Inseparable Commands--Matthew 22:34-46. Sermon preached on October 25, 2026

            Every Hebrew child learns one key passage of God’s Word. For one stands out above the rest of the Old Testament’s canon. 

Certainly, Hebrew children will hear and study the Law of Moses in a larger, more formal, setting at synagogue. A Hebrew child will also have a deep connection with the 10 Commandments. But above the Law of Moses, above the 10 Commandments recorded in Exodus 20, stands the Shama. 

            Deuteronomy 6:4-ff. “Hear O Israel, the Lord your God is one. You shall love the Lord God with all your heart and with all your soul and will all your might.”[1]

            This is the single most important, foundational, passage of God’s Word for the Hebrews. And again, it is a passage that they will all learn and consider for as long as they are alive. 

            These are the same words that the Pharisees will literally carry on their bodies; on their clothes. The words are so important to the Hebrew people that no one cross-stiches them on pillows or blankets to be used casually in their homes—as we might today. No, they are carved into the walls of their homes in a sacred, central, place. “Hear O Israel… Love God fully and completely.”

 

            Now fast forward around 14 or 1500 years to the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry. The Jewish people are still working on, still considering, what the Shama means for them. They are still wearing the Shama around and they are still teaching it to their children. 

But there are times when the amazement of God’s Word loses its power—somewhat. It is still true, it is still transformational, but the rote-ness of it, the way it is repeated, can cause God’s Word to dimmish in the minds of the people. 

And by the time of Matthew 22, nearly 1500 years since Moses first spoke the words at God’s call, the potency of this command, this verse, has weakened. 

            Historically in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus has entered the Holy City for the final time, and the social pressure is rising around him. His miracles are attracting more attention; the messianic secret can no longer be kept. The larger crowds are more demanding. The desperation of the Pharisees to hold onto their self-appointed religious power is building and boiling in their hearts. Our text confirms that after this exchange they [the Pharisees and Sadducees] did not “dare to ask him anymore questions.”[2]

            So, I wonder what happened in this passage that stopped the questioning? What did Jesus say that was so profound? 

Move 1- love

            To get at the question more personally, let’s first think about what it means to ‘love’ as Jesus spoke about in this text—a text that echoes first that sacred passage of Deuteronomy 6, the Shama. 

How do we love God? What does that look like? 

            Now the first answer that we often find to this question seems to bleed into comments and practices that define love practically. If I asked you the question of how you love God, you might reply that we love God by studying his word. We show that we love God by praying more, by obeying him, and teaching others to do the same. And while all of that is central to our faith and our relationship with God, the answer to how we love God is more than practical steps. 

            “Thomas Aquinas, the great theologian of the 13^th century, defined love as velle bonum alicui [vella bonum aly cue] —to will the good of the other. Not to feel warmly toward the other. Not to tolerate the other. To actively, structurally, sacrificially orient your will toward the flourishing of another person. [Aquinas’] definition cuts through every sentimental misreading of the commandment [in the Shama first, and here by Jesus in Matthew 22]. For love is not a feeling that comes and goes. [it is not something to practice when we feel up to it]. Love is a choice, made again and again, in the direction of someone else’s good.

But Aquinas understood something else as well. The will cannot orient itself toward the other if the self is still crowding the center. You cannot will the good of someone you have quietly decided is beneath you. You cannot love. . . without first making interior room for the other person to matter as much as you do. That internal making-room has a name. It is called humility.”[3]

            We love the Lord first, by humbly making room in all of who we are for Him. We love the Lord by creating space in our day, our lives, for the Lord to dwell as God wishes and not on the terms that I wish. This form of love is not accomplished by praying more or reading God’s Word more consistently. Instead, we make space in our hearts by the way we liver every single moment—space for God to dwell because we see that humility is our call. For like any relationship, our time with God needs a little extra space for it to just occupy and not to ‘do’ anything extraordinary. 

Move 2- for others

            But there is a second part to Jesus’ response which Aquinas spoke about already. Every faithful Hebrew would recall the Shama. They would understand their role in loving God, but Jesus takes this a step further by bringing our relationship with others into the conversation. 

            You can make space for God, and we call that love, but you cannot fully live into who God calls you to be, if you do not bring your neighbor into that posture and choice.

            By stating in verse 39 that ‘the second [of the great commands] is like’ the first, Jesus does something interesting textually. He does not collapse the two commandments into one—as if loving God equals loving your neighbor. We need to honor this distinction as we think about this passage and hold the two commands up in their own separate places as Jesus taught. 

First, we need to make room for God in our lives, but second, and this is the second step that is also more challenging for many of us, we must make room in ourselves, create a second room if you like, for our neighbors. They are not God and so they need their own space in and with us.

            In our practice of humility, we must almost allow ourselves to only occupy 1/3 of our lives and attention… God taking His primary a third and our neighbors taking a second third. 

            This ‘making room’ extends into how we encounter other people. For if it was a bit challenging to think that we do not have room in our hearts for God, it is easier to state that we do not have room in our hearts for other people who do not treat us as we would like and who do not live as we live. 

We love God by making room in our lives for God and, we love God by making space for our neighbors. We live humbly first. We make room in our lives and hearts for others to dwell. This means less self-oriented living and looking and living broadly. Letting other, god included, have the space they need in us. 

Move 3- the leftovers

            This would be enough; it is challenging enough. Our text today could stop at verse 40 which does feel like a natural transition point, but Jesus presses on into an area that feels out of place. 

