See, I Am Making All Things New - Called to Continual Transformation: The Prophetic Call to Return

 “See, I Am Making All Things New - Called to Continual Transformation: The Prophetic Call to Return” was preached at First Presbyterian Church of Allentown, PA on July 12, 2020. You can hear/watch this sermon here, starting at 34:40.

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Isaiah 55:10-13

10 For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,

    and do not return there until they have watered the earth,

making it bring forth and sprout,

    giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,

11 so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;

    it shall not return to me empty,

but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,

    and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

12 For you shall go out in joy,

    and be led back in peace;

the mountains and the hills before you

    shall burst into song,

    and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

13 Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;

    instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;

and it shall be to the LORD for a memorial,

    for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

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Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

13 That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. 2 Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. 3 And he told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. 5 Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. 6 But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. 7 Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. 8 Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 9 Let anyone with ears listen!”

18 “Hear then the parable of the sower. 19 When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. 20 As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; 21 yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. 22 As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. 23 But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”

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I recently came across a comic strip – yes, a comic strip – I recently came across a comic strip that started with these words in its first panel: “Reading about anti-racism doesn’t make you an anti-racist.”

“Reading about anti-racism doesn’t make you an anti-racist.”

I stopped. These words had caught my attention. Mostly because I came across the comic strip on Tuesday of this week, which means that it immediately followed the end of the 21-Day Race Equity Challenge, where I had literally been reading as well as watching and listening to anti-racism resources for the last 21 days. And its something our community of faith invited each of you to participate in as well. Over the course of three weeks we invited you to read, watch, and listen to anti-racism resources so that we all could be better, more supportive, more educated advocates to our black, indigenous, and people of color neighbors. Which basically means something like we invited you to read anti-racism resources so we could all become anti-racist.

But this comic strip said otherwise: “Reading about anti-racism doesn’t make you an anti-racist.”

So yeah, I stopped. For those of you who did the 21-Day Race Equity Challenge, would you have stopped to check out this comic if you saw these words? For any of you, if you saw these words, how would you respond to its claim?

I’m going to be honest. For a brief second, I was slightly offended because I had put in the work for 21 days. I was reading anti-racism resources, and this claim seemed like a direct attack against that.

I should also tell that this comic strip is one of those virtual, online comics in which you have to swipe through each panel. So I’m still on the first panel, the one that started with the claim, “Reading about anti-racism doesn’t make you an anti-racist” and because those words caught my attention and because I’m a little offended, of course I’m going to check out the rest of the comic.

I swipe to see the second panel. It’s the image of a white guy holding his phone with the caption, “My defensive response was immediate.” And this guy in the comic is thinking to himself, “Is this putting people down for reading about anti-racism?” – Okay, the comic was spot on with my own reaction… pretty good, right?

I swipe again now onto the third panel, and the white guy is trying to make sense of it. He decides to replace the word “anti-racism” in the first claim with the word “mountain-climbing.”

So on the fourth panel it reads, “Reading about mountain climbing doesn’t make you a mountain climber.”

Well dang! If that ain’t true! The rest of the comic, panels five through nine, then explain the claim that was made in the first panel. In summary, it states that yes, you can read about something, whether mountain climbing or anti-racism, but to actually be those things, you must go through a whole series of actions and experiences that lead you to actually doing that thing. This series of actions include expert advice, trial and error, humility, setbacks, and regular practice.

And while I’m sure all of us would agree that reading about mountain climbing doesn’t make us mountain climbers, I think some of us would initially argue against the first claim, like I did for a moment, that reading about anti-racism doesn’t make us anti-racist. And that’s because racism is nuanced with over 400 years of social conditioning (at least in our country), which means for each of us, whether we like to admit it or not, are taught from our youngest of years to get set off by the word “racism” and our immediate reaction to claim that we ourselves are not racist. This is especially true for us white people.

The comic ends with this point: don’t let your immediate defensive response to something you don’t want to hear prevent you from even listening to the entire conversation.

If it brings you any comfort, we’re not the only ones who build up a wall when we hear something we don’t want to hear.

Over the next few weeks, in Sunday worship and in our daily prayer services, we’re going to be hear from the prophets of the Old Testament and their prophetic words.

In the Bible, to be prophetic means to speak words or ideas that God has given specifically to you. In the Old Testament, especially in the prophetic books, prophecy is most prominently a way of calling the people of God back to a righteous religious and ethical life. This was no easy task for the prophets. Many openly lamented the fact of what was required of them as prophets.  It was a difficult, even painful, life because the prophet would inevitably conflict with a world that does not acknowledge the identity and demands of the one true God. In other words, to be prophetic meant preaching to a society that instantly becomes defensive and angry over and over again because their comfortable status quo is challenged. Sound familiar to the comic?

There are prophets throughout all of Scripture, in both the Old and New Testament, from Elijah to John the Baptist. If you have a Bible near you, I want you to open it up to the Table of Contents. At the end of the Old Testament, you’ll see 17 books, starting with Isaiah and ending with Malachi. These books are the stories of 16 prophets, and the prophetic words they spoke on behalf of God.

You’ll notice there are 17 books but 16 prophets; that’s because Lamentations, listed as the third book in the series of 17, is actually a prophetic, poetic text that accompanies the words of the prophet Jeremiah.

The first four books, not including Lamentations, are the four major prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. They are the major prophets because their stories are longer than the other 12 prophets, who, because their stories are shorter, are known as the minor prophets: Hosea through Malachi.

Today we heard from one of the major prophets, Isaiah. In the four verses, we heard Isaiah’s prophetic words to the people of Israel, words that come from the mouth of God through Isaiah as the prophet.

