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Does our theology survive contact with the enemy? (2nd Sunday after Pentecost, 6/2/2024)

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Readings (Track 1); Psalm 139 (complete; versification differing slightly from the BCP version cited)

The Lectionary included part of Psalm 139 (Verses 1-5, 12-17) in today’s readings; what are we supposed to do with that psalm? The Lectionary offers one answer: read the parts you like; don’t read the parts you don’t like. Well, whatever text we’re reading, that doesn’t sound like a promising strategy for learning something new. So what are we supposed to do with it?

There certainly is an abrupt change in tone between vv. 17 and 18. The best way of making sense of that is to recall that some judicial processes in Israel involved a divine decision, the accused subject to divine examination (guilty or innocent?) with the decision announced, presumably, by a priest. “Presumably” because all our evidence is indirect: multiple psalms whose combination of themes is best explained by such processes. This psalm reflects such a process: the accused speaks to God regarding God’s thorough knowledge of the accused, and then calls for God’s judgment on the “wicked,” those who’d brought charges against the accused.

I say “This psalm reflects” because it’s hardly a transcript of the speech of a particular accused person. In fact, this theme of divine knowledge has expanded far beyond what the judicial process would involve, nevertheless preserving the flow from the accused affirming that just God’s knowledge of them, to crying out for that just God to punish the deserving. And in the process the psalm becomes—in its entirety—a sort of mirror for us. Let’s walk through it.

Verses 1-5 focus on God’s complete—astounding—knowledge of the speaker. It’s not that the psalmist is assuming divine omniscience. It’s more personal than that, putting experiences together. You know me, know all my tells. A game of poker against you would be folly. This knowledge: wonderful, incomprehensible. Peterson paraphrases “This is too much, too wonderful—I can’t take it all in.” But, such knowledge, welcome or unwelcome? Today, with all these databases collecting everything possible about us, increased use of facial recognition: good news? Is God having all this knowledge good news? The verses don’t say. The text invites us to wonder how we experience this knowledge.

Verses 6-11 provide a sort of answer: the speaker inventories all the possible places to escape this knowledge. But there’s no place to hide. Again, it’s not as though the psalmist is assuming omnipresence. It’s more like a wide receiver talking to a cornerback: “Just when I think I’m open, you’re there. You seem to know when I’m going to cut before I do.” Good news or bad news? The verbs in v.9 sound like good news, but then we can be lead where we want to go or where we don’t want to go.

Surprisingly, the light/darkness contrast in vv.10-11 provides a way forward, reminding the speaker of what God accomplished for the speaker in complete darkness: the speaker’s own bodily existence (vv.12-17). Verse 13: “I will thank you because I am marvelously made; / your works are wonderful, and I know it well.” Scripture’s well aware that our bodies can malfunction in horrific ways, but the uniform response is to call on God to make them work again, rather than to abandon the project. So Paul repeatedly speaks of a new body, and John’s Gospel notes that Jesus’ resurrected body is no barrier to enjoying a good serving of fish and chips. (Ketchup not mentioned because tomatoes hadn’t yet made it over from the Americas.)

God’s involvement with the psalmist started from the moment of conception. Amazing—but also in need of a sidebar. We’d misuse the psalmist’s testimony by dragging it into the current arguments about abortion. The psalmist is celebrating the care and continuity. The psalmist is not asking when this “unformed substance” (so the NRSV in v.15; “limbs” in the BCP) became a legal person. In Scripture that question is only implicitly addressed in the Exodus law dealing with fight between men that injures a woman that results in a miscarriage (Exod. 21:22ff). There the Greek translation introduces a distinction between a child not fully formed and a child fully formed, with personhood implied only in the latter case. So Thomas Aquinas’ position that the fetus received a soul 40 or 80 days after conception is representative. In the Roman Catholic Church ascription of personhood from the moment of conception may first appear in the 19th Century. Among the Evangelicals, as late as 1968 their flagship magazine, Christianity Today, sponsored a consultation on abortion. Participants disagreed on many points but reported “about the necessity of it and permissibility for it under certain circumstances we are in accord.”[1] But back to the text.

As in the previous sections, the psalmist is overwhelmed by the qualitative difference between God’s knowledge and theirs, and this becomes the focus of the section’s concluding verses (16-17):

How deep I find your thoughts, O God!
how great is the sum of them!
If I were to count them, they would be more in number than the sand;
to count them all, my life span would need to be like yours.

But all that doesn’t derail the train of thought from God the judge examining the accused to calling on God to give the accusers what they deserve (vv.18-21).

What’s striking is that the intensity of the psalm seems to increase at v.18. God’s innumerable thoughts (vv.16-17) are important; God doing something about the enemies is really important. Somehow, once the enemies come on stage, all that celebration of God’s knowledge and creativity goes into the background and God’s role is reduced to destruction, to doing what the speaker can understand very well, thank you very much.

That’s the mirror that I think’s important here. We’re happy to celebrate God’s knowledge and the life-giving ways that God’s knowledge surpasses our own. But when the enemies come on stage, too often all that recedes, and what we want from God is that God do things we understand very well.

We remember Jesus’ “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt. 5:44). But sometimes we’re not there yet, and in those cases better to pray all of Psalm 139, than stop at v.17, hoping to convince ourselves that we’re farther along than we are.

To come at it from a different angle, the enemies provide an unwelcome helpful reality check: my talk of God’s amazing knowledge and competence: quarantined in the distant past, or the ground for trust and confidence in the present? That’s the recurrent challenge for God’s people in both Testaments: can the celebration of God’s past actions translate into trust now? Our enemies—alas—help us sort that out.

The last two verses attempt a sort of summary of the psalm. And they can serve as a sort of summary for our interaction with the psalm.

“Search me out, O God, and know my heart;
try me and know my restless thoughts.”

“Search” and “know”: verbs from the beginning of the psalm. So God should keep doing what God’s been doing, despite our recurrent ambivalence about whether that knowledge is good for us (“restless thoughts”).

“Look well whether there be any wickedness in me”

Perhaps that petition was originally formulaic, spoken assuming that of course God’s going to find me innocent. But after all the attention to God’s qualitatively superior knowledge, perhaps at least for us it can destabilize the assumption of a firm distinction between us and the wicked.[2]

“And lead me in the way that is everlasting.”

And in particular, “when the enemies come onstage, don’t let our vision shrink to what we’re capable of imagining you doing.” The military has a proverb: no plan survives encounter with the enemy. We might ask: does our theology survive encounter with the enemy? That’s the challenge Psalm 139 poses to us.

