Not Giving up--Hoses 5:15-6:6. Sermon preached on June 7, 2026

            This is a world of sin; and it is everywhere. Sinful choices. Sinful leaders. Sinful teachers and sin-based practice. . . and, no, I am not speaking about today and the struggles associated with our current moment in history. You read and hear enough about that.

Rather, this is the context that the prophet Hosea lived and served the Lord in. As the end of the Northen Kingdom of Israel drew close, Hosea stood before God’s people with some of the harshest words recorded in the Old Testament. I once attempted to count the sins listed in Hosea’s prophecies against God’s people and I stopped at 44. . . 44 unique sins. Not 10. Like the 10 Commandments. 44 sins.

Hosea’s vivid imagery sets up a stark contrast for us, today. God is well-aware, well acquainted and familiar with the sins of His people and yet Hosea also offers us the rich imagery of our God who will not give up on the relationship He has with us. 

“This passage witnesses to God’s compassion toward a people who cannot even repent properly without God’s grace.”[1]

            In spite of all our sin, and in spite of the sins of the Israelites, God will not give up on His people. As you think about that today, I wonder how that feels in your life? 

Move 1- begging for favor

            While we know that God’s grace is the most important truth in this passage, it is not how the passage begins. 

Instead, as our passage begins in chapter 5. There in that one verse that I read, God seems aloof. Far off. Willing to walk away; walk back. And this is not a trait or a choice that we associate with God. For there are few hymns, and few confessional statements that affirm that farness of God. Or the aloofness of God. We do not celebrate a God who stands at a distance from us.  

            We all prefer to confess, and we can testify to how close God is to those who build, and nurture, a relationship with him. Last week I spent time reflecting on the relational nature of God in His Triune sense and I said that God wants us to mimic that relationship with each other. Here in Hosea, God seems to back away from that conclusion. 

            Verse 15, God is speaking, “I will return again to my place… until they beg for my favor.”

            And the place that God returns to, it is not close to His people. It feels, it reads, as far away from us. I wonder when was the last time that you felt God pulling away from you—by God’s choice? 

            While our world talks about the great pressure that we are under and spends great amounts of time talking about protection and security, or text today, leaves us feeling a bit… vulnerable. And in our vulnerable state, God withdraws.

 

            But even as he withdraws, there is a hint of our good news. 

            The NRSV uses the word ‘beg.’ Now your Bible might say something like, ‘earnestly seek me’ or ‘seek me early’ when it translates verse 15. As I often like to say, the word choice is important here—and Hosea’s word choice is very important to clear up what God is asking us to do. 

The word that I am focuses upon indicates a pre-dawn choice; something done early in the morning. And a task performed earnestly.

Like seeking God’s mercies which are fresh every day. New as we awaken. There is vigilance in this action. An undistracted heart is necessary for as we face each new day, and the challenges of these new days, we recognize that God has placed a redemptive summons right before us as our eyes as we open them and therefore there is but one response. 

            Just in that little phrase, as God has seemingly withdrawn, the Lord makes space for us press back towards him. To earnestly move towards God. 

Is that a choice that you are making, church family? To seek God . . . Not just today on Sunday, in worship for this time or during a time of Bible study at home? But is that a choice that you make each morning as your eyes open as you confront a new day. Hosea calls it ‘begging for God.’ 

            Do you seek the Lord in this way? 

            In Hosea chapter 5, God wonders if our hearts yearn for him, beg for him in our distress in this way. 

Move 2- our response

            For as we do. . . well. . . we read the people’s response as chapter 6 begins and this should get you excited. 

            Now there is a tendency when we ‘make our God’ to make the Lord in a safe, pleasant image. We tone God down a bit. Now this is done in response to how we read about God in the Word. So, an image, or a creation, that elevates this ‘begging’ imagery from chapter 15 that Hosea offers us, and frankly, we tend to tone it down a bit. This makes the message of the Lord a bit more palpable, easier to accept each day.

By doing this, we elevate grace above the reality of the God of Hosea; the God who expressed those 44 sins I began with a short time ago. 

Why would a God who wants us to earnestly, prayerfully, seek him, each morning? Why would this God not welcome us with open arms, offer us new mercies each morning, without though, the reality of purging us from sin. 

            Verse 1 holds this dichotomy up to the church and it asks us to think and to patiently reflect on what God is saying and asking of each person who finds chapter 6. 

For in verse 1 we are torn, and we yet healed. Struck down, and yet it is God who binds us up. In that one verse we find such strong language by the prophet that does not easily fit into the mold many have created for God. 

And why does this happen? Why are the wounds revealed, because sin is still in the picture—even as grace is also in the picture in Christ. 

            And it is only as we seek the Lord faithfully, it is only as we know this and accept this, that we are healed and revived as verse 3 tells us. 

            For once we find the Lord, once we are revived, the entire tone of this passage shifts, and we can respond faithfully to God. While the work in the text began with us… we had to find God. We had to beg; to earnestly seek the Lord each day. We had to confess our sins. The church finds that God’s faithfulness is speaking for the Lord. 

For God will not give us up.  

            Even if our combined behavior might mandate that God should give up on us. Even when 44 sins condemn our behavior and our lack of faith, God does not give up on us.

Move 3- to know God

            For in this moment God desires that His church, that you and I, in the words of verse 3, “press on to Know the Lord.”

            This idea does not encompass book knowledge. As a Hebrew it is not the ability to confess the Shama in public, or any other confessional statement of the church or society today. It is, instead, the deep ability to discern, to discover, and to know in your very core of being, where nothing can shake or touch you, that “I am the Lord your God.” 

            This is one of the most profound verbs in the entire Hebrew language. To know in this way stretches the people from a superficial level into a deep, covenantal awareness and intimacy. This knowledge is the place where we hear and feel God whisper our name and draw us close and He did to Moses before a bush that did not burn.