This specific text is one of comfort for the people, which is not like all prophetic texts. This particular text offers the people a poetic vision of restoration. It tells through ecological imagery that God’s word is refreshing, abundant, life-giving like the cool dampness of the rain or the greenness of a landscape, or the taste of bread in our mouths. It’s beautiful, right?

The difficult message of this passage is actually the context in which the people of God find themselves. This passage is one of restoration, but it’s the restoration of the people of God from their exile. And the exile itself is a painful, difficult brokenness that the people experienced.

But now, God tells the people, it's time for them to make their return.

I don’t think exile is a unique experience for the people of scripture. Many people are experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic as an exile from the usual structures and necessities of life. For African-Americans, whose first enslaved ancestors were forced here more than 400 years ago, the persistent realities of institutionalized racism make the United States an ongoing site of exile. And literal exiles—refugees who’ve been forced away from their homelands by violence or lack of opportunity—face continued abuse in today’s xenophobic climate. And as white people, our exile is our contribution to the exile of others.

And now God is telling us to return from exile. Through prophetic words and deeds, we know it’s our time to return.

This means providing better resources with more access to our lower-income neighbors, some of which might be experiencing homelessness, during this time of global pandemic. It means being adamant about ending institutionalized racism by first acknowledging that it’s a reality and then using our privilege to fix a broken system. It means treating our immigrant and refugee neighbors with love, compassion, and hospitality no matter what a secular law says. And for us white people, to return from exile means we must stop exiling others out of fear, anger, and defensiveness due our perceived loss of power, control, and privilege.

These are actions we must take. We must act on returning from exile.

To hear and receive these prophetic words of returning, to hear the restorative Word of God, we must let our comfortable status quo be challenged without becoming instantly defensive and shutting down the conversation.

To be prophetic in the 21^st century, especially in our country, means we must confront our broken system; a system that is made of kind, compassionate, caring people – people like you and me – and acknowledge the disconnect between us as kind, compassionate, caring people and our ruthless power we enact together as a society against people on the margins of society. To be prophetic today, we must acknowledge that even the best of us – good-natured people – have let our institution do the sinning for us.

This is the difficult task of return. This is why the people of God – you and me – struggle with the prophetic call to action.

What is our role in the Parable of the Sower, the story we heard in the Gospel of Matthew. We’re not the sower – that’s God. We’re not the seed – that’s the Word of God. Our role is the soil. We are the soil.

God wants to plant the Word of God – including the Prophetic Word of God – into our hearts. And if we are hardened or defensive, if we have no place for the seed to take root or for it to grow freely, then the Word of God will die before it even has a chance to bloom.

Are you ready to receive the Word of God? Are you ready to return from exile? Are you ready to put your thoughts into actions?

The Word of God can grow within each of us. Thanks be to God. Amen.

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Title: Life in the Promised Land.

Description of Image: Division into North and South. Judah, the remnant in the bottom right. Exile and return in the two blue streaks. Table View Methodist Church in Cape Town, South Africa, celebrates a theological and symbolic journey through the Bible through simple, yet meaningful stained glass. They were designed by Rev. Angus Kelly in 2018 and installed by Anika Van de Merwe of Silverstain Stained Glass Studios in Advent 2019.

Attribution: Life in the promised land., from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57295 [retrieved November 1, 2021]. Original source: https://tableviewmethodist.blogspot.com/p/bible-story-windows.html.

See, I Am Making All Things New - Called to Continual Transformation: Suffering into Hope

“See, I Am Making All Things New - Called to Continual Transformation: Suffering into Hope” was preached at First Presbyterian Church of Allentown, PA on June 21, 2020. You can hear/watch this sermon here, starting at 37:33.

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Romans 5:1-8

1 Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. 8 But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.

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Do you live your life by a mantra?

You know, a motto, a goal, a direction, a guide? The things we post in our homes or the things found on our bookmarks or the things we tattoo on our bodies?

Do you live your life by a mantra?

I want to hear some of yours. Will you take a moment? Will you share a mantra in the Facebook comments? One that you use in your own life. Will you share it with your friends here at FPC Allentown?

Examples: growing up, my family had the serenity prayer hanging on one of our walls: “God grant me the serenity; To accept the things I cannot change; Courage to change the things I can; And wisdom to know the difference.” That’s a good life mantra.

I know Gandhi’s famous quote is another good one: “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”

How about “Life is what you make it.” Or “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

Practice makes perfect? Carpe diem? How about “No Regrets?” How about “Do or do not, there is no try.” Shout out to Yoda for that one.

What about “Laughter is the best medicine?” I like that one.

Even Scripture gives us good mantras to live by:

“Love your neighbor as yourself.” -Mark 12:31

“Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” -Joshua 1:9

“Do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with your God.” – Micah 6:8

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” –Philippians 4:13

Or even just: “Jesus loves me. This is know.”

Do you live your life by a mantra? Did you share it with others?

I do; I live my life by a few. Small phrases that direct the way I want to live my life. I think of them as goals. Guiding practices that keep me on track to a life that I think God has destined for me. I even think they provide a sense of structure when everything else may be chaotic, like life so often is.

And I want to share one of mine with you. One that is odd and unique and maybe dark and possibly a little weird.

A mantra of mine is: “Some day this pain will be useful to you.” “Some day this pain will be useful to you.”

This mantra of mine actually comes from the title of a movie that I watched in 2012, which actually comes from a book with the same name: “Some day this pain will be useful to you.” Now the movie itself was subpar – we’re talking a 9% out of 100 on Rotten Tomatoes – and I haven’t read the book, so I don’t have much to say about either of those – but the title! The title is so good, and something that was revolutionary when I first heard it. You see, I’ve made mistakes and I’ve done my best to learn from them. And I’ve experienced hardships and traumas, and they have shaped me. Some of those hardships came from being an open member of the LGBTQ+ community. I also know that those specific hardships have made me simultaneously a stronger and more empathetic pastor and person.