[1] https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/10/abortion-history-right-white-evangelical-1970s-00031480, accessed 5/30/2024.

[2] The Pharisees as portrayed in Mark’s Gospel would have had no problem praying Ps 139 straight through and understanding their conspiring against Jesus as assisting God in the fulfillment of vv.18-21.

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Postscript to the Trinity Sunday Sermon

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The Lectionary readings opened more doors than could be entered in the sermon. I could for example have spent much more time exploring the Trinity at work for our salvation in John’s Gospel. Hence this postscript.

One of the sermon’s primary themes was the Trinity as eternal community/fiesta/banquet/dance of love—hat tip to Leonardo Boff (Holy Trinity, Perfect Community) and C. S. Lewis (the Great Dance in Perelandra, chapter 17). But what of the buzzkill at the end of the Romans reading, Paul’s reference to sharing Jesus’ suffering?

The mediation between these themes was “The Prodigal Son” parable. (Is that parable a retelling of the Cain and Abel story?) The father wants both the younger “prodigal” son and the older self-righteous son at the banquet. But that’ll only happen if both recognize that the father’s love, forgiving, repaying evil with good (Rom 12:21), is an expression of strength, not weakness. That’ll only happen if both practice that love in forgiving, in repaying evil with good. Likewise the Father wants us at the banquet—us and our enemies. And that’ll only happen etc. That practice in this world means suffering (just ask Jesus how Holy Week went).

Pulling back the camera, while there are many moving parts in Jesus’ death, the combination of today’s Isaiah reading and the Prodigal Son parable encourage me to think that that death is less about paying some extrinsic penalty incurred by our guilt (a coal from the altar took care of Isaiah’s) and more about breaking the cycles of getting even that mar human beings and human history (see, conveniently, Gerhard Lohfink’s chapter 16 “Dying for Israel” in Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was).

Forgiving and repaying evil with good instead of seeking payback: signs of a strong or weak human being? (Signs of a strong or weak male?) The winds of that argument buffet us daily, and it’s worth noticing the answers we’re giving. And, since this is an election year, our presidential election is also about that.

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The Holy Trinity: And I should pay attention because? (Trinity Sunday, 5/26/2024)

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Readings

Today we celebrate Trinity Sunday, one of the principal feasts of the Church. One God; Three Persons. But—with all due reverence—so what? There are many ways we might answer that question; here are a couple.

Confessing the Holy Trinity we say that before creation there is a community of love: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. That’s probably the most profound sense of the statement “God is love:” Father, Son, Holy Spirit in an eternal relationship of love. ‘Relationship’: that’s probably too weak a word. We might call it a banquet or a dance. And out of that love God creates our universe. Not out of lack or necessity (nothing is lacking) but out of desire to share that primordial love.

To share that primordial love: that’s the human destiny. It appears throughout Scripture; here are three examples. The first comes at the culmination of the Exodus at Sinai:

Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, and they saw the God of Israel. Under his feet there was something like a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. God did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; also they beheld God, and they ate and drank. (Exodus 24:9-11)

The second, from the prophet Isaiah:

On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever.  (Isaiah 25:6-8a)

The third, from the end of the Revelation given to St John:

The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” And let everyone who hears say, “Come.” And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift. (Revelation 22:17)

The party’s been going on from all eternity; we’re invited to join in.

Now, a parenthesis which for some will be quite unnecessary, for others—like the preacher—quite necessary. One God; billions of people scattered over the centuries. How could that not end up being organized bureaucratically? Here’s where my imagination needs stretching. Jesus, it turns out, is aware of the problem:

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows. (Matthew 10:29-31)

Even the hairs of my head: counted. Perhaps not surprisingly this personal dimension to the divine invitation is captured most vividly in the Old Testament’s portraits of Lady Wisdom: “She hastens to make herself known to those who desire her.… because she goes about seeking those worthy of her, and she graciously appears to them in their paths, and meets them in every thought. (Wisdom 6:13, 16)

Which brings us to today’s second theme. The first: the Holy Trinity’s breath-taking invitation. The second: we’re not left to respond to that invitation on our own, as we’ve heard in the readings from Romans and John. In Romans Paul speaks of the Spirit empowering our prayers. A bit later he talks of those frequent situations in which we don’t have the slightest idea how to pray:

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. (Romans 8:26-27)

In John’s Gospel Jesus uses the image of birth: “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.” And so we baptize (with water) in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Birth: that suggests a one-off event. In practice it tends to be a recurring event as we—picking up Paul’s language—repeatedly by the Spirit put to death those destructive habits that still form part of our character.

The Trinity’s breath-taking invitation, the Trinity’s daily assistance in responding to that invitation: that’s probably plenty for the sermon. But there’s that last bit in the Romans reading: “it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ– if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.” Suffer with him? After all the talk of feast and banquet in the sermon, how’d that get in? A long answer would require another sermon; here’s the short answer. In Jesus’ parable that we usually call “The Prodigal Son” the Father wants both the younger prodigal son and the older self-righteous son at the banquet. But that’ll only happen if both recognize that the father’s love, forgiving, repaying evil with good, is an expression of strength, not weakness. That’ll only happen if both practice love in forgiving, in repaying evil with good.

The Holy Trinity wants us at the banquet. More precisely, us and our enemies at the banquet. But that’ll only happen if we recognize that the Trinity’s love, forgiving, repaying evil with good, is an expression of strength, not weakness. That’ll only happen if we’ve at least begun to practice that love in forgiving, in repaying evil with good. And that practice in this world means suffering—as every Eucharist reminds us.

The Holy Trinity, a community of love since before time, inviting us into that same community, empowering us through the Spirit to accept that invitation, empowering us through that same Spirit to walk in the way of forgiveness and repaying evil with good. If that’s not a reason to celebrate, I don’t know what is.

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La Santísima Trinidad–¿y qué? (La Trinidad, 26/5/2024)

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Lecturas

Hoy celebramos la fiesta de la Santísima Trinidad, una de las fiestas principales de la Iglesia. Un Dios; tres Personas. Pero—con toda la debida reverencia–¿y qué? Hay muchas maneras de responder a esta pregunta; voy a enfocar dos.

Confesando la Santísima Trinidad, confesamos que antes de la creación hay una comunidad de amor: Padre, Hijo, Espíritu Santo. “Dios es amor” decimos, y aquí tenemos el sentido más profundo de esta afirmación. Antes de nada, una comunidad de amor. “Comunidad”: quizá la palabra es demasiado débil. Mejor: una fiesta, un baile de amor. Y desde este amor Dios crea nuestro universo. Ni por carencia ni por necesidad, sino para compartir este amor primordial.

