05-10-2026 God's Offspring

Thomas J Parlette
“God’s Offspring”
Acts 17: 22-31
5/10/26, Mother’s Day
          Eugene Peterson is a long-time pastor, probably best known for his paraphrase of the Bible called The Message. He’s actually written a number of books over the years. In 2011, he wrote a book called The Pastor: A Memoir, a very personal account of his time in the ministry dealing with the questions that all pastors face.
          In that book, he tells a story about a couple he knew from one of the churches he served – Charles and Betty. Peterson had gone to visit them because they used to be regular attenders, but then they dropped off significantly, and Peterson went to find out why. He writes: “Early in our conversation in their living room, Charles put it like this: “You know, pastor, I think I am as surprised as you are that I am not in church these Sundays. All my life I have attended church. I don’t think there have been more than 15 or 20 Sundays in the last 40 years that I have not been in church. I always liked being in church – there is something centering and stabilizing about it – a protected time to reflect and stay in touch with the way I was brought up.”
          “And then a few weeks ago on a whim that seemed totally spontaneous – I didn’t plan it, certainly didn’t think about it much – I said to Betty, “I think I’ll go fishing today.” She was surprised as I was. It was a beautiful spring day. The wildflowers were in bloom, and the warbler migration was under way. I got my fly rod and fishing gear together, she packed a picnic lunch and put her watercolors and sketch pad in a tote bag. We drove to the Big Gunpowder River, and while you preached, I fished and Betty caught the emerging bloodroot and round-lobed hepatica blossoms with her watercolors. It was a lovely three hours. When we got home we were both astonished that we felt like we always felt on Sundays – easy, calm, rested. We had abruptly, even casually, interrupted a 40-year routine of Sunday worship and nothing happened. We didn’t feel guilty. We didn’t miss it. Lighting didn’t strike us down. Everything was just the way it had always been. We didn’t intend to make a habit of it, but I guess we have. We aren’t quitting the church. We still want you as our pastor. But don’t expect us to be there every Sunday – at least not while the fish are biting and the wildflowers are in bloom.” (1)
          That kind of story is getting more and more common. Seems like everywhere we turn there are stories about the decline of traditional Christian faith and the rise of secularism in our culture. Perhaps you’ve heard of the term “Nones” – N,O,N,E,S. These are people who claim no religious faith or affiliation. Nones now represent approximately 28 percent of the US population – up from 21.6 in 2016. Almost 40% of young adults age 18-29 claim to be Nones. That puts them at the top of the list of the largest religious – or in this case, non-religious – groups in the country.
 A writer named David Dark defines religion as “a controlling story,” or “The question of how we dispose our energies, how we see fit to organize our own lives and, in many cases, the lives of others.” (2) One’s religion is the factor that sets priorities, focuses desire and informs how we look at the rest of the world.
When I was serving a church in Western Pennsylvania, we founded a CROP Walk to raise money for local food pantries and other hunger-relief projects. We always held our CROP Walk sometime in October – but we never finalized a date until we checked the Steelers schedule. We looked for a Sunday evening game, or a late afternoon game – or even better, a bye week or a Monday Night game, so we could catch all those people who approached football as a religion and organized their lives around it.
          Well, this morning, Paul is dealing with secularism in his own day. So, it’s helpful to consider what we can learn from him.
          Paul arrives in Athens after having caused an uproar in Philippi, Thessalonica and Berea. He is taking a bit of a cooling off period while he waits for his partners Silas and Timothy to join him.
          So Paul takes a walk around the city of Athens, a smaller city than we know today, one that may have resembled a bustling little liberal arts college town in New England. He visits the Synagogue, he chats with the esteemed philosophers debating in the streets, he sees the curiosity of the average citizens who are genuinely interested in new ideas. As he visits with the local people, city leaders take note of what he has to say, and they bring him to the Aeropagus to share his message.
          We’re not certain exactly what the Aeropagus was, it could have been as simple as a gathering place on a hilltop where people met for the 1st century equivalent of coffee to listen to new speakers with fresh ideas. We DO know that there were many statues and monuments to a variety of Gods there – and indeed all over the city.
          Paul seems to have learned some things during this cooling off period, because he employs an ingenious strategy in his public speaking. Instead of attacking the multiple gods represented in the Aeropagus, Paul acknowledges the deep reverence of the Athenians – “I see how extremely religious you are. I see you have even included an altar dedicated to an Unknown God. Let me tell you about this unknown God you honor.
          Then, Paul quotes one of their own, a local poet named Epimenides, who said in his work Cretica, referring to the god Zeus – “In him we live and move and have our being.”
          Paul builds on that and says, “Since we are God’s offspring, we shouldn’t think that the deity is like gold or silver or stone…” And Paul gives one of the most well-documented sermons that we have from him.
          It’s a brilliant move, adapting his message to the secular environment around him. He doesn’t change the message, he finds a suitable entry point to meet the Athenians where they are. We can learn some things from Paul as we navigate our way through our own public square filled with a multitude of gods.
          First, Paul listened carefully. He listened to what the Athenian culture had to say – what was important to them, what did they need, what did they long for, what guided their decisions? He acknowledged that clearly they were religious – after all, they had an altar dedicated to an Unknown God. So, an interest and respect for spirituality and the Divine is a source of common ground.
          Beginning with Augustine, who said of God, “You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you,” and continuing through Blaise Pascal who described an “infinite abyss within the soul of every person reserved for God alone,” (3) human beings have been aware of the need for God, even if they can’t put their finger on it. Paul listened carefully, and he saw their need.
          After listening carefully, Paul then looks for openings, he thinks to himself, “How can the God made known in Jesus Christ fill the needs of the people here in Athens?”
          William Willimon once suggested that “the church, rather than standing back from pagan religiousity, pointing our fingers in righteous indignation, should, like Paul in Athens, minister to their searching.” (4)
          Listen carefully, and look for openings.
          Then, we must be prepared to speak boldly – as Paul does here. “Here is my truth,” says Paul. “God made everything there is – in him we live and move and have our being, as Epimenides said. Therefore, we are all his offspring. The God I speak of calls all people to repent, judgment is coming, through a man God has appointed, one whom God has raised from the dead.”
          Certainly a bold proclamation, but as theologian Gerhard Krodel once said about this passage, “There comes a point when the Christian witness must speak of Christ’s resurrection and its consequences and take the risk of being switched off by the partner in dialogue.” (5)
          And that happened to Paul. Some switched him off. But others did not. Some listened. The seeds were planted. That’s all we can ask. God will give the growth.
          Paul had no desire to add Jesus to the Pantheon of Gods honored in Athens. No – Paul uses this opportunity to share about the God he knows. Jesus showed us that the only way to truly know this unknown God was by looking at him, by following Jesus’ way and living his example.
          Even though we live in a world dominated by secular Gods and people who are not willing to claim any religious affiliation – there is hope.
          The well-known preacher Fred Craddock, now retired and living in Georgia, tells the story of walking down the sidewalk in Decatur, on the way to the church where he was to preach. He says, “I met an acquaintance sitting at an outdoor coffee shop. We chatted and she asked me to join her, but I said that I needed to get to church. I invited her to join me, but she held up her Sunday paper and said, “This is my Bible”, and then he coffee cup, “This is my communion.”
          He goes on, “I think the days of that nonsense are ending. I believe that our traditions are going to return with strength, carefully crafted sermons that will demand to be published and reread after they are heard.” He knows that coffee and the Sunday Times are not sufficient. He also knows that the church has work to do. “The question,” Craddock has often said, “is not whether the church is dying, but whether it is giving its life for the world.” (6)
          If we follow Paul’s example – listen carefully, look for openings and speak boldly about the God we know through Jesus Christ – we can do just that, give our life for the world God loves.

          May God be praised. Amen.

 

 

 

1. Eugene Peterson, The Pastor: A Memoir (Harper Collins, 2011).

2. Homileticsonline, retrieved 5/4/26.

3. Sean A White, Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 2, Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, p 474.

4. Randle R. Mixon, Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 2, Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, p 474.

5. Sean A White, Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 2, Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, p 476.

6. Wiiliam Brosend, “The people’s preaching class: Fred Craddock in retirement,” The Christian Century, February 19, 2015.

04-26-2026 The Gate

Thomas J Parlette
“The Gate”
John 10: 1-10
4/26/26
          I am old enough to remember the day when we had three TV channels. No streaming services, no cable, no movie channels – just NBC, CBS and ABC. Now I love all the choices of our modern media platforms, don’t get me wrong – but there were some advantages to just three networks. For one thing, the whole country consumed basically the same media. For the most part, we were watching the same programs and the next day we had something to talk about in school our around the water cooler, when those still existed. In a way, it was kind of unifying.
          I remember that every evening at 6:00 Eastern time, the evening news came on. There was no 24 hour news cycle with talking heads covering the same story all day – no, you had to wait until 6:00 o’clock to get your news. When I was a kid, our house always tuned in to Walter Cronkite on CBS News. He was the guy. You knew something was the true because Walter Cronkite said so. For a time his nickname was “the trusted man in America.” His famous tagline said it best. He used to sign off every broadcast saying – “And that’s the way it is…” Walter Cronkite represented truth to America for almost 20 years.
          Well, times have changed. We have so many news outlets, so many talking heads, experts and pundits telling us their version of the truth that it’s hard to know what’s true anymore.
          According to Newsguard, an organization that tracks fake news sites, the number of AI-enabled fake news sites increased tenfold in 2023. These sites are operated by little or no human supervision.
          This doesn’t mean that we are defenseless. Researchers, tech companies and governments agencies are collaborating to fight AI-powered misinformation with AI-powered technology. Platform companies partner with professional fact-checkers and content moderators to tag fake information and use it to detect misinformation early in the process before it can be widely disseminated. (1)
          Sometimes I miss the days of the news delivered by the “most trusted man in America.”
          Knowing which voice is trustworthy and which voice is not is exactly what Jesus is taking about this morning.
          Today is what is unofficially known as Shepherd Sunday. This is one of a couple of Sundays where we focus on the image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd. The first passage we read this morning was the well-known 23rd Psalm, in which the Lord is compared to a shepherd, making us lie down in green pastures, leading us beside still waters and restoring our souls as we are led in paths of righteousness. A lovely image that even most known Christians are familiar with.
          The second passage is from John and talks to us about what a good shepherd is and is not. The good shepherd comes in to the sheep in the proper way – through the gate, knows the gatekeeper personally, and gets to know the sheep by name. But, Jesus doesn’t call himself the Good Shepherd – not yet. In today’s passage, Jesus says, “I am the gate.”
          In reality, if we look closely at the text, we actually have two separate passages. In the first passage, Jesus talks about the true shepherd, the trustworthy shepherd and emphasizes that the true shepherds voice is known to his sheep and they follow him. But unfortunately, the disciples do not understand the metaphor.
          This leads us to the second part of the passage. Jesus sounds a bit frustrated with his disciples as he says, “OK, I see I’ve lost you. Let me be clear – “I am the gate. Me. I’m the gate.”
          Still, his disciples look confused, so he goes on. “Everyone who came before me, thieves and bandits. Don’t listen to them. I am the gate.”
          Later, Jesus calls himself the Good Shepherd – but not yet.
          We know that’s what he’s GOING to say – but he doesn’t say it here, not yet.
          For now, Jesus says – “I am the gate.” Twice.
          So, what’s he getting at, why a gate?
          Well, let’s consider the life of a first century shepherd for just a moment. Typically, sheep pens in Jesus’ day were simple structures, high rock walls with only one entrance. In the morning, the shepherd would gather his sheep from among the multiple flocks that would often be penned together for the night, and lead them out to a pasture with good grass for them to graze. Each shepherd would have their unique “call” to gather his sheep – a whistle, a phrase, something that would be distinct, that his sheep would recognize.
One of the differences between shepherds in the middle east and other shepherds in other areas is that shepherds in the middle east would lead the sheep – they would be out front and the sheep would follow. In other areas, the shepherd would follow behind the sheep and poke and push them in the right direction.
          At the end of the day, the shepherd would take the sheep back to the pen, often with a bunch of other sheep. So there would often be more than one flock staying in the same pen overnight. As the sheep entered the pen, the shepherd would check them for little injuries, or bugs that might cause discomfort in the night. Author Phillip Keller, who has spent some time as a sheep rancher in Africa has written a couple of books relating his experience as a shepherd to his faith in Jesus Christ. He says that four conditions have to be met in order for sheep to lie down for the night.
1. They must be free of fear.
2. They must be free from friction with others in the flock.
3. They must be free from injury or parasites,
4. And they must be free from hunger. (2)
          Meet all these criteria, and your flock would sleep well. As the sheep were asleep, the shepherd, or shepherds would take turns on guard duty, watching out for predators or poachers. One of their methods was to lie down in front of the opening in the walls and physically act as a gate, both to keep the sheep from wandering and to keep them safe from intruders.
          Considering those details of the life of a first-century shepherd, I hope you can see how Jesus’ words and comparison’s might have communicated something about God’s care. At first though, the disciples don’t get it. So Jesus gets very specific and says – twice- “I am the gate.” Meaning, coming in and out of God’s presence is through me. In addition, I am the one who offers protection and assurance in the face of the threats and hardships you face. I am the gate. Come and go through me, and you will be safe, you will be looked after, you will be cared for.
          One other fact about shepherding in the first-century, and really any century – taking care of a flock of sheep requires an investment. Nothing comes for free, and that goes for taking care of sheep as well. A quick Google search tells me that taking care of a flock of 50 sheep will cost 6,250 – 12,500 a year – that works out to 125-250 dollars per sheep, per year. That’s a real investment.
          Rob Fuquay is the pastor of St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Indianapolis, and he has written a book called The God We Can Know: Exploring the “I Am” Sayings of Jesus. In that book he writes about Jesus as the Good Shepherd and Jesus as The Gate. He says, “If it is true that we are not only made BY God, but OUT of God, then God has invested godly qualities in all of us. Jesus comes to protect that investment.” (3)
          In the 1980’s movie Trading Places, Dan Akroyd plays a snobbish investor who gets scammed by his bosses. They make a bet that their protégé’ couldn’t survive if they took away everything he had – kind of the same thing that happened to Job. They cancel his credit cards, take his identity, remove him from his prestigious club, pay his butler to pretend not to recognize him and have him literally thrown out onto the street.
          But then he meets Jamie Lee Curtiss in prison. She believes in who he is, and Akroyd convinces her to invest her life savings with him so he can make her a fortune in the stock market.
          There is one particular scene where Curtis is nursing Akroyd back to health while he is sick. He asks her – “Why are doing this, why are you helping me?” And she says – “I’m protecting my investment.”
          That’s what Jesus does – Jesus comes to protect God’s investment in us. God believes in who we really are, God believes in our true identity, and Jesus comes to protect that investment.
          God says, “I gave you a sense of humor; you can make people smile. I have put something of myself in you. I believe in you.”
          God says, “I gave you the ability to inspire people. You have a way of bringing out the best in people. I believe in you.”
          God says, “I gave you sensitivity to others. I gave you my compassion. I believe in you.”
          God says, “I gave you wit and intellect. I gave you the ability to lead others in my name. People depend on you. I believe in you.” (4)
          That is the investment that God makes in each of us – and Jesus comes to protect that investment.
          When Jesus says, “I am the gate,” he is pointing out that he is the way into God’s presence. His is the voice we can trust, for He is the way into God’s assurance of love, forgiveness and grace. And Jesus is reminding us that He comes as the Good Shepherd to protect the investment that God has made in each one of us.
          May God be praised. Amen.

 

 

 

1. Jieun Shin, “AI and Misinformation,” College of Journalism and Communications, University of Florida, 2024 Dean’s Report, homileticsonline.com.