For again loving God and loving our neighbor is not an academic exercise that we can solve. Loving God and loving our neighbors as Jesus taught it does not involve a checklist of behaviors and choices—while there are certainly choices that are made in the relationship. Loving God and loving our neighbors requires a reorientation of how we build our days, how we honor our calling, and even, as our text ends, how we engage ideas and concepts that seems too complex for us. 

We think differently about these things for the are not what we are accustomed to considering because that community around us does not think of them as we do. 

The text ends with the Pharisees gathered in a huddle of sorts trying to make sense of what Jesus just taught. And in the midst of their struggle to understand how to be humble and love God and their neighbors as Jesus is teaching, he asks them a question. 

“Whose son is the messiah…” David or God’s?? 

We know that they cannot answer the question in verse 45, “if David calls him Lord, how is he his son?” And I doubt that we could answer that question with all of God’s Word before us, but I do not think that we are meant to. I also do not think that the Pharisees were meant to answer it either. Instead, that idea of humility in love that I have been thinking with you about… perhaps that is how we are proceed.

For even mighty King David became less; he made room in his life and story for God to dwell (unlike Saul who did not). The giant killer became less. The one who danced before the Ark of the Covenant became less. And in his becoming less before God, David practices humility when he could demand superiority. David shows the love of God and the love of a neighbor that Jesus speaks about just a few verses ago, by not having to stand before everyone and proclaim his greatness but by making room for others… and we have a name for that choice: love. 

And I wonder if that is a final lesson for us in this passage? 

We do not just make room for God when we think God is watching, and we do not make room for our neighbors when we feel we are being called to. But by practicing humility in every moment of our lives, we become less and in that moment our love, as Matthew 22 speaks about it, is displayed.

Conclusion

            Again, this type of love is not something that we are called show or share when it feels good, but instead we are called to consistently practice this type of humility. And in doing so we show our hearts to God and to the members of our community. 

 

 

DM

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[1] Deuteronomy 6:4-5 ESV. 

 

[2] Matthew 22:46b. ESV. 

 

[3] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-30/commentary-on-matthew-2234-46-7. Accessed on October 21, 2026. 

 

Disappointing God--Isaiah 5:1-7. Sermon preached on World Communion Sunday 2026

            Today as we know is World Communion Sunday. In this community, World Communion Sunday coincides with the beginning of Dimes for Hunger (and we heard about that already today). 

            On World Communion Sunday, we remember how God feeds us—physically (as represented by the Dimes for Hunger) and spiritually (around the Communion Table). But you come today, I wonder how God feels today? 

            I wonder what emotions do you associate with God? When you close your eyes and think about the character and emotions of God what is the first thing you think of? Is it judgment. Law. Grace and love. Which define God the most in your mind? 

Move 1- creation

            A first emotion I think about as I read this passage is: the emotion of Creation. With His love, we know that God created the heavens and the earth in six days (resting on the 7^th). Deliberately God chooses to draw the boundary of the water here, and put the sky there, and make the night ‘this’ dark. Even the forming of Adam and Eve, seems a deliberate, loving, act. I have always thought of God smiling as He created everything that we see and know and experience.

Further, God’s hand is upon us as we create families, and as we deepen our faith (which are both acts of creation). 

            Today in Isaiah, and echoed in Matthew, God created a vineyard. But as we read Isaiah 5, I hope you notice that this creative act was not an overnight experience. In the life of the vineyard, time elapses. Clearing it of stones. Building a watchtower. Watering the very ground upon which the plants grow, all these acts take time. Attention to detail. Pre-planned thought. God does not often just say essentially, ‘hey here’s an idea, let’s just make this happen now.’ We know that God is patient when we stumble and God is also patient in His creative acts. 

            The emotion of creation contains affection in us as well. When we create something, we care for it by design. It has value to us; a value that we will protect and support. From houses we build, to children that we nurture, these acts have at their core deep love and affection. 

            We see this creation emotion set before us for the Lord’s Supper did not exist, it was not the sacrament, it was not sacred until Jesus created it—until he called it into being as the Communion. 

            Bread and wine were just bread and wine. They fed the people providing for their physical needs. But at this table, they become something that feeds our souls. The communion is a loving creative act that is designed for us. 

            Laruen Winner in her book Wearing God offers us this support to the idea of the creative, loving act, of God: 

            “If God is bread, then God meets my needs” to the category of delectation. . . God is also about delight. It is one of the beauties of the metaphor that bread, like the One who made the hands that made the bread, contains both: enjoyment and necessity. . . Maybe it makes God feel good to feed us [his creation]. I wonder if God experiences feeding us as a really [wonderful] thing, as a way of giving us not just something we need but something that delights us.”[1]

            And whether we are talking about the creative emotion of full creation, or the emotion of creating the sacrament, or even the simple delight that God takes in being with us and watching us grow, the creative emotion is present. 

Move 2- disappointment

            But there is another emotion, an opposite emotion, expressed in this text from Isaiah that we need to consider.

If the Lord was blessed because of the creative work of making a vineyard and caring for it as only God can do, then later our text tells us that God felt differently as the wrong kind of grapes grew in that vineyard. 

And as we read Isaiah, we can feel the Lord’s disappointment growing as he witnesses this. This is the second emotion for us today: disappointment.

