At the Head of the Line

At the Head of the Line

Matthew 21:23-32[1]

You probably know that I take airplane flights on a regular basis. With a son in Washington, DC, a son who now lives near New Haven, CT, and a daughter in Houston, it makes sense for me to fly to see them rather than drive. But I can’t say I enjoy flying. One of the things I dislike most is the lines. Because I fly so much, several years ago I paid for TSA “pre” status. At the time, I did it because it meant I didn’t have to take off my shoes and my belt and unpack “half” of my carry-on bag in order to get through security. That doesn’t include keeping track of my phone, my wallet, and anything else in my pockets. I think you may be getting the idea that I found it stressful. I know things have gotten easier for everyone with airport security, but I still like the shorter line!

I’ve tended to fly Southwest Airlines. I liked the fact that they had open seating. Of course, that meant you had to check in exactly 24 hours before your flight if you wanted any chance of getting a good seat. How early you checked in determined how early you got to board the plane. You would be assigned a letter and a number to determine your boarding group and your place in line. That meant “lining up” to get on the plane was fairly simple. You found your place in line based on your number. Now they’ve done away with all that. You choose your seat ahead of time just like any other airline, and you just have a boarding “group.” So these days, everyone seems more anxious about being at the front of their boarding group. We may all have assigned seats, but there’s still the problem of snagging space for your carry-on bag in the overhead bin. Everybody wants to be at the head of the line when it comes to getting on the airplane.

There are other aspects of life where we want to be at the head of the line. It should come as no surprise that this can be a part of some people’s religion. Most religions have some kind of “hierarchy” by which some are treated as more “worthy” than others. That was very much the case in Jesus’ day, as we learn from many of the stories in the Gospels. As in our lesson for today, Jesus often clashed with the Jewish religious leaders. They controlled the Temple and the Synagogues, which means that they controlled who was considered “righteous” and who was branded a “sinner.” But Jesus saved his strongest criticisms for the religious leaders. Much of what he said suggests that they weren’t even very good people, let alone worthy of the “honors” they claimed for themselves. In fact, on many occasions he called them “hypocrites,” people who were only putting on a show of devotion to God.

In our lesson for today, Jesus tells a parable to illustrate the point. In the parable, a father asks his son to go work in the vineyard and he refuses, but then changes his mind and goes. The father asks his second son to go to work and he says yes, but then doesn’t go. The clear implication is that it’s not always those who make a show of being righteous who actually practice what they preach. In fact, Jesus told the religious authorities point blank that “the tax collectors and the prostitutes” were actually “going into the kingdom of God” ahead of them (Matt 21:31)! In those days, “tax collectors and sinners” were the “worst of the worst” of the sinners. And Jesus was addressing people who thought they were the “best of the best” of the righteous. They most certainly believed they were at the head of the line!

In fact, however, the authorities had already betrayed their false character. When they asked Jesus about the source of his authority, they were clearly not being sincere. Jesus exposed that by asking them about John’s authority to baptize. In the process, it became all too obvious that they were anxious to conceal their true opinion from the crowds. They were more worried about maintaining their power and prestige than practicing a way of life that actually followed the will of God, a way of life that Jesus called “the way of righteousness” (Matt. 21:32). It would seem that the so-called “righteous” people weren’t so righteous after all.

The truth is that the whole system of their religion at that time was an elaborate justification for their self-righteousness. Unfortunately, that can still be the case. “Leaders” who are often deceitful and malicious get to designate themselves as “righteous,” whereas people who may be guilty of nothing more than being poor or destitute are designated as “sinners.” But designating them as sinners only gives the “righteous” a convenient way to avoid facing their sins. Scapegoating the people they look down on only enables them to keep up their sham religion. This kind of behavior is not exclusive to the self-righteous in Jesus’ day. Religious leaders throughout the ages have exercised a great deal of control over people by their power to determine who gets branded “sinners” and who gets to be “righteous.” And religious people of all levels have used that power to justify themselves. But whenever we use our religion to make ourselves look good at the expense of others, we’re really only deceiving ourselves. We label them “sinners” just so that we can avoid facing our own hypocrisy.

Our gospel lesson confronts us with the hard truth that our religious devotion can turn into something harmful. It’s another reason why many people don’t go to church these days. We turn our religion into a competition where the only way “I” get to be at the head of the line is by making sure “you” are at the end of the line. It can all too easily turn into a way of simply making ourselves look good. It’s as if people have always viewed the prospect of “heaven” as a competition. And like any other competition, what matters is getting to the head of the line and staying there. It doesn’t matter how we get there, just that we’re “first” and not “last.” But Jesus said that kind of hypocrisy will not do in God’s sight. There’s no room in God’s kingdom for making yourself look good at the expense of someone else.

More than that, Jesus pointed out that those whom we often label “sinners” can be way ahead of the so-called “righteous” people when it comes to actually practicing the compassion and kindness that defines the way God wants us to live. After all, Jesus did say that he came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance (Matt 9:13). More than that, he said there will always be more rejoicing in heaven over one “sinner” who repents and returns to God than over 99 so-called righteous people who think they “need no repentance” (Lk 15:7). The kind of people Jesus was looking for to follow him were those who would truly and sincerely follow his way of living. That meant actually practicing his teachings, which he said amounted to “doing to others what you would want them to do to you” (Matt 7:12, NIRV). As it turns out, none of the “show” that self-righteous people put on to make it look like they’re godly counts for anything. What counts is what St. Paul called “faith working through love” (Gal 5:6).

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[1] © 2026 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 9/27/2026 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

Upside Down

 Upside Down

Matthew 20:1-16[1]

Many of us grew up in a time and a place where pretty much everybody around us was just like us. For the most part, anyway. The connections we have available to us not only through traditional media, but also through the internet and social media, have literally brought the world into the palm of our hands. We can easily see how the different peoples around the world live very different lives from us in many ways. Sometimes, the way people live their lives can feel so different to us that it can seem like they’re “flying upside down” in comparison to the way we live. I think about people who live nearby who belong to the Amish community. They have embraced some of the technology that the rest of us use, with strict boundaries around them. But the typical image of a horse-drawn carriage on a busy road with a line of cars behind it reminds us of how differently they live. It can seem like they’re “flying upside down.”

I would say that the kingdom of God that Jesus preached and taught is something very different from the way most people live their lives. The priorities Jesus chose and the principles on which he based his life have made it seem to many like Jesus was “flying upside down.” Think about it: Jesus said if someone strikes you on one side of your face, turn the other side for them to strike as well. That’s just not the way people behave! And, of course, there’s the whole thing about Jesus literally giving up his life for us all on the cross so that we could know and enjoy God’s love for us! When push comes to shove, most of us will choose ourselves and our families over anybody and everybody else. Jesus’ way of life seems very strange to us indeed!

Our lesson from Matthew’s Gospel for today is an example of this. Jesus tells a parable about a man who owns a vineyard. The harvest is ready and he’s anxious to get the grapes out of the field. So he goes to town at the break of day to hire day laborers. Then he keeps going back all day long, sending more workers to help with the harvest. Even when the day is almost over, he hires those who likely showed up quite “late” for work. When it comes time to pay the workers, things take a surprising turn. The owner instructs that the workers be paid beginning with the last to be hired—and he pays them all the same thing! Those who worked only one hour got a full day’s wage, just like those who put in a full day’s work!

