The Waking Dreamer: 2026

Wednesday, September 02, 2026

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.

[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.”

Tuesday, September 01, 2026

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.

[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!”

Tuesday, August 18, 2026

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!

[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).

Tuesday, August 11, 2026

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!

[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; … .”

Saturday, August 08, 2026

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!

Thursday, July 23, 2026

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.

Saturday, July 18, 2026

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.

[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.”

Thursday, July 09, 2026

Letting Go and Letting God

Romans 7:7-25, Matthew 11:16-30[1]

Many of you may know that “Let go and let God” is one of the slogans of the Twelve-Step movement. It’s based on the principle that many have learned to be true: when we try to control circumstances and people we wind up with a life that’s too much for us to handle. We feel overwhelmed, we feel frustrated or anxious or both at the same time, and we may feel defeated. All that comes from the “insanity” of thinking we can get the outcomes we want in life with enough effort. Some of us don’t think that’s “insane” at all; it’s simply stepping up and taking on our responsibilities. But even if we don’t feel the frustration and helplessness of trying to control other people, they most certainly do.

Last week we talked about how making our religion a matter of following rigid rules leads us to a way of life defined by whom we exclude. But the other side is what we do to ourselves when we take that path of religious perfectionism. When we think we can “do it all by ourselves” when it comes to following Jesus and honoring God, it’s a lot like thinking we can control our lives and the people in it. We wind up frustrating ourselves, or those around us, or both. More than that, we tend to express our religion by condemning people. On one side we see people who are more conservative than we are and we think that they’re too strict. On the other side we see people who are more progressive and we think they’re too lax. It seems like what we really want is to be in control of everyone around us.

That’s what’s going on in our Gospel lesson with the strange comment Jesus makes about people being like children who whine, “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn” (Mt 11:17). John the Baptist lived simply and practiced a rigorous form of discipline. And because he wouldn’t “dance to the tune” they were playing, they wrote him off as demon-possessed (Mt 11:18).[2] On the other hand, Jesus came and lived life and laughed and welcomed all kinds of people, and, perhaps worst of all, shared meals with so-called “sinners.” Because of that, they wrote him off as a “glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Mt 11:19).

Here’s the problem with making religion about following the rules: we always wind up making ourselves the measure of all things spiritual. Like the crowds responding to John and Jesus, we condemn those who are too conservative in our eyes, and then we turn around and condemn those who are too liberal. But the hard truth is that making yourself the measure of all things spiritual boils down to appointing ourselves as the official rule-makers. And in the process, we make religion into something oppressive. For ourselves, and for others. In contrast to all that, Jesus announced that he had come to set people free from their burdens. He came to free people who, no matter how hard they tried, could never live up to the religious rule-makers’ demands. But he also came to free the rule-makers, because what gets hidden beneath the façade of a “holier than thou” attitude is the lingering doubt about whether you can ever fulfill all the rules perfectly.

I think we see some of that burden in St. Paul’s anguish over his inability to keep the law. In our lesson from Romans for today, he talks about the freedom that comes from letting go the effort to control all things spiritual and letting those things rest in God’s hands, which is where they belong. I’ll be the first to say that Paul’s teaching about sin and the law in this chapter is another example of the challenge we face when we try to read Paul’s letters: it gets really confusing really fast! But I think the main point of what he’s trying to say is that any means we can come up with by which we try to attain a “righteousness” of our own making is doomed to fail!

The logic of Paul’s argument here is complicated, and it’s difficult to sort out. But I think it points to the truth that all our efforts to serve God in our own strength are flawed. All of it comes under the heading of “religion”, and religion can only remind us of how far we fall short.[3] It’s no wonder Paul is torn—not just about the fact that his own conscience is guilty, but because he recognizes that anything he could possibly do to gain eternal life by his own effort is ultimately futile. The only way to find freedom is to turn to Jesus Christ. That’s where Paul winds up: “I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different” (Rom 7:24-25, MSG). I think that sums it up pretty well.

The truth is that we will always struggle with “this life of contradictions” as Gene Peterson puts it in The Message translation. And all too often, we respond to the frustration of trying to practice our religion on our own by simply trying harder. When we do, it all becomes a burden that’s too heavy for any of us to bear. More than that, this approach to religion brings with it other burdens. There’s the fear that what we do may never be good enough. Sometimes we convert our frustration and fear into anger. And we take it out on those we think are a “threat” to us. The final burden is pride. When you put it all together, it’s all too heavy for any of us to bear.

