christianity

How Do You Recognize the Messiah?

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Matthew 11:2-11

Early one Friday morning a while back, a street musician took a spot by a trashcan in the L’Enfant Plaza Metro Station in Washington, D.C. He was nondescript – youngish, jeans, baseball cap. He took out his violin and threw a few dollars in the case so people would get the point. For the next 43 minutes he played six classical pieces while over a thousand people passed by on their way to work. Only seven people stopped. Twenty-seven people dropped change in the violin case, mostly on the run. So that morning, if you count the twenty-dollar bill dropped in by the one person that recognized him, Joshua Bell, one of the finest classical musicians in the world, made $59 for a 43-minute concert on his three-and-a-half million-dollar Stradivarius.

Why didn’t people recognize Bell? They would have recognized him at Carnegie Hall or Kennedy Center. They would have recognized him if they’d paid $200 for a ticket. But playing for free in a Metro Station isn’t what a world-famous violinist does. It wasn’t what they were expecting.

This Matthew passage raises the question: How do you recognize the one sent from God to save God’s people and God’s world? How do you recognize the Messiah? Once again, we meet John the Baptist. In last week’s lectionary passage when Jesus came forward to be baptized, John seemed to recognize him as the one for whom they had all been waiting. But now John is in prison where he’s had some time to think about it, and he’s not sure Jesus fits the mold. He likely wonders why that Roman puppet and tyrant Herod is still on his throne. He likely wonders why he, John, is still in prison.

This Sunday is just eleven days until Christmas, and this passage tells us not of angels or shepherds or mangers but of John the Baptist and his doubts and disappointment. “You aren’t who I was expecting. You don’t look like a Messiah.” But the thing is, if John could ask such things, we can, too. “If you are the one who is to come, why is my friend dying of cancer? Why does every generation seem to need to go to war? Why are so many kids hungry, neglected, abused? Why are there still people all over the world, like John the Baptist, unjustly held in prisons?” Many of us have friends who have asked, “How can you believe in a just, merciful, all-powerful God when the world is such a mess? If God exists, and if Jesus is as important as you claim, shouldn’t things be better by now? Why are there still diseases, wars, earthquakes, greed?” Wouldn’t the Messiah clean up this mess?

Many of us have asked those questions ourselves. We still wait for the fulfillment of the Christmas promise: peace on earth and goodwill among all. That very promise is the reason Christmas can be so difficult. The headlines and sometimes our own lives make it clear that peace and goodwill seem as scarce today as they were a couple of millennia ago.

Quoting Isaiah 35 and 61, Jesus tells John’s disciples, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”

Twentieth century theologian Paul Tillich wrote, “We want only to show you something we have seen and to tell you something we have heard . . . that here and there in the world and now and then in ourselves is seen a New Creation.” Jesus says more is going on than John has noticed. Yes, John is still in prison. But Jesus is saying, “Listen. Look. God is at work here, maybe not with the ‘unquenchable fire’ that you were expecting (Matthew 3:12), but God is at work just the same,” here and there in the world, and now and then in ourselves. Jesus is both the fulfillment of the people’s hopes and something altogether different. Something no one was expecting.

This means a couple of things. First, Jesus hasn’t fixed everything. We don’t have any better answer for our non-Christian friends than, “You’re right. The world is still a mess. We aren’t claiming that everything is ‘all better’ since the advent of Jesus as God with us, only that now we have a clearer idea of how to spot that new creation, a concrete hope for its fulfillment, and a fervent prayer for the present time: ‘Come, Lord Jesus.’”

But it also means something bigger. When Jesus tells John, “yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than [John]” (Matthew 11:11), he’s talking about us. The only example of power Jesus will give us – serving, feeding, healing, giving himself away – is the same power that we have. It is because of that power that here and there in the world, and now and then in ourselves is seen a new creation. I know people who don’t want to have anything to do with a God who doesn’t solve all the world’s problems in a blinding flash of light or with fiery judgment. But what we celebrate this season, the coming of God into our world, this world, the real, human world is more along the lines of what Thich Nhat Hanh has said: “The miracle is not to walk on water but on the earth.”

Still, during this season of festive excess, even that miracle can seem unattainable, unavailable, or simply not enough, to those who have experienced loss, trauma, ill health, economic setback, or fear what the future might hold. Some congregations offer a “Blue Christmas” or “Longest Night” service, a celebration of Christ’s incarnation and birth a few days ahead of December 25 and designed particularly for those who are dealing with loss, disappointment, grief, or depression. This reading, revealing that even intrepid John the Baptist had doubts and fears, might be an appropriate text for such a service. Doubt and grief are not unfaithful. Those of us who are feeling festive can stand in solidarity with those who long, who wait, who hope for something better; to assure them through our presence that God is with them, even if not in the way they might wish. It’s an opportunity to sing what David Lose describes as “that most honest of Advent hymns,” “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.”

© Joanne Whitt 2025 all rights reserved.

Resources:

You can see a short YouTube video of Bell’s subway performance at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnOPu0_YWhw. 
Paul Tillich, The New Being (New York: Charles Scribner, 1955); http://www.religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=375&C=15. 
Mary Hinkle Shore, https://members.newproclamation.com/commentary.php?d8m=12&d8d=15&d8y=2013&atom_id=19021.  

Walter Brueggeman, Charles B. Cousar, Beverly Gaventa, James D. Newsome, Texts for Preaching: Year A (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995).


What Does “Repent!” Really Mean?

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Matthew 3:1-12

It’s unlikely that the folks who show up for church on the first Sunday in December are hoping to be compared to a brood of vipers and warned of “the wrath to come.” But every Second Sunday in Advent, we meet John the Baptist out in the wilderness. What does John have to tell us this year?

