.

Tyrants and authoritarians like Herod inevitably attempt to silence the ones who stand as a public witness against them, hoping that if you get rid of one troublemaker like John the Baptizer, it will scare everybody else into keeping their mouths closed. Jesus, however, is fully aware of what Herod's forces have done to John, and he willingly steps up to be next in line. Jesus chooses to continue witnessing to God's Reign as John had, knowing the cost. Of course, the word "witness" in the New Testament is "martyr," and as Walter Wink once put it, martyrs "are not helpless victims, but fearless hunters who stalk evil out into the open by offering their bodies as bait." Jesus and John both know that they are risking their lives in their confrontation with the powers of the day, but they take that risk at least in part to make those crooked powers show their hand and reveal their rottenness, so that the Reign of God may be seen more clearly in contrast.

I am reminded, too, of how the marchers and participants in the non-violent demonstrations of the Civil Rights movement used the same strategy. They knew that the police would likely turn the fire hoses on them or turn the dogs on them. They knew that they would be arrested, likely beaten, or even killed for their witness. Some were.  But they also knew that if someone else was jailed for the cause, it fell to the next person to take their place and continue their witness of nonviolent resistance. Jesus picks up John's place in much the same way: carrying the same message precisely at the point when John has been arrested, so that their witness to God's Reign will continue.

These days, we are watching similar choices being made by those who risk their lives as witnesses even when it is costly.  Others have faced arrest, injury, or even death, in the attempt to witness to God's Reign and to hold the Herods of the day to account.  At some point the question falls to us--what will be our witness, and how will we carry on with the work Jesus (along with John) have begun?  We are, after all, called to follow in the way of Jesus, even though we know full well that Jesus will often lead us into his kind of good trouble.  We are called to be witnesses of God's Reign for the world, which often means pointing out how God's arrangement of things is different from the order of Herod, Caesar, and their ilk. When we see others who have stepped up in such moments being treated like John the Baptizer, will we let it push us into fearful paralysis, or let it spur us, like Jesus, to pick up their work and message?

For Jesus, after all, the arrest of John didn't stop him or snuff out the spark.  It was the fuse.

Lord Jesus, give us the courage to carry on in your witness to God's Reign, whatever the cost.

Over the Fakes and Frauds--January 23, 2026

Over the Fakes and Frauds--January 23, 2026

"I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you so that you are not lacking in any gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the partnership of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord." (1 Corinthians 1:4-9)

The God who has called us is faithful. That's why we don't give up.

One of my frustrations about ministry that feels like it has kicked up in the last several years is the rise of scammers pretending to be a pastor (it's happened to me, and it happens to colleagues of mine all the time, too) and reaching out to congregation members, sometimes by email, sometimes by text message, or even sometimes by hacking social media, and then soliciting money, merchandise, or some other help.  There's always a cover story: sometimes the scammer pretending to be me will say we need to collect gift cards for someone in the hospital, or to call back about an urgent matter that can't be discussed by email or text.  I've even had versions where a colleague who was being impersonated claimed to be in some foreign country and in trouble and needing money wired.  Once you know to be a little cautious around messages that seem fishy, you can usually prevent being taken advantage of. 

But the thing that upsets me the most is the possibility--even if it is only a possibility--that the scammers pretending to be me will affect the people I care about being able to trust the real me.  Even if you know the scammers and their strange counterfeit phone numbers and email addresses aren't the real me, it would be very easy for some of that doubt and skepticism to seep into people's minds when they actually do need to talk with me.  It angers me that someone might read a message that is claiming to be from me and rightly ignore it, but then be a little less trusting on the occasions when the real me does call or email about some genuine matter (although, to be clear, I will never solicit money or merchandise from you--I promise!).  It's frustrating when the person calling, texting, or emailing isn't reliable--when they aren't faithful. And when there are counterfeits and frauds out there claiming to be a pastor as a means of scamming people, it makes it that much harder to trust the real deal.