2. Rob Fuquay, The God We Can Know: Exploring the “I AM Sayings of Jesus, Upper Room Books, Nashville, 2014, p 62.

3. Ibid… p 60.

4. Ibid… p 60-61.

04-19-2026 The First Pilgrim Walk

Thomas J Parlette
“The First Pilgrim Walk”
Luke 24: 13-35
4/19/26
          On most days, weather permitting, I try to take a walk around the block in our neighborhood. On days that are too cold or too wet, I usually walk around the church building. A good walk clears your head – it’s good for your heart and your soul.
          A while back I heard about another interesting walk you can take in England – the coast to coast walk. The walk starts in St. Bee’s England on the Irish Sea, where you are encouraged to pick up a stone from the rocky beach, and continues for 190 miles across northern England to Robin Hood’s Bay on the North Sea, passing through the Lake District, Yorkshire Dales, and North York Moors National Park. At the conclusion, you are then encouraged to toss your stone into Robin’s Hood Bay. The whole trip usually takes about two weeks – but a lot of people break up into a couple of shorter walks. Juliet is determined to go, but I’m still kind of on the fence about it.
          If you are fan of the PBS show, “All Creatures Great and Small”, there is a special walk that is much shorter than focuses on the Yorkshire Dales, where the show takes place. That one sounds a bit more my speed.
          Both of these walks are a bit much for your average tourist, they’re more for the traveler, or even the pilgrims among us. Let me make that distinction a bit clearer.
          I think, broadly speaking, there are three kinds of people who travel. First, there are the tourists. These are the people who are traveling for fun, for pleasure. They want to see the well-known sights. They have their cameras and phones at the ready and take lots of pictures to show “Look where I am.” Tourists are oft-maligned – but I’ve been one on most of the trips I’ve taken, and I don’t see anything wrong with being tourist.
          Then, there are the travelers. These are the people who are less interested in seeing the high points, the well-known sights, and more interested in experiencing the everyday culture of the people who actually live in a different country. They tend to enjoy the off-the-beaten trail activities more than the stuff everybody does. These usually include people who’ve already been to a certain location before, and they’re looking for something different. I’ve been a traveler a couple of times too – and there’s nothing wrong about being one of those either.
          Then there are the pilgrims. Pilgrims are people who journey to sacred places for religious reasons. They are seekers. They aren’t necessarily interested in seeing the sights and taking pictures. They aren’t necessarily looking to experience another culture. No, a pilgrim is focused on their internal journey. They are looking for meaning. They are searching for spiritual fulfillment.
          The 2010 film, “The Way” is a movie about a pilgrimage. It features Martin Sheen as a grieving father named Tom, who travels to Spain after the death of his son Daniel. Daniel was killed in a storm while walking the famous Camino de Santiago – the “Way of St. James”- a 500- mile pilgrimage ending at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain, where the remains of the apostle St. James are believed to be buried.
          At first, Tom is just there to collect his son’s remains, but instead, he decides to finish the Camino himself. Along the way, he discovers not only the land and the people and their culture, but he comes to a deeper understanding of grief, community and faith. (1)
          Pilgrims have always known that the sights along the way are not as important as the journey itself. The journey becomes the teacher. These sort of walks, these pilgrimages have survived because walking changes us. Nothing clears your mind like walking. And nothing leads you to deep questions better than a pilgrimage.
          This morning we meet a couple of travelers on the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus, Cleopas, and another unnamed disciple, perhaps Cleopas’ wife, but as many scholars point out, Luke might have left the disciple unnamed as a way for us to step into the story. I would describe them as the first Christian pilgrims – although they don’t know it yet. As they walk their rather short pilgrimage, they are talking, and questioning and trying to make sense about what has just happened in Jerusalem.
          As Luke tells the story, this short 7 mile walk to Emmaus happens during the afternoon of Easter. Cleopas and his companion have heard what happened, how the tomb was found empty, but they aren’t celebrating. They are still in a state of disbelief and disappointment. As they were walking and talking, a mysterious man shows up, they don’t recognize him just yet, and asked what they are talking about. They are astounded that he hasn’t heard about what has taken place in the Holy city. So they relay the story of what happened to Jesus. You can feel their disappointment when they say, with a deep sigh, “We had hoped he was the one to redeem Israel, but I guess not.”
          Although, they say, we were astounded that some women of our group went to the tomb and found it empty. We checked it ourselves, and we did not see him. Maybe they gave a shrug of their shoulders that said, “we have no idea what happened or what this means.”
          So there they are, on a pilgrimage, looking for meaning.
          Then Jesus started with Moses and went through all the prophets, interpreting for them what all these things meant.
          When they came to Emmaus, the mysterious man kept walking, but the Cleopas and his companion asked him to stay with them for the night. When they sat down at the table together, Jesus blessed the bread, broke and gave it them – and then they recognized him.
          It’s a shame that the lectionary stops there, because the story goes on. If we were to read another 12 verses, we would hear Luke’s version of Jesus appearing to the disciples and passing them the peace. There is no Thomas in Luke’s version – instead, all the disciples are frightened at Jesus’ appearance, and they all doubt that its really him. They think they are seeing a ghost. After he showed them his hands and feet, the scripture tells us that the disciples “While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering.” So Jesus asked for a piece of broiled fish and ate it in their presence, to prove he was real and not a ghost.
          It’s an interesting turn of phrase that Luke uses here – “In their joy, they were disbelieving and still wondering.” These first Christian pilgrims were filled with joy that this was indeed Jesus standing among them – but even in their joy, they still weren’t sure. They still weren’t ready to believe.
          I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “Too good to be true.” (2) It’s easy to be lulled into the attitude that something bad is lurking just around the corner – even when something good happens, when something amazing happens, it’s tempting to believe, this is too good to be true. There has to be catch. That’s what Thomas felt last week, and this week, as Luke tells the story, the rest of the disciples felt the same way. This is too good to be true.
          But that’s the way God operates. God is always doing something surprising, something that seems just too good to be true. Think about the stories you so well.
        Abraham and Sarah, old as dust, have a baby that they name Isaac, meaning laughter – a surprise too good to be true.
-         Moses, a stutterer and murderer, becomes the means of Israel’s liberation – a surprise too good to be true.
-         David, the least likely of Jesse’s son, a clear after-thought, becomes Israel’s greatest King,

-         The disciples themselves, who never seem to understand what Jesus is talking about, become the means by which the gospel is carried into the world – all, surprises too good to be true.
-         And now, the biggest surprise of all – resurrection. Too good to be true.
As the well-known seminary professor and preacher John Claypool used to say, “God’s other name is Surprise.” (3)
          At the close of this story, after dinner and the passing of the peace, Jesus once again opened the scriptures for them and revealed what had truly happened over the weekend in Jerusalem. And then Jesus leaves them, and us, with a charge:
“You are witnesses of these things, and I am sending you to proclaim repentance and forgiveness to all.” One final surprise.
          So it does not end in Emmaus. It does not end in Jerusalem. In fact it never really ends. We are the ones who go forth to share the good news of the surprising God, who does things that are too good to be true.
          When I was serving a church out on the East End of Long Island, we used to have fellowship hour after church outside under a big, old tree. One summer day, one of the pillars of the church, a guy who had held every leadership position there was in the Presbyterian Church, whose family had farmed the land for 300 years, brought some fresh honeycombs in his old pick-up truck.
          As we watched the kids sucking on the fresh honey and chasing each other with the sticky leftovers, he sidled up to me and asked, “So, when am I done.”
          “Done? What do you mean.?
          “I mean done with being an elder, done with committees, done hosting fellowship hour after church. When am I done?”
          I thought about it for a minute, and then I said, “Never, you’re never done. We’ve always got something else to do.”
          We watched the kids chase each other for another couple of minutes. Then he smirked a little bit. He shrugged a little bit, as if to say, “Yea, that’s about what I thought.”
          And he went back to his pick-up to break out another box of honeycombs.
          On their pilgrim walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus, those first Christian pilgrims learned that they are never done. They are never done talking about God’s ultimate surprise – the resurrection. They are never done with telling the surprising story that moves us from fear to trust; from doubt to joy; from disbelief to power; from grief to witness.
          And neither are we.
          May God be praised. Amen.

 

 

1. Tanya Agarwal, “The Way: The Movie That Inspired Thousands to Walk the Camino”, followthecamino.com, Feb 11th, 2025, Homileticsonline.

2. Roger Paynter, Feasting On the Gospels, Luke, Vol. 2, Westminster John Knox Press, 2014, p 355.

3. Ibid… p 355.

04-12-2026 Do Not Doubt, but Believe

Thomas J Parlette
“Do Not Doubt, but Believe”
John 20: 19-31
4/12/26
          What a week it had been for the disciples. Everything had happened so fast. One moment the crowd was welcoming Jesus into Jerusalem with shouts of Hosanna, palm branches, and real hero’s welcome. And then, a couple of days later, everything changed. He was arrested, tried, convicted, taken to the cross and crucified.
          The disciples must have been a bit shell-shocked. They had experienced the heights of joy, and then crashed back down to reality with the death of Jesus. It’s no wonder they went into hiding. They were afraid. They thought they might be next. If Jesus could be killed in such a cruel, unfair manner – what about them? It’s no wonder they locked the doors and doubted the news about Jesus’ resurrection.
          The day had started with Mary and her visit to the tomb. She had gone there early in the morning and found it empty. Peter and the other disciples went racing to the garden. They returned with mixed reports. Later, Mary came and told them that she had spoken with Jesus.
          Imagine her excitement as she blurted out the good news to the disciples. We can also imagine the stunned silence that greeted her good news. Her story was pretty hard to believe. Jesus was dead, and now he was alive. When you first hear it, it does sound impossible. In fact, the Bible tells us that their first reaction to Mary’s story was to dismiss it as idle nonsense, the fantasy of an over active imagination.
          Well, that very evening the disciples gathered again, once more behind locked doors. And in their middle of their fear and confusion – there’s Jesus, standing among them. All of a sudden, he’s just there, and he says, “Peace be with you.” His words to his disciples are still his words to us. Just when things seem hopeless – Jesus is there. Just when things seem terrible – Jesus is there. Just when things seem impossible – Jesus is there, offering peace.
          For the disciples, things couldn’t have gotten much worse. By the end of their Easter weekend, their lives were in shambles. Three years before, they had heard Jesus say “Follow me,” and for reasons they still couldn’t fully explain, they did. Following Jesus was going to be their future. When he came into power, they were going to be his closest advisors, his cabinet, his vice presidents. But now, all that was gone. Did they have any future at all? Were they even going to get out of Jerusalem alive. Perhaps the soldiers were on their way to drag them off next. No doubt, their faith was shaken. They had trusted Jesus. They had believed in him. Their whole understanding of God, everything they believed and lived for had died along with him.
          But just when they were at their lowest – there was Jesus, standing in their midst. There to grant them strength and hope. That’s all that mattered.
          At this point of the story, in walks Thomas. Doubting Thomas, as we usually call him. He doesn’t really deserve that nickname. When we think of Thomas, we think of that one stubborn disciple standing there with his arms crossed, refusing to believe what we already know to be true, looking like the original curmudgeon himself – “Get off my lawn with all that raised from the dead nonsense! That just doesn’t happen.”
          But that isn’t really fair to Thomas. We can understand how he felt. In many ways, Thomas stands in for us, giving voice to all of those who have lingering doubts about whether this story is true. You wouldn’t want some evidence of this miraculous resurrection. When Thomas says: “Unless I see for myself, I will not believe. Unless I feel the marks of the nails and touch the in his side with own fingers, I won’t be able to believe.” You can hear his desperation, his hopelessness, can’t you? “Nope, I’m not going to get my hopes again. I’ve been disappointed before – not this time. This time, I want some proof.”
          We’ve all been there. We’ve trusted someone, and they let us down. We love someone, only to lose them. We reach out for reconciliation, only to be rejected. We’ve all been there. We can understand how Thomas feels.
          Adam Hamilton is the Pastor of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas. He is a well-known speaker and author of several books and bible studies on a variety of topics. During this season of Lent, our Wednesday Bible Study Group has been reading and studying his book John: The Gospel of Light and Life.
          During his final lecture included in the video resource, Hamilton says that every Easter, he includes the same story in his sermon – he’s done it since he started the church in 1990. He tells how people often ask him if he really believes this story about Jesus rising from the dead? Do you really believe in the Resurrection?
          And Hamilton always says, “Believe it – I’m counting on it.” (1)
          In other words, he is counting on this story of Jesus defeating the power of death to be true. He points out that this is really the only way that the story of Jesus can end. If he died and remained in the tomb, then the powers of this world would have won – greed, selfishness, hate, fear and ultimately death, would have the last word.
          We don’t just believe that in our heads – we count on it in our souls.
          For the disciples, locked away in that upper room, filled with doubt and fear, things seemed as bad as they could be – they were at rock-bottom.
          And that’s when Jesus shows up – offering hope and peace and assurance. “I am alive! Here, feel the wounds for yourself. I am alive – Do not doubt, but believe – you can count on it.”
          Frederick Buechner is often quoted as saying, “The worst thing isn’t the last thing.” The full quote goes a bit deeper.
          “Resurrection means that the worst thing is never the last thing, It’s the next to last thing. The last thing is the best thing. It’s the power from on high that comes into the world, that wells up from the rock-bottom worst of the world like a hidden spring. The last, best thing is the laughing deep in the hearts of the saints, sometimes in our hearts even. Yes. You are terribly loved and forgiven. Yes. You are healed. All is well.” (2)
          Into this rock-bottom pit of doubt and despair and confusion, Jesus shows up and offers peace. A Peace that only resurrection can bring. A Peace that we count on, in this life and in the life to come as well. A Peace that we remind each other about each week when we gather for worship. When we pass the peace each week, what we are saying to each other is “Stop doubting, and believe. You can count on Jesus’ resurrection.”
          And for that, May God be praised. Amen.

 

 

1. Adam Hamilton, John: The Gospel of Light and Life, Abingdon Press, 2015, DVD lecture #6.

2. Frederick Buechner, Final Beast, www.goodreads.com

04-05-2026 Easter Sunday - Jesus' Obituary

Thomas J Parlette
“Jesus’ Obituary”
John 20: 1-18
4/5/26, Easter

The summons came a little after 3:00 on a Friday afternoon – never a good time to hear from your boss. A boy arrived at my door with note – “Come quick! We need to get an article written before sundown.”
My name is Abner. I’ve been working at the Jerusalem Post-Gazette for a couple of months now. I’m working where everybody starts out – the crime beat, which includes the obituary department. With the Romans in charge of the city, there was always something to write about.
I made my way quickly through the crowded streets, packed with out-of-towners in for the Passover holiday, towards the office of the Post-Gazette. I found my boss, Yosef, writing furiously at his desk.
“Abner – good, I’m glad you’re here. Do you remember that story you wrote about that guy from Nazareth, Jesus.?”
“Sure. He’s the one that rode into the city last week on a donkey, billed as some sort of king. Boy, the Romans weren’t too happy about that.”
“Yes, and neither were the Sanhedrin, not to mention all the business people Jesus threw out of the Temple. They lost a lot of money this week. That man made some dangerous enemies pretty quickly.”
“He sure did. So, what’s happening?”
“Well, Jesus was convicted of blasphemy and sedition this morning. He was crucified at noon – he was dead by 3:00.”
“Uff – I’m sorry to hear that – awful way to go. So, this just happened?”
“Yes, A Roman official with Pontius Pilate’s office just came by and asked that we get an obituary written as soon as possible to confirm that he is indeed dead. They want to quash any hope from his followers that he’s still alive. I want to get this done before the Sabbath starts at sundown.”
“Got it, boss. I’ll do my best.”
Some of my friends had gone up north to Galilee to hear Jesus and they had come back and filled me in about what he was doing. He was actually pretty impressive. They told me how he taught people to turn the other cheek, be generous, even with their enemies (like the Romans) and love God above all else and their neighbors as they much as they loved themselves. They told me about how he healed people and fed large crowds of thousands of people.
So, I thought I had enough to put together a pretty good obituary. With a sundown deadline hanging over my head, this is what I came up with:
“Jesus of Nazareth in Galilee died on Friday, the result of being crucified for blasphemy and sedition. He was believed to be 33 years old.
Jesus was born to Joseph and Mary, also of Nazareth. Joseph was a local carpenter and Mary was a homemaker. When Jesus was still a baby, the family emigrated to Egypt for about 3 years before returning to Nazareth. Not much else is known about Jesus’ early life. He was brought up a religious Jew and worked with his father Joseph in the family carpentry shop. It was said that Joseph and Jesus made the best oxen yokes in the area.
When Jesus was 30 years old, he began his career as an itinerant preacher and teacher. He spent 3 years moving about Galilee speaking to ever-growing crowds, healing people of diseases, sometimes even on the Sabbath, and feeding thousands of people. On more than one occasion it was said that Jesus actually brought people back from the dead.
Last weekend Jesus arrived in Jerusalem to much fanfare, but after causing a disturbance in the Temple court and making claims about tearing down the Temple and rebuilding it, he was arrested and charged with blasphemy and sedition. He was brought before Pontius Pilate, and at the urging of members of the Sanhedrin, he was found guilty and sentenced to crucifixion. His punishment was carried out at noon on Friday at Golgotha, the Place of the Skull. Jesus died at 3:00 pm on that same day.
Jesus of Nazareth was preceded in death by his father Joseph. He is survived by his mother, Mary, four brothers, James, Joseph, Simon and Jude, and two unnamed sisters as well as many friends and followers that claimed he was the Messiah.”
Not bad, I thought - and just under the deadline, too. I ran Jesus’ obituary over to the Yosef and he got it distributed around town just before sundown.
On Sunday afternoon, the messenger boy was back at my door with a note from my boss, Yosef.  “Come quick! We have to issue a retraction!”
What, I thought. What did I get wrong, why a retraction?
I rushed over to see Yosef.
“I’m sorry to do to this to you Abner, but we need to issue a retraction. That obituary you wrote for Jesus of Nazareth – it seems it may have been a bit, premature.”
“What are you talking about?”
A little while ago, a woman named Mary from Magadala, a follower of Jesus stopped by the office and told me that Jesus was alive, she had seen him, and so did his closest disciples. So she wanted us to print a retraction about his death announcement.”
“But how can that be, there were witnesses that saw him die.”
“I know, I know – I can’t explain it. But apparently, he’s alive. Get on that retraction would you.”
“Sure thing – I’ll have it ready within the hour.”
I could have had it done in about ten minutes or less to be honest.
“The Post-Gazette regrets that the publication of the obituary for Jesus of Nazareth was in error. We have received reports this afternoon that Jesus is indeed alive. We apologize for any confusion we might have caused.”
And I thought that was that. But on Monday morning, I was in the office reviewing the crime logs, when a woman came into the office. She looked exhausted, but at the same time exhilarated. She looked around the room and our eyes met. She smiled and came over to my desk.
“Are you Abner?
“Yes Ma’am, I am.”
“I just wanted to come by and thank you for publishing that retraction in your paper. I’m Mary from Magdala.”
“It’s nice to meet you Mary from Magdala – and thank you for letting us know our error so quickly – we always like get things right.”
“Thank you – it was so important to us to get the word out that Jesus is alive, he was resurrected from the dead, and you helped a great deal.”
“Glad to be of service.”
She turned to go, when she reached the door, she turned back and asked, “Do you know what your name means?”
Weird question, I thought, but I happened to have an answer.
“Yes, as a matter of fact – my mother told me Abner means “Father of Light.” She always said she named me that because I had a bright future.”
“That’s right. It can also mean “My father is a lamp.” I saw your name as the writer of the obituary and the retraction, and I thought – How appropriate. Our Teacher, Jesus, used to refer to himself as the “Light of the World” quite often. He even told us, his followers, that we were like lamps, “light shining in a dark world.” I think you have lived up to your name in these past couple of days, Abner. You have done your part to help us shine the light of Jesus in our dark world. I know you’re not a follower of Jesus, but I hope you might consider it. Here is where we have been meeting if you want to join us sometime.” And she handed me a small scrap of paper with an address scribbled on it. And then she was out the door and swallowed up in the crowded streets, that were buzzing about Jesus’ victory over death.
I confess, I’ve never been much of a religious sort. But there was something about this guy Jesus. I stuck the scrap of paper in my pocket, and thought – something to consider, yes, something to consider.
May God be praised. Amen.