When those who had worked all day complain, the employer simply insists that he has a right to be generous with what belongs to him. I think a big part of what this parable is about is that in the kingdom of God, we are all “eleventh-hour workers,” regardless of what we may have done. That’s because we all receive far more than we deserve. In God’s kingdom, grace and mercy and love define life for all people, and all benefit equally. That also means that in God’s kingdom, there’s nothing to earn. Everything is based on the truth that God is generous! And so, in God’s kingdom, as Desmond Tutu puts it, “There is nothing we can do to make God love us more” and “there is nothing we can do to make God love us less.”[2]

  On one level, this comes to us as unbelievably good news. But on another level, I’m sure it makes us more than a little uncomfortable. When the first are last and the last are first, it upends our expectations that life will follow a predictable pattern. We want to get what we think we deserve! We’re used to those who work the hardest getting paid the most. By contrast, in the Kingdom of God, those who are deemed godless gain entry ahead of those who are supposedly righteous. Little children, who were definitely the “least” in those days, are the example by which we all must measure ourselves, not those who are the most accomplished and the most successful. Those who serve are viewed as the “greatest,” and those who seem to be “great” are in fact viewed as “least.” And the “last” are “first” and the “first” are “last.” For those of us who may have worked hard all our lives to “get ahead,” this may not sound like good news at all! It may seem to be all backwards. It likely feels like Jesus was turning everything upside down!

But then maybe that’s part of what this parable is meant to address: we’re comfortable with a world in which the first are first and the last are last. Giving everyone the same grace, mercy and love regardless of what they do sounds “unfair” to us. So does the idea that everyone receives God’s blessing equally, regardless of how hard they work. We’re much more comfortable with the idea that you get what you deserve. But the point of the parable is that in God’s kingdom we all get far more than we deserve. In God’s kingdom, we all enjoy God’s grace, mercy and love freely and equally. The Bible reminds us that this applies to all of life. We cannot claim anything we have as a “reward” for our labor, because, as the Bible reminds us, it all ultimately comes from God.

When we really listen to what Jesus said in his parables, it may very well seem to us that he was “flying upside down.” But I would submit to you that Jesus was describing life as it was meant to be. It’s the rest of the world, including maybe some of us here today, who are flying “upside down.” Jesus came to try to help us learn to turn our planes around and fly right-side up! That reminds me of the Amish and their approach toward technology. The boundaries they observe are meant to ensure that what they have doesn’t diminish their family or their community. Now there’s a novel idea!

One of the things I learned about flying upside down in preparation for today is that most airplanes aren’t designed to be flown upside down. The curve of the wing, the structure of the plane, and even the way the fuel pumps run are designed for flying right-side up. So a pilot has to work harder to fly upside down. To those who are used to the way life works in this world, much of what Jesus taught must seem “upside down.” The more we get serious about following Jesus, the more clearly we see that those who are trying to get ahead according to the ways of this world are the ones who are actually “flying upside down.” When we begin the path of discipleship, it may feel like we’re having to work harder. It takes more effort to swim against the stream than to just go along with the way things are. But the more we practice following Jesus, the more natural it will become for us to do things the way he did: extending grace, mercy, and love to everyone equally, regardless of what we think they may or may not deserve!

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[1] © 2026 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 9/20/2026 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Desmond Tutu, God Has a Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Time, 32

Harmony

 Harmony

Romans 13:8-10; 14:1-19[1]

We human beings tend to believe that our viewpoint on a particular subject is the “right” one. At least if you’re like me! We may not admit it out loud, because that would be embarrassing. We may even make a show of deferring to others when they disagree with us. But we still tend to believe that we’re right and anyone who disagrees with us is “wrong.” That kind of “all-or-nothing,” cut-and-dried, “black-or-white” thinking doesn’t leave much room for tolerance. I dare say that if someone surveyed this group of people gathered in this place for worship on this morning, there would likely be a variety of opinions about all kinds of subjects. The reality is that’s just as true when it comes to our faith and how we practice it as it is with our other opinions. But when we gather in this place, I hope we try to focus on what unites us rather than what divides us. I think that’s what Jesus would want from those who seek to follow him.

Our lesson from the book of Romans for today addresses this question. I also hope you were able to hear that the earliest Christians disagreed on some fairly important matters. Our lesson from Romans for today isn’t the only evidence of that. There are other passages in the New Testament that show the early Christians disagreed on some fairly important matters. In our lesson for today, Paul mentions two specific points of disagreement: which day to hold worship and whether or not to eat meat. The conflict in both situations arose from the difference between Christians with a Jewish background and those with a background outside of Judaism. And in that day, the vast majority of churches included both groups. So these questions were very much “live” for them. And they provoked serious disagreements among the early Christian communities!

The matter of which day on which to worship was not a new problem in the Greco-Roman world. Jewish people living in that world faced serious opposition because they insisted on keeping the “Sabbath” day holy by not working. In the Ancient world, every day was a day for work. There was no such thing as a “day off” or a “weekend.” And more than that, Jewish Christians would have been accustomed to worshipping on Saturday, their “sabbath” day. Gentile Christians, on the other hand, may have been more likely to worship on Sunday, in honor of the fact that Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week. This was no trivial matter to either group! But Paul urged the believers of his day on both sides of the issue to accept each other’s differences. In fact, for Paul, it didn’t matter which day of the week you chose for worship! That may still be shocking for us to hear!

The other issue had to do with eating meat. I’ve mentioned before that meat was sold in open-air markets. And a significant amount of the meat sold in the market was left over from sacrifices that were offered at pagan temples that morning. But there was no “stamp” to indicate which was which. You couldn’t tell which had been offered to a pagan god and which was simply slaughtered for sale that morning. For some, to eat meat in that context could be construed as taking part, at least in an indirect way, in the worship of false gods, which was a violation of the most important of all commandments! There were some believers, probably those who came out of a pagan background, whose Christian faith was too “weak” to get past that obstacle. As a result, they chose to eat only vegetables as a way of honoring. There were others, probably those who came from a Jewish background that denied any reality to pagan gods, whose faith was “strong” enough to recognize that all things come from God, and so they ate meat, and they did so giving thanks to God to honor him as well. Again, the question here wasn’t about food. It was about the worship of false gods! And on a matter this important, Paul urged tolerance! Again, that may seem shocking!

We might wonder how St. Paul the Apostle of Jesus Christ could make such apparently offensive compromises. Does it really not matter on which day of the week you worship? Does it really not matter whether you eat something that others find offensive because they see it as taking part in the worship of false gods? I think that least part of the answer to these questions is that Paul realized they were matters of interpretation, subject to differing opinions, and therefore not essential to faith. He didn’t want the Body of Christ divided over matters of opinion. Rather, he urged that believers adopt the mindset that we all “belong to the Lord” (Rom 14:8), even and especially when we disagree about significant issues! This was so important to Paul that he asked them who they thought they were to condemn other believers who answer to Jesus Christ as their “master” first and foremost (Rom 14:4)![2] More than that, he urged that they accept each other, regardless of their differences, so that they could “aim for harmony” above all things (Rom 14:19).

Of course, the real question is how far we take this kind of tolerance. Differences of opinion on matters of religion have not only divided the world into different denominations, they have also fueled all-out wars. To be sure, there’ve been conferences throughout the ages to resolve these differences and find a way toward tolerance. But even with the “agreements” that have been reached on matters of religion, differences of opinion on matters of faith have continue to provoke lynchings and witch hunts and all kinds of ongoing violence through the ages. To some extent, you could say that religion has always fueled conflict. Or perhaps it would be better to say that religion has always been used as a means of fueling conflict by those who have coopted it for their own purposes.

But I would say this is a matter of “the tail wagging the dog.” When people use religion for their own purposes, things usually get out of whack. And sadly, the typical strategy is to pick out matters where there ought to be legitimate room for a difference of opinion to drive a wedge between people who otherwise could get along with one another. You may find this hard to believe, but one of the most controversial points of disagreement in the Christian church over the centuries has been over how we understand what happens when we celebrate the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Talk about the tail wagging the dog! What ought to bring us together as one has been one of the greatest sources of division in the Body of Christ for centuries!