             As I said, God did all the work necessary so that the vineyard would thrive. God poured himself in this work. And wild grapes grew rather than strong healthy ones that the Lord expected. On the surface this appears to be a straightforward point. Later in the gospel Jesus will tell us that some of the seeds that are planted do not produce good heathy fruit. They burn out. They are eaten by the birds. The lose the fight to the weeds. And we know that this wounds the Lord when the fruit does not come.

But let’s look deeper at this idea before we come to the Table of the Lord. 

            The idea of wild grapes appears only in this chapter of Isaiah and in no other places in God’s Word. The word indicates that the fruit in question decayed. It became sour. Spoiled. Inedible. The word that Isaiah uses here that we read together as wild grapes is similar to the concept we have today of poisoned berries. While initially appearing to our eyes and looking good on the outside, this fruit is something to be avoided. Something that will harm us. 

            This make the idea of the fruit in God’s vineyard being tainted or rotten, worthy of our reflection and questioning. . . 

How do poisoned berries growing in the vineyard that God created and sustained? It is quite a mystery worthy of our time in reflection as we prepare together to participate in the sacrament of the Lord. If God planted the fruit, if God did the work and invested Himself in it, the to know that the fruit is turning away from God is not a positive emotion to feel. 

            As we sit before coming to the Table of the Lord, can we imagine how God felt about this?

            

            While we know that later in the gospels God will tell us that any tree that does not bear fruit is cut down and it is thrown in the fire, but is destruction God’s first choice? No. I do not think that God looks first to judge or punish the wild grapes that are growing but God homes that we will choose to re-enter the communion of the Lord with him. 

            God hopes that we would choose better and choose to come to this Table today and be refreshed so that we can produce good, healthy fruit.  

Conclusion

            Today we recognize that God loves us. God cares for us. God does all the work necessary to sustain us. But God also sees that when harm the Son whom he sent (in the Matthew parable) God is wounded. Hurt. God does not want to this to happen, and it disappoints God to witness it. 

            Yet in spite of this, God does the work to take ordinary bread and wine and transform them into a way that brings us back into alignment with him. For God wants us to abide and remain in communion with him and care for the things, the places, that God has created and sustained. 

 

 

Dm

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[1] Lauren Winner, Wearing God, 95, 101.

Starting Blocks--Philippians 2:1-13. Sermon preached on September 20, 2026

            One of the unique themes that lives behind most of Paul’s writing is conflict. We know that the Christians living in Rome dealt with conflict daily; they struggled to survive each day under Roman Rule and Law. 

            A quick trip through the Epistles and we come to Corinth—a church so conflicted that Paul needed write them two letters to help them through their struggle. Order of worship, roles in leadership, even the administrator of the sacrament of the Lord, Paul had to teach on each of these because the Corinthian church struggled to put aside their conflict and Become the Church that God intended. 

            Travelling to the end of the Epistles, we learn of Philemon and his former servant, Onesimus—a man who ran away from this life. His missing presence was so significant that Paul needed to step in and speak on behalf of the runaway to ensure his safety. That’s conflict, I think.

            Even today, with Paul’s Christ Hymn before us, we should not forget that something had to prompt the Apostle to talk about the necessity of being of one mind, of being in full accord with one another. Something in his lived experience with these Philippians called to Paul to write in this way, and the name of that thing was conflict. 

            Regardless of our faith, regardless of how long we attended this, or any other church, regardless of how frequently we have read God’s Word and worked to assimilate it into our lives, conflict, and the feelings associated with it, enter our lives. Conflict enters our lives, and as it does, the feelings associated with the conflict color how we strive to be the people that God created us to be. 

            I wonder how will we organize our lives, how do we continue in our calling, when so many avenues exist to draw us away from God? The Apostle has an answer for this… 

Move 1- Starting Point: the Mind of Christ

            It does not matter who Paul writes to, the Roman Christians, one individual like Philemon, or if he writes to one church like in Corinth and today, Philippi, the resolution of these conflicts come only by having the mind of Christ. 

Paul wants each person individually, and each church corporately, to reflect Christ no matter what we face or who we face. It does not matter how tough the conflicted-moment feels, it does not matter who long we have lived with the conflict, we are to reflect Christ. Even when reflecting Christ is hard, and feels impossible, Paul calls us to this behavior. 

Now I know that this is a tall order. For if you agree with me that conflict comes in the community and in the workplace, if you agree with me that conflict can live in our homes confronting us as we enjoy our first cup of coffee in the morning, then being able to reflect Christ outward will be quite a challenge. But the Apostle gives us a way to continue our work of faithfulness. 

 

            In verse 1 there are four defining statements that Paul uses. Let’s look at them one at a time. 

            He starts by saying, ‘if there is any encouragement…” the root of this word is paraclete; it is the same word we have for the promised Holy Spirit by Jesus in the gospel and using the same root word hints at the importance of this idea for the Apostle. For Paul encouragement relates to ‘a call, an urging, done by someone close beside us.’ 

When we practice Paul’s call of encouragement, we see that there is a sense of intimacy here. We cannot urge someone onward who we do not have a relationship with. It is hard to encourage a total stranger. As we encourage one another, in Christ, our resolve, and their resolve, is strengthened. For we are all in this together and in this moment, we learn and experience this. But Paul offers more. 

            Next, Paul says, ‘any consolation from love…” In this clause we hear the same word as comfort and this word only occurs here in the New Testament. So whatever Paul is calling us toward, this consolation/comfort is unique and important. When we console one another a sense of soothing actions and words come along. We focused ourselves on being with the person who needs the comfort/consolation in their moment. I believe that this is an act of service. And again, there is solidarity in this posture and choice. 

