Love is his meaning: A Sermon for Easter 6A, 2026

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May 10, 2026

         Today is the twentieth anniversary of my ordination as a priest in the Episcopal Church. Remarkably, nearly 17 of those years have occurred here, as Rector of Grace Church. Looking back, I am enormously grateful for all those who have accompanied me on this journey, to Corrie especially, to all of those clergy and laypeople who encouraged me as I was discerning my call and preparing for my ordination, and all those who have supported and prayed for me, and those who have been ministers alongside me, clergy and laity alike.

         It was the culmination of a long process. I had sensed a call to ministry during my college years but it became apparent that ordained ministry in the religious tradition in which I was raised would not be possible. Soon after joining the Episcopal Church in my early 30s I began exploring ordination but the bishops of two different dioceses seemed unwilling to work with my unique situation. So by my 40s, although I had a strong sense of call, it seemed the church wasn’t hearing that call as I did. I joke that I finally found a bishop who didn’t think I needed to go back to seminary in order to become a priest, since I had a doctorate and had even taught for a year at an Episcopal seminary. Even so, the ordination process took five years to complete, which was frustrating and demoralizing. The process, which is meant to ensure that well-qualified candidates are ordained by the church is fallible and can be dehumanizing. 

         Still, it’s all been worthwhile as well as challenging, intellectually, spiritually, and emotionally. I’ve found myself growing in ways and directions that have been surprising. Just this week, for example, I’ve worked with our new partners in ministry: Catalyst for Change, as they have moved into our basement space and begun to take over the work of Off the Square Club. I’ve met with the team from Historic Window and Door who are about to begin the repair work on the stained glass windows on the Carroll St. side of the nave; and I’ve met with someone from another denomination whose daughter is about to be confirmed in the Episcopal Church and he wanted to learn more about the Anglican tradition and how it differs from his own. 

         Among all that, and everything else, I found myself taking a bit of time to revisit my academic past. Friday was the commemoration of Julian of Norwich in our liturgical calendar and in preparation for the midweek Eucharist I refreshed my memory concerning her life, writings, and theology. I pulled out the volume of her writings that I’ve had since grad school. It’s a paperback, so it’s falling apart now. Its pages are full of notes and underlinings from successive readings for class as a student and as a professor; something of an archaeology of my own history with the text, as a scholar and as a Christian. We’ll come back to that later.

         Today, on this Sixth Sunday of Easter, we heard again from the 14th chapter of John, part of Jesus’ farewell discourse to his disciples, set at the Last Supper, as he prepares them for his imminent departure them and for his continuing presence among them in different modes. In Jesus’ words, and in the beautiful phrases of the collect for the day, our attention is directed to God’s love and all the ways in which our love of God is grounded in God’s love for us. 

O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good
things as surpass our understanding: Pour into our hearts such
love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above
all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we
can desire; 

         The collect reminds us that the love we have for God is itself a gift from God, and made possible by God’s love for us. A similar note is struck in Jesus’ words here: 

 They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

The same theme is expressed in the words of the gospel hymn we just sang; written by Bianco da Siena in the 14th century: “Come down, O love divine, seek thou this soul of mine.” We love, because God first loved us.

         That love is also made manifest in the Holy Spirit. Here, Jesus uses the word Advocate in our translation. It’s an attempt to render in English the Greek word “Paraclete” which means someone who is called to be alongside another, often as a legal representative; so in that sense, “Advocate” is a perfectly acceptable rendering. But there are other nuances in the term. One of them is “Comforter” which was the word used in the King James version here, and connects the gospel to our gospel hymn again: “O comforter, draw near…” we sang. Jesus assures the disciples that the Paraclete, the Advocate “abides in them” striking that other dominant theme of John’s gospel, of abiding, but now, it is the Advocate abiding with the disciples in the absence of the bodily Jesus. 

         As I reflect on my twenty years of priestly ministry, I am deeply moved by all those among whom and to whom I have ministered—the babies and adults I’ve baptized; the couples I’ve married, the faithful Christians I have buried. I reflect on the outstretched hands of all those to whom I have said “The body of Christ, the bread of heaven” as I have distributed Christ’s body; the people I’ve prayed with and for.

         I think also of all those who have accompanied me along this journey; members of altar guilds, vestries, acolytes, musicians, staff members. I consider all the ways God’s love has been present along the way, even when it seemed profoundly absent.

         Our journeys are curious, surprising things. The encounters we have; the circumstances in which we suddenly find ourselves from time to time; the changes and challenges of a culture that is experiencing rapid and disorienting transformation. Sometimes I wonder whether I bear any resemblance to the person I was forty or fifty years ago; sometimes I wonder whether I’ve changed at all.

         At the outset, I mentioned spending some time with Julian of Norwich this week. Julian was a 14th century anchoress and mystic      who experienced a series of visions when she was around thirty years old and spent the rest of her life reflecting on and trying to make sense of those visions. These reflections culminated in what is one of the greatest and most profound works of Christian mysticism of all time. And as she pondered and reflected on what it all meant, Jesus spoke to her words that encapsulate the good news, for the 14th century and today:

         What, do you wish to know the Lord’s meaning in this thing? Know it well, love was his meaning. Who reveals it to you? Love. What did he reveal to you? Love. Why does he reveal it to you? For love. Remain in this and you will know more of the same. But you will never know different, without end.

In the Breaking of the Bread: A Sermon for 3EasterA, 2026

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April 19, 2026

A few weeks ago, when Mtr Bobbi and I were talking about the liturgies of Holy Week, she asked me about the words of invitation. In case you’re wondering, they’re found on pp. 364-5 of the BCP and read: “The gifts of God for the people of God”, then there’s a rubric that says “the celebrant may add”—“Take them in remembrance that Christ died for you, and feed on him in your hearts by faith, with thanksgiving.” I told Bobbi that I always add those words but that she needn’t; I have no idea whether any of you notice this or even care. But there’s a history here having to do with history, and liturgy, and my own journey.

         I was a historian of the Protestant and Catholic Reformations and in my studies I read a great deal about the Eucharistic controversies of the early years of the reformation, debates about the real presence of Christ in the sacrament. The conflicts were heated and not particularly edifying. On one side was Martin Luther who wrote a treatise entitled “That these words ‘This is my body’ still stand against the fanatics.” On the other was Huldreych Zwingli who argued, among other things, that when Jesus said “This is my body” he was pointing not at the bread but at his own body.

         This debate came to a head at the Marburg Colloquy in 1529 which attempted to find common ground among the Protestants so that they could present a united front against the Roman Catholics. The story goes that at one point, Luther lifted the tablecloth where he had written in chalk “Das ist mein Leib” “This is my body” and stomped out of the room, cementing divisions that have lasted down to the present day.