Compartir este amor primordial. Y aquí tenemos el destino humano: participar/vivir en esta comunidad de amor. Vislumbramos este destino en muchos textos de la Biblia. Por ejemplo, después del Éxodo y la entrega de la Ley:

Subieron Moisés, Aarón, Nadab, Abihú y los setenta dirigentes de Israel, y vieron al Dios de Israel: bajo los pies tenía una especie de pavimento de zafiro, límpido como el mismo cielo. Dios no extendió la mano contra los notables de Israel, que pudieron contemplar a Dios, y después comieron y bebieron. (Ex. 24:9-11 BNP)

O del profeta Isaías:

6 Y el SEÑOR de los ejércitos preparará en este monte para todos los pueblos un banquete de manjares suculentos, un banquete de vino añejo, pedazos escogidos con tuétano, y vino añejo refinado. 7 Y destruirá en este monte la cobertura que cubre todos los pueblos, el velo que está extendido sobre todas las naciones. 8 Él destruirá la muerte para siempre… (Is. 25:6-8 LBA)

O del fin de la Revelación de Juan:

El Espíritu y la esposa dicen: Ven. Y el que oye, diga: Ven. Y el que tiene sed, venga; y el que desea, que tome gratuitamente del agua de la vida. (Ap. 22:17 LBA)

Una fiesta de gozo desde antes de la creación—y nosotros, invitados a participar.

Ahora, un paréntesis, innecesario para algunos, necesario para otros—como su servidor. Un Dios; billones de personas: ¿no implica esto una burocracia sofocante? Bueno—necesito un poco más de imaginación. Y parece que Jesús mismo se dio cuenta del problema:

29 ¿No se venden dos gorriones por unas monedas? Sin embargo ni uno de ellos cae a tierra sin permiso del Padre de ustedes. 30 En cuanto a ustedes, hasta los pelos de su cabeza están contados. 31 Por tanto, no les tengan miedo, que ustedes valen más que muchos gorriones. (Mt. 10:29-31 BNP)

Hasta los pelos de mi cabeza. Y vemos esta dimensión personal de la invitación particularmente en los retratos de la Dama Sabiduría en el Antiguo Testamento:

Ella misma se da a conocer a los que la desean. Ella misma va de un lado a otro buscando a los que la merecen, los aborda benigna por los caminos, y les sale al paso en todo proyecto. (Sab. 6:13, 16 BNP)

En otras palabras, esta invitación de la Santísima Trinidad: no viene dirigida a ¨Ocupante¨ o ¨Residente¨.

Y esto nos lleva al segundo tema de esta plática. El primero: la asombrosa invitación de la Trinidad. El segundo: Dios no nos abandona a nuestros propios recursos para responder a esta invitación, como hemos escuchado en las lecturas de Romanos y Juan. En Romanos Pablo habla del Espíritu empoderando nuestras oraciones. Un poco después, de la intercesión del Espíritu cuando no tenemos la menor idea cómo orar:

26 De ese modo el Espíritu nos viene a socorrer en nuestra debilidad. Aunque no sabemos pedir como es debido, el Espíritu mismo intercede por nosotros con gemidos que no se pueden expresar. 27 Y el que sondea los corazones sabe lo que pretende el Espíritu cuando suplica por los consagrados de acuerdo con la voluntad de Dios. (Rom. 8:26-27 BNP)

En el Evangelio de Juan Jesús usa la imagen de nacimiento: ¨Te aseguro que, si uno no nace del agua y del Espíritu, no puede entrar en el reino de Dios.¨ (Jn. 3:5 BNP) Por eso bautizamos con agua en el Nombre del Padre, del Hijo, y del Espíritu Santo. Nacimiento: la imagen sugiere un evento único. En la práctica, algo que recurre cuando—usando las palabras de Pablo—con la ayuda del Espíritu hacemos morir los hábitos destructivos que siguen siendo parte de nuestro carácter.

En otras palabras, ¿qué nos dice la doctrina de la Trinidad? Respondemos al Padre con el Hijo a nuestro lado y el Espíritu dentro y entre nosotros.

Bueno. La asombrosa invitación de la Trinidad, la asistencia diaria de la Trinidad a responder a esta invitación: basta para una plática. Pero, hay la última parte de la lectura de Romanos:

Y este mismo Espíritu se une a nuestro espíritu para dar testimonio de que ya somos hijos de Dios. Y puesto que somos sus hijos, también tendremos parte en la herencia que Dios nos ha prometido, la cual compartiremos con Cristo, puesto que sufrimos con él para estar también con él en su gloria. (Rom 8:16-17 DHH)

¿Sufrir con él? Después de tantas referencias a gozo, fiesta, banquete, ¿de dónde viene eso de sufrir? Una respuesta completa implicaría otra plática. Entonces, una respuesta mínima. En la parábola de Jesús que solemos llamar ¨El hijo pródigo¨ el padre quiere que tanto el hijo prodigo como el hijo creído estén en el banquete. Pero eso pasará solamente si los dos reconocen que el amor del padre, un amor que perdona y que vence al mal haciendo el bien (véase Rom 12:21) es una muestra de fortaleza, no de debilidad. Eso pasará solamente si los dos hijos practican este amor, perdonando, venciendo al mal haciendo el bien.

La Santísima Trinidad quiere que nosotros estemos en el banquete. Mejor: quiere que nosotros y nuestros enemigos estemos en el banquete. Pero eso pasará solamente si reconocemos que el amor del padre, un amor que perdona y que vence al mal haciendo el bien es una muestra de fortaleza, no de debilidad. Eso pasará solamente si hemos empezado a practicar este amor, perdonando, venciendo al mal haciendo el bien. Y esta práctica en este mundo trae sufrimiento—como nos recuerda cada Eucaristía (¨que por nosotros y por nuestra salvación bajó del cielo¨).

La Santísima Trinidad, una comunidad de amor desde antes de tiempo mismo, invitándonos a esta comunidad, empoderándonos por el Espíritu para responder a esta invitación, empoderándonos por el mismo Espíritu a caminar en el camino de perdón y de vencer al mal haciendo el bien: buenos motivos para celebrar esta fiesta, ¿no creen? Amén.

Christ was born for this! (First Sunday after Christmas, 12/28/2025)

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Readings

[Call and response:] Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!

This year that line from the carol we just sang got my attention: “Christ was born for this!” What happens if we put that together with today’s readings?