That pain I once experienced; it has become useful for me today. Do you know what I am talking about? How some things, especially the difficult things, have helped us grow as people? Can you relate to any of this? I hope to actually hear from you. Write it in the comments. Send me an email.  Have you experienced a time of pain or suffering and has the experience, although hurtful at the time, somehow made you stronger, more compassionate, more empathetic, more motivated, more humble, more hopeful? More connected to other humans who also have experienced a similar pain?  Or even just more connected to any human who is currently experiencing any type of pain? 

Here’s why this is on my mind:

2020 marks the ten-year anniversary of me graduating from high school. And at the beginning of this year, a friend and I, to reflect and possibly celebrate this past decade, we decided to create an order of ranking for each year. From the worst year – 2012, same year that movie title came out and maybe why I attached to it so much – to the best year – for me, tied between 2017, 2018, and 2019. And we both said that 2020, above all the other years, was going to be the absolute best year; it was gonna be OUR year!

And it’s not. Out of the past decade, 2020 is not the best year. 2020 is not even at the top of the list. Honestly, 2020 falls towards the bottom. Do you agree? And honestly, not for any individual, personal reasons for me although that might not be true for you. 2020 is at the bottom of the list for all the corporate reasons.

Wildfires in Australia. Earthquakes and wars in the middle east. Locust swarms in East Africa. The worst and largest humanitarian crisis in the history and the war currently happening in Yemen. 

A global pandemic. A national emergency. Several months of stay at home orders. Over 100000 related deaths. The economy is taking a hit; small-business and their owners are definitely taking a hit. People are arguing about whether they need to wear their mask or not while other are cut off from their families and friends and loved ones. Some are dying alone in hospitals and nursing homes; some have died alone.

And of course, the killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd which has lead to violent riots, more acts of assaults and arrests, more polarizing stigmas about people of color and police officers. Tensions are extremely high, and it feels like as a country we are being forced to choose one side over another instead of working together. Good individual police officers are being tore down because of their line of work, and even worse, people of color, are still being assaulted, lynched, and killed.

And last, this month of June, this Pride month and the anniversary of the Pulse massacre, the number of transgender women of color is disproportionally high and now all transgender people worry about their medical care. And I have to ask: when is gender a death sentence?

And for our church; Jack has been gone for three Sundays now and as a community of faith we are feeling angry or sad or confused or divided. And it’s sometimes difficult to see the problems of the world when it seems we have problems right here.

So yeah, I’m gonna say it. This year – 2020 – is toward the bottom of my decade list. This year is terrible. We need to say it for what it is. This year is full of pain and suffering. And I say this as a white, American, healthy, educated, cis-gender, Christian, privileged male. So, imagine how much pain and suffering is happening for everyone who is not any of those things. Because when I say I’m privileged, it’s not about what I have gone through in any other moment; privilege is about what a lot of us don’t have to go through or will ever have to go through, like a lot of things that have happened in 2020 alone.

But some day this pain will be useful to us, right?

One last area of pain and suffering; in the lives of our young people. 2020 was supposed to be their year. Especially for our graduates, college and high school alike. They experienced their last day of school without knowing it was their last. Along with it they missed the last year of spring sports, musicals, award ceremonies, senior prom, and baccalaureate including walking the stage, flipping the tassel, tossing the cap, and the endless graduation parties.

Sure, they took pictures at home in their caps and gowns and some received yard signs. They celebrated together virtually through ZOOM parties and streaming ceremonies. Some received future employment and others were accepted into the next phase of their educational plans. And that’s all very exciting and great, but it’s not the same. For those of us who experienced all of these moments in person, we know it’s not the same. Our young people know it too.

So yeah, our young people are experiencing their own pain and suffering along on top of the pain and suffering of the world. And we should be empathetic to what this year has done to them. And! And we should be following with what their doing with their pain and suffering. Because they’re not sitting in it; I can tell you that much.

This summer we been preaching a series called, “See, I Am Making All Things New - Called to Continual Transformation.” And so far, this sermon has been all about pain and suffering. I’ve been naming it, maybe to some of our dismay, but I think we have to name it. So let’s name it. Let’s admit it as a reality. Let’s agree that it’s present. Let’s agree that to some extent, we all feel it. And let’s agree that there are definitely others out there who are feeling this pain and suffering a lot worse than we are. Are we in agreement? I still want to hear from you. Are we in agreement? Use those comments.

Now let’s talk about what we do with that pain, and how we let it be transformed.

When Paul writes about suffering in Romans, he actually frames it in the context of hope. And here, the hope that Paul writes about is not about wishful thinking. It’s not like saying “I hope it doesn’t rain today.” The hope in which this passage is framed is actually the absolute certainty about the future and God’s role in it. So instead, it is saying “My hope is in God and I know that God is with me, whether it rains or not.” But to get to that absolutely certainty of biblical hope which is the goal, Paul writes that is it suffering that acts as the catalyst. And it’s a step-by-step process from there.

So step one, the catalyst – we must acknowledge the suffering of humanity and our own suffering within it. And God doesn’t point the blame when recognizing this suffering. Rather Paul writes that suffering comes from all of humankind being out of sync with God, acting as sinners as part of a broken system. Which means for us to find hope in a better system, we must first acknowledge the broken system. And that’s going to hurt because when we acknowledge the broken system and see our part in it, we do actually shift some of the responsibility of the brokenness onto ourselves. Step one is by far the most difficult because we no longer sweep suffering under the rug but we embrace it head on. We name the pain, and we take more of it.