         Twenty years later, when Cranmer was creating the Book of Common Prayer, those differences persisted and in two editions of the prayer book, he used both of those sentences, but separately. In the 1559 BCP, which was an attempt to moderate between the more reformed and more catholic interpretations; both sentences were used in the words of invitation. Why does this matter, and why does it matter to me?

         Well, when I came into the Episcopal Church, I knew all of that background, and as I often explained to my students over the years, that formulation offers a full range of possible interpretations of what happens in the Eucharist: memorial: “Take them in remembrance” real presence “feed on him;” “in your hearts” spiritual eating. And for me, coming into the Episcopal Church with all of my knowledge of the history behind it, allowed me to receive faithfully. Over time, 40 years now, almost 20 as a priest, those words matter less to me; and I have found that my experience of Christ’s presence in the eucharist has deepened immensely, but still it’s a fundamental part of my spiritual journey.

         When thinking about what happens in the Eucharist, one of the gospel stories that has had the greatest impact on me is the one we heard today, the encounter of the disciples with the Risen Christ on the road to Emmaus. 

         It’s a lovely story, and unlike the other stories about the appearances of the Risen Christ, there’s no sense of urgency or excitement in it until the very end. Luke takes his time telling it; it’s almost is if we are walking with him on the road to Emmaus and he is drawing out the story telling it in such a way to keep our attention or perhaps distract us.

         We can sense the emotions of the two disciples as they walk; their disappointment “We thought he was the one who would redeem Israel”—their incredulity: “What are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who didn’t hear about what was happening?” their confusion or disbelief as they retold what happened to the women at the empty tomb. 

Two disciples, one named Cleopas, the other unnamed, but many contemporary scholars suggest that the second disciple might be a woman, perhaps even the wife of the other disciple. We can imagine them on their walk, reflecting on all that had happened, perhaps making plans for the future or at least asking each other what they should do now, when a stranger overtakes them and engages them in conversation.

         As the journey and conversation continue, the disciples are nearing their destination and evening begins to fall. The stranger seems to want to continue his journey but they prevail upon him to stay with them; offering hospitality to the stranger, a meal and perhaps bed. 

         The scene shifts to the table and the roles shift as well; the guest becomes host, he takes bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to the disciples. As the bread is broken, the disciples recognize the risen Christ. 

         There’s no mention that the disciples consume the bread, there’s no mention of wine, but clearly this is an allusion to the Eucharist. It’s also an allusion to an early miracle of Jesus recorded in all four gospels—the feeding of the five thousand. Because there too, Luke uses the exact same language, in the exact same sequence: He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it. It’s also the same language, the same sequence used by Luke to describe Jesus’ actions at the Last Supper.

         The resurrection of Christ may seem like a remote event. His appearance to his disciples might seem to us like a one-off, an event that we can’t experience; that we can only read about. But I think this story brings it home to us and makes it accessible to us. For those two disciples who encountered Jesus on the road to Emmaus, invited him into their home and offered him a meal, encountered him in the breaking of the bread. Gathered around that table, after a long conversation together, they saw the Risen Christ.

         That same experience opens itself to us when we share in Christ’s body and blood at the Eucharistic feast. Gathered around the table, in the breaking of the bread, the risen Christ comes to us, in bread and wine, and in the body gathered. For in a real sense, we the people of God, gathered together in worship and fellowship are the body of Christ, just as the bread and wine are his body and blood.

         But that experience isn’t the end of things. Just as the disciples who walked with Jesus on the road to Emmaus engaged in conversation on scripture with Jesus before sharing with him at the table, so to are we all nourished by word as well as by sacrament; we are challenged to grow more deeply in study and scripture, learning from the one who walks beside us. Only then can we say, “Were not our hearts burning within us, while he was talking with us?”

         But even that is not the end of the story, for like all the disciples who encountered the risen Christ, we too must share the good news with others, let them know how he is made known to us in the breaking of the bread. 

On the First Day of the Week: A Sermon for Easter, 2026

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A bit belatedly…

On the First Day of the Week

April 5, 2026

“Oh God, take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them, and take our hearts and set them on fire. Amen.”

         Why did she come to the tomb? The reason given in the other gospels—that the women came with spices and ointments to anoint Jesus’ body for burial doesn’t fit with John’s version of the story. All that had been done by Nicodemus at the time of burial. Did she come because she wanted to grieve near the tomb; to feel that intimacy with Jesus she may have felt when he was still alive?

         And something else. No matter how many times I have read this gospel; preached on it—that’s is around 20 sermons; how many times I discussed this passage with students in class; you’d think I would not be able to find something new or interesting in these 18 verses. But you’d be wrong. For this year, I noticed something I had never noticed before. All Mary sees is the stone rolled away. She doesn’t actually know that the tomb is empty. but in this case, that’s all she needs to run back to the other disciples to tell them that the tomb is empty; that someone has taken away Jesus’ body.

Mary Magdalene is a figure of endless speculation throughout the History of Christianity. I’m sure you’ve heard some of them. She was a repentant prostitute; possessed by seven evil spirits; the wife of Jesus. But all of that is nothing more than conjecture; and conflation of this figure with other “Mary’s” other women who are mentioned in the gospels. All that is also a product our relentless desire as humans to satisfy our curiosity;  to fill out stories and the relentless desire to fill out stories; to give them detail and deeper meaning. 

Often, such speculation, pious though it may be, obscures the stories the gospel writers are trying to tell; and also obscure the true significance of the character in the story. For example, in addition to all of the accretions to Mary’s story that I have mentioned; the church has also long called her the Apostle to the Apostles, for it was Mary Magdalene who first learned the good news that Christ was risen from the dead, and shared that news with the other disciples.

What we know is this: In John’s gospel, she appears only twice. Mary Magdalene is identified as one of the women standing near the cross at Jesus’ crucifixion, and here at the empty tomb. In fact, one of the few details on which all four gospels agree is that Mary Magdalene was present at the empty tomb. 

         Was her immediate reaction to seeing the stone rolled away a burst of emotion on top of all the grief she was carrying: anger at this additional indignity inflicted on her Lord; fear that his corpse would be or already had been defiled? Was she triggered by the scene and desperate to find help to address this new calamity?

         In any case, she ran back and told the other disciples about her discovery and two of them, Peter and the Beloved Disciple, returned with her, or rather before her because they raced along the way; the two of them looked inside, saw the graveclothes neatly wrapped in two piles. And we’re told, the Beloved Disciple saw and believed; no word on Peter’s response, and they went back home.

         Now Mary lingers in the garden. We can imagine the emotions overwhelming her—disbelief, fear, grief, perhaps anger; weeping for her Lord, for her loss, for the lost future she and the others who had been following Jesus had been imagining and hoping for.