In the early days of the Protestant Reformation there was disagreement among the “reformers” that threatened to splinter the movement. There was a conference between Martin Luther and his counterparts from the Calvinist branch of the church to try to settle their disagreements. Although they agreed on most of the matters they faced, they disagreed on the Lord’s Supper. Specifically, the one aspect of the Lord’s Supper about which they disagreed was whether the communion bread actually became the body of Christ! They had the chance to agree to disagree, but some of them wouldn’t have it, and it didn’t happen. And it still divides Christians to this day.

About a hundred years later, years that were full of religious wars in Europe, a principle emerged that has been quoted by many who chose harmony over discord: “In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity.”[3] “In essentials unity.” We practice that by affirming the Apostles’ Creed. “In nonessentials, liberty.” That’s where we have different practices. “In all things, charity.” Of course, in that day, “charity” was what we call “love.” Of course, in these and other religious disputes, the “rub” relates to what you define as “essential” and “non-essential.” We can always find ways to draw dividing lines in these matters. But there’s no questioning the importance of that last phrase: “in all things charity.” It seems to me that if we get that part right, then maybe the lines we draw between what we think is “essential” and “nonessential” might not be so important any longer.

I would say Paul teaches us to make “charity,” or love, the overriding principle in every dispute. Paul speaks of it earlier in our reading for today: what we “owe” to each other is the same love that God has given us. We will likely never agree on what is essential and what is negotiable in matters of faith. But surely we can agree that the foundation for harmony in the church is that we observe the commandment, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Paul said when our religion is real, it will show up in our love for one another. When I think about this, I wonder how many lives could have been spared over the centuries if people of faith had practiced “charity” in all things. And I wonder, in these days when we seem to be so divided and so willing to condemn those who disagree with us, how much conflict and grief may be spared if we who claim to follow Jesus would practice “charity” above all else. I wonder what it will take for us to seek harmony above all things!

I don’t know that I have the answer to that question. What will it take in these days for us to practice charity above all else? In these days, what will it take for us to seek harmony above all else? I know for myself, what helps me is to be reminded that God has accepted me as I am. God’s love for me never fails. God chose to love me from “before the foundation of the world” as Paul says. And that love will never fail, “world without end, Amen! Amen!” That helps me to get past any differences of opinion and to see other people who may be across the “lines” as persons for whom Christ died, whom God loves. They are human beings who deserve my full love and respect, simply because they’re human beings. I don’t know what it will take for you to get there. That’s why I’ve left my sermon “open-ended” today. I hope we will go from this place and explore that question. I hope that we may indeed learn to practice “charity” above all things and seek harmony above all else. And in the process, maybe we can make a real difference in our world!

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[1] © 2026 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 9/13/2026 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 2.2:725: Christians holding different opinions cannot judge each other “Because both are servants, each serving the Lord with their better or less good faith, each finding in the Lord his own Judge and Saviour. They cannot exclude each other when God has accepted both and will judge their faithfulness or unfaithfulness by His mercy.”

[3] On the history of this often-quoted phrase which is erroneously attributed to St. Augustine, see James J. O’Donnell, “A Common Quotation from ‘Augustine’?” accessed at http://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/augustine/ quote.html . He points to a reference by Philip Schaff, The History of the Christian Church, 7:650-53, where he notes that the saying originated with Peter Meiderlin, a Lutheran Theologian, who published a tractate calling for peace and unity in 1626. Richard Baxter quoted the saying in the preface of The True and Only Way of Concord of all the Christian Churches in 1679, which led to it being attributed to him.

In the Face of Evil

In the Face of Evil

Romans 12:9-21[1]

Our world is a beautiful one. The presence of God’s love shines through so much of our world. Focusing on the beauty of the earth helps us find joy in the goodness of creation. But our world also includes a disturbing presence. We have word for it. We call it “evil.” I’m not sure we even know what that word means any longer, to be honest. Many of us live our lives without really having to come face-to-face with evil on a day-to-day basis. We know it’s there but may not even recognize evil in our very own community. On the other hand, some of us have been so deeply affected by evil that it has always defined our lives. That’s a tragedy. Most of the people I know who live with the lingering effects of evil are doing everything in their power to set themselves free from it. And that’s a good thing. But make no mistake, we live in a world that includes evil.

To some extent, “evil” is a matter of perspective these days. Is it “evil” to take unfair advantage of someone in a business deal? Sadly, I think the answer these days depends on which side of the deal you’re on! Most people will say that it’s “evil” to deprive a person of their life savings simply to ensure a “win” in the stock market. Most people also agree that the violence that takes innocent lives is “evil.” Especially when it’s “murder.” But when it’s “collateral damage” in the context of war, we may not take it so seriously. It may take the violence of war touching your life directly for you to use the word “evil” for the violence of war. I guess I would say any violence that takes innocent lives is always evil in my opinion!

In our lesson from Paul’s letter to the Romans for today, he addresses the issue of how we as followers of Jesus Christ should respond to the evil in our world. It’s one of the more difficult teachings of the Bible: in effect Paul says, “don’t repay evil with evil but rather with good”! Perhaps the first step for us to try to live out this principle is to become aware of what is truly evil in our world. Unfortunately, I think things have gotten pretty confused here. We tend to see the “evil” that is far away from us. We may not even know the people we’re pointing the finger at, but we label them “evil,” whether rightly or wrongly. But when it comes to the “evil” that lies at our front door, or lies within us, we tend to turn a blind eye. We do that because it feels safer that way, I think. It’s certainly more convenient for us.

Jesus took a different approach: he called “evil” out where he saw it. And he saw it not in the failings of the people who were labelled “sinners” or “outcasts” or “other.” He called out “evil” when he saw people with power and privilege using that power and privilege to take advantage of others in such a way that they were doing real harm to them. I would say things haven’t changed much on that score. All too often, the “evil” that Jesus called out was being perpetrated by the leaders of his day, including the religious leaders. It’s hard for us to swallow, but I know for a fact that there are religious leaders who have so abused their position that they have done real harm. And all too often, they have done it in Jesus’ name!

One of the reasons why Paul’s teaching about how to respond to evil is so difficult for us is because Paul is following Jesus! He’s most certainly referring to Jesus’ teaching when he says, “Bless those who persecute you. Don’t curse them; pray that God will bless them” (Rom 12:14, NLT). Jesus taught his disciples in the Sermon on the Mount to love their “enemies” and to pray for those who mistreated them (Mt 5:44; Lk 6:27-28). But there’s more to it. When Paul says, “Never pay back evil with more evil,” he’s not only following Jesus’ explicit teaching not to “resist an evildoer” (Mt 5:39), even when they strike you, even when they try to take away your most basic necessities! Paul’s going back to the original command to “love your neighbor as yourself” in Leviticus. The beginning of that verse in the original Old Testament context says, “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge … but you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev 19:18)! The Bible is full of passages that resound with the same approach: don’t repay evil with evil, but rather with good!

I’ll be the first to admit that goes against the grain for most of us. Our tendency is to resist evil; we want to take the side of the victims and rush to their protection. But Paul follows Jesus and the witness of Scripture when he tells us not to resist evil, but to seek to redeem evil. I think his words reflect the wisdom that when we respond to evil with force, we only give it more power. It’s impossible to avoid the truth that “fighting fire with fire” leads inevitably to the point where we become what we’re fighting.[2] When that happens we’ve abandoned the love that God wants us to practice in the world so that we can take part in his work of redeeming the world!

