Remaining Patient--Romans 5:1-11. Sermon preached on March 8, 2026

            If you stop and think about it, there are times when our practices of faith demonstrate that we have very little faith. I am not saying that we do not believe in Jesus, or that we cannot articulate the fundamental truths contained in the gospel which Jesus taught. I am also not saying that we do not participate in worship or volunteer in any number of ways here at church.  

            And if you think that I am off base then draw your mind back to our first reading today and the story that we read in Exodus.

            Using the story from Exodus 17, I want to take the theology from Paul and consider how each of us living today can remain patient. . . and faithful. . . I wonder how each of us can be the type of Christians who ceases to quarrel and question what God is doing in our lives an instead I wonder can we become people of peace in a world that is anything but peaceful? 

Move 1- Exodus 17…Is the Lord among us?

            As I said, let’s go back and think about the Hebrew people and notice their lack of faith. 

In chapter 14 of Exodus the Lord parted the Red Sea and the people walked on dry ground to safety. In verse 21 of that same chapter, Moses stretches out his hand for a second time, and the seas flow back over the pursuing Egyptian army and the waters consume them. 

            In Exodus 16, and concluding in verse 31, bread from heaven was sent to feed the people. They grumbled. They complained. They fretted. And God sent a sweet rain that became this bread that they called, Manna. 

            Yet as chapter 17 begins the Israelites are once again frustrated. Quarreling and complaining. So, the Lord brings forth water from a rock for them. Their expressions of gets so bad that actual area where our story takes place is renamed: Quarreling and Questioning: Massah and Meribah. 

            And the story from Exodus that we read ends with the question: “Is the Lord among us or not?” 

 

            It’s a strange question isn’t it. Feels out of place then and now. And in the strangeness of the question, we see that the people wondered someone hard/harsh. “Is Yahweh here?”

“For the[se] people actually to doubt God’s ‘presence’ among them was outrageously unfaithful. [As we have seen] His presence was obviously manifest at all times, as it was at that very time through the pillar of cloud/fire [and the miracles from the previous chapters], so the people’s question must be seen as nothing other than a contempt of the Lord’s [presence with] them. It would be akin to asking a runner in the midst of a marathon, “Do you intend to run in this race?” or asking a mother while she is in the kitchen working hard to get the family’s meal ready, “Are we going to have any dinner tonight?” [The Israelite question in verse 7] is an insult. It looks at the obvious [presence of God with His people] and [it] implies. . . that it is not good [enough].”[1]

So, which of you, church family, as you stand before the Lord, or before the Lord’s miracle in your life and have asked that same question? Which of you have seen the Lord move in your life and said, “Lord this is nice, but it is not nearly nice enough?” 

Move 2- Romans 5… no peace

            Now we both know the answer. No one would think in this way, and no one would confess it to God openly. But clearly it has happened. And this is the moment and space where we move into Paul’s letter to the Christians living in Rome. 

            For since God realizes that we live and move in this way on our own, the Lord takes steps to see that we are justified, cared for, redeemed. And Paul says in this moment we find Peace with God. (Verse 1). 

The peace that Paul is taking about here in verse 1 is not simply the Hebrew idea of Shalom. This is not the end to strife or conflict. This is not world piece that we have been praying for as a church. Rather, the term Paul uses here for peace leads to wholeness with God. Quietness. Rest. Being at one with one another and with God. An end to quarreling and questioning. 

“In the New Testament [this word] is never a mere absence of conflict for that is not possible on this side of heaven; it is the positive, covenantal state that flows from God’s redemptive work in Christ and is applied by the Holy Spirit to individuals and communities.”[2]

The sense of rest/peace/wholeness that Paul is referring to here creates a sense of strength in us. Like a foundation that holds in the storms that we face each day. We do not bend to every situation or before every people based on what is taking place around us. Instead, we dwell in the moment, and we find peace for God is with us to help us learn about the endurance that Paul is speaking about in the remainder of the Romans 5 text that we read together. 

Going back to the question from both Psalm 95 (which was our call to worship) and Exodus 17, “Is the Lord among us or not?” the response Paul would hope for is: an affirmation of YES and as we confess that God is with us, and we feel the rest that comes when we stop having to ‘do’ everything to prove ourselves but we rely upon God instead. 

Move 3- Endurance

            For whether we are the Israelites in Exodus 17, or the Christians living in Rome who Paul wrote these words to who needed strength and encouragement, I know that you experience times when you might wonder if the Lord is among us or not?

