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Vineyards of Generosity: A Sermon for Proper 20A, September 20, 2026

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I want you to picture in your mind a vineyard. Do you evoke memories of visits to vineyards in France or Italy, or maybe Napa Valley? Can you see the rolling hills, the vines, the ripe grapes, perhaps even workers harvesting. Perhaps it’s a memory of one of those movies that have been popular in recent years, appealing to nostalgia, or authenticity—the scene of an extended family sitting at a table groaning with food; and bottles of wine. Corrie and I recently watched Eva Longoria’s series on French cuisine that featured many such scenes in Burgundy, Alsace, and elsewhere.

In the biblical tradition, the vineyard is a symbol of God’s bounty and goodness. The bounty of the vineyard becomes wine that gladdens the heart. And God is the one who tends the vines and presides over the bountiful feast.

But such images of joyous celebration and bucolic relaxation belie the backbreaking labor that is required to tend the vines and harvest the grapes and the narrow margins with which most vineyards operate. Earlier this summer, I read a story in the New York Times about Napa Valley vineyard owners who are burning their vines because of the glut on the market, caused in some part by our current trade wars.

In the Palestine of Jesus’ day, there was also an economic transformation taking place, as small landholders were losing their land to the consolidation of agricultural production of vineyards, wheat, and olive groves. It’s likely that among the day laborers mentioned in today’s parable were just such people who had lost their land and livelihood and were forced to seek work everyday.

The parable we just heard is often interpreted allegorically—with the landowner standing in for God. On this view, the laborers who were hired at the beginning of the day are usually understood to be Jews, and those who come into the vineyard in the course of the day are the Gentiles who receive the gift of God’s grace. That the earliest workers grumble when they find out they are paid the same amount as those who worked only an hour, feeds into traditional anti-semitic tropes. 

As I’ve often said, parables are meant to unsettle us, to challenge us to see the world in a new way, from a new perspective. This one is no different. In these little stories, we should look for strange behavior, for actions that don’t make sense and explore how those actions and behaviors might challenge our assumptions about the world and God.

There’s plenty of strange behavior in this story. The landowner, for example. He begins the day just the way that landowners and farmers have begun the day for thousands of years, contracting with workers to see that the harvest is brought in. We might assume that he hired all the help he needed the first time he went into the market square. And when he hired them, he and the workers bargained on the pay they would receive. Presumably all were satisfied.

It’s now the landowner begins to act strangely. He comes back into the marketplace throughout the day (One might think that he would want to stay back and oversee the harvest). And throughout the day, he continues to hire workers. What’s his motive for this? Does he really need the additional help or is this his way of helping men who lost out on the opportunity for a full day’s wage? But as the story progresses, something else rather interesting happens. While he clearly stated to the first groups that he would pay them a day’s wage, when it came to the last ones, the ones who worked for just an hour, there was no mention of the pay they would receive. It’s almost as if he ordered them to go, and that they had no idea, no reason to know what pay they might expect. In this situation they lacked power and rights.

The odd behavior continues at the end of the day when the landowner passes out the laborers’ pay. Instead of settling up with those who had been working all day, he starts with the ones who came last. And he pays them a full day’s wage! We can all imagine the surprise and joy we would feel if we were treated that way. We can also imagine the anger and frustration we would feel if we were the ones who worked all day and received the agreed-upon wage, rather than much more. If they received a day’s wage for one hour’s work, it’s only fair that we receive nine times that amount for our nine hours of work.

There’s another way the landowner’s behavior is strange and inexplicable. This is no rational way for an employer to operate. He had better hope they finished the harvest that day, because if he goes out the next morning to hire workers to finish up, do you think anyone would agree to work for him? No, they would all wait, hang out all day, then show up in the market place at the last minute, in hopes of getting a day’s wage for an hour’s work. And all of the other landowners would be angry as well, because they could expect similar behavior from the pool of day laborers.

So, lots of questions… But the fundamental one is this: how does this parable explain or shed light on the reign of God? Matthew introduces this story with Jesus saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like …” That intro prompts us to allegorize it as a story about God offering grace and salvation. But how might have Jesus’ listeners heard this story? We can assume that many of them knew all too well the rigors and challenges of life as a day laborer? How would they have judged the landowner’s behavior? Would they have commiserated with those who were jealous at the latecomers? Would they remember days they had spent in the hot sun, working themselves to the bone, all for a meager sum that was enough for one person to live on, but not enough to provide for a whole family? 

In negotiating with and paying the first set of laborers a denarius, the landowner was acting justly—he paid the agreed-upon wage. In paying those who came later the same amount, he was acting with generosity. 

I find the different settings of the parable instructive. On the one hand, there’s the marketplace where the landowner conducts his business, hires his workers. On the other hand there is the vineyard, where the abundance of God’s grace is on display. The grapes that are being harvested will be turned into wine, a symbol of God’s love and extravagance. 

In the parable, we see the values of the market place being subverted by the values of God’s vineyard. As the day progresses, best practices in business give way to something else, as the landowner orders the laborers into the vineyard without first establishing their pay. When he does pay, everyone is treated equally, it’s not equal pay for equal work; it’s equal pay for each person.

It’s a bit like the story from the Hebrew Bible we heard—God’s gift of manna in the wilderness. God provided food for the Israelites, just enough for each person per day. There was abundance, but no hoarding because the manna would spoil.

We hear a great deal about economic anxiety today, about people worrying about whether they will have a secure future or whether their children will live as comfortably as they do. Along with that, there is a sense that some people receive benefits they don’t deserve, that they haven’t earned. We’re locked in competition with others, and so often our own status, our own sense of self is tied up in how much we make, what we own. It’s a dog eat dog world, and we want to come out on top. 

This parable points to a very different reality. In the vineyard, it doesn’t matter how hard you worked, when you started, where you came from. There’s enough to go around. It’s a world of abundance and generosity, not a world of scarcity and competition. Can we imagine such a world where greed and competition, and ambition are replaced by generosity? Can we imagine a world where the losers and the outcast, those discarded by society, are of great value to God, worthy to live each day with dignity? Can we imagine a world, can we help to bring into being a world where God’s generosity is greeted with gratitude and not jealousy? 

A Sermon for Proper 19A, September 13, 2026

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The irony struck me as I began work on my sermon for today. As I’ve mentioned before, one of the things I do each week as I began thinking about my sermon is to go back through my files and read other sermons I have preached on these propers. Looming over each of the five sermons I’ve preached on these texts over the years is the memory of September 11, 2001, the twenty-fifth anniversary of which we commemorated two days ago. 

