faith

We Need a Little Christmas

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Luke 2:1-20

This Advent my earworm has been, “We Need a Little Christmas,” from the musical, “Mame.” I don’t actually like the musical “Mame,” although I love the 1958 movie, “Auntie Mame,” starring Rosalind Russell. Mame loses her fortune in the 1929 stock market crash, and tries her hand at a variety of jobs for which she’s hilariously ill-suited. She maintains her good humor and sense of style but finally seems to be coming to the end of her options, and that’s when she suggests they go ahead and start celebrating Christmas even though it’s weeks away. In the musical version, Mame sings:

“Haul out the holly;
Put up the tree before my spirit falls again.
Fill up the stocking,
I may be rushing things, but deck the halls again now.
For we need a little Christmas
Right this very minute …”

This year more than many other years, I’ve had that same impulse. We need a little Christmas. Something cozy and familiar and reassuring. The distraction and gaiety of decorations and parties and all the preparations, but even more, the warmth of family and friends, the comfort of home. Not just the daily news, not only recent tragedies but life in general wears us out. We’ve had enough realism. We need a little Christmas, now.

So, we read the old story, the gorgeous poetry of Luke’s gospel; I choose to read from the King James. The archaic words work as a kind of salve: “And they were sore afraid.” The thing is, as beautiful and familiar as the words of this story are, Luke didn’t intend for his readers to picture a tidy Hallmark card when they heard it. Cozy wasn’t his goal. He was actually going after something completely different, to quote Monty Python. He was going for unexpected.

I don’t know of a better illustration of this than the video entitled, “An Unexpected Christmas,” produced by St. Paul’s Church in Auckland, New Zealand. All the roles are played by children, but it’s way too slick to call a pageant; great costumes, camera work, script, music, and their New Zealand accents are adorable, especially when they say “baby.”

The video begins as God looks down from heaven’s balcony, shaking his head at what he sees on earth. God says it’s time to step in. God’s warrior angels (there’s Biblical support for warrior angels) suggest sending an army but God says, no, maybe just one person. An angel in big round glasses says, “Brilliant! They won’t be expecting that!” The angels then say if it’s one person, it needs to be someone very powerful and strong. “No,” says God, “they’ll be going as a newborn baby.” “A newborn baby?” screech the warrior angels in disbelief. “Brilliant!” says the bespectacled angel again. “They won’t be expecting that.” And so it goes. This baby won’t be born to a great ruler or a mighty king, but to a peasant girl. And this won’t be just any baby, but God’s son. Born not in a palace, but in a stable, surrounded by animals and animal smells. The angels will be allowed to sing a welcome, but not to kings, only to some shepherds, the folks at the very bottom rung of the social ladder. At each decision, someone says, “Brilliant! They won’t be expecting that!”

This is precisely what Luke intended. “Brilliant! They won’t be expecting that!” Although Luke’s version is much edgier. Luke dares to mention the secular rulers of the time, Augustus Caesar and Cyrenius, for a reason. Luke wants us to see the contrast between the power of the Roman Empire and the power of God through Christ. What people wanted was a king who would unify the nation, rally the troops, and drive out the occupying forces. That’s what a Messiah is supposed to do, right? But the power of God does not look like the power of Rome. When the angels sing of peace on earth, they’re raising a question: Is it the Emperor in Rome and his Pax Romana who will bring you peace, or is it God? Is it human power – power that is external and coercive – or is it God’s power – the power of vulnerable love?

Frederick Buechner describes the difference between God’s power and human power this way: “By applying external pressure, I can make a person do what I want him to do. This is [human] power. But as for making him be what I want him to be, without at the same time destroying his freedom, only love can make this happen. And love makes it happen not coercively, but by creating a situation in which, of our own free will, we want to be what love wants us to be. And because God’s love is uncoercive and treasures our freedom … we are free to resist it, deny it, crucify it finally, which we do again and again. This is our terrible freedom, which love refuses to overpower so that, in this the greatest of all powers, God’s power, is itself powerless.”