I've been thinking about this lately, not just because we seem to have gone through another round of fake text messages in my circles lately, but because of the way the apostle Paul writes to the Christians in Corinth.  He grounds everything in his letter on the character of God: "God is faithful, by whom you were called into the partnership of his Son, Jesus Christ." Paul wants to be crystal clear: the God who has called us is trustworthy.  This God is not fickle and not a fraud.  This God doesn't say all the right words and then leave us hanging.  This God doesn't spew a bunch of big talk and then have to walk it back.  And this God doesn't turn out to have been scamming us out of self-interest.  Unlike the crooks and schemers who claim to be someone they are not by phone, text message, or email, the God who has called us really is trustworthy.  The Christ in whose family we belong really is who he says he is. In a world full of phonies and frauds, that's what keeps us going.

We are not lacking for examples of the scammer and snake-oil salesmen. We have heard them making big promises from podiums. We have seen their talking heads on television. We have viewed their ads on screens of every size.  And after having been exposed to so many voices who told us they had our interests in mind but were really only looking to line their own pockets or use us for their own advantage, it can be hard to trust the promise of a God whom we cannot see.  It's hard enough to admit when we've been bamboozled or manipulated before--maybe harder still, once we've faced that truth, to then place our trust all over again in God, just because we are still nursing old wounds of past betrayals from others.  

That's why Paul is so insistent here at the start of his letter: God is faithful.  You can count on this God.  You can rely on the promise that the same God who brought you into the community of Jesus' followers will not bail out on you and will not just use you, no matter how many times others have tried to deceive you. Without that assurance, we might as well give up hope.  But with that promise--and the reality of a God who is willing literally to go to death and back for us in order to keep that promise--we have reason to keep hoping, to keep living faithfully in response, and to put one foot in front of the other each day. On the days when we wonder if it's futile to be kind in the face of so much cruelty, to be honest in the face so much deception, or to be decent in the face of so much indecency, we look to God, who has both called us into this life, and who will be faithful to walk with us all the way.

No matter how many times or how many ways you have been let down by frauds and counterfeits before, the living God is the real deal. And the Christ who has called us is trustworthy.

Lord God, give us the ability to trust in you over the noise of all the other fakes and frauds out there trying to get our attention. 

Because God Says So--January 22, 2026

Because God Says So--January 22, 2026

"Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Corinthians 1:1-3)

Despite all of our efforts to the contrary to make it one, the church is not a social club.

Regardless of our culture's way of seeing everything as a product to be consumed, the church is not merely the assembly of paying customers.

The church is not merely an employer for which we must get ourselves hired, nor a team for which we must try out. We belong in this community because we are called.

That makes a world of difference to the ways we live, work, pray, and love together in this community of Jesus' followers.  We are here because God has called us and Christ has claimed us, not because I won the audition or used my influence to get in.  Our belonging is a gift, and it comes from God. That's where we start our identity in Christ--not as audience members who have shelled out money to be entertained, but as a community which God has made holy.  Customers and audience members call the shots--after all, "the customer is always right" in our culture. And they can come and go as they please; if another brand is selling something flashier at the store down the street, you can just take your business elsewhere, because you are the one in charge.  But if we are here because God has called us, then we aren't in control--God is.  If we are here because God has given us both a place to belong and a vocation to live out, then we aren't consumers, but partners in a community.  If we are here by God's call, then I don't get to judge somebody else's worthiness to sit at the table with me--God is the One who has that prerogative, and God has drawn them to be there.

For the early church, that distinction was what set the church apart from the countless other social organizations, guilds, tribes, and other groups in the Roman Empire and the wider Greco-Roman world.  And you can hear Paul leaning into that distinct character in these opening words from his first letter to the Corinthians, which many of us heard in worship this past Sunday.  Paul describes himself in terms of being "called"--he is an apostle, not because he had the best test scores, not because used his influence and leverage to force his way onto the Board of Directors to get himself that job, and not because he just wanted to be one. Rather, Paul is an apostle--a person "sent" by Christ as a witness to the world--because God called him into that identity.  (You might remember, in fact, that Paul really only got into the Christian community because the risen Christ got a hold of him on the Damascus Road and pulled him, sometimes kicking and screaming into the arms of grace.)  So Paul himself starts from a place of being called.  There's not a whiff of "I earned this spot" or "I paid for this title" or "I'm just doing this for as long as it's fun, and then I'll bail out and take up underwater basket-weaving." Paul is here, not because of his influence, status, goodness, or even his volunteering for it--but by the power of God's call.