In our first reading, it sounds like there are two voices There’s the “I” we meet midway through the reading: “For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent.” That sounds like a prophet, who begins to speak to Jerusalem. The “I” in the first lines? That sounds like Jerusalem personified, celebrating her coming vindication or salvation, so certain that it’s put in the past tense: “he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, / he has covered me with the robe of righteousness.”

Why should we gentiles care about that? Recall Isaiah’s vision that we heard a few weeks ago on the first Sunday of Advent:

In days to come
the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be raised above the hills;
all the nations shall stream to it.
Many peoples shall come and say,
‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob;
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.’

That’s the Old Testament’s primary vision of how those words to Abraham “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen 12:3) are fulfilled. Not by military conquest, but by attraction. Israel’s trust in the Lord nurtures a national life that is so attractive that all the nations want in on it.

Things, obviously, didn’t play out that way, so today’s text from Isaiah looks to the Lord getting that project back on track. We hear the same hope at the beginning of today’s psalm: “The Lord rebuilds Jerusalem; / he gathers the exiles of Israel.” And we heard it in Mary’s song on the third Sunday of Advent:

He has come to the help of his servant Israel,
for he has remembered his promise of mercy,
The promise he made to our fathers,
to Abraham and his children for ever. (Lk 1:54-55)

“Christ was born for this!” And so, some years later, Jesus enters Jerusalem with the crowds shouting “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” (Mat 21:9) It’s almost within reach: all the Jewish leaders and Pilate have to say is “OK, Jesus, we’ll do it your way” and it’s Isaiah’s vision on steroids.

As we recall every Holy Week, it doesn’t play out that way, and God says, in effect, “OK, this is going to take longer.” So what we encounter in today’s Epistle and Gospel is a focus on adoption. Galatians: “so that we might receive adoption as children.” John: “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.”

Daughters and sons of God! In the context of today’s readings, that suggests attention to Jesus’ words in the Gospel of John: “Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise” (5:19). Those words to Abraham, “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed:” that’s the family project. As daughters and sons, our project.

The same theme shows up in Matthew’s Gospel: “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous” (5:44-45).

It’s not that God has given up on the Jews. As Paul reminds us “the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (Rom 11:29). But these congregations of Jewish and Gentile believers in all the world—even in Wisconsin—each can be a temple, a place where trust in the Lord nurtures a communal life that is so attractive that all the neighbors want in on it. As Paul puts it, “so that through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places” (Eph 3:10).

Isaiah’s vision: it’s been tweaked in unexpected ways. The “mountain of the Lord’s house” is distributed across the globe, also at 6205 University Avenue. But it’s still the endgame:

‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob;
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.’

And for that, as Paul celebrates, “God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” Repairing the world (tikkun olam, as the Jews put it): it’s the family business. “Christ was born for this! Christ was born for this!”

[Call and response:] Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!

Light in the Darkness (Christmas Day, 12/25/2025)

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Readings

[Call & response:] Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!

The truly odd thing about the way our culture celebrates Christmas, a.k.a. the Holiday Season, is the contrast between its obligatory gaiety and the despair-encouraging darkness assumed in the Christmas readings. “The people who walked in darkness” in our first reading: in Isaiah’s time, the northern tribes just swallowed up by the Assyrian Empire. Or the Roman Empire assumed in our Gospel reading. As Ben Franklin observed, “Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.” Only under the most generous reading are the Romans guests, and they’ve been throwing their weight around for decades. That registration decree from the Emperor Agustus? The Empire needs—wait for it—more money.

Then there’s Crete. Earlier in the letter Paul writes about its inhabitants “It was one of them, their very own prophet, who said, ‘Cretans are always liars, vicious brutes, lazy gluttons.’ That testimony is true” (1:12-13). It would be understandable if he’d given the place a wide berth, but, no, he’s left Titus there to sort things out. So, in the verses before today’s reading, Paul’s focused on what various groups need to hear: older men, older women, younger men, slaves… Not the finer points of etiquette, but painfully basic stuff: the older women shouldn’t be slaves to drink; the younger men should show some self-control; the slaves shouldn’t pilfer…

Why? In all that darkness booze etc. sound like rational responses! Paul in today’s reading: “For the grace/gift of God has appeared…” Later in the letter he writes: “He saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit” (3:5). It’s a matter of remembering their identity, our identity. Every day we receive countless messages (print, TV, radio, social media, etc.) each encouraging us to experience ourselves in terms of a particular identity: consumer, tax-payer, citizen, privileged white male, oppressed white male… But we are baptized. Paul would have us use that as a filter, a spam blocker, if you like. How is this message relevant to us as baptized, in which Jew, Greek, slave, free, male, female, “all…one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:27-28)?

Because, as Paul writes, there’s a point to God’s gift/grace: “that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.” “A people of his own:” that’s a somewhat unwieldy translation for the phrase that occurs repeatedly in the Torah about Israel: “you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples” (Exo 19:5). God hasn’t given up on that, a people whose life is human, humane. As you may recall, Matthew uses “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light” to celebrate Jesus’ arrival in Galilee (4:15-16). Jesus is the light. But then in the next chapter we hear Jesus saying “You are the light of the world” (5:14).

God’s gift, the gift that keeps giving in the lives of those who receive it. Our reading from Isaiah ended with “The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.” And if we wonder how that works, the ending from our reading from Titus supplies part of the answer: “and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.”

“The people who walked in darkness…” A couple millennia on from Isaiah we have no lack of darkness, whether imported or home-grown. But, as Isaiah promised, we have God’s gracious gift, Emmanuel, God with us. The darkness will not get the last word. That Spirit that brooded over the dark chaos at the beginning of creation was given to us at baptism—or, better, we were given over to that Spirit at baptism—and the invitation of Christmas is to celebrate what that Spirit is stirring up in our midst.

[Call & response:] Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!

Emmanuel (“God is with us”) = “Boldly go where no one has gone before” (4th Sunday of Advent, 12/21/2025)

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Readings

As you probably guessed, our first reading was chosen because today’s Gospel quotes from it. Ahaz is the king of Judah—what’s left of Solomon’s kingdom after the northern tribes left to form Israel.  Everyone in the region is afraid: the hungry Assyrian Empire (modern Iraq) is expanding. It’s something like having Russia as your next-door neighbor. Israel and Aram (modern Syria) want to fight, and, since Ahaz doesn’t, they plan to invade Judah.