            We look out into our community as we do ministry and as we see the needs of our friends and family and we wonder, together, is the Lord among us or not?

            This is a question of faith, sure. But is it also, according to Paul a challenge of endurance for the church. For in this life, you will find yourself enduring so much as you confess that God has called you onward. And whether you believe you have the faith of Abram and Sarai from last week, and whether you think you can follow a voice that you do not know well or not, or whether you are newer at following God’s voice, it does not matter. 

            Is the Lord among us or not? YES!  

            The call of Romans 5 is one of patient endurance in the face of all that we experience as a people and as a church—just as it was for the Hebrews who were travelling towards their Promised Land following their freedom from Egypt. For while any of us are weak, God provides for us more than we think we will need because God loves us so deeply. And in that provision Paul tells us at the end of today’s text that we are able to testify (or boast) in all that the Lord is doing in our lives. 

            In Exodus that provision took on the form of bread, water, and quail. Here in the writings that Paul offers to the church, the provision teaches us about how the Holy Spirit is given to us (verse 5) to help sustain our hope in the trails that we face each day. The Holy Spirit reminds us that God has not abandoned us in what we face—even if we are tempted to wonder, if the Lord is indeed among us at all? 

The provision in Romans 5 remind us that Christ died for us (verse 8) because God loves us so deeply. What better demonstration of God’s love is there than the truth of Jesus’s sacrifice we are witnessing this Lenten season? 

Conclusion 

            Certainly, we can be tempted to look at what we are going through in the daily moments of our lives and think that no one else could ever struggle or suffer as we are. We know people who have felt pressed down and wounded. 

            But today’s text stands again all those times when we, like the Hebrews are tempted to think that the Lord is not among us… indeed God is still here.  

 

DM

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[1] https://bcnewton.co/2023/02/20/give-us-water-to-drink-exodus-171-7/  accessed on March 3, 2026. 

 

[2] www.biblehub.com word study done on the term for peace that Paul talks about. 

The Call of Abram--Genesis 12:1-4a. Sermon preached on March 1, 2026

            Since the beginning of our story, a pattern has emerged between humanity and God that looks something like this: 

            God provides a blessing to His cherished creation… like a garden, a partner, a place to live and be sustained, a means of survival for us. Each of those loving gifts testify to uniquely to God’s attentive love for us and our value to God.  

            Then humanity sins… we eat what we should not while blaming each other for the choice. Accountability is pushed away for our choices; it was some else’s fault. We kill those who God has given us. The effect of these choices is harmful to our relationship with God who suffers deeply in these moments alongside of us. 

Our choice to sin grows and grows until we do unspeakable things and we leave God little room in our lives or hearts. 

            The pattern continues until the moment where God steps in and God must reset His creation dramatically. Through expulsion from the garden, through a great Flood, and in the confusion of all spoken languages. God steps in. We can imagine God is sadden in each of these moments as the relationship breaks and God must intervene in these ways. 

As I said, this is our story; one you are familiar with. The details change but the essence is the same. 

Yet regardless of what we do, or how greatly we sin, the Lord does not give up on His Creation. This is also the message of the gospel. Why is that? Where does that statement come from? 

It comes for the next step in our story… 

Finally, God takes the last dramatic step, and the Lord does something that He had not done until now. It is the step of our text that we will consider together. God because He loves us so deeply the Lord will bind himself to us in a new way—a covenant. It is the covenant based on hope; it is the covenant that we call Abram’s call.

Today we will begin together by notice the context that sets up this covenant before seeing what helps Abram remain faithful to God. Finally I want to think about how Abram’s choice becomes our choice as well. 

Move 1- the context

            This choice of the Lord is the one that brings Jesus for us: the call of Abram and Sarai—for they went together at the Lord’s call. And while each of us are familiar with the words of Genesis 12, I wonder if we might hear it again from a new vantage point: the perspective of a called Hope. 

            First, we need to understand some of the context of this story because while you and I have the entirely of the canon of scripture to recall and look back on and know that in this moment Abram displays great faith, and as we read from Paul, it is credited to him as righteousness. As God spoke to Abram, none of that was accessible to the Patriarch.

Abram did not have the blessing of history to hold up his faith and to provide him hope that he heard God’s call correctly. Notice his story. It begins before we started reading in chapter 11.