The events of that day and the days, weeks, and months that followed brought out the best and the worst in human nature and American culture. There was solidarity and compassion but there was also anger, hatred, and violent retribution. The war on terror brought with it an erosion of civil liberties, islamophobia, torture, and countless lives lost. Like so many other eras in American history, we have not had an honest reckoning with the past nor are we able, apparently, to learn from those errors. 

To hear Jesus speaking about forgiveness on this occasion is challenging indeed. But before we get to the gospel, the story from Exodus offers another perspective on the response to trauma and violence.

Our reading from Exodus has brought us to the Red Sea. The Israelites are fleeing Egypt and are caught between the army chasing them and the sea in front of them. A miracle brings them across the sea and destroys their enemy. In verses not included in today’s reading, we’re told that as they watch the destruction, the Israelites sing praises to their God:

“Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously, horse and rider has he thrown in to the sea.”

                                                                                                           Sentiment like this may be difficult to express, to rejoice in the destruction of one’s enemies; it is also a natural, human response to such an event. Yet, we sense that responses like this, no matter how natural, do not seem appropriate for Christians. An old rabbinic story, going back nearly two thousand years, offers another perspective on the Israelites’ celebration at the destruction of the Egyptian army. It goes like this:

“Having reached safety on the other side, and seeing the Egyptians perishing in the sea, the Israelites began to sing and dance.

“In heaven, the angels saw the Israelites singing and dancing, and they too began to sing and dance. But God rebuked them: ‘Those Egyptians perishing in the sea are my people also, and you want to sing and dance?'”

To celebrate a victory is one thing, whether that victory is on the battlefield or the playing field; to ask for, or offer forgiveness to someone who has harmed us, or whom we have harmed is quite another.

The parable we read in today’s gospel challenges us to think about forgiveness. It is set in the context of Peter’s question to Jesus, How often should I forgive someone who has wronged me? Jesus’ answer to Peter is over-the-top. Jesus says, “As many as 7  times 70—490 times. 

In its own way, this saying has also caused harm and trauma. It is one thing to ask forgiveness of someone I’ve wronged; it’s quite another to demand that an injured party forgive the perpetrator when there has been no repentance. I wonder how many times victims of sexual abuse or violence have been expected to forgive their abuser based on these verses. 

And then there’s what used to be the public ritual of the public figure caught in some wrongdoing who makes a grand show of confessing their sin and expecting to be reinstated to the public’s good graces. Today, in our coarsened society, such empty rituals are no longer common. It seems like public figures, be they celebrities, politicians, or athletes, can do what they want with impunity.

Still, we expect or desire offers of forgiveness in our personal relationships, when we have hurt a loved one with our words or actions, or when we have been hurt by someone. So Jesus’ words stand as a challenge to us: how often should we forgive one who’s behavior has harmed us once, or repeatedly? What might Jesus mean by these words?

Perhaps the parable is meant to make Jesus’ meaning clear, I don’t think it does. We are given the story of a rich man who takes pity on someone who owes him 1000 talents. The slave goes off and demands the repayment of 100 talent debt from someone else; when the debt isn’t repaid, he has him thrown in prison. Learning of that action, the king, denounces and imprisons the first slave.

The math: a talent was roughly 130 lb a measure used of gold and silver; one estimate is that it equaled about 15 yrs of wages for the typical worker; so the king, being owed 10000 talents, is owed 150,000 years of wages. A denarius was a coin worth about a day’s wages; the slave is owed 100 denarii, so that’s quite a bit of money as well.

The parable leaves us with questions, even though its meaning is quite clear. We should forgive those who owe us, just as God forgives us. But the questions—why does the king not forgive the slave a second time? After all, Jesus has told Peter to forgive not seven but seventy seven times. The parable invites us to think of forgiveness as a calculus—there exists, somewhere a finite number of times, beyond which it is not necessary to forgive. But that’s precisely the wrong way of thinking about things.

To think about forgiveness as a debt suggests that we understand it in terms we comprehend—mathematics or economics, and given all the talk of debt in our culture, we are sorely tempted to go down that route. That’s overlooking something that is crucial in understanding Peter’s question: “How often should I forgive my brother? For that question implies there is relationship between the one forgiving and the one owed. Including that in the equation changes everything. 

We ask God to forgive us and we experience God’s forgiveness, rich, unbounded, unmerited. It is that relationship and that experience that should shape our own forgiveness. That is the point both of Jesus’ answer to Peter and the parable itself.

I have lived long enough and served as a pastor long enough to know that pain and anger from hurt can last a very long time. We process things quite differently; in different ways and at different speeds. Even the same hurt inflicted on two different people can linger in very different ways in those who have been affected. Forgiving others may be difficult, even, at times, impossible. Yet our God, who has forgiven us so deeply and so completely, invites us, not only to be forgiven, but to forgive in the same way, richly, unboundedly, and totally. Thanks be to God!

Trauma, Memory, and God’s Grace: A Sermon for Proper18A, September 6, 2026

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Christians are a people of memory. We are a community called together by memory; called to remember. Our central act of worship is a memorial and a re-enactment; but more than that we enter into the story itself as we remember God’s saving acts and participate in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

But as we all know, memory is a fickle thing. In our own lives, there are stories we’ve told ourselves, stories about us others have told us that might not bear up to close scrutiny and as we age, some of those stories fade into mist or even oblivion. On a personal level, we may repress memories of embarrassing moments or traumas we’ve experienced, but especially in the case of trauma, it can continue to shape us subconsciously, and even, as we are learning, for generations to come.

We see that same dynamic played out in scripture, as the authors and editors tell the story they want preserved. At the same time, they often reveal alternative or counter-stories that raise questions about their perspective. Nowhere is this more true than in the story from Hebrew Scripture we just heard; God’s instructions to Moses and the Hebrews on how to prepare for Passover. This event may be the key story in all of Hebrew Scripture—It describes God’s nature as the Hebrews and then Jews experienced God. It also defines the Hebrews and then the Jews as God’s people.

The story of Passover describes God’s liberation of the Hebrew people from bondage. It’s the story that Jews continue to tell and re-enact each year both because it celebrates God’s salvation of God’s chosen people and because it identifies contemporaries Jews as part of that larger story, part of God’s salvation history.

Passover is a celebration of Israel’s liberation by God; but it is set in the context of a larger story. We’ve heard parts of that story over the last few weeks—of Moses’ birth and rescue by Pharaoh’s daughter, the burning bush and God’s call to him. Between that event and today’s readings unfold the familiar story of the plagues. The instructions for the Passover come in the midst of the tenth plague—Yahweh’s killing of the first-born of Egypt, horrendous suffering. 