In our text Isaiah is imploring Ahaz to trust the Lord. And, despite Ahaz’ refusal of a sign, the Lord offers one anyway: a young woman is now pregnant and will bear a son who will be named Emmanuel (“God with us”). The child will serve as a sort of calendar: before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, Israel and Aram will be non-issues. But Ahaz doesn’t trust. As the Book of Kings tells it Ahaz sent messengers to the Assyrian king: “I am your servant and your son. Come up, and rescue me from the hand of the king of Aram and from the hand of the king of Israel, who are attacking me” (2 Ki. 16:7). Servant and son, no longer of the Lord, but of the Assyrian king. What a fall!

But the question still hangs in the air: Emmanuel (“God with us”): what will that turn out to mean?

Some 700 years later the question is not how to respond to the Assyrian Empire, but how to respond to the Roman Empire. (The factions we meet in the New Testament, the Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians, Zealots, etc. separate by how they answer that question.) And in the middle of all that Mary is pregnant. For Matthew it’s an Ahaz moment, with Joseph and his generation facing the same choice Ahaz and his generation faced: trust or not. Emmanuel (“God with us”): what will that turn out to mean?

Joseph is the first to have to choose. Matthew describes Joseph as a righteous man. That’s important, because the argument about what righteousness means runs through Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount: “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (5:20). For Joseph, “righteous” means not exposing Mary to disgrace, but quietly dismissing her. Ahaz had Isaiah; Joseph has “an angel of the Lord,” who redefines “righteous” behavior. And Joseph—thank God—trusts, and takes Mary as his wife.

“Emmanuel” (God with us): whatever that means, it doesn’t mean “business as usual.” Business as usual for Ahaz was a matter of arithmetic: how many divisions do we have? How many do Israel and Aram have? How many does Assyria have? Emmanuel? Hard to quantify that. Business as usual for Joseph meant a compassionate dismissal of Mary. But “Emmanuel” significantly shifted “righteous.”

Now, a sidebar. What does Matthew’s “fulfill” mean? There are plenty of examples of prophets speaking about the future and those words proving true. Isaiah’s words in today’s reading about the fate of Israel and Aram is an example. But that’s not the only way “fulfill” works. In the case of Isaiah’s young woman, the child simply serves as a calendar. So Matthew’s just taking advantage of the Greek text’s translation of “young woman” as “virgin” to support his Jesus-fulfills-prophecy agenda? No. What Matthew has recognized is that the situations Ahaz and Joseph face are similar, and that this time around God’s action is even more breathtaking. This time around “Emmanuel” points to a far more profound “God with us,” and Matthew writes his Gospel also to help us discover some of what that means. Isaiah’s words have been filled fuller than he could have imagined.

Notice, by the way, the choices Matthew has made as a narrator. “Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way” sets us up to expect an account of the birth. But Matthew focuses on the choice Joseph faces. Why? Perhaps because Matthew’s audience is in a similar situation. For the Jewish Christians in Matthew’s audience “righteousness” had meant having as little to do with the gentiles as possible. But Emmanuel, and now they’re part of a renewed Israel in which Jew and Gentile call each other “brother” and “sister.” They might be excused for thinking Joseph had it easy.

Where am I going with this? Since 1966 I’ve been a Star Trek fan: “boldly go where no one has gone before.” That’s not a bad weak analogy for the journey to which the Christmas story invites us. The Messiah, the Christ, has come. There were plenty of scripts for how that was supposed to play out. But since this is a matter of Emmanuel (“God with us”) it’s not about following a script, and one of the first ones who has to deal with this is Joseph. Sometimes, as in our Gospel, there’s a direct command to be obeyed. Sometimes it’s a matter of Spirit-led discernment. Paul in Ephesians: “Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord” (5:10). We continually turn to Holy Scripture for nourishment, not because it’s the script, but because—under the guidance of the Holy Spirit—it enables us to faithfully improvise as we follow our risen Lord.

Joseph’s feast day is March 19; let’s use the collect for that feast to take us out:

“O God, who from the family of your servant David raised up Joseph to be the guardian of your incarnate Son and the spouse of his virgin mother: Give us grace to imitate his uprightness of life and his obedience to your commands; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”

Be Patient? Third Sunday of Advent, 12/14/2025

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Readings

A child of my age, I resonate with Ambrose Bierce’s definition of patience, “A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.” So, James’ “Be patient” is not what I want to hear.

Actually, James’ “Be patient” and Jesus’ “And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me” are acknowledgements of problems, and set the agenda for the sermon.

“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” It’s not an unreasonable question, and not simply because John’s been in prison for some time. Recall what we heard last Sunday from John’s description of the coming one: “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His 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.” Jesus doesn’t seem to be doing that.

Jesus responds by describing what he has been doing, the description drawing heavily from multiple texts from Isaiah, including our first reading: “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.” The citations from Isaiah aren’t a rhetorical flourish; they’re the argument: Jesus is doing what God promised. Implicit in the response: there is a difference between gathering the wheat and burning the chaff on the one hand and what Jesus has been doing on the other.

Notice that Jesus in his response is doing what he did in the synagogue in Nazareth as recorded by Luke. Reading from Isaiah, he reads up to “to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” but omits the following “and the day of vengeance of our God” (Isa 61:1-2; Lk 4:18-19).

Jesus knows that this is both what John does and doesn’t want to hear. Hence “blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” Of course, it’s not a problem only with John. Luke recalls James and John’s response when a Samaritan village refuses to receive them: “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” (Luk 9:54). And it’s been a problem ever since: Jesus and his followers: enacting  God’s vengeance or God’s compassion and mercy (recalling the ending of James’ argument, cut short by the lectionary)?

So that’s one problem, what “the one who is to come” is doing, is commissioning us to do. It affects even our reading of the Magnificat. He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, / and has lifted up the lowly./ He has filled the hungry with good things, / and the rich he has sent away empty.” That should give the mighty and rich pause.[1] But following Jesus’ lead we focus our efforts on the lowly and the hungry, a focus that often demands not a little patience.

“Be patient—James writes—until the coming of the Lord.” James is also dealing with a second problem, the delay in that coming. His contribution to our reflection lies in his choice of wording. As Luke Timothy Johnson observes of the verb makrothymein, in the Greek translation of the Old Testament that verb and its corresponding noun are mostly “used of the attitudes of a superiority to an inferior.” “[B]efore the time of judgment, God shows makrothymia; so should the community also share that outlook” (The Letter of James, 313). Contra Ambrose Bierce, we exercise patience from a position of strength, not weakness.

Now, if the delay in Jesus’ coming was a problem for James in the first century, it’s a problem for us in the twenty-first! In the Great Thanksgiving: “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” How do I make sense of that delay? Well, in three different ways.

First, were I to push the question, I’d open myself to the same divine response Job got (Job 38-41):

Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements– surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone
when the morning stars sang together
and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy? (Job 38:4-7)

And those would be legitimate questions.