         Only now does she do like the two male disciples had done and peek into the tomb. Perhaps she was curious about what they had seen; why they had looked, and then returned to the place where they were staying. She receives the message, the good news; the first of the disciples to learn what has happened. But still, she waits, wonders, and weeps. And then, the encounter with the risen Christ. Still not recognizing him; it’s only when he calls her by name that it all makes sense. 

         There’s a lovely progression in this story as we see Mary Magdalene coming to faith in Christ. It begins in that walk to the tomb in the dark of night; seeing the stone rolled away, and drawing the wrong conclusion. It continues when she reaches out to others seeking their help to make sense of her experience, and then, when they abandon her to her own devices, continuing to struggle to understand. And finally, there’s that moment of grace, Jesus calling her by name, and all of it finally making sense—knowing who he is; discovering who she is; seeing the world, herself, and Jesus with new eyes, the eyes of faith.

         We might contrast her journey here with that of Peter and the Beloved Disciple, who raced to the tomb, looked inside, and went back home. We’re told that the beloved disciple saw and believed—but did he? Distinguished by his close relationship with Jesus “The one whom Jesus loved” he didn’t tarry, he didn’t open himself to an encounter like Mary had; that would come later.

         Like Mary, we come to the tomb, full of doubts, fears, uncertainty. We may be suffering—our bodies may be broken and in pain; our hearts may be broken and in pain. We may wonder whether life is worth living; whether we can go on. The incessant whirlwind of news; the earthquakes shaking the foundations of our lives and our worldviews; wars, violence, oppression; a planet on the brink. 

         We look for signs in the chaos and darkness; but they are ambiguous at best, easily misinterpreted. We may want to turn away; to abandon our hopes and dreams. But if we reach out to others as Mary did; if we wait in silence, we may hear the Risen Christ calling us by name, inviting us into relationship, inspiring hope , giving us new life.

         The cross and the tomb are not the end of the story. Christ is risen, breaking the bonds of death; defeating chaos. God is still at work in the world; creating and re-creating the universe and us. The resurrection of Christ is proof positive that the forces of empire, evil, and death cannot, will not reign forever. Even now, God’s reign of justice, love, and peace, is breaking in around us. The signs may not be obvious; like the ambiguity of an empty tomb, we may overlook or miss them, but if we persevere in our hope; if we keep our eyes open, we will come to see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up and things which had grown old are being made new. 

         May the embers of our faith be kindled into fires of faith, justice, and love, that spread the good news and usher in God’s coming reign. 

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! 

Touring the new men’s shelter

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a group of people touring the new shelter

On Thursday, March 12, a group of Grace members had the privilege of touring the new men’s shelter with Linette Rhodes, from the City of Madison Community Development and Karla Thennes, Executive Director of Porchlight. Located on Bartillon Dr. on Madison’s east side, the purpose-built shelter is the culmination of years of planning and advocacy. From 1984 to 2020, Grace Church hosted a drop in shelter for men in our basement with overflow shelters at St. John’s Lutheran Church and First Methodist Church. At the beginning of the pandemic, the city took responsibility for locating and providing adequate shelter for unhoused men and began planning for a permanent shelter. Over the past six years, the temporary shelter has moved several times but the permanent facility will open later this year. 

I was impressed with the shelter layout and design and the care that had obviously been taken in thinking about what was needed and how to accommodate guests. Ms. Rhodes mentioned that part of their planning process included input from guests and a priority for trauma-informed care. Guests will have lockers and a reserved bed which will offer some certainty and stability. In the past, there was 90-night limit on guests’ length of stay. That was ended in 2020 but guests will have to demonstrate that they are making efforts to find permanent housing.

There remain challenges. The population of unhoused people has increased dramatically over the last six years. When the shelter was at Grace, it served at the most 150-160 on the coldest nights of the year. The temporary shelter has been averaging over 350 guests but the capacity for the new shelter is only 250. The County is currently seeking proposals for a temporary shelter to operate during the winter months. In addition, currently the shelter will be open overnight. It lacks the funding required to operate 24 hours 7 days a week. There is a private-sector effort to raise the necessary funds for fulltime operation: Shelter Friends of Dane County.

I will admit that it was quite emotional for me to tour the new facility. Remembering what Grace’s shelter was like: the darkness of a church basement, the cramped facilities, the lineup of men waiting for intake in bad weather, the lack of access for people with mobility issues. All of that and more had burdened me over the years. But I also remembered all of those people who advocated in vain for changes through that time. There was also the hard work of thousands of volunteers who served meals and the dedicated staff. In 2018, a group of Grace members had begun working on building momentum toward a new shelter. I and city staff, homeless advocates, and civic leaders visited Higher Ground in St. Paul, MN in 2019, a purpose-built shelter operated by Catholic Charities that helped us imagine what a new shelter might look like. 7 years later, that dream is coming to fruition. I’m grateful to all who worked so hard to make it a reality, especially city staff and elected officials who made it possible.

Some other photos:

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door to bedbug furnace people admiring the new commercial kitchen at the new shelterone of the pods for guests showing twin beds and lockers

Nicodemus gets a bad rap: A Sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent, 2026

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March 1, 2026

We are gathered today on this Second Sunday in Lent, full of fear, anxiety, and anger. On top of all else that has happened over the last year as we have watched the institutions and values we held dear collapse; the unbearable burdens of it all weighing us down, and now this, war on Iran, a school with 85 schoolchildren bombed; the leader of their nation killed, chaos and further violence and pain await.

We gather today, distracted and mortified, seeking solace and comfort. Many of us may also have been hoping to use this season of Lent to deepen our faith, to grow in discipleship, to draw nearer to Christ as he and we all draw near to the cross. And yet it may be that for you, as well as for me, the words of today’s gospel offer no solace or comfort, but evoke trauma of past religious experiences—born again, or the weaponization of John 3:16. Words meant to offer life instead have offered condemnation in the culture of American Evangelical Christianity.

Although in this, the first year of our three year lectionary cycle, we spend most Sundays in the gospel of Matthew, for the next four Sundays, and during Eastertide, we will be reading from the Gospel of John. For today and the next three Sundays we will be spending time with three fascinating stories from that gospel, each of them detailing encounters with Jesus. This week, there’s Nicodemus; next it’s the Samaritan woman at the well; then there’s the man who was born blind; and finally, the story of the raising of Lazarus.

Each story is also a story of transformation; most obviously in the case of Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead. In today’s story, there seems to be no transformation but Nicodemus will make two other appearances in the gospel, most notably at Jesus’ death when he assists Joseph of Arimathea in burying Jesus’ body where he is identified as a follower of Jesus. But all that comes later.