            At an age that we do not know, Terah, Abram’s father, began a journey with his son and his entire household. They travelled from Ur heading towards the land of Caanan. This would be a long journey that could cover approximately 1200 miles, but one that this family could sustain together. They could support one another: together. At this moment, their story looks like all the other stories in scripture that we have. . . 

We do not know why they went. The Word of God does not tell us. But it is clear that something important in the history of humanity is about happen here. The family made it as far as Haran (which was about halfway roughly 600 miles) before stopping their journey. But they stopped. 

We can assume that it was part of God’s call but even that is an assumption. Initiative takes us only half of the way. Hard work can build Arks and great towers up towards the heavens. It does not always create what is necessary though. In Genesis 11 and into Genesis 12, God brought Abram part of the way. Something else, something more, would call Abram to complete the journey with Sarai.

As Walter Brueggemann wrote once, “Faith is indeed the capacity to risk what is in hand for what is yet to be given by this intrusive speaker.”[1]

Move 2- Faith moment

            Let’s continue the story. . . Life was well in Haran. 

Surrounded by family and the blessings and security that a loving family can provide, Abram and Sarai could settle down and live together probably for as long as they wanted. Perhaps they could even begin to believe that this is what the Lord’s call in their life truly looked like. But God spoke to them further—and isn’t that is often what God does in each of our hearts and lives? 

The Lord gently, but consistently, calls us further than we think we could go.

Whether that call is felt in the individual’s heart, the family’s heart, or the church’s heart. God calls us hoping that in the call we will hear the hope that lives in those words.  

The “intrusive speaker,” that Brueggemann referenced, reached out to Abram and called him to continue his journey of faith without most of the remainder of his family. Abram might not have known where the Lord was taking him, but it did not matter. For two things would help him along the way. God provides two things that would help assist Abram in the next step in his journey. 

Faith. And His relationship with God.  

            For the remainder of his life and His journey with the Lord, both would be essential. 

Time and again Abram would return to his faith and his relationship with God when his life seemed out of control. Abram, and Sarai, would need to fall back on these two defining traits when the struggles of their daily lives made them wonder if God’s voice is truly what they heard. 

And yes, they would do so in varying degrees throughout their lives. With a promise of a child to a barren mother, to the call to sacrifice that same child on the mountaintop, they would fall back on their faith and their relationship with God. They would succeed at times and fail at others. But ultimately, like us, their faith and their relationship with the Lord would be essential in this journey. 

            Even if the substance of that relationship was still be grown and nurtured in Genesis 12, Abram believed in what he heard and he went. You and I may know the Lord more fully, but we too are called often to go and trust in the One who believes and hopes in each of us. 

            God asks each of us to respond faithfully just as Abram did. At some point, when God speaks to you, you must lean in and take up your things, leave behind the comfort of what you know, and trust in the one whose voice called you and in whom you are developing a deeper relationship with.  

Move 3- the blessing

            This leads to the blessing of the call of Abram for the church. For because Abram believed, his life testifies to the truth that God did not, God will not, give up on us. His creation. God always hopes, always, believes, that we will find our way to the first call that God made in our lives even if we feel uncertain about the direction of that call. Our faith and our relationship with God will see us through. 

            God’s call in your life mandates a single response, a single choice. To find God’s voice, to listen to it and for it, and then respond to it.  

            In Abram’s case that response invited him to live into this hope as he journeyed with Sarai the remaining 600 miles, living in a promise that he likely did not fully understand, trusting in the promise keeper, whose voice was not yet fully clear to Abram. 

            That choice leads him believe in a destination, both spiritually and physically, that he cannot see as he leaves his family behind. 

Conclusion 

            Each person who finds Abram’s story is asked the same thing. We are asked to wonder about the voice of the Lord calling to us. Because Abram responded in faith used that faith to build his relationship with God, a blessing that we now feel and live into, is felt by the church. 

            And while you and I are not going to be blessed in the same way, we are asked by God often to go to places, to spend time with people, who might make us feel like we are living far from home. In those places, God’s word stands strong for us. God hopes that we remember the steps that he took to call us forward. 

 

 

DM

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[1] Texts for Preaching. Year A. page 193. 

The Temptation of Jesus--Matthew 4:1-11. Sermon preached on February 22, 2026

At the beginning of Lent, and as we think about the temptation of Jesus from Matthew 4, I wonder about the general purpose of this story. Why did Matthew record it for us? Further, I wonder if Jesus could truly have succumb to any opportunity, any temptation, to sin as it was presented by the gospel author? 