And then Paul says the same about the Christians to whom he is writing. For all of their many differences--there are rich and poor, Jewish and Gentile, enslaved and free, educated and uneducated, women and men, high class and no class--they all belong because they have been "called." And in fact, they have been "called to be saints"--that is, to be holy, distinct, and unique in the world by the ways they come to reflect God's character.  You don't hear Paul trying to work the crowd with a sales pitch or intimidating them into joining the church through bully tactics. He simply says, "You all have been called by God into this new way of life--God's call is what makes you saints, and God's call is what says you belong."

Like I say, that is so different from the ways our culture still typically thinks about belonging in groups.  In our society, I might join a club if it seems fun to me, or if my friends are already in it, and then what makes us belong is the pull of my social capital or our likemindedness or common interests.  In our society, I might go to the movies or a concert as a paying customer, but if I don't like the story or the sound, I could go and find something else to entertain me next time.  In so many social situations for us, you go as long as it's convenient, and you stay as long as you think you are getting your money's worth (because you see yourself as a consumer). But within the community called "church," it's different: we are here because we are called, and we stay because God's call pulls us together. For all the ways we are different, all the things we disagree about, all the diversity of our stories, backgrounds, viewpoints, and situations, what brings us together is God's call.

Belonging in such a community is, honestly, countercultural. To be a part of the church--to be a disciple of Jesus--is to say, in effect, "I'm not just here when it feels good, or when I feel entertained at the moment. I'm not here because I think I've earned this spot through my achievements or pulled some strings with the gatekeepers to get into a club. I'm here because God called me here, and I can't not answer." In a culture like ours where folks bail out on obligations when it gets difficult, or where I'm used to "taking my business elsewhere" when someone says something that challenges or stretches me, it is a counter-cultural thing to say, "I belong here, even when staying is challenging, because God has called me here.  I continue to serve here because God has led me to this place and there is work to be done."  It is countercultural to admit, "I'm not calling the shots; I have been called to this place, and God intends to make something of me that I cannot make out of myself on my own."

In the end, the Christian community is less like a fraternity or sorority you pledge to get into (and endure hazing in order to earn a place there), and less like a paid membership to a country club (which you can always leave to join another that boasts a bigger golf course or fancier decor); it's more like the old Elvis song, discovering that you "can't help falling in love" with the God who has called you, and the other people who are also called by this same God.  And if you are tired of the shallow-commitments of club membership or the fearful fragility of groups from which you can be kicked out if you don't fit in well enough, that is deeply good news.  We belong in Christ because God says so.  In fact, we belong because God has called our names.

Lord God, open our ears today to hear your call to us, assuring us that we belong, and summoning us to serve with one another for the long haul.

Bigger Fish to Fry--January 21, 2026

Bigger Fish to Fry--January 21, 2026

   "And now the LORD says,
  who formed me in the womb to be his servant,
 to bring Jacob back to him,
  and that Israel might be gathered to him,
 for I am honored in the sight of the Lord,
  and my God has become my strength—
   he says,
 'It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
  to raise up the tribes of Jacob
  and to restore the survivors of Israel;
 I will give you as a light to the nations,
  that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth'.” (Isaiah 42:5-6)

It's not enough only to care about the good of your own little group--God's intention is to reach out everywhere, to everyone... even "to the end of the earth."

That much is absolutely clear from this passage from the book of Isaiah, which many of us heard in worship this past Sunday.  Once again we get the prophet describing a figure described as the "servant" of God, and this figure seems both to be a single individual (we Christians see this as pointing to Jesus) and also somehow the collective calling of the people of God picking up the pieces after exile.  This "servant of the LORD" is called to carry out God's purposes, which turns out to include restoring the fortunes of the exiles, and also to reach all peoples.  The servant is there to "raise up the tribes of Jacob," but his work doesn't stop at the border of Israel. He is mean to be "a light to the nations."  God isn't only interested in helping out the insiders who belong to the same group as the Servant, but in reaching everybody.