03-29-2026 Thrown Into an Uproar

Thomas J Parlette
“Thrown into an Uproar”
Matthew 21: 1-11
3/29/26, Palm Sunday
On April 4th, 1865, the Civil War was ending, and news of the fall of Richmond was spreading through Washington DC. Public buildings throughout the city were illuminated in celebration.
“It was indeed glorious,” said Benjamin Brown French, the commissioner of public buildings. “All Washington was in the streets.” French went to his Bible and turned to Psalm 118. He had the 23rd verse of that Psalm printed on a cloth, in enormous letters, and raised it on the Capitol building: “This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.”
Celebrations continued through April 9th, Palm Sunday that year, when Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Va. In Washington, guns were fired in salute, to commemorate that glorious day. The euphoria of the Union victory was felt throughout Holy Week in 1865, with crowds taking to the streets in celebration.
But the nation was thrown into an uproar when tragedy struck on April 14th, Good Friday, when President Lincoln was shot while attending a play at Ford’s Theater. The president was taken to a house across the street, where he lay dying. Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts appeared at his bedside and kept vigil through the night. He was one of the few people present when Lincoln died on the morning of April 15th, and later wrote a eulogy for him. (1)
A remarkable turn of events. From triumph to tragedy in the course of a week. From celebration to mourning in just a few days. One day, the citizens of Washington were celebrating in the streets. And a short time later, they were lining up for a massive funeral procession for President Lincoln.
There is an eerie similarity between the events of Holy Week, 1865 and the events around Jerusalem in Jesus’ day.
We know this Palm Sunday text well. We’ve grown up with the parade and the palms and the joyous shouts of “Hosanna.” Yet this is a text that reeks of irony. The very same crowd that enthusiastically welcomed Jesus on Sunday, would be calling for Jesus execution on Friday. As Diane Chen has put it, “the excitement changes from cheers to jeers as the winds of circumstance shift.” (2)
Matthew is keenly interested in showing how Jesus fulfills scripture with everything he does and everything he says. That’s why Matthew includes a rather confusing detail in his story. He notes that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey – as we have come to expect – but also on a colt, the foal of a donkey. So how does Jesus do this exactly? He is some kind of a rodeo cowboy or maybe a circus performer standing astride two animals at once? That doesn’t seem likely or in character for the humble Jesus we have come to know.
No, Matthew deliberately includes that detail so that Jesus fulfills the words of the prophet Zechariah, in Chapter 9, verse 9, when he writes: “Tell the daughter of Zion, look, your King is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
So that’s why Matthew includes that odd detail in the story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem.
It’s also important to note that there are two important characters in this story that we often overlook. First, there is the character called “the crowd.” Matthew refers to the crowd quite often in his gospel, they function like a character. In this story, the crowd refers to the people travelling with Jesus, to his entourage, it refers to all the people, men and women, who have followed him since Galilee up to Jerusalem. Look at the text carefully and you will see that the crowd are the ones who spread their cloaks on the ground and cut branches from the trees. The crowd went ahead of him shouting “Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna!”
The other character at play here is “the city.” All the residents of Jerusalem were in an uproar, they were in turmoil about this man’s arrival. They were already on edge because the High Holy days were coming and the Romans typically would crack down hard to keep people in line with so many visitors filling the city streets. The city, in turmoil, was asking, “Who is this?” In asking that question they were showing their anxiety that the Romans would not take this mock royal procession well, and they would all pay for it. “Who does this guy think he is, does he know what he’s doing, does he know the risk he is taking?”
The crowd offers an answer to the city thrown into turmoil – “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”
The word translated as “uproar, or turmoil, or stirred,” is probably best translated by Eugene Peterson in The Message when he says, “the whole city was shaken.”
The word used here is “seio”, which means “tremble.” You might recognize that it is the root word for our word “seismic,” used to refer to the rumblings of an earthquake. It is fact “seio” is the word used in connection to the earthquakes that occur at Jesus’ final breath on the cross. The same word appears at the empty tomb when there is a violent earthquake and an angel of the Lord appears and sits on the rock that has been rolled out of the way. (3)
That’s the kind of shaking and trembling and turmoil going on in Jerusalem when Jesus enters the city. The Lord shows up, and it is an earth-shaking event, throwing the whole city into an uproar.
So what’s this uproar all about? 
Well, first of all there was the risk that Jesus posed for the whole city. The wrath of Rome might come down upon them if this royal parade of his were seen as some kind of a threat or an insult to foreign occupants of the city.
But there was also the fact that Jesus was presenting himself as a very different kind of King. He was deliberately choosing to fulfill Zechariah’s prophecy about a humble king entering the city, not the conquering kind of ruler that would have arrived on an impressive warhorse instead of a lowly donkey. This was a king who was not focused on power and military might. This was a king that came with a sense of humility. A king who would show later in the week, that he had come as a servant and not a ruler.
Hymnwriter Delores Dufner has written a hymn that is widely sung on Reign of Christ Sunday, but it also fits very well as a Palm Sunday hymn as well.
“O Christ, what can it mean for us to claim you as our king?
What royal face have you revealed whose praise the church would sing?
Aspiring not to glory’s height, to power, wealth and fame,
You walked a diff’rent, lowly way, another’s will your aim.” (4)
On September 26th – 27th, 2015, Pope Francis made a stop in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to headline the World Meeting of Families. That event is remembered for several notable highlights:
1. The Pope celebrated Mass on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
2. He spoke on religious freedom in front of Independence Hall, using a lectern that had once been used by Abraham Lincoln.
3. And he visited prisoners at the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility, where he sat in a chair made by inmates.
But the image that people remember the most was the car the Pope used. Much to the delight and curiosity of the public, the Pope chose to ride in a tiny Fiat for a pope-mobile, rather than the fancy limousine, decked out with every imaginable security feature, that had been provided for him.
Like Jesus on his borrowed colt, the Pope demonstrated that humility and simplicity best suited his leadership style and, more profoundly, the mission of his calling. Riding in his Fiat, he created his sense of uproar and turmoil as he frequently hopped out of the car without any advance warning or planning, to talk to people and bless children. (5)
He embodied the same message that Jesus brought to Jerusalem at this beginning of Holy Week. This week is not about power and might. It’s about service and sacrifice. That’s what we will see together as we journey toward the cross this week.
May God be praised. Amen.

1. “The Death of Abraham Lincoln”, United States Senate Website, www.senate.gov. Retrieved from Homileticsonline, 3/5/26.

2. Diane Chen, Connections, Yr. A, Vol. 2, Westminster John Knox Press, 2019, p115.

3. Audrey West, Feasting on the Word, Yr. A, Vol. 2, 2010, p. 157.

4. John Rollefson, Feasting on the Word, Yr. A, Vol. 2, 2010, p. 157.

5. Diane Chen… p. 114.


03-22-2026 Healing a Blind Man

Thomas J Parlette
“Healing a Blind Man
John 9: 1-41
3/15/26
Ann Landers once told a story about a woman who was just getting out of the shower when her doorbell rang. As she put on her robe and went downstairs, she called out,
“Who is it?”
“It’s the blind man.”
Oh, well, she figured she was safe, so she didn’t bother to tie up her robe and she opened the door. The man standing there looked at her in shock and said, “Where do you want me to hang these blinds you ordered, ma’am?” (1)
Turned out, the guy’s eyesight was fine
That’s not the case for the man in our passage for today. The passage says quite explicitly that he was born blind – been blind his whole life. But that doesn’t matter to Jesus – he comes to bring sight to those who live in darkness.
John 9 is part of what scholars refer to as the “Book of Signs.” This term refers to the first 12 chapters of John’s gospel, which include seven miracle stories, or signs, as John calls them. These stories include how Jesus turned water into wine at the wedding in Cana, the time he healed an official’s son, the healing of the paralytic at Bethesda, the feeding of the 5,000, the time he walked on the water, the raising of Lazarus and this one, the healing of a man born blind.
Several things make this healing story unique. In most of the healing stories we read about in the other Gospels, the people who want to be healed make that desire known – they call out to Jesus, or their friends bring them to Jesus, or a family member seeks Jesus out and begs for his help. This story is unique because this man born blind never asks to be healed. In fact, we’re never told that Jesus asked his permission to help him either – apparently Jesus just went ahead and did it.
The manner that this healing takes place is unique as well. Usually it’s enough for Jesus to say, “You are healed,” and that’s the end of it. But here, after saying that he is the light of the world, Jesus spits in the dirt, makes some mud and spreads it on the man’s eyes. Then Jesus tells the man to go wash in the Pool of Shiloam – and disappears from the story.
Another unique feature of this story is the question that the disciples ask Jesus. They ask if the man was born blind because he sinned or because his parents sinned. This was a common belief in the ancient world. If you were born with some affliction of condition, there had to be a reason. Most people assumed that sin was the reason. If this man was born blind, well, he couldn’t have done anything wrong yet, so it had to be because his parents had sinned, hence God’s punishment was laid upon this blind man.
But Jesus takes a surprising stance. He says, sin is not the issue here, nobody is being punished, nobody has done anything wrong – this man was born blind so that God’s work might be revealed in him.”
Interesting, and quite the opposite of what people expected to hear. What Jesus was saying is that all the challenges, difficulties and trials we face in life are simply opportunities for the power and grace of God to be revealed.
Helen Keller once said, “I thank God for my handicaps. For through them I have found myself, my work, and my God.”(2) The challenges we face, as individuals and as a church, are simply opportunities for the power and grace of God to be revealed.
Yet another interesting part of this story is that after the man is healed and receives his sight, there is nothing in the way of celebration. No one appears to be happy for the guy, we’re not told anybody emerges from the crowd to give him a hug and say “Congratulations, we’re so happy for you!” There’s none of that. In fact, some of his friends and neighbors don’t even seem to recognize him now that he can see. The question that dominates this part of the story is “How?” That question comes up 6 times. How did this happen? How can this be? The people of the village take the man to see the Pharisees and an investigation ensues.
The Pharisees also ask multiple times how this happened, what did Jesus do? They also have a hard time getting past the fact that Jesus did this on the Sabbath – which, of course, you weren’t supposed to do because it might constitute work. That happens to all of us sometimes, that in spite of what appears to be reality, in this case that obviously Jesus broke the Sabbath laws, there is always something more to the story.
Preacher Ozzie Smith Jr. remembers a time when his father-in-law helped him see this clearly. He says, “He showed me a piece of white paper, and he took a pen and drew a small dot on that paper. He handed it to me and asked, “What do you see?” I said – “I see a dot.” And he said, “Boy, you missed the whole sheet of paper, you missed the possibilities that exist for a clean, blank page. You could write a story on that piece of paper, you can draw a picture, compose a song. But you focused on that tiny dot and missed the possibilities.” (3)
We all do that sometimes, just like the Pharisees did. We focus on the tiny dots, the mistakes, the errors, the insurmountable problems at hand or whatever bad is going on that grabs our attention. But there’s always more than the tiny dots of life – they will always show up, but there’s always something more. Remember why this man was born blind, according to Jesus – to give God’s power and grace a chance to be revealed. And that’s what Jesus does here – he reveals that with God there is always more than we expect.
Think about how this story progresses. Jesus heals this man, without being asked to do it, and no one in this man’s community seems to be all that happy about it. His friends and neighbors let him down. His church let him down, even his mother and father let him down.
This week our Bible study group took a close look at this story. We talked a little bit about Vincent Van Gogh’s painting The Starry Night. I’m sure you’ve seen it – it’s probably one of the most recognizable paintings in the world. I used to have a print of that painting hanging on my wall – I looked at it everyday – and our study guide author Adam Hamilton brought out something I had never noticed before.
Usually, when we look at that painting, our eyes are drawn upwards, to the night sky, the stars and the swirling motions of the clouds. Few of us look down to the village below. We can see the lights on in many of the houses there, but there is a church, with a tall spire in the village, and it is noticeably dark. Many art scholars consider this deliberate.
Vincent Van Gogh was a deeply religious man. For a time, he considered going into the ministry. He even served as an assistant minister in a local church – but he was a bit over-zealous in his evangelism, and he rubbed some people the wrong way with his intense personality. Eventually, the church leadership suggested that he was not suited to the ministry and should pursue other interests. This left a mark on Van Gogh. He would forever feel that the church had let him down. Art scholars think that Van Gogh may have painted the church in The Starry Night as a dark, cold place, because that’s how he felt about organized religion. (4)  As much as I have looked at that painting over my life, I have never noticed that before.
Perhaps this man born blind felt that way about the religious community of his day. Perhaps he felt abandoned and let down. After all, instead of rejoicing with him over this miracle, they basically put him on trial, and threw him out of the town.
Well, Jesus heard about what happened to the man he had healed, and he returns to offer his explanation. He lets the man know his true identity as the Son of Man, and the healed man affirms his faith in Jesus.
Then Jesus says he has come so that the blind may see, and those who see may become blind. It’s a classic Jesus reversal statement, remarkably close to his more well- known statement “The first will be last and the last will be first.”
The Pharisees overhear this and quickly ask, “Surely we are not blind are we?” Perhaps they are shocked by Jesus reversal statement, or perhaps they are looking for Jesus to walk back his comments – “Oh no, I didn’t mean you guys, you’re fine, it those other guys that are blind.”
But Jesus does do that. No, he actually pushes it a little farther. “If you were actually blind, you would have no sin. But you say “We see, we understand, we know God’s ways” – but you don’t. So, your sin remains.” In other words, they are still focused on the tiny dot and not the whole sheet of paper, so they remain blind to God’s power and grace at work in this blind man’s life.
Everyone in this story lets the man born blind down, but not Jesus. Jesus is there at the beginning and the end, revealing God’s power and grace. It’s been a slow progression, but in the end, the man born blind comes to faith, and that’s what brings him sight, that’s what brings him light. In the end, Jesus words “I am the light of the world” are fulfilled in this miraculous sign of sight restored.
May God be praised. Amen.





  1. Ann Landers, “The Washington Post,” October 13th, 1998, Homileticsonline.com.

  2. Michael L. Lindvall, Connections, Year A, Vol. 2, Westminster John Knox Press, p 91.

  3. Ozzie E. Smith, “Come and Get It,” Day1.org, January 9th, 2022, Homileticsonline.com.

Adam Hamilton, John: The Gospel of Light and Life, Abingdon Press, 2015, p 32.