For most, this story is uncomfortable to read and to think about. 

For most, Lent is the 40 days of preparation and reflection for the church. This is the time where we consider the sacrifice of Jesus and adopt disciplines to foster a closeness with God and remind us that in Christ alone are we secured. 

For most, we are not asked to transform stones to bread, we are not asked to throw ourselves off a high place, and we are not shown the kingdoms of the world and offered their glory, that is not our temptation—directly. And even if you say symbolically that we do face something similar, the story from Matthew, and its parallels in Mark and Luke, those are Jesus’ temptations… not ours. 

Yet make no mistake. Temptation comes into our house… and perhaps it has come to your home already today. This morning. Maybe even in the last hour as you prepared for worship.

            I want to spend some time today not thinking just about the temptation of Jesus directly. Not commenting on how Jesus was tempted in the desert by Satan or even just how the angels came and attended him once he resisted all three of His temptations.

            Instead, I wonder if we can follow Jesus’ example when these moments of temptation come, because like I said, temptation comes for us. Often. And it will attempt to wreak havoc if we have no tools in our spiritual toolbox to address it. 

            So again, how do we address temptation? 

Move 1- Define it

            To begin addressing any temptation I think we need to first understand the term. We need to define ‘Temptation’ and define some its traits. 

            First off, when I think of any temptation that I face, whether I face it for years, or for just a moment. Whether it is a sin that stalks me in a short-term sense, or since I was a boy. Temptation is: isolating.

            Temptation can, and it will, divide us from one another. It divides us from each other and it divides us from the church. 

            We see this in the text when Jesus was tempted to separate himself from the relationship and the unity that he has with God the Father. ‘Worship the me,’ the tempter says in verse 9. Basically, this temptation revolves us offering Jesus the choice to stop relying on the enterally grounded relationship that Jesus has with His Father in heaven. 

The relationship that Jesus has always known and has trusted in. If Jesus choose to worship someone, something else, then God would no longer be the central figure or foundation of his life.

This temptation makes us ask the question: do we trust in ourselves alone and outside of God or do we rely on God. This is one way defining trait for temptation. It is isolating. 

            Temptations also, and for lack of a better word, they feel good. They satisfy a felt need in the moment. Command these stones to become bread. Yes, that would satisfy the immediate need of Jesus in the moment, but would that truly make the temptation moment, or lure, stop? No. 

            When we give into temptation at one moment, just so that it makes the lure go away, we can quickly find ourselves travelling down a slippery slope that leads us further and further away from God.

In social media parlance it’s called Doom Scrolling. And if you are not familiar with the term let me share it with you. Once you begin scrolling on social media, time seems to slip away from you and before you know it hours have passed by. It’s like a black hole. There is no brake to stop you. Nothing comes alongside of you to remind you that what you are doing in this moment does not benefit you in the kingdom of God. 

            Temptation works a lot like that. Think of any sin. Once you start down the pathway that it offers before you know it, you have travelled miles and miles away from the person, or church, who God called you to be and become. 

            Finally, temptation also is self-elevating. If Jesus was to throw himself off a high place and trust that God would send His angels to protect him, that elevate Jesus to place that He was not supposed to dwell at that moment. 

            Sure, as the Son of God, Jesus is going to be at that place Post Resurrection and Ascension. But not now. That is not where He was sent to be. This temptation was about moving ahead of God’s pace for his life and making himself the center of the story before it was God’s will. 

            Again… something that we are often tempted to do and live into. For indeed it does no feel good to elevate ourselves above the place that God has us in the moment, but that shows no reliance upon God. No trust on the will of God. 

            Instead, these three temptations: isolation, satisfaction, and self-elevation, challenge us to remain in the place where God’s will indicates we should dwell. I know… easier said that done. 

Move 2- Confront it

So, we know what a temptation is, we need to next consider how do we work to resist it? We know we cannot fully weed it out of ourselves forever, but how do we move away from it for even Jesus gets to this point in our story today. 

In our text, when Jesus arrives at this place, when Jesus finds that he is drug toward temptation, he uses what he has to address temptation. 

            This is no small point. 

            Certainly, you know that Jesus refuted and rebuffed the accuser in the desert by using God’s word. Repeatedly the Messiah cites passages from Deuteronomy, from the law of Moses, as his defense against the hungry, and power, and the prestige that the accuser presented him with while he was alone. 