In fact, as Isaiah tells it to us, God even says explicitly to this "servant" that "it is too light a thing" only to care about the insiders, the "survivors of Israel." God says, in effect, "That's too small a task, too shortsighted a goal--I have bigger fish to fry, and so do you." And really, God seems to be saying through the prophet, "If you can only see as far as putting the needs of Me and My Group First, you don't understand my purposes in the world. That kind of thinking is too small, too shallow, too petty, and too parochial. I am always reaching further, to draw all people to myself."  If we want to be a part of the work God is up to, we will never be satisfied with the small-potatoes mindset of "Me and My Group First" thinking. We will always be led, alongside the Servant of God, to reach "the end of the earth."

This much seems obvious when you read these words from Isaiah. And of course, it shouldn't surprise us at all if we have been paying attention at all to the teachings of Jesus.  And yet it is mind-boggling how often in our own day we hear the voices of Respectable Religion insisting that God's will is that we need to look out for the interests of our own group over the needs of others.  "We have to protect ourselves, even at the cost of others' safety... we have to possess more, even if it means taking from others... we have to stand highest of all, even if it comes by way of stepping on other people." All of that is conventional wisdom among some loud voices, including religious ones--except the only trouble is that it just doesn't fit at all with the actual way God speaks here in Isaiah. 

So here's the question for us who want to be a part of God's work in the world--for us who would seek to serve God along the Servant of the Lord: will we let God stretch our vision wider, to include the well-being of everybody, or will we keep settling for too little and too light? Will we allow ourselves to hear God's Word to the Servant spoken to us as well: "It is too light a thing for you only to be sent to your own little group for your own narrow interests. I have sent you for the good of all people, including folks as far away as you can get." Could we recognize that as God's call to each of us?  And when we hear those other loud voices telling us we should only spend our time, our energy, our money, and our voices for "Me and My Group First," will we be willing to say, "No--that is not the way of our God?" Will we, as servants alongside the Servant, commit to a wider vision for the good of ALL? Because that's how wide God's vision is.

May God give us such courage in the face of short-sighted but loudmouthed voices to speak a different word, loud and clear, that God's will is to illuminate everything and everyone.

Lord God, we want to serve as Christ your Servant does. Give us a vision as wide as yours for the sake of the world.

The Invitation--January 20, 2026

The Invitation--January 20, 2026

"The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, 'Look, here is the Lamb of God!' The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, 'What are you looking for? They said to him, 'Rabbi' [which translated means Teacher], 'where are you staying?' He said to them, 'Come and see'." [John 1:35-39a]

The first words on Jesus' lips in John's Gospel... are a question. They are an invitation to conversation, and they become an open invitation to share Jesus' journey. And for the ones who answer that opening question, life is never the same.

I don't know that I had ever thought about this before, but really it's amazing that after all the build-up and drama and foreshadowing [and John's Gospel can really lay it on thick some times], the first time we actually get words out of Jesus' mouth, he is unpretentiously asking a question of would-be followers and inviting them to come along with him. Of course, each of the Gospel writers is something like a movie director telling their own versions of the same basic plot. So I don't get fussy that John's version of the movie gives us this conversation, while, say, Matthew gives us a different conversation between Jesus and John the Baptizer as the first words he speaks, or Mark just unloads with a fierce message, "Turn around and believe--the Reign of God has come near!" Each of these writers is choosing a different moment to give us our introduction to the adult Jesus, and that's fine. But just let it sink in that, of all the things John the Gospel-writer could have chosen, he gives us this ordinary seeming moment, where Jesus is open and inviting. "Come and see," he says, looking eye to eye at two strangers, and inviting them to be where he is, to stay where he stays, and to follow his way. Beyond the words themselves, the way he speaks them reveals a kindness and even a humility that draws others in.