One might expect that the mood of Passover is joyous, but in the verses that were read, there is a stress on Yahweh’s judgment as well as on liberation. The joy of liberation is tempered by the reality that liberation came at a horrific price. We haven’t heard these weeks the stories of all the other plagues. But this last one, the killing of the firstborn of all Egyptian families, and their livestock, was the culmination of unimaginable violence and suffering. That violence would continue throughout the story—the destruction of the Egyptian army at the Red Sea, and later during the conquest of Canaan, as God demanded that the Hebrews kill everyone whom they encountered. But that will come later.

Back to the story of the Passover. There’s another important element, here. Liberation too is not self-evident. The command to eat while dressed for a journey and to eat hurriedly gives yet another note of urgency. The Hebrews may be free, but their enemies were pursuing them. 

The raw emotion and violence of the Passover narrative might tempt us to try to smooth its rough edges, to re-interpret it so as to better fit our world view. That would be a mistake. The Passover is the central ritual event in Judaism; its message and its re-enactment have played the leading role in how Jews understand themselves. The instructions to eat hurriedly, dressed as for a journey, put contemporary Jews back into the story of the flight from Egypt. Today’s Jews become Hebrews fleeing Pharaoh as they eat their lamb, bitter herbs, and unleavened bread.

Indeed, Passover is so important in the life of Judaism that early Christians had to reinterpret Passover as they developed their own rituals and theology. Thus, in the Gospel of John, Jesus is crucified as the Passover lamb; in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the last supper Jesus shared with his disciples was the Passover meal, and thus our own Eucharist and our Christology borrow heavily from Passover imagery.

But there is a deep problem here. One the one hand, we have the image of a God, who hears the suffering of God’s people, and intervenes on their behalf. God frees them from their slavery in Egypt and promises that they will possess a fertile land. On the other hand, in the course of gaining their freedom, God wreaks vengeance on the Egyptians. 

The story of the plagues, read carefully raises profound questions about the nature of God and God’s willingness to destroy human and animal life. Indeed, it is not at clear in the story that either Pharaoh or the Egyptians have any power to avoid the horrible fates that awaited them. They certainly were not given a choice to avoid the final plague. At one point, God told Moses that he was bringing this last plague, the killing of the first-born on Egypt so that “my wonders may be multiplied.” 

There’s even today’s psalm which praises God’s vengeance against Israel’s enemies and concludes that all of it is “glory for God’s chosen people.”

It is an image of God with which we should be uncomfortable—hearing this lesson with its promise of the destruction of all the first-born of Egypt, not just humans mind you, but even cattle, that language should make us squirm in our pews. 

We might be tempted, many of us have been, to put that language and imagery down to the Angry God of the Old Testament, and contrast it with the loving God of the new. That is one of the oldest heresies on the books, and it’s flat out misinterpreting both the Old Testament and the New. There’s plenty of wrath and judgment in the New Testament’s depiction of God, and plenty of love and mercy in the Old Testament’s—we see that in today’s reading from Romans, in which Paul says twice that “love is the fulfilling of the law.” 

We look at such events and seek explanations. The size of the hurricanes and fires may in part be attributed to climate change, but the reality of natural disasters, earthquakes, hurricanes, and wildfires cause great damage and cost lives. We want to know why. And sometimes, we want to attribute such events to divine agency; that they are God’s judgment on us, or on the inhabitants of those places where they are occurring. But such attempts are misguided—as Jesus says in Matthew, “the rain falls on the just and the unjust.” 

Instead, we should remember another important lesson from our reading of Exodus—God hears and responds to the cries of those who suffer. In the Christian tradition, we see God in Jesus Christ, walking with us, suffering, and dying on the cross. It’s a symbol of God’s presence in the midst of all of the evil and suffering in the world. We should look for signs of God’s presence, God’s love and grace, wherever people suffer, in floods and hurricanes, in the rubble of bombed cities.

As God’s people, we are also called to hear the cries of those who suffer—from hurricanes and earthquakes, yes, but also the cries of the hungry and homeless, the fearful and the hurting. More than that, we are called to respond to those cries, to work to end their pain, to bring justice and liberation to the oppressed, the enslaved, the incarcerated. 

And to bring us full circle, we are called by God, as a people and community of memory, to tell honest stories, about ourselves and about God. Yes, we should celebrate the liberation we have experienced; we should remember and give thanks for the blessings God has given us, but we should also remember and mourn the price that was paid for that liberation and those blessings—the people who suffered because of them, the people who still suffer, and we should, when necessary, repent.

Wildflowers and Burning Bushes: A Sermon for Proper 17A, August 30, 2026/

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A few weeks ago, I was out on a bike ride on the Capital City Trail, between Dunn’s Marsh and Lake Farm Park. It’s a beautiful stretch of the trail, rolling terrain, some wooded areas and a lot of prairie. I love riding through the prairies in the summer—the scenery is a riot of color with purple coneflower, wild sunflowers, and rudbechia dominating the landscape. As I was riding along, I saw from the corner of my eye a flower I didn’t recognize, but it took me a second to process it and by then I was a few yards further down the trail and reluctant to turn back. 

Later, as I made my way back home the same way, I kept my eyes peeled for the same flower and when I saw it, I stopped took a photo, and identified it with my camera. It was prairie blazing star, a purple-spiked flower. There was just a small cluster of them in one spot just a few feet from the trail. I have biked the same trail several times since then, and I haven’t seen that flower again. Perhaps I haven’t looked for it, or I was too focused on other things, deep in thought, to notice it. 

The story of Moses’ encounter with God at the burning bush is one of the foundational stories of biblical tradition—the story of God’s self-revelation to Moses and God’s call to Moses. But it starts in such an ordinary, mundane way. Moses was going about his business, tending his father-in-law’s sheep.

A lot has happened since we encountered Moses as a little baby, rescued by Pharaoh’s daughter. He grew up at court, with all the privileges entailed, and when he was a young man out and about, he encountered a slave driver whipping a Hebrew worker, got angry and killed him. So he had to flee, and ended up here, in Midian, where he encountered Jethro and married his daughter.

I can imagine him there with a flock of sheep, no one to talk to, lost in his thoughts. He might have been wondering how he had gotten here, after living at Pharaoh’s court; he might have been wondering how his life might have turned out if he hadn’t done that one bad thing. He might have been wondering how his life would turn out now. He might have been feeling just a little bit sorry for himself. One boring day after another, watching a flock of sheep as they grazed.

And as he’s going about his business, on a day like any other day, he has an encounter with God. He sees a burning bush; it’s strange because the fire doesn’t seem to destroy the bush but it keeps burning. So he goes to investigate. On one level, this encounter with the divine is a straightforward theophany, the scholarly term used for such experiences of the holy. There’s a strange event—the burning bush; the divine address to a human, and the human’s response of fear and humility. Moses took off his sandals and hid his face. There’s also the divine self-revelation. I am the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In Hebrew scripture, such theophanies often include a call or commission, as this one does: God tells Moses to go back to Egypt and lead God’s people out, to this place, to worship God.