That takes us out of comfy-cozy into alarming territory, doesn’t it? It is downright scary to be told by God, “This is the way to achieve real peace: by being as vulnerable with each other, as dependent on each other as an infant; by treasuring each other the way a newborn is treasured. By loving each other the way I love you.” But what’s scarier still are the consequences of our refusal to love each other, which we can see all around us. And when I say “love” I’m talking about the way we act toward each other, not some fuzzy feeling.

We need a little Christmas. Right this very minute. We need the message that God comes to us in a vulnerable baby born to nobody parents in a backwater village, in a stable surrounded by mess and bad smells, with “no crib for a bed,” and the first people to hear about it, those shepherds out on a hillside, are the kind of people you’d never invite to dinner and you’d pray your daughter wouldn’t marry.

John Harvey, one of the poets at the Iona Community, came up with the best description I’ve found of the Christmas we all need. Harvey wrote:

On this night of the year, a voice is speaking – can we hear it?

‘I know the cares and the anxious thoughts of your hearts.
I know the hard time you often give yourselves.
I know the hopes and ambitions that you have for yourselves and for others.
I know your doubts, too – even while you seek to express your belief.
On this night, I want to find a way of saying to you:
You are deeply, deeply loved,
just as you are, forgiven, loved
and challenged to be the very best you can be.
So I’m speaking to you the only way I know how –

from a stable,
in a child born into poverty
soon to grow to maturity,
born to show you
in a human life,
the love of God.’

Brilliant! They won’t be expecting that.
Merry Christmas, everyone.

© Joanne Whitt 2025 all rights reserved.

Resources:
“We Need a Little Christmas,” from, “Mame,” music and lyrics by Jerry Herman, (1966).
“An Unexpected Christmas,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM1XusYVqNY
Frederick Buechner, “The Power of God, the Power of Man,” in The Magnificent Defeat (New York: HarperCollins, 1966).
John Harvey, “You Are Deeply, Deeply Loved,” in Candles and Conifers, Ruth Burgess, ed. (Glasgow: Wild Goose Publications, 2005).
Re: Warrior angels: Michael the archangel seems to be a warrior angel (Revelation. 12:7) who does battle (Daniel 10:13, 21; 12:1).

The Other Christmas Story

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Matthew 1:18-25

This Sunday we hear Matthew’s Christmas story. The trip to Bethlehem for the census, no room at the inn, the manger, the angels and shepherds – most of what we associate with Christmas pageants is found in Luke’s gospel, and Mary is definitely the star of that show. In Matthew’s gospel, however, the spotlight is on Joseph. It’s a more adult story, not easily translated into to a pageant script.

However, to get there, we need to get past a controversial doctrine that jumps out at us in verse 18. Some people struggle with the notion of a virgin birth; others struggle with the fact that there are Christians who don’t believe in it. I’ll say three things about the virgin birth: First, esteemed Biblical scholars and theologians disagree about it. They do agree it serves to tie Jesus’ birth to the Isaiah passage quoted in Matthew 1:23 (Isaiah 7:14), or at least to the Greek translation of that passage. The Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) translates the Hebrew word for “young woman” in Isaiah as “virgin.” Second, I agree with the angel in Luke’s Christmas story that nothing is impossible with God (Luke 1:37). And third, whether you believe the virgin birth is fact or myth isn’t nearly as important as understanding the point, which is that in Jesus, God was doing something completely new. Neither Mark nor John’s gospel nor the apostle Paul in all his letters thought it was important enough to mention the virgin birth, or any birth, for that matter, and this tells us that different communities of believers were able to preach and write about Jesus without making the virgin birth an article of faith about him.

So, with that messy question moved aside, let’s turn to Joseph and his mess. Elsewhere in Scripture, people refer to Jesus as Joseph’s son (John 6:42). This relationship is important to Matthew, who wrote his gospel primarily for Jewish Christians. It is through Joseph that Jesus is a descendent of King David. The way Matthew tells it, Joseph chooses to be Jesus’ father; that is the focus of his Christmas story.

Nazareth was a small town. Joseph probably noticed Mary among the marriageable girls and asked her parents for her hand in marriage. It’s likely that they all went to see a rabbi and made a contract. Mary and Joseph were betrothed, or engaged, or espoused, depending on your translation; they were legally married but hadn’t moved in together. They’d begin living together after the wedding, which would be a major event in the life of the community, a week-long party of eating, drinking, and dancing.