            Think of who you have been close to, near, when they needed these first two ideas? Encouragement and consolation. They are not often total strangers but someone you value and someone who know God values them. Together you are doing something important to confront the conflicts of the day, but there is more in verse 1 to think about. 

            Paul then moves outward and says, ‘any sharing in the Spirit.’ Another word we often read in this place is: fellowship. This is where Paul grabs what is bouncing around in our hearts and minds, what we discern as God’s presence with us, and Paul calls us into action; into the work of community building. 

This is partnering and it creates a sense of fellowship and union as a group. The person we might have been in conflict with, or the person experiencing the conflict themselves, finds rest with us. Yet Paul does not limit this work to the church alone and he does not make it a social, political, movement either. There is mutual sharing, mutual affection for God in a single purpose. We are sharing something deep together.

            We end verse 1 with Paul offering words that help mend the conflict and bring us together: “compassion and sympathy.” In verse 1, we began in our mind with the call to encourage and comfort, we moved them into a place of partnering action, now we are back doing personal ministry. We cannot practice compassion, we cannot minister in a sense of sympathy, and not apathy, if we are not in a relationship with the people around us—even those we might initially feel we are living in conflict with. 

I hope that you see how following Paul in verse 1 alone makes us different from the rest of the people that we see. Following Paul in this way helps us locate the mind of Christ. 

Move 2- unity

            For the mind of Christ is the mind that recognizes that it will see and experience a lot—even conflict. There will be suffering, as Jesus suffered. There will be isolation and ridicule, as Jesus dealt with both. We will work hard to be the church, and like Jesus, we will feel rejected by those we are called to care for. 

But there is also something else: unity. 

            This is not unity as a social program or social gospel, but unity with us in Christ. When Jesus suffered and felt the conflicts of the day press down onto him, and they were many, He turned back to His Father and lean on their combined relationship, and this made the difference. 

            Jesus became humble; He became obedient to mission God placed before him (both ideas found in verse 8). He was first a servant and not a scorekeeper of wrongs (verse 7). Jesus came alongside of the people that God sent him to each day, and he listened and cared for them. He did not judge them even as they fostered a posture of conflict with him. 

 

            If our Savior could do this, if God revealed to Paul that this is how He wishes the Church to live and work, then I wonder what that means for our work and our interactions with people who we might feel conflict occurring? 

 

Move 3- work out your salvation

            No one is perfect in the Lord. No one can say that their practice of faith is exactly what God wants. But we are working on. We are all trying. And in that confession and affirmation, we come to a verse that holds a special place for many verse 12: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” 

            God never said that the life of a faithful Christian or faithful church would be easy. In fact, God often stated the opposite would be true. But God promises to be with us in this work and with us as we discern how to put on the Mind of Christ each day. God promises to be with us as we listen to what it means to be the people of the Lord. 

            Theologian NT Wright says this to us in this moment as we look into our world, see the places of conflict, and try to minister as God wishes: 

“The story of the church is the story of the ways in which, despite folly, [conflict], failure, and downright sin, God’s future has already bust in upon [us] what. . . leaving us a legacy of that bit of the past that is full not only of mistakes and culturally conditioned lifestyles but also patterns of new creation.”[1]

And we call this breaking in, this change, this transformational moment, putting on the Mind of Christ where we choose in the face of the struggles of the day to encourage, to console, to share, and to be compassionate. 

            This is the starting point for all the ministry that God orders and sustains and invites us to partner with him in. And this is ministry that each of us are called to participate in.

Conclusion

            But it is not also a single moment. And so, I wonder about the places of conflict in your life… I wonder about how and where God calls you, even as you struggle, to find the Mind of Christ. It is the starting point for so much of who we are called to be. 

 

 

DM

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[1] NT Wright. Surprised by Hope, 261-62.

Expectations--Exodus 16:2-15. Sermon preached on September 20, 2026

“During World War II, researchers at the University of Minnesota recruited 36 conscientious objectors, all healthy men, to participate in what would become known as the “Minnesota Starvation Experiment.” 

Knowing that the war had brought famine to people across the world, the researchers wanted to know what specific effects starvation had on the human body and mind, as well as what strategies might be best for refeeding those who had suffered from prolonged hunger. The volunteers all lost around 25 percent of their body weight over six months and then were placed into groups that were re-fed within differing parameters. 

The study yielded many important results and has been deeply influential in the treatment not only of famine-induced starvation, but also of eating disorders. . . But for the sake of Exodus 16, the key takeaway from the Minnesota Starvation Experiment is this: People who are starving think about food persistently, even obsessively.”[1] 

            So, with this study before us it should not be a surprise to read Exodus 16 from a position of grace and not judgment. The Church should not be surprised when we read that the Hebrews only thought about the life they left behind in Egypt. It should not surprise us to hear that when they were this hungry, they forgot the life that God was crafting for them. They forgot the grace that holds us together. 

            Quite often our focus is on the primary need(s) that we see. But that type of focus lets us down. For as we only focus on the primary need, in the case of Exodus 16, deep physical hunger, can we remember that God is present in ways that we do not understand; Gd is present in ways that we cannot always see… and dare we even say that God is present in these moments in ways that we might initially think that we do not WANT. Yet God knows our needs even as we express these desires negatively or siloed. 

Move 1- Focus issues

            In both of our texts today I notice the same issue first. Focus.