I think one of the hard truths that Jesus and Paul are trying to get across to us is that only a love that is willing to suffer has the power to truly overcome evil and redeem it.[3] That’s hard to take in. But that is precisely the response God made to evil in Jesus Christ. As Frederick Buechner says, “Christianity … ultimately offers no theoretical solution [to the problem of evil]. It merely points to the cross and says that, practically speaking, there is no evil so dark and so obscene—not even this—but that God can turn it to good.”[4] We may not like it, it’s hard for us to hear, but one of the lessons of the cross is that there really is no other way to solve the problem of evil in this world! Only the willingness to respond to hostility with peace, to respond to hatred with forgiveness, to respond to violence with love, can redeem evil.[5]

That all sounds fine and good, but the question has practical dimensions that we all have to face. When someone breaks into my home and threatens to harm me or my family, what am I supposed to do? It’s a difficult question. I probably can’t answer that question for anyone but myself. But what I know is that when it comes to facing these difficult decisions, asking “What would Jesus do?” always leads me in the right direction. For myself, I would say that I would consult with home safety experts about finding ways to protect myself or my loved ones without resorting to violence. But that’s my answer to a question that’s a very personal one. At the end of the day we all have to come up with our own answers to those very personal and practical questions about how we’re going to respond to evil in our world. But we must remind ourselves that the whole Bible, from Moses to the Psalms to Jesus to the Apostles, teaches us not to repay evil with evil, but rather to respond to evil in a way that can turn it to good.

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[1] © 2026b Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 8/30/2026 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Cf. John Calvin, Commentary on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans, 477, where he says that the one who “attempts to overcome evil with evil, may perhaps surpass his enemy in doing injury, but it is to his own ruin.”

[3] Jürgen Moltmann, “Love and Sorrow,” in The Gospel of Liberation, 74-75; cf. also Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 284, where he refers to Dietrich Bonhoeffer's ideal of a "religionless Christianity" that eschews the "religious" tendency many Christians have had to look to God for "magical" intervention (like a deus ex machina), and therefore tends to be so "otherworldly" as to neglect God's redemptive purpose for the world. Instead, he advocates for a "godly worldliness" in which the effort to "seek first the kingdom of God" leads to a love that shares the sufferings of this world as "God's suffering over the world." Moltmann concludes, "the way of life in the messianic era is stamped by messianic suffering. It is hardly ever recognizable in any other way, for "dying, and behold we live" (alluding to 2 Cor 4:10). See further Jürgen Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 204: “Anyone who participates in ‘Christ’s sufferings’” becomes a witness “to the coming truth against the ruling lie, to coming justice and righteousness against the prevailing injustice, and to coming life against the tyranny of death.”

[4] Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking, 24.

[5] Cf. N. T. Wright, “The Letter to the Romans,” in New Interpreters Bible 10: 715, where he says that God’s people are to meet the evil in the world “in the way that even God met it: with love and generous goodness.” 

A Gift for Kindness

 A Gift for Kindness

Romans 12:1-8[1]

We human beings are complicated creatures. Of course that’s true physically, but that’s not what I’m talking about. We’re “complicated” in that we all have what may be called “character assets” and “character flaws.” In part, that’s due to the wide variety of life experiences we’ve had. Some have been wonderful beyond all imagining. Others may have surpassed our worst nightmares. All of it, both “good” and “not so good” has shaped us into the person we are today. Hopefully we can appreciate the person we are today and the way our experiences have shaped us. If we’re really lucky, we have people in our lives who know something of our life experiences, both the “good” and the “not so good,” and express their appreciation for the person we are today.

To some extent, I think you could say that we are all complicated “by design.” The Bible teaches that we are created “in the image of God” (Gen 1:26). Through the ages there have been different ideas about what that means. I would say that being created “in the image of God” refers to our capacity to relate to others with the kind of love that defines God’s very being. We all have a capacity for goodness. Whether we follow that instinct or not is the question! But if we keep reading the book of Genesis, we find that the story also points to the idea that we are all “fallen” creatures. Some people would say that means we’re all equally capable of the worst evil anyone has ever committed. I think that’s a bit harsh, with all due respect to John Calvin. I would say being “fallen” means that we all fall short of being the best version of ourselves at times.

It’s hard to admit that, even and especially to ourselves. We all fall short. We can talk about it as a point of Bible teaching easily enough. But that’s not what I’m talking about when I say it’s hard to “admit.” I mean really acknowledging that “I” fall short. All the time. And that’s true for all of us. We get so used to thinking that our own inner dialogue is “normal” and “true” that we have a hard time stepping outside the stories we tell ourselves. And that can make it hard for us to take a good look at how we’re actually treating people. When we do, we likely find that there’s room for improvement. At least that’s what I find when I’m able to get free enough from my own “self” to see myself and what I’m doing more clearly.

I think this is part of what St. Paul was getting at in our lesson from the book of Romans for today. He tells us that when we grasp the depth of God’s love and the extent of God’s grace, we will respond in humble and joyful worship—with everything we are and all that we do![2] Paul describes what it means to worship God with all of life by saying, “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.” (Rom. 12:2). I would say it’s fairly easy to recognize that the way things work in this world is broken somehow. But I think it’s much more difficult to recognize how we may not only be taking part in that brokenness. We also may be positively contributing to the broken way things work in this world! That can take more humility than we can muster up sometimes.

One of the not-so-easy-to-swallow truths of the Bible is that when we have a genuine encounter with God, it will lead us to the humble recognition that we share all the same problems that we see in everyone around us. I think that may be another way to talk about what it means to be “fallen” without making guilt the sole driving force in our religion. It’s the simple but never easy willingness to admit that I can fall into the same behaviors that other people do. And when we humbly recognize that, hopefully we can learn to be more patient, more gracious, more forgiving when the people in our lives fall short of their best selves. Just like we do.

But I think another side of this question has to do with the “gifts” that Paul talks about. He directs this toward the idea that we all have roles to play in the “body of Christ.” He says we’re given “gifts” by the Spirit to build up the church as the “body of Christ.” But I’d like to call attention to the fact that we have all been “gifted” by God in another way. I think this relates to our creation in the “image” of God as much as it relates to what God is doing through our gifts to build up the church. I think we can also speak about being created in the “image” of God as a kind of giftedness that we all share, not only with the family of faith, but also with the whole human family. I think we can say because we’re all created in the “image” of God then we’re all “gifted” in that way. I would venture to say that means there’s goodness in everyone you meet. Yes, sometimes that goodness is buried under layers of shame and fear and anger. Sometimes it may have been all but obliterated. But I would say that we are all “gifted” with God’s “image.” That means that, as well as having specific abilities for helping others, we’re all “gifted” with a certain innate goodness that comes from God.

When you look at people from that perspective, it changes the way you relate to them. When we can recognize and honor the goodness in others as well as the “giftedness” they offer us, we’re recognizing and honoring the fact that we all belong to one another in the “body of Christ” (Rom. 12:5). Again, while St. Paul was primarily talking about the church, I think there’s something to be said for applying to the whole human family this idea that we all belong to one another in the “body of Christ.” As beloved children of the one creator God, there is much to point us to the conclusion that we all belong to one another. When that’s the way we see the people around us, I think it becomes difficult not to be able to see the goodness in them. When we can see that goodness, it’s almost unavoidable that we will treat them with kindness and compassion.

This mindset changes the way we live, and in the process, it can change us. It reminds me again of St. Paul talking about letting “God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.” I think this is a very practical way in which we can follow that instruction. Changing the way we think leads to a change in the way we act. Paul says that when we let ourselves be transformed into a new person, we’ll be able to discern God’s will for our life. What could be more consistent with the will of God than relating to everyone we meet in a way that expresses a “gift for kindness.” When we look at everyone we encounter as a beloved sister or brother, and recognize that all the goodness God has instilled in us is also present in them, we’re much more likely to find the “gift for kindness,” both in them and in ourselves.

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[1] © 2026 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm on 8/23/2026 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] I like the way Gene Peterson translates Romans 12:1 in The Message translation: “So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.” On this idea that all of life is to be our “worship” of God, cf. Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 431, where he says, “The problem of ‘ethics’ is … identical with the problem of ‘dogmatics’: Soli Deo Gloria!”

Unworthy?

Unworthy?     