For privileged people like me, an example of this is acknowledging that people of color have more systemic struggles than us because of a broken system and then willing to take on some of the struggle to repair the broken system. For those of you who have been fighting the broken, unjust system, you know that to do so is an additional struggle, and yet you also know that struggle you have taken on does not compare to the struggle people of color experience because of the broken system we are all trying to fix.

Also, so far, this entire sermon has been all about taking the plunge into step one and embracing the suffering. It’s a difficult step, and if you’ve been uncomfortable at all so far by this message, then you get just how difficult this step is.

But immediately, step two and three and four move into the positives. Step two moves the suffering into endurance. We start finding our footing. We find our voice and our strength, and we start to learn when and how to use them… and when and how not to. We’re willing to take on more of the struggle, because we have learned that we can. And that because we can, we should. While taking on that suffering is a difficult step, finding the endurance to continue in that suffering becomes easier, because we know that God is with us in this fight, and we know that this fight matters; that this suffering matters.

Once again, as privileged people, we see that if people of marginalized communities have endured a worse struggle a lot longer than we have and survived, then we can do it too, even at a fraction of their pain. And so we commit to it, we endure the struggle because we know we can survive it, because people of God’s good creation have already modeled it for us, even if they were forced to endure it. And we know that maybe if we intentionally commit to some of this endurance, others won’t be so terribly forced into it. 

So step three moves that endurance into character, which means this is now a part of us. Part of our identity. This step is the most humbling, because in many ways, we are now giving our suffering and endurance over to God, and we are making the claim we are a part of God’s creation. And when we let our endurance move into character, we realize that we are no longer the central part of God’s creation but rather an equal part.

And as privileged people, rooted in our bones and our spirit, we understand that injustice against any of God’s creation, especially the oppressed, is actually a full injustice against God. And although the injustice may not be against us directly – most likely for many of us it’s not against us – it is against God. And when it’s against God and God’s creation, then yes, we have a responsibility rooted in our identity in Christ to fix it. Producing character means we not only acknowledge this responsibility but also fulfill it, even if it brings us back to step one and causes us more suffering.

But then we move into hope. The end goal. And as I said, this is not wishful thinking. This is absolute certainty in God’s faithfulness. Which means that justice and love and equality for all of God’s children can and will happen, with certainty IF – IF! – we as individuals of a broken system are willing to go through the steps. Suffer with others. Endure the pain because we can. Fully fulfilling the responsibility of fixing acts of injustice. And then finally, we boast in our hope by sharing the glory of God as true equals the way that God intended.

So back to our young people. I have served alongside youth programs in three churches in New Jersey, in Indiana, and now here. Through social media I still see what all of these young people are up to. When our young people see suffering in this world, they do their part to end it. The pain they’ve experienced? They’re using it now.  So today we celebrate our graduates but not just for graduating, but for being the ones who are changing the world. For working alongside God in transforming this world.

For a time such as this: maybe our mantra can be this: suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us.

My hope – my absolute certainty – is what God is doing through our young people. And if they are doing it, so should we. Thanks be to God. Amen.

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Reach Across Difference

“Reach Across Difference” was preached at First Presbyterian Church of Allentown, PA on October 10, 2021. You can hear/watch this sermon here, starting at 27:05.

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Matthew 25:31-46

31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33 and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. 34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? 39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ 40 And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family,[a] you did it to me.’ 41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

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Just under ten years ago, the first preacher from my family preached a sermon from the passage we heard today.

Now there’s no other clergy in my immediate or extended family; it’s just me. But there was another preacher.

My little brother, at the age of 18, preached a sermon on Matthew 25:31-46. I wouldn’t preach my first sermon until a year later.

He was preaching at our home church at what we would refer to as “Senior Sunday” – one Sunday like ours that celebrates the graduating seniors.

Now I could say that I remember everything he said from that sermon, but I’ll be honest; I don’t. But I do remember one part of his sermon, which I have to say, “Good job, little brother. I remember a sermon of yours ten years later.”

At one point during his sermon, he was listing how the youth were cared for by the church as they went from children’s ministry to the youth program, how they went from confirmation to graduation. He was giving examples how sometimes the youth like himself could be referred to as the “least of these” – like how the youth were cared for by the church when the youth were hungry or thirsty or sick.

Then he said the best line. He said, “Our passage says, ‘I was in prison and you visited me,’ – well, I’ve never been to prison but I’m currently grounded and you all are visiting me now.”

And that is how our church cares for our youth. We have their parents force them to worship and youth group when they are grounded. Thanks be to God. Amen.

 Okay, so maybe it’s more than that.

Last Sunday, when we launched our new faith formation and fellowship hour, we also started our new monthly theme of “hospitality” and “welcoming all.” This is part of a new churchwide theme where worship and faith formation of all ages are connected to a similar scripture text and theme each week. Faith formation for children, youth, and adults are designed to be an expansion of worship, to build upon what we heard here and to be discussed and digested later.

This month – for the first four weeks of October – we are focusing on hospitality. Which is fitting because if Christians should be known for anything, it should be how we welcome others. Hospitality is at the core of who we are. Adele Ahlberg Calhoun in her Spiritual Disciplines Handbook says, “Hospitality creates a safe, open place where a friend or stranger can enter and experience the welcoming spirit of Christ in another.” This definition truly reveals what a gift and challenge Christian hospitality can be.

It definitely can be an easy joy, especially when we welcome those we love most; the people just like us. But the real challenge is creating an open, safe space when we invite people who impinge on our own comfort levels or who are different or disliked. Christian hospitality needs to be a commitment to both, welcoming those who are like us and those who are not.

Now last Sunday, Pastor Jan started with a message taken from the two creation stories in Genesis chapters 1 & 2. In both creation stories, humans, like all other livings things, are created and welcomed by God into God’s creation. A relationship is established between God and humankind in the very beginning. And so from that moment on till the end of time, we know as God’s chosen people, we are called to welcome others because we have first been welcomed into a placed prepared for us by God. Right there from the creation, we learn that hospitality to others is not a choice for us. It is part of our covenant with God. God welcomes us, and we are to welcome others.