            Our first reading was Jonah’s response to God forgiving the people of Ninevah. As we know, these are the people that God called Jonah to evangelize to so that they would confess their sins before it was too late. And Jonah, after a time of deliberately going in the wrong direction, Jonah indeed travels to Ninevah to serve the Lord. The prophet shares the message of redemption with the Ninevites. Faithfully he preached the Word of God. 

            And yet, when God relented, Jonah was angry that God showed grace. Jonah’s focus was wrong. 

In fact, the text tells us that God not only relented, which feels cold in its language. The text says that God “changed his mind” about what he planned to do this city. The ‘changing of God’s mind’ can feel akin to the question “did God make a mistake.” But do not let that fool you. The response of the people, their confession of their sins, city-wide, this impacted God’s heart. And He relented. 

But the Hebrew word also means comfort. By God choosing to listen to the prayers of these people, offering them forgiveness and then relenting from the judgment that he planned, God offered the people of Ninevah comfort. Grace, perhaps, that they did not deserve.

            Comfort, like grace, is one of the basic traits that defines God. In the New Testament, the Holy Spirit is called our Comforter in John 15. And yet this Divine comfort, it angered Jonah… it angered Jonah that God was faithful to the mission and message that he called the prophet to fulfill. 

            This is our first example of a missing focus. 

            Jonah focused on the wrong issue; he was distracted by what he thought was necessary. Jonah perceived that God would only act in one way; he believed that God’s will was clear. But Jonah is not the only one was struggles with this. 

The Hebrews travelling through Sinai towards the Promised Land struggled also with focus on a larger scale than Jonah did. They struggled with missing the mark on what God called them to be as a people who could support and care for one another. 

            Now when we read this text, we can make excuses for the Hebrew people’s lack of focus. We might say things like, ‘Well they were hungry. They were thirsty. They felt lost.’ And that is all true. There is not a lot of physical provisions that we might lay hold of in the desert. 

In the face of the miracles of God in their lives their first response was a loss of focus and memory on who God was for them. Yet it was their prayers while living in the bondage of Egypt that drew God’s response to their situation.  God heard them and God freed them. 

            But in both cases, Jonah personally, and the Hebrews corporately, a loss of focus was the issue. Jonah and the Hebrews forgot that God is indeed faithful. They forgot that God comes, that God acts in a way that only God can. God offers grace and redemption in ways only God can.  

Move 2- God is enough

            And whether we are looking at God in a personal sense, or a corporate one, the resolution of this lack of focus in the confession that: God is always enough. I have never seen an instance or heard a story where God cannot work a miracle or intercede for his people. There is no problem that is bigger than God.

God provides what we need even when we cannot get our eyes off our own need in the moment. Gods provision is just enough and it is never lacking. 

            In the case of Jonah’s anger, God provided him a leafy plant most likely a gourd to sit under. It is shelter from the heat and gives Jonah space and time to reflect. God provided space for the prophet to consider the entirety of Ninevah’s story and Jonah’s place in that story. This plant, provided by God, gives the wayward what he needs in the moment and nothing more. It does not feed him or give him something to drink. 

During that time, Jonah reflected on the ‘enough-ness’ of God. For the people of Ninevah were lost. Then the Word was preached and the people confessed their sins and God relented and showed compassion. 

Whether it was the forgiveness of a city, or the personal care of a lost servant of the Lord, God always provides what is needed. God is enough. 

            In Exodus today, God provides manna and quail to the people that the Lord rescued from Egypt’s cruel hand. 

But that provision of Exodus 16, it is not an all you can gather buffet. While God is faithful to us when we do not deserve it, God wants each of us to build a relationship where we acknowledge our dependence upon the Lord. 

Parting the Red Sea. Manna. Quail. Water. As each miracle comes into the lives, the people must continue to look to God; they must continue to trust Him. They cannot provide for themselves—not in the parting of the Red Sea for the corporate community or personally as each family needs something to eat in the morning. They must look to God who is always watching, always caring, always at work, always comforting.

            God’s provision is always enough. And as we think about this fundamental truth claim, a question begins to surface as we focus in on God.

Where are the places where you see God’s provision is enough? It is perfectly timed. Perfectly in step with God’s overall mission and purpose. 

Move 3- knowing God

            What both stories, the end of Jonah and the Exodus text today, are teaching us relates to how we know God. For we do not serve a God who is up there, out there, over there, but we serve a God who is with us personally.  

            As I have said, Jonah missed something about who God is. What he missed sent him out from the city to get a better vantage point of the destruction of the great city of Ninevah. He forgot the mercy of the Lord who called him from his hometown and towards this great work. He forgot the Lord who heard Jonah’s prayer in the belly of the whale after Jonah choose to go the exact opposite direction. His prayer, in that place of darkness and separation, it moved God. 

A lot can be forgotten in the head if we are not careful.

            Speaking of the Exodus story, these people will have three books of stories and grumbles yet to come. This moment is very new in their journey, so their struggles are fresh and appliable. 

            These two stories tell me that knowing God is not an intellectual experience; it is not single moment. But knowing God relates to how God personally, physically, enters our lives and the Lord acts. 

Like Jonah you and I might be able to confess every aspect of the confessions clearly and deeply. We might know exactly the words of the Bible for every situation that we face each day—easy situations and challenging ones. But until we have the personal experience of God, until we can say that God has touched us and changed us physically, our knowledge of the Lord is limited to what can be put down on paper. And often paper alone does not transform the person.