For now, let’s focus on the story in front of us. Nicodemus is identified as a Pharisee, a leader of the Jews. So we’re meant to imagine a prominent figure in the community. We’re told he comes to Jesus by night, an image that evokes both darkness—the binary of light and darkness is prominent throughout John’s gospel, and secrecy. We might conclude that Nicodemus doesn’t want others to know that he sought out Jesus.

In any case, Nicodemus says something a bit puzzling to Jesus: “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” What’s interesting is that Nicodemus approaches him with a term of respect. Not yet an official role in Judaism, that would come a century or two later, but he calls Jesus Rabbi—teacher and goes on to say that Jesus performs signs—a reference in the gospel of John to Jesus’ miracles, which ability is a sign of God’s presence in and with Jesus.

On the surface, it seems fairly straightforward, an acknowledgement of Jesus’ power, but it is also probing: it’s not a direct challenge to Jesus’ authority as we will see later in the gospel, but it seems to imply that Nicodemus isn’t quite sure what to make of Jesus.

Not surprisingly, Jesus isn’t about to give him any help in his quest for information. As happens so often in the gospel, Jesus’ reply to him seems to be something of a non sequitur, perhaps even nonsensical: “I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born from above.” Nicodemus after all has made no mention of the kingdom of God.

And then comes another puzzle. Our translation reads “unless they are born from above.” The traditional translation is: “born again.” Same word, two completely different possible translations. Instead of asking Jesus to clarify what he meant, Nicodemus assumes Jesus means born again and asks how it is possible to enter one’s mother’s womb again. 

I see this as a pivotal moment in their encounter and it’s one that many of us have experienced. When we meet someone or something new, we want to fit into our categories of understanding, to make it make sense on our terms. Nicodemus seems to assume Jesus means one thing, even if it’s nonsensical or absurd, while Jesus is using words that are opening up whole new universes of possible meaning. That becomes clear as Jesus continues, speaking of the spirit blowing where it wills.

In addition to the confusing language that we have here, it’s not clear when Nicodemus leaves the scene. Are the last verses addressed to him, to other bystanders? Or given that Greek texts of the day lacked most punctuation not to mention spaces between words, it’s not even clear whether Jesus speaks the last few verses, or whether it’s the gospel writer addressing us as the text’s readers.  

In any case, I should point out that however John 3:16 has been used or interpreted in the past, it’s rarely coupled with the following verse: “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” In other words, it is not a statement of exclusivity or exclusion, but rather one of openness and invitation. Christ came into the world that the world—everyone, in fact, everything, the cosmos, might be saved through him.

As I mentioned, Nicodemus will appear again in the gospel, first in chapter 7, where Jesus is again in Jerusalem and is caught up in a dispute over the nature and origin of his authority. While Nicodemus does not defend him in front of the Pharisees, he does point out that Jesus deserves a fair hearing. This may suggest that the earlier encounter with Jesus opened Nicodemus to the possibility that Jesus’ message was life-giving and transformative. 

We see that transformation has taken place in Nicodemus’ final appearance in the gospel where he assists Joseph of Arimathea with Jesus’ burial and provides an extravagant amount of embalming spices. Now, we can conclude that Nicodemus is a disciple of Jesus though a secret one, like Joseph.

Over the past few weeks and months, I have had a number of conversations with people who are relatively new to the church; some are coming back to church after years or decades away, some are experiencing Christian community for the first time. Their journeys are unique, as are all of ours. Sometimes there’s a precipitating event; sometimes, a growing sense that there is something more to life than what they have been experiencing.

I think of Nicodemus, who was first drawn to Jesus because of the signs—miracles he performed but turned away when Jesus didn’t meet his expectations or provide easy answers. But over time, he kept wondering. Maybe he thought about what Jesus said, ruminated over it, tried to figure it out, and kept coming back to it. Maybe Jesus’ words began to make sense, or opened up to him new possibilities of life and faith. In the end, we see him ministering to Jesus at his death, performing intimate acts of devotion and care.

The chaos, violence, and disruption in the world that surrounds us can overwhelm us, immobilize us. It can make it difficult to find space or time to focus on what really matters, to explore our relationship with Jesus. It may make it difficult to process our feelings, to explore the questions that concern us. A chance encounter, words of life, the spirit blowing where it will, may plant seeds that take time to germinate in us. To nurture them, to allow them to grow and blossom may lead to new life in us. I hope you take time this season of Lent, to notice those seeds in yourself, to nurture and sustain them, that your life in Christ may grow to its full stature.

Coffee Hour Temptations: A Sermon for the First Sunday in Lent, 2026

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Many years ago, there was a much-feared section of the GOE’s, the General Ordination Exams required of all candidates for the priesthood in the Episcopal Church, called “coffee hour questions.” They were the sorts of questions parishioners might ask of priests, like “where did Cain’s wife come from?” or “Do dogs go to heaven?” The section was intended to test how well candidates could respond to random questions pastorally as well as theologically. Back in the day, I had lots of experience answering such questions posed by cheeky undergraduates, but I’ll admit those skills have become a bit rusty over time.

         I recently got such a question from a parishioner, and it was at coffee hour. She stopped me and said something like: “I’m really struggling with the Lord’s Prayer. Why do we say ‘and lead us not into temptation’? Why would God lead us into temptation?”

I get it, we don’t need God’s help to be tempted, or Satan’s for that matter, we’ve got our own egos and desires, not to mention billions of dollars in advertising campaigns, and conspicuous consumption, media, that offer us more than enough temptation.

I’ll admit I was a bit taken aback by the question and didn’t have a ready response. So this week, as I began working on today’s lessons for this sermon, I went back and reminded myself of the translation behind our version of the Lord’s Prayer. Some of you may recall that the contemporary version of the Lord’s Prayer that we were using this summer offers a different translation: “Save us from the time of trial” it reads. Most commentators assert that what is meant here is not ordinary temptation like a second helping of dessert but the end-time struggle between good and evil imagined by first-century apocalyptic thinking, the same kind of thinking behind the earlier petition “Thy kingdom come…” But to answer that question, I would respond that the petition should be understood as something like: “keep us away from temptation…”

Temptation…

Two of our readings focus on temptation—first the familiar, archetypical story of the temptation in the garden of Eden, and second, the story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness after his baptism and before the beginning of his public ministry.

As the reading from Romans suggests, these few verses from Genesis provide the scriptural basis for the traditional doctrine of Original Sin. To point out several obvious things, however: Nowhere is sin mentioned; neither is Satan, nor fall, nor even temptation. Even the decision by the editors of the lectionary to read it today, on the first Sunday of Lent, in conjunction with the gospel story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, contributes to our mis-reading of this foundational story of Judaism, Christianity, and western culture. Is it about original sin? If by original sin, one means the human condition, then yes.