John preaches repentance. “Repent” is a word with a lot of baggage. I grew up with cartoon images of scruffy, bearded, street preachers carrying signs saying “Repent!” and maybe, “The end is near!” alluding to God’s eternal judgment and what some folks call “turn or burn” theology. These cartoons made repentance seem like a joke about religious extremism or even delusion. Some hear the word “repent” and think it means you’re supposed to say you’re really, really sorry and you will never do it (whatever it is) again. Which isn’t a bad thing, but it’s a pretty small part of repentance. I suspect most of us hear the word “repent,” and think, “Okay, now I’m supposed to feel bad about myself.” But here’s the thing: What “repent” really means is turn around. Go in a different direction. David Lose writes, “Repentance, in short, is realizing that God is pointing you one way, that you’ve been traveling another way, and changing course.” Brian McLaren writes “repent means, ’rethink everything,’ or ‘question your assumptions,’ or ‘have a deep turnaround in your thinking and values.’” Rather than a threat, what John is getting at is that what we’re doing isn’t working. It isn’t working, and we deserve something better. Everybody deserves something better. The whole world, the whole creation deserves something better. In order to experience that “something better,” we need to repent; we need to change course.

John doesn’t just say, “Repent!” He says, “Repent! God’s kingdom has come near!” His call to change course is connected to a promise. Something better for everybody is a real possibility. Matthew calls that something the “kingdom of heaven.” Mark and Luke call it the “kingdom of God;” they’re the same thing. What John is announcing is life on earth lived as though God is the ruler of our hearts and minds, a new life that stands in stark contrast to the kingdoms of Caesar and Herod, known for domination, injustice, exploitation, and oppression. This new kingdom, this new life is about God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven. It’s about God’s love and compassion, a better kingdom for everyone.

A chapter later, Jesus speaks these same words at the beginning of his own ministry. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matthew 4:17). In the next chapter, he gives us a glimpse of what God’s kingdom looks like in the Sermon on the Mount. Blessed are the poor. The meek shall inherit the earth. Love your enemies (Matthew 5-7). So, if we want to be part of this other kingdom, this new life, it means going in that direction, living in that direction. God is pointing us one way, and we’ve been traveling another way. When John says, “Repent,” he means “Move in the direction of God’s love, for ourselves, for others, for our neighbors, for the world.” This change in direction isn’t about punishment; it’s about love because God is love, and you are God’s beloveds. You deserve something better than injustice, oppression, revenge, greed, and the suffering they produce. The whole world deserves something better.

But – “the wrath to come,” and “unquenchable fire”? “You brood of vipers”? Yikes! John isn’t trying to make friends here. Matthew’s John, like any prophet worth his salt, speaks truth to power. Power appears out in the wilderness in the form of the Pharisees and Sadducees who come to be baptized along with everyone else. John warns them that a baptism of repentance really means repentance. It isn’t enough to get dunked in the river. It’s time to walk the walk without relying on some special status as descendants of Abraham to give them a pass.

John then warns that the one who is coming – Jesus – will have “[h]is winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire” (Matthew 3:12). This punitive and harsh separation isn’t how we experience Jesus in Matthew or elsewhere. What we see instead is inclusion, healing, acceptance, love, but also an unequivocal condemnation of hatred, hypocrisy, and greed. Could it be that John was expecting a different kind of messiah, a scarier messiah? This might explain his confused question from prison several chapters later: “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” (Matthew 11:2-3)

So, what do we need to repent at the close of 2025? So many things are not working for humanity right now. We still try to solve problems with war and violence. Like that ever worked. We still haven’t figured out how to share the earth’s bounty so that everyone can thrive. We still hoard power, wealth, resources, even knowledge. We still believe the next technology will solve all our problems instead of creating more. We’re still terminally tribal, forgetting that diversity is so very obviously God’s plan. We still haven’t figured out that we’re part of creation, part of the natural world, and that our very survival depends on our understanding that and living that truth. We are still driven more by fear than by love.

There’s a lot to repent, right? And repentance isn’t easy. Changing course is never easy. Rob Bell writes starkly and poetically about repentance:
“It will require a death,
a humbling,
a leaving behind of the old mind,
and at the same time it will require an opening up,
loosening our hold,
and letting go,
so that we can receive,
expand,
find,
hear,
see,
and enjoy.”

It will require a death. A humbling. Ouch. Although I suspect most of us know this death, this humbling. Maybe you felt in when you finally gave up a grudge, or a resentment, or an addiction. When you figured out that what you had been doing was creating a hellish reality for yourself and others. When you figured out that things didn’t have to be the way they always have been, and on the other side of letting go of the way things were was freedom, and even joy. As Frederick Buechner writes, “To repent is to come to your senses. It is not so much something you do as something that happens. True repentance spends less time looking at the past and saying ‘I’m sorry,’ than to the future and saying, ‘Wow!’”

© Joanne Whitt 2025 all rights reserved.

Resources:
Brian D. McLaren, We Make the Road By Walking (New York: Jericho Books, 2014).
Catherine Sider Hamilton, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/second-sunday-of-advent/commentary-on-matthew-31-12-7
Shannon Kershner, “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven Is Near!” December 4, 2016, https://www.fourthchurch.org/sermons/2016/120416.html
David Lose, http://www.davidlose.net/2016/11/advent-2-a-reclaiming-repentance/
Rob Bell, Love Wins (New York: HarperOne, 2011)
Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC’s (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1973; revised and expanded 1993)

Why I Go to Church

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A couple of Sundays ago, I drove back to the Bay Area from a family visit in Orange County, which meant I missed church. I realized as I was driving that I really missed church. It felt like a loss not to attend worship. It got me thinking about why; why I’m committed to showing up at church every Sunday, while most people in this part of the United States rarely if ever attend any kind of religious service. Do they have any idea why some of us do?

Here’s what I came up with: In church, I’m surrounded by a community of people who trust that God loves every one of us, who loves the entire creation, in fact. I’m surrounded by a community that yearns for our lives and our world to reflect that love. That, all by itself, is hopeful and powerful. I’m not alone; I need community to support me in my commitment to try to love God and love my neighbors as myself. I also need community, full stop.