Then Mary turns up pregnant. A contract has been violated; a law has been broken. This was serious not only for Mary but for everyone around her. The first century Mediterranean world was an “honor-shame culture.” Honor had to do with your value in the society; it had nothing to do with wealth but rather with reputation, with your ability to do what you need to do to belong, to interact with others in a way that brings you and your group honor. Keeping your honor was like an ongoing contest. You could lose your honor in any social interaction. And to lose your honor was to be shamed.

If Joseph accepts Mary, that will cause him shame. If he pretends the child is his, that, too, is shameful because Mary is pregnant before the wedding. Mary’s news is a huge threat to Joseph’s honor. Matthew says Joseph is a righteous man, which means he is a man who follows Jewish law. Joseph decides to divorce Mary quietly rather than subject her to public humiliation. God’s whole daring plan is suddenly at risk. All pretty adult stuff, right? Marriage contracts, shame, what you can and can’t do before the wedding?

Then Joseph has a dream. “Do not be afraid, Joseph, to take Mary for your wife, for the child is from the Holy Spirit.” William Willimon quips that while there’s a lot art depicting the angel announcing to a serene Mary that she is with child, there is little art focused on Joseph’s dream: “Joseph bolting upright in bed, in a cold sweat after being told his fiancée is pregnant, and not by him, and he should marry her anyway.”

“Do not be afraid to take Mary for your wife,” said the angel. I don’t think it’s possible not to be afraid in a situation like this. I think we make too little of this story and don’t give Joseph enough credit if we simply hold him up as a model of what faithful obedience looks like, as though there’s a simple formula: God speaks; humans are supposed to respond in faith the way Joseph did; now everything is hunky dory. It just isn’t that simple. I don’t believe we’re supposed to think of Joseph and Mary as figures in a stained-glass window. The whole point of the Christmas story – that God is with us as one of us – is that God is with real people in their real, complicated, messy lives. I can’t hear this story without identifying with the sense of betrayal, the disappointment, the shame and a host of other emotions that Joseph must have experienced, and the fear and hurt that Mary would have felt as they sorted out their complex relationship.

One of the quiet miracles in the Christmas story is that on the basis of that dream, Joseph works through it all to make a decision. He lays aside his sense of right and wrong under the law and his offended pride, his shame, and chooses to marry his pregnant fiancée. Trust in God is not a given here, it is a choice. God’s plan is saved because Joseph chose to take a risk, to brave uncertainty.

Joseph, an ordinary man, worked through his cold sweat, took a risk, and Jesus grew up with Joseph as his dad. Where did Jesus come up with the idea that people are more important than the laws you’ve been taught your whole life? That our worth is measured by God’s extravagant loves for us, not by other people’s opinions? Who was his male role model for the vulnerability and courage we see again and again in Jesus’ ministry? Joseph couldn’t know that some of Jesus’ best teaching would be shaped by his own experience of an earthly, loving father. He didn’t have any idea that his son would tell his disciples to talk about God with the tender, personal address of “abba,” which is best translated as “daddy.”

© Joanne Whitt 2025 all rights reserved.

Resources:
Herman C. Waetjen, New Proclamation, https://members.newproclamation.com/commentary.php?d8m=12&d8d=22&d8y=2013&event_id=4&cycle=A&atom_id=19018.
Mary Hinkle Shore, “Fourth Sunday of Advent,” in New Proclamation, Year A, 2007-2008 (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2007).
Bruce J. Malina, The New Testament World (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993).
Nancy Rockwell, December 14, 2013, http://biteintheapple.com/joseph-praise/.
Janet H. Hunt, “Just What a Dad Does…”, December 15, 2013, http://words.dancingwiththeword.com/2013/12/just-what-dad-does.html

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

Zacchaeus

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Luke 19:1-10

People like to categorize people, to file them away in the neatly labeled file folders of their minds. Conservatives or liberals, welfare moms or soccer moms, hunters or tree huggers, addicts, vegetarians, intellectuals, foreigners, gun owners, patriots, and so on. It makes things simpler, doesn’t it? Once you’ve labeled someone, you know what to expect. Again this week Jesus challenges our categories, our stereotypes, and our self-satisfied attachment to them.