The second way is a spin-off from God’s response to Job. We tend to assume that we’re God’s only concern. God spends the last two chapters of the reply to Job celebrating Behemoth (“which I made just as I made you”) and Leviathan (“When it raises itself up the gods are afraid; / at the crashing they are beside themselves.”). We humans are often making a mess of it; the rest of creation, from the hummingbirds to the great whales, are giving exquisite full-throated glory to God.

The third way is more tentative, and takes off from James’ example of the farmer. Some things take time. Crops take months; some things take much longer stretches. Take Yosemite Valley: the time to form those massive blocks of granite, the time for the glaciers to do their thing. So we get the majesty of Half Dome. Or take the Grand Canyon: God introduces what will become the Colorado River: let’s see what that looks like in five or six million years. God is happy to work with long stretches of time.

What if the Creator wishes to explore the potential of this creature made “a little lower than God” (Ps 8:5)? David and his harp: it took time for that technology to develop, and it will take centuries more before a Mozart, a Beethoven, or a Copeland can appear. Or to take a different sort of technology, the centuries to develop the scientific traditions that make possible the achievements displayed in the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Literally breath-taking what we can do together in our best moments.

There is, as Scripture and the daily headlines remind us, more than enough cruelty and suffering to have us crying “Come, Lord Jesus.” Job and these other reflections don’t lessen that impulse, but do make me grateful that I’m not the one making the decision on timing.

To sum up this perhaps strange reflection on our readings, Scripture is clear that the mind is important. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Mat 22:37). And sometimes its importance lies in its capacity to recognize its limits. So I am profoundly grateful that Jesus’ blessing in today’s Gospel is not “Blessed is anyone who understands what I’m doing” but “Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”

[1] Recall the British ban during their rule in India as well as the more recent bans by dictatorships in Argentina and Guatemala. (Source)

“The wolf shall live with the lamb”–and Paul’s readers in Rome struggle to make that work! Second Sunday of Advent, 12/7/2025

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Readings

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” So Paul to the Romans in our second reading. Hope: today’s readings flesh that out in some encouraging ways. Let’s dive in.

Whatever else it is, our reading from Isaiah, an exercise in hope.” A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse…” “Stump of Jesse:” that assumes that things have not gone well. Just a few chapters back we heard Isaiah warning Ahaz “If you do not stand firm in faith, you shall not stand at all” (7:9), but Ahaz is showing no sign of that faith; he’s putting his faith in the king of Assyria! Nevertheless, “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse…” The faithlessness of Ahaz—of most of the kings of Judah—will not get the last word. And what a shoot! “With righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.”“The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together…” And what is happening in Jerusalem will get international attention: “On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him…” It sounds like what we heard last week from Isaiah (“Many peoples shall come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths’” [Isa 2:3]). Hope.

This hope for what God will do through the shoot drives today’s psalm in more general terms: what God will do through any king. Prosperity, international security: yes. The surprise is that what the king is doing focuses almost entirely on defending the needy, rescuing the poor. From the part the lectionary omitted:

For he shall deliver the poor who cries out in distress, *
and the oppressed who has no helper.
He shall have pity on the lowly and poor; *
he shall preserve the lives of the needy.
He shall redeem their lives from oppression and violence, *
and dear shall their blood be in his sight.

God to the king: you worry about the poor; I’ll worry about prosperity and the other nations. The tragedy of Israel’s history: like Ahaz, most of the kings worried about prosperity and the other nations, with the poor toward the bottom of the to-do list. Gentile rulers—to whom the offer is implicitly extended—have tended to do no better. So the hand-copying of Psalm 72 in the centuries before Gutenberg, also an exercise in hope that someone will take it seriously.

So when John the Baptist proclaims “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near,” that does encourage the hope that God is doing something about those words from Isaiah and the psalm. He’s baptizing at the Jordan, that river that Joshua and Israel crossed to enter the land. It’s a powerful promise: we can begin again. At the same time, there’s that word “repent.” The problem isn’t “those people.” John’s right there with Pogo: “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” That image of wheat and chaff with which our reading ends? The wheat: not those who don’t need to repent, but those who are doing so. So the first of our brother Martin Luther’s 95 theses: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.

Which brings us to our reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans. “Abound in hope:” particularly a challenge in the capital of the Roman Empire, whose legions, architecture, and stories had no intention of going anywhere! Virgil, the Empire’s poet, has Jupiter, king of the gods, saying this of the Romans:

“On them I set no limits, space or time:
I have granted them power, empire without end.” (Aeneid i.333-334)

Living among competing narratives is nothing new! So Paul “May the God of hope–not to be confused with Jupiter–fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” How does Paul think this works, particularly “believing”? Our reading is at the end of a section in which he’s dealing with the challenge of Jewish and Gentile believers living together. Some, in faith, keep kosher and observe particular days; some, also in faith, eat whatever they want and treat all days equally. All are tempted to judge, to enlighten the others. While Paul talks about the groups as the strong and the weak, each group would have seen itself as strong and faithful in contrast to the other groups.

Paul: “Welcome one another…just as Christ has welcomed you.” It’s not a call to toleration (too often simply a temporary ceasefire until one of the groups feels strong enough to resume hostiliities), but to actively supporting each other’s different understandings of faithfulness.

Isaiah: “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid.” Lovely words, but Isaiah didn’t have to figure out how that actually works. Paul—and the Romans—do. Wolves, lambs, leopards, kids: in God’s faithfulness all thrown together in Rome’s various house churches. Potlucks are going to stay complicated. (With increased awareness of food intolerances in our congregations, we should be able to sympathize!)

And this welcoming one another, encouraging one another, wolves as wolves and lambs as lambs, is a powerful sign that Isaiah’s words aren’t just words, but a world that God is birthing in their midst. So there’s reason for hope. But it’s a hope that doesn’t come cheap. It means the repenting, the turning, that John the Baptist proclaimed, repenting of the natural assumption that our group’s right, that they’re the ones who need to change, that they’re not sufficiently grateful for our tolerance.

Let’s step back for a minute. To the first century Romans Paul writes “For the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (14:17). But despite the presence of this section in his letter (14:1-15:13) we Christians have been really proficient at finding equivalents to food and drink over which to divide. Within the Anglican tradition, even over the presence or absence of candles on the altar! The problem is that if we’ve got “Welcome one another,” we also have (from Paul’s letter to the Galatians) “if anyone proclaims to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let that one be accursed!” (1:9). Discerning which is applicable in any given situation has never been easy. Nevertheless, this section from Romans is a standing challenge to our tendency to build walls when we should be building bridges.