We know that we are called to treat all others as fellow beloved creations of God. This is especially important when we consider the vulnerable.

In our passage today, toward the end of his life on earth, Jesus tells his disciples about the future day when all nations will assemble before him and he will separate all people into two groups like a shepherd who separates the sheep from the goats. Those who will “inherit the kingdom,” Jesus says, are the ones who gave him food when he was hungry, drink when he was thirsty, and clothing when he was naked. Those who will inherit the kingdom took care of Jesus when he was sick, visited him when he was is prison, and welcomed him when he was a stranger.

But then the ones who will inherit the kingdom – the righteous – will become confused on this future day because they don’t remember doing any of this for Jesus. And Jesus gives them and us the beautiful message, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”

Jesus tells us when we as his disciples go out and serve those who on the margins of society, those that society has forced to be considered as “the least of these”; when we go out and serve them, we minister to Jesus. When we welcome those unlike us, we welcome Christ.

Again, Christian hospitality is both a gift and a challenge. It’s easy when we welcome those most like us. It’s a real challenge when the person we are welcoming is a person that we dislike or causes us discomfort. Who might be considered the “least of these” today? Although I appreciated my brother’s sermon, we know it’s not just youth who are grounded. Who are the marginalized? Who are the people we dislike? Today, it might be people who are different ages, socioeconomic status, ethnic background, political convictions, worship style, or any other characteristics.

To welcome those different than us is our Christian responsibility; part of the covenant God established with us.

I have a video that I think we all we truly love. This congregation has a connection to Fred Rogers and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. The Rev. Dr. Bill Barker was a senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Allentown, and a dear friend of Rev. Rogers. I know many of you still hold a part of your heart for Rev. Barker. While this video doesn’t include Rev. Barker, it was a significant moment in history. In one of Misters Rogers’ Neighborhood most famous episodes, Fred Rogers invited Officer Clemmons to cool his feet in the same pool of water as himself. This took place on May 9, 1969. Although at this time segregation had been legally struck down by the courts, many areas of life in America still remained largely segregated. This included swimming pools. Listen to Francois Clemmons’ reflection on this moment and what it meant for him and for all viewers. And watch what Mr. Rogers does when Clemmons pulls his feet from the pool; it’s something so powerful and biblical. Let’s watch together.

[WATCH THE VIDEO HERE]

Did you see it? Did you see what Mr. Rogers does as Officer Clemmons pulls his feet from the pool? Mr. Rogers grabs the towel and starts drying Officer Clemmons’ feet; an act taken straight from Jesus as he washed the feet of his disciples. Jesus said to them, “So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them.” This is from the 13^th chapter in the Gospel of John.

So Mr. Rogers, without even mentioning scripture, does exactly what Jesus commanded of all of us. He reached across difference and dried the feet of someone unlike him, someone society falsely deemed less than him. He did this after sharing a pool with Officer Clemmons, something that was still not widely accepted.

Francois Clemmons reflected on this moment in the video. He said, “To say he didn’t know what he was doing or that he accidently stumbled into integration or talking about racism or sexism. That’s not Mr. Rogers. It was well planned and well thought out. And I think it was very impactful.”

Every day we must intentionally push ourselves out of our comfort zones to embrace the Christian practice of hospitality. It’s easier when it’s with the people just like us. But our responsibility also lies with welcoming those who are different. Letty Russell in her book Just Hospitality notes, “Hospitality is an expression of unity without uniformity. Through hospitality, community is built out of difference, not sameness.”

Oh is that not we need at First Presbyterian Church of Allentown: a diverse body of faith committed to living God’s love.

Remember this: practicing hospitality with only our friends and people most like us, we are not actually engaging in the kind of Christian hospitality our faith requires of us. We aren’t just called to love our friends and family; we are called to love strangers. We are called to see Christ in people who don’t look like us, talk like us, or act like us.

Because we do that, when we fully embrace that, an unexpected and miraculous thing happens. God begins to bring a new community together in new and powerful ways; a community that is built upon unity and diversity.

That’s the type of community we are called to be. That’s the community we can be if we see Christ in every person.

In the name of the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Thanks be to God. Amen.

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The Wounds of Another

 “The Wounds of Another” was preached at First Presbyterian Church of Allentown, PA on April 18, 2021. You can hear/watch this sermon here, starting at 24:15. 

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John 20:19-31

19 When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

24 But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

26 A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” 28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. 31 But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

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On this third Sunday in the Easter season, we find ourselves hiding away with the disciples behind locked doors, who are fearing for their lives, as they believe the political and religious authorities would do to them what they had done to their leader just days before.

Last week on Holy Humor Sunday, we switched over to a part of the Easter story as told in the Gospel of Luke, but today, we are directly continuing the story that we heard two weeks ago on Easter Sunday, according to the Gospel of John.

Quick refresher: On Easter Sunday, from the Gospel of John in the 20th chapter, we read that Mary Magdalene, Simon Peter, and the disciple whom Jesus loved went to the tomb to see that the giant stone enclosing the body of Jesus in the tomb had been removed. While the two male disciples then fled back to their homes, Mary stayed at the tomb weeping. It was then that the resurrected Christ revealed himself to her. Following this revelation, Mary runs to the disciples and boldly declares that she has seen the Lord! 

So first let’s give it up for Mary for being the very first preacher of the resurrection! But what do the disciples do with her message? Well, in fear, they lock it away. They are not running through the streets bolding proclaiming the good news nor are they dancing and celebrating the resurrection. The stay in their homes; in their safety; doors shut tight.