At the end of the day, as Paul recognized, the only path to freedom from these burdens is through God’s love for us in Jesus Christ. That’s where the wisdom of “Let go and let God” comes in. When we try to control our lives, we take on a burden that will crush anyone who tries to carry it. The wisdom of the ages has taught us that the burdens that we carry only trap us in prisons of our own making. Jesus said come to me, lay down your burdens, and I will give you rest. Of course, that’s not something we do once, and call it good. Sometimes, it’s something we have to do every day: come to Jesus, lay down our burdens, and accept the rest he offers. Sometimes we may have do that multiple times a day. When we let go our own efforts to please God by ourselves, to make our lives turn out the way we want, we can lay down the frustration and fear and anger and pride that burden us. When we let God be the one on whom we depend for everything, not only salvation and eternity but also today and tomorrow, we can open our hearts to receive the joy, and love, and life, and rest that Jesus promises.

[2] Douglas Hare, Matthew 123-24.

[3] Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 252: when we undertake this effort on our own, “we do but display the catastrophe of human impotence in the things of God.”

Wednesday, July 01, 2026

Living in Freedom

Romans 6:12-23; Matthew 10:34-42[1]

Sometimes I think organized religion may be more of a hindrance to people who are looking for God’s love than a help. You may find that strange for someone who’s spent his whole career working in organized religion to say! Nevertheless, after spending almost five decades working in the church, I would say that religious organizations tend to get in the way. We create structures and rules to ensure that everyone winds up at the same place in their spiritual journey. But structures and rules always have to be tweaked. It might be tempting for us to point the finger at those “other” religions out there, for “straining a gnat and swallowing a camel” (Matt 23:24), as Jesus put it. But the reality is that all religions are human attempts to understand ultimate things like God and eternity. And because they’re created by flawed and fallible people like you and me, they all in one way or another tend to get in the way of those who are looking for God in this life.[2]

In the Hebrew Bible, we see an approach to God that essentially defines the spiritual quest in terms of carefully conducted rituals and equally careful observance of rules about staying “pure.” Holiness is defined by eating the right foods and having the “right kind” of relationship the “right kind” of person. That may have been a good place to start, but I would say that many very deeply religious people no longer believe that we please God by observing the right rituals, or eating only the right foods, or having the “right kind” of relationships with the “right kind” of people. And yet, even in our day there are still some who cling to those old rules. As if Jesus endorsed all of that! They may not believe that having a plate of oysters somehow makes us unclean in God’s sight. But there are still many Christians these days who believe that the essence of sin is having the “wrong kind” of relationship with the “wrong kind” of person. Many still believe that marrying a person outside your faith, or person of another race, or anyone who is somehow “tainted” by our human standards makes you “sinful” in God’s sight.

As Jesus pointed out in many ways, the main problem with this approach to religion is that it becomes about what we avoid and whom we exclude. Last week I talked about one aspect of what makes it difficult to read Paul’s letters. I think another challenge we face is that Paul’s letters still reflect some of this kind of thinking. I see it when we read our lesson from Romans for today. While we are clearly indebted to the great Apostle for many of the building blocks of our faith, I think his views on sin may have some problems. In a very real sense, I would say Paul has a very “First-Century Jewish” notion of sin. Of course we don’t want to be “slaves of sin” but “servants of righteousness,” as Paul urges us to be in our lesson for today. But the problem comes when you ask how Paul defines “sin.” It sounds very much like it’s about what we avoid and whom we exclude.

But I would say that while Paul may have hung on to some of those notions, he was a follower of Jesus. And that meant ultimately he was much more concerned with putting faith into practice by treating other people as Jesus did. I think that should give us some sense of focus when we talk about how “the wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23). I want to ask where you see sin leading to death in our world. Well, I see power-hungry dictators unleashing drones and missiles against innocent people. And the result of that sin is death. I see impoverished people living in ramshackle slums that are swept away completely—men, women, and children—whenever an earthquake or a flood or a hurricane comes through. And the result is death. I see the death that results from the sin of the wealthy hoarding all the resources so that the weakest and poorest of their people literally starve. I realize that Paul was talking about a “spiritual” kind of death. But I think it would do us well to ask ourselves where we see sin leading to death in this world. I would have to say, in all honesty, that I don’t much “death” resulting from failing to exclude the “wrong kind” of person.