But Moses isn’t having it. As I’ve said before, these stories from Genesis and Exodus depict many of the leading characters in complex ways. They aren’t all good. That’s certainly the case with Moses, even from what little we know so far. After all, he did kill that Egyptian, so at the very least, he’s probably hotheaded, rash. But now we see another side of him. He’s not going to accept the task God has set out for him without some discussion or debate. He pushes back, saying to God, “That’s all well and good, God, but who should I tell them has sent me?”

Now, in Hebrew scripture, names are incredibly important. They aren’t random but reveal something essential about the person’s identity. Jacob, which was said to mean “heel” for example, was called that because he was grasping the heel of his brother when they came out of the womb. Later, he would be renamed Israel after wrestling with the angel, which was said to mean “he strives with God.” 

So when Moses asks for God’s name, he is asking to know who God is, but knowing names also gave one some power over the one named. But God’s answer eludes Moses’ trap, and eludes our efforts to understand and control God as well. On one level, God’s response, “I am who I am” is the perfect comeback. It could mean, “Moses, don’t try to control me.” But the Hebrew could be translated in other ways, most significantly, in the future tense—“I will be who I will be.” 

It doesn’t just prevent Moses from defining or confining God into categories he’s comfortable with. It’s declaring to Moses that if he wants to know who God is, he will have to spend time with God; he will have to experience God, walk with God. And over the course of his long life, Moses would do just that. 

But it wasn’t just Moses. The same was true of other biblical figures—Abraham who God called out from his home. It was true of Jacob, who after wrestling with God was renamed Israel. 

And it is true of people in the New Testament, not least the disciples, who Jesus called to follow him. We see that with Peter, who made his great confession of faith, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” And yet a few verses later, when he hears Jesus speaking about what will happen to him in Jerusalem, Peter rebukes him, refuses to believe that Jesus might suffer and die—and in response, Jesus calls him Satan. He, and the other disciples would learn what Jesus meant by his prediction only by following him. They would learn, only by following him, who Jesus was and what it meant to follow him, to take up their crosses.

We often think we need to figure everything out, to know what we believe, know who God is. But as I’ve said before, sometimes, the questions we ask are more important, more revealing of ourselves and of God. Scholars have pondered for centuries just what God’s answer to Moses means. Those few words have opened up infinite speculation and questions that would have remained unspoken if Moses hadn’t asked his question.

Moses asked God a question. Do you have questions about God? Any questions about or for God that you dare to ask? 

Asking these questions, actually saying them out loud, opens us up to the possibility of deeper relationship with God. The God we encounter as we ask the questions is a more expansive, more exciting, more challenging God.

In addition to God’s answer to Moses, we learn something else about God in this reading. It’s something very important but often overlooked. God hears the cries of those who suffer. God responds to the oppressed. 

In addition to Moses’ question, there’s another question that emerges from today’s readings. God called Moses to lead God’s people out of bondage. Jesus called his disciples to take up their crosses and follow him. Relationship with God, relationship with Jesus Christ is not just about being or knowing, it is also about being called. And so the second question we are posed today is, “Where is God calling us?” Our inclination may be, given what Moses did next, given what the disciples ended up doing, that being called by God means big things—becoming a prophet, a saint, a hero of the faith. But close reading of scripture reveals something else, that God uses ordinary people, like you and me, and that God often calls us in very small, ordinary ways. So where is God calling you? Sometimes, that call from God may come in a spectacular event, like a burning bush; but sometimes it may be so small and quiet that we might be prone to miss it if we aren’t paying attention—like not seeing a prairie blazing star as we’re riding by.

Finally, remember that “God will be who God will be.” Among all the other things this means is that our deeper knowing of God, our deeper relationship with God, lies in the future, with all of its possibility and uncertainty. God is calling us all to new things, new adventures, and as we go, we will learn more deeply who God is and experience more deeply God’s love and grace. 

Who do you say that he is? A Sermon for Proper 16A, August 23, 2026

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August 23, 2026

When I read today’s first lesson earlier this week, I couldn’t help but think how my reading of it was affected by our current context. A capricious, ruthless, fearful ruler commanding the separation of families. The suffering it must have caused, not just the slave labor, but then the demand that male children be killed. And the resistance. The different ways in which powerless women refused to submit to the yoke of oppression—with lies and obfuscation, by hiding and concealing. Another interesting fact, the only characters named in the story were the midwives: Shiphrah and Puah; and then, at the end of the story, Moses. No one else is given a name, not his mother or sister; not Pharaoh or Pharaoh’s daughter, but only the two midwives and the baby saved from murder. 

Empire looms over the gospel story as it does over the Exodus story. I’ve mentioned before that geography is important to the gospel writers. Each of them use geographical details in slightly different ways, but paying attention to where events are said to take place, paying attention to Jesus’ itinerary, helps elucidate larger themes in the gospels’ portrayal of Jesus.

In today’s gospel reading we are in the region of Caesarea Philippi. He’s been traveling a great deal in these chapters. A couple of weeks ago, he was in Galilee, and as we saw, he and his disciples crossed over the Sea of Galilee. Then, last week, in the reading from chapter 15, Jesus went from there far to the northwest, to the region of Tyre and Sidon, along the Mediterranean coast. After that, Matthew tells us, he returned to the shore of the Sea of Galilee. 

Now, he and his disciples are in or near Caesarea Philippi. That’s far to the north on the border of the province of Syria, in a region controlled by Philipp, Herod the Great’s son. Caesarea was a city that Augustus had given to Herod and Herod had rebuilt. Herod had built a marble temple dedicated to Augustus. When Philipp succeeded his father, he continued the building spree and renamed the city Caesarea Philippi, in honor of his imperial patron and himself. Like all such cities in the Roman Empire, it was a projection of Roman power and culture. It was both symbol of that power and a central node of power.

It was here that Jesus asked these two questions—“Who do people say that I am? Who do you say that I am? Those of us who are familiar with the story, familiar with the Christian tradition, know a little bit of how this story has been interpreted in the history of Christianity. It is a founding text for notions of papal supremacy, and the power of the institutional church. “On this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” As you probably know, one of the most common symbols of the papacy are the papal tiara above two crossed keys. 

But I’m not interested in that tradition of interpretation. Rather, I want to focus on the power and significance of those two questions, and I want to imagine, if you can, Jesus asking those questions today, on Madison’s Capitol Square, , or in the halls of the US Capitol, or the White House. Jesus asked his questions in the shadow of empire, with the presence of Roman military and cultural power dominating the landscape and no doubt the minds and lives of the residents.

Who do people say that I am? 

That’s the easy question to answer. The disciples had no problem offering answers—John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, one of the prophets. What answers would you give to that question today?