            While the accuser also uses the psalms as part of the temptations of Jesus to attempt to draw him away from faithfulness, the Messiah sticks to what He has and to what He knows. He remains faithful to the revelation of God through the scriptures given to humanity for our growth and our support. 

            And while that is often how we hear and interact with this passage generally, it is a vitally important point for our thoughts today when we too face our daily temptations as a church and as individuals. 

            No matter what the temptation is, and no matter how you define it, you can only use what you have, or what you know perhaps, when temptation comes.

            When you are confronted by fear, insecurity, anxiety and any of those negative emotions and struggles that we feel press down upon us as we work to serve the Lord as a church, you, like Jesus, must fall back on what you have come to believe and affirm as true.

            If you do not have the deep knowledge of God, as found in the word, and supported through your lived experience, and nurtured in that experience with Christ each step along your life, and in the revelation of God, then when those fears and insecurities nip at your heart and tug on soul, you will struggle against any and every temptation.

            A culture, or an individual, or a church, that does not hold onto their foundational truth will find themselves standing on that same foundation of sand that sinks and shifts as the culture of the day sinks and shifts before them.            We must use what we have been given by God to address the fears, insecurities, and anxieties that arise in our lives when temptation presents itself to us.

            Jesus uses what he has at hand to address the temptation to give in to fear and insecurity. He uses God and God’s word to Him as the means to preserve. 

            So we too must take stock of what God has revealed in our lives, what practices we have cultivated in us that can help us when temptation comes for us. Those are the things that we carry with us in our spiritual toolboxes.  

Conclusion

For temptation is not only something that asks you to sin and draws you towards the practices. Temptation can also ask you to give in to your fears, insecurities, and anxieties. It can, and it often does, invite you to look at life and rather than choose faithfulness, temptation invites you to choose something else.

            Today’s text reminds us that Jesus has been through it already for us. He went through it with us. And as he was just like us, he then provides a way for us to deal with it.

            I wonder how you choose to address temptation? Do you just try and willpower it away, or could you consider using what God has put before you as a way to grow?

 

 

DM

Grinding the Ashes.

Last night we began our Lenten journey. Rev. James and I stood together in the worship space and reminded the congregation at Bethesda of the famous words: 

"Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return." 

Over the years, I have said these words many times to God's people. Each time I say them, I make the sign of the cross in ashes on the foreheads of the church that God calls me to serve. This year's practice was a bit different. It was time for a new bowl of ashes to be used.

Dipping my finger into the bowl I ground the ashes between my index finger, my thumb, and my middle finger. As I did this, I could feel the grit working its way into my pores. As each person came forward to receive the Ashes of Ash Wednesday, I greeted them with a gentle smile and made the sign of the cross on them. . .  'Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return," I said.

They gently smiled back at me and then returned to their seats.  

It was towards the end of the procession that I noticed how black my fingers were growing. 

Internally smiling, I wished for a damp cloth to wipe my hands clean because Rev. James had a prayer,  a song still to lead us in, and then his final blessing. I knew I that my hand would be dirty for a while and I did not want to touch too many things and spread ashes on myself. 

I returned to my seat and examined my now blackened fingers wondering what lesson God was trying to teach me. There was nothing to do with my fingers but notice how the grey/black ash had taken over three of my five fingertips. 

The song sheet that I was given took on some of the black from the ashes. The pages of my Book of Common Worship adopted some of the black as well as I followed along in worship. With each thing I touched, the black came off a little bit until my hands were lightening a little. 

I learned something personal last night that I will attempt to carry with me throughout Lent about presence. 

As you begin Lent, I wonder what lesson God is teaching you? 

Transfiguration of the Lord--Exodus 24:12-18. Sermon preached on February 15, 2026

            Today we recall that Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up a high mountain and reveals himself to them in a unique way—a way that perhaps is as close to His heavenly form as we are presented in the gospel. On this mountaintop, Jesus’ appearance changes and the disciples witness this. Perhaps this experience will help root or ground their ministry in the years that will follow. 

            But what about the story from Exodus that I just read with you? Today’s text seems unlink-able to the gospel that we read first.  

            In Exodus we read about an encounter that I believe holds a similar importance to the children of Israel. And while this encounter contains some thematic similarities, it is what lies behind both narratives, the reason for them, that I want to spend time today thinking about—not either story. 

            Before we come to the Table of the Lord, and before we are baptized into the Ashes later this week, I wonder what role the Exodus story will play in your Lenten observances?