And while we think the Hebrews did not have a depth of relationship as we have with Jesus following his resurrection, to know, in this way, tells each of us, that they did. That they sought it. They longed to know God in this way. 

            To know God deeply in this way, alters the entire focus and reality of life and mission and ministry for us as the Church. Everything changes when we have sought God and know God. God is no longer living a distance from the people, but God is close and the pre-dawn seeking of God, is the pre-dawn reality of living with God. 

            For God, the God of Hosea who felt so cold and judgmental, the God who enumerated all those sins, was busy the whole time trying to stay close to his people hoping they could choose the same level of relationship with Him that he was trying to choose with them. 

Conclusion 

            Church family how does it feel to develop a relationship with the Lord who does not give up on you in this way? 

            For we all have that understanding in our lives as the Church. It should motivate our faith and our work here at Bethesda together. It should underpin all that we do each day for God. For while it might seem that God is pulling back from you, in fact, God has never given up on us. 

 

DM

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[1] https://wordandworld.luthersem.edu/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/28-2_Amos_and_Hosea/'Let%20us%20press%20on%20to%20know%20the%20Lord';%20Preaching%20the%20Knowledge%20of%20God%20in%20Hosea%205;15-6;6.pdf  accessed on June 2, 2026. 

 

Making Disciples--Matthew 28:16-20. Sermon preached on May 31, 2026

This is Trinity Sunday, but people who struggle and suffer from any form of a disease that ravages their body and mind, they probably do not care about the label of this weekend. "But this is Trinity Sunday," proclaims the church, “It is the Sunday immediately following Pentecost in the church calendar.” Even so, the family dealing with the wayward teenager, the person who has lost their job and the ability to provide for their family and feel the stability that comes in that, those people who we know intimately, I am not sure that they care that it is Trinity Sunday.

            Does it really matter to them that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit when they suffer vocally or silently like our neighbors who we work with? 

Many people just want to know that God is God and that God somehow, God knows who they are, where they are, what they are, and what they need. (Steven P. Eason)

 

            This is the basic affirmation of the Church—that God is with us.

 

            This is Trinity Sunday. This morning we consider a doctrine which has only been spoken about in pieces in Scripture, and never in the same place in totality as we find here in Matthew.

            Certainly, the scriptures speak of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit but where does it say that those three persons are 'three in one?' Where is the word "Trinity" found in the Bible?

 

            Today we hold up the Triune nature of the God who is—the God who is the Creator of heaven and earth, The God who is the Redeemer of the world, and the Illuminator of scripture and the giver of the Words of prayer when we suffer and cannot find a way forward. 

As we hold these three persons up, we go on to say that together they make up something we cannot completely conceive of in our human minds knowing that time is required to reflect on God and who God is as Jesus in Matthew calls us to a very specific task: make disciples. 

 

Move 1- Begin by working

            I believe, the doctrine of the Trinity is formed in this fashion, with all the mystery which surrounds it, to make us work a bit as we encounter the people of our world and community. Instead of sitting back and letting someone else explain in their words who God is, each of us is called to figure it out for ourselves—as best as we can. We are called to find our own definition of who is this Triune God who saved you? 

For just sitting in the pew, and participating in worship only, does not lead to a deeper understanding of who God is—we must enter the relationship—just as Jesus is in a relationship with His Father and the Spirit. 

 

            Further standing outside of who God is will also not help us ‘make disciples’ as Jesus tells his followers in Matthew 28 to do.

            For the doctrine of God's Person is essentially a relational doctrine [Feasting on the Word, Year A]. Jesus is not telling the disciples to share something intellectually-based only. He wants them to ‘make disciples;’ to create relationships. It must be entered into in a relational fashion- not only in a mental fashion. 

Remember what we know of the Trinity. . . The Father begets the Son at the Incarnation. The Son breaths the Spirit onto us at his Ascension. The Spirit opens our eyes so we can see the Father and give us the words to speak his truth on Pentecost. This is the traditional language.

            But the only way to begin working to understand it, the only way to locate ourselves in among the three persons of God, the only way to make it accessible, if that is even the right word, and if it is possible at all to understand, is to enter a relationship with the God who we define as Triune. We cannot stand outside of who God and use our concepts to explain him.  

            Maybe instead of standing outside of the Triune God and using human illusions and symbols to define him, we come close to him, and we begin to work hard at getting to know him so that we can ‘make disciples.’

 

Move 2- Mystery in our lives.

            But do not misunderstand, we do not work to unravel the mystery of God so as to become equal to God or above God. For that is not possible. Instead, we work to unravel our place in the mystery of God and God's will for our lives, and we call out to all people inviting them into the mystery we are processing and encountering on a daily basis.

            For what did Jesus do when he began his mission on earth, he called those first followers to what. . . follow him. In that first encounter, Jesus made disciples. He began the work of God in their lives. He asked them to enter the relationship. He was making disciples. Not brow beating them to follow God. Not talking down to them because they could not understand the Torah. Just sharing who he is with the very people that God sent him to be with be. That is our task as well. 

 

            You see, God reveals himself to us (T.F. Torrance) because God chooses to do so. God incarnates the Son because God chooses to do so in him. God sends the Spirit because, again, God chooses to pour a piece of himself out on us. 

I do not understand why, and you do not either. And even if you say, ‘Well, it is because he loves me and died on the cross for me.’ I truly wonder why the all-powerful God would choose to do this? We only understand as much as our human minds can. 

 

You see, God does not ask me to understand exactly how in totality. God asks me, and you, again, to make disciples by sharing what I know, and what I have experienced, and what I am learning about Him each day with the very people that God places in my path all the while knowing that my knowledge is partial—all the while confessing that I do not see fully what God knows.