Matthew 15:21-28[1]

We have all kinds of ways of drawing lines between “us” and “them.” It’s tempting to add “these days” to that statement, but I think in fact the human family has always had plenty of ways to draw lines between “us” and “them.” I’m sure there was a time when that was purely a matter of survival. But that time has long passed for most of us. Yet we persist in seeing those who are “too” different from us as “others” and perhaps even “enemies.” It seems to me that we do that most in uncertain times. Especially when influential people use their voices to stoke our fears and anxieties and to convince us that they’re the only ones we should trust with power. This happens at all levels and on all sides of the lines we draw between “us” and “them.”

Part of the problem with this mindset is that when we label someone as “other” or as an “enemy,” it opens the door for us to devalue their humanity. That’s true in times of war. It’s almost impossible to put someone into battle and expect them to actually kill other human beings without convincing them that their “enemies” don’t deserve to live. But it’s also true in other aspects of life. I find it troubling that our political discourse takes this approach. The attitude these days seems to be “If you disagree with me, you’re not worth my time.” At least that’s the tone of what I see and hear on social media, and again, it’s on all sides. But even more troubling to me is the fact that we bring this mindset into our religion as well. If someone’s religion makes them too “different” from us, we tend to dismiss not only their faith but their humanity as well. That means they’re not even worthy of our friendship, let alone our love!

Unfortunately, this attitude toward people who hold different faiths has infected people of all religious persuasions throughout history. “We,” whoever we may be, are most worthy of God’s love because we worship “the right way.” “They,” whoever they may be, may be loved by God, but they don’t really deserve it because they don’t worship “the right way.” This attitude may show up as a preference, or as a sense of superiority, or even as stated doctrine! Unfortunately, the various declarations of God’s love in the Hebrew Bible convinced many Jewish people that they were “special” in this way. They missed the fact that what made them special was that they were “chosen” to extend God’s love to “all the families of the earth” (Gen 12:3).  Like many people through the ages, because they believed they were “special,” they concluded that those who were different were not only “beneath” them but not even worthy of God’s love.

This is important background for our gospel lesson for today. When you read it as a straightforward story and assume that Jesus meant what he said to be taken literally, it’s disturbing if not downright offensive. We’re shocked when this woman, who was a “foreigner” from “Tyre and Sidon” in gentile territory, came begging Jesus for mercy and he ignored her request. Or at least so it would seem. When she fell on her face and “worshipped” him, he responded, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Mt 15:24). And when she persisted in her faith, and continued to ask for his mercy, instead of helping her he said, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs” (Mt 15:26)!

We overlook this disturbing story because, if we take what Jesus said here literally, it would mean that he responded to a mother who was desperate to save her child and who came to him in faith with some of the harshest words he ever said to anyone! That makes this story stand out like a sore thumb. How could Jesus have been so uncaring, so unkind, so downright mean as to respond to her heartfelt and faith-filled request for mercy by saying she didn’t “deserve” it because she was a “dog”? That just doesn’t fit with what we know of Jesus elsewhere. He’s the one who looks at the crowds who were “like sheep without a shepherd” and has compassion on them. He’s the one who forgives the thief on the cross and invites him, even as he was dying, to join him in paradise!

So what’s going on with this story? Some think perhaps that Jesus was “testing” this woman to make sure she had “enough” faith. But I’ve never believed that fits this story. Everything about it demonstrates her faith. She approaches him from the very beginning by calling him “Lord.” She also falls on her face and worships him when she asks for his mercy. And in the end, Jesus declares that she has “great faith”!  We should remember that last week we heard Jesus calling Peter, who would become the leader of the Apostles, “you of little faith” (Mt 14:31). By contrast, he said to this woman, “you have great faith!” I think the woman in this story had plenty of faith!

I think that the ones who were being “tested” here were Jesus’ disciples. You can tell by the way they reacted to her that they didn’t think she deserved Jesus’ help. As she was crying out it didn’t take long for them to get fed up and ask Jesus to “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us” (Mt 10:23). I think we would be right to assume that the ministry apprentices Jesus had handpicked to carry on his work also carried all the entitlement that so many religious people had in that day, and have claimed for themselves throughout the ages. I think it’s pretty clear that they looked down on this “Canaanite” woman as someone who was not only beneath Jesus’ help, but also beneath even being in their presence! “Send her away!,” they said. The point of this encounter was to confront Jesus’ disciples for their prejudice. That means that the seemingly harsh words Jesus said were not meant to be taken literally, but rather he was speaking somewhat ironically in order to teach his disciples that their notions of God’s mercy were too limited. I’m sure there were plenty of other people in their world besides this mother whom they deemed “unworthy” to even be in Jesus’ presence, let alone to receive his mercy and compassion. They needed to learn better![2]

One of the lessons I’ve learned from studying the world of the Bible is that we humans haven’t changed much. We may have technology that changes our lives, but our fundamental nature hasn’t changed over the millennia. We still draw lines that divide those of “us” who are “worthy” of God’s love from the “others” who are “unworthy” not only of God’s love but even of our attention. This Scripture lesson confronts us by reminding us that God’s mercy cannot be limited by the lines we draw to exclude people we consider to be “unworthy.” Right after this episode, while he was still in that “foreign” territory, Matthew tells us that Jesus healed everyone who came to him. I can’t imagine that he first checked to make sure they had the “right” to God’s mercy. He simply healed them all (Mt 15:30). Jesus knew in the depth of his very being that God’s mercy has no limits. In God’s sight we’re all worthy of God’s love simply because God loves us!

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[1] © 2026 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 8/16/2026 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Some take a very different approach. Interpreting Jesus’ words literally, they believe that this encounter was actually a test for Jesus to “free” him from limited notions of his mission and from patriarchal attitudes toward women. Cf. Sharon Ringe, “A Gentile Woman’s Story,” in Letty M. Russell, ed., Feminist Interpretation of the Bible, 67-68. However, Gene Boring, “Gospel of Matthew,” New Interpreters Bible IX: 337-38 rightly criticizes her for reading too much of an ideological agenda into the situation. As he observes, the story is about the sexism and racism of the Gospel readers (and I would say the disciples).

Good All The Time

 Good All The Time

Matthew 14:22-33; Romans 10:10-13[1]

There’s a tradition in Presbyterian gatherings where the leader says, “God is good!” when it’s time for the group to settle down. The response is supposed to be “All the Time!” Then the leader announces, “All the Time!” and the group responds, “God is good!” On the surface of things, I think it’s a pretty great thing that we start gatherings with a reminder that God loves us so much that he’s good to us all the time. But being a student of language, I think not only about what it says or what the words mean but also how it works. So you probably won’t be surprised that I’m not entirely comfortable with this practice. Because when we say together, “God is good, all the time!” in that setting, the point of it is that it’s time to hush and listen to what the speaker has to say. I’ve mentioned before that instead of settling down and being quiet, if we really meant what we’re saying, we would burst into spontaneous celebration!

One of the reasons why we don’t do that, in my opinion, is we’re not sure we believe “God is good, all the time!” Life can be wonderful at times, like when you’re holding your newborn child or grandchild. But life can be hard and painful at times as well. It’s in those times I think we wonder most whether God really is good. It doesn’t help that the Hebrew Bible is full of statements about how “angry” God is. Especially for those of us who may have grown up with abusive parents. For us, “anger” doesn’t mean that God loves us so much that he’s upset with us when we do things that could hurt us or endanger us, like any good parent would. “Anger” means that God is just looking for an excuse to take his self-hatred out on us by “striking” us in some way. There’s really nothing good about that! Many of us have grown up with a keen sense that somehow, we never lived up to all the expectations of our parents. Most of us carry that burden in some way, and we tend to project it onto God and assume that God is disappointed with us as well. I think we’re not really sure we believe that “God is good, all the time.”