In worship, I experience God’s presence in and through the gathered community. God is made real for me as we sing together, pray together, and seek inspiration both to live as God’s beloveds and to treat others as God’s beloveds. There’s plenty in our culture that denies that all of us are precious, regardless of circumstance or station. There’s plenty that would tell us we just need to look out for ourselves. Once a week, sitting in a pew, I’m reminded that there’s another way, a better way, a Godly way.

Many people say they experience God in nature, and I do, as well. I feel close to God in Muir Woods, on a Pacific Coast beach, and in the High Sierras. But nature doesn’t challenge me to be transformed into a more loving, just human being. Nature doesn’t collect socks, mittens, and gloves to hang on a Christmas tree for neighbors in need, or prepare a free Thanksgiving dinner for over 300 lonely or unhoused neighbors. Nature doesn’t march in the Pride Parade in support of our LGBTQ+ siblings or provide apartments for refugees. Nature doesn’t confront me, as I was yesterday morning, with the observation that “’Nice’ people make the best Nazis,” Naomi Shulman’s way of describing how people who avoid confronting uncomfortable truths can contribute to societal injustices. Nature doesn’t encourage me to overcome cynicism by assuring me that the bad news is never the end.

In worship, I’m part of a tradition that as long ago as the 8th century B.C.E. longed for a world in which humankind “will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks,” in which “Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore” (Isaiah 2:4). I’m reminded that the human being whom my tradition believes most represents godliness said, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40). Certainly, the Bible is ancient and foreign, and can be confusing and even maddening, and always – yes, always – requires interpretation. But when that interpretation is done with love and care in community, there’s a better chance that God is speaking through it. God speaks through the Bible not only to ancient worlds, but to our world today. As one writer put it, the Bible shows “how nations fall when leaders pursue power without righteousness. It shows how societies unravel when truth is discarded, when the weak are exploited, or when leaders trust in chariots rather than principles. It records what happens when peace is sought without justice. At the same time, it illuminates how communities are renewed through repentance, how justice restores trust, and how humility opens the door to genuine reconciliation. These are not merely religious lessons; they are political and social truths validated repeatedly across human history.” (Jeff Fountain, “All the Light You Can See,” https://weeklyword.eu/en/all-the-light-you-see/)

I also know people who don’t attend church because they think of themselves as “spiritual but not religious.” Maybe they’ve been injured by religion; someone may have told them that they were bad, sinful, unacceptable to God, “damned.” A religious leader may have been manipulative or even a predator. Sadly, religious institutions are not free from abusers, charlatans, jerks, or people with good intentions who just screw up. But neither is any other institution. All we can do, in any institution, is hold people accountable for their misdeeds and try to prevent further abuse.

Others who are spiritual but not religious may fear that someone will insist that they believe things – or pretend they believe things – that they find unbelievable. I can’t speak for other faiths, but I’m grateful that my tradition, the Reformed tradition, is committed to “the church Reformed, always being reformed” (in Latin, “Ecclesia reformata semper reformanda”). The UCC (United Church of Christ), one of our cousins in the Reformed tradition, has a saying: “God is still speaking.” This is indeed my experience, and in my lifetime, our still-speaking God has revealed to the church that it isn’t only straight, white, males who can lead congregations; that commitment to community and God’s love is more important than whether you can recite the Apostles’ Creed without crossing your fingers; that how we love our neighbors here and now is more important than what we speculate will happen to us after we die. In my experience, church is the place where you figure out what you believe (or don’t believe), not the place you must believe certain things in order to belong. Being spiritual but not religious does offer the freedom of believing whatever you want, but it doesn’t offer community or teach time-tested spiritual practices. Tradition isn’t always a bad thing.

I know people who don’t attend worship because they fear they’ll encounter judgmental people, bad music, and on top of that, they’ll have to dress up. Find a community with music you like; it’s out there somewhere. And while I’m certain there are congregations with pious, judgmental people, I haven’t encountered any in my adult life. In fact, church people are the most gracious, humble, and welcoming people I know. Certainly, you’ll find more people wearing jeans in some churches than in others, but I don’ know any church in 2025 that has a dress code.

And so, every Sunday, I sit among my fellow worshipers. We’re different ages, genders, and ethnicities; we have different educations and incomes; we’ve led different lives. We become one body through the music, sermon, liturgy, prayers, sacraments, and fellowship. We “pass the peace.” We acknowledge our limitations together. We ask for healing and the courage to forgive. We pray for the ability to love even those who seem unlovable. We celebrate milestones. This morning, a young family sat in the pew in front of me. Their toddler daughter’s eyes grew as big as saucers when the choir began singing the choral introit (a song at the opening of worship) from the balcony. She was transfixed by the ethereal music, music that called all of us to take a deep breath and be present to the holy in us and among us. I hope she will remember that feeling. I hope she will remember being part of a motley crew of people who strive imperfectly but courageously to love the world.

Advent Waiting

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Matthew 24:36-44

This Sunday’s passage from Matthew is another text that seems out of place for the season. The culture around us is fresh from Thanksgiving and Black Friday and rushing headlong into Christmas, decking the halls and making merry. But instead of tidings of comfort and joy, the first gospel reading for Advent offers us a flood, a thief in the night, and warnings to be prepared. This year, it doesn’t seem so much as though these messages are coming from out in left field, and therefore, they’re more comforting.

The passage comes at the end of a long apocalyptic prediction by Jesus. Apocalyptic literature is crisis literature. It’s meant to bring comfort to distressed communities and it encourages faithfulness and courage during the struggle. The promise of God’s deliverance is normally linked to instructions to be watchful. Be alert. Pay attention. These apocalyptic passages always show up early in Advent. Of course, there is always something we can do, some action we can take, however small, to participate in God’s coming reign, but these passages remind us that there are some things we simply can’t make happen. Sometimes we have to wait. We may have to wait for a diagnosis, for the pain to stop, for a loved one to heal, or for a loved one to die. We may have to wait to find out whether we got the job, or whether we’ll lose the job. We may have to wait to figure out whether we’ve made the right decision. We may have to wait for justice, or to be loved. There really are some things we can do nothing about. That’s hard news for many of us who like to think we’re in control of our lives. We want to be proactive – which is good and right and faithful. But sometimes we must wait.