But the relationship that I have with God, that I cultivate each day in my time with God, it fills in the rest as a witness. As I enter that relationship, I am able to live at peace with my sisters and brothers. Because I find myself in that type of relationship with God, and sense him with me, I can agree with others. I can trust them. I can listen to their words. I can serve them.

 

Move 3- Making Disciples

            We need to trust the power of a doctrine that we cannot fully understand as we work together in the Church to make disciples—which Jesus states in the imperative form. It is not a request that Jesus makes of his followers in Matthew 28, or us now, but a word of instruction; a word of call. 

The verb focuses on teaching often with a desired, or specific, goal in mind. To make disciples in Matthew’s context is to lead the readers of the gospel back to the words and deeds of Jesus, but that is a hard sell often. For who wants to follow someone just because their offer good words and lofty deeds? That is what the Pharisees sold to the people of Israel, and it did not translate into faithful followers of the Lord. 

            It is only when we look back at the wholeness of Jesus’ relationship with His Triune self that we see the call to Mercy which is situated in the call to make disciples. For as I have said, we do not fully understand what this mean in in the moment. And so, we need to have mercy on ourselves when we don’t truly understand who Jesus is in our lives, and offer mercy to those still trying to understand who Jesus is in their lives. 

 

            Just like our graduates who believe their lives are fully formed before them, and yet most of us know that a curve or two is still left to take shape before them. I do not say this to shame to, or to pour water on their dreams. Instead, it is a reminding for them that when life throws them a curve, we in the Body of Christ extend them grace right alongside of sound guidance because that is what God has done in each of our lives. We give them mercy, and continue to help make them into the disciples that the Lord asks us to become. 

            Mercy is necessary each day as we share who God is and work with people who learn who God will manifest himself in their lives. . . both inside and outside the church.  

 

Conclusion

            It is because God reveals himself to us and calls us to re-create relationships of trust as we have with him with others, that we are called to faithfully make disciples. 

            We will remember those who find themselves scared, sick, alienated from Him and we remind them of the saving grace of God. We will also remember in prayer who God asks us to make disciples of. 

 

            He is the Father who creates all in his image. He is the Son who redeems those who would harm him. He is the Spirit who calls us back to the Father. He is in relationship with himself and now invites us into relationship with him. 

 

 

 

 

DM

 

 

The Empowerment of the Church--Acts 2:13-21. Sermon preached on Pentecost 2026

            While the ascension of the Lord is the moment when the church is called, and charged, by Jesus to begin their work, Pentecost is recognized as the day when we are empowered to take our first steps as the Church. Now as the story of the tongues of fire is told, we understand that the work begins. 

But I wonder, what does that mean? 

            What does it mean that today we are Empowered to Be the Church? 

            A simple search of the term “empowerment” yields a variety of definitions to help us to understand the term. That search yields phrases like: “having the authority, the confidence, or the strength to act, or make decisions.” And while that sound about right, that is what ‘to be empowered means in a secular sense,’ I further wonder, is that what spiritual empowerment, empowerment in Christ, empowerment as the Church, truly is about? 

On Pentecost are we confessing to having the authority, the confidence, the strength to act, and make all the decisions because of what is taking place as we think about Acts 2 and the miracle of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit? I don’t think so . . . Is that actually what happened as the tongues of fire fell and the disciples spoke in other languages as the Spirit gave them the ability to do so to the great crowd assembled in Jerusalem?

            Is that what Peter did when he stood before the assembled mass and preached the first post-resurrection and ascension sermon and nearly 3000 were brought to into the church an act of secular empowerment?

            Or is it possible that something different is happening, something more mysterious, something more holy took place on that day? 

Today I want to think about how the out-pouring of the Holy Spirit, as it is recorded in Acts 2, because what took place in that moment, on that day, how it empowered the church. And while we cannot recreate that moment today at Bethesda on this Pentecost Sunday, we are Empowered to Be the Church—make no mistake about that. So, as we think back upon what happened on that first Pentecost, can we see how that empowerment is lived out now moving forward? 

            As we prepare to come to the Table of the Lord, let us take a moment and consider this story and learn what God intends for us. 

Move 1- brings us together.

            Considering Pentecost and the movement of the Holy Spirit, there are a few things to notice. 

            First off, the empowerment of the church is the act that brings the church and the community together—in Christ. It is the first lesson of Acts 2. When we are empowered the Be the Church, we are drawn together by the movement of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Illustratively this moment is the reverse of Genesis 11—the Tower of Babel—where humanity, who were once together in one language was driven apart by the movement of God’s Spirit. 

In Genesis 11, the people have come together, but they did so with human motivations—not together because they felt called by Christ to come together. In fact, our text says that they gathered and began this work of building their tower so that they would be remembered for all of time. Not so they would serve the Lord faithfully. 

They did not build that tower so that they could come close to God. Or serve God. Or love God more deeply or fully. 

Admirably as it might be to build as one people. They only wanted to be remembered. 

            Now here in Acts 2, as the languages are confusingly-spoken in Jerusalem, the people are united by the name of Jesus. While the scene could feel, or sound of it could feel, like a confusing cacophony of noise as the larger narrative was read, I suspect that underneath it all was almost a tone of unity. For when the gospel’s message is faithfully present, and it is preached, God is there bringing the people together.    

Further, Peter’s preaching in the remainder of Acts 2, reminds the people of their history and the message of the prophet Joel that the Day of the Lord would come, and God would be at the center of their lives. Dreams. Vision. It did not matter; God would be with these people because God brought them together—even if they were in exile once. And God would do it again. Throughout the Old Testament, God sought to bring the people back to unity with God as the center of their lives and relationship.

And yes, this seems to contradict expectation, but God often does it. God often seem to contradict the expectations of his people to show us that in Him alone, a miracle is possible. On Pentecost a division in language should separate us, but in Jesus, and his message, we are brought together and empowered. 

Move 2- miracle of hearing

            A second miracle that takes place is that act of hearing itself. 