“Who do you say that I am?”

That’s the hard one and I can imagine the disciples looking away, looking down at their sandals, trying to avoid Jesus’ searching gaze. Awkward silence, until Peter blurted his response,, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” And I can see the other disciples rolling their eyes as Peter responded, thinking to themselves, “There he goes again. Why doesn’t he just shut up?”

But Peter’s answer was not because he had studied harder than the other disciples, that he had memorized everything Jesus had said. Peter’s answer came not from himself but from God. And even he didn’t know what his answer meant. A few verses later, after protesting in response to Jesus’ prediction of his arrest, execution, and resurrection, Jesus would call Peter, “Satan.” And as we know, Peter would deny Jesus at the moment it mattered most. 

Still, now, he made the confession, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”

We live in perilous times for Christianity. It’s not just the rise in the numbers of those who claim no religious affiliation. There’s the close identification of evangelical Christianity with right-wing political views, the conflation of American Christianity with American nationalism and of course, white supremacy and racism. 

We might think that the questions Jesus asks here are primarily doctrinal—about his nature and identity with God. You might have thought, as I gave you silence a few minutes, “Now what does the Nicene Creed say?” 

You might think that Jesus wants an answer full of doctrinal statements. But I don’t think that’s the case. Jesus asked the question of his closest friends and companions, people who had walked with him across Galilee, to the Mediterranean, and now to the far north. They had listened to him, even when they didn’t always understand what he meant; they had seen him heal the sick, cast out demons, feed thousands. They had stuck with him even after they heard of John the Baptist’s death, and begun to imagine that a similar fate might await their leader as well.

They might not have been able to say the words—even Peter needed God’s help to say them, but deep inside, I think they probably were sensing something of who Jesus was, because they were getting to know him. 

I don’t think the point is that we get the answer right. After all, Peter didn’t really understand what the words he was saying meant. I think the point is the conversation—hearing Jesus’ questions, taking them seriously, wrestling with them, and in that response, opening ourselves to him and to his love. 

Our American culture, American Christianity, have named Jesus but I don’t think those of us who experience and know Jesus in ways different than that, who see in him someone who welcomes the stranger, feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, loves his enemy, can simply argue for an alternative definition, blurt out a different response to the question. We have to show in our lives, and in our community who Jesus is.

When Jesus asks us, “Who do you say that I am?” he does not want an answer in word or doctrine. He is asking us to speak from our hearts; he is asking to see us put our answer into action, not words. 

Who do you say that I am? That may be the most urgent question facing us today in the midst of all of our political turmoil. Can we confess, and express a Jesus who offers hope to those in despair, who breaks down the barriers that divide us, who loves everyone, without exception, and whose love casts out our fear?

Fearing the chaotic abyss: A sermon for Proper 14A, August 9, 2027

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It was the summer after my junior year of college and I was doing what I had done every summer since I hit my teens—I’d given up my books and schoolwork for a hammer and nail apron and took my place on the jobsite where my dad was building or remodeling houses. This summer, the first job was to frame a two-story house and I found myself walking around on the second floor joists as we began hanging rafters for the roof. All of a sudden, I looked down and realized where I was, twenty feet or more above the ground. My legs began to tremble and I had to get down on my hands and knees to stabilize myself. It had been nine months since I had found myself in a similar position, and even though my body remembered it, my mind was playing tricks on me. I was scared, and it would take a couple of days of working up there before I got comfortable again.

I wonder if Peter had a similar experience, walking out on the water, suddenly realizing where he was, and freaking out about it. There’s actually a backstory about my fear—I had to overcome fear of heights to work with my dad. I remember as a younger boy, maybe ten years old, climbing around on a half-framed house and falling. I didn’t hurt myself. But years later, when I started working for my dad, I had to overcome that memory before I could function fully on a ladder or a roof.

This morning’s thunderstorm put me in mind of another incident from that same summer. We were finishing the metal roof on a large pole barn, 40 or 50 feet above ground, when a thunderstorm suddenly popped up. I’ll spare you the details. It was quite possibly the scariest experience I’ve ever had.

So many of us are fearful right now. The old certainties on which we relied seem to have fallen away; the safety net is being dismantled; our very sense of who we are as a nation, a people dissolving in front of our eyes. It often seems like we are hovering over an abyss of chaos.

I know that many of us come to church in search of reassurance and hope, to hear words of inspiration and comfort in these troubled times. Today’s gospel lesson speaks directly to fear. It’s the familiar story of Jesus walking on the water. And no doubt, those of you have attended church all your lives, going all the way back to Sunday school as kids, could tell me about this story—that it’s about Peter’s impulsiveness, his lack of faith, and of Jesus saving him in spite of himself; a lesson that we can transfer to ourselves. And so it is, but it is also, or could be, about so much else.

First, a note about context. This story is set immediately after the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand. But there’s another event that may offer additional perspective. Chapter 14 begins with the account of Herod’s execution of John the Baptist. After receiving word of this from John’s disciples, Matthew reports that he “withdrew to a deserted place.” But time and space for grief and reflection were not to be. The crowds followed him, Jesus had compassion on them, and healed their sick. It was that evening that Jesus took five loaves and two fishes, and from them fed the crowd.

Our story picks up immediately after that event. Again, Jesus withdraws after sending the disciples ahead. He needs time to grieve, to recharge and reflect on what John’s death might mean for his own ministry. The disciples begin their journey across the Sea of Galilee. They were sailors, at least four of them were, and the Sea of Galilee was their home. They apparently spent the night on the lake, their boat was battered by wind and waves—the Greek is literally, “tortured” so we’re meant to imagine the disciples had to struggle mightily against the great danger they faced. What I find surprising in this brief account is that Matthew doesn’t say anything about the disciples’ emotions until the moment they catch sight of Jesus walking on the water. They may have struggled in the storm throughout the night, but Matthew tells us that they became afraid only when they saw Jesus, thinking he was a ghost.

Similarly, when Peter takes out after Jesus, he is fine until he notices the wind. Then he becomes frightened begins to sink, and calls out to Jesus, “Save me.”

There are other dimensions to this story. One of the most significant is the sea itself. Throughout biblical literature, the sea is a symbol of chaos. It is the primordial stuff, present at the beginning of creation, out of which God creates order. For Jesus to walk on water is another proof of his power over evil and chaos, demonstrated as well by the fact that the storm ended when he entered the boat. And the disciples responded appropriately, worshipping him and confessing him to be the Son of God. 

To make another connection with ancient understandings, walking on water certainly symbolized divine power, but when humans attempted it or claimed the ability, it was seen as hubris, arrogance, and tyranny. The Emperor Caligula, for example, who reigned from 37-41, had a temporary bridge built across the bay of Naples so he could cross on foot, as befitting a God, and not cramped in a boat. So this event, coming after Herod’s execution of John the Baptist, after Jesus fed the five thousand, is another example of God’s reign breaking in, to provide food, to bring order out of chaos, to initiate God’s justice and peace.