            I might tell you that God will meet all your needs because God cares for you. I could say that you will not be hungry because God is abundantly able to fill you to overflowing in every moment. 

I can tell you that I have bowed my head and poured out my heart in those moments and, as I pray, God has heard me and that something, something unknown or unseen, happened in the act of praying that we define as a miracle. Yet until you have the personal experience these are just words that we say often to each other. 

            We can tell our community about the abundance of the Lord who is with us, and the Lord who we must focus upon each day of our lives, but until they have a personal encounter with the Lord, until the moment where they can say that the Lord has touched them, this might not come alive for them as it does for us because we routinely return to the Lord and let God speak to us and show us how much he cares.

Conclusion

            So once again we are back to the moment of testimony and evangelism. Once again God calls us to keep our focus on him in the right ways and remember that God is always enough. God always exceeds our expectations. 

 

DM

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[1] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-25/commentary-on-exodus-162-15-7  accessed on September 15, 2026. 

 

Grace Offered--Romans 14:1-12. Sermon preached on September 13, 2026

         This week I have been thinking about grace; the unmerited favor of God.

And as I thought about grace this week, I wondered how many men and women in the history of the church have written about or spent time defining grace? The list of people is long. It is a ‘who’s who’ in church history. When we create a list of the people who have defined grace, we find names like: Augustine, Calvin, Luther, Aquinas… Even in today’s church everyone seems to take a shot at defining grace.  

         The deeper that we research, the more the conclusion sets in: there is no full answer to how many people have defined grace because grace is everywhere in the life, the work, and the ministry of the church. 

We see grace at birth, in baptism, around the communion table. We see grace on the cross. Grace is experienced at the Empty Tomb. Everywhere. We even see grace at the grave as those we love join the saints in the Church Triumphant.

When thinking about grace, Father Richard Rohr says: 

“Grace is not something God gives; grace is who God is. Grace is God’s official job description. Grace is what God does to keep alive—forever—all things that [He] created in love. If we are to believe the primary witnesses—the prophets, the mystics, the saints, the transformed [men and women of today]— [then we must see grace that] . . . is at work in the universe.”[1]

         Grace is also part of our text today, in spite of the Apostle Paul not using the word in Romans 14. Grace is a necessity. A daily necessity for each person in the church. And so let’s think about grace today as we consider our text.

Move 1- Daily necessity

         The Apostle presents us with so many illustrative examples in Romans 14 of instances where we can offer grace to one another. Yet, again, in our text Paul does not instruct the church on how to offer grace. He does not tell us what that process might look. 

So, the daily necessity of grace, the practice of it, is left to the individual to consider and then to extend. This, extension of grace, is a work of growing and learning in our faith. It is work of discernment that is informed through our regular, habitual, time in God’s Word. And this is the significant point of how Romans 14 begins. 

Whether we are living and working in a cultural moment as the Roman Christians were, with struggle and hardship, or just going about daily lives and trying to make sense of God’s placement in each moment of our day, the choice to offer grace is important. It is a daily necessity.

“Those of us who have spent our lives serving the church know that religious communities [often] quarrel. Quarrels can fester, [they can] remain unresolved. Paul reminds [the church] that the root of conflict is not only differences of opinion, but also power differentials. Paul encourages the Roman [Christians], not just to tolerate those who are weak in faith, but to show hospitality, to go the extra mile and make the weak feel welcomed.”[2] And this is the practice of grace. . . daily.

For every day we will find someone, we will meet someone, who is struggling with what we personallymight think is a weak choice or a weak issue. We look at these people, and we often mutter under our breath, ‘how is it that you struggle with that issue.’ Every day we meet people who confess their struggles and as we listen to those stories and testimonies, God presents each Christian with the opportunity to respond—gracefully.

Looking specifically into our text, who would struggle with what they should, or should not, eat (verse 2)? Seems like a simple choice to me and likely to you. . . But Paul tells us that it is not. 

Who could forget that we are always the Lord’s in life and in death (verses 7-9)? Some do. Some routinely forget.  

And as we witness another person struggling in these ways, or with similar issues, which man or woman in the church would not be able to look at those people, and fall into a trap of judging their faith or their commitment to God? Extending grace in these situations is something that everyone struggles with. 

Again, grace is a daily necessity that God asks us to offer to each other—both inside and outside the church as we encounter the people that God places in our path. How we respond to them must, first, be graceful.

Move 2- welcome

As we extend grace to one another, an interesting posture begins to surface; one that might get overlooked. As we extend grace to other, we must settle into a welcome posture.

         In verse 1, and again in verse 3, Paul uses the word that we translate as ‘welcome.’ This is an interesting idea—placing welcoming and grace into conversation with one another. What does it mean to ‘welcome’ one another? Is ‘welcoming’ solely an act of hospitality, or is it is more? 

         Well as with most ideas that Paul writes about to the early church, welcome is more involved. 

         First, Paul begins by telling the church to welcome those who we feel are weak in their faith—that again is verse 1—and we started thinking about those weak moments and practices of faith. To do so, to welcome these folks, would have to be an act of grace. If someone is judged in your mind to be weak in their faith, then the natural response to that feeling should be to extend that person grace—not double down on the judgment and isolation. 

         The word that Paul uses in Romans 14 is interesting. Welcoming in Paul’s mind involves actively taking hold of someone and moving, with them, toward a goal or destination with the other person’s salvation or restoration being the goal of the welcoming act. Paul wants us to actively move toward, to extend, ourselves to others who we see are struggling. This is both a teaching moment and a grace moment. 