When Acts 2 is read, the church focuses so much of our time and our reflection on the miracle of the languages that are recorded and the act of proclamation. We think about the testimony of the great noise that takes place when the wind of the Holy Spirit blows through the area and those languages are spoken and the gospel is proclaimed in the way that it was. Even now I imagine that your imagination is filling in the gaps of the story with color and details.  

            But do not forget that they people in Jerusalem that day, they had to hear it. They had to be open and that takes a movement of the Holy Spirit as well. 

This is worldwide proclamation of God’s word in an unexpected way. First step of the empowerment in Christ was that the people come together to witness the event, then they hear what was happening. 

This also reflects back onto what happened in Genesis 11. For when the people heard the languages back in Genesis, it drove them apart. Now when they hear; they linger. Perhaps they are curious. Perhaps their hearts are quickened by the movement of the Holy Spirit to listen to the gospel that is about to be shared. They are gathered—and ultimately, they are sent out with the full gospel in their hearts. 

            What does it take to make you linger around God and his word when you hear it? You see, I could stand here all day and read God’s word out loud, but would that make the healing nature of the gospel sink deeply into your hearts and lives? Or into the lives of the people of this community? 

            It has to be heard. . . internalized.  

            This is the act of hearing that took place in Acts 2, and in our text today that act is just as important to as the message being shared. Peter’s preaching is important but so are the empowered hearts of God’s people who hear the message.

            The ‘frank’ proclamation—and open and public proclamation, unafraid and borne by joyful confidence—of God’s ‘deeds of power’ is just as much the result of the pouring out of God’s Spirit as is a new community of diverse persons and groups of people—such as the Church who gathers together around this table.[1]

Conclusion 

            So now we turn to the Table which sits before us. 

            Communion is the act where we remember that on Jesus’ last night with us, he empowered us to be the church. For as we are gathered together, as we are drawn to this table and remember what takes place here, we are also reminded how those first disciples of the Lord gathered around and heard the message of the Lord. 

            So let us take that same gospel with us from this Table and faithfully share it as it has been shared with us. 

 

 

DM

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[1] Michael Welker. God the Spirit. 230. 

Effective Evangelism--Acts 17:22-31. Sermon preached on May 10, 2026

            Someone once wrote that almost all religion begins with a simple encounter; with something that feels ‘holy’ or ‘transcendent.’[1] This statement is all the clearer and truer when it is applied to our encounter with the Lord. For a simple encounter, say around a bush that does not burn, or a tomb that once held a body that is no longer present, becomes ‘holy’ and ‘transcendent’ because of the revelation that accompanies it. The encounter becomes ‘holy’ because we can hear our name whispered in that moment of revelation. 

            The Apostle Paul had one of those encounters himself on the Road to Damascus and his encounter changed the entire arch of his life and his work for the Lord. While he started his journey on one mission, the revelation of God changed his story and his direction. 

            The arch of his story moved from accusatory, and it became evangelistic. When we encounter the Lord, our stories also shift from one perspective towards another. Today we will consider this how this change takes place. 

            Our text from Acts 17 is divided into two halves. The first half is Paul’s observation and conversation with the people. The second is Paul’s reflection on how they are living. But in both sections of the text, the revelation of God is at work, and it informs how the Apostle engages with God’s people.

Move 1- Idols

            Notice that as Paul stands before the people, the first thing that he does involves a very important choice. 

In chapter 17, Paul was sent, alone, to Athens. While Silas and Timothy remained in Berea. In this day, Athens contained a significant Jewish population, as verse 16 tells us, and previously Paul has reasoned and debated with them—too little… if any end. So as our text begins, Paul is doing the work of the gospel alone. And he notices something. . . 

Well, we all have, and we all elevate them, whether we like it or not, Idols. The Athenians had them as well. The Hebrews in the city, those folks that Paul has argued and reasoned with in the previous section, they knew it and they dealt with this also.

These idols are everywhere. 

They are in our pockets right now. In purses. In our homes. And I am not just talking about cellphones or some other form of technology that distracts you from the Lord. That’s the easy example or target that everyone accepts. Idols are everywhere.

On the streets of Athens, a cultural center of a polytheistic society, even if God’s church was present to some degree, these idols held a prominent place. In this city a person could find anything that they wanted to worship. The pantheon of gods was present and waiting for supplicants to come and offer worship… and so was this extra altar. The altar to the unknown god. 

The idols of Athens were everywhere. 

Back here in our day, we too have idols.

            We watch them on TV, and we elevate them regularly rooting as hard as we can for their success in different arenas of performance. Music. Sports. Politics. Cinema. Artwork. 

Thomas Merton taught the church that we should avoid an idol that many people forget, self-idolatry… placing ourselves above others. Idols can be bluntly-present before us and they can be sly, sneaky little things. Like the streets of Athens with its altars calling passers-by to come and worship here and there, in our day we have just as many opportunities to worship things other than the one true God who is ‘holy’ and ‘transcendent.’

For as back as Exodus, God has told his people to avoid idols, to get rid of them, and yet, since that very day as Moses taught the people, since we were told that our God is a jealous God, humanity has struggled with the elevation of idols into a place where God alone should occupy in our hearts and lives. 

We are not that different from the people of Athens—in practice. 

            Knowing this, as the Apostle Paul walked around the city of Athens, and gathered in front of the Areopagus, he has a choice to make. Much like we do when the people of our community, and the families in our neighborhoods, demonstrate that their religious encounters are not always centered on God, we can judge, we can criticize, or we can try the response and make the choice that Paul did that day in Athens. 

            This does not mean that Paul was comfortable witnessing the people worship gods besides the one, true, Holy, God that you and I love and commit our lives to each day. Rather Paul hearing from the Lord in his heart, he did something different. He saw something different with his spiritual eyes. 