The inclusion of the verses from chapter 2 helps us understand the authors’ perspective on human beings and on creation. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden, the Hebrew literally reads, “to serve it and to guard it.” Human beings were created to be in partnership with the garden, to protect it and preserve it. It’s a very different notion than that which appears in Genesis 1, when God commands the humans to have dominion, lordship, over all the animals and plants. We see here a sense of human beings cooperating with creation, given responsibility to protect it. One more point—there’s no sense here that before the fall, humans were intended to live in idleness, rather, they were placed in the garden for an end and a purpose. Created in the image and likeness of God, God intended them to flourish and to aid in the flourishing of creation.

But something happened. They met a talking serpent who gave them a different way to think about themselves and God. The serpent questioned what God had told them and promised them that by eating from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would become like God. 

Everything the serpent tells them is true, if somewhat one-sided. They did not die after eating of the fruit of the tree and they did gain knowledge. And the fruit was desirable. Eve ate because the fruit was beautiful, good to eat, and would make one wise—all of these are appropriate reasons for her decision. And, I would add, of the two humans, at least the woman showed some agency: “she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.”

What were the consequences? They gained knowledge; most immediately, of their nakedness. They were ashamed. So whatever intimacy the two beings, “bone of bone and flesh of flesh” had had was suddenly gone—they needed protection from each other. And they needed protection from God. Their nakedness and exposure broke the pair’s intimacy with each other; it also broke their intimacy with God. Instead of becoming like God, they becoming frightfully aware of their difference from God. They wanted to escape from God but God wasn’t done with them. God sought them out in their hiding place, and when God located them, God showed continuing care for them by sewing clothes for them from animal skins. Any punishment would come later. 

It may not be a story about sin and Satan but it is a story of disobedience and rebellion against God. God created the humans for a purpose, for relationship with God and to participate with God in the care of God’s creation. Rejecting that purpose, they chose to aspire to be like God and so spurned their true nature, having been created in the image and likeness of God. 

It’s the story of humanity; it’s our story. Like Eve and Adam, we grasp for the beauty and knowledge we can see; and in grasping for what we want, we turn away from God and deface the image of God in us. The knowledge we gain is knowledge of our own fallen humanity, knowledge of our shame and embarrassment. 

In the story of the temptation of Jesus, Satan asks him, “If you are the Son of God…” This story follows immediately on Jesus’ baptism, when he hears the voice telling him, “This is my Son, my Beloved.” The temptations of Jesus are temptations about what that means to be the Son of God, just as, in the garden, the temptation was about what it means to be human. The temptations of Jesus are temptations about what sort of Son of God Jesus is. Is he the Son of God in the sense that Roman Emperors were sons of God—the most powerful men on earth with all the trappings of power, wealth, and status? 

Or is he the Son of God in some other way? Satan tempts him with other ideas about what it means to be the Son of God. He also tempted Jesus to prove he was the Son of God by forcing God to act in a certain way. But Jesus rejected both of them and in the end, was the Son of God who died on the cross.

We are at the beginning of Lent. On Ash Wednesday, many of us heard those words, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return.” They’re a reminder of our humanity, our frailty, and vulnerability. Today, in the Great Litany, we heard centuries-old language that confronts us with our sins and shortcomings, as individuals and as the human race. Lent confronts us with our humanity; it opens up for our reflection and inspection all of the ways we have fallen short of our human potential, all of the ways we have ruined the image of God in us. 

But that’s not all. Lent is also about a God who loves us in spite of the fact that we have turned away from God, in spite of the fact that we have defaced God’s image in us. God loves us even when we hide from God like the man and the woman in the garden. Just as God continued to care for the two who had rebelled against God, sewing clothes for them from animal skins, God continues to love and care for us. 

It’s easy to hear the language of sin in the Great Litany and throughout Lent as language of condemnation and rejection. It’s easy to recoil from that language, especially in our culture of self-help and self-actualization, our culture of gratification and enjoyment. We often want our religion on similar terms. Lent doesn’t allow that. But that’s not the end of the story or experience of Lent. It’s not the whole story of the Christian faith.

The purpose of our confession of sin, the purpose of our self-reflection in this penitential season is to receive God’s grace and love in all of its fullness. Lent is an opportunity for us to strip off our fig leaves of self-deception and self-protection, to allow others and God to see us as we are, and to let God begin to remake us in God’s image. Lent is an opportunity for forty days to experience briefly what the Christian life should be like 365 days a year, receiving God’s grace as we joyfully are remade in God’s image and fully realize the potential God has created us to become. I pray that all of us experience some of that joy and renewal in these forty days.

The Logos of the Cross: A Sermon for Epiphany 4A, 2026

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The Logos of the Cross

Epiphany 4A

February 1, 2026

The last few days there’s been a post going around my social media feed: name five classes you took in college. When I first saw it, I was thinking about my sermon today, so my mind immediately went back to the course on Paul I took when I was a sophomore. It was taught by a recent PhD who left my alma mater after a few years because his approach to the New Testament was a little too controversial for the powers that were there.

Eventually, he would go on to teach for many years at one of the most prestigious graduate programs in Religious Studies in the country, so he landed on his feet and we would continue to connect for as long as I attended American Academy of Religion meetings. In any case, the course was so rigorous and thorough that I never took another course on the Pauline Epistles in my graduate studies. What I learned then, almost fifty years ago, provided the lens through which I continue to look at Paul—expanded by learning from feminist and other contemporary approaches. And I still remember our class discussions on First Corinthians.

I almost always focus on the gospel reading in my sermons—it’s not only accepted practice but in some ways expected. And perhaps I should have chosen to preach on today’s gospel reading the first verses of Matthew 5, the beginning of Jesus’ sermon on the mount. These verses are known as the Beatitudes. But the other two readings are equally compelling. First there are the words from the prophet Micah that climax eloquently with: 

“What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

Then the Beatitudes, which in the Gospel of Matthew are the first public words uttered by Jesus:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth

And so on. Words that have comforted and challenged Christians throughout the millennia, and comfort and challenge us today. If I have time this morning, I will come back to them and connect what Jesus is saying here with what I will be saying about Paul over the next few minutes.

But to Paul, and to 1 Corinthians. We heard the first verses of the letter last week and we’ll have more readings from it over the next few weeks, so it’s worth saying about about the letter as a whole. The first thing to keep in mind is that it was a letter. It was written by Paul to a community that he had founded some years earlier and it reflects that relationship. He has been in contact with members of that community. Apparently he received a letter from them and also a visit from some “Chloe’s people” he calls them. 