Advent re-tells the story of people who, like us, were waiting for the promises of God to be fulfilled and striving to live faithfully as they waited. Down through the ages, Christians have waited for the “Second Coming” of Christ, and that’s still language that many people use today. Presbyterians give a nod to this in our communion liturgy when we recite, “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” Speaking for myself, I’m not waiting for a cataclysmic end time; I believe, instead, that the reign of God is realized among us; as Frederick Buechner wrote, “Insofar as here and there, and now and then, God’s kingly will is being done in various odd ways among us even at this moment, the kingdom has come already. Insofar as all the odd ways we do [God’s] will at this moment are at best half-baked and halfhearted, the kingdom is still a long way off – a hell of a long way off, to be more precise and theological.” So, when I proclaim, “Christ will come again,” I don’t mean at the end of the world as we know it but in the next instant, or in our next encounter, in our next opportunity to meet Christ in others and in other situations.

Either way, Christ’s work isn’t complete, is it? God’s promises are not all fulfilled. The world is not beating its swords into plowshares or its spears into pruning hooks (Isaiah 2:4). As much as we wish we could, or pretend that we can, we can’t make God’s reign come on our own. And so we wait. Advent offers us the reminder that waiting can be a spiritual practice, a holy practice, because Advent not only reminds us that there will always be times we have to wait; it asks us how we are waiting.

The lectionary cuts off the reading of Matthew 24 at verse 44 but the final half-dozen verses of the chapter provide an analogy about household servants. In verse 45 Jesus mentions that a commendable servant would be the one who gives the other servants their food at the proper time. In other words, the good servant is commended for making dinner! It doesn’t say he amassed property and goods so that he’d be secure, even if others were suffering. It doesn’t say he hunkered down into an armed compound or bunker. It says simply that what made him a good servant was that he made dinner for others and served it at the usual time. In other words, he carried out the ordinary service of his ordinary life. Might it be that being faithful servants in our everyday routines demonstrates holy watchfulness for Christ’s return? Is being an honest office manager, a careful school bus driver, an ethical attorney, a thoughtful homemaker really a sign that we are aware that God will indeed fulfill God’s promises? Yes, it is.

This kind of waiting – being faithful in our everyday routines, paying attention and listening, watching for God’s active presence here and now – is a spiritual practice, a holy waiting, because it means we recognize our own limitations and rely on God. The Serenity Prayer is a terrific Advent prayer: “God, grant us serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and wisdom to know the difference.” There are things we cannot change or fix. For those things, we must wait; we wait for God. And here’s the thing: spiritual transformation doesn’t take place when we get what we want, when we want it. Spiritual transformation happens in the waiting room. Waiting is soul work.

As the Serenity Prayer reminds us, there are things we can change, and our faith asks us to join with God in changing those things. And so we wait for the kingdom by working for the values of the kingdom; being alert and paying attention to the voices on the margins, the voices we might not even want to hear. Joining in the work God is already doing in the world; working for God’s kingdom of justice and peace and kindness and generosity with a fierce hope that never dies.

And God does come. God comes with comfort through the kindness of a friend when we lose someone we love. God comes with healing through gentle touch. God comes with reassurance when we’re afraid. God comes with energizing spirit when we’re discouraged and life-giving love when we’re depressed. Sometimes God surprises us in coincidences that shift our thinking. Other times, God comes quietly – in the birth of the child of Bethlehem long ago and in the birth of love today, now, in the world, in your life and mine. The message of Advent is that God indeed comes into the world – to lonely exiles centuries ago, and to you and me.

© Joanne Whitt 2025 all rights reserved.

Resources:
Henri J. M. Nouwen, “A Spirituality of Waiting,” an article condensed from a tape available from Ave Maria Press, Notre Dame, Indiana 46556, http://bgbc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/A-Spirituality-of-Waiting-by-Henri-Houwen.pdf.
David Lose, http://www.davidlose.net/2014/11/matthew-24-32-51/.
Scott Hoezee, “Advent 1A,” November 21, 2016, http://cep.calvinseminary.edu/sermon-starters/advent-1a/?type=the_lectionary_gospel.
Pete Wilson, “The Spiritual Benefits of Waiting,” November 19, 2015, http://www.faithgateway.com/spiritual-benefits-waiting/#.WDcMhqIrJsM
John M. Buchanan, “The Work of Waiting,” November 29, 2009, http://fourthchurch.org/sermons/2009/112909.html.

Testify

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Luke 21:5-19

Jesus is teaching the people in the Temple when his listeners comment on its beauty. Jesus responds with the harsh prediction that the day will come when this Temple is a pile of rubble. A destroyed Temple isn’t just a change in the Jerusalem skyline; it’s the end of history, so the people ask, “When will this happen? And what are the signs?” Jesus says there will be three signs: false messiahs, wars and international conflicts, and natural disasters (Luke 21:9-11).

But Luke’s Jesus isn’t really concerned with apocalypse. Luke’s gospel is part one of a two-part work. Part two is Acts – the Acts of the Apostles. What concerns Luke is not the end of time, but encouraging the faithful when the young church faces difficult times. Before the signs pointing to the destruction of the Temple, the followers of Jesus will face persecution, arrest, suffering, betrayal; and all these are described in Acts (Luke 21:12). “But,” says Jesus, “this will give you a chance to testify – to witness, to speak the truth about your faith” (Luke 21:13).