An image for what this welcoming act could look like would be a parent kneeling down, arms extended, reaching out in the direction of a toddling child. Perhaps this is something that you have actively done in your lives? 

In that posture, you are welcoming them into your presence. You have suspended the judgment that comes as they stumble and fall. The warmth of your love and grace is felt in them. It is an encouragement to that child—even if you do not have to speak any words. They feel and you feel.  

Using this parent/child idea then, as we welcome others, we are inviting them into the warm embrace of communion and fellowship as the Body of Christ just as God has done with and in us. In this way, welcoming is an edifying posture and choice for both people, and for both groups, who are engaged in the act. 

         Later in our text at verse 3, Paul broadens the idea of welcoming from person to person and brings God into the conversation. We are to welcome others as an extension of how God welcomes them… and us… into His presence. Into his fellowship. Into communion with Jesus. It is warm. It is graceful.

         And this choice to welcome one another, it ties into how we extend grace.

         For you cannot be welcoming if you are also not able to look past things that you might feel are aspects of weak faith. You cannot welcome others if you are not committed to sitting with them, even in their struggle, and help them find the Lord and totality and in truth.

Move 3- all in Christ

         Yet simply being welcoming and extending grace each day as we do the work of the Body of Christ is not the end for Paul.

The apostle pushes us deeper. . . Our text ends with a few verses that I often use around the grave as a tool of comfort for those who are occupying the space that might feel the most like God is not there. 

Verses 7-9 are a reminder that nothing separates us from God—both if we live or when we die. Together we are Christ’s bride. Together as the church we are welcomed into God’s presence. We are people whom God has welcomed home and in the welcome we experience the Grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ. We are a people who can speak about how when we were lost God found us and through our faithful time in His word, we learn that which we can teach others. 

And as nothing separates us from God and the welcome that comes through a deep relationship with God, we also affirm nothing separates us from the experience of God’s grace—even around the grave and even in those moments when we see faith that feels weak and lost. 

We are all in this as a community who can, and do, affirm that in Christ we are together. In Christ we are accountable. In Christ we experience grace. 

Conclusion

         There are so many instances and occurrences where we can practice what Paul is teaching in Romans 14. For we are not the judge, God is. And so, our role is that again of teacher, of friend, of spiritual guide. 

         Because you, like me, have wandered away from God, and you, like me, has been found by the Lord and offered His grace. 

         I wonder if grace is a practice that we can engage in this season? 

 

DM 

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[1] https://cac.org/daily-meditations/grace-is-gods-name/  accessed on September 8, 2026. 

 

[2] Janette A. Good. 

Sentinels- Ezekiel 33:7-11. Sermon preached on September 6, 2026

            Last week I spoke about the presence of the Triune God who comes along beside us when we are having a very bad day. Regardless of the circumstances, God wants to be with; God is with us. 

            Now from that place of trust, we find the prophet Ezekiel sharing a beloved concept in book. The sentinel. 

Move 1- Context

            As I said last week when speaking about Jeremiah, the southern kingdom of Judah has fallen. In Jeremiah’s day the fall was imminent; in Ezekiel, The fall of Judah has happened. And as it happened several shocking conclusions and details come into focus—things which will challenge the Judean’s faith. 

“Contextually we know that “these Judean exiles persisted in their faith; this required that they make a theological shift [a shift they did not anticipate]. 

[As we also know], Judean religion differed from the practices of the surrounding cultures: They believed they should worship only one God [our God]. The Babylonians, like most of the surrounding cultures, believed there were many gods and goddesses, each of whom had a designated role. Some were in charge of rain or fertility; others represented and fought for individual nations. 

The Babylonians would have believed that their conquest of the Judeans meant that the Babylonian god had defeated the God of Judah because the former was more powerful. They would have expected [the] Judeans, like other conquered nations, to stop worshiping a conquered god who had failed them and begin worshiping the Babylonian pantheon [who won the fight]. Instead, the Judean exiles discerned that their one God had not been defeated but had allowed them to be defeated because they as a community had done something wrong.”[1] 

            And while this image of the Triune God seems off to our hearts and ears, it was how the people felt. For Jeremiah warned them about what would happen if they continued to choose sin over a right relationship with God—and it did anyway. Now Ezekiel is referring back to those moments as God speak to His people in today’s text. These people wrestle with this tension: did they do something wrong to earn this exile or was God defeated? 

            As we know both conclusions are only partially correct. 

            We know that they sinned. We know that God allowed them to ‘reap what they sowed.’ Yet God was also not powerless; God was not beaten in the contest of champions—Judah vs. Babylon. Even if the Babylonian Empire was an ancient superpower that was rapidly conquering the ancient world, God did not lose the fight. A tiny nation like Judah could never have prevented its own military defeat against such an adversary. 

            Against that backdrop, we have Ezekiel’s words to the people to live as sentinels, or perhaps your Bible say, live as watchmen. It is the same word.

Move 2- Sentinels defined

            In the Hebrew world a watchman is one who leans forward; they peer in from a distance. Observing. Watching. Wondering. The word also conveys the idea of watching from an elevated position; scanning the horizon. Anticipating movement and announcing what is seen and herein is the evangelistic moment… again, scanning the horizon to announce what is seen. And we know that God’s word calls us, to watch, to witness, and to testify to what we see with our eyes from that position, but also, we are watching something else. Scanning something else… 

            This idea of being a watchman or a sentinel occurs throughout the entirety of the Old Testament. In every section of the Bible, from the Torah and into the prophets, we read that God calls his people to watch. The people hearing Ezekiel would be familiar with this idea.