But the Scriptures insist over and over, especially in the Hebrew Bible, that God is indeed good, and that God is good all the time. We have a word for it: we call it “grace.” But “grace” is one of those words we use all the time without actually knowing what it means. In the Bible, “grace” means that God’s love for us never fails. “Grace” means God truly is “good all the time.” And “grace” means that’s true simply because that’s who God is, not because of anything we might do to “deserve” it as a “reward.” The truth of the matter is that we can never have enough faith, we can never be good enough, we can never do enough to deserve God’s love and goodness. God gives them to us anyway because that’s who God is! That’s what “grace” means. And that’s the testimony of Scripture, over and over again. It’s the point of the verse from our Psalm reading for today says God’s unfailing love combines with the fact that he is always true to his nature: “Loyal love and faithfulness meet; deliverance and peace greet each other with a kiss” (Ps 85:10, NET). Those things come together in God’s character and assure us that yes, God really is good all the time!

I think we see something of God’s goodness reflected in the way Jesus interacts with Peter in our Gospel lesson. At the outset, we should note that in Matthew, discipleship is always practiced by people who are called “you of little faith.” That’s what Jesus called the ones who were going to be called “the Apostles” and have statues built in their honor all over the world! We see it in this story when they become afraid in a boat that’s being “battered” by a storm “at the very dead of night” (Mt 14:25, NTE)! One of the ways that Matthew calls attention to the original disciples’ “little faith” is by telling the story of Peter asking to walk on the water. Only Matthew tells this story. It’s been commonly observed that Peter’s “faith” was demonstrated by being willing to get out of the boat in the midst of a storm, and that his “doubt” came when he shifted his attention from Jesus to the wind and the waves and began to sink. The idea is that if he had had enough faith, he would have been able to walk on the water just like Jesus did.

But I’m not so sure about all that. I don’t think getting out of a boat in the middle of a storm is such a good idea. I would say Peter demonstrates his “doubt” by asking to walk to Jesus on the water in the first place. When Jesus called out to them, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid” (Mt 14:27), he was trying to reassure the disciples. But Peter didn’t trust Jesus’ word. Instead, he wanted “proof.” So Peter said, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water” (Mt 14:28)! Peter sounds doubtful! I tend to agree with those who, like John Calvin, think that a response of faith on Peter’s part would have been to take to heart the assurance Jesus gave him and stay in the boat![2] That’s where he was supposed to be. That’s where he was needed. And Peter needed that boat to keep from sinking into the waves during a raging storm! But when Peter plunged out onto the waters and began to sink, Matthew’s Gospel says that Jesus “immediately reached out his hand and caught him” (Mt 14:31). I think one of the lessons we’re meant to come away with is that God shows us his goodness by always “catching” us, even when we’re still waist-deep in the water with the storm raging all around us! God always “catches” us.

Paul makes a similar point in our lesson from Romans. I particularly like the part that says: “‘Anyone who trusts in him will never be disappointed,’” and “The same Lord is the Lord of all and gives many blessings to all who trust in him” (Rom 10:11-12, NCV). I like it even better in Gene Peterson’s The Message translation: “Scripture reassures us, ‘No one who trusts God like this—heart and soul—will ever regret it.’ It’s exactly the same no matter what a person’s … background may be: the same God for all of us, acting the same incredibly generous way to everyone who calls out for help.”

“Incredibly generous.” I think that has to be one of the best phrases to describe God’s grace I’ve ever heard. “Incredibly generous.” I think the heart of Paul’s message in this passage is that God is incredibly generous all the time, and to everyone. And as Paul insists, that’s a thoroughly biblical concept. He’s quoting Scripture passages here. He’s quoting from the Hebrew Bible! God loves us all unconditionally. God offers new life to us all, without any exceptions or exclusions. And God does this simply because that’s who God is.[3] We can ever do enough to deserve or earn God’s love or God’s goodness, but that means we don’t have to do anything to earn it! From the standpoint of biblical faith, from Moses to the the Psalms to the prophets to Jesus to the Apostles, the fundamental message of the Bible is that “God is good, all the time,” simply because that’s who God is!

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[1] © 2026 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 8/9/2026 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] John Calvin, Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke, vol. 2, 240–241. Cf. also Gene Boring, “Gospel of Matthew” New Interpreters Bible IX:329-30: “Faith is not being able to walk on the water—only God can do that—but daring to believe, in the face of all evidence, that God is with us in the boat, … as it makes its way through the storm, battered by the waves.”

[3] Karl Barth, Epistle to the Romans, 1933, 102-103: “Grace is the generous and free will of God, His will to accept us; its necessity proceeds from Him and from Him only. … the necessity that God shall maintain and show forth His faithfulness, without any provision by us of an occasion for its display—but simply because He is God; … .”

Let It Begin With Me

 Let It Begin With Me

Matthew 14:13-21[1]

Another slogan from the Twelve Step movement is “Let It Begin With Me.” In fact, it comes from what is known as the “Al-Anon Declaration”: “Let it begin with me. When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help, let the hand of Al-Anon and Al-Ateen always be there, and let it begin with me.” Many Al-Anon and Al-Ateen meetings either open or close with this declaration. It’s a constant reminder that Al-Anon and Al-Ateen exist to help the families and friends of people who misuse alcohol and other substances. Their sole purpose is to provide a helping hand to those who suffer because a friend or a loved one is an alcoholic. I can tell you from personal experience that many people come to their first meeting and spend the whole hour sobbing because they are hurting so badly, their lives feel completely out of control, and they are terrified of what tomorrow will bring.

“Let it begin with me” is a call to action. It’s a reminder that we each bear responsibility for our choices and actions. If we want to see changes, we have to be the ones to make changes in our lives. That doesn’t guarantee we’ll get the outcomes we want. Most people come to Al-Anon hoping that the changes they make will change their friend or loved one so that they no longer misuse alcohol or drugs. Sometimes that happens, but mostly it doesn’t. What taking responsibility for our own choices and actions does guarantee is that we’ll learn to face life in a healthier way. This mindset applies not only to families and friends of alcoholics and those who struggle with other addictions. We all share in the brokenness of the human family. And when we find ourselves at the point of feeling overwhelmed, perhaps feeling like our lives are completely out of control and fearing what tomorrow will bring, we are right in the middle of the brokenness that everyone in this world shares.

Unfortunately, most of us don’t respond to being in that place very positively. Our first instinct is to blame someone else. If I’m hurting, someone else must be at fault. That approach might be characterized by the slogan, “it has to begin with you.” We look at our pain, we find someone to blame for it, and we put the responsibility for our happiness in their hands. If we’re going to get better, they have to change. Of course, that places all the power for our wellbeing in the hands of someone else. “Let it begin with me” takes the opposite approach. If I’m hurting, it’s my pain. I’m responsible for my feelings and what I do about them. I’m the only one who holds the key to my happiness in life. Nobody can “make” me happy by what they do or don’t do. If I want things to change in my life, I’m the one who has to make the changes.

I think there’s a part of our Gospel lesson for today that relates to this line of thinking. I didn’t really plan these sermons on the Al-Anon slogans. As I read the Scriptures each week, it just developed that way. And that applies to our Gospel lesson for this week. When it comes to our Christian lives, we’re wise to recognize that there’s much about this world that is bigger than we can control. Only God can handle those things. But we can control our choices. In our Gospel lesson, Jesus has been teaching a huge crowd: 5000 men, not counting women and children. And at the end of the day, when it was time to eat, they were all a long way from any place where they could find food. The disciples’ suggestion that Jesus dismiss the crowd so they could find food in the surrounding towns and villages wasn’t very practical. It’s doubtful there was enough food in the surrounding area to feed such a crowd. They were just trying to “pass the buck” and get rid of the problem!