“Testify” is primarily a legal term in our language. It refers to something you say while under oath, swearing it is the truth. In my own Presbyterian tradition, testifying or witnessing in worship isn’t common, but there are churches in which it is. Many Black churches include the practice of public testimony as a part of worship, during which people speak truthfully about what they’ve experienced and seen of the good news of the gospel, offering it to the community for the benefit of all. Thomas Hoyt Jr. writes, “In a world where bad news gets more attention than good, a testimony like this tells the truth. It also ties individuals to communities.” One person’s testimony becomes a shared affirmation.

I suspect many of us are uncomfortable with Jesus’ suggestion that we testify, but there’s a kind of testimony, a kind of witnessing to the good news that is sorely needed, particularly in a society where honest, empowering, public speech is rare. We know there are ways to talk about God and Jesus that don’t have integrity. People talk about God when what they’re really talking about is their own political agenda; people talk about God when what they’re really talking about is how self-righteous they are; people talk about God when what they really want to do is manipulate other people. It causes many of us to shy away from talking about our faith, especially in a pluralistic culture where we don’t want to sound as though we’re pushing our religion on someone else. We may fear being lumped in with Christian Nationalists or others who use their faith to condemn or exclude. Witnessing isn’t necessarily easy. It’s no coincidence that the Greek word for witness is martyr.

But the price of silence is high, as well. Martin Luther King, Jr., said, “It may well be that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition is not the glaring noisiness of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.” Consider the cost to the world if no one testifies to the truth of the gospel that because each person is of infinite value to God, no one ought to withhold from anybody what they need for life. That wealth is not God’s reward to the righteous or poverty God’s punishment. That God’s most particular concern is for the helpless, the poor and the struggling, the hopeless and the outcast. That seeking revenge on the personal or national level is wrong.

Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Workers Movement, said, “If I have achieved anything in my life, it is because I have not been embarrassed to talk about God.” But let me be quick to add that I am a big fan of these words attributed to St. Francis: “Preach the gospel at all times. When necessary, use words.” As the saying goes, it’s often our actions that speak much more loudly than our words. In the Bay Area, Presbyterian pastors and other clergy are showing up for congregation members who are being called in for ICE interviews in Oakland. They wear their clergy collars to make it clear they’re acting because of their faith. Clergy also have participated in immigration enforcement protests outside the U.S. Coast Guard base in Alameda last month. During those protests, an Oakland pastor, Jorge Bautista, was hit in the face by a projectile, likely a “pepper round.” Bautista believes the federal agent intentionally targeted him; “he wanted to cause harm to me.”

But not everyone who testifies ends up getting hit in the face with pepper spray. There’s also the testimony of welcoming outcasts, providing food for the hungry, showing up at someone’s bedside, raising your children to be kind, caring for the planet, doing your job with honesty and integrity – I could go on and on. The bottom line is this: The good news of God’s grace is too good to keep to ourselves. Christ is seeking to make his appeal through us: The vulnerable are God’s priority. Life is stronger than death. Good is stronger than evil. Love is stronger than hate. Truth is stronger than lies.

Resources:
Thomas Hoyt Jr., “Testimony,” in Practicing Our Faith, Dorothy C. Bass, ed. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1997).
Roberta C. Bondi, “One Plot at a Time,” in The Christian Century, November 2, 2004.
Thomas G. Long, Testimony: Talking Ourselves into Being Christian (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2004).
Martin Luther King, Jr., “The Christian Way of Life in Human Relations: Address Delivered at the General Assembly of the National Council of Churches,” December 4. 1957, https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/christian-way-life-human-relations-address-delivered-general-assembly-national
Billal Rahman, “Pastor Shot in Face by ‘Pepper Round’ at Anti-ICE Protest Speaks Out,” Newsweek, October 24, 2025, https://www.newsweek.com/pastor-shot-in-face-by-pepper-round-at-anti-ice-protest-speaks-out-10933811

Jesus Answers the Sadducees

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Luke 20:27-38

The Sadducees were conservatives who believed the only valid Scripture was the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament/Hebrew Scriptures, while other Jews by Jesus’ time also studied the books of the prophets – Isaiah, Micah, and so on – and other writings such as the Psalms. Also by Jesus’ time, most Jews believed that at some point in the future, at the end of this age, God would raise all the dead; raise their bodies, give them new life. This is what was known as “the resurrection of the dead.” You can’t find anything about this in the Torah, so the Sadducees didn’t accept it.

So, when a group of Sadducees approaches Jesus with a question about the resurrection of the dead, they aren’t looking for an answer. They believe they know the answer. They intend to discredit Jesus, and as a bonus, embarrass their resurrection-believing rivals, the Pharisees. They concoct a hypothetical scenario about a woman whose husband dies before she could bear him a son to carry on the family name. There’s a law in the Torah that says that when that happens, the dead man’s brother must take the widow as his wife and honor the dead brother by fathering a son with her, so the dead man’s name will continue (Deuteronomy 25:5). This is called “levirate marriage,” a grim reminder of the status of first century women as property, with no security unless they were married and no value if they didn’t produce sons. But in this absurd hypothetical, the second brother also dies, and likewise the third, and so on, until this poor woman has survived seven brothers. There’s no acknowledgement that this would be a tragic situation for the woman, because that’s not the point. They conclude, “So, Teacher, in the resurrection, whose wife will the woman be?”

Given their nonbelief in the resurrection, it’s ironic that the Sadducees’ question suggests that they have imagined it: they assume that resurrection life is simply an extension of life as they know it. Jesus explains that the rules we put in place to keep order and make our way in this life are not important or even relevant in the next one, because it will be fundamentally different. Marriage protected people in this life, but in the age to come, these rules and traditions won’t be necessary.

Then he demonstrates the Sadducees’ failure to understand the Scriptures (which they claim to cherish) with the story of Moses’ encounter with God in the burning bush (Exodus 3:1-6). This story, explains Jesus, establishes the validity, indeed the certainty, of life after death. It declares that God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not that God was their God. Therefore, Jesus concludes, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob must in some sense still be alive.