            But how is it applicable to our work now? 

            According to our text our watching is not passive. Our observations are also not strictly for us to hold in our hearts. 

            As we watch, and as we observe, we transition into the active work of ministry. We transition into the work of serious testimony. For we watch, and we are responsible for everyone, that we see. 

In verse 7 we read that while we sit as watchmen in this community, we are still actively to seek the Lord. We are still to listen to what God is saying in his word for as our text tells us, God does not want anyone to suffer. He yearns for us all to find and accept Jesus. And as we hear those words, as we study God’s Word together, we are to testify to the community about how God is calling the folks in the community to change their lives. 

For our study of scripture is not an academic proposition. Our study of God’s Word is how we build our relationship with our Triune God—but also how we lovingly build a relationship in the community. 

            We suspend the natural inclination to judge, like a normal watchman/sentinel might, and we suspect our desire to hold up the us/them distinction. Intsead, with God’s word in our hand, and in our hearts, we take the people we see and observe by their hands, and we speak about the Lord to them. We speak about how God wishes everyone find Him. 

            For Ezekiel also tells us that we have a responsibility in this work. How will the community hear and find Jesus, if we are not actively testifying to His place in our lives and in call that we live into? To echo an image Ezekiel will later show us: How are these bones, these places of death, to live if we do not speak God’s word of life to them? 

            The sentinels/watchman in the Hebrew tradition lives and grows in a posture of patience. They know, and have experienced, that in Christ, God is at work. They trust the Lord to do the work that only God can do. 

Move 3- Psalms

            This is the point where we add the psalms into our conversation. The Psalm takes this reflection, this watching, and Psalm 119 shows us the foundation upon which our observation, and eventually our testimony, is based. A continual reflection and study of God’s Word. 

For as Christians, we can only share what is in us We can only share what we have studied ourselves and not what someone else has studied around us. We can only teach, evangelize, instruct, what we have internalized into our own hearts and lives—the things that the Holy Spirit has helped us to learn that are indeed transformational. The things that helped us move from those places of death and into the place of life in Christ. 

This internalization, this study of God’s Word, it helps us to no longer seek to cast others away because of their sin, but as the sentinels of chapter 33, we care for our neighbors, our family members, even our church, because we, as individuals, have taken the time to observe. To pray. To reflect. To hold God’s Word in our hearts and let the Word of the Lord continually teach us. 

We care for others because this who we are and our relationship with the Lord calls us to live in this way. It is not out of duty that we testify to the lifegiving presence of God, it is out of faith. 

At Bethesda we see this choice, this posture, every time we assemble our food distribution line and listen to people come to tables. We see it every time we gather to share our grief with them. We see it every time children from our community come to VBS and hear about how changed us. We observe where our neighbors are coming from spiritually, in any sense, and with God’s word in our hearts, we become the Church for them. 

Our care is an extension of our time in God’s Word; it is the product of consuming the Word of the Lord (as Jeremiah told us last week) which is the direct work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit helps take God’s Word off the pages of our Bibles and it becomes alone for us. 

To use an image, the Midrash, which is the primary Rabbinical reflections on God’s Word, the Midrash says that the letters of God’s Word are on fire. Living fire. According to this tradition, the word of the Lord has a crown on its head and stands before us as a living embodiment of God with us.[2] It is not static but alive as Christ is alive in us.

            Thinking of the living word of God, draw your mind back to the beginning of our worship where the author of the psalm invited us into worship with God’s word in our hands and hearts. 

As we began our worship time together, we used Psalm 119 as our call to worship… The author of this psalm prays to God to saying: “Teach me.” They ask God to “Give me understanding… and I will obey your law.” The emotion of the author continues to grow and build as the passage says, “Turn my heart towards your statues and not toward selfish gain.” “How I long for your precepts…”[3]

This does not sound like the author has a causal relationship with God’s word, but they regularly study and considers what God says to them before re-engaging the people. 

            If we think of God’s Word as alive, on fire, then this fire can spread to our lives, our faith, our acts of ministry and service. I know that it is easier to stand as a watchman and, as Jonah might agree with, sit there and wait for God to strike down the sinners. That is the easier choice, and we see that so often in this world. 

            But the Hebrews living in Babylon, trying to figure out how to be faithful when God feels far off, they need to hold God’s Word up to each other as a way of encouragement and testimony—much like we do today in this context and in our work here at Bethesda.

            We need to continually return to God’s Word as we watch from a different vantage point what is happening in this word. 

Conclusion

            As we watch, as we observe, I want to invite you to find someone in this community who you know is lost—regardless of how you define that term ‘lost.’ Find them. For they might just be living as the Hebrews did in a place that feels Babylonian. Separated. Outside of communion with God. 

            Then when you find them, remember how God’s Word changed your life. Remember how the fire of it spoke to you and helped you return to God. For God wants those people who you think are lost to find a way back to him. For He takes no joy in the death of others. He wants us all to find Him.

            But as I have said already, it is our responsibility to take what we see, hold up God’s word, and be who God calls us to be.  

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[1] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-23/commentary-on-ezekiel-337-11-7. Accessed on September 1, 2026. Edits added for this message. 

 

[2] Elizabeth P. Randall. Feasting on the Word. Year A. Homiletical section. 

 

[3] All citations from Psalm 119:33-40 come from the NIV translation.