But of course Jesus see this as a perfect and holy opportunity to appear to the disciples in their fear and distress; therefore to us in our own fear and distress as a part of our shared humanity with the disciples. 

In our passage today, Jesus appears before the disciples, in full body and flesh, wounds and all, while simultaneously being able to move through locked doors. He miraculously does both as he appears to them, showing them his wounds, breathing the Spirit upon them, and sending them forth to go out in the world to be the preachers of the good news!  They are made free from what burdens and confines them!

We know a little bit about confinement, don’t we? It’s hard to believe we “celebrated” our second anniversary of not worshipping within the church walls on Easter Sunday. We did not have a thousand nor a hundred nor even a single individual worship the risen Christ in the sanctuary or the Fellowship Hall or the Chapel these past two Easters. Many of us, when hearing the message of the resurrection, this year and last year, went back to our homes, locked the doors, and hid ourselves away. Well, truthfully, the majority of us didn’t even need to go back to our homes. We just stayed there, doors already locked. We didn’t go out sharing the good news with others at restaurants or at the homes of our relatives. We didn’t travel. We just stayed home! We actually really resonate with the disciples here, don’t we?

Now I get it! Our own personal confinements over the various stages of this pandemic were recommended and ordered to us out of the safety of ourselves and others! There has been great value to our confinements this past year, the greatest being the protection and survival of our neighbors and the people we love! 

But if you are like me, I am tired of being confined within the walls of my home! “Unlock the doors, Jesus, breathe your Spirit on me, send me out!!”

Now, if any of you are friends with me on social media, you will find two things on my page in abundance. Number 1, articles that I find enlightening, challenging, and affirming, usually regarding one’s faith and identity. And Number 2, pictures of my many adventures! I’ve been told by several of you; you love my adventures; you think they look so fun and amazing and incredible, and let me tell you, they are! These adventures are also my pared back adventures. My year of COVID-19 safe adventures. 

If you are like me, you have a running list of adventures that you are longing to do once the world fully opens up again. I want adventures here in Lehigh Valley and along the East Coast. I want to go to concerts and museums and stadiums! I want to sit on a plane or a train and just travel. I want to meet strangers again and have them become friends! I want to see my loved ones. All of them. I want to enjoy good food with good people! I want to do it all!  

But also I know that my longing for freedom does not compare to the longing for freedom of our Black, Indigenous, and Asian neighbors. 

They want to be free to drive to the store without the fear of being pulled over. They want to be free to ride public transit or go for a run through the neighborhood. They want to be free to dance or to play in the park or to eat snacks in public. They want to be able to go to work and stay out after the sun goes down. They want to be free to breathe and to sleep. Because everything I just listed has been a death sentence for a person of color over the last few years. They just want to be free enough to live. 

Maybe now we understand why the disciples, who feared for their lives, locked themselves away in their homes.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about my call to ministry and the call of our community of faith and how I hope and pray that the two continue to be aligned with one another. I’ve been assigned to preach this Sunday for several weeks now, and I’ve been excited! Any opportunity to be in conversation with each of you through the Word of God is a gift I am grateful to have; please don’t let anything I say allude otherwise. 

But when Duante Wright was killed during a traffic stop on Sunday, August 11th; after lament and anger over the death of another black man, or let’s be honest, a young man, almost still a boy; I couldn’t sleep because I knew this would now be the topic of my sermon the following week and that in my exhaustion, and something I’m a little ashamed of, for a moment, I felt so overwhelmed that once again my sermon would label me to some of us as the “radical, liberal, political pastor who focuses only on justice and never on the Gospel” like I’ve been labeled in the past. 

And then when the bodycam footage of 13-year-old Adam Toledo was released and revealed that he was shot and killed while his empty hands were raised in the air for surrender, in my anger and lament, I knew the majority of our sermons here at FPCA and elsewhere are justice-focused right now because there are so many injustices in this world and because our God and the Gospel message calls us to do justice. As Presbyterians, our reformed understanding of Scripture, our theology as found in our Book of Confessions, and our membership responsibilities as found in the Book of Order calls each of us to do justice! 

So why, even though the Bible, The Book of Confessions, and The Book of Order all call us to do justice, why are we resistant to embrace that sort of ministry? 

And then it hit me. It’s found in our passage today. It’s because the wounds of our Black, Indigenous, and Asian neighbors are not our wounds as a predominantly white church. And therefore, because we cannot clearly see their wounds and because we have not experienced them for ourselves, we do not believe they are real! 

We are like Thomas who says to the other disciples, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in Jesus’ hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe!”

But just because they are not our wounds doesn’t mean these wounds don’t exist. And just because we do not experience them for ourselves doesn’t mean we need to experience them for us to believe that they are real! 

Remember what Jesus says back to Thomas after Jesus showed him his wounds, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Now any of us can go out and find a token Black, Indigenous, or Asian person who will say that there is no injustice against people of color and that racism and racist bias, discrimination, and hate isn’t real. Any of us could go find a person of color who might tell you that we shouldn’t see color at all and that the statements “Black Lives Matter” and “End Asian Hate” are racist.

But today, I urge all of us to do this. If we won’t listen to the majority of Black, Indigenous, and Asians lives, let’s at least listen to the Black, Indigenous, and Asian voices in our community of faith. We are a predominantly white church. We’re even more predominantly white in our English-speaking worship services. But we do have Black, Indigenous, and Asian members. And in my conversations with them, it is clear their wounds are real. They fear for the safety of themselves, their spouses, and their children, especially for their children. 