Like any other letter, it is written for a particular purpose and to a particular audience—not to us. We are, in a sense, eavesdroppers on that conversation. The questions that are asked are not necessarily questions that concern us—whether it’s ok to eat food that’s been offered to Hellenistic deities, for example. Nonetheless, these letters tell us a great deal about Paul, about the communities he began and those with whom he corresponded. We also learn a great deal about early Christianity. As such, and because they were written only a couple of decades after Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, they are worth reading to gain an understanding of how this new religious movement was developing and what motivated people to join it.

The relationship between Paul and the early Christian community in Corinth was not an easy one. II Corinthians reveals the intensity of the conflict between Paul and some members of the community, and the extent of the pain he felt from their criticisms. But I’ll leave all that aside. I want to focus in on today’s reading. 

Paul makes one of the great rhetorical and theological flourishes in the Christian tradition as he rebuffs his opponents. He is proclaiming the message, literally, the logos, the wisdom, of the cross: 

 “For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block—a scandal– to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.” When we hear Paul contrasting the “folly” of the cross with the Greeks’ desire for wisdom, our temptation is to read those words in light of our own conflicts between faith and reason. But that’s not the case. For the Greeks, the search for wisdom was a religious quest, a quest for a certain kind of religious knowledge that was acquired only through great effort or personal revelation. 

What Paul is trying to articulate is that the wisdom of the cross, or to use his language, the folly of the cross, is accessible to all. At the same time, it subverts all categories of comprehension and expectation. For Paul, the cross—where we see Jesus Christ dying—where we see God at God’s weakest, is precisely the place where God’s saving power is revealed. That is the central paradox of the gospel for Paul. He uses it to undercut all efforts to connect status or power in the community with one’ own abilities, efforts, or experience. 

There may be nothing more difficult to understand than this key notion of Paul’s. It runs counter to everything we know or expect. As humans, our very conception of God is tied to God’s power and knowledge. God is that being to whom we appeal for help when we are powerless, weak, and in need. We project on God all of our hopes. We turn Jesus Christ into the superhero who will rescue us when we are in danger. 

But Paul says something quite different. For Paul, God is at God’s most powerful, we see Jesus Christ most clearly, when we see him dying on the cross. There we confront and experience God’s love and more importantly, God’s sharing in our humanity and pain. That’s the foolishness of the cross. But that’s also the power of the cross. That’s the power of the incarnation—God with us. Jesus Christ is not the superhero who rescues us, Jesus Christ is the one who is with us when we suffer. Jesus Christ, God is with all those who suffer.

It is there, on the cross, that we see God. It is there, on the cross, that we see God’s reign breaking in upon the world. Jesus proclaims this truth when he announces that those who are poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart, when he announces that all of them are blessed. They share in God’s reign. They experience God’s reign.

Of course, none of that may be obvious. Those who mourn are grieving; the poor in spirit are suffering. Yet when we accept Jesus’ call to follow him and become fishers of people, we share with him in proclaiming the Good News that God’s reign has come near. We share with him the responsibility of bringing healing and wholeness to a broken world and to broken people. When they experience that healing, they begin to see and experience God’s grace and power in their lives. They begin to experience the power of the cross and the reality that God’s reign is near. Thanks be to God.

“The Peace of God, it is no peace” A sermon for Epiphany 3A, 2026

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January 25, 2026

“The peace of God, it is no peace, but strife closed in the sod. But let us pray for but one thing—the marvelous peace of God.”

The third verse of our Gospel Hymn today (Hymnal 661 “They cast their nets in Galilee”) seem especially appropriate as we gather today.

Our hearts are breaking; our nation is breaking; our world is breaking. Sadness, despair, fear overwhelm us. We may feel impotent as we watch the scenes unfold on social media or the news. We may worry that there is no way forward; that the nation, the world we knew are being destroyed as we watch.  

Today, as I reflect on this gospel reading, I am overwhelmed by its aptness for our situation. In the first place, the very context of it. It begins on an ominous note, with a reference to the imprisonment of John the Baptist. Remember, Herod arrested John the Baptist because he preached against Herod’s rule, criticizing him for his evil deeds. Ultimately, John would be executed, a victim of state violence.

When John is arrested, we’re told that Jesus withdrew to Galilee. Presumably up until that point he had been in Judea, but his withdrawal suggests that he feared for his life as well. 

In essence, Jesus is going back home; but he’s going there because Herod arrested John the Baptist. It’s likely that Jesus felt himself under threat and suspicion because of the action taken against John; after all, the two were closely associated. 

So one might imagine that Jesus was feeling very much like many of us do today, fearful, concerned about the future, concerned about his future. But he did not hide. He may have gone to Galilee, but in the midst of whatever fear he might have had, he chose at that very moment, in all of the uncertainty, to begin his public ministry. More than that, Jesus emphatically chose to continue John the Baptist’s ministry. Matthew reports as a summary of Jesus’ proclamation: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” In other words, he may have withdrawn, but he didn’t go underground. Instead, he chose to speak out, bravely and loudly, and to do so with the very same language that John had used.

Let me pause and make two observations because to twenty-first century ears, this language sounds overly pious and a bit old-fashioned. When we hear the word “repent” our minds go to the overt rituals and drama of repentance—feeling shame and guilt over sins and seeking God’s forgiveness, whether we do this individually and privately, or in the context of the sacrament of Confession. Similarly, “kingdom of heaven” sends our minds to pearly gates, angels with harps, and streets paved with gold. Both of those sets of images are misleading.

The word translated here as “repent” is the Greek “metanoiete” which literally means “change your mind.” So it’s not so much feeling remorse for one’s actions and seeking forgiveness, but a complete transformation in one’s point of view; the way one looks at the world, perhaps even, a transformation of who we are at our very core. 

Similarly, while Matthew almost exclusively uses the phrase “kingdom of heaven,” it’s his wording for what in the gospels of Mark and Luke is called the kingdom of God and kingdom should be thought of not as a place, a territory or nation, but a qualitative existence—we could say “reign of God.” We will have a great deal more to say about the reign of God as we work through the Gospel of Matthew this coming year. Especially now, we might even translate it as “empire” and interpret Jesus’ proclamation of the “empire of God” as a direct challenge to Rome. God’s power and justice is present around us and in this very world, confronting and overturning the power and oppression of Rome.

From that brief summary of the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, Matthew turns to the story of Jesus calling the first disciples. In its brevity and simplicity, it invites all sorts of questions. Why did Peter and Andrew, James and John, respond in such a way to Jesus’ call? Did they know Jesus? Had they heard about him? Was it something in his demeanor that motivated them? Were they so ground down and dispirited by lives caught up in the grinding poverty and oppression of Roman occupation that they jumped at the opportunity to break free? 