After all, when John started writing this Gospel, he opened up with a glorious and majestic poem about creation. John's Gospel is the one that begins, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God... and the Word became flesh and lived among us...full of grace and truth." And not only that, he's now given us two dramatic introductions to Jesus as his forerunner, John the Baptizer, has called our attention to him and pointed him out as "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" When we heard this passage read this past Sunday in worship, it had the feel of the big moment on stage when the curtain pulls back, the timpani player hammers out a drum roll, and the lime-lights all focus front and center on the star coming forward to belt out a show-stopping number, and then--Jesus comes forward, not shouting a slogan, preaching a sermon, or singing a bold anthem, but striking up a conversation.

"What are you looking for?" he asks. It carries the feel of asking, "Just so we're clear, what is it you think you are in search of? What is it that has led you to me?" Jesus gives the impression he wants to dispel any mistaken impressions or false advertising about himself. He is being utterly real, utterly honest, and utterly unpretentious. Jesus doesn't need to puff himself or make himself look more impressive. He doesn't hype the spectacle of what people will see when they follow him like P.T. Barnum or some carnival barker, drumming up ticket-buyers for the afternoon show. If anything, Jesus seems to slow down these would-be disciples who have come to him, cautiously asking what they think they are expecting from him. He is not a salesman, and he is not in advertising. He is just real.

In fact, that's one of the things about Jesus [as John the Gospel-writer shows him to us in his telling] that remains constant, all the way through. You might recall that on Easter morning, when Jesus has risen from the dead but it's not quite clear to all the other characters at the tomb what's going on, that Jesus calls to Mary with a question, "Whom are you looking for?" It's not that different from this opening question to the would-be disciples, and in the end, the thing that tips Mary off that he's not just the gardener is in the unpretentious way he calls her name, "Mary," [to which, she responds, "Rabbi"--in another beautiful bookending echo of this story]. From beginning to end, the story of Jesus is the story of his kindness that invited people in. Jesus had this disarming way of putting people at ease, helping them to let down their guard [and their pretenses], and to feel truly included in whatever was going on. He still does, and we are still invited into his presence by means of ordinary conversation. And, as happens here in the opening chapter of John's Gospel, it changes the lives of these would-be disciples who end up following Jesus and carrying his message and way of life to all creation.

I wonder--could we see this day as a similar opportunity? In a time when it's easy for the church to be regarded as a product to be sold, and for the gospel to sound like a sales-pitch, could we see this day simply as the chance to engage people with kindness and disarming openness, and to let that lead where it will? I'll be honest, even as a pastor, every time I overhear a Respectable Religious person [no doubt with the best of intentions] start in talking to a stranger with a clearly rehearsed canned spiel trying to get someone to make a decision for Jesus on the spot, it makes my insides queasy. It's not that I'm against sharing our faith--not at all. It's that the rehearsed sales-pitch speech sounds so strikingly unlike Jesus, who doesn't use a pamphlet or a program or any other promotional literature, but just meets people where they are and makes the invitation, "Come and see." Could we invite people that way? Could we speak with honesty to friends and neighbors, or even strangers and enemies, and say, "There's something compelling about this Jesus, and his way of loving people--I won't promise anything more or anything less than Jesus, but come and see"? Could we hold off on seeing the Christian faith as a deal to be accepted [Jesus certainly doesn't act that way], but more of a shared journey with Jesus? And could we then keep making ourselves available to people around us, simply making the authentic invitation to join the walk and share the road? Could we dare to engage people with the kindness we see in Jesus, which opens up to their questions, thoughts, ideas, and needs? I don't know about you, but that sounds downright compelling to me.

And it makes me grateful that I have been drawn to a Savior whose first move is to ask questions and invite conversation, even from me. Even from you.

Lord Jesus, draw us in by your kindness, and let us meet others with that same genuine care we have first met in you.

Gathered to the Lamb--January 19, 2026

Gathered to the Lamb--January 19, 2026

[John the Baptizer] saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! [John 1:29]

After all the talk of fire and wrath, the One John had been waiting for turns out to be best described as a Lamb. How about that?