I’d have to say that this is one area where some of the most “religious” people of our day still “miss the point.” I would go further and say that whenever we make the essence of our relationship with God a matter of following religious rules, not about the love we have received from God through Jesus Christ, we continue to miss the point. But more importantly, our manmade and rigid religious rules always become obstacles to loving other people. Jesus called them “burdens too heavy to lift” (Mt 23:4) and points the finger at religious perfectionists of all stripes for ignoring their own sins and focusing on the mistakes of others (Mt 7:3-5). It all becomes just an elaborate way of justifying oneself by condemning others. But at the end of the day, even religious perfectionists can’t bear the burdens they create for others. And so, as Jesus said, they condemn themselves when they condemn others! That’s not only because they fail to live up to the expectations they demand of others. It’s also because making our devotion to God about what we avoid and whom we exclude inevitably turns into hostility toward them, whoever “they” may be. You can’t love your neighbor if you really hate them down deep inside!

Jesus had a way of cutting through all this religious hypocrisy. He said that true holiness is about loving God and loving others (Mt 22:37-40). He said that true spirituality is about embracing a child (Mt 18:1-5). True religion is about not only having empathy for the weak and outcast, but also about taking steps to care for them (Mt 25:34-40).[3] It’s about feeding a hungry person, visiting the sick, and being a companion to those who are in prison. For Jesus, a truly spiritual way of living is about being willing to give someone a cup of cold water on a hot day (Mt 10:42). It’s really no more complicated than that. No elaborate systems, no obsessions with keeping tedious rules. At the end of the day, it’s not about what we avoid or whom we exclude, but rather it’s about having a heart that’s willing to give to others the same mercy that we have received.

That doesn’t mean it’s “easy.” In our Gospel lesson for today, Jesus describes this kind of life as “losing your life for my sake” (Mt 10:39). But he also said that was the way to truly “find” your life. I think that’s the lesson we can take away from Paul talking the freedom to live for God. Through the love we encounter in Jesus Christ, we’re set free from all the habits and attitudes that bring “death” not only to ourselves but also to those around us. Through the love from God that we encounter in Jesus Christ, we’re set free from all the habits and attitudes that harm not only others but also ourselves. That’s how I would define “freedom from sin.” It’s the freedom to stop draining the life out of ourselves and others by our actions and attitudes. And in the process, we’re set free to live for God, to live a life of love and mercy, which is the life we were always meant to live.

[2] Cf. Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 1933, 242: “Religion compels us to the perception that God is not to be found in religion.”

[3] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 126-9, where he says in effect that those who truly follow Christ are to be serving where Christ awaits us, “amid the downtrodden, the sick, and the captives.”

Alive to God

Romans 6:1-11[1]

Reading Paul’s letters in the New Testament can be an exercise in frustration. Perhaps, hearing a sermon on a passage from Paul’s letters can be an exercise in frustration! Of course, many of our favorite “memory verses” come from Paul. Verses like “Nothing in all creation can separate us from God's love for us in Christ Jesus our Lord!” (Rom 8:39, CEV). Or, “the peace of God which transcends human understanding, will keep constant guard over your hearts and minds as they rest in Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:7, Phillips). These are wonderful verses. And we keep them close, because they bring a great deal of comfort and assurance. But when you really try to dig in and understand the meat of Paul’s letters, they can get really confusing really fast. I’m saying that as a person with PhD in New Testament studies and someone who has spent forty plus years trying to dig in to the meat of Paul’s letters! It helps to read a version that is more than a translation, but also attempts to “translate” Paul into language we can understand. I think that’s why Charlie Noren always liked to read from The Message version when he served as liturgist!

One of the reasons why Paul’s letters are so difficult to understand is because he’s trying to explain our salvation in depth. He lays out the groundwork for our salvation in what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. He calls all people, Jewish and Gentile alike, to respond to the Gospel with faith. And he talks in some detail about what it looks like to live the life of faith. But in doing so, he uses language and figures of speech that are not only 2000 years old, but also are steeped in the metaphors and thought world of the Hebrew Bible. I’m probably stating the obvious when I say that language is quite foreign to most of us. Anyone who’s made a serious effort to read the Old Testament might agree with that evaluation.

One of the problems we have understanding Paul’s letters is that through the history of the church, two very different views about how salvation works have emerged. One view insists that there’s nothing we can for our salvation. Our faith and the way it changes how we live is an act of God. Only God in Jesus Christ, working in our lives through his Spirit can create the kind of faith that leads us to live for God and for one another in the way that God wants us to. The other view insists that we have to do everything for our salvation! In order for what God has done for us and in us to truly make a difference in our lives, it has to be met with the willingness to change our attitudes and our actions, to open ourselves to what God wants to do in and through us, and to set aside all that gets in the way of our growth in faith. One view emphasizes that our salvation is the work of God from start to finish. The other view emphasizes that our salvation is something we have to work out in our own lives.