What might have been holding them back? What might be holding you back? Were they caught up in the nets that they were mending? Were they tied down to old ways of thinking? Stuck in the system of oppression that overwhelmed them? How did they find the strength and courage to cast aside those nets and follow Jesus? 

How can we know? Jesus called them, and they followed him. They had no idea what would happen along the way. They had no idea where they were headed. They had no inkling how things would turn out. Of course family, work, all those connections and obligations tugged at them, held them back, but they answered the call and followed Jesus.

Jesus calls us as well, as individuals and as a congregation. Jesus calls us to journey with him, to learn from him, to share the good news of God’s coming reign, and to do our part to give others glimpses of that coming reign—of God’s healing power, of the justice and righteousness that it brings. Jesus calls us to join him alongside the vulnerable, the oppressed: widows, orphans, immigrants, refugees, victims of violence and hatred.

The road is hard, the journey long. Like Peter and Andrew, James and John, we don’t know how it will turn out. For Jesus, it ended on the cross; for those disciples, it ended in martyrdom. 

As we look around our community and world; as we watch events unfold in Minnesota and other places in our nation, as we witness the suffering in Gaza and the West Bank, and feel the fear of our fellow humans as we watch old norms collapse and familiar structures dissolve, we may feel despair and fear ourselves. We may wonder what we should do. We may ask ourselves, what next?

The answer is simple. Let’s follow Jesus. Let us hear and share the Good news of God’s reign. God’s reign does not depend on who occupies the White House or controls Congress. God’s reign depends on us and the way we witness to God’s love in this broken and hurting world.

Jesus went about the towns of Galilee proclaiming the good news that God’s reign is near. He healed the sick, restored people to their communities. Jesus calls us to follow him, to share in the proclamation of that good news. Jesus challenges us to welcome the stranger and the foreigner, to clothe the naked, to feed the hungry, to visit the sick and prisoners. Jesus challenges us to love our enemies. In all of that, we are participating in the coming of God’s reign of justice and peace. In all of that, we are following Jesus. 

May you hear his call; may you follow him.

Hanging Out with Jesus: A sermon for Epiphany 2A, 2026

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January 18, 2026

For just about the last decade, I’ve been meeting regularly with an ecumenical clergy group. Its membership has changed over the years but there’s a core group of us remaining from when I first joined. As you might imagine, over that time we have gotten to know each other very well. We talk about issues facing our congregations, sticky pastoral situations that would benefit from an outsider’s perspective, and the big things—changes in our society and religious involvement. But we also just hang out. Sometimes, there’s no agenda for our meetings and we find ourselves. Being a clergy person can be extremely isolating and having a group of people with whom one can share one’s struggles safely and openly is a godsend. Over the years, we have developed deep relationships that are profoundly life-giving.

No doubt many of you have similar groups of friends or family with whom you regularly spend time. For some of you that community might be right here at Grace Church.

I was thinking about such gatherings as I began working on today’s sermon, for in it we see Jesus inviting would-be disciples, not to take up their crosses, but to stay for a while. We often take such groups for granted but the reality is that many people don’t have communities like ours; they’re isolated and lonely, without friends or family and sometimes seek connections online that can become toxic.

There’s a lot going on in these few verses. First of all, in some ways it’s a parallel to last week’s gospel reading in which John the Baptist baptized Jesus. It has all the same elements, except for one very important thing. There’s no mention of Jesus’ baptism! There’s much more I could say about this but I want to focus on other things.

For one thing, I want to point out something I hadn’t ever really considered before—the significance of John identifying Jesus as the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” That language is so familiar to us, to me from our liturgy—that its strangeness and uniqueness had never crossed my mind. It has a place as one of the fraction anthems used at the breaking of the bread in the Eucharist, and musical settings of it are very common and familiar. But this is the only use of this language in all of the New Testament.

I can’t unpack all of the possible significance of this language here but what I do want to point out is that there’s a connection with the crucifixion, especially in the gospel of John’s timeline. You may recall that in the synoptic gospels, the last supper is presented as a Passover meal. However in John, Jesus’ trial takes place on the day of preparation for Passover and his crucifixion on the Passover itself suggests John is thinking of Jesus as the Paschal lamb. 

That’s a curiosity, worthy of deeper reflection, but I want to draw our attention to what comes next, John’s version of the calling of Jesus’ first disciples. 
You may recall the story of Jesus calling the first disciples from the synoptic gospels, especially Mark. Jesus is walking along the shore of the sea of Galilee. He sees Peter and Andrew, James and John repairing the nets on their fathers’ fishing boats. Jesus says to them, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of people.” The four get up, leave the nets, the boats, and their fathers behind, and follow Jesus. 

There’s a completely different dynamic here in John’s gospel. In the first place, Andrew and the other disciple (We never learn his name, by the way) are already disciples, but of John the Baptist. John and his followers come across Jesus in their wanderings, and John points Jesus out to them, saying, “Look, there’s the Lamb of God who will take away the sin of the world!” The next day, the same thing happens, and two of his disciples, follow Jesus. Jesus asks them, “What are you looking for?” And they respond oddly, by asking “Where are you staying?” To that question, Jesus answers, “Come and see.”

“Where are you staying?” What kind of question is that? What might the disciples learn about Jesus by staying with him for the day? To understand what’s going on we need to put this question, and the event itself, in the context of John’s gospel. Staying… to use the traditional language of the Authorized Version, to abide… is one of those themes that is repeated throughout the gospel. In fact, we heard the theme sounded already in John’s testimony about Jesus. When he reports that he saw the Holy Spirit come down like a dove, he says that “it remained on him.” In today’s gospel the words is used at least four times in quick succession. Much later in the gospel, in the lengthy farewell discourse that John puts in Jesus’ mouth at the Last Supper, he says, “Abide in me as I abide in you.” 

These two questions, “What are you looking for?” and “Where are you staying?” get at the heart of what the Gospel of John understands by discipleship and the nature of faith. More than that, these two questions, and the understanding of discipleship they open up, invite us to a new understanding of what it means to follow Jesus in our present day.

Discipleship is a word we use a great deal in the church but is easily misunderstood or distorted. Indeed, to the extent that it is a grounding metaphor for the Christian life, it can be as misleading as it is helpful. For one thing, we often think that faith, our Christian life, is primarily concerned with knowing a certain set of ideas, or holding a certain set of beliefs. But note that Jesus did not ask Andrew and the other disciple, “What do you know or want to know?”, or “What do you believe? He asked them, “What are you looking for?” Or perhaps, “What do you want?”

Posed in those terms, Jesus’ question gets at the very core of our being, our deepest desires and hopes, who we are and what we want to be. It’s a question of identity

And the question Andrew poses to Jesus in response, while seemingly unrelated to Jesus’ question, is very much of the same nature. “Where are you staying?”