We get reintroduced to John every year it seems in the weeks of Advent, and he's generally a pretty fiery figure. He's the one dressed like a wilderness survivalist and who talks like a prophet, who calls even his devoted listeners "brood of vipers." This is the guy who was utterly certain that when God's Messiah came, he would bring down judgment, burn the unworthy and unrepentant with fire, and cut down the wicked like a lumberjack with an ax.

And now here we get the passage that many of us heard this past Sunday in worship. And as the storytelling goes, John comes face to face with Jesus--who, mind you, apparently doesn't look impressive or noteworthy at all--and now somehow John knows... this is the one you were waiting for. And yet, the first thing John blurts out about Jesus is: "He's a Lamb."

No conquering king imagery. No mighty emperor who will overthrow the Romans. No burning words of judgment. Not a lion; not even an intimidating ram with fierce horns to charge at his enemies with. Jesus--the One John had been waiting for--turns out to be a Lamb... the kind that would bear the sins of the people in a sacrifice. A barnyard animal known for its docile fluffiness. Nothing threatening to go up against the imperial eagle of Rome or even the wicked "vipers" that John had labeled the Religious Leaders, but a petting-zoo staple who might eat out of your hand. It is without a doubt one of the great reversals of the Bible, and it reveals that when God truly chooses to be revealed most clearly, God chooses to be known in kindness and gentleness, rather than fire and fury.

And, to gauge it from John's response to finally getting it, John is apparently discovering the joy of being wrong. Rather than being bitter and upset that Jesus isn't what he wanted, rather than being angry or disappointed that the Messiah didn't turn out to be a warrior-king but a Suffering Servant, John just seems to take it all in with awe and humility. "Here he is, after all," John seems to say with a grin, "I should have known--he's the Lamb of God, while I had been looking for a general commanding angel armies. Well, how do you like that?" Maybe that's the difference between John's response to Jesus and the Respectable Religious Leaders' reaction to him. Both John the Baptizer and the so-and-sos among the Pharisees and Sadducees had been surprised by what Jesus turned to be, but John apparently learned how not to dig his heels in and double-down on his wrong-ness. John was willing to let God's unexpected gentleness in Jesus lead him to a new way of thinking, rather than ignoring what didn't fit with his assumptions. I wonder whether we could dare to be that brave, too, and to let ourselves be surprised by the kindness of Christ, rather than trying to force him into our boxes of vindictiveness and triumphalism.

These days, there are a lot of loud and angry wolf-like voices in the world, growling, threatening, and salivating to carve up the map for the sake of their own greedy appetites. But Jesus is not one of them, and it never will be--because the way of Jesus is never the way of Empire. The predators who want to conquer, devour, and intimidate never represent the Reign of God. They are in a very literal sense anti-Christ--that is, contrary to the way of Jesus, the Lamb of God.  John the Baptizer can recognize that, even if that meant rethinking a great deal of his previous expectations.  I wonder if we are brave enough to let this truth do its work on us and realign our priorities and approach in the world, too.

Maybe that's enough for us to chew on for this day--to ask ourselves how we will respond when we come face to face with the grace of God, and whether we will let God be bigger than our expectations, or whether we'll try and coerce Jesus into our own coercive preconceptions. Because Jesus is going to keep on being his Lamb-like self, even if we sometimes tell ourselves we want a Caesar (whose empire clung to a myth that their city was founded by twins raised by a literal wolf, tellingly). Jesus is going to keep on being the One who lays down his life for us rather than the one who destroys his enemies in rage. Will we be open to letting his kindness stretch our understanding of God? And will we be willing to let God's kindness shape the ways we love the neighbors around us as well?

Will we let ourselves be gathered to the Lamb?

Lord Jesus, surprise us as you will with your unexpected gentleness--and reshape us as you do.