I promise you; they won’t be the ones to tell you racism doesn’t exist. They won’t be the ones to tell you it is not a part of our responsibility as white Christians to dismantle systemic racism. They aren’t the ones complaining about our signs on our lawn and about this or any previous justice-focused, Gospel-filled sermon. Some of our members of color like some of us might be the ones questioning why haven’t we done more as a predominately white church or why haven’t we as a community of faith made a statement and stance about the increasing toxic hate toward Asian people in our country over the last year. 

Did you know our church has an Anti-Racism Task force? The members are mostly white with a few members of color, or immediately related to people of color. It’s also almost all women with two lone men. 

Did you know our Presbytery – Lehigh Presbytery – has an Anti-Racism Task Force? It’s four women, two who are black. So first, let’s give it up once again for women at our church and our presbytery who like Mary Magdalene who are the first preachers of the good news. Both task forces are among our most diverse teams in terms of one’s race… 

And did you know our Presbytery has one historically black church – Washington Presbyterian Church in Reading – and one Korean Church – the Korean Church of Lehigh Valley in Whitehall? Their leaders have graciously reminded clergy and elders in presbytery meetings of our call to serve those on the margins on society, especially people of color who continue to be scarred with old and new wounds as discrimination, hate, and murders continue to happen to their siblings; their spouses, their children; their people! 

Why oh why must the call to end white supremacy be placed on the shoulders of our neighbors of color when the systematic racism comes from white people like us?!  

Why oh why must the wounds of Black, Indigenous, and Asian people be proven before we do something about it? And why oh why do we ignore them when they try to show these wounds to us?! 

There is something really powerful when the risen Christ reveals himself to his disciples. He reveals that even following the resurrection, he still carries the wounds of his torture and death inflicted upon him from the violent crowd that killed him! 

The wounds we inflicted throughout history to communities of color, things like stealing land and slavery and concentrations camps, are still carried by communities of color today! They manifest in the bias, discrimination, hate, and murders that continue today!

So if we are going to be like Thomas and doubt the existence of another because we haven’t see the wounds of that other, then at the very least we can be like Thomas and believe and embrace that other when they show us their wounds. 

Because let’s be honest. Jesus was a lot more like Duante Wright or Adam Toledo than any of us. He was an innocent brown-skinned, Jewish man killed by the authoritative Church and State and a violent crowd. And a resurrected Christ was even more like them as he carried the wounds inflicted upon him by people in power, people like us.

Look, like many of you, I am seeking that next moment of freedom where I can go out, leave the walls of the coronavirus behind, and find a new adventure! But true freedom is found in the embracing of the resurrected Christ and the calling on his Spirit to be breathed upon us. And this Easter, we can embrace the resurrected Christ by embracing those whose experiences are most like his, wounds and all. And receiving the Spirit looks like us being sent out to be preachers of the Gospel, justice and all. 

And so we go forth. Work to be done! Thanks be to God. Amen.

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LeCompte, Rowan and Irene LeCompte. Christ shows himself to Thomas, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=54879 [retrieved April 19, 2021]. Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/maryannsolari/5119341372/.

Lent in Plain Sight: Bread

“Lent in Plain Sight: Bread” was preached at the two English traditional worship services at First Presbyterian Church of Allentown, PA on March 1, 2020. This sermon was inspired by Scripture, commentaries, the start of First Presbyterian’s sermon and small group series during the season of Lent, and Lent in Plain Sight: A Devotion through Ten Objects by Jill J. Duffield. 

You can listen to this sermon at here.

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Exodus 16:2-15

2 The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. 3 The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”

4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day. In that way I will test them, whether they will follow my instruction or not. 5 On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather on other days.” 6 So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, “In the evening you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, 7 and in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your complaining against the Lord. For what are we, that you complain against us?” 8 And Moses said, “When the Lord gives you meat to eat in the evening and your fill of bread in the morning, because the Lord has heard the complaining that you utter against him—what are we? Your complaining is not against us but against the Lord.”

9 Then Moses said to Aaron, “Say to the whole congregation of the Israelites, ‘Draw near to the Lord, for he has heard your complaining.’” 10 And as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the Israelites, they looked toward the wilderness, and the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. 11 The Lord spoke to Moses and said, 12 “I have heard the complaining of the Israelites; say to them, ‘At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread; then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.’”

13 In the evening quails came up and covered the camp; and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. 14 When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground. 15 When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.”

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John 6:30-35

30 So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” 32 Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 34 They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”

35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

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Think of the Israelites, the ones who were freed from Egypt and then wandered in the wilderness before being delivered into the promised land. Think of the God – our God - God who was trying to build a relationship with them.

A month or two prior, the Israelites were slaves in Egypt, treated poorly and unfairly and harshly under the rule of Pharaoh. It’s a pretty well-known story in the Bible. Moses, an Israelite himself, was adopted as an infant into the Pharaoh’s family, after being hidden in an ark, also known as a basket, along the river. Moses, as he grew older, discovers his true identity, as one of God’s chosen people, and is given the command to free his community, God’s chosen people, from their slavery in Egypt and lead and deliver these people into the promised land.

So Moses, after some initial resistance, does exactly that. Moses follows the call from God and he, with the divine help of God, frees the Israelites from their slavery.

But immediately following their freedom from slavery, a certain pattern emerged with the Israelites in which they would complain to and against Moses and Moses’ brother and second-in-charge, Aaron.

This pattern happens in the Exodus text that we heard today. It also happened two times before with the Israelites before it happened in our text today. 

As I said, the Israelites would complain against Moses and Aaron, repeatedly, and each time their complaints followed a certain narrative.

First the pattern would begin because of a potentially devastating threat to their well-being. It started with the pursuit of pharaoh and his chariots; then it was deadly dehydration, and this time, as we heard in our passage today, it was starvation.

Second, they would complain about this threat. Their complaints would carry a similar message each time: basically each time the Israelites would say to Moses, “We’re going to die. God hates us. This is your fault. We should have just stayed in Egypt.”