Part of what makes this question so challenging is that both of these views are true. As with many aspects of our faith we have to hold them together in balance. But as is the case so often, holding these two perspectives in tension takes skill and practice. Unfortunately, a lot of people tend to fall off on one side or the other. Some will insist that there’s nothing they can possibly do to save themselves because it’s the work of God. And that’s true, but it doesn’t go far enough by itself. Others will insist that the only way to experience salvation is to put faith into practice. For them, salvation is all about what they do for themselves. Again, there is some truth to that, but downplaying the role of God in this life change strips it of its power.

From my years of ministry and interacting with people, I would say that of the two, the bigger obstacle to faith these days is the notion that I can “do it myself.” We hear it in those who seem to have their sights fixed on the idea that “I have to be good enough to make it to heaven.” For some people this is official church teaching. If you want to “make it to heaven,” you have to check off certain “boxes.” For others, it’s simply the message they’ve always heard. For whatever reason, if you really get down to what people believe about all this, they tend to think that their “salvation” is something they do for themselves. Because of that, they may throw themselves into the obligations they think will enable them to “make it to heaven.”

Of course, we’re all taking something for granted here: that the life of Jesus, a Jewish man who lived in a faraway land so long ago can really make a difference in our lives today. We take it for granted because we’ve experienced throughout our lives. But not everybody does. To some extent, we have to reckon with the fact that what Jesus did for us will always be something that has taken place “outside us.” Besides the fact that it took place long ago and far away, it’s not something we’ve done for ourselves. It will always be something someone else did. When push comes to shove, most of us aren’t comfortable relying on what anyone else does for us. But the mystery of the gospel is that what Jesus did was also “for us” and therefore it is something that can make a change “within us.”[2] These are common phrases in Paul’s letters. In our reading for today he calls attention to the mystery this way, “if we died with Christ, we have faith that we will also live with him” (Rom. 6:8, CEB). And he says, “just as Christ was raised from the dead …, we too can walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4, CEB). The mystery of the Gospel is that what God did in and through Jesus can and does make a difference in our lives today. What he did makes it possible for us to be “alive to God” just as Jesus is alive to God.

How do we let this really sink in and take root in our own lives so that we trust the promise of salvation? How do we get past those notions that somehow, some way we all have to “be good enough to make it to heaven?” I think that somehow we need to find a way to believe that changing how we live is a real possibility for us. This is where Paul’s teaching about the Cross and the Resurrection, as challenging as it can be to understand, can help us. The Cross and the Resurrection together represent a divine act that in a manner of speaking “interrupts” the normal “way things work” in this life and opens up for us the real possibility of living a life that is truly “alive to God.” The forgiveness we have through the Cross gives us the freedom to turn from old ways. The Resurrection points us to the new life as something that can be just as real for us today as it is for the risen Lord Jesus Christ.

The two sides of what we call “salvation” always go together. What do we have to do to make it to heaven? “Nothing!” And, “Everything!” They go together. Do people ever really change in this life? We tend to think not, but Paul says the answer is “Yes!” and it’s because of what Jesus did for us. His death on the cross breaks the grip of old ways on our lives. His resurrection opens up the very real possibility of living a whole new life, “just as Christ was raised from the dead.” Our salvation is all about what God does for us.[3] That’s always the foundation for our salvation. But the New Testament teaches that we also have to “work out” our own salvation.[4] For the change of life that the Bible calls “salvation” to be effective, we have to both open ourselves to what God wants to do in our lives, and we have to take steps to “work the program,” so to speak. We have to hold the two in balance.[5] Being set right with God through the forgiveness accomplished by Jesus on the Cross works hand-in-hand with his Resurrection to create the opportunity to live a life that is truly “alive to God.”

[2] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 4.4:18-21, where he discusses the idea that what Jesus does extra nos (“outside us”) is also pro nobis (“for us”) and therefore effective in nobis (“in us”).

[3] Cf. Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 1933, 207: “Grace is the power of the resurrection … . Grace is the existence begotten of God, the new man created and redeemed by God … .”

[4] Cf. Barth, Romans, 221: “Grace means that God reckons men’s whole existence to be His and claims it for Himself. … Grace seizes visible life and demands that it be presented to righteousness.” Cf. also, ibid., 222: “Grace means: thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven … .”

[5] Cf. Barth, Dogmatics, 4.4:22, where he discusses this balance between what God does for our salvation and what we do: “the omnicausality of God must not be construed as His sole causality. The divine change in whose accomplishment a man becomes a Christian is an event of true intercourse between God and man. If it undoubtedly has its origin in God’s initiative, no less indisputably man is not ignored or passed over in it.” He adds that it is also one’s own “decision and act” (ibid., 23).

The Waking Dreamer