            He saw a people who were looking for their shepherd; people searching for the ‘holy,’ ‘transcendent,’ God that we love, and he labelled their practice in the second half of our text. But he could only do this because he himself made a decision on his own.  

Move 2- the decision

            While we do not know exactly how long Paul was in this city or how long he walked through it before Luke wrote these words down for us, we do understand his posture. 

He deliberately and penetratingly gazed at the things that he saw in the city. This was a practice of spiritual discernment that Paul was engaging in, and while we might be tempted to insert some level or sense of judgement by the Apostle for things that he saw, Paul’s word choice, does not support this conclusion. 

            Paul was engaged in a deep cultural exegesis or examination of what he was seeing. Likely having to stop, or at the very least slow down, before these altars, Paul looked upon them slowly, deliberately, with attentive observation while suspending the judgement that we so often see and practice. 

At every stop on his journey in Athens, before every altar, Paul had to make a choice to do this. And in the same moment, Paul would have to suspect his feelings of judgement that would be creeping into his mind that would have been easy to offer up about a people who do not worship our God. 

One archeologist found that there were more objects of idolatrous worship in this city than there were people living in Athens. Yet Paul did not condemn these people. But he also did not praise them for their choice. 

Instead, he just observed. He watched. And he learned. While he could have judged them, much like we might, Paul did not. 

As he learned about their worship of something that is not ‘holy’ or ‘transcendent,’ the Spirit of the Lord gave him a message that he could teach to the people of Athens. That message comes in the second half of the text today and it is illustrated in verses 26-27.

Move 3- groping toward God. 

            The high point of the seeking of the people of Athens, and even if they do not know they are seeking directly for God, comes in verse 27, where we read: 

“So that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him.”

            That’s a strange word isn’t it…grope for him. To understand the word, let’s go back into the history of Easter and see where else famously the word occurred. And we find another more poignant example with our dear, hesitant, friend from Luke 24, Thomas. 

            In that verse, Jesus is speaking his disciples, and specifically he addresses Thomas. He says to Thomas, “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see.”[2] The word ‘touch me’ is the same as ‘grope for him.’ It is one of the three places in God’s word where it is used, and it means to deliberately handle or to reach out to God. Not casually. Not accidently. But to, by our choice, reach out to God. 

            And this is what Paul says the Athenians are attempting to do by the building of this altar to an unknown God. Reaching out to God. Even if they do not know they are doing this at the time, they, like Thomas in Luke following the resurrection, Paul wonders if these people in Athen are reaching out, by the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives.

            This is a strong word of evangelism to a people who might just be feeling the nudge of the Holy Spirit on their lives and in their hearts. Perhaps God’s seed of faith had been planted in them from a message that they heard from a different preacher. Perhaps the rumors of Paul’s teaching or the very gospel had spread to these people before Paul stepped foot in Athens. We will not know. 

            And perhaps the altar to an unknown god is just a ‘hedging of the bets’ by a people who will worship any god that a person can create. 

            But you cannot tell me that in your life, the Holy Spirit has not broken into a place where the miracle was thought to be long dead and buried and in a simple moment of encounter, God broke in. In a simple word from God, an evangelistic word, God showed up and transformation occurred.

            None of this would have been possible if Paul was closed off from being with the people and watching them, without judgment, to see where God could be at work. If he was so fixed on judging them and criticizing them and labelling them as only idolaters and could not see that God was attempting to break into their lives, then Paul could not preach a message of hope to a people who needed to find and receive that hope.  

Conclusion 

            So, I wonder, could God be asking each of us to pay attention, loving attention, the people who he places before us? 

            We might see their practices, their choice, and like the Athenians we could see only idolatry and sin. It is possible to look out and see that at every turn. But it is also possible to see God moving and working all around us. But only by taking time, dwelling with people, will we also find the room to evangelize and share how God is at work. For the evidence is there. Will we share it? 

 

DM

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[1] https://danutm.wordpress.com/2013/04/18/richard-rohr-idolatry-is-the-only-sin/  accessed on May 5, 2026. 

 

[2] Luke 24:39 ESV. 

 

Homecoming 2026--John 14:1-14. Messaged preached on May 3, 2026

            This text is a rich text; a familiar text. Often, we encounter this John 14 as we gather to celebrate the life of a saint who has entered the Church Triumphant taking comfort in the words of our Savior much like the disciples took comfort that night. 

Generally, John 14 is part of Jesus’ final discourses, and his words were meant to reassure and teach his followers as they wonder about their future. In the previous chapter Jesus tells Peter that he will deny him three times. In the previous chapter, Jesus washes the disciple’s feet as an act of service—a very confusing set of events I could imagine for them to hear and to witness. 

So, while John 14 seems very direct or straightforward at first glance, as with much of God’s Word, if we are willing to plumb its depth and sit with it, we learn God values our relationship with Jesus and we learn how we can grow that relationship. 

            For even on a night as tough on Jesus as this was, our Savior is doing something powerful for us. I wonder what our response to that work might be and how on Homecoming Sunday, we can take that work and share it others in our larger community? 

Move 1- home

            John 14 begins with the familiar words that Jesus is returning to His Father’s house. Obviously, at the Last Supper Jesus is not saying that He is preparing to return to a physical space, like any of our physical homes. As Acts tells us, we know that God does not dwell in homes of wood or stone—places made by human hands. 

            Instead, Jesus, on his final earthly night prior to His betrayal, prepares to go. . . home. Jesus prepares to go to the place where Our Heavenly Father dwells. The concept of Jesus going home is not a small detail in John 14 and together on Homecoming Sunday we need to hold onto this and be prepared and willing to share it with others. 

            From as far back in the story of humanity as Noah household being saved from the Great Flood, the same word has been used for home signifying that God is ever-present and offering the eternal fellowship that is best labelled by us as home. Today Jesus wants to remind us about the value and importance of remembering our home that he prepares… but perhaps in a different meaning than what we could be familiar with when we read John 14.