Move 1- alone

            The Exodus text begins with God’s voice, God’s call speaking to His servant. “Moses, come up to me.” The vocal invitation of God is an invitation that few in the scriptures are offered. Four times in today’s text, Moses is called up to God in some fashion. Verses 12, 13, 15, & 18 contain this invitation by God to Moses. 

            The call of God is a physical call, a covenantal pilgrimage, and a prophetic destiny. By the Lord calling Moses up to His very presence, God is offering Moses a unique and special blessing, a status, that he, Moses, can hold deeply in his heart. 

And interesting, God does not call everyone to come to him. Although God has heard the prayers of all his people in Egypt and the Lord rescued all of His people from the bondage of slavery, and opened the Red Sea to them and God has protected them already, only Moses is called up to mountaintop to be with God. 

Not the entire nation.

God also does not call all the elders who rule and lead this nation to join Him on the mountain. The Lord does not invite Joshua, Moses’s right hand, to join him either. Both of which, the rulers and elders along with Joshua would seem like proper folks to spend time with God and receive a blessing from the Lord. For they are going to lead these people and as such they would need to guidance and instruction. 

But no, it is just Moses. He alone is called to be with God and to receive the blessing from God that will come during whatever transpires in this one-on-one time with God—the full details are not recorded for us in Exodus. 

            In that smallest of details is a profound truth for us today as we prepare for Lent: no one can do the transformational work that God asks of you in your life… no one except you. Church family, you are called by God to do this work in Lent yourselves. Personally. 

As we begin Lent this week, God asks you, each of you, whether you are with us in worship today, or at home live watching, or later viewing the service, YOU personally. . . “Come up to me, spend time with me.” God says.

            The elders on the Session cannot do it for you. I as your pastor cannot do the work of transformation here on your behalf. Other leaders here, Sunday school teachers, our Director of Christian Education, or other lay leaders who help to shape, guide, and implement the vision that God has given us, they cannot come up to God. The Lord calls you personally to come up to Him. 

You must do the work, you must respond to the call of the Lord, yourself.

            You alone must do this work. 

Move 2- the display

            But you are truly not alone in any work that God calls you to when God asks you to come up to Him. While it could feel like it’s just you and God in this moment, it is not. 

            For while Moses went up the mountain because God called him up there to bless and change his life, and while Exodus says that the time spent was between Moses and God only, the displays that defined God’s presence were visible to the entire nation of Israel. The entire community that was left behind saw the manifestations of God’s presence. 

For those six days the Lord’s presence was manifested before the people in a profound way that each person could witness if they just gazed up the path where Moses went. 

            Verse 17 says this… “in the sight of the people of Israel” these things took place. 

            You see transformation does not occur in a vacuum. Even if we think that it does, and even if others have convinced us that this is personal, the community is a witness—as much as the church testifies to the profoundness of God’s movement around us. Others may tell us that faith is no one business but our own individually, we work and we serve as a community of believers. In the sight of the community the transformation takes place.   

 

            It is at this moment where the story of Jesus’ transfiguration from the gospels focuses in again on us. For this story from Matthew 17, as wonderful and transformational as it was, was not just for Peter, James, and John. The other nine disciples were aware also of what might have taken place while they were left behind. They would have heard to story also of what happened up there. Otherwise, why did the writes of the gospels write it down. 

            The story was shared for us. Even if we chuckle at Peter’s reaction to the transfiguring of Jesus and the appearance of Elijah and Moses with Jesus that day, the story of the Transfiguration of Jesus was repeatedly shared in the church by both its leaders and its members. 

            And yet it did remain, in the life of those who witnessed it on that first day, deeply personal to them. This does not downplay the miracle of either story. 

When the disciples, like Moses in our text today, found themselves struggling with the expectations and burdens of daily ministry, when they wondered how and why they were called and they wondered if they could continue to be faithful, this story was there. 

In those moments, someone could remember where they and the Lord dwelt. They could recall the miracle and how it felt to ascend up to be with God—either in Sinai in Exodus or onto the Mount of Transfiguration in Matthew and the other gospel accounts. That experience would help ground and secure these leaders of God’s church. 

In our text today, someone would remember that God called Moses up to be with Him a uniquely personal way and place. The community of the Israelites likely heard to call, and they witnessed all of this. Their testimony to each other would help Moses when his faith was weakening. 

Conclusion

            Together we are about to begin Lent. Later this week you will return to this space to be baptized into the Ashes on Wednesday. And as you come and walk through Lent, you will be invited to bring to mind all that God did in your life. 