Third, Moses and Aaron would take the peoples’ complaint to God.

And fourth, God would respond to the complaint by saving God’s people. You know. Things like the miraculous crossing of the sea, providing drinkable water, and now, in our passage from today, raining bread down from heaven.

God, through some divine miracle, would save the Israelites and yet, the Israelites seemed to forget what God had provided because in no time, they had something else to complain about, wishing they were back in the harsh servitude they endured in Egypt.

And that’s what I want to help us understand: is why so quickly the Israelites forgot the providence of God each time God saved them through some miraculous gift.

Less than two months from their freedom from Egypt, after a near-death experience with the pharaoh and his chariots and after moments of dehydration (both of which God responded to and saved them from), the Israelites are now starving in the wilderness. They complain to Moses and Aaron, wishing they would have just died by the hand of the Lord in Egypt because at least there their stomachs were full. God, through Moses and Aaron, hears the complaint of starvation from the Israelites and responds by saying “Draw near to the Lord, for the Lord has heard your complaints.”

God then promises the Israelites food. Every evening they will eat meat… and every morning they shall eat bread.

That evening, a flock of quails stumbles across the Israelites camp, and of course, the Israelites get their fill of meat.

But in the morning, something even more seemingly miraculous happens, something more odd than a flock of quails appearing out of the bushes… When the Israelites woke up the next morning, their camp was surrounded by a layer of dew… and in the dew was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost. They didn’t know what it was, they asked “What is it?,” which is the translation of manna, “What is it?” and Moses replied, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.”

Think about that. I mean, it’s pretty special when an animal appears out of the bushes. How many times have any of you seen a deer or a fox or a hawk in your yard or a field? And then thought to yourself with excitement, “what great timing is that!” Or “what luck is that!”

But how many of you have seen bread rain down from heaven, covering the ground with sweet and filling sustenance? Because the quails appearing and covering the camp is one thing, especially when you’re starving, but bread raining down from heaven is a miracle no one else had experienced.

And then it happened again the next day. And the next day. And the next. As the Lord promised, every evening the Israelites would get their fill of meat and every morning, they would have their fill of bread.

On the sixth day they would get double their fill, that way they could rest on the seventh day, the sabbath. 

And this would continue for years, perhaps decades. Every evening they would get their fill of meat as animals covered their camp. Every morning they would get their fill of bread as bread rained down from heaven. And every sixth day they would get double so they could rest on the seventh day.

So why do you think the Israelites forgot God’s providence as God filled their stomachs with meat and bread every evening and morning?

They forgot God’s providence because God gave it to them every day.

They forgot God’s providence because every day they began to expect exactly what they received.

They forgot God’s providence because one day bread repetitively raining down from heaven didn’t seem so miraculous. 

They forgot God’s providence because having food and full stomachs as they wandered in the wilderness wasn’t a special gift; it was a normalcy of life. 

The Israelites became complacent and comfortable and forgot that the gift of bread from heaven truly was a gift worth rejoicing over every single day.

Thank you to Rev. Jill Duffield, author of Lent in Plain Sight, for this revelation.

In small groups and in our sermon series during the season of Lent, we are using this book and Scripture to explore ten ordinary objects; objects that Jesus would have encountered on his way to Jerusalem and objects that each of us still encounter today. We’re using these ordinary objects that we see every day as reminders of God’s presence around us. We started with Dust on Ash Wednesday, and this Sunday we are looking at, if you haven’t already figured it out yet, we are looking at Bread. It’s an object found at tables across the world; it’s an object that is currently found before us on the Lord’s Table. Bread is obviously an ordinary object. Even for the Israelites, even though it rained down from heaven, bread became an ordinary object.

The Israelites forgot God’s providence because the thing God provided for them became ordinary to them. The bread from heaven seemed much too common for it to be considered a gift.

And this is true for us. Perhaps we encounter bread too much, in nearly every meal, that we forget what it symbolizes to us as disciples of Christ. Yes, it’s a gift to be able to feed ourselves and our families. It’s a gift that we never starve or even go hungry for more than a brief moment. It’s a gift from God every time we take a bite of food or share in a meal.

But bread also represents more than that. This ordinary object we see before us represents more than that.

When the Israelites were starving in the wilderness, God rained bread down from heaven not only to fill their stomachs but also to remind them that God was there providing for them in the way that they needed it most. And God did this for them for years; God provided for them in the way they needed it most; even if it soon became normal and expected for God to do so. And then after years, God delivered the Israelites into the promised land, a land flowing of milk and honey, and when the Israelites were no longer starving in the wilderness, actual and physical bread from heaven was no longer the thing they needed most.

Of course, the Israelites still needed food and other basic necessities of life. And God still provided for them in that way. It just didn’t come in the shape of fine flaky manna that covered the ground. But the bread of heaven never stopped for the Israelites. It didn’t stop for us either.

Because God looked at God’s people and promised to give us what we needed most.

God gave us Jesus. The true bread of heaven. Jesus is the bread of life. Whoever comes to Jesus will never be hungry, and whoever believes in Jesus will never be thirsty. What we needed the most was Jesus; what we still need the most is Jesus.

And that blessing that God gave us Jesus and still gives us Jesus should never become normal for us. This is a gift that should be rejoiced over every single day.

So therefore, during this season of Lent and onward, that every time we see bread, whether it be white or wheat, sourdough or rye, pitas or tortillas, bagels or doughnuts, banana bread or French bread, chapati or naan, that we give thanks that God still provides.

In bread, a meal that is so ordinary, so simple, so standard, so common, so normal; we are called to remember the blessings given by God; the greatest of which is the grace of Christ, our bread from heaven and our bread of life. Thanks be to God. Amen.

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