Jesus ignores their suggestion. Instead, he tells them, “You give them something to eat” (Matt. 14:16)! The disciples responded as you might think: they asked how they could possibly feed such a huge crowd with the little food they had with them. But I think Jesus may have been trying to teach them something. They had seen him work miracles that amazed them. But in one sense they’d become spectators, watching what Jesus was going to do instead of taking an active role in God’s Kingdom, as he called them to. I think Jesus used this setting to challenge them to step out of their spectator role and to take a more active stance with their commitment to follow him.

The story that follows is intriguing, because although it’s the only miracle of Jesus recounted by all four Gospels, there’s no mention how Jesus was able to feed such a massive crowd with five loaves and two fish! Some have suggested that the example of generosity inspired those in the crowd to share their food with others. We don’t know that. Popular movies have depicted it as an instantaneous miracle—Jesus lifts the food in a basket to bless it, and when he brings it down the basket is overflowing with loaves and fishes. But we don’t know that either. We really don’t know and may never be able to explain how Jesus multiplied the loaves and fish. At the end of the day, all that we really know about this miracle is that Jesus gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds, and everyone had enough to eat and more!

It leaves me wondering if it could be that it was in the act of the disciples being willing to step out of the relative comfort of a spectator role and taking a more active role in the work of the Kingdom that the miracle occurred. We still don’t know that for sure, but it does seem significant that Jesus instructed the disciples who wanted to send everybody away to serve their food to the hungry crowds. And perhaps the miracle happened somehow in the giving. By moving from spectators to taking an active role, the disciples became channels for God to do his miraculous work. Perhaps one of the lessons is that true miracles happen in ways we may never be able to explain.

We’ll probably never know for sure exactly what happened that day by the Sea of Galilee. But I think we can know that when we stay comfortably on the sidelines, adopting the role of a spectator, not much is ever going to happen. When we get stuck in our fears that there’s not enough or perhaps what we have to give isn’t good enough, all there will ever be is a bunch of hungry people. We have to take an active role in serving others if we want to follow Jesus. I think this is where the wisdom of the Twelve-Step slogan, “Let It Begin With Me,” can help us. Instead of looking at all that’s wrong in the world and trying to find whom we can blame, when we “let it begin with me,” we step up and do what we can do. As the Scriptures illustrate, when do so, even the little that we have to give can become more than enough. There is much about God’s work in this world that’s bigger than us. But there are things we can all do right where we are. I think that’s part of what Jesus wants us to learn from this miracle: when we step up and do what we can do, God takes what we have to offer and uses it to do more than we can imagine!

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[1] © 2026 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 8/2/2026 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

Keep It Simple

Keep It Simple

Matthew 13:10-17[1]

Most of you know that I’ve been talking about some of the slogans of the “Twelve Step” movement lately. They’re not necessarily biblically based, but they represent the wisdom of those who’ve faced and overcome debilitating hardships in their lives. Their experiences of making the journey from trauma through healing to serenity provide lessons for us all. That’s true of today’s slogan as well: “Keep It Simple.” Of course, these days, that’s a slogan that’s not confined to the Twelve Step movement. But it is one of the Twelve Step slogans. And in that context, it refers to focusing on what you can actually do about the people, circumstances, and events in your life. And that means letting go the things you can’t do anything about. “Keeping it simple” this way helps us keep our heads on straight when we feel overwhelmed by the parts of our lives that we cannot control.

That’s not something we do naturally. At least I don’t. When life feels like it’s spiraling out of control, we pull out all the stops to try to make things run the way we want them to. It’s a normal response to stress and anxiety. But the problem is that the “normal” ways we respond to stress and anxiety usually make things worse. We misuse substances to numb our feelings. We take those feelings out on the people closest to us. We ramp up our efforts to control our lives to get the outcomes we want, which only increases our stress and anxiety, especially when there really is nothing we can do about whatever may be causing the problem in the first place. The only real solution is to accept that the problem is out of our control and focus on maintaining healthy attitudes and life choices. Usually that means “keeping it simple” by sticking to our daily routines. In the Twelve-Step movement, they speak of doing the “next right thing.” When that’s our focus, it helps us to keep things “simple.”

I think our strange lesson from the Gospel of Matthew reflects this in a way. It’s a strange lesson because it sounds like Jesus was saying that he was trying to prevent people from turning to God. I would say that in reality, he was trying to get people to acknowledge that all their efforts to control their own sense of self-righteousness was getting in the way of the simplicity of how God actually wanted them to live their lives! It was their own obsession with measuring their piety by external means that was preventing them from examining their hearts and responding to Jesus and his message. In a very real sense, they had “shut” their own eyes and “stopped” their own ears from hearing Jesus.

Even that perspective sounds pretty edgy. Part of the problem is that the Gospel of Matthew came out of a time of extreme crisis. The early Christians for whom Matthew was writing his Gospel were likely Jewish converts. But because of their faith in Jesus, they had not only been expelled from their synagogues, but also likely had been shunned by their families. They were treated like heretics and blasphemers. When we have to live with that kind of hostility, it can affect the way we treat people. We tend to react to hostility by becoming defensive and even angry toward those who are attacking us. We tend to “circle the wagons,” so to speak, and we may attack everyone outside the circle. When we do, we not only only harm others, including those who just happen be “in the way,” we also harm ourselves. When we adopt that kind of attitude, we see “enemies” everywhere.

Unfortunately, that seems to be the context in which Matthew’s Gospel was written. The problem comes up when we internalize the attitude that everyone who is not “with us” is “against us” (contrast Mk 9:40!). When we do that, our religion becomes a convenient outlet for the stress and anxiety we may feel about the normal conflicts we face in life. Those conflicts come about simply because we live in a world full of other people who differ from us in all kinds of ways. When we view “difference” as a threat, it turns us into people who are closed-minded and hard-hearted, wielding our faith like a club, so focused on defending ourselves that we attack everyone who is “outside” what we perceive to be “our circle.”

But Jesus cut through all of that toxic religion and taught that our faith is about what God is doing in this world to bring peace, justice, freedom, and love to all people everywhere. Jesus called that the “kingdom of God.” He knew that his vision for the world was very different from the way things work. The Romans were still in power, and they wielded that power with cruelty and brutality. The wealthy oppressed the poor with no accountability. Religious leaders used their position not to serve the people but to gain wealth and power for themselves. Suffering, violence, injustice, and just plain meanness were overwhelming the world when Jesus was teaching about the “kingdom of God.” I can understand why some of his followers withdrew from the world in fear and hostility. And of course, we still face those challenges to this day. And it still leads many good people to retreat behind their faith like it’s a castle wall.

That’s why he told the disciples that there were some who wouldn’t get the point of his parables. He used parables to teach them about the “mystery” or the “secret” of the kingdom of God. And that secret is this: despite appearances to the contrary, God’s kingdom is working now to change all things and all people. God really is working to bring peace, justice, freedom, and love to all people everywhere. We see it in the “Parable of the Sower,” where the “fruit” produced by the good soil far exceeds all expectations. We see it in the “Parable of the Mustard Seed,” where a tiny seed becomes a “large tree.” We see it in the “Parable of the Leaven” where the yeast inevitably works its way through a large batch of dough. The idea is that the change the kingdom of God is bringing will inevitably work its way through this whole world.

One of the lessons I think Jesus wanted believers to come away with is an attitude toward others that differed from the religious people of his day. Despite all that remains wrong with this world, I think Jesus wanted those who followed him to fully embrace the hope that one day the kingdom of God will right all the wrongs. One day, God will restore all people and all creation to the way God intended when he made it “very good.” When we embrace this vision of what God is doing in the world, it makes it possible for us to extend the same generous welcome that God has given us to those we may see as “outsiders.” When we embrace Jesus’ vision of what God is doing in the world, we don’t have to worry about who’s “with us” and who’s “against us.” Because God’s plan is to bring us all together in his love. That means we can “Keep It Simple” when it comes to how we live our Christian lives. We can set aside our fears and hostilities and do our best to love God with all our hearts and to love our neighbors as ourselves. We “Keep It Simple” by keeping love as the focus of our faith.