            As we move toward the Table of the Lord, let us hold onto the stories of the Lord again and see how deeply God’s call of transformation is in us. And let us share those stories again because each of us needs to hear them more often than we know. 

 

 

DM

Half Right--Matthew 5:13-20. Sermon preached on February 8, 2026

            As we think about the power and depth of Jesus’ words of the Sermon on the Mount, I was reading a book that I want to share with you that commented on this very section of Jesus’ words. The ideas that the author talked about sound familiar in today’s world. He wrote:

“We can all analyze [and think], but the vital question we want answered is, ‘what is the ultimate source of trouble? What can be done about it. . .You can turn to the greatest philosophers and thinkers and again and again you will find [that] they never take you beyond analysis. They are very good at laying out the problem and showing various factors which operate. But when you ask them what is ultimately responsible for this, [or what is wrong with this world], and [further] what they propose to do, they just leave you unanswered. Clearly, they have nothing to say.”[1] They have no solution to the problems that we face and that they talk about. 

            And those comments that I just read for you, which I suspect that you agree with, they were first written in 1959. Things have not changed much in 66 years. 

For Jesus’ words in this passage about salt and light and about how you stand before the world are still just as applicable today as they were when Jesus taught them to the crowds who gathered on the hillside to hear from Him. 

So, when you read and think on something like this, and when you too could be tempted to think and behave as others do when they considered the Sermon on the Mount do, I wonder if you can stop and think differently? For just thinking along the correct path is half of the equation. You are half right in doing that, but we have a response that is called forth. We must continue our practice of ministry and faith. 

The Sermon on the Mount is not just a fancy collection of the teachings of Jesus that we aspire to. For Israel the challenge was, can they remain: Israel. For us, can we remain the Church. 

Move 1- who do we exist for?

            To hold onto our identity of the Church, Jesus offers us two strong images: salt and light. These two images work together to help illustrate for the hearer how to continue to be who Jesus calls us to be and how Jesus calls us to live. 

With that in mind, I wonder who does Jesus say that we exist for? 

            In the context of Israel, and during the time in which the scriptures were written and canonized, the Hebrew people have lived as part of either the Roman or Babylonian Empires. They were conquered. Their ancestral homes may have been accessible at times, but not always. So, as they sought to Be the Church, and to liv as the people who God called them to be, they wrestled with God’s placement in their lives and their involvement in the daily work of their community. 

            The prophetic promises that they shared with the following generations were still be taught and preached, and at the same time the divine kinship was upheld. 

Life may not have been the way they wanted it to be daily, but God was still with them even if the substance of their day, and how they ordered their steps did not look the way they thought it should look. Again, God was still there. This is something in our days that we might also be familiar with.  

            These folks learned to work and to live among people that they did not always support; people whose choices they did not always agree with. They learned to, using our words now here at Bethesda to Be the Church, when the practice of the faith of their fathers called them to be different and to take a personal stock in the lives of others. 

            As they rose each day, the would be confronted a similar struggle that you might face. The question of ministry in a conflicted context. 

            We exist for the people of this community to guide them back to the Lord and back to a right relationship with Him. Preserving the identity of being “Israel” was not enough in itself. That identity called them to live differently. If they were going to live among these people, these Roman and Babylonian people, and if God placed them in this moment, then they knew that they had work to do in His name. 

            And so Jesus offered them the calling in Matthew 5 as a way to express this.

We do this through the two primary images that Jesus uses in this text. Salt and Light. 

Move 2- the images.

            Trying to hold onto their identity and maintain faithfulness to their calling as well, the Hebrews realize that God called to be salt and light even if those terms were not familiar to them in a way that they are to us. 

God calls each of us, regardless of our location or situation, to ministries that helps us individually live in this manner. The ideas of ‘salt’ and ‘light’ invite us into a participatory union with Christ. Let’s consider those terms one at a time. . .  

            Salt. Our first understanding of salt is that it is a seasoning. Adding salt to your food can bring out a richness of flavor. Salt enhances/augments what it touches. Yet salt also prevents decay. For instance, when salt is applied to meat, it preserves it allowing the meat to be cured and to exist long after we might think it could. Meat left alone without salt would rot. But salt preserves it. 

Salt is also an antiseptic inhibiting bacterial growth. Salt helps to cleanse the wound identifying the places where infection has taken up residence. And while applying salt to a wound will be quite painful, and I do not want to do that to myself, when cleansing happens in our lives, healing can happen. 