And the disciples respond accordingly. It’s worth pointing out that in Mark’s version of the story, which doesn’t include Peter’s attempt to walk on the water, ends with this description of the disciples: 

“And they were utterly astounded,for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.”

By contrast, Matthew’s story ends very differently. The concluding verse reads: “Those in the boat worshiped him, saying ‘Truly, you are the Son of God’.” Two things here. First of all, the use of the word “worshiped.” When we hear that word, we think of what we do on Sunday morning: sing hymns, read scripture, pray, all of that. It’s all quite respectable, rather staid. But the word translated as “worshiped” literally means “prostrated”—to get down, not just one’s knees but to lie prone before the one being worshiped. It’s the sort of bodily gesture that would have been expected when approaching the throne or person of the emperor. You might well wonder how the disciples could have done that in a boat in the middle of the Sea of Galilee.

The second thing is the confession—Truly you are the son of God—the one able to feed five thousand, to calm the seas, to demand the kind obeisance normally demanded by the Emperor: an alternative ruler, an alternative kingdom.

In so many ways the world in which we live is chaos. We may feel like we are the disciples in the boat struggling against a mighty storm. We may feel like Peter, sinking as we notice ourselves suspended amid chaotic forces. We are afraid. I am afraid. I am afraid for our planet, for the human race, for this nation, our city. I fear for American Christianity that has been complacent and complicit in the sins of white supremacy, racism, and the violence of war. 

But if, like the disciples, we truly confess Jesus to be the Son of God, then our allegiance to him supersedes all other allegiances, including that of our nation. If we confess Jesus to be the Son of God, we need to name and fight the sins and evils that surround us. We need to call out and confront all those who conflate flag and cross; we need to confess our sins and complicity in the racism of our nation and out city. We need to call out and condemn the hatred and evil that that we’ve seen in too many other places across America over the last couple of years.

As followers of Jesus, as his disciples, we are at a moment of decision. We can confess him to be the Son of God, we can take up our crosses and follow him into the chaos that surrounds us. We can share his message of love, proclaim the justice of God’s coming reign, or we can turn away, look away, in disbelief and silence, and allow those forces of chaos to overwhelm us a church, a city, and a nation.

Jesus is reaching out his hand to us. Do we have the strength, the courage, the faith, the moral clarity to grasp it? For in that hand lies our salvation.

Walking on Together: A Sermon for Proper 8A, 2026

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June 21, 2026

We’ve been reading the story of Abraham these past few weeks, and today we hear the most dramatic episode in his story. Indeed, this may be one of the most dramatic stories in all of scripture. It confronts us with a horrific dilemma and its implications concerning God’s nature and the nature of the relationship between human beings and God, the nature of faith, are deeply unsettling.

“And Yahweh tested Abraham.” 

This story, called the sacrifice of Isaac in the Christian tradition of interpretation, may be familiar, at least in its outlines, but I hoped as you listened, you were attuned to its horrific implications. What kind of a God could demand human sacrifice? We quail at that question and recoil—it can’t be about human sacrifice. It is about human sacrifice. A man is asked by his God to sacrifice his only, beloved son. We know from other texts, both in the Hebrew Bible and from parallels in other texts from the Ancient Near East, that while human sacrifice was not particularly common, it did happen, both in Israel and among Israel’s neighbors.

We can’t imagine the mindset of someone who would sacrifice their son; and if someone told us today, or tomorrow, that God was demanding it of them, we would think they were mentally ill. What sort of a human being, whether in the ancient world or in the twenty-first century, could conceive of such a thing? 

We might be inclined to write this story off as one of those stories from the Hebrew Bible that have no connection with our lives, or even with our God, but doing so would fail to take note of the important way this story has functioned in Christianity—for when one hears of God demanding the sacrifice of a son, when one hears in a story a son referred to as beloved, when one imagines an altar, and blood, and sacrifice, and a son, we are inclined to think of Jesus, God’s only, beloved son, who in the Christian tradition has been seen as sacrificing himself for us. The story of the sacrifice of Isaac is very often, perhaps inevitably interpreted in light of the story of Jesus Christ, and the story of Jesus Christ is very often, and perhaps inevitably, interpreted in light of the story of the sacrifice of Isaac.

But that doesn’t make this story any more palatable. For many Christians, the notion that God might demand or require the sacrifice of God’s son is deeply troubling. 

Our attention quite naturally is focused on the horrible dilemma faced by Abraham, and the horrific demand made by Abraham’s God. But we would do well to attend to the other character in the drama, to Isaac himself. The tradition of Jewish interpretation points us in the direction of Isaac. The story is known in Judaism not as the sacrifice of Isaac but as the Akedah, the binding of Isaac, which suggests his agency in the events. 

For one thing, we are compelled to wonder how old Isaac is at the time of the story. We know that Abraham is quite old, well over 100 years, and we know also, from the previous chapter, that Isaac is at least a young boy. We can infer from our reading that Isaac is old enough and big enough, to carry a substantial load of wood, and that he is mature and thoughtful enough to wonder why they are going up the mountain to make a sacrifice, but they have no animal which to sacrifice. 

Given this, it is not difficult to imagine that Isaac was complicit in the act, in this potential sacrifice, that he knew what was going to happen, and that he agreed to it. Still, considering this possibility does nothing to lessen the text’s terror. We are left contemplating a capricious and demanding God, a God who has promised blessing to Abraham and now demands his son. We are left contemplating a man and his son, so faithful to their God that they consider this horrific act.

So we are left with questions, hard questions about the nature of God and the nature of faith. But of course it is not just this story that forces such questions upon us—it is life itself that confronts us with questions like these, the meaning of suffering, the presence of God in the midst of pain, the possibility of faith in a world that seems cruel and meaningless at times. We might want to answer as Abraham did when his son asked about the lamb, “God will provide.” But even those words ring hollow in the midst of tragedy.

Is it even possible to wrestle meaning out of events like the death of a child? We could go further and ask about the tragedy of tornados or tsunamis, or the Holocaust. But I’m sure by now you get my point. 

This story challenges us with these questions and leaves us little to grasp for. But it does leave us with something. There is a little sentence that appears twice in the narrative as the drama and tension build.

When Abraham tells the slaves to remain behind, loads Isaac with the wood and takes the fire and knife, the text reads “So they walked on together.” And again, after Isaac asks Abraham where the ram is for the sacrifice, and Abraham responds, “God will provide,” the text reads, “So they walked on together.” 