03-08-2026 The Woman at the Well

Thomas J Parlette
“The Woman at the Well”
John 4: 5- 42
3/8/26
          Perhaps you are familiar with the short poem by Emily Dickinson, “I’m Nobody.”
          “I’m nobody! Who are you?
          Are you nobody, too?
          Then there’s a pair of us – don’t tell
          They’d banish us, you know.”
          “How dreary to be somebody!
          How public, like a frog
          To tell your name the livelong day
          To an admiring bog! (1)
          Written around 1861, “I’m Nobody” wasn’t published until 1891. Emily Dickinson seems to relish in being a nobody. In fact, she seems to dread the idea of being somebody, to be forced to live a public life. She has no desire to live in that bog.
          I don’t know if that was true for this woman at the well we meet today. But I do know, she would have been considered a nobody as well.
          In John’s Gospel we have just heard the story of a prominent “somebody” – Nicodemus. He is the polar opposite of this nobody from Samaria.
          To start with, Nicodemus has a name – the woman at the well does not. Nicodemus is a man, an educated man, a teacher of Israel. While we have no indication that the Samaritan woman is educated at all beyond household work skills. Nicodemus is a Jew – the woman at the well is a Samaritan. He is a respected moral leader – she has a questionable past. Nicodemus meets Jesus undercover of the night, at midnight, to be precise - while the woman at the well meets Jesus at high noon, in the middle of the day. Nicodemus has a very short encounter with Jesus, while the woman at the well has what seems like a debate. They could not be more different. Perhaps we remember Nicodemus’ story because Jesus’ most famous saying comes out of that conversation – John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” Verse 17 is just as important – “God did not send the son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
          So after that encounter, Jesus left Judea and started back to Galilee. But in the verse immediately preceding our passage for today, we hear that Jesus “HAD to go through Samaria.” He had too. Why?
          No self-respecting Jew would be caught dead in Samaria, they were arch enemies, under no circumstances did you go through Samaria – it wasn’t wise, it wasn’t safe. Jews would travel miles out of the way to avoid going through Samaria – kind of like many of us who have to travel east will do anything we can to avoid driving through Chicago.
          So, why did Jesus HAVE to go through Samaria? Was there traffic, was there road construction? No, as always in John, there is a theological reason why Jesus had to do this. To demonstrate the truth of what he had just said to Nicodemus – that the Son had come into the world to save the world, meaning everyone in the world, he had to go to the place where the unsaveable, the unloved, the nobodies lived. And that was Samaria. So Jesus takes a detour through Samaria to demonstrate that he had come to save ALL people – even the hated Samaritans.
          Back in 1953, former President Harry S. Truman was taking a car trip with his wife, Bess, from Independence Missouri to Washington DC and on to New York City. At that time, the secret service only protected the current President, so it was only Harry and Bess.
          They stopped along the way to have some lunch, and a local Democratic Party leader stopped by their table and asked the ex-President if he would be willing to visit his elderly, bed-ridden mother. She had just broken her hip and she had been a life-long republican for all of her 92 years. Truman said sure, and he and Bess detoured two miles out of town to see her.
          Truman said, “We had a nice chat. That little detour may not sound like much, but it was the high point of the whole trip.
          On that trip, he would have lunch with 44 senators at the Capitol, a lunch in New York with the editor of Life magazine, and visit the United Nations. But the high point, he said, was that visit with a bed-ridden 92 - year old lady. (2)
          Sometimes the best things happen on detours.
          That was certainly true for Jesus’ detour through Samaria.
          In this encounter, Jesus revealed two important things about himself.
          First – He is “living water.” He is the water that brings new life. I like the way Eugene Peterson puts it in The Message: “The water I give will be an artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life.”
          The story has been passed down about a slave who tries to escape Missouri, a slave state, to reach the freedom of Illinois, a free state. Late in the day he arrives at the edge of the Mississippi river – the boundary between the two states. He is unsure of the water that lies before him, so he decides to sleep by the river on a narrow neck of land, still in Missouri, that juts out into the river and undertake the crossing in the morning.
          While he sleeps, a storm whips up in the night and the river cuts a new channel, right through the neck of land on which he lay sleeping.
          When the slave awoke the next morning, he found himself not in Missouri, but on the other side of the river, in the free state of Illinois. The rushing water had freed him! (3)
          Such is the case for this woman at the well – the water Jesus brings frees her and offers new life – an artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life.
          Just as Jesus brings new life as the living water that refreshes forever, Jesus also reveals that as the Messiah, he crosses all boundaries that seem to divide us – all boundaries that we may erect or sometimes society does that for us. Jesus crosses them all.
          Michael Lindvall writes about the time he met an archbishop named Father Chacour, a multi-cultural man who ran a school and college in Israel where Christian, Jewish and Muslim students are invited to study side by side.
          One evening, says Lindvall, “we were walking and talking on his rooftop overlooking the hills of Galilee, the very hills Jesus had once walked. He told us that when people in that part of the world first meet, they often ask each other a routine question, “What were you born?”
          It’s a big question, and you are expected to answer, ‘I was born a Christian”, or “I was born a Shia… or an Israeli… or a Lebanese.”
          Chacour told us that when people ask him this question he always answers the same way. He always says, “I was born a baby.” He said it that night on the rooftop – “I was born… a baby.” He paused a moment and caught our eyes… the he laughed, and laughed and laughed until the tears came.
          His point was obvious – there is no “us” and “them” in the love of God. We are all born children of God. (4)
         It’s the embodiment of what Paul talks about in Galatians, the words we say during our baptisms – “there is neither Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free – we are all one in union with Christ Jesus.”
          The Messiah, the Son of God, comes to us all – not to condemn, criticize and vilify – but to save, redeem and reconcile. For we are all born a baby – the child of God.
          Jesus reveals two very important things to this un-named woman at the well in Samaria. First – he is the source of living water, a water that frees us and offers us eternal life. And second – the love of God knows no boundaries, we are all children of God, worthy of redemption, forgiveness and grace.
 

          And that, my friends, is Good News indeed.

          May God be praised. Amen.

 

 

 

 

1. Emily Dickinson, “I’m Nobody” retrieved online 2/26/26

2. Homileticsonline, retrieved 2/26/26

3. Ibid…

4. Michael L. Lindvall, Connections, Year A, Volume 2, Westminster John Knox Press, 2019, p75-76.

03-01-2026 Our Keeper

Thomas J Parlette
“Our Keeper”
Psalm 121
3/1/26
          I graduated from Eastern Illinois University in 1986. I majored in Psychology – but I started college as a political science major. I thought I might go to law school after college, but then I took a class where one of the assignments was to go to the library and actually read some laws and write briefs about them. Well, that was enough for me. I figured out pretty quickly that the law was not my calling. I went right over to the Administration building and switched my major to Psychology.
          But I had already taken some courses that counted toward a political science degree, and I was still interested in the topic, especially speech writing and political ads – so I made that my minor instead.
         I remember in one of the classes I took, we watched various political ads – the ones that were effective and the ones that didn’t work so well. I remember one in particular, and I bet you do too. It was one of the most effective politics ads ever produced.
          It was a notorious TV spot called “Daisy” that ran in 1964 during the race between President Lyndon B Johnson and Barry Goldwater. Johnson and assumed the Presidency after John F Kennedy’s assassination, and this was his re-election campaign. Goldwater was a staunch conservative who favored a tough, militaristic approach to the Soviet Union – the nation that represented the “evil empire” for many Americans in those cold war days.
          Just one minute in length, “Daisy” depicted an innocent school girl slowly plucking petals from a daisy. She counts them off, 1-10 as they fall to the ground. When she removes the last petal, a voiceover begins a rocket countdown, from 10 down to 0. The camera slowly zooms in on the girl’s eye, until all is darkness. As the announcer reaches “zero”, a sinister glowing mushroom cloud appears with the sound of a massive explosion.
          As the cloud grows, the sound of LBJ’s distinctive Texas drawl is heard – “These are the stakes, in which all of God’s children can live, or go into darkness. We must either love each other, or we must die.”
          Then another voice is heard – “Vote for President Johnson on Nov. 3rd. The stakes are too high for you to stay home.”
          That’s it. The “Daisy” commercial never mentioned Goldwater by name, we never see LBJ’s face. But the message was unmistakeable:
“America, President Johnson is your keeper. A vote for Goldwater could be a vote for nuclear war.” And it worked. President Johnson was re-elected in 1964 – some experts say “Daisy” swung the election. (1)
          Our reading from the Psalms this morning is Psalm 121 – a popular pick for funeral services. This psalm speaks of God as our keeper, as our protector. This short Psalm uses some form of the word to keep six times in just eight verses. Different translations use slightly different words. For instance, the New Jerusalem Bible uses “guarding” and describes God as our “guardian”- as does the Message. The New International Version uses the language of “watching over” as well as “keeping.” The King James Version uses the words “keep” and also “preserve.” (2) This Psalm celebrates the Lord as our Keeper, but also our Guadian and Protector, the One who watches over us, shields us, shelters us and preserves us.
          Psalm 121 is part of a group of Psalms that scholars refer to as “Songs of Ascent,” or “Pilgrim Songs”, as Eugene Peterson calls them in The Message. Psalm 120 – 134 all share this designation.
          These Psalms were songs that pilgrims to Jerusalem would sing or chant while they walked up to the Holy City. Incidentally, you always walk “Up” to Jerusalem because the Holy City sits on a hill. Likewise, when you leave the city, you come down from Jerusalem.
          Psalm 121 may have been a call and response song – much like we do our Call to Worship each week. Or, some scholars have suggested that it may have been chanted as the people walked, led by a cantor. Notice that the first few verses are arranged much like a catechism, in a question and answer format:
-         The cantor begins, “Where does my help come from?”
-         The people respond – “My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”
-         “He who keeps you will not slumber…”
-         “He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.”
-         Then perhaps the Cantor finishes up from there…
-         “The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon at night.” You get the idea.
The central question of Psalm 121 is “Where does my help come from?” It’s a question we still ask today. We ask it as a country. We ask it as a community. We ask it as a church.
We have so many challenges. We have so many problems. Things look so hopeless. Where is our help coming from?
The central response to this question is – The Lord. Our help comes from the Lord.
It’s tempting to turn towards other solutions – solutions we feel more comfortable with, methods and strategies that we know from other areas of our lives.
But ultimately, our answers as a faith community lie elsewhere. We turn our eyes to the Lord – that’s where our help comes from.
Richard Rohr has written that “Those who demand certitude out of life will insist on it even if it doesn’t fit the facts. Logic has nothing to do with it. “Don’t bother me with the truth – I’ve already come to my conclusion!” If you need certitude, you will surround yourself with conclusions.”
“The very mind-set of faith stands in stark contrast to this mind-set… If you think you have a right to certitude, then show me where the gospel ever promised or offered you that. If God wanted us to have evidence, rational proof, perfect clarity, hard data and statistics – the incarnation of Jesus would have been delayed till the invention of audio recorders and video cameras.”
“Rational certitude is exactly what the Scriptures do not offer us. They offer us something better and an entirely different way of knowing: an intimate relationship, a dark journey, a path where we must discover for ourselves that grace, love, mercy and forgiveness are absolutely necessary for survival in an uncertain world. You only need enough clarity and ground to know how to live without certitude! Yes, we really are saved by faith! People who live this way never stop growing, are not easily defeated, and frankly, are more fun to live with.” (3)
Saved by faith – we Presbyterians know that term well. It means that we walk thew sometimes dark paths we face, not always knowing exactly what lies ahead – but always confident that the Lord is our keeper. The Lord is our shield, our guardian and our protector.
There is a Kenyan scholar named Loreen Maseno-Ouma who can best be described as a “theological anthropologist.” In her 2014 study called “How Abanyole African Widows Understand Christ,” she examines the lived reality of present-day widows in East African society, and how this shapes their understanding of Jesus as their savior.
Womanhood in Abanyole culture means that you live under the protection of a male guardian. Without that, you are viewed as less-than, and are open to ridicule, mistreatment and abuse. A woman without a guardian, or a keeper, very vulnerable.
Maseno-Ouma describes how Jesus becomes a saving reality for these women. Jesus becomes a kind of omnipresent custodian for them, the loving male who will claim them and never abandon them. Many widows report taking great comfort is knowing that Jesus is with them.
Maseno-Ouma summarizes the experience of Jesus in these widows lives with two interesting examples. The first is that in the lives of these widows, Jesus is present to them as breath itself. She writes, “Jesus is so close to them, by them, with them, energizing them, breathing in them…”
The second example is Jesus as skin. The widows felt that their husband’s death left them exposed and uncovered, with nothing to defend them. They see Jesus like skin – covering them, protecting them, shielding them from what the world would throw their way – literally acting as their keeper. (4)
So let us come to the table this morning remembering that our help comes from the Lord. The Lord is our keeper. The Lord will keep our life. The Lord will keep our going out and our coming in from this time forth and forevermore.
And for that, may God be praised. Amen.

 

1.    “Daisy” on YouTube.

2.    James H. Evans Jr. “Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 2, Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, p 56.

3.    Richard Rohr, “Welcome darkness and mystery,” daily meditation for July 19th, 2017. Cac.org.

4.    Michael Fitzpatrick, “Theology by Widows,” Journey with Jesus for August 14th, 2022.

02-22-2026 Tricky Devil

Thomas J Parlette
“Tricky Devil”
Matthew 4: 1-11
2/22/26, 1st Lent
 

          Do you remember the first time your parents ever left you alone in the house?
          It’s a bit thrilling at first. You have the whole house to yourself. You can do anything you want. At first we’re all act a little bit like Kevin from Home Alone. You can watch the scary movies our parents wouldn’t let us watch and order a large cheese pizza that we didn’t need to share with anyone.
          But then, being alone can turn a little scary – especially when it gets dark outside. It’s amazing how many noises a house makes when you’re all alone – noises that you never seem to hear in the daylight. Every bump, every squeak, every groan seems terrifying when you’re all alone.
          That may be why the reality TV show Alone on The History Channel is so popular. For 11 seasons now, participants have been challenged to survive all alone in remote wilderness locations, with limited gear and no support – just a camera to document their struggles. The last one to give up their solitary adventure and “tap out”, as they say, wins up to a million dollars in the most recent seasons. So far, the record for being alone in the wilderness in a single season stands at 100 days.
          Even though it can be scary and intimidating to be alone – there is value in being by yourself. Some of the wisest, most spiritual people knew the truth of this. Anthony the Great for instance was one of the first of the Desert Fathers, early Christian mystics who sought a deeper connection to God by living a solitary lifestyle in the wilderness, to seek out alone time. (1) Being alone helps to open yourself to prayer, confront hard truths and the temptations of life and seek out God’s presence in the silence. In the rush of the relentless pace of modern life, there is more truth to the value of aloneness than ever before.
          A few years ago, the actor Ewan McGregor – best known as the young Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars movies – made a film called Last Days in the Desert, in which he played both Jesus and the Devil. To prepare for the role McGregor spent some serious time alone in the desert. He says of the experience:
          “There was no cell phone signal out there – it was just fantastic. It was just space and time, which we’re getting further and further away from in our modern life.”
          “You think of a lot of things you don’t normally have time to think about. You think of things you thought were buried and away and dealt with, and they bubble back up and you realize they weren’t dealt with. Things from your childhood, your relationships, everything.” (2)
          I wonder if Jesus had those same kind of thoughts during his 40 days in the wilderness – reflecting on what his life has been, and preparing himself for what God was calling him to be and do. There are a lot of things you can learn in the wilderness when you’re alone – things you can’t deal with in the hustle and bustle of everyday life.
          In our passage for today, we turn to one of the mainstays of the Lenten season – Jesus, alone in the wilderness for 40 days. Being tested or tempted by the Devil. The number 40, of course should ring some bells for us, that number is highly symbolic here. The most well-known parallels are the 40 days and 40 nights in the story about Noah and the Ark. Then there’s the story of Israel wandering in the desert wilderness for 40 years as God formed and molded them into a holy people. But there are other examples of spiritual people being led into the desert, alone, to be tested and sometimes taught by God.
          In 1st Kings, in chapter 19, Elijah is urged by the Lord to fast for 40 days and nights as he fled to Mount Horeb in Sinai, where he encountered God. Looking back even further, in Exodus, chapter 34, we read how Moses fasted alone, in the presence of the Lord, on top of Mount Sinai as he wrote the 10 commandments. (3)
          Matthew no doubt has all these stories in mind as he tells us about the temptation of Jesus.
          Temptation and Sin are the two themes that hold together the lectionary scripture readings on this First Sunday of Lent.
          Our readings start with Genesis as we remember the story of Adam and Eve being tempted by the snake. This story points out the central temptation going on in these passages – the temptation to be like God, or the temptation to put ourselves on equal footing with good.
          You remember that the snake asked Eve – Did God say you could not eat any fruit of the garden?”
          “Oh no. We can eat of any tree in the garden except that one, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good Evil.”
          “Oh, I see. Do you know why, let me tell you. Because if you eat the fruit of that tree, you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Doesn’t that sound good? Go ahead – take a bite.”
          Eve takes a bite and gives the fruit to Adam – they both eat… and that’s how sin first entered the world. For disobeying God, Adam and Eve are put out of the garden and must fend for themselves.
          Paul picks up the thread of the story and temptation and sin when he reminds us how sin first entered the world – through Adam. But now, in Jesus Christ – the New Adam – Jesus is removing the stain of sin and reconciling humanity and the world to God – putting us all back into God’s good graces. Paul, in essence, gives us a peek at the last page of the story – Jesus conquers sin and death and we are redeemed.
          But first, Jesus must face the tricky devil and his tests. The devil gives Jesus three variations on the age old temptation to put ourselves on equal footing with God. First, the devil challenges Jesus to use his divine powers to feed himself – “make bread from these stones.”
 But Jesus counters with “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
So the devil quotes some scripture of his own. He takes Jesus to the top of the Temple and says, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written
“He will command his angels concerning you; and on their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.”
Again Jesus counters, “It is written, do not put the Lord your God to the test.”
But the devil has one more trick up his sleeve. He takes Jesus to the top of a high mountain, shows him all the Kingdoms of the world – “All this, I will give to you, it’s all yours, if you fall down and worship me.”
But Jesus is not fooled. “Away with you Satan! For it is written, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”
And the tricky devil leaves him as the angels arrive to celebrate with Jesus.
Richard Rohr has written about this passage that:
“There are three primary things that we have to let go of, in my opinion. First, is the compulsion to be successful. Second, is the compulsion to be right – especially theologically right. And finally, there is the compulsion to be powerful, to have everything under control.”
To be like God, as the serpent from Genesis would say.
“These are the three demons Jesus faced in the wilderness. Until we look each of these three demons in their eyes, we should presume that they are still in charge. The demons have to be called out by name, clearly, concretely, and practically, spelling out how controlling and self-righteous we all are.” (4)
This is what we do in Lent. We look at ourselves. We confront the temptation to be in control and see ourselves as all-powerful. In this season, we confront the reality that we are tempted by sin, and we turn to God for help. But we always know that help from God will always be given, if we simply ask.
The great Peter Marshall was known to say, “It’s no sin to be tempted. It isn’t the fact of having temptations that should cause us shame, but what we do with those temptations. Temptation is an opportunity to conquer. When we eventually reach the goal to which we are all striving, God will look us over – not for diplomas, but for scars.” (5)
Temptations and times of trial and testing are simply opportunities – opportunities to rise and conquer by the power of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Like many people, I have been absorbed by the Olympics these last three weeks. There is a commercial I’ve seen several times, put out there by Visa, that features the skier Michela Schiffrin riding up a mountain on a ski lift. The voice over says:
“From where you start, you can’t see the top, you just start to climb. You take one step, and there you are… and still you climb. And then you realize, there is no top – there is just the choice to rise.”
That is the opportunity before us in this Lenten season. We face the testing, and the temptations from this tricky devil, and leaning on our Savior Jesus Christ, we take one more step, we continue the climb toward Easter morning, using every challenge as another opportunity to make the choice to rise.
May God be praised. Amen.