            Now I know that not everyone here in this worship place, or those watching in their homes, will say that Home is always safe, blessed, and/or welcoming. And that is true. While we know stories, and people, who will say that their home, or the home down the street of a friend or family member, was far from a safe, or idyllic location, where love and fellowship was offered, in Christ, here in John 14 as Jesus is before His followers having just washed their feet, in this home that God offers, and Jesus teaches, home is something far more wonderful. 

This concept of Home is also sharable. For Home in Christ is the place that as we press in to be with Jesus and feel the love and presence of the Lord washing over us. This is where I hear the words of 1 Peter focus into my heart and comfort me. In 1 Peter we read that in Christ we have a firm foundation; something strong like stone (as Peter tells us). This home is a thing that cannot be shaken or broken by the things of this world that seem to shake so much and are not worth our attention or passions. 

            As the disciples in John 14 are struggling with the tension of Jesus preparing to leave them, and telling them will deny him and they worry about their future, they must remember that He goes home to do vital work on their behalf that will provide for them in their future—here in this place first and then in heaven later.

            For you see, when any tragedy comes, or the whisper of suffering is heard (and that happens so often), and it does not matter how intense the tragedy is to the person or persons, what we want most clearly is the safety and the stability of going home. This is why churches will fill around national times of mourning and tragedy. People come home; they go home. For so many people identify church as their Home—even if they do not always know that they are doing this.

            Home is the safe place that Jesus prepares for us… again both here and with God later. On Homecoming, this is the important to remember as we think about gathering together. But there is more in this famous passage.  

Move 2- rooms

            In that home, that place of safety, Jesus preparing something for us that is sacred and special—not general or casual. 

The word that Jesus uses here is: rooms (in verse 2). Jesus is the only person in the New Testament to use that word, and He only uses it twice, and it is only in this chapter. The concentration of the word should help to focus our attention on this moment and on what Jesus is preparing for us. So whatever Jesus is doing for these disciples, and everyone who finds John 14 later as they need to think about Home, we need to hold onto the value of it.

            And this place that Jesus prepares, these rooms, they are anchored in a personal relationship with the One who is preparing them in God’s home for us. 

            Rather than just offering lip service to what God is doing, or to what Jesus is saying in John 14, these ideas of home and the preparation that Jesus is making for us, invite us to press in, go deeper into our relationship with Jesus. The spaces that Jesus prepares for us should cause each of you to wonder: what exactly is Jesus preparing for me? What might that ‘room’ look like?

            And before you make that jump with me and think I am about to define the physical criteria of heaven, let me just say now… I am not. While heaven is described in other places in the New Testament, Jesus does not take the time to do so because I do not think that is the only thing he is speaking about.   

this is where we move deeper into the Good News on Homecoming. Perhaps the good news, maybe the ‘better news’ that we are finding here in John 14, relates to the space where Jesus dwells with us each day. And where does God dwell with you? 

Perhaps Jesus is also stating that the room that he prepares is in each of the disciples, past, present, and future, who find their way to the Lord and accept him. When we do accept him what does Jesus say? He says that he will make his Home with them/with us. 

            For this space, this home, and this relationship, these rooms are all holy because Jesus himself is present in that place doing the work and calling each of us to come together and bring others as well. 

            On the last night of Jesus’ earthly life, the Savior sits with his closest friends and reminds them that although he is going away from them physically, he will always dwell with them—an assertion that you know in your heart to be true because when pain and suffering has come into your life, and in the life of this church, have you not felt the Lord draw himself up close to you? 

            Perhaps he was preparing that space all the time for this exact moment? Perhaps that is what it means to have Jesus at home in your life? Perhaps that is a deeper part of the miracle of John 14 for each of us, that union with Christ is possible in ways that we do not always realize for Jesus is preparing something special for each of us and in us. 

            Will we do the work of sharing that with others after we come home to the Lord? 

Move 3- deeper

            Tersea of Avila when thinking about this text compared that relationship with Jesus, the home we have in Christ, to a great castle that is right before each of us. But rather than walk right up to it, rather than explore its depths and wondering about the construction of the entire structure she says that we would prefer to wander around the outer courtyards and gardens. Would we be satisfied with just a small piece when God offers us so much more? Tersea professes that most in the church would affirm that they do not press in. Should be join her in the posture? 

            Jesus has prepared great things for you and for me in this work that he does on the cross and on daily on the pages of God’s Word. Yet many of us choose to spend so much time on the margins of that relationship not living into the fullness of what is possible and offered. 

We are offered a great home, a wonderfully prepared home that God dwells in, rooms that God asks us to take the time to nurture and grow. Should we not press in through acts like prayer and the meditation upon God’s Word to learn how wonderful the home that is made ready for us is? 

            Should we not look around and wonder about how much Jesus has done for each of us?

Conclusion

            This text is more than just what we often read as we remember the life of those cherished to us. It is an invitation to faithfully come home to the Lord. I wonder today if you will join me in coming home to Christ and choose to deepen you faith through acts of worship, prayer, scripture reading, and let the Lord Jesus work on those rooms that he prepares for you? 

 

 

DM

Sermon preached on Sunday April 2, 2026 before the sacrament of Baptism.

            Today we continue our considerations on the book of 1 Peter. And as we think about 1 Peter, we have a great joy to place before these words about sheep and our shepherd: the sacrament of Baptism—which is the place and moment where our union with Christ is celebrated and honored.  

            As I think about the sacrament, and I know that you will have your own stories about the actual physical experience baptism, or the witnessing of it in your life, I am often reminded of something I read in the book Travelling Mercies. 