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[1] © 2026 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 7/19/2026 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

One Day at a Time

One Day at a Time

Romans 8:1-11; Matthew 13:1-9[1]

Last week we talked about the Twelve-Step slogan, “Let Go and let God.” Another familiar slogan from the Twelve-Step movement is “One Day at a Time.” It’s one of the tools that people who are trying to live in a healthy way use to deal with “bad” days. Because the truth is whether you’ve been practicing “recovery” for decades or for days, everybody has “bad” days. The idea behind the slogan “One Day at a Time” is that, even on the worst of your “bad” days, you can handle whatever comes your way for one day. To be sure, there are days when it all seems too much to handle. But usually, that’s because we’re viewing our problems from the perspective that they’ll never change. It’ll always be this way. When you think you’re going to have to deal with your  problems for the rest of your life, it can become overwhelming. But when you frame it as something you just have to handle today, it usually gets more manageable.

There’s another point to the slogan “One Day at a Time.” It’s related to the fact that we’ll never perfectly fulfill our goals in this lifetime. But if we keep our focus on doing the best we can today, we may wind up pleasantly surprised with how well we do. And after a while of doing our best “One Day at a Time,” we usually realize we’ve made a whole lot more progress than we could have imagined when we first started out. I think those of us who take living the Christian life seriously have a similar experience. There are wonderful times when we know the joy and peace and freedom we have from God through Jesus Christ. And then there are other days when the way we practice the Christian life can best be summed up by the phrase, “three steps forward, two steps back”!

I think we see some of this reflected in our lesson from Paul’s letter to the Romans for today. There, Paul emphasizes that the Holy Spirit poured out on us is the one who makes it possible for us to experience this new life of joy and peace and freedom right now. And when you pay close attention to what Paul says, it sounds very much like he is promising that we already have the fullness of salvation, right now. That’s because everything necessary for us to experience the fullness of joy and peace and freedom in this life has already been done for us by God in Jesus Christ. And it’s also because of what God is doing in our lives through the Spirit right now, to this very day. Paul puts it this way: because the Spirit of the one “who raised Jesus from the dead” lives in us, that means God is also working to give us a new life like the one Jesus has now in the presence of God (Rom 8:10-11, NIRV).

That’s quite a promise. We can have a life like the one Jesus has in the presence of God right now because of what God is doing in our lives through the Spirit. And I would absolutely affirm that’s a true statement: we can have a life like the one Jesus has in the presence of God right now because of what God is doing in our lives through the Spirit! But the other side of the truth is the fact that we never experience the fullness of the life of the risen Lord Christ in this life. We do experience joy and peace and freedom as a gift from God in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. Theologically speaking, we already have everything we need to know this new life now. But practically speaking, our experience (and the teachings of Scripture) remind us that we will not know that new life fully until we are standing face to face with him. In the meantime, we live our Christian lives in the tension between the promise of new life now and the full experience of it when we stand face-to-face with Jesus.[2]

I would say that our Gospel lesson for today also addresses this question, but from a different perspective. The parable is a familiar one. A farmer goes out to plant seeds in a field. In those days, planting seeds was much less precise and involved perhaps even more risk (if that’s possible!). Farmers would just scatter seeds, hoping some of them would take root and grow and bear fruit. Of course, Jesus wasn’t really talking about agriculture in this parable. Among other things, he was trying to warn those who want to follow him that not all the seeds they planted would bear fruit. Faithfulness doesn’t always guarantee results. Sometimes we find ourselves sowing and not reaping.

But there’s a deeper issue here, one that goes beyond the typical observation that the seeds need the right “kind” of soil in which to bear fruit. That kind of thinking leads many Christians to wonder which kind of “soil” they belong to and even to doubt whether they’ve “done enough” to bear fruit in their lives. Or it leads to a too easy assumption that because we’re in church we’re automatically in the “good soil” category. But something that the famous Swiss Reformed Theologian Karl Barth pointed out is that in this parable, the farmer isn’t planting four fields. The farmer is planting seeds in one field.[3] Therefore, he suggests that we must reckon with the truth that we all—including those who are within the Christian community and those who are not—are among “those who hear” the “Word” of the gospel. That means there is always a mixture of “ignoring” the “Word” that fails to put it into action on the one hand, and on the other hand responding to the “Word” with “understanding” that leads to fruitful Christian living.[4] And that mixture of “ignoring” and “responding” to the “Word” is in all of us.[5] We all respond to the gospel in all these ways outlined in the parable in differing measures.

That brings us back to where we started. We all have good days and bad days when it comes to the Christian life. There are times when our experience of can best be summarized as “three steps forward, two steps back.” That brings us back to “One Day at a Time.” I think the slogan applies to our Christian living as much as it does to the recovery movement. We do our best “One Day at a Time” to respond faithfully to the promises of God’s word and the demands that go along with them. We do our best “One Day at a Time” to live fruitful lives as followers of Jesus Christ. That doesn’t mean that we have to wonder every day whether we’re doing it “good enough.” But it also means that a faithful response to Jesus Christ can never be something that we do once and then we sit back and think we’ve done all we have to do.

We live our Christian lives “One day at a time.” Sometimes we respond to the Word of the Lord like the hard path: it just “bounces off.” Sometimes we respond like the rocky soil: initially, we’re enthusiastic, but the Word never really takes root. Sometimes we respond like the thorny ground: we respond to the Gospel but the other things in our lives that distract us choke it out. Sometimes we respond to the Word of the Lord in a way that bears fruit in our lives and in the lives of those around us. This is true for all of us. That doesn’t mean that we get discouraged because we don’t always get it right. We live our Christian lives in hope: the hope that the light that shines in this world through the love of God in Jesus Christ will always be more powerful than the darkness in this world that we all participate in and at times may even contribute to![6] Despite any apparent success or failure, we keep on following Jesus “One Day at a Time,” not because we put our confidence in ourselves, but because we trust in God to fulfill his promises to us. And somehow, someway, God always turns our imperfect faith into fruit that benefits not only the Christian community but also all those with whom we share God’s love.

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[1] © 2026 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 105, calls the hope of new life that Paul holds out in Romans as the “impossible possibility of our redemption.” Later in Romans 8:23 Paul talks about “groaning” for the full experience of new life.

[3] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 4.3.1:189. I realize that the “interpretation” of the parable of the Sower in Matthew 13:18-23 encourages the idea that the different “types” of soil represent different “types” of people who hear the Gospel and respond in different ways. I would agree with the view that this so-called “interpretation” reflects the views of the early Church as much as and perhaps even more than they represent the views of Jesus. It is perhaps a very early understanding of Jesus’ parable, but not necessarily the only “authoritative” one. I think Barth’s interpretation, which is based more on the primary parable itself, reflects insights into how the early Church transformed into “Christendom” and how the original parable challenges the sense of entitlement and exceptionalism that arose from that transformation.

[4] Barth summarizes this dilemma well when he says that we all alike “both those who know and those who do not know” (ibid., 192).

[5] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 4.3.1:188-93, where he interprets the parable of the sower through the perspective that it describes the “antithesis” in which we all live out the Christian life: “the light of life shines in the darkness.” That is always true whenever the light of the gospel shines: it shines in darkness. And we are still a part of that darkness.

[6] Cf. Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer, 76, where he says that this hope is the true motivation for Christian leadership. I would say it is also the true motivation for Christian living in general. It is the hope that enables us to “keep pointing to new life even in the face of corruption and death” and that what God has done for us through Jesus Christ, especially in raising him from the dead, is a definitive affirmation that there is “light on the other side of darkness.” I would say it also points us to the hope that this “light” in the world will always and inevitably overcome the “darkness.”