02-08-2026 Fulfilling the Law

Thomas J Parlette
“Fulfilling the Law”
Matt. 5: 13-20
2/8/26
          Lately I’ve been re-watching one of my all-time favorite shows – The West Wing. In the sixth season, the series starts to focus on who will succeed the current President. The race comes down for the White House comes down to Republican Arnie Vinick, played by Alan Alda and Democrat Matt Santos, played by Jimmy Smits.
          In one memorable scene, the current President, Jed Bartlet, played by Martin Sheen, is sitting with Arnie Vinick after hours in the White House kitchen, raiding the White House’s supply of ice cream. The topic turns to religion and church attendance.
          The President asks Vinick if he goes to church – Vinick says no, not in years. Bartlet asks why. And Senator Vinick gives an answer that many people identify with. He says:
          “One Christmas my wife gave me a very old copy of the King James Bible. A real find for a book lover, which I am. But then I read it.”
          “I couldn’t believe there was a God who said that the penalty for working on the Sabbath was death. I couldn’t believe there was a God who said the penalty for adultery was death.”
          Then Pres. Bartlet says – “I’m more of a New Testament guy myself.”
          Vinick continues, “I struggled with that book for a long time. After a while, I gave up the struggle.”
          Their conversation captures the way many people feel about the Bible – especially when it comes to Old Testament versus New Testament. Our passage for today, in which Jesus says that he isn’t here to abolish the law, but to fulfill the law, seems to contradict what we hear in the verses that follow, the ones that go “You’ve heard it said… But I say to you…” Those verses would seem to support the view that you can choose to focus on the New Testament and disregard the Old Testament. It sounds like Jesus is indeed either disregarding or re-writing the Old Testament.
          This isn’t really a new development. In fact, this is one of the oldest heresies that exist in the Christian religion.
          In the second century, a man named Marcion of Sinope founded a movement within Christianity the rejected the Old Testament and the Old Testament God as too vengeful and chose instead to focus on the merciful God of the New Testament as revealed by Jesus.
          Marcionism proposed two distinct Gods, the wrathful, legalistic God of the Old Testament versus the loving compassionate God of the New Testament. In addition to rejecting the Old Testament, Marcionism believed that Jesus wasn’t really fully human, he only appeared to be.
          To back up their beliefs, the Marcionites relied on a heavily edited version of the Gospel of Luke and only ten of Paul’s epistles – also heavily edited to remove all references to the Old Testament and Judaism.
          So whenever we hear modern day Christians say things like they believe in the New Testament God, or they don’t understand why we need the Old Testament at all now that Jesus has come – what we are hearing is a little bit of the ancient heresy of Marcionism.
          Marcion was eventually excommunicated from the Church in 144 and the church put out pages and pages of theological reasons why we needed both the Old and the New Testaments, but Marcionism still lingers on into our present day. One of the positives of dealing with this heresy was that it forced the early church to formalize what it believed and establish a canon of scripture that would eventually become the Bible as we know it.
          But for Jesus, Marcionism has no place in Christianity. He is very clear that he has no intention of eliminating the Law. He is not intending to abolish the law, but he intends to fulfill the Law. Throughout the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus shows us how this fulfillment is going to happen.
          He starts with what we heard last week – the Beatitudes, the “be like this” statements. This leads us into our passage for today. Jesus uses two metaphors to describe how we are look at ourselves as disciples. As followers of Jesus, we are to be Salt and Light.
          First, we are described as salt. Salt was very common and quite valuable in the ancient world. Salt had many uses – the most common were as a preservative in the days before refrigeration, and as a  seasoning, as it is now. But there were other uses as well. Salt was used for fertilizing soil and it was used in sacrifices and covenanting ceremonies as well as purifying and cleansing rituals, and as a way to symbolize loyalty. Most significantly in the way Jesus is using it, is Salt as a flavoring agent and as a preservative. (1)
          Jesus’ use of salt to describe his followers refers to Jesus’ desire that we bring our unique personality and combination of talents to bear in serving God’s kingdom. We are salt.
          We are also Light. We are not the source of the light, but we point towards the light of God in Jesus, we reflect the light that has come to dwell among us.
          One of my favorite authors, Robert Fulghum tells the story of being at a conference in Greece. “On the last day of the conference, the discussion leader walked over to the bright light of an open window and looked out. Then he asked if there were any questions.”
          “I jokingly asked him, What’s the meaning of life? Everyone in attendance laughed and stirred to leave. However, the leader held up his hand to ask for silence and then responded, “I will answer your question.”
          “He took his wallet out of his pocket and removed a small round mirror about the size of a quarter. Then he explained:
         “When I was a small child during World War II, we were very poor and we lived in a remote village. One day on the road, I found the broken pieces of a mirror. A German motorcycle had been wrecked in that place. I tried to find all the pieces and put them back together, but it was not possible, so I kept the largest piece. This one. And by scratching it on a stone, I made it round.”
          “I began to play with it as a toy and became fascinated by the fact that I could reflect light into dark places where the sun could never shine. It became a game for me to get light into the most inaccessible places that I could find. I kept the little mirror, and as I grew up, I would take it out at idle moments and continue the challenge of the game.”
          “As I became a man, I grew to understand that this was not just a child’s game, but a metaphor of what I could do with my life. I came to understand that I am not the light or the source of the light. But light – be it truth or understanding or knowledge – is there, and it will only shine in many dark places if I reflect it.”
          “I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not know. Nevertheless, with what I have, I can reflect light into the dark places of the world – into the dark places of human hearts – and change some things in some people. Perhaps others seeing this happen will do likewise. This is what I am about. This is the meaning of my life.” (2)
          Jesus is quite clear this morning – He comes to fulfill the law. To do so, he calls us to be Salt and Light.
          He calls us to be Salt, to be who we are to give this world a taste of God’s kingdom and to preserve God’s covenant with humanity.
          He calls us to be Light, to reflect God’s love into the dark corners of our world.
          May God be praised. Amen.

1.    Jin Young Choi, Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol 1, Westminster John Knox Press, p 81, 83.

2.    Robert Fulghum, It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It, Ballantine Books, 1988, 1989, p 174-175.

02-01-2026 What is Required

Thomas J Parlette
“What is Required”
Micah 6: 1-8
2/1/26
          January 20th, 1977 was a cold day in Washington DC. Under a bright blue sky with a mild wind blowing, the 25 degree day felt more like 10 degrees. At precisely noon, President-elect Jimmy Carter stepped up to the podium to take his oath of office as the 39th President of the United States. On the podium that day was the Washington Bible, often used for Inaugurations. But Carter also brought his own personal bible, a Christmas present from his brother, Billy.
          Carter’s Bible was a New Marked Reference Bible, a King James translation, with all his personal notes in the margins and contact information for his Sunday School teacher. As he took the oath of office, his Bible was open to our passage from Micah for today – “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” Throughout his Inaugural address, Carter referred to this well-known verse as his guide for the next four years of his administration.
          The Book of Micah is divided into 3 major sections, each beginning with the word, “Hear.” The sections alternate between words of doom and gloom and glimmers of hope.
          Our passage today, from chapter 6, is among the chapters that offer hope. It begins with the portrayal of God and the people facing off in a courtroom drama (1).
          The prophet begins the proceedings, sounding like a bailiff or other courtroom official – “Rise, plead your case… for the Lord has a controversy with his people, and he will contend with Israel.
          Then God steps up – “O my people, what have done to you? How have I wearied you? Answer me!”
          God follows with a laundry list of what he has done for the people over the years, urging them to remember these things done so that you may know the saving acts of the Lord.
          Next up, Israel answers God’s charges, basically saying, “What do you want from me? What is it you expect?”
          Israel then offers a bunch of examples of various sacrifices, getting increasingly melodramatic, leading up to the final, “Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
          Finally, the Prophet steps back in, sounding more like a judge this time – “He has told you, O mortal what is good: and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
          All of our lectionary passages for today have something to say about what the Lord requires of us. Psalm 15 reminds us that those who do right live in the presence of God. In the Gospel of Matthew, we heard the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus talks about the Beatitudes – “Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, those who are merciful, reviled or persecuted, and blessed are the peacemakers.”
          And that brings us to Micah’s words about what God requires of us. This well-known verse has earned nicknames over the years such as “Biblical ethics in a nutshell,” and “The Golden verse of the Old Testament.” Do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with your God.
          In the court case we read this morning, the one being accused by God assumes that God is looking for a certain kind of sacrifice. The response to God’s charges gets increasingly dramatic and ends with a fairly ridiculous statement – “Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression…?” Fortunately, God and the Prophet recognize this is a pretty sarcastic response, and counter with the idea that God does not demand a sacrifice at all, at least not the kind that the accused is expecting. What God desires is a certain way of living.
          God requires a life lived in the pursuit of justice. By this, Micah means a life that seeks to establish and restore community, while aiming to balance personal good with the common good. To do justice means to work for the establishment of equity for all, especially the powerless and the marginalized, those who are persecuted or threatened. ( 2)
          God also requires a life that demonstrates a love of kindness. A life marked by and grace is what God expects. You can keep your elaborate sacrifices and fancy words and ceremonies – just be kind, be merciful, show others the same kind of grace God has shown you.
          The third requirement of the kind of life God requires is to walk humbly with your God. It’s tempting to focus on the adverb “humbly” in that phrase, but the verb “walk” is actually more important.
          We often describe the life of faith as a walk, as a journey. In Judaism the word for ethics is “halacha”, which means “walking.” So, the idea is that the task of ethics is to describe how one ought to walk one’s day-to-day life. (3 ) Just recently, we listened to Jesus call to “Follow me.” Jesus never said “Believe this or believe that.” He said “Follow me,” or perhaps, “Come, take a walk with me.”
          So, when Micah says walk humbly with God, he is encouraging us to walk with God and be still, be quiet in a spirit of humility – because you just might learn something. That’s what God wants. God wants us to come, take a walk.
          Over the centuries, Christian theologians have interpreted these verses from Micah in a variety of ways. For Cyril, the important thing here was God’s compassion. For Tertullian, he emphasized that God expects people to act with the same divine mercy and compassion that have been bestowed upon them. Augustine notes that the love of God, the love of neighbor, and the offering of self in loving service to one another are far superior to any other sacrifice or burnt offering. ( 4) From the earliest days of Christianity, the church has understood these three qualities are what God requires of us.
          I began today with the story of how President Carter had his personal bible open to this passage during his Inauguration. During his rather short speech that today, he referred to Micah on numerous occasions, with words and ideas that still ring true today, especially in light of what is happening all around the country in regards to immigration enforcement. Let me share just some of what President Carter said in 1977:
“As my high school teacher, Miss Julia Coleman used to say: We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles…”
“Let our recent mistakes bring a resurgent commitment to the basic principles of our Nation, for we know that if we despise our own government, we have no future. We recall in special times when we have stood briefly, but magnificently, united. In those times no prize was beyond our grasp.”
“But we cannot dwell upon remembered glory. We cannot afford to drift. We reject the prospect of failure or mediocrity or an inferior quality of life for any person. Our government must at the same time be both competent and compassionate…”
“It is my hope that when my time as your President has ended, people might say this about our Nation: That we remembered the words of Micah and renewed our search for humility, mercy and justice…” (5)
So as we gather at the Lord’s table once more, let us ask – What does God expect from us? What is required to live the life calls us to?
Micah boils it down to just three things:
Do justice,
Love kindness,
And walk humbly with your God.
May God be praised. Amen.