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Not because hope in itself is a good thing; it depends on what we’re hoping for. Our hope centers in prayers like “Your kingdom come” or “Come, Lord Jesus.” How do we “abound in hope”? As our believing shapes our behavior so that our common life offers glimpses of what we’re hoping for, of Jesus’ presence, of Isaiah’s vision: “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.”

The Day is Near (!) (?) First Sunday of Advent, 11/30/2025

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Readings

Somewhat earlier in Matthew we hear Jesus saying this:

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it” (13:44-46).

The vision of God’s kingdom in our first reading is like that treasure, that pearl. The nations beating swords into plowshares, devoting all that expertise, all those resources, into human flourishing. That, says Isaiah, is God’s future for the nations. The last verse describes it as Israel’s charge in the present: “O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD!” And perhaps Israel walking in that light will make it easier to get the nations walking in that light.

This theme of the nations doing that, you need to do this organizes Paul’s exhortations in our second reading. He is writing, recall, to the Christians living in the capital of the empire. The reveling and debauchery he alludes to may be issues among the Christians; they’re standard for Rome’s elites. That, says Paul, is the night; the day’s “near,” so “let us live honorably as in the day.” It’s still night; we live as in the day.

What’s at stake in these two readings? Well, catch Isaiah’s vision or Paul’s vision of God’s coming kingdom and the political differences that can be so important to us pale in comparison. Some of you may have seen Ken Burns’ 12-hour documentary The American Revolution that aired a couple weeks ago. One of its striking themes was the degree to which the revolution was a civil war, with rampant inhumanity on both sides. That represented a massive failure in Christian formation. Disagreements are inevitable; violence may be inevitable. Keeping God’s coming kingdom in mind should mean not keeping a supply of tar and feathers readily available.

When is God’s kingdom coming? Our texts offer two answers. Jesus in our Gospel reading gives one: “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Only the Father knows. (Parenthetically, that “nor the Son” was disconcerting enough that while Matthew took this verse over from Mark, Luke simply omits it!) So judging simply from the titles, there are a good number of books not worth opening, web links not worth the click.

But twenty-one centuries after these words do we simply say “Amen!”? Paul’s “the night is far gone, the day is near:” “Amen?” Well, yes. Peter, already addressing the issue, writes “with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day” (2Pe 3:8). Whether that resolves the issue is a judgment call. I think not, so my wondering goes in a variety of directions. Clearly God has hit the pause button. There’s God’s answer to Job (chapters 38-41): not simply that God’s ways are several orders of magnitude above our understanding, but that we’re not God’s only concern. God spends the last two chapters celebrating Behemoth (“which I made just as I made you”) and Leviathan (“When it raises itself up the gods are afraid; / at the crashing they are beside themselves.”). We humans are often making a mess of it; the rest of creation, from the hummingbirds to the great whales, are giving exquisite full-throated glory to God.

Then there’s the time involved in creating the splendor and beauty preserved in our national parks. Yosemite Valley: the time to form those massive blocks of granite, the time for the glaciers to do their thing. So we get the majesty of Half Dome. The Grand Canyon: God introduces what will become the Colorado River: let’s see what that looks like in five or six million years. God is happy to work with long stretches of time.

Then there’s the time involved in exploring the potential of this creature made “a little lower than God” (Ps 8:5). It takes centuries to develop the musical tradition in which a Mozart, a Beethoven, a Copeland can appear. It takes centuries to develop the scientific traditions that make possible the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Literally breath-taking what we can do together in our best moments.

There is, as Scripture and the daily headlines remind us, more than enough cruelty and suffering to have us crying “Come, Lord Jesus.” Job and these other reflections don’t lessen that impulse, but do make me grateful that I’m not the one making the decision on timing.

So, “But about that day and hour no one knows” is one answer to the question of timing. But then there’s Jesus’ promise at the end of the Gospel according to Matthew “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (28:20), which somewhat relativizes the question of when Jesus returns. That, coupled with the exhortations in Isaiah and Paul to live God’s future now, raises the question of how much of that future might contaminate the present.

So, for example, Isaiah’s vision: only for the future? Second and third century Christians argue that it’s being realized now, evidence that Jesus is the promised Messiah. Here’s Justin, writing around 160:

“For, we Christians, who have gained a knowledge of the true worship of God from the Law and from the word which went forth from Jerusalem by way of the Apostles of Jesus, have run for protection to the God of Jacob and the God of Israel. And we who delighted in war, in the slaughter of one another, and in every other kind of iniquity have in every part of the world converted our weapons of war into implements of peace—our swords into ploughshares, our spears into farmers’ tools—and we cultivate piety, justice, brotherly charity, faith, and hope, which we derive from the Father through the Crucified Savior” (Justin, Dialogue with Trypho 110.2-3).

How much of God’s future might contaminate our present? We don’t know. The invitation of Advent—of the entire Church Year, for that matter—let’s find out.

Gospel of Matthew 2025-2026

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St Dunstan’s (Madison, Wisconsin) is hosting a discussion/study group to offer opportunity to reflect on this Gospel in coordination with the Sunday readings following the Revised Common Lectionary.

The these notes are offered to “prime the pump” for these discussions:

Matthew 2025-2026Download

How God likes to use power (Christ the King, 11/23/2025)

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Readings (Track 1)

“May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power” Paul writes. On this Feast of Christ the King that “glorious power” is worth wondering about.

How does God use this “glorious power”? In our first reading from Jeremiah, “I will attend to you [the shepherds] for your evil doings,” which, as Jeremiah had been warning, meant bringing in the Babylonian army to destroy Jerusalem. “Then I myself will gather the remnant”—through the various leaders who brought waves of exiles back to Jerusalem. And through “a righteous Branch” for David—which turns out to point forward to our other readings.

In Zechariah’s song “He has raised up for us a mighty savior, / born of the house of his servant David. / … save us from our enemies, / from the hands of all who hate us.” That sounds like military power.

In the Gospel the “righteous Branch” of whom Jeremiah spoke, the “mighty savior” Zechariah celebrated, is on stage for… the crucifixion? At first glance, profoundly disturbing, and we’re there with the two disciples leaving (fleeing?) Jerusalem on the road to Emmaus: “But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel” (Luk 24:21). It took Jesus’ resurrection and post-resurrection teaching to enable us to see that Friday as “Good.” There, as Paul puts it, God “was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.” Or, as Paul puts it to the Corinthians “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself” (2Co 5:19). So Jesus’ words (“Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”), expressions of weakness, or power? Recall Jesus’ words from John’s Gospel: “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (12:32).