            In that book you could read this: 

            “Christianity is about water: ‘Everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.’ [Those words are] about baptism. . . It’s about falling into something elemental and wet. Most of what we do in [our] worldly life is geared toward staying dry, looking good, not going under. But in baptism, in lakes and rivers, tanks and fonts, you agree to do something that’s a little sloppy because at the same time it’s holy. . . [and extravagant]. 

It’s about surrender, giving in to all those things we can’t control; it a willingness to let go of balance and decorum and get drenched. . . It’s tender partly because it harkens back to infancy, to your mother [or father] washing you face with love and lots of water, tending to you, making you clean all over again. 

And in the Christian experience of baptism. . . the hope, the belief, is that a new day is upon you now. A day when you are emboldened to take God at His word about cleanness and protection.”[1] And ultimately union. 

            And in those words, we hear echoes, of the shepherd who cares for us—his sheep. 

Move 1- the gate

            Our first reading started with the familiar words of John 10. 

After Easter we always read John 10 in worship. This is the chapter where Jesus identifies himself in three ways: as the gate, the gatekeeper, and the shepherd. All three images are important; all three are worthy of our meditation and reflection. They each define an important characteristic of who Jesus is for us and how Jesus chooses to reveal himself to the Church. 

John 10 occurs immediately after the story of the man born blind whose eyesight was returned because Jesus spits and makes mud for him. John 10 is a further reflection on ‘seeing’ for if the people in chapter 9 knew who was with them before, think of what might have occurred. Now in chapter 10, the Church is challenged to see Jesus, experience Jesus differently. Can we see him in these three images. 

            The image that I want to focus on as we prepare for the sacrament of baptism relates directly with the 1 Peter passage: Jesus as the gate. Jesus as the one who brings us in. The one who brings us in while we affirm the struggles of our day which are real and concrete and challenging individually and corporately. Jesus the one who understands the uniqueness of each challenge and none of them are too big. He opens the way for us the Father.  

            The sheep pen is a place of safety. A place of rest. It is the place where the Great Shepherd knows our name and we are affirmed for who we are and our value to God is highlighted. While others will attempt to gain access through a different way, Jesus welcomes us in through the main entrance.  

            Yet ordinarily gates can be seen as something that separates things. 

How many of you have a gate, or grew up with a gate, on your property? Those gates kept things in or kept them out. The gates and the pen kept animals from running (or walking off). They also keep people from doing the same. 

Gates often define boundaries. This is where my possession or my property begins and where yours end. 

And in a more negative sense—this is where the welcome starts and where it stops. And I know that you have felt the welcome, and lack of welcome, from a gate.  

            While there is a temptation to see “Jesus as the gate” as a form of us/them distinction, this is not what Jesus is saying in this text. Rather when Jesus speaks about himself as the gate of the sheep pen, the place of rest, healing, and safety, the Messiah tells us that He is bringing us, he is ushering us into a place of communion with God the Father. Jesus the shepherd, the gate to continue the metaphor, brings us into a communal relationship and place with Himself and with God, His Father. 

            This gate, this Savior, welcomes us into a new place together, and extravagant new place with God. The safety of the sheep pen that Jesus will elaborate upon in the remainder of John 10. It the place, the welcomed place, where the blind man in chapter 9, is now living. 

Move 2- Sheep

            As the Gate of the sheep pen, Jesus welcomes us for we are first, and most importantly, and always, His beloved Sheep. This is the most important aspect of our two texts as they come together and as we pivot into 1 Peter. 

            In a community where competing voice promise to be the ‘gate’ for us culturally at every turn. The One true voice reminds us how cherished we are in God’s eyes. This is in contrast to how cherished we are not too many things in our culture.

The One true voice, the one that loves His sheep, reminds us, that when we are bruised, and beaten, and feel harmed out in our world, Jesus as the Gate of the Sheep Pen, calls us to listen and remember that our God, as 1 Peter reminds us, is the Guardian of our Souls (verse 25). 

            For just as 1 Peter says, as God’s sheep, we will struggle a great deal, both justly and unjustly. 1 Peter tells us that we are unified to One who knows our name and loves us deeply. He is the one who willing suffered for us; the one whose struggle is referred to in verse 24 of our second reading. 

            As sheep we will go astray and we do go astray. Yet by the words of the one who calls us, the one who seeks us, the one who welcomes us into God’s presence, we find union with God available—a union that nothing outside of God can offer. For outside of Christ all other things will pass away and fall short. 

Conclusion

            And this is why I began with those words from Travelling Mercies today. For in baptism, we are reminded of the holiness of God. The extravagance of God willingly choosing union with us when we would not make the same choice. In baptism we are offered the hope and assurance that Jesus will call each, sheep, by name and usher us into that safe place of union with our Heavenly Father. 

            So as Chase and his family come forward soon, and as you pay witness to this sacrament yourselves, I hope you will bring to mind a time when you felt the Lord call you by name and brought you out of a place of suffering and into the place of healing. 

 

 

DM

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[1] Anne Lamott, Travelling Mercies: 

Let's Walk--1 Peter 1:17-23. Sermon preached on April 19, 2026

            What tethers us to each other? And more than just tethering us to each other, which is important, we need something that will link us to God. Something that holds us to God when we struggle; when the vocalization of our faith feels like it is not enough to confront the challenges of the day.

            Perhaps you might find these two readings offer a way to answer these questions. 

            Following the resurrection of Jesus, the two unnamed men heading away of Jerusalem have experienced a lot. We can infer that they were familiar with the events of Jesus’ death. His suffering. Perhaps they even heard some of the first reports of the empty tomb. 

And after listening to these first reports of Jesus’ resurrection and seeing so much in the eyes of the disciples, one thing was clear: it was time to go. That should surprise us. And in their haste, I wonder if we find something that we could identify with in our walks as Christians. Now neither Cleopas, nor his travelling companion, express it directly, but something is off. 

            Today I want to consider with you what might be going on in their hearts. 