We don’t know much about Zacchaeus. We’re not even 100% sure he was short. As disturbing as this might be to those of us who grew up singing about Zacchaeus as a “wee little man,” in the Greek, you can’t tell for certain whether Zacchaeus had to climb a tree to see Jesus because Zacchaeus was short, or because Jesus was short. A short Jesus challenges our categories, so we assume Zacchaeus was the short one.

All we know for certain is that Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector, and he was rich. “Tax collector” and “rich” go together in the New Testament world. Collecting taxes in Jesus’ time meant collecting taxes for the Romans, who by this time had conquered most of the Mediterranean world, including the region known as Judea. Zacchaeus made his living by profiting from his people’s oppression. He wasn’t paid a salary. A tax collector made his money by over-taxing the people, and then pocketing the excess. Zacchaeus pocketed plenty of excess. As chief tax collector, he collected a percentage from all the other tax collectors that worked under him, as well. Everyone in Jericho knew and despised him. We, the readers, are prepared to encounter a villain in need of conversion.

Jesus is passing through Jericho. Maybe Zacchaeus has heard the rumors that Jesus is a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Whatever the reason, Zacchaeus scampers up a sycamore tree to get a good look. Jesus spots him and calls him by name, which tells you something about the notoriety of tax collectors. But Jesus refuses to be bound by labels. He invites himself over to Zacchaeus’ house for dinner, even at the risk of crossing a barrier of ritual purity. A tax collector was considered unclean because of the goods he inspected and the homes he entered. By inviting himself to Zacchaeus’ home for dinner, Jesus brings surprising, and from the perspective of the crowd, undeserved honor on Zacchaeus, the rich crook. Their jaws must have hit the ground.

In the New Revised Standard Version translation, Zacchaeus’ response sounds like a miraculous conversion. But contrary to most contemporary translations, in the Greek, Zacchaeus isn’t promising to give half of his possessions to the poor in the future. He’s saying he already does, now, as a matter of practice. The future tense might make people more comfortable because just as we like our predictable labels for people, we cling to our presumption that in the presence of Jesus, Zacchaeus, the sinner, repented, and his promises are proof. But current scholarship points out that Zacchaeus neither confesses his sin nor repents, nor does Jesus congratulate Zacchaeus for his penitence, his faith, or his change of heart. Jesus merely pronounces his blessing, not because of anything Zacchaeus has done or promised but simply because he, like those grumbling around him, is a son of Abraham. Shannon Kershner writes, “What if Zacchaeus lived in a way that was generous and kind and faithful, then all of their stereotypes, their carefully set up and well-crafted assumptions about ‘those people,’ would be blown up, destroyed, revealed as empty. As David Lose writes, if Zacchaeus’s story is not a conversion story, then it does not fit our formula.”

Our formula impacts how we hear the word “lost” when Jesus says, “For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10). Perhaps Zacchaeus isn’t lost because he’s an unclean sinner, but because his community has ostracized him; he is lost to them. Perhaps it isn’t Zacchaeus who is in need of repentance, but rather, the community that despises him. Or perhaps it is we, the readers who are so quick to decide Zacchaeus needs conversion, while we smugly assume we don’t.

We don’t know whether Zacchaeus was giving half his possessions to the poor. What we know is that Jesus didn’t demand this before seeking Zacchaeus out from the crowd and honoring him. The crowd had written Zacchaeus off as despicable, corrupt, greedy. Jesus did not.

Jesus does not.

© Joanne Whitt 2025 all rights reserved.

Resources:
Eric Barreto, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-31-3/commentary-on-luke-191-10-6
John Ortberg, Love Beyond Reason (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing, 1998).
David Lose, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-31-3/commentary-on-luke-191-10-2
Shannon Kershner, “Jesus Makes Things Complicated,” March 13, 2016, https://fourthchurch.org/sermons/2016/031316.html

The Pharisee and the Tax Collector

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Luke 18:9-14

I’ve preached this passage focusing on grace, and that’s a legitimate approach, especially given that this is the text for Reformation Sunday (which, as far as I can tell, few people observe these days). That sermon explained the tax collector is “justified” because he recognizes his sins and can accept God’s grace and forgiveness, which he has done nothing to earn. The Pharisee, on the other hand, believes he has earned his own justification, his own worthiness, and so refuses God’s grace. He is like Jesus’ audience: those who “trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt” (Luke 18:9).