Other than witnessing Jesus deftly handle a “gotcha!” question from his detractors, what do we learn from this passage? Our speculations about the afterlife are a mishmash of cultural assumptions gleaned more from literature, songs, movies, and Christian and non-Christian traditions than from scripture. This passage underscores that we should not limit our imagination, let alone God’s design, for life after death. Jesus tells us resurrection life will be qualitatively different from what we know now. What will it look like? I lean into Paul’s assurance that nothing in life or in death can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:38-38), and I leave the precise details to the future.

We also learn that our God is the God of the living. Commentator Kyle Brooks writes that Langston Hughes’ poem, “Note in Music,” captures the richness of this:

Life is for the living.
Death is for the dead.
Let life be like music.
And death a note unsaid.

Perhaps, like Hughes’ poem, Jesus is calling us to imagine what it is like to live without fear of death so that we can approach our lives differently. God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and us. God is. If through Jesus we are all children of the resurrection, if we do not need to fear death, then how does that free us to live? How do we spend our time? Our money? Our energy? How do we love? And how does this give us hope not just for a future in which we trust that God’s love for us continues, but hope for now, in this life, in which we trust that God is with us, the living?

Life is for the living. God is the God of the living. As Brooks writes, “May the God of the living continually draw our attention to this life beyond the limits of our imagination.”

© Joanne Whitt 2025 all rights reserved.

Resources:
Kyle Brooks, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-32-3/commentary-on-luke-2027-38-5.
David Lose, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-32-3/commentary-on-luke-2027-38-2
Kendra A. Mohn, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-32-3/commentary-on-luke-2027-38-6

Increase Our Faith

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Luke 17:5-10

Ever since chapter 9 when Jesus turns and “[sets] his face to go to Jerusalem,” Jesus has made it clear that that the road ahead is tough – perhaps deadly – and he’s going to stay on it. He’s just finished telling his disciples that they, too, need to stay the course, and besides that, forgive people again and again. The disciples are overwhelmed. That’s when they cry out, “Increase our faith!”

If they could just have more faith, maybe they could meet Jesus’ expectations. You may have run into someone who says if you only had enough faith, you could do anything: get the job, keep the marriage together, even keep your loved one from dying. The problem is that then when things don’t work out, it’s your fault; you failed the test of faith. This is not only cruel, but also magical thinking and it isn’t what Jesus is talking about. Jesus is thinking about faith in a very different way.

First, says Jesus, if you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could command a mulberry tree to transplant itself into the sea. Why a mulberry tree in the sea? The point is that it’s absurdly impossible. But the meaning of the passage turns on the original Greek, which says, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed…and you do…. .” So Jesus is saying, “You can do this absurdly impossible thing. You already have enough faith.” With the little faith they have they can do things they never, ever could have imagined. In other words, the disciples don’t need more faith; they need to make use of the faith that they already have.

Then Jesus tells them a parable: Imagine you are a master with servants. Do you thank your servants for doing what they’re supposed to do? Of course not, says Jesus. You expect them just to keep on doing it. And then he switches perspectives: Imagine you’re the servant. Do you expect reward for just doing what you’re supposed to do? Of course not.

This sounds a little harsh to twenty-first century Americans who hand out trophies to kids for just showing up. But in a different time and culture, Jesus is merely describing life as the disciples know it.

So add these two thoughts together: First, if you have only a speck of faith – and you do – you’ll be able to do unimaginable things. And second, stop expecting someone to make a fuss when you do what you’re supposed to be doing. This is Jesus’ message to his disciples: Stop worrying about whether you’re a faith superstar and get to the business at hand.

Jesus is saying that faith isn’t about perfecting yourself or becoming better than someone else. Faithfulness is simply doing what we see needs to be done. Faith doesn’t have to be heroic, or even particularly religious. Maybe faith is just being attentive to the needs around us and committing ourselves to doing what we can with what we have, trusting that God will make use of it.

We’re facing another government shutdown this week. A few years back, Anne Lamott compared an actual government shutdown to the alcoholic uncle at family holidays who has been threatening to do something rash every time he gets drunk, and he “he finally does some bizarre, bullying, irrational act that he has been threatening to do for awhile.” How does the family even begin to deal with the havoc the alcoholic has caused? Get him to bed, she says. “In the meantime,” she writes, “the praying people pray. Someone sweeps. The children and the elderly are fed, and comforted. The kids go off to school. Everyone pitches in to help clean up. … And since we are not going to figure this out today, and since ‘Figure it out’ is not a good slogan, let’s do what we’ve always done. We’ll stick together, and get the thirsty people a glass of water. I’ll remember the sticker I saw once, of Koko, the sign language gorilla, above the words, ‘The law of the American jungle: remain calm and share your bananas.’ I am going to fill a box of warm clothes and take it to Goodwill … I am going to pick up litter. I’ll send some money to one of America’s hunger projects. I’ll pray and pray and pray, all day, that we’ll all pitch in to help our most vulnerable, and that we’ll help each other keep the faith, and our senses of humor.”

That all sounds pretty ordinary. But as David Lose writes, even the simplest things done in faith can have a huge impact. Lose also writes this description of faith which has been important to me in my own journey, including naming this blog: “Faith is putting one foot in front of the other and walking toward a future we do not see yet but trust God is fashioning. Faith is heading out the door each day looking for opportunities to be God’s partner and co-worker in the world. Faith is imagining that the various challenges put in front of us — whether solving a problem at work or forgiving someone who wronged us — are actually opportunities that invite us to grow as disciples and witness to God’s presence and goodness in the world.”

Ordinary, but extraordinary. Especially when done together, prayerfully.

© Joanne Whitt 2025 all rights reserved.

Resources:
David Lose, http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=2773
Anne Lamott, October 1, 2013, https://www.facebook.com/AnneLamott/posts/382839661845683.