1.    James Limburg, Interpretation: Hosea – Micah, John Knox Press, 1988, p 159-161.

2.    Carol Dempsey, Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 1  Westminster John Knox Press, p 294.

3.    James Limburg… p 193.

4.    Carol Dempsey … p 294.

5.    Inaugural Address of Jimmy Carter, Thursday, January 20th, 1977, The Avalon Project, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/carter.asp

01-25-2026 Disciples of the Light

Thomas J Parlette
“Disciples of the Light”
Matt. 4: 12-23
1/25/26

          In 1949, Joseph Campbell wrote a seminal work that still has influence over writers and storytellers 75 years later. Campbell studied stories found in cultures around the world and noted similarities in structure and style. His book “Hero with a Thousand Faces” was the result of his research. With the rise of narrative theology in the 1970’s and 80’s, more and more biblical scholars started applying his work to the stories of the Bible.
          One of the aspects of stories that Campbell identified was something he called the “Call to Adventure.” This was the opening of a story, when the main character is called to start something new, leave his life as he knows it behind, and to begin an adventure or a journey of some sort, with a noble cause to save the world or benefit humankind in some way. (1)
          You can see examples of Campbell’s “Call to Adventure” in stories such as the original “Star Wars” movie – when Luke Skywalker accidently sees a hologram being carried by R2D2, from Princess Leia asking for help from Obi Wan Kenobi. Thus starts his great adventure fighting the Empire.
          You can also see it in Tolkien’s “The Fellowship of the Ring”, when the Wizard Gandalf shows up at the door of the hobbit, Frodo Baggins, and calls him to leave the comfort of the shire and begin a great adventure.
          That is what we see this morning in our Gospel passage from Matthew – Jesus’ call to begin a great adventure.
          Last week, we took a look at the story of Jesus’ baptism and invitation from the Gospel of John – to “come and see” this one who is the Lamb of God.
          This week, we look at Matthew’s version of the story of how Jesus went about calling his first disciples- two sets of brothers, all four fishermen – “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.”
          Matthew intentionally sets his story in the region of Galilee, in the little fishing village of Capernaum. Both of these locations are within the region of Zebulun and Naphtali, spoken of in the prophets and in the Psalms. These are regions that are well acquainted with the darkness that the prophets spoke of. First of all, there was the darkness of the Babylonian exile that still hung in the background of life. Then there was the current darkness of living in a heavily taxed region of the occupying Roman Empire. The people of this idyllic region knew what it was like to sit in darkness and wait for light to arrive. In the midst of this darkness, Jesus begins his ministry by calling his first disciples.
          In John, we are left anticipating the Kingdom of God. John says – “The Kingdom of God is near,” implying that it is not here yet, we are still looking for the Kingdom to arrive.
          But in Matthew we hear “the Kingdom has come near,” implying that the Kingdom is here, now – it has arrived. So the invitation, “Come and See,” changes to a command to “Follow Me.” This is Jesus’ call to adventure, to become disciples of the new light that has dawned.
          The invitation “come and see” is a bit passive. It leaves the final decision open – “come, see what you think, decide for yourself.” The kingdom is near, but it’s not here yet. It’s something to look forward too, and then you can decide what you want to do.
          But in Matthew, Jesus issues a command more than an invitation. Follow me. This doesn’t seem open to debate. Jesus doesn’t seem to be inviting questions. Follow me – let’s begin our journey of adventure, let’s hit the road to becoming disciples of the light.
          Jesus is calling us to participate in the Kingdom. Jesus is gathering and healing as the embodiment of God’s empire as opposed to Ceasar’s empire. The New Testament scholar N.T. Wright notes that “Jesus’ teachings are not about our escape from this world into another one, but to God’s sovereign rule coming to earth as it is in heaven.” (2) God’s Kingdom is not something we escape to in the future – God’s Kingdom is something we participate in here, now, in the messiness and pain of the world as it is.
          Discipleship, as it is portrayed in Matthew, is not presented as something chosen by the disciples. It is a decisive commanding act of Jesus, a command to participate in modeling what life in God’s kingdom is like, and how it is different from the empire that is all around us.
          Think how different that is from how we usually think about discipleship. We typically think of disciples, or members, weighing their options and making a choice based on what kinds of programs a church offers. And then they pursue their calling largely on their own terms.
          But, as the Gospels present Jesus’ call – the call comes from God, it is not up to the disciples. Matthew uses the same word that Mark often uses in his Gospel to describe the brother’s reactions to Jesus’ call – they respond “immediately.” They didn’t weigh their options. They didn’t do their own research. They simply responded.
          This response requires what biblical scholar Douglas Hare calls “radical obedience.” (3) It’s a radical response for at least three reasons. First, the brother’s respond “immediately,” there is no debate, no hesitation. Second, they leave their profession, likely a fairly lucrative business at that. Anyone who has ever changed careers knows how radical that is. And third, they leave behind not only their livelihood, but their families as well. I’m sure such a radical decision did not go over well at home. The theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that the call to “follow me was a call to absolute discipleship,” and that only in surrendering ourselves to Jesus’ command could we, paradoxically, know our greatest joy. (4)
          As disciples of the light, our greatest joy is being part of Christ’s body in this world, of pointing to Jesus as the Messiah. As members of Christ’s body, the church, we are called to model what life is like in the Kingdom of God, in the here and now.
          In his book, The Power of Habit: Why Do We Do What We Do in Life and Business, Charles Duhigg talks about “keystone habits.” Some habits are more strategic than others because they connect with and lead to other habits. For example – if you develop the habit of going to the gym four times a week, it will have all kinds of beneficial effects in your life. (5) That is a keystone habit – develop one habit that grows into many other good habits.
          When Peter and Andrew, James and John responded to Jesus’ call to follow him, they made a “keystone decision”, a decision that made many other decisions easier to make. Once they decided to follow, everything else fell into place.
          That’s what Jesus asks for this morning – to make a keystone decision. “Follow me – I will make you fish for people.” After that first decision, everything else will fall into place.
          These two sets of brothers display radical obedience by laying everything else aside and choosing to strike out on an adventure, as disciples of the light, called to model what life is like in the Kingdom of God – right here, right now – right under the nose of the empire that surrounds them.
          May God be praised that we receive the same invitation this morning. Amen.
 

 

 

1.    Rodger Nishioka, Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 1, Westminster Knox Press, 2010, p 287.

2.    Ibid… p 285.

3.    Troy A. Miller, Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 1, Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, p 289.

4.    Greg Garrett, Feasting on the Word , Year A, Vol. 1, Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, p 289.

5.    Mark Abbott, Connections, Year A, Vol. 1, Westminster John Knox Press, 2019, p 207.

01-18-2026 Standing There

Thomas J Parlette
“Standing There”
John 1: 29-42
1/18/26

          It is one the most difficult social invitations to get.
          Every year on the first Monday in May, the glitzy affair commemorates the opening of the Costume Institute’s annual exhibit, with the party’s theme often taking inspiration from the show.
          Though the black-tie event is technically a fundraiser, earning money for the museum’s extensive fashion collection – it has also become a cultural touchstone, largely due to the influence of Vogue’s editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, who has chaired the event for nearly three decades, transforming this charity fundraiser into a pop culture phenomenon.
          Under Wintour’s guidance, the Met Gala has become a night for celebrities, fashion insiders, art enthusiasts, and society’s most powerful and influential figures to strut their stuff on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. And an undeniable part of the allure of the event is its highly exclusive guest list.
          There is no guaranteed way to get invited to the Met Gala. Each year, Wintour herself decides you gets an invitation and who gets relegated to the wait list. For most charity events, if you make a sizable donation, you’re in – but not so with the Met Gala. The criteria for getting an invite to the Gala depends on a variety of factors seemingly only known to Wintour, ranging from timely achievements to cultural clout.
          Even if you do make the cut and receive an invitation, there is still a hefty price tag. In 2024, a single ticket went for 75,000 dollars, and if you wanted to buy a table, the price starts at 350,000 dollars. (1)
          An invitation to the Met Gala is difficult to get – and expensive to boot!
          This morning, in our passage from John, we get a different kind of invitation – an invitation that is open to everyone, and costs nothing, at least on the surface.
          Today we hear John’s version of the baptism story. There is no water involved, but John is standing there, sees Jesus approaching and points to him as “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” I baptize with water – but he will baptize with the Holy Spirit. I testify to you that He is the Son of God.

         Then, the next day, John was again standing there with two of his disciples, and points out Jesus again – “Look, here is the Lamb of God,” a term unique to John. This is the only time that word for “lamb” is used in the New Testament. The term comes up again in Revelation – but it’s a different word that is used. One of the many unique things about John.
          I often say that John has his own way of telling the story of Jesus. For instance, John does not have a birth story, but he does have two cleansing of the Temple stories – his is the only Gospel to do that. John records no parables and talks about Jesus’ miracles as “signs” – again, the only one of the Gospel writers to do that. John often relates not simply what Jesus does or says, but also why or for what reason he does the things he does. When you compare the four Gospels, John paints a more divine portrait of Jesus than the other three, that portray more of the human aspect of Jesus. (2)
          A few Sundays ago we took a look at John’s Prologue, the beginning verses of Chapter 1, which John uses as a kind of creation story to introduce Jesus as the Incarnation of God and the Light that has come into the world.
          The rest of Chapter 1 is structured around a series of four days. We are looking at the events of Day 2 and Day 3 this morning. (3)
          There are two important theological concepts on display over the course of these two days. First, we continue with the concept of Incarnation – God with us in the flesh – as John refers to Jesus as God’s Son, the Divine walking amongst us.
          The second important theological concept here is Atonement. When John says, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” what does he mean by that exactly. Well, theologians have been debating that for centuries.
          John is not speaking of an individual, day to day experience of sin, as if Jesus takes away the things we do wrong every day. No, John is speaking of sin in the broader sense. He is talking about the sin that came into the world in the time of Adam and Eve, the sin that has plagued us from the very beginning. The sin that John Calvin said rendered us “totally depraved,” incapable of good if left to our own devices, and enslaved to our evil desires – that kind of sin is what John refers to. That is what Jesus, the Lamb of God takes away.
          Over the centuries, theologians have come up with many theories that seek to explain how this happens.
          The most popular and well-known one is probably the Satisfaction Theory that is associated with St. Anselm, which sees Jesus’ death as satisfying the righteous demands of a God offended by human sin.
          Another well-known theory, especially in Reformed circles, is the Substitutionary Theory, which understands Jesus’ death as the death of God’s innocent Son, offered by God on our behalf or in our place.
          And finally, there is the theory connected to Peter Abelard, often called the Moral Influence Theory. This idea sees the death of Jesus as the ultimate expression of the depth of God’s love, that God would offer His own Son to pay for our sin.
          Now there are a couple of problems with these classical theories of the Atonement. The first problem is that God and Jesus are portrayed as separate beings. This is clearly a contradiction of what we find in John’s Prologue. The second problem is that God seems to be rather a callous figure in these theories because Jesus has to die to placate God’s anger, or God comes across as an abusive parent as He offers up his Son for torture and death. Many people over the years have had trouble thinking of God like that.
          But, the Gospel of John offers a unique perspective that you might call the Incarnational Theory of the Atonement. (4) This idea holds Jesus and God together as One Being, like John talked about in the Prologue. The uniting of the Divine and the human in this man Jesus is what makes salvation possible – because God has become incarnate with humanity – God has become one of us.
          Looking at this way, Jesus, and God, show their love for humanity by dying to save us from the consequences of the sin that we have brought on ourselves. In this view of Atonement, there is no anger to be appeased, there is no torture or death that God takes satisfaction in. From the beginning, God and Jesus are the same being, of one essence, as the Nicene Creed says. God becomes incarnate in Jesus to be with us. Since Jesus is God incarnate, and God is Jesus incarnate – God sacrifices Godself on the cross.
          Divine Self-Sacrifice? – Yes.
          God sending Jesus to his death as an Atonement for our sin, to appease God’s anger? – No.
          This is the great invitation that the Gospel of John offers us.
          Simply put – to those just standing there, “Come and See.” Yes, this is complicated stuff – but life is complicated, the best plan is to come and see for yourself.
          In the chapel of the Unterlinden Museum in Colmar, France, there is a painting by Matthias Grunewald. It is a depiction of the Crucifixion. Jesus is dying on the cross, surrounded by his mother, the Beloved Disciple, and Mary Magdalene. Surprisingly, the artist has also included the figure of John the Baptist. He is facing the viewer, he holds the open scriptures in one hand, while the other hand points to Jesus on the cross. At his feet stands a lamb, cross in the crook of a foreleg, the ancient symbol of the Agnus Dei. (5) The painting is a brilliant illustration of John’s sole purpose. To everyone standing there, John is there to point to Jesus. As he has said from the beginning, he is not the light, he is not the Messiah – he only prepares the way for the Messiah. John points us in the right direction.
          Noted Christian scholar and author, Rodger Nishioka likes to remind his graduating students that even though they have earned the degree of “Master of Divinity”, they still have a lot to learn. He remembers a time back when the WWJD – What Would Jesus Do – bracelets were all the rage, he started to suggest that perhaps the bracelets should say “WWJBD.” Instead of doing what the Son of God would do – maybe we should do what John the Baptist did. (6) Maybe we should concentrate on pointing not to ourselves, or our programs, or even the church. Maybe we should simply point to Jesus.
          Perhaps the most faithful thing we can do as a disciple is offer the invitation to everyone standing around us “Come and See.” Come and see for yourself what the Lamb of God offers.
          May God be praised. Amen.

 

1. Cady Lang, “How Do You Get Invited to the Met Gala? An Industry Insider Weighs In” TIME Magazine, May 2nd, 2024, Homileticsonline.com.

2. Troy A. Miller, Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 1, Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, p 261.

3. Ibid… p 263.

4. Buran Phillips, Feasting on the Gospels, John, Vol. 1, Westminster John Knox Press, 2013, p 30.

5. Joseph J. Clifford, Feasting on the Gospels, John, Vol. 1, Westminster John Knox Press, 2013, p 27.

6. Rodger Y. Nishioka, Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol.1, Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, p 264.

01-11-2026 Dangerous, but Life-Giving Water

Thomas J Parlette
“Dangerous, but Life-Giving Water”
Matt. 3: 13-17, Ps. 29
1/11/26
          When I was growing up, every afternoon around 4:30 or 5:00, my sisters and I would announce to our mother – “Can we have a snack, we’re so hungry, we’re dying.” Now we knew that Dad would be home at 6:00 pm, he was very predictable that way, and dinner would be on the table by 6:15. That’s the way it was for us growing up in the early 1970’s.
          Without missing a beat, my mother would respond to our melodramatics with something along the lines of “You’re not dying – have some raisins, they’re nature’s candy.”
          Well, we weren’t falling for that – but dinner was at 6:15, and we were not allowed to spoil our evening meal with snacks.
          The human body is an amazing thing. Despite my 10-year-old self’s melodramatic hunger pangs – we did not die. We didn’t even pass out. We always made it to dinner time. In fact, I would learn years later that the human body can survive without food for weeks, maybe even a couple months. What we really need, what we can’t survive without – is actually water. Whereas we can go a month or so without food, the human body can’t survive for much more than a week without water. Water is crucial to our survival.
          Water plays a central role in our passages for today – as it should. Today, we remember Jesus’ baptism, and by extension, our own.
          We start by recognizing the awesome, dangerous power of water as we see it in Psalm 29. If you’ve every stood near the bottom of a waterfall or sat in a kayak out in the ocean, we have a sense of what Psalm 29 is talking about. God is described as having power over even the most extreme and ferocious waters:
          “The voice of the Lord is heard on the seas, the glorious God thunders, and God’s voice echoes over the ocean. The voice of the Lord is heard in all it’s might and majesty.”
          And later we read:
          “The Lord rules over the deep waters…”
          The seas and the oceans were the ultimate mystery to the ancients. They were unknown, powerful and uncontrollable, yet God ruled over them with just the sound of his voice.
          Then, we move to Matthew’s story of Jesus’ baptism. And once again we hear the voice of God over the waters.
          All four of the Gospel writers tell us about Jesus’ baptism, and they share many similarities. They all happen in or near the waters of the Jordan. They all make mention of the Spirit of God, like a dove, descending upon Jesus. All but John make mention of a voice over the waters, sometimes audible to everyone and sometimes only to Jesus – “This is my son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
          Luke has clearly used Mark as resource, as his version of the baptism is nearly identical to Mark’s. John, as is his habit, tells the story in his own unique way. But Matthew follows the basic outline of the story from Mark and Luke, with the exception of one detail. Matthew mentions that when Jesus presents himself to John for baptism, John is hesitant.
          The NRSV says – “John would have prevented him from receiving baptism…”
          The Good News translation says: “But John tried to change Jesus’ mind…”
          And The Message says simply – “John objected.”
          John didn’t want to baptize Jesus, his own cousin. Strange. Why? The translations are all consistent – John believed that he was the one who should be baptized, not Jesus.
          But Jesus is insistent. The NRSV has Jesus respond – “Let it be so for now. For it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.”
          The Good News says – “For in this way we shall do all that God requires.”
          And the Message says – “God’s work, putting things right all these centuries, is coming together right now in this baptism.”
          And so John agrees, and Jesus is baptized.
Over the years, people have been bothered by the fact that Jesus was baptized. They wonder – “Why, he was without sin, he doesn’t need to be baptized. Are we saying Jesus needed to be forgiven of his sins?”
No, in Jesus’ case, his baptism wasn’t done because he needed it, but because that was the will of God for everyone – so Jesus was obedient to God. Jesus’ baptism further reinforces his identity – he was conceived by the Holy Spirit and relives Israel’s history in a way, because he comes out of Egypt. (1) In sense, the world is re-created through Jesus’ baptism, and when the dove comes down from heaven and the voice of God speaks, the world is re-created as a place full of forgiveness and grace.
 Jesus’ baptism is also an important milestone moment as well. It is like the coronation of a King. His baptism signals the fulfillment of God’s intentions for the one true King, the Messiah, to rule the world. What we see emerging from these dangerous, but comforting waters of baptism is a new kind of king who aligns himself with God’s kingdom. Jesus’ baptism signals his denial of the power of sin over him generally, but also a refusal to bow before any power but God – including the powers of state, country or empire that seek to dominate and oppress the people, as was happening in Jerusalem at the time, and can still be seen today. (2)
Our baptism certainly signifies a cleansing of the sin that took hold since the days of Adam and Eve. It is a sign of forgiveness and grace. It is a sign that we are now grafted onto the Body of Christ. In the classical understanding of the Reformers, our baptism is “a visible sign of God’s invisible grace.”
When we arise from the baptismal waters, we announce that we are committed to be part of the Jesus story, that we will follow Jesus’ ways, and we accept his fate as our own. We accept that we will often fly in the face of what our culture tells us to do. It means we side with the poor, the oppressed, those who are at risk and those who live on the margins. And that is sometimes dangerous, leaving us open to ridicule and sometimes harm – although it’s highly unlikely any of us will ever face the extreme that Jesus faced, death by crucifixion. It is nevertheless a dangerous endeavor to live out our baptism.
What we see here today as we ordain and install new officers is, in a sense, the third act of our baptism. The first act, of course comes when we were baptized, most of us as babies. The second act is when we are confirmed. The third act is when we answer the call to serve as an officer in the church, proclaiming our faith in a public way once more, pledging to lead the church in the ways of Jesus for the growth of God’s kingdom. The fourth, and final act, comes when we finish our earthly work, shuffle off this mortal coil, and join the great cloud of witnesses in God’s heavenly realm – then our baptism is complete.
Today, at the beginning of a new year, we celebrate Jesus’ baptism – and our own. We celebrate that the waters that began as a chaotic, uncontrollable force, now yield to the voice of God, which in Jesus’ baptism assures us that we are beloved children of God. In the waters of baptism, we are commissioned to follow the ways of Jesus and live out faith by serving to further God’s kingdom in this earth. In the dangerous waters of baptism we receive God’s comfort of Grace and Forgiveness.