God's Kind of People--January 16, 2026

God's Kind of People--January 16, 2026

Peter began to speak to [Cornelius and his household]: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every people anyone who fears him and practices righteousness is acceptable to him...." (Acts 10:34-35)

There's never a time when God says, "Those aren't our kind of people." There is no point where God says, "Get out of here and go back to where you came from." There will never be a person of whom God says, "We don't welcome your kind around here." And once we realize that, we are changed forever.

That was certainly Simon Peter's story, which we get here in this snippet from the book of Acts, and which many of us heard in worship this past Sunday.  This is the moment when Peter finally "gets it," when it finally dawns on him that God is doing something new in the community of Jesus' followers that includes people from every background, every nation, every language, and every culture. And this is the moment when the old hardened racial and cultural prejudices he didn't even realize he was still carrying finally crack and begin to fall away for him.  

How did he get there? Well, the short version is that God had sent him to go to the house of a Roman centurion named Cornelius and to tell him about Jesus. Cornelius, obviously, was a gentile (non-Jewish), and as a solider in the army of the occupying empire, it would have been easy (and not incorrect) to see him as an "enemy." He was from the "Italian cohort" of soldiers, which strongly implies he was from far away back in Europe, rather than a local Judean native who somehow enlisted in the Roman army.  He would have grown up worshiping the gods of the Roman pantheon, speaking Latin, and immersed in the cultural practices of the Empire.  There were LOTS of ways it would have been obvious that Cornelius and his family were "not our kind of people" from Peter's perspective.  And so when God finally persuades Peter to go (and teaches him along the way that "you don't get to call UNCLEAN what God has called CLEAN"), and Cornelius hears the message about Jesus, he and his whole family want to be baptized on the spot. They come to faith in Jesus, they receive the Holy Spirit, and they commit to following the way of Jesus, too!

And that's when it dawns on Peter: this is what God had in mind all along!  This was in fact God's doing, and God had let Peter to bring the message in the first place to Cornelius and his family--even when Peter felt like he was being dragged kicking and screaming to Cornelius' house at first! Peter realizes that God intends to draw all people, from everywhere, including every background, language, ethnicity, culture, and place, into the community of Jesus.  That had seemed scandalous to him earlier in his faith journey; Peter had grown up assuming that pretty much God only cared about his group--people from the ethnic group descended from the tribes of ancient Israel.  For certain, a young Peter would have believed that God cared about his group FIRST, at least, and that only after his own group's interests were covered would God give any care for other people.   But now, Peter realizes that God doesn't show partiality to any group of people or love one nationality more than another. There is no language God requires we speak, no country on the map which is exceptional in God's eyes, and no barrier keeping out "the wrong kind of people" from following Jesus and belonging in God's Reign. Peter realized that when Cornelius came to faith, and apparently we keep needing to re-learn it twenty centuries later.  All of us, it turns out, are "God's kind of people."

As we keep exploring this season what it means to be called by Christ, it's worth remembering that we are called alongside a LOT of other people, and all of us are different.  For me to recognize that you are also called by Christ doesn't take anything away from me or lessen my calling.  And the fact that God has called people from halfway around the world, whose language I do not speak, whose culture is different from my own, and whose stories are divergent from my experience, doesn't threaten my identity as someone called by God, either. Sometimes we who have been around the church for a while start to think of ourselves as Peter, as though we are experts who have been self-deputized to decide who is "in" and who is "out" on God's behalf.  But we are very much Cornelius, too--that is, we are people who were outsiders and strangers, who have been welcomed in by God, despite our many kinds of difference. And if God has drawn us into the love of Christ, regardless of where we have come from or what our story is, then God surely reserves the right to draw in anybody and everybody else, too, no matter where they are from or who they are.

That realization changed Peter. It will change us, too.

Lord God, help us to welcome all whom you are calling to yourself, and help us to rejoice that your welcome includes us, too. Enable us to see that we are all your kind of people.