Choose Life

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Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Luke 14:25-33

This passage in Luke 14 begins with Jesus delivering a seriously troubling description of discipleship. “Hate your family” and “Carry your cross”? Yikes. Before you run for the hills, remember that this is the same Jesus who said, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). Who sat down to dinner with people that the religious show-offs thought were unsavory. Who welcomed outcasts, healed the sick; who said loving your neighbor was more important than anything else, which would include your neighbor who’s a family member. Somehow, this passage must be consistent with that Jesus.

We need to figure out what “carry your cross” means before we can make sense of “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:27). Do you assume that maybe there’s one “correct” answer? Were you taught growing up, or maybe you absorbed it in a long life of singing old hymns, that the cross has something to do with suffering and forgiveness of sins? Have you ever wondered what the cross meant for Luke? For Matthew? For Mark or John? For Paul? The New Testament doesn’t have a uniform answer to that question. There is no one correct biblical answer.; it’s a conversation.

What Luke brings to that conversation is an exceptional concern for the poor and marginalized, and a tender heart for the outcast and the forsaken. So, for Luke, “carry your cross” could mean to carry the ministry of Jesus forward by seeing those whom the world overlooks. It could mean favoring the marginalized, even when it might lead to your own discomfort.

In my NRSV version of the Bible, the bold heading before this passage is “The Cost of Discipleship.” But is it really a cost? Or is it a choice? The verses from Deuteronomy come from a long speech Moses delivers to the people Israel after giving them the law, part of the covenant between God and God’s people. Moses explains that they have in front of them two paths: life and prosperity, or death and adversity. If they choose the path of following God’s law, treating each other fairly, welcoming the stranger and caring for the needy, and loving your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus 19:18), then the people will thrive. Imagine, for a moment, a society that makes that choice; imagine a society that chooses kindness, fairness, civility, and generosity. It’s true that the Hebrew Scriptures also include some ancient Middle Eastern rules that are odd or even repugnant to us today. But Jesus pointed out that what it all boils down to is “Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Do this and live,” he said (Luke 10:28). So, Moses says that if the people choose a different path, a path of ignoring these basic rules of human fairness and kindness, they will perish. “Perish” might sound like a threat of divine punishment, but it’s just logical consequences. If you don’t live in harmony and fairness with the people you encounter, the consequence is discord, enmity, strife, and violence. If you don’t care for the needy, you’ll find yourself hunkering down to protect your stuff because you’re afraid someone will try to take it from you. If you don’t take care of the earth that is our home, it won’t take care of us. Consequences. God says, “I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.”

Choose life. If we think of our faith as being primarily about what it costs, about what we give up, what we sacrifice, then we’re forgetting that life – all of life – is full of choices that cost us. We’re limited beings and very often when we choose one path it means we have to give up another path. Parenthood, marriage, careers, education – anything that takes commitment and effort has a cost. But that isn’t why we choose them, is it? Even when we know our choice will impact our lives in huge and unforeseen ways, even when we know there will be a “cost,” what we’re more likely to feel when we take the job, embark on the marriage, or extend ourselves in generosity is joy and gratitude, a sense of rightness, or in Christian terms, a sense of calling.

That is what the cross means here in Luke. One commentator writes, “The cross is not unique but representative of what life is. To carry your cross is to carry the choices and burdens and realities of a life that has made a certain commitment – a commitment to a way of life that is committed to bringing about the Kingdom of God here and now. That’s certainly what it meant for Jesus.”

What about the hating your family thing? Is Jesus ignoring “Honor thy father and thy mother,” one of the Ten Commandments (Deuteronomy 5:16, Exodus 20:12)? I’ve known a number of people who had to choose between a relationship with a family member and their own integrity or well-being. For Luke’s audience, following Jesus would have put family relationships at risk. And so even here, Jesus is saying, choose life; choose what will bring life, wholeness, shalom, to you and to the whole world.

What a different way of being it is if we think of the cross as a way of choosing life, rather than fixating on death. This isn’t to say Jesus’ death doesn’t matter. It’s encourages a conversation about why it matters. Maybe it matters for Luke because the cross was Jesus standing up to empire, resisting the powers that dominate, oppress, and enslave.

I quoted Barbara Ehrenreich on August 10, and I am drawn to her wisdom again. She was asked in an interview what she would give up to live in a more human world. She answered, “I think we shouldn’t think of what we would give up to have a more human world; we should think of what we would gain.”

Choose life.

© Joanne Whitt 2025 all rights reserved.

Resources:
Karoline Lewis, “Carrying the Cross,” August 28, 2016,
http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=4706.

Make Room

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Luke 14:1, 7-14

Here in Luke 14, we find Jesus invited to dinner at the home of a leader of the Pharisees. Jesus’ relationship with the Pharisees was mixed. In the previous chapter, some Pharisees are concerned enough about Jesus’ safety that they warn him to leave Jerusalem because Herod wants him dead (Luke 13:31). However, Jesus repeatedly challenges the Pharisees’ interpretation of the Sabbath and they don’t seem to like the company he keeps (Luke 5:30). Maybe they invite him to dinner because they want to expose him to a better set of friends. Whatever the reason for the invitation, the relationship between Jesus and the Pharisees is tense enough that while Jesus is at the meal, the other guests are “watching him closely” (14:1).

At the same time, Jesus is watching them. He notices where people sit, who is talking to whom, who is present, and who is missing. This leads him to offer two related teachings.

The first concerns seating arrangements. The seating chart in this highly stratified, honor/shame culture would have placed the most important guests, the ones who could do the host the most favors or improve the host’s standing, closest to the host. Jesus paraphrases Proverbs 25:6-7, warning against social overreaching. “Do not . . . stand in the place of the great,” Proverbs warns, “for it is better to be told, ‘Come up here,’ than to be put lower in the presence of a noble” (25:6–7). It would be absolutely mortifying to have your host ask you to move to a lower place at dinner, and a remarkable honor to be invited to a better seat. What Jesus says is just common sense. The other dinner guests are probably nodding their heads in agreement at this wisdom.