Andrew’s question is an expression not of a desire to receive a set of instructions, or learn a set of doctrines. Andrew wants to be with Jesus. He wants to stay with Jesus so that he can experience the relationship that Jesus offers him. By abiding with Jesus, by staying with Jesus, Andrew will begin to experience the abundant life that Jesus talks about throughout the gospel. 

Thus for John, discipleship is about relationship, not right doctrine or the transmission of a body of knowledge. Discipleship is about being in community with Jesus, and with others who seek to follow Jesus. And there can be nothing more important than that, being in community in these uncertain and frightening times. 

In all of this disruption and disorientation, negotiating a path forward is perilous. We’re not quite sure what to do, how to act, how to be in the world. Here’s where this gospel reading offers a model. Relationship—abiding with Jesus. In the first place, we are called to open our hearts and our lives to deepening relationship with Jesus Christ, and through that relationship begin to experience and to live in the presence of God’s love for us. To open our hearts to Christ’s love is to begin to know the love of the God who became one of us and loved us and the world so much that he gave his life for the world.

And as we open ourselves to Christ’s love, experience Christ’s love, abide in Christ’s love, we also will begin to open ourselves to those around us, to others who experience that love of Christ and abide in that love. 

All of this is quite abstract and you may think it has little to do with our daily lives. But I wonder. In the midst of all that we have to do, do we take time to be with Jesus? Do we take time to be fully present to our loved ones? Do we really know our fellow members of the Body of Christ in this place? What might it be like for us to nurture deeper relationships with each other and with Jesus Christ in the coming months? What might it be like for us to take the time to get to know one another better, to listen to each others’ stories, to their hopes and fears? By nurturing those relationships, with Christ and with each other, not only would we be strengthened for the journey but the world around would catch a glimpse of the possibilities of new life in Christ’s love.

Three Kings? No Kings? One King: A Sermon for the Second Sunday of Christmas, 2026

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“The Magi” Mosaic, Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, Italy, 6th century

The cover image on today’s service bulletin is of a mosaic in the Basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna. It probably dates to the 6th century and the reason I love it is because it shows how early Christians had already developed considerable speculation about the beloved figures in today’s gospel reading, the magi. For here we see that the tradition had fixed on the idea that there were three, although the only mention of that number is with regard to the gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. In addition, they already have names attached to them: Balthasar, Melchior, and Caspar. It would be later in the Middle Ages, part of the general exoticizing of the figures, that one of them would usually be depicted as black. Other examples of such exoticizing can be seen in the figures in our creche. The elephant, for example is a wonderful symbol of the strange and foreign east, from which we are told the magi came.

And while our skit insisted “No Kings” and in my sermon last Sunday I pointed out the presence of two kings in the story—Herod and Jesus, and noted that in Matthew’s gospel Jesus is referred to as “King of the Jews” only here in the nativity story and at the end in his trial and crucifixion. The elevation of the magi to “kings” is also a fairly early development in Christian devotion though there’s no scriptural warrant for it.

My point is not to debunk the story. In fact, I think these developments reflect deep Christian piety and devotion that can be instructive to us as well. At the same time, it’s worth noting the ways in which such images have reflected and continued to shape our prejudices. It’s a lovely, familiar story but it also packs a wallop. 

Perhaps especially today as we experience it while our nation undertakes yet another foreign adventure, initiating regime change for illegitimate reasons and flouting international law and human rights. Not content with blowing boats out of the water, our administration decided to intervene in another nation, and as has happened so often in the past, has little idea what to do now that it has removed the political leader. A region that has seen its share of ruthless dictators and petty tyrants, is now threatened with instability.

As if destabilizing one nation isn’t enough, spokespeople for the administration are sabre-rattling about regime change elsewhere as well and hinting at territorial expansion: Greenland, Canada. Those of us who have imagined our nation to be a force for peace, human rights, and democracy are watching in real time as those values are upended both here and globally. In a year when we observe the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the gap between our ideals and the reality in which we live seems wider than ever.

Moreover, that so much of this is carried out in the name of Christian nationalism poses yet another challenge. Propaganda from the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies advocate for an ethnic cleansing of the nation in the name of Christ and whiteness. Of course, we’ve seen this before with language and imagery of crusade being invoked in the runup to and during the Iraq War of 2003. 

With all this as backdrop, with all this swirling through our minds on this day, we may be tempted to placate ourselves by ignoring it all and losing ourselves in a familiar story and well-known hymns. We may want a simple story that hearkens back to our childhoods, and allows us to linger in awe and worship at the creche on this 10th day of Christmas even as the attention of the rest of our culture is elsewhere, on military adventurism, or more likely, football.

But even here, in this story, there are ominous notes. We are introduced to Herod, the client ruler of Rome, 

Although a convert to Judaism, Herod was hated by most Jews as the king of Judea, in part because they thought he was Jew in name only and in part because of his pro-Roman leanings. He became king by submitting to Roman authority. He lavished his territory with building projects, including a renovation and expansion of the temple in Jerusalem. Known for his ruthlessness, Herod executed at least three of his sons for conspiring against him. The slaughter of the innocents, which Matthew recounts immediately after his story of the magi is not recorded in any history of the period, but is entirely consistent with Herod’s personality.

The exchange between the magi and Herod borders on the absurd. Who in their right mind would approach a king who has killed his own sons because of their designs on his throne, and ask him where the next “King of the Jews” would be born? But Matthew uses it to heighten the contrast between the reign of Rome through Herod, and the reign of Jesus Christ. The same is echoed at the end of Matthew’s gospel, when Pilate sarcastically asks Jesus, “Are you the King of the Jews?”

There is irony here for Matthew as well. Part of his point in telling the story of the magi is to emphasize that these gentiles, these foreigners, can recognize Jesus’ divinity, and worship him, even if his own people cannot. 

And that may be the message for us as well. We are distracted, angry, disheartened, fearful. We have seen so many succumb to the temptations of wealth and power, perverting the gospel to serve their own ends and to serve evil. The tyrants of this world, whether political or economic seek our submission and silence, demand we bow before them. 

But across the millennia, this familiar story offers us a different path, like the one taken by the magi on their return home, a path that leads us away from the centers of power and the seduction of wealth, and back to Bethlehem, to the creche, where the Christ child lays. 

It is a path that will lead also to the cross, where Jesus offers himself, a sacrifice of love in a world of hate. It is a difficult road, full of danger but it is the journey to which we are called as followers of Jesus, to listen to his voice, to hear his gospel of love, and to share the good news in a broken and hurting world, offering healing to those who are suffering and hope to those in despair. As we kneel at the creche with the magi in adoration and worship, may we gain the courage and strength for the journey ahead, and may the light and love of Christ fill our hearts.