These are the gifts we are called to share with the world.

May God be praised. Amen.

 

 

1. Timothy A. Beach-Verhey, Feasting on the Gospels, Matthew, Vol. 1, Westminster John Knox Press, 2013, p 44.

 

2. Stanley P. Saunders, Connections Year A, Vol. 1, Westminster John Knox Press, 2019, p 173.

10-18-2026 Standing There

Thomas J Parlette
“Standing There”
John 1: 29-42
1/18/26

          It is one the most difficult social invitations to get.
          Every year on the first Monday in May, the glitzy affair commemorates the opening of the Costume Institute’s annual exhibit, with the party’s theme often taking inspiration from the show.
          Though the black-tie event is technically a fundraiser, earning money for the museum’s extensive fashion collection – it has also become a cultural touchstone, largely due to the influence of Vogue’s editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, who has chaired the event for nearly three decades, transforming this charity fundraiser into a pop culture phenomenon.
          Under Wintour’s guidance, the Met Gala has become a night for celebrities, fashion insiders, art enthusiasts, and society’s most powerful and influential figures to strut their stuff on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. And an undeniable part of the allure of the event is its highly exclusive guest list.
          There is no guaranteed way to get invited to the Met Gala. Each year, Wintour herself decides you gets an invitation and who gets relegated to the wait list. For most charity events, if you make a sizable donation, you’re in – but not so with the Met Gala. The criteria for getting an invite to the Gala depends on a variety of factors seemingly only known to Wintour, ranging from timely achievements to cultural clout.
          Even if you do make the cut and receive an invitation, there is still a hefty price tag. In 2024, a single ticket went for 75,000 dollars, and if you wanted to buy a table, the price starts at 350,000 dollars. (1)
          An invitation to the Met Gala is difficult to get – and expensive to boot!
          This morning, in our passage from John, we get a different kind of invitation – an invitation that is open to everyone, and costs nothing, at least on the surface.
          Today we hear John’s version of the baptism story. There is no water involved, but John is standing there, sees Jesus approaching and points to him as “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” I baptize with water – but he will baptize with the Holy Spirit. I testify to you that He is the Son of God.
          Then, the next day, John was again standing there with two of his disciples, and points out Jesus again – “Look, here is the Lamb of God,” a term unique to John. This is the only time that word for “lamb” is used in the New Testament. The term comes up again in Revelation – but it’s a different word that is used. One of the many unique things about John.
          I often say that John has his own way of telling the story of Jesus. For instance, John does not have a birth story, but he does have two cleansing of the Temple stories – his is the only Gospel to do that. John records no parables and talks about Jesus’ miracles as “signs” – again, the only one of the Gospel writers to do that. John often relates not simply what Jesus does or says, but also why or for what reason he does the things he does. When you compare the four Gospels, John paints a more divine portrait of Jesus than the other three, that portray more of the human aspect of Jesus. (2)
          A few Sundays ago we took a look at John’s Prologue, the beginning verses of Chapter 1, which John uses as a kind of creation story to introduce Jesus as the Incarnation of God and the Light that has come into the world.
         The rest of Chapter 1 is structured around a series of four days. We are looking at the events of Day 2 and Day 3 this morning. (3)
          There are two important theological concepts on display over the course of these two days. First, we continue with the concept of Incarnation – God with us in the flesh – as John refers to Jesus as God’s Son, the Divine walking amongst us.
          The second important theological concept here is Atonement. When John says, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” what does he mean by that exactly. Well, theologians have been debating that for centuries.
          John is not speaking of an individual, day to day experience of sin, as if Jesus takes away the things we do wrong every day. No, John is speaking of sin in the broader sense. He is talking about the sin that came into the world in the time of Adam and Eve, the sin that has plagued us from the very beginning. The sin that John Calvin said rendered us “totally depraved,” incapable of good if left to our own devices, and enslaved to our evil desires – that kind of sin is what John refers to. That is what Jesus, the Lamb of God takes away.
          Over the centuries, theologians have come up with many theories that seek to explain how this happens.
          The most popular and well-known one is probably the Satisfaction Theory that is associated with St. Anselm, which sees Jesus’ death as satisfying the righteous demands of a God offended by human sin.
          Another well-known theory, especially in Reformed circles, is the Substitutionary Theory, which understands Jesus’ death as the death of God’s innocent Son, offered by God on our behalf or in our place.
          And finally, there is the theory connected to Peter Abelard, often called the Moral Influence Theory. This idea sees the death of Jesus as the ultimate expression of the depth of God’s love, that God would offer His own Son to pay for our sin.
          Now there are a couple of problems with these classical theories of the Atonement. The first problem is that God and Jesus are portrayed as separate beings. This is clearly a contradiction of what we find in John’s Prologue. The second problem is that God seems to be rather a callous figure in these theories because Jesus has to die to placate God’s anger, or God comes across as an abusive parent as He offers up his Son for torture and death. Many people over the years have had trouble thinking of God like that.
          But, the Gospel of John offers a unique perspective that you might call the Incarnational Theory of the Atonement. (4) This idea holds Jesus and God together as One Being, like John talked about in the Prologue. The uniting of the Divine and the human in this man Jesus is what makes salvation possible – because God has become incarnate with humanity – God has become one of us.
          Looking at this way, Jesus, and God, show their love for humanity by dying to save us from the consequences of the sin that we have brought on ourselves. In this view of Atonement, there is no anger to be appeased, there is no torture or death that God takes satisfaction in. From the beginning, God and Jesus are the same being, of one essence, as the Nicene Creed says. God becomes incarnate in Jesus to be with us. Since Jesus is God incarnate, and God is Jesus incarnate – God sacrifices Godself on the cross.
          Divine Self-Sacrifice? – Yes.
          God sending Jesus to his death as an Atonement for our sin, to appease God’s anger? – No.
          This is the great invitation that the Gospel of John offers us.
          Simply put – to those just standing there, “Come and See.” Yes, this is complicated stuff – but life is complicated, the best plan is to come and see for yourself.
          In the chapel of the Unterlinden Museum in Colmar, France, there is a painting by Matthias Grunewald. It is a depiction of the Crucifixion. Jesus is dying on the cross, surrounded by his mother, the Beloved Disciple, and Mary Magdalene. Surprisingly, the artist has also included the figure of John the Baptist. He is facing the viewer, he holds the open scriptures in one hand, while the other hand points to Jesus on the cross. At his feet stands a lamb, cross in the crook of a foreleg, the ancient symbol of the Agnus Dei. (5) The painting is a brilliant illustration of John’s sole purpose. To everyone standing there, John is there to point to Jesus. As he has said from the beginning, he is not the light, he is not the Messiah – he only prepares the way for the Messiah. John points us in the right direction.
          Noted Christian scholar and author, Rodger Nishioka likes to remind his graduating students that even though they have earned the degree of “Master of Divinity”, they still have a lot to learn. He remembers a time back when the WWJD – What Would Jesus Do – bracelets were all the rage, he started to suggest that perhaps the bracelets should say “WWJBD.” Instead of doing what the Son of God would do – maybe we should do what John the Baptist did. (6) Maybe we should concentrate on pointing not to ourselves, or our programs, or even the church. Maybe we should simply point to Jesus.
          Perhaps the most faithful thing we can do as a disciple is offer the invitation to everyone standing around us “Come and See.” Come and see for yourself what the Lamb of God offers.

          May God be praised. Amen.

 

1. Cady Lang, “How Do You Get Invited to the Met Gala? An Industry Insider Weighs In” TIME Magazine, May 2nd, 2024, Homileticsonline.com.

2. Troy A. Miller, Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 1, Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, p 261.

3. Ibid… p 263.

4. Buran Phillips, Feasting on the Gospels, John, Vol. 1, Westminster John Knox Press, 2013, p 30.

5. Joseph J. Clifford, Feasting on the Gospels, John, Vol. 1, Westminster John Knox Press, 2013, p 27.

6. Rodger Y. Nishioka, Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol.1, Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, p 264.

01-04-2026 In Our Midst

Thomas J Parlette
“In Our Midst”
John 1: 1-18
1/4/26

          Shortly after we moved here, I took the boys to visit Niagara Cave down in Harmony. It’s a pretty cool family fun center with miniature golf and gem mining. But the main feature is a cave that offers a mile walking tour with a 60 foot underground waterfall and unique geological features like the “Grand Canyon” formation, “Battleship Island” and “Cathedral Dome.” It’s a great mid-summer day trip because the cave stays at 48 degrees year round – a great way to beat the heat!
          I remember that when we got to the deepest, darkest part of the cave, our tour guide told us to grab hold of the handrail and put a hand in front of our face – because he was about to turn off the lights, and we would experience complete and utter darkness. He gave us explicit instructions to stand still and don’t let go of the handrail, because total darkness can be very disorienting and you might fall.
          So we did as we were told, and the lights went out.
          When our guide said we would experience complete and utter darkness – he wasn’t kidding. The hand I had in front of my face – couldn’t see a trace of it. Inches away, I could not see a thing. I could understand why we weren’t supposed to move – I’m convinced if I had not been holding onto that railing, I would have fallen over, it was so dark. With no light, not even ambient light, it was impossible to get your bearings.
          Luckily, the lights were out for only about 30 seconds maybe, and the guide said – “Not to worry everyone, I have my hand on the switch…” and he turned the lights back on, to everyone’s relief.
          That’s what John describes this morning in the opening verses of his Gospel. What came into being in Jesus was life, and his life was the light of the world. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
          The world was in utter darkness, but God flipped the switch, and the light came into the world.
          This passage is often referred to as “The Prologue of John.” John is quite intentional about using the language and imagery we find in the 6 days of creation story from Genesis – in fact, many scholars consider this to be one of the 7 creation stories in the Bible.
        The Prologue is also John’s version of a Nativity story, a story of how God’s Son Jesus came into the world. But, as always in the Gospel of John, John doesn’t just tell us what happened – he also tells us what it means, and what it says about Jesus.
          And there is a lot to say. These 18 verses are full of theological ideas, densely packed. One of the concepts suggested here is the idea of the Trinity. The word, “Trinity”, is never used in the Bible – but it is one the bedrock principles of Christianity – that God exists in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Or, if we describe them in terms of their functions – God, the creator, Jesus the redeemer and the Holy Spirit as comforter or the source of God’s power available to us. All of those functions are present in this passage.
          John establishes Jesus as being on the same footing as God – there from the beginning, equal on all accounts. Then in verse 12, John refers to Jesus as providing to all who believed in his name, the power to become children of God – many scholars read this “power” as referring to the Holy Spirit. And so, the basis of the Trinity is established.
          But at the forefront of John’s mind is the idea of Incarnation. For John, Jesus is the Word of God, there from the beginning, actively involved in creation, and now incarnated into human form. Jesus is literally God with us, in the flesh.
          Rembrandt, the Dutch artist, once painted a piece called “The Holy Family at Night”, which portrayed the holy family in contemporary dress, enjoying at evening at home together. (1) Mary is depicted reading from a book, which art historians have guessed is a Bible, while Joseph sits off to the side, appearing to nod off. The Christ child lies peacefully in a cradle at the center of the picture.  The painting highlights the two ways we traditionally interact with God. First, we read the scriptures, as Mary does. And the second way is that we interact with Jesus, a living being – in this case a baby. Every parent knows that you can learn a great deal about babies and parenting from books, “What to Expect When You’re Expecting.” But when the baby arrives, it’s a whole new ball game – you learn a whole lot from the real thing that you can’t learn from a book. Ultimately, that’s what the Incarnation is about. We can learn a great deal about God from the Scriptures, but God is fully known through the Son, Jesus Christ. And thanks to the Incarnation, Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, we can know God. Through Jesus, God is with us, as one of us.
          Perhaps my favorite rendition of this passage comes from Eugene Peterson’s, “The Message.” Technically, The Message is not a translation, it is a modern paraphrase that strives to stay faithful to the biblical text while bringing modern language and imagery to the scripture.
          In the NRSV translation, verse 14 reads, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”
          In the Message, Peterson renders that verse, “The Word was made flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, generous inside and out, true from start to finish.”
          I like Peterson’s way of talking about this verse because of one word in particular – “neighborhood.”(2) The idea of God moving in next door as a real human being is very intriguing and quite comforting.
          Many of you know I grew up in many different places. I moved about every three years when I was a kid, so I learned how to adapt to different environments, different communities, different schools, and of course, different neighborhoods. This had it’s challenges as you might expect, but there were good things about moving a lot to. For instance, I have fond memories of some of the neighborhoods where we lived.
          One of my favorite neighborhoods was when we lived for about two years just outside Stroudsburg, PA, in the Pocono mountains. We lived in a modest, split-level home in a new sub-division that was still taking shape. Most of the other families that lived there were young, adults in their late thirties and early forties with kids all about the same age. This was great because there were always all kinds of kids to play with. And the most amazing part was that everyone got along pretty well. We ranged in age from 9 to 15, everyone wrote bikes around the neighborhood hung out together. My favorite time was the summer’s when we stay out late and play neighborhood games, like capture the flag. We used the whole neighborhood, nobody had a problem with kids running through their backyards, and every so often, some of the adults would join in.
         In addition to capture the flag, we used the best block parties I had ever experienced. Since it was a new sub-division, we had virtually no traffic except those people who lived there. So, to my knowledge, nobody bothered with permits and the closest thing we had to blocking off the streets were a couple of saw horses and some caution tape.
          I remember how the dad’s would roll out their grills and set up tables and folding chairs in the streets and driveways. The moms would set up buffet lines with card tables and fill them with homemade casseroles, (Yes, I said casseroles – remember, this was Eastern Pennsylvania) while the kids would play “Horse” at the driveway basketball hoops, or “Pickle” in someone’s yard. The older teenagers would put their speakers in the bedroom windows and blast music I’d never heard before, like Fleetwood Mac, Boston and early Bruce Springsteen. Then, when it was time to eat, we would fill our paper plates and sit together at the tables to enjoy our food and each other.
          I like the thought of God, in the form of Jesus, moving into a neighborhood like this. Standing with the dad’s, discussing which grill was the best while debating when to flip the burgers. Hovering over the buffet table with the mom’s “oohing and ahhing” over the various casseroles. Shouting up to the teenagers, “Turn up the music… when “More Than a Feeling” came on the stereo. And shooting hoops with kids my age in the neighbor’s driveway.
          And when the food was ready, Jesus would fill his paper plate and sit down at the table to enjoy the meal and the people gathered there, much like we do on this communion Sunday.
          On this first Sunday of 2026, we gather at the table to celebrate that God has moved into our neighborhood. Jesus, the incarnation of God, sits with us, as one of us, to enjoy the fellowship and make us one.
          So come, let us sit at the table in God’s Kingdom.
          May God be praised. Amen.