Called with Purpose--January 15, 2026

Called with Purpose--January 15, 2026

 "Thus says God, the LORD,
  who created the heavens and stretched them out,
  who spread out the earth and what comes from it,
  who gives breath to the people upon it
  and spirit to those who walk in it:
 I am the LORD; I have called you in righteousness;
  I have taken you by the hand and kept you;
 I have given you as a covenant to the people,
  a light to the nations,
   to open the eyes that are blind,
 to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,
  from the prison those who sit in darkness." (Isaiah 42:5-7)

Pretty much in the Bible, being called is never an end in and of itself. When God calls you, it is always for the purpose not only of drawing you in, but of reaching out to others through you.  When God chooses you, it is not only to make you feel warm and fuzzy on the inside, but also to work in and through you for the sake of others.  There is no version of being called by God that ends with just getting to call ourselves "exceptional" or "special" so we can pat ourselves on the back; when God calls us, it is with the intention that we serve in God's work to welcome, to illuminate, to heal, and to set people free.

This passage from Isaiah 42, which many of us heard this past Sunday, is a case in point.  It is an excerpt from sections of the book that are sometimes called the "Servant Songs," in which the prophet speaks of a figure who is God's Servant, who has been chosen by God for God's set purposes in the world.  Sometimes, these poems sound like they are talking about a single individual person--and we Christians have come to recognize that they sure do sound a lot like Jesus.  At other times, these Servant Songs seem to be speaking to the whole community of God's people who had lived through exile and were wondering, "What's next?  Does God have any use for us anymore?" And sometimes, in a way that only poetry can accomplish really well, it seems like these passages are simultaneously about a group of people who are called by God and a single individual person yet to come (again, we Christians will point to Jesus there).

In a sense, for our purposes, it doesn't exactly matter, because both realities are true.  Jesus is, to be sure, chosen and called by God to be the Suffering Servant of God who brings about justice and righteousness and restores life where it is needed through his gentleness and nonviolent love.  (We explored that theme in yesterday's devotion, too, you might remember.)  And it is also true that God's people, both in the ancient covenant people of Israel through the exile and into the community of Jesus' followers now, are also called for a purpose to embody the ways and character of God.  The bottom line is that either way, when we are called by God, it is always with a sense of direction, of purpose beyond ourselves, and of serving other people as our way of serving God.  Being called by God always carries with it a mission.

As the prophet describes it here, that purpose has to do with helping other people to flourish.  It is bringing light to the nations of the world--to embody the ways of the covenant-making God so that others will want to live in the same justice and mercy they have seen in us.  It is opening the eyes of those who cannot see--or refuse to see--what is in front of them.  It is helping to release people who have been wrongfully detained, unjustly imprisoned, and taken captive.  All of that is at least a part of God's agenda in the world, and being called by God means being called to share in that agenda, too.

All of this is to say that if we as Christians see ourselves as people who have been "chosen" and "called" by God (and that much is true), it is not so we can puff ourselves up or kick our feet back.  It is so that we can be a part of God's work in the world. If it is right to say that we have been "called" (and it is), then this is at least part of what we have been called to: offering light and welcome to "the nations" (those who are not "like us"), truth-telling vision for eyes that can't or won't yet see, and striving to release people who are held captive and should be free.  That's the work into which God invites us.

If we are faithful to our calling, then, the world should not be dimmer, more willfully unseeing, or more inhospitable to outsiders, as a result of our presence in it. There should be fewer people held captive because of us, not more. There should be more light in the world, not less. The calling always includes a mission, and Isaiah tells us that's what the mission looks like.

Today, then, the right question to ask is not, "Am I called by God?" but rather, "What does God's calling to me look like in my time and place?" You are called.  You have been chosen. Those are the starting point of grace as followers of Jesus, and they are not up for debate. But knowing that God's call--whether we are talking about the call to Jesus the unique Son of God, to the exiles of Israel witnessing in Babylon, or to us in this present moment--is always into a mission, the open question is how we act in light of that call. Will we add more light to the world or less?  Will we help neighbors around to see even uncomfortable truths we might all wish to ignore? Will we spend our energy setting people free or allow them to be taken captive and disappear into dungeons? The calling is already given--the question is how we live into it... today.

Lord God, we dare to believe that you have called and chosen us already for your purposes in the world. Open our eyes to see what you intend us to do with this day for the sake of the people to whom you have called us.