There is something about terrible evil or suffering that can rob us of our humanity, strip away all convention and morality, all hope, and faith. In this story, facing unimagined horror, father and son walked on together, united by their love, and by their faith. 

We see that love expressed, the relationship defined in another repeated phrase. At the beginning of the story, God calls Abraham, and Abraham replies, “Here I am.” Later on, Isaac calls to Abraham, “Father,” and Abraham replies, “Here I am, my son.” As we have seen before, Abraham responds to God’s call. Abraham hears God. Now, we see him responding to his son, hearing his son. And they walk on together.

We are hearing stories these days of families torn apart by violence, of families torn apart by changing regulations concerning refugees and immigrants. We know of families, of parents who face gut-wrenching decisions concerning medical care for their children. How many of us are facing dilemmas of one sort or another—demands that seem to heavy to bear. How many of us are facing decisions we dread to make, and wondering whether God will provide?

This story is about the love of a father and son. It is also a story about faith. Just as we can’t imagine God asking us to sacrifice a child, , we may struggle with the notion that God may demand our total loyalty, our whole being. 

This story presents us with that very possibility, that when we say “Here I am, God,” God may take us seriously. Abraham heard God’s call, following God into an uncertain future, into a foreign country. Abraham responded when God called him, and considered sacrificing his son to a God who demanded everything of him. 

But he wasn’t alone. The two of them, father and son, walked on together. They faced the horrible abyss together. So, too, we. When God calls us, when God seems to demand the unthinkable, the impossible of us, we are not alone. We walk on together, as God’s people, united in faith, in love, strengthening, supporting, each other. 

She Laughed: A Sermon for Proper 6A, 2026

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What would you do if three strange men appeared at your front door this afternoon? Would you welcome them in, offer them a shower and a meal, and somewhere to rest? Or would you send them away with nothing? Today we heard the story of Abraham’s encounter with three men by the oaks of Mamre. It turned out that they weren’t any old ordinary men. Instead, it was God, Yahweh, appearing before Abraham. It was God to whom Abraham offered hospitality, and gave him the reputation in the later tradition that he had entertained angels unawares. 

It’s an ordinary scene, depicted with detail that allows our imagination free play. We imagine Abraham trying to find some cool spot in the midst of a heat wave, sitting in the shade of his tent, or of the oak trees, watching idly, perhaps dozing, as the three men approach. Sarah, as befits ancient near eastern custom, is probably well within the tent. But when the men approach, Abraham draws their attention to him—he runs to them, begs them to stay with him for awhile. Abraham has their feet washed, instructs Sarah to begin preparing a meal, and he himself throws the steaks on the grill.

Last week we heard the story of his call. Today’s reading takes place 25 years later. Abraham and Sarah have been in Canaan all of that time. God has promised Abraham that he will possess the land of Canaan and that he will be the father of a great nation. Just before today’s reading, God had again promised Abraham that he would father a son with Sara; when he heard this, Abraham laughed. In today’s reading, of course, Sarah laughs when she hears the same words. When their son is born, he is named “Isaac”—which can be translated “he laughs.”

The Bible presents Abraham and Sarah to us as the parents of the Hebrew people, the ancestors of Judaism, and as Paul would have at, the progenitors of our faith as well. But the stories themselves raise more questions than they answer. One of the most obvious is raised in the text by Sarah herself: Can an old woman give birth to a son? Her barrenness is a theme that will continue for the wives of Abraham’s son and grandson—Isaac’s wife Rebekah, and Jacob’s wives Leah and Rachel, all suffered, at various times, from barrenness. It is a theme that is meant to underscore the miraculous nature of these births—that they were not simply a product of nature, but of God’s acting on behalf of God’s servants.

But there is more to this story than a prediction of Isaac’s birth, and of Sarah’s laughter. There is another enigma. Why is it three men that appear to Abraham? It is only in the course of the story, after the meal, that it becomes clear one of the men is no man at all, it is God, Yahweh. God’s first unmistakable act in the story is to chastise Sarah for laughing at the prediction of Isaac’s birth. This is not the end of the story, however. The three men separate, two of them make their way to Sodom, where Abraham’s nephew Lot will encounter them, and just as his uncle did, will invite them into his home and offer them a meal. The third, who now is clearly God, tarries for a time with Abraham. God tells Abraham that he intends to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, and Abraham bargains with him.

We have two acts of hospitality here—Abraham’s welcoming of the three men, and Lot’s welcoming of the two men, two acts of hospitality. In Abraham’s case, it is an opportunity for God to repeat the promise that Abraham will be the Father of a great nation and indeed, it seems from the text that it is during this visit that Sarah miraculously becomes pregnant.

That hospitality is at stake in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is seldom noticed by most casual readers of the Bible. Other biblical texts, for example, Ezekiel 16:49 reads: “This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease but did not aid the poor and needy.” 

And indeed, even in today’s gospel, the connection between Sodom and hospitality, while not explicitly stated, is clearly at issue. Jesus tells his disciples that “If anyone will not welcome you, shake the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town” and then predicts that things will be worse for that town on the day of judgment than it was for Sodom and Gomorrah. God’s judgment on that town will be worse than God’s judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah—and the only offense, the refusal to welcome Jesus’ disciples.

Today’s gospel is a central passage from Matthew’s gospel. It recounts Jesus’ commissioning of the twelve for mission. The context within which Matthew places it and the way in which he tells it, reveals a great deal about how Matthew understands the role of the disciples. Jesus commissions them in response to his experiences in Galilee. He has been going about Galilee, teaching and healing. 

Matthew tells us that Jesus “had compassion” for the crowds; the Greek implies he felt it down in his gut. His commissioning of the disciples is an extension of his own ministry. It is a response to the need he perceives. The commissioning extends Jesus’ ministry and authority to the disciples. They are not going to be lone rangers, out doing their own thing. They are extensions of Jesus. And of course, the tasks Jesus gave them to do were clearly laid out, he told them what to wear, how to act, who to be.

In a nutshell, Jesus gives the twelve instructions for the journey on which they are embarking, his own journey that they are extending. The instructions may seem puzzling, even unimportant, why no bag, no sandals, no staff, only a single tunic? Over the centuries, some Christians have interpreted these words literally—they have been the basis for some powerful missionary movements, like the work of St. Francis of Assisi in the Middle Ages. But what’s important about them is the underlying message. There is an urgency in Jesus’ words: “the fields are white unto the harvest.” There is also a strong sense that the twelve should be traveling lightly; they should be equipped for the journey but be carrying nothing unnecessary.

I am intrigued by the three very different responses to the situation in these stories. When Abraham sees the three men approaching, he runs out to greet them and welcomes them in. Jesus sends the twelve out because he had compassion for the needs he saw around him. And then, Sarah laughed. The instructions given by Jesus seem utterly serious, and they are, because the need is so great and urgent.      