What does God use power for? Clearly, when necessary, to attend violently to the shepherds destroying and scattering the sheep. But our readings—as well as the rest of Scripture—suggest that God would greatly prefer to use that power, as Paul puts it, “to reconcile to himself all things.” Will God succeed, succeed in turning all enemies into friends? Scripture leaves that question open, much to the dismay of the commentators who’ve tried to find a clear answer in the Book of Revelation. Why does Scripture leave the question open? Perhaps because our desires and decisions also matter. The story is still being written.

What Scripture does not leave open is how God wants us to use that power. Back to Paul: “May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father…” This may be why Paul calls love the greatest of God’s gifts, for it is love that “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1Co 13:7).

We have, obviously, enemies, and we want God to do something about them. “Love your enemies” is no easier now than when Moses (Exodus 23:4-5) and Jesus (Matt 5:44) first said it. It may help to recall another of Paul’s observations in that “Love Chapter”: “now we see in a mirror, dimly” (1Co 13:12). That applies both to us and our enemies, so sometimes they’re seeing things that we don’t, that we need to see. In any case, as today’s Collect celebrates, “the King of kings and Lord of lords” is about freeing and bringing together all those divided and enslaved by sin, and calls us to be part of that. (And the weekly General Confession reminds us that “those divided and enslaved by sin” is not entirely in our rearview mirror!)

God’s glorious power. The Holy Eucharist is many-faceted. Today’s Feast and readings might remind us that it, and, precisely, the words of institution, is also a celebration of that glorious power. “This is my Body.… This is my Blood.” Royal words, royal gifts, to empower us to share in our King’s work.

Much of what I’ve been exploring in these texts is captured in one of the prayers buried toward the back of the Book of Common Prayer on p.816. So I invite you to turn to it, stand as you are able, so that in celebration of this Feast of Christ the King we can pray “6. For our enemies” together:

O God, the Father of all, whose Son commanded us to love our enemies: Lead them and us from prejudice to truth; deliver them and us from hatred, cruelty, and revenge; and in your good time enable us all to stand reconciled before you; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

A Two Year Lectionary (Excel Files)

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A few years back I created this lectionary for my own use, and am posting it in case others might find it useful. It includes the books shared by the Roman Catholic and Orthodox canons and excludes the Psalms, for which the monthly cycle in the Book of Common Prayer is used. The colors mark the Old Testament (blue), Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books (gold), and New Testament (tan).

The two year lectionary (an excel file):

Two Year Lectionary v3Download

The monthly Psalm cycle from the Book of Common Prayer (an excel file):

Monthly Psalm CycleDownload

Praying “Your kingdom come” (23rd Sunday after Pentecost, 11/16/2025)

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Readings (Track 2)

This morning’s Collect focused on Holy Scripture: “Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life…” How might that work with today’s readings?

More precisely, the themes in some of the readings recall that petition in the Lord’s Prayer: “your kingdom come.” How might the readings help us better pray “your kingdom come”?

Our first reading from the prophet Malachi: “See, the day is coming.” The day, the day of the Lord, the Lord’s decisive action. Like many other descriptions of the day of the Lord, the text focuses the Lord sorting things out: the arrogant, the evildoers, “you who revere my name,” each will get their due. (We’re still a couple weeks out from Advent, but this wouldn’t make a bad Advent reading!)

That sounds pretty good: the arrogant and evildoers, “you who revere my name” neatly separated. But our tradition, informed by Holy Scripture, has us confessing at each Eucharist “we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed…” That separation isn’t as stable as we’d like.

When we pray “your kingdom come” it’s pretty much inevitable that we focus on where we perceive God’s agenda and our agenda aligning. And that easily becomes a focus on only where those agendas align, so that “your kingdom come” and “my kingdom come” become indistinguishable. In our polarized national context, it’s easy to see this happening among those with whom we disagree. So the challenge is to stay alert to the possibility that God might have some questions about our agenda. Easier said than done. In the midst of the English civil war, Oliver Cromwell to the Scottish clergy: “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.” Among the many spiritual disciplines on offer today, that may be one of the more relevant.

What do our enemies want us to hear as we read Holy Scripture? They won’t always be wrong.

What of today’s Gospel reading? The temple in Jerusalem was one of the axes of Jesus’ ministry. Even after his resurrection his followers were worshipping in the temple, like Peter and John that day that they encountered the man lame from birth (Acts 3:1ff). It would have been natural for the disciples to assume that “your kingdom come” could only mean increased glory for the temple. And already it was glorious, “adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God.” So Luke is probably underplaying the shock of Jesus’ words (“As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.”). It’s a warning to us: to pray “your kingdom come” is to write our merciful God a blank check. Our merciful God, so there’s no reason to fear, but also no reason to assume that we know what God will do with it.

Our reading from 2nd Thessalonians is the odd man out, included not because it relates to the other readings, but because the lectionary—justifiably—wants to include some of the letter somewhere, so here we are. No direct connection to “your kingdom come,” but not entirely disconnected. Like the other petitions in the first half of the Lord’s Prayer, it’s self-involving. In Thessalonica, praying “your kingdom come” means I make my decisions about time, talent, and treasure as a member of the community of believers. Following Paul’s example, idleness is not an appropriate response. Where idleness is not an issue, the broader principle holds: to pray “your kingdom come” is to commit to live together in a way that witnesses to the hope of that kingdom.

“Your kingdom come.” Our texts have encouraged us to understand this as playing out in our future. True enough, but not the whole truth. We started with Malachi’s announcement of “the day,” shorthand for “the day of the Lord.” But recall that we refer to Sunday as “the Lord’s day.” We’re already encountering that use in the New Testament. From the first chapter of the Revelation: “I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day” (1:10). The core of “the day of the Lord” is in our past, whether we think of it as Easter Sunday, Holy Week, or that whole stretch from the Incarnation to the Ascension. Every Sunday, a celebration of the Resurrection, a celebration of the Lord’s victory as anticipated in Psalm 98.

2 With his right hand and his holy arm
has he won for himself the victory.

3 The Lord has made known his victory;
his righteousness has he openly shown in the sight of the nations.

The tomb is empty. Jesus 1, Death 0. Or, more accurately, Death 0, Jesus 1, since this world is God’s home turf.

And so, while the Church is not the Kingdom, it’s the context in which we get a foretaste of the Kingdom. Paul again: “For the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom 14:17). The Risen Christ has showered on us the Holy Spirit, and with “your kingdom come,” we pray that these gifts spread out to the ends of the earth. Amen.