Move 1- exiles

            In both Luke’s famous “Walk to Emmaus,” and in 1 Peter 1, we have concept presented us that is similar. 

            But before we get to Emmaus, let’s focus in 1 Peter 1:17. . . and specifically the last half of that verse. It says, “live in reverent fear during the time of your exile.” Now at first glance these words fit nicely into the lives of 1 Peter’s audience. 

            As I said last week, 1 Peter was written to the church of Asia Minor; to people who defined themselves as living under persecution and oppression regardless of how these terms are defined. Be it physical or spiritual, 1 Peter makes no distinction. He knows his hearers struggle—just as you might as we listen and think about these words following the Easter miracle. 

            So, let’s first look at verse 17 in more detail. 

            “Reverent fear.” Before I define the term with you, I wonder when was the last time that you could say that you felt some sense of reverent fear? 

Peter starts this clause with this one Greek word. It is a word whose context determines its application. For the context determines whether this fear which we are feeling, even if we do not speak about it, honors God or if fear, our anxiety, cripples the faith of the person experiencing it. One commentator I read even wondered if the faithful members of the church would benefit from an alternative translation of the word as: holy awe. So, we could start this section by saying, “Christian, live in holy awe.”

            But the second, and final, half of the verse is where the meat of this passage is found. This is also where our intersection point with Luke, and Cleopas and his friend, begins as well. This is where we read the word Exiles. 

            Now every Hebrew, and every church member, might find their mind drawn back through the history of the church when they hear the word exile. 

The word exile causes our minds drift around to stories that speak about the exiled state that we have been taught. We think of Egyptian slaves struggling to make bricks and living as nomads in the desert. Perhaps you also remember the Hebrew people living far from him in Babylon and fearing the invasion of Assyria before that. We hear the prophets of the Lord talking about an unfaithful people living outside of the Holy Lan because of the sins of their ancestors. And those words from God’s prophets call us to change our ways before we too become exiles. 

In the New Testament, post-resurrection world, this term reaches back in the mind and memory also. It reminds God’s people that they have always lived in a state of transit. These people have always dwelt away from their home—regardless of how home could be defined in any specific moment. 

But… exile is far more than a matter of geography.

            This word that Peter writes occurs only in 2 places in the New Testament. 

            The first is in Acts 13:17. In that text, Paul and Barnabas are preaching in the Gentile world and as they preach, they remind the Church that detours can also be stages in the salvation history of God’s people. These stages forge a new identify and new dependence upon God for His children. If God’s children are not going to be tied to one geographic place, then they must trust in the relationship that they have with God. For although we could be tempted to think that we are exiled from God, our relationship to God, and with God, says that this is not so. 

            The second occurrence, of course, is here. And as Peter uses the term for exiles, he uses it to encourage the church to live in holy, reverent, fear of God (back to that first idea). He tells them (us) to be Holy as Jesus is Holy and because of what Jesus does on Easter. 

            This work then brings a question to my mind, and I wonder if it does to yours? 

Move 2- The walk to Emmaus.

            If exile is more than about geography, and if we are to live holy lives in response to what we deal with each day, then why did these two men retreat those seven miles toward Emmaus? Why did they not stay with the disciples and the remainder of followers of Jesus who had the testimony of the empty tomb, Mary’s tears on Easter morning? 

            More poignantly why did they leave?  

These two followers of Jesus must truly have felt like they were exiles… and again an exiled state is more than a state of living away from one place or longing to return to another. It is not about geography. 

Why not stay together when you need each other the most?

This feeling would be part of the struggle that Thomas felt last week also. He was not there when Jesus appeared behind that locked door the first time and so he missed something and I believe that presented to him with the choice to consider himself an exile. 

            I believe that these two sojourners on the Road to Emmaus were worried and they were anxious about the future following Jesus’ death. Like you, I know my world history, and I know of the brutality of the Roman Empire. Yes, the Roman authority, and with the Hebrew High Priest’s blessing in hand, executed Jesus, but where is the faith that the Resurrection which Jesus foretold, would be enough for these two people? Where is the faith in the gospel that Jesus taught?

When you are anxious, when the tension in your life rises, our first response is often to accept, our exiled state rather than confess and remain close to where Jesus is revealed to us. 

Too often our response when things get hard as the Body of Christ, and our faith is being stretched is to start walking towards our own Emmaus and accept that things, as good as they were before, they are done. That chapter is over and there is nothing more to see or to learn.

Move 3- Jesus comes alongside.

            This is the point where Jesus arrives in Luke 24. Perhaps he was there all the time, as he was with Mary in the garden on that first morning as she wept. Luke does not give us this detail and so we are left to wonder and consider. 

            But whatever the case may be, these two individuals have an encounter with Jesus on this road in their exiled state. It is an encounter that Jesus initiates himself. He chooses to reveal himself. He chooses to walk with them and not away from them.

            And while we often rush to the revelation of Jesus around the communion table after supper where their hearts are strangely burning because Jesus taught them the scriptures of the Old Testament on the road and helped re-learn something foundational that they would carry with them from that point onward. 

Notice some of those little details, as I mentioned on Easter. For those details help to bring color and shape to what Jesus does and wants from each of us.

            The evening is growing close, and Luke says in verse 29 that they ‘urged him strongly’ to come with them. The road is not safe after dark and Jesus seems to be going on to another stop. For when we feel exiled away from Jesus, it is then most necessary that we return to the Lord and keep hold of what is transformational for us.

            Even if, like these two disciples, we are not totally sure what makes it transformational in the moment. They wanted him to stay. They wanted him to help. 

Conclusion

            And so, when you find yourself feeling exiled, just as our friends on the road did, on wherever your faith journey takes you, and remembering that this is not a matter of geography, what choices do you make to ask Jesus to remain close at hand? How might you live in a reverent fear with God and help others when they find themselves in that same place of exile? 

             

 

DM