These texts challenge us to consider our response to the presence of God, and to God’s call. As Abraham ran out to meet the stranger, as the disciples went out to spread the good news, we are challenged to welcome the stranger, and to be the stranger. We are challenged to offer hospitality and to be willing to receive it. These lessons are a useful reminder to us. How is God challenging us right now? What are we supposed to do? Who are we supposed to be? 

With the needs in the surrounding community and in the world so great, and our own uncertainty about the future gripping us, we are probably tempted to maintain a holding pattern, to keep things as they are, to muddle through. But the example of Abraham and Jesus both confront us. By faith, Abraham left Haran for Canaan when he was 75 years old; he wandered around Palestine for 25 years after God had promised him the land and descendants. After all of that, and yes, Abraham did put God to the test once or twice, he welcomed the strangers in, and received another promise, that was fulfilled in nine months

As God calls us, individually and as a parish, to be God’s people in the world, we need to step forward boldly, and in deep faith that God is leading us forward, not looking back at the past, or worrying about the future, but confident of God’s presence in our midst. And, like Sarah, there may be times when we need to laugh, too.

One with the Father and the Son: A sermon for Easter 7C, 2026

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May 17, 2026

Today, the seventh Sunday of Easter, is one of the oddest of all of the Sundays in the liturgical calendar. We are in something like suspended animation, or stopped motion. On Thursday, the calendar, even if we at Grace Church didn’t, commemorated the feast of the Ascension, when Jesus Christ departed from earth and from his disciples forty days after the resurrection. Next Sunday is the Feast of Pentecost, when we celebrate the coming of the gift of the Holy Spirit on the assembled disciples, empowering them to spread the good news of Jesus Christ throughout the world. But today, today we’re waiting.

Both the gospel and the reading from Acts are about departures, leave-taking. They are two pieces of Jesus’ departure from his disciples. The reading from John comes from the Last Supper. Now we’re in chapter 17, Jesus’ lengthy and powerful prayer to God on behalf of his disciples. The reading from Acts gives us a glimpse into Luke’s understanding of Jesus’ ascension, and the disciples’ response to it. Together, they invite us to think about relationships—the relationship between the Father and the Son, the relationship between Jesus and his disciples, the relationships within and among the body of Christ.   

Our collect today actually sets the tone for us: “Do not leave us comfortless.” It’s a reminder of one of the themes of Jesus’ farewell discourse in John: the promise that upon Jesus’ departure, he would leave them with the Paraclete, the Comforter and Advocate, to remind the disciples of his presence among them, and to strengthen them, to give them courage and hope in this new era.

It might be worth pointing out that in the gospel of John, the ascension is part of one all-encompassing event: Christ’s crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. In a very real sense for John, the real ascension is the crucifixion, as Jesus says in chapter 12, “And I when I am lifted, will draw all people to myself.” The language John uses is “glorification”—as we see here, when Jesus says, “The hour has come. Glorify your son so that the son may glorify you.” That language and imagery may be puzzling to us, because we are more familiar with Luke’s understanding of the ascension, as we see in the reading from Acts.

The disciples at the Ascension are looking up at the sky in the wake of Jesus’ departure. No doubt they are shocked and perplexed by what they’ve just seen and wondering what might happen next. 

In these few verses, they begin in puzzlement and end in prayer. On this last occasion when the Risen Christ is with them, they ask a question that has probably been on their minds since the Resurrection: “Is now the time that you will restore Israel?” One might have hoped, or expected that after his death and resurrection, the disciples would have come to understand that Jesus Christ was not a Messiah in that political sense that they and indeed all Jews were awaiting. But no, even now, at this late date, they seem confused as ever. Jesus promises them the Holy Spirit, departs from them and they stay behind, looking up into the sky.

As they linger, their thoughts and eyes directed heavenward, they are brought back to the earth by two angels who admonish them, telling them basically, you’ve seen enough; it’s over; get back to your business. And so they return to Jerusalem, reconvene in the upper room where they had gathered the night before Jesus’ arrest. Luke takes the time to list the names of the eleven but he also points out that there were other disciples in the group, women as well as men. 

Luke concludes, “They were constantly devoting themselves to prayer.” In that brief description, we can sense something of the odd state in which they found themselves. After all of the spectacular events, the emotional lows and highs, after Jesus’ crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, the disciples still weren’t sure what was going to happen next. They were waiting and they might not have quite known what they were waiting for. 

No doubt part of what they were waiting for was direction, clarity on what to do next. They were probably also waiting to see what Jesus meant with his final words about the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon them and making them witnesses to him throughout the world. In that sense, the disciples were experiencing something we all experience, as individuals and as a community when we wonder, pray, and try to discern the next steps on our journey, when we wait, hoping for clear direction from God on the way forward.

In times like these, Jesus’ words in John 17 are comforting indeed. We have read over the last three weeks Jesus’ words in these chapters from John. They are his final instructions and communication with his disciples at the last Supper. They are words of comfort but also words of commissioning. Jesus is reassuring his disciples even as he gives them commands. In today’s reading, we encounter one of the most significant ideas in John’s gospel. Throughout John, Jesus has stated his identity with God the Father: “I and the Father are one;” “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” Now, he takes that identity a step further. Jesus prays, “Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”

These words have often been used to appeal for Christian unity, for ecumenism. I’ve got no problem with that. I have been active in the ecumenical movement throughout my time here in Madison, serving on the Board, and then as President of the Board of Directors of the Wisconsin Council of Churches. But to collapse Jesus’ words here to mean only that is misleading. This isn’t about working across denominational lines or coming up with agreements for joint communion.

Jesus is speaking about something much deeper here. When he states repeatedly that He and the Father are one—he is not talking about intellectual agreement or emotional attachment. He is talking about identity, oneness. When he prays, that they may be one, even as I and the Father are one, he is praying for oneness, identity. It’s hard for us to grasp what that might mean given our culture’s centuries-long emphasis on individualism and autonomy. One way to think about it might be to imagine ourselves, individually and as a congregation, to be so imbued with God’s presence, so filled with the Holy Spirit, that when others encounter us, when strangers join us, they experience and know the love of God in Jesus Christ. 

In essence, what Jesus is praying for is that when people see us, they see him. Can we even imagine such a thing? Perhaps not. Like all humans, individually we are deeply flawed. Like all human institutions, Grace Church, the Episcopal church, are deeply flawed. We experience conflict, we fall short of our values and fail to respond to the world’s needs and each other’s needs. But to imagine ourselves, as individuals, as a congregation, to be the presence of Christ in the world, the visible presence of God’s love, to aspire to that is to be faithful to God’s call. May we embrace it, may we embody it.

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.