            When Jesus tells his followers in this sermon that we are to be salt, he is telling them that this is an act, or choice, that we do on an individual level. The church cannot be salt for each other corporately as easily as they can be salt for each other personally. When we think of how we have cared for one another, and served one another, often that is done in a one-on-one way. Salting each other to make sure we help one another stay away from sin and when sin begins to take root, we help them root it out gently. 

            But then there is a second term. . . 

            Light—a guide. This one is also familiar to us.  

            If salt is something that is done by and for the individual, then light is something that is accomplished corporately or communally. This is the image where we come together, often in the context of worship, to Be the Church in service. Here in this church community, we do this through the many facets of corporate ministry that we engage in. Be it evangelism directly or acts of care intentionally (and there are many of those we practice as a church), we are light for this community. And we seek to be light in more places together.

            Why are we light, because as we know we live in a world of thick, or consistent, darkness. Everyone has their own definition of darkness. And that darkness is also very personal. Not so much relating to sin in general. 

            So when our Savior tells us to be the light, the guide, and to make sure that our light is not placed under a basket so that the whole house is able to see the light, he is telling us to make sure that everyone in the community is able to see the light being shown from us out for this place. 

Move 3- the house

            Israel, and the church who follows Jesus’ message, was called to go forth taking their light out into the world. They were called to carrying their light from the house and into the world being salt and light. This is how they maintained their identity in a world that sought to crush them and marginalize them. 

The consistent proclamation of the gospel and the testimony that God’s word was with them and that they were living out their calling faithfully and fully, was their purpose. 

Living not to abolish the law, as Jesus said, but to fulfill it—all of it. And in fulfilling the law, in being the Church this way as Salt and Light, the Hebrews, and you and I, maintain our sense of ministry. Just by being the church, just by living as salt and light, in the way that Jesus taught it to us, we are demonstrating the faith that Jesus taught that church to emulate. This becomes evangelism, in a way, without having to even say a word for our actions, our postures, our choices, our very attitudes demonstrate that we have taken the very lessons Jesus in Matthew 5 to heart and are applying them in our daily walk. 

Conclusion

            In these two images we find such depth and such reach given us to by Jesus. And so as the Savior moves from this topic to the next in the rest of his work and message, he challenges each of us to see our daily context not as a burden but as a place where we can help heal, help testify, and help grow the faith of others. 

            And as we do this, we maintain again practice Being the Chruch. 

 

DM

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[1] Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, (William B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1971), 141.

 

What did you do when it snowed?

Yes, it snowed in South Carolina. Reports say that we got 12 inches of snow last weekend. The snow brought back memories for me. . . memories of my childhood and memories of the cold. As you can see it was beautiful to look at.  

The snow was so quiet.  No cars travelled down the normally busy McConnells Highway. We heard no dogs barking in the distance. No one was out. I worried that I might hear the loud roar of generators keeping houses running at a minimal level. But no one around us lost power either. It was so quiet. 

You can see Bethesda sitting quietly in the back of this picture. We were unable to meet for worship with a foot's worth of snow making the roads not safe for travel. Yet the church was still the church. 

Together we recorded a virtual service on Saturday morning as the flurries turned into big flakes of dry snow. 

By the time this picture was taken two things had happened. 

1- The dogs went out and ran through the snow like maniacs. Nala and Flynn loving the time outside. Flynn rolling around on his back with his feet in the air. He enjoyed something that he had never seen before (he is only 2 years old). Coco, Jennifer's tiny Shih Tzu would hop through the snow as it is too deep for her to walk around. But she too was having fun covered in snow. Yet everyone loved to play and run. 

2- But more importantly--the Church continued to be the Church. As I sat on the couch reading my book, my iPhone buzzed with the same basis message: "Is everyone at your house okay? Do you need anything?" We were fine. With Jennifer sitting in her chair crocheting and me reading, we were happy (albeit a bit anxious that the power might cut off at any second). Yet the Church continued to be the Church. They continued to love and care for us even though they could not be present with us physically. 

I asked someone last night what would have happened if someone needed them to come out during the storm because the roads were impassable. The reply was simple: I would have found a way to be there. 

When we witness someone Being the Church it is a profound moment of testimony but that action does not have to wait until the snow covers the ground. I wonder is there a step that you could take today, an action, a call, that you could take that might help someone else? It might just remind them of your practice of Being the Church . . .