Then Jesus goes on to advise his host not to invite those people to dinner who could repay him in any way but instead to invite the undesirables of the world, even the unclean. At this, the guests likely stop nodding; I suspect their jaws drop. To begin with, Jesus is saying this to his host in a culture in which you are supposed to ingratiate yourself to your host. Further, this is a world in which the exchange of mutual obligations was simply the way things worked. The way you gained status was through a system of mutual patronage: you did people favors who then owed you; they did the same for you and so on. What Jesus has said is not just counter-cultural; it’s ludicrous, even offensive.

As David Lose writes, “Which is probably how you know it’s of God.”

It’s important to remember who the audience is in this text. Jesus is speaking to the guests of a leader of the Pharisees. Most of these folks are likely rather high status. Jesus doesn’t call the marginalized, poor, and often-overlooked servants at the party to humble themselves. He’s telling the privileged to move over and make room.

Programs promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion, known as “DEI,” have come under fire recently. The argument is that these programs are discriminatory, favoring certain groups over others, thereby undermining the principle of equal treatment for all individuals. That argument ignores the reality Jesus observed: People are not treated equally in a stratified culture, and that includes our culture and pretty much every culture I’ve encountered. Some people are already privileged, already included, already reaping the benefits of high status while others are left out because of poverty, lack of education, racism, sexism, and other ways we stratify our society. Some people have the ability and the resources to achieve in whatever way a society, ancient or contemporary, perceives is important. Others do not. DEI doesn’t “discriminate,” it fixes a problem that a stratified society creates. Jesus’ advice here couldn’t be more clear: Bring everyone to the table. Give everyone a chance to enjoy God’s abundance, so often enjoyed only by a few. Make space for the people on the margins, regardless of whether that will increase your own status or success. Share the wealth. Make room.

© Joanne Whitt 2025 all rights reserved.

Resources:
David Lose, https://www.davidlose.net/2013/10/luke-14-7-14/.
Craig S. Keener, The Christian Century, August 10, 2022, https://www.christiancentury.org/lectionary/august-28-ordinary-22c-luke-14-1-7-14
E. Trey Clark, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-22-3/commentary-on-luke-141-7-14-6
Mitzi J. Smith, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-22-3/commentary-on-luke-141-7-14-4

Sabbath Freedom

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Luke 13:10-17

In these verses, Jesus is confronted with a rule that, in this context, seems harsh. The disagreement arises when a woman with a debilitating spinal condition shows up on a Sabbath while Jesus is teaching. Jesus sees her, touches her, and heals her, earning him a reprimand from the leader of the synagogue: “There are six days on which work ought to be done.” He’s referring to the fourth commandment of the Ten Commandments: “Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. For six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work – you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.” Presumably the religious leader isn’t against healing; he just wants Jesus to wait until tomorrow. After all, she’s had this condition for eighteen years. What’s one more day?

Jesus responds that the Sabbath is the perfect day to set someone free from an eighteen-year bondage to a crippling condition. With this reference to freedom, Jesus is saying the well-meaning religious leader doesn’t understand what the Sabbath is all about. Jesus is alluding to Deuteronomy’s version of the Ten Commandments, which adds, and I’m paraphrasing, “Remember when you were slaves in Egypt? Remember when you had no day off at all? That’s why you get a day off.” Everyone, not just the upper classes, not just the priests and elites and the king have the right to rest one day a week. One day of freedom for everyone, including your animals.

So there’s a very good reason for keeping the Sabbath. Jesus doesn’t say rules don’t matter. He’s saying that sometimes a reasonable rule or a good law that works well for some people causes suffering for others, or just plain leaves people out. Take eating organic, for example, a rule I try to follow. During seminary I took a course in environmental ethics. A couple of my fellow students did a report on organic food: how much better it is for the planet, how much better it is for farm workers and the people who consume the food. No argument there, right? They gave the class slices of organic and non-organic carrots for a taste test, and the organic carrots actually tasted better. And then another student asked, “How much more do the organic carrots cost than the other carrots?” At the time, it was a considerable difference; still today, organic produce costs about 50% more on average than regular produce. The student pointed out, with some impatience, that eating organic was a luxury not everyone could afford. That whole communities of people were left out of the health benefits of eating organic, not to mention that good feeling of knowing they were doing the right thing for the planet.

The religious leader is sticking up for the principle of law and order, and I think many of us can support that. But it’s easy for him to maintain his principles without suffering. The woman didn’t have that freedom. Jesus isn’t saying get rid of the Sabbath. He’s saying that demanding rigid observance of the law without empathy for how that impacts people doesn’t keep the Sabbath “holy.” Rather, it creates a “systemic barrier,” one the religious leader doesn’t even see. That’s what privilege is. It’s being able to ignore or not even see things that confront other people every day. Jesus is saying the point of the Sabbath, the point of all God’s laws, is to serve God’s people and draw them more deeply into the abundant life God offers not just to some people, not just to the people who don’t have to think twice about the rules, but to all people. God is a God of love, mercy, compassion, and justice. Focusing on those qualities honors God. Focusing on those keeps the Sabbath holy.

The religious leader forgot this. Which is easy to do when following the rules is easy for us.

My favorite part of this story is at the end. “The entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things he was doing.” They got it. Ordinary people, living their lives, doing the best they could, working hard, caring for their families, and once a week on the Sabbath, being reminded that each life matters to God, our God who wants freedom for everyone. Everyone. “The entire crowd was rejoicing.” You bet they were.

© Joanne Whitt 2025 all rights reserved.

References:
Exodus 20:8-11
Deuteronomy 5:12-15
David Lose, http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=2699.
John M. Buchanan, “Expansive,” http://www.fourthchurch.org/sermons/2007/082607.html.
Dan Shepard and Maggie Davis, “Organic produce now costs as much as 53% more than conventional alternatives, and the price disparity is getting worse,” April 17, 2025, https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2025/04/17/organic-produce-now-costs-as-much-as-53-more-than-conventional-alternatives-and-the-price-disparity-is-getting-worse/