Given our current zeitgeist, what I notice in the passage this time around is not merely that the Pharisee believes he is righteous. He probably is. Pharisees worked hard to do the right things and be the right kind of people. If we lived in ancient Judea, we would have wanted a Pharisee as a next-door neighbor. He’d probably keep his yard neat and pick up after his dog. The tax collector, on the other hand, really has behaved deplorably. He’s collaborated with Rome and enriched himself by exploiting his own people.

But it isn’t the difference between these two men that I notice this year. What I notice is, “but they regard others with contempt.”

We are surrounded by contempt. Contempt is more than disagreement; it’s disgust, rooted in the inability to see the image of God in the other person. Schopenhauer said contempt is belief in the “utter worthlessness of a fellow human being.” Contempt is looking at someone and thinking, “The world would be better without you in it.”

This parable contains a couple of traps. The first trap we might fall into is romanticizing the tax collector. In a recent article in the Christian Century, a young woman describes years of church youth camp during which she felt like a failure as a Christian. She writes, “At youth group and church camp, I learned to perform my own unworthiness. … A sneering voice in my head whispered that I wasn’t good enough for God because I’d never been bad.” She writes that without realizing it, self-abasement had become her religious practice, and it took years to recognize the harm this caused. This kind of “performative unworthiness” becomes just another way to try to earn God’s love, when that love is freely given. Jesus never said, “You must be a broken, miserable sinner to be my follower.” The tax collector is not supposed to be our role model.

The second trap we might stumble into is our own contempt. We might wonder: After all, isn’t the Pharisee deserving of contempt? He begins his prayer by thanking God, but his gratitude immediately devolves into contempt for others. Pretty soon he isn’t really thanking God at all; he’s thanking himself as he looks at the tax collector with disdain.

Clearly, Jesus intends us to understand that contempt isn’t good. It’s not hard to see why: Contempt is not loving our neighbors as ourselves. Contempt is not loving our enemies (Matthew 5:44). But if we make this parable about how terrible the Pharisees were, or even how terrible this one Pharisee is, we’ve missed the point – or fallen victim to it by being contemptuous ourselves. Anytime we draw a line between who’s “in” and who’s “out,” who is righteous and who is not, who is acceptable to God and who is not, this parable asserts you will find God on the other side.

Read this way, the parable is not about self-righteousness and humility any more than it is about a pious Pharisee and desperate tax collector. Rather, this parable is about God: God who alone can judge the human heart; God who determines to justify the ungodly.

In 2025, we live in a what Arthur C. Brooks calls a “culture of contempt.” Brooks writes, “Nothing is about honest disagreement; it is all about your interlocutor’s lack of basic human decency. Thus, no one with whom you disagree is worth engaging at all. The result is contempt.”

As the government shutdown drags on into Week 4, it’s obvious that this culture of contempt is a serious problem in a society and a system of government that require collaboration. Contempt is encouraged by some of our leaders, but it just doesn’t work in a democracy and we do not have to buy into it. We can fight for justice without resorting to contempt. We can be the change we wish to see in the world, and start by swearing off contempt. Trevin Wax writes, “Perhaps the test of faithfulness in a day of moral degradation will be our love for people across chasms of difference. Faithfulness isn’t in showy displays that we hate all the right people.”

And perhaps faithfulness isn’t in showing we’re right and the other person or group is stupid or morally bankrupt, but rather in working toward achieving a shared objective. What objective might we share with those with whom we disagree vehemently? We’d have to speak with each other, without contempt, to find that out.

© Joanne Whitt 2025 all rights reserved.

Resources:
McKenzie Watson-Fore, “Dear Jesus, Am I Broken Enough Yet?” in The Christian Century, July 9, 2025, https://www.christiancentury.org/features/dear-jesus-am-i-broken-enough-yet.
Matt Skinner, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-30-3/commentary-on-luke-189-14-4
David Lose, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-30-3/commentary-on-luke-189-14-2
Arthur C. Brooks, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt (New York: Broadside Books, 2019)
Trevin Wax, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevin-wax/silent-sin-kills-love/