 

 

 

1.    Thomas Troeger, Feasting on the Gospels, John, Vol. 1, Westminster John Knox Press, 2015, p 189.

 

2.    Frank Thomas, Ibid…, p 188.

12-28-2025 Questioning Christmas

Thomas J Parlette
“Questioning Christmas”
Matthew 2: 13-23
12/28/25
 

          One of my favorite Christmas specials is “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” It’s one of those classic stop motion shows the 1960’s and early 70’s, like “Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “The Little Drummer Boy.” I was 7 years old when “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” premiered in 1970 – and that has always been my favorite.
          I think that’s my favorite for several reasons. It has great original songs. The backgrounds are so detailed and meticulous, and its great story. But my favorite part about “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” is that it answers a lot of questions about Christmas traditions.
          In fact, right at the start of the movie, the Mailman/Narrator, voiced by Fred Astaire, opens some letter to Santa from kids around the world, and you hear their questions : Why does Santa wear a red suit? Why does he come down the chimney? Why does Santa have whiskers? Do reindeer really fly? Why do we hang stocking by the fireplace? Why does Santa live at the North Pole? A lot of questions – all of which are answered by the time the show is done. I think that’s why it is my favorite – I like questions to be answered, and I prefer my answers in form of a story.
          Most of those questions center on the traditions of Christmas, not the actual Christmas story about the birth of Christ that we Christians tell each year. For skeptics of the faith, Christmas as tell it brings up its own set of questions, such as: Did the virgin birth really happen that way – How is that even biologically possible? What about all the angels in the story – do angels really exist, I’ve never seen one? Why would Joseph take his wife, nine months pregnant, on a journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem – pregnant women do not like to travel, with good reason, it’s not safe. How did Jesus survive being born in a barn with all those animals – talk about unsanitary, that would never happen today.
          Skeptics are often very well read – they know our story and that leads them to question everything about Christmas. “How could it happen like you say ?” as if this is a reason not the believe the story, – as if the “hows,” the mechanics of the story, matter to God. The question we should ask is “Why?” Why is the story told this way? Why does God choose to have the story of Jesus’ birth unfold as it does?
          Matthew is actually the one telling this story, and he has very specific reasons for telling it this way. In the time of Jesus, all important people – like Kings and rulers and prophets – had unique birth stories. It was a technique used to say, “This person is special, this person will do great things.” Certainly Jesus fit that mold.
          Matthew also tells his story this way because he wanted to show that Jesus, even though he was the Son of God – did not live a charmed life. He faced challenges, as did his family. When you look beyond the pretty pictures we paint of Bethlehem and the stable and the angels and the shepherds all present at the manger, you find a great deal of danger. The threats are ever present, like they are in this story for today, when Mary and Joseph are forced to flee with their baby to a foreign land to escape the massacre that’s coming at the hands of Herod.
          Usually we spend these Sundays of Christmas basking in the afterglow of the Christmas story. We don’t tend to spend much time with the stories that complete the events of Christ’s birth. First we have this miraculous escape, after an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream. The holy family hightails it out of the country, and flee, as refugees to Egypt.
          When Herod realizes that his plan has fallen apart, he flies into a murderous rage and gives orders to kill all the boys born in Bethlehem, and the surrounding country, who were two years old and younger, just to make sure. Both of these unhappy circumstances took place to fulfill scripture that Matthew knew well – and so did the Jews he was telling this story too. They would have mouthed the words of those scriptures as Matthew told his story.
          So, after Herod died, another angel shows up and tells Joseph it’s safe to go back home. So the Holy family made their way back to Galilee, to a town called Nazareth – again fulfilling what the prophets had said that, “He will be called a Nazarene.” Everything was falling into place just perfectly.
          Matthew told his story in such a way as to answer all the questions the Jews at the time had about Jesus birth and whether he was the Messiah – Matthew gave them the answers to their questions in the form of a story.
          Most often we focus on the comfort we receive from Christmas. The warm glow of lights, the presents, the Christmas cards, the food and the parties.
          But if Matthew’s story teaches us anything, it is that that is not Christmas – that’s the holidays. They are two different things.
          The holidays are all about the warm fuzzys, the decorations, the cookies, the feel-good Hallmark movies and all the rest of the stuff that our culture tells us we need to get into the holiday spirit. And all of that stuff has its place – I enjoy it all as much as anybody.
          Christmas is about God coming to be with us – as one of us. That’s Christmas – the rest is holiday tradition, which is useful to put us in the mood to celebrate REAL Christmas, but they are different.
          Christmas is about putting the Christ child at the center of our lives. It’s about the hope that comes to shine light in our darkness. Real Christmas is about letting God lead us into a foreign land, a land we are familiar with, but a land we are willing to journey to all the same because that’s where God is leading us.
          The author and lecturer, Tony Campolo, likes to tell a story about what happened to his good friend Mike Yaconelli. Yaconelli used to talk about a deacon in his church who was slacking off on his “deaconing” duties, if you will. He just wasn’t doing what he was supposed to do as a deacon.
          So, one day, Yaconelli says to this deacon, “I have a group of young people who go to the retirement home and lead a worship service once a month. Maybe you could drive them over there sometime.” And the deacon agreed, he could do that much.
          The first Sunday the deacon was at the home, he was in the back with his arms folded as the kids were doing their thing up front. All of a sudden, someone was tugging at his arm. He looked down, and there was an old man in a wheelchair. He took hold of the deacons hand and held it all during the service.
          The next month, he did the same thing. And the next, and the next.
          Then, one month, the old in the wheelchair wasn’t there. The deacon inquired and was told, “Oh, he’s down the hall, right hand side, third door. He’s not doing well. He’s unconscious. He doesn’t have too much longer, but if you want to go down and pray for him, that would be fine.”
          So the deacon went and there were tubes and wires hanging all over the place. The deacon took the man’s hand and prayed that God would receive this man, and bring into the next life as comfortably as possible.
          As soon as he finished the prayer, the old man squeezed the deacons hand, and the deacon knew the man had heard the prayer. He was so moved that tears rolled down his cheek.
          As he pulled his together and made his way out of the room, he bumped into a young woman, who turned out to be the old man’s daughter. She said, “Oh, I’m so glad you came. He’s been waiting for you. He said that he didn’t want to die until he had the chance to hold the hand of Jesus one more time.”
          I don’t understand – what do you mean?
Well, my father would say that once a month Jesus came to visit. He would take my hand and hold it for a whole hour. I don’t want to die until I have the chance to hold the hand of Jesus one more time.” (1)
The Lord lead that deacon to a land he didn’t want to go – at first. But he followed God’s call, and became the presence of Jesus for an old man at a retirement home.
That’s Real Christmas – following the Spirit somewhere we never expected to go. You can question the nuts and bolts of Christmas and the finer points of the story of Jesus’ birth all you want – as this story shows, it’s been challenged and threatened from the very beginning. But it doesn’t matter. The story has held up for more than 2000 years, and it will hold up for 2000 more.
 The point is wherever we go and whatever we’re doing, we are the presence, the hand of Jesus, for everyone we meet. For in Jesus, God has come to be with us – as one of us. That is more than the holidays – that is Real Christmas.
May God be praised. Amen.

 

 

1. Homileticsonline.com, Tony Campolo. “Becoming what God intended you to be.” 30goodminutes.org.

Christmas Eve 2025 In Our Dark Streets Shineth

Thomas J Parlette
“In Our Dark Streets Shineth”
Christmas Eve 2025
 

Every year on the 24th of December,
We gather here to rejoice and remember.
We remember the stories passed down from of old.
We rejoice in memories of our Savior foretold
 

His birth announced by legions of angels,
Appearing in the night sky, like stars shining bright.
Their good news was delivered to grumpy, scruffy shepherds,
Keeping watch over the flock in the cold winter night.
 

We gather here in this holy place, surrounded by stained glass,
With their colors so bright,
 

Dressed in festive sweaters in the glow of soft candlelight.
The energy of youth jumps from the pews
As excited boys and girls anticipate Santa, whose arrival is due.
 

In the lobby, explosions of bright red and green pop from poinsettias.
Christmas trees, dripping with lovely decorations,
Some handed down from past generations.
We revel in the glorious music and the comforting words
We recall almost by heart.
 

But we know that the world is not always a treat
It is not always so bright and cheerful and sweet.
The world is often a very dark place,
Filled with heartaches, and losses and behaviors quite base.
 

Even as we gather with joy in our hearts,
The loss of loved ones can still cut deep.
The shadows lengthen and the darkness descends.
 

The prophet Isaiah spoke of this darkness when he wrote:
“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light,
For they lived in shadows, but now the light shines on them bright.
Isaiah spoke of the baby born in Bethlehem
As the source of this bright hope,
A baby named Jesus,
Born to rule as King of the world, in its full scope.
 

The priest Zechariah, father of John,
Offered a song of hope embodied in this one:
“By the tender mercy of our God,
The dawn from on high
Will break upon us,
To give light to our darkness, in the shadow of death,
And guide our feet into the way of peace.”
 

In December, 1865, young Phillips Brooks decided he needed a break.
As pastor of the Church of the Holy Trinity in Philadelphia,
A sabbatical he did take.
The Civil War had just ended a few months prior,
So he took a trip to Europe, then on to the Holy Land, as was his desire.
On Christmas Eve, Brooks found himself in Jerusalem, that holy city.
 

He acquired a horse and set out towards Bethlehem,
Exploring the land, dirty and gritty.
He rode six miles south to find the spot the shepherds had been.
The stars were twinkling over the quiet little town.
The peacefulness melted Brooks face to a grin.
The perfect stillness, like a dreamless sleep,
Stayed with him and sat in his heart down deep.
 

When young Phillips returned to his church,
He jotted down some verse about the night of Christ’s birth:
“O little town of Bethlehem
How still we see thee lie
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by.”
 

As he sat in his office overlooking Rittenhouse Square,
Brooks thought about the state of the nation, still young and fair.
The last four years of war had left people frightened and scared.
They had been through dark times,
And needed some hope just to know that God cares.
He was moved to add some text to his verse:
“Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting light
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight.”
 

Over the next three years, Brooks added to his poem.
And just before Christmas, 1868, he summoned his friend.
The organist at Church, Lewis Redner, to put music to his verse.
But as hard as he tried, Redner came up dry.
He said, “My brain was all confused, but I was roused from sleep late in the night hearing an angel-strain…
And seizing a piece of music paper, I jotted down the treble of the tune.” (1)
 

“O Little Town of Bethlehem” made its debut on the 27th of December,
Performed by the Children’s Choir of Holy Trinity, (2)
As beautiful as any could remember.
Over the years it has become a standard on Christmas Eve,
With its assurance that hope conquers darkness,
And God will never leave.
 

In December 1941, the times were again as dark as they could be.
The world was at war, Pearl Harbor had been bombed,
 America had to act, this they could see.
So Prime Minister Churchill made the dangerous journey to visit President Roosevelt in Washington D.C.
 

He arrived on December 22nd, and on Christmas Eve, the world leaders
Addressed a crowd of 20,000. As noted in the Washington Post:
“A crescent moon hung overhead. To the southward loomed the Washington Monument… as the sun dipped… behind the Virginia hills.” (3)
 

Churchill began his remarks: “Even though I am far from my own country and my family, I cannot truthfully say that I feel far from home. Here in the midst of war, raging over all the lands and seas, creeping nearer to our hearts and homes, here, amid all the tumult, we have tonight the peace of spirit in each cottage home and in every generous heart… here, then, for one night only, each home… should be a brightly-lighted island of happiness and peace.” (4)
His comments were well received, and the very next day,
He and the President attended church together.
Included in the service was “O Little Town of Bethlehem,”
Which Churchill heard for the very first time. (5)

As we gather tonight to celebrate Christ’s birth,
We revel in the joyful warmth of this season so full of mirth.
But we also acknowledge the darkness that often exists,
The loved ones who are missing, the needs that persist.
So we listen to God’s story and we sing our angel-songs
To remind ourselves for that which our hearts truly long:

In the face of the darkest of times
There is a light that still shines.
We live in the assurance that in our dark streets shineth
The everlasting light; the hopes and fears of all the years
Are met here, in this place, tonight.
O Holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us we pray,
Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels, the great glad tidings tell,
O Come to us; abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel!
My God be Praised. Amen.

 

1.    David McCullough, In the Dark Streets Shineth,” Shadow Mountain, 2010, p 19.

2.    Leben: A Journal of Reformation Life, December 15th, 2016.

3.    McCullough… p 5.

4.    Ibid… p 11.

5.    Ibid… p 15.

12-14-2025 We Are Called to Say Yes

Thomas J Parlette
“We Are Called to Say Yes”
Luke 1: 46b-55
12/14/25
          We all know that this is the season of Advent. In fact, today is the third Sunday of Advent, the Sunday of Joy, when we light the pink candle as a sign of rejoicing over what God has done and will soon do.
          But we’ve also just begun another new season – Awards season. This is the time of year when all the major film awards begin nominating and voting for all the major awards.
          The season usually starts in November, when nominations begin coming out. December heats up with the Golden Globe and SAG nominations, early predictors of who we might see nominated for the big prizes like the Academy Awards.
          The big prizes are awarded in January and February, like the Golden Globes, SAG, BAFTA (the British Oscars), and finally, in March the biggest prize of all – the Oscars.
          So right now, all the public relations firms that represent major stars are burning the midnight oil trying to line up what they call “puff pieces” for their clients. These are articles, interviews, personal appearances on TV or podcasts trying to raise their client’s profiles, create some buzz, somehow make them stand out as better, more important, more skilled or talented than their competition. (1)
          In the language of our passage for today, P.R.reps and agents are looking to “magnify” their clients for awards season.
        Today, we are looking at the second number of Luke’s musical, “Miracles in the Maternity Ward,” as we listen to Mary’s Magnificat. Luke is definitely the most musical of the Gospels. We’ve already spent some time with the “Benedictus,” sung by Zechariah. Today we move to the “Magnificat.” In chapter two of Luke, we will hear the angels sing the “Gloria In Excelsis,” and later in chapter two, when Jesus is dedicated in the Temple, Simeon will sing the “Nunc Dimittis,” giving praise to God for keeping the Divine promise.
          Mary’s song actually has much in common with another song sung in the Old Testament. At the beginning of the Book of Samuel, Hannah sings a very similar song when she learns she is finally about to have a child- “Lord has filled my heart with joy, how happy I am because of what he has done! I laugh at my enemies; how joyful I am because God has helped me!... He protects the lives of his faithful people… the Lord’s enemies will be destroyed… The Lord will judge the whole world’ he will give power to his king, he will make his chosen king victorious.”
          You don’t have to listen to hard to see the connection between what Hannah sang and what Mary now sings. Both songs magnify God’s goodness to those who are faithful.
          Mary magnifies the generous abundance of God. First, to her personally, for giving her a son, and then to the wider world, for bringing mercy and justice.
          Walter Brueggemann has coined a phrase that describes the Magnificat very well. He speaks in terms of a “lyric of abundance” as opposed to the “myth of scarcity.” (2)
          The myth of scarcity is the belief that there will not be enough to meet our needs – enough food, enough money, enough mercy, enough forgiveness, enough grace, whatever it may be. The myth of scarcity whispers “get what you can now, because there is not enough to go around.” Resources are scarce.
          The lyric of abundance, however, sings about God’s ability and willingness to provide what we need. The lyric of abundance celebrates that God is true to God’s promises – God will come through for us. God will provide. The lyric of abundance falls into line with what the Chinese philosopher Laozi wrote long ago in the Tao Te Ching – “He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.”
          Notice that Mary sings the Magnificat with an air of confidence – she sings everything in the present tense. There is no “God will act in the future” kind of attitude. Or, “I hope God will bring justice and mercy and forgiveness and grace. No, Mary sings as if these things are already done. They’ve already happened. God will – fill the hungry with good things. God will – send the rich away hungry. God will – bring down the mighty. God will – lift up the lowly. Mary’s Magnificat is more than a prediction or a prophecy – it is a description of the new reality. (3)
          To be clear, Jesus’ birth does not erase the challenges Mary will face as an unmarried, pregnant teenager. Her joy does not mean the absence of struggle or conflict. Her joy comes in the connection to a greater story, a story much bigger than just her own. Mary’s joy that we celebrate this Sunday is because she is connected to a hope for more than can be seen at the present moment. Her joy comes from the fulfillment of promises God made to our ancestors. (4)  Mary sings with joy because God does abundantly provide.
          As followers who anticipate and celebrate Jesus’ birth each year, we are called to listen for the lyric of abundance in Mary’s song. (5)  We too are called to say “Yes” to what God is doing and put our trust in the God who provides.
          Edwina Gateley captured this call in her poem “Called to Say Yes:
          “We are called to say Yes.
          That the Kingdom might break through
          To renew and to transform
          Our dark and groping world.
          We stutter and stammer
          To the lone God who calls
And pleads a New Jerusalem
In the bloodied Sinai Straights.
We are called to say Yes
That honeysuckle may twine
And twist its smelling leaves
Over the graves of nuclear arms.
We are called to say Yes
That black may sing with white
And pledge peace and healing
For the hatred of the past.
We are called to say Yes
So that nation might gather
And dance one great movement
For the joy of humankind.
We are called to say Yes
So that rich and poor embrace
And become equal in their poverty
Through the silent tears that fall.
We are called to say Yes
That the whisper of our God
Might be heard through our sirens
And the screams of our bombs.
We are called to say Yes
To a God who still holds fast
To the vision of the Kingdom
For a trembling world of pain.
We are called to say Yes
To this God who reaches out
And asks us to share
His crazy dream of love. (6)
 

On this Third Sunday, we celebrate Joy. The joy that moved Mary to sing her Magnificat – my soul magnifies the Lord. My soul rejoices in the fact that God will always come through for us. God abundantly provides. So, once more, let us follow Mary’s lead, and say “Yes” to what God is about to do, through a baby, named Jesus, born in Bethlehem, upon a midnight clear.

May God be praised. Amen.

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