Justified: Offense

Justified: Offense

The Gospel Brings Scandal

Romans 5:1-8

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. June 18th, 2023

The Gospel is offensive. It is offensive on multiple levels. Today in our reading from Romans Paul points out two ways that the Gospel is offensive. It is offensive because it centers on a moment of shame. And it is offensive because it is grossly unfair. By the world’s standards it is eminently unjust.

In the first case, the Gospel is offensive because of where we put our hope. We do not put our hope in a great military victory. We do not put our hope in some profound mystical experience or in some grand ideology or powerful argument. We put our hope, instead, in the execution of an itinerant jewish preacher. Our hope is in the nail marks of his hands and feet. We rejoice at the hole that was stabbed in his side. We marvel at the water and blood that flowed out. It is not in his earthly victory that we boast, but instead in his whippings, his nakedness, his shame.

Paul says in another passage that “Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” We can produce no great sign. The evidence of his resurrection remains an empty tomb and the witness of his followers. We also can produce no great wisdom. At least, not the sort of worldly wisdom that leads to winning friends and influencing people. What we have is the cross, a stumbling block and foolishness. That is a scandal. Telling proud people to put their hope in that is offensive.

There’s an old story about a missionary who went to preach Christ crucified to the saxon tribes in modern day Germany. The chief of the tribe was so infuriated by the injustice that was being perpetrated on an innocent man that he loudly announced, “If I was there this man would not have died!” It’s easy to have that indignation for the injustice of it all. It’s a lot harder to be told that it is only by the shedding of innocent blood that you can be saved. That if you were there you should stay your sword, as the disciples did. Peter was prepared to fight to the death until Jesus told him to put his sword away. Then he denied him three times.

But that is not the only offense of the Gospel. The second offense is still greater than the first. It is so offensive that I am, perhaps, burying the lede. Paul writes, “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” Jesus says in another place that he came “not to call the righteous, but sinners.” Jesus lays down his life, the most precious thing he could give, for the sake of his enemies. For the sake of the ungodly. For the sake of sinners. More to the point, Paul tells us, “to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness.”

Justification is only given to the ungodly. God’s grace is given precisely to those who, according to worldly standards, do not deserve it.

This greatly offends our sense of justice. In his book The Great Divorce C.S. Lewis has an episode where a soul on his way to heaven discovers that the guide sent to bring him across the field and into the Kingdom is a murderer who used to work for him. How could the murderer end up in heaven and he is stuck outside? He never hurt anyone. All he wants is his rights. He’s simply better than the man who has come to fetch him. The former murderer tries to explain to him the nature of grace, how everything has changed. But to no avail. The man refuses to enter the Kingdom because he wants his rights.

Could a murderer make it into the Kingdom on a last minute prayer? Isn’t that what happens at the cross? “Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.” The man we call a thief tells Jesus. But mere thieves don’t get sentenced to crucifixion. “Truly I tell you,” Jesus replies, “this day you will be with me in paradise.” Even in his suffering on the cross Jesus justifies the ungodly.

It’s not a matter of our rights, or our virtues, or our propriety. God, it seems, does not care much about that. It’s about Jesus. His work. His love. And on account of Jesus we may be justified. On account of Jesus we may be transformed. On account of Jesus we may be saved.

And in our salvation, when the love of God has been so fully poured into our hearts that we truly love God and our neighbor with our all we will not look upon the ungodly about us with disgust or horror. Instead we will rejoice. Rejoice at the power and love of God to deliver even that person. Rejoice that God could save me, even me, the chief of sinners. Rejoice at the absolute grandeur and glory of God that is bigger than our sense of fairness, justice, or propriety. The power of God to save.

Justified: Death to Life

Justified: Death to Life

God Brings Us from Death to Life

Romans 4:13-25

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. June 11th, 2023

Year after year polls show the fastest growing religious demographic is not Christianity, or Islam, or Buddhism, or even atheism. It is “none.” These nones are something of a mystery. What does it mean to put down your religion as simply “none”? Nature abhors a vacuum, and so does the spiritual life. Many of these “nones” are likely “spiritual but not religious.” That is, they believe in the divine (otherwise they could have simply identified as atheist), but they don’t trust any given organized religion. They want to make their own path, follow their own way, satisfy their own spiritual needs.

There are many teachers and teachings on offer for the spiritual but not religious today. Most of them have been on Oprah. One can acquire crystals or do magic. Or one can practice the law of attraction and manifest one’s desires. There are apps for guided meditation and mindfulness. One of the fitness apps on my phone even has a tab devoted to “tracking my mindfulness” which I’m sure would make a number of buddhist monks laugh. Buddhist mindfulness is about self-denial, but American mindfulness has become about wellness.

It is also no wonder why people would distrust organized religion today, between terrorist bombings, abuse cases, and political division. We shouldn’t be surprised someone would be fed up. So why not be like Harry Potter and awaken your own power or connection to the universe? Why not take the first step on your own heroes journey in actualizing your true self.

I don’t mean to make an apologia for the Church, but I want to contrast the justifying grace of Jesus Christ with the quest for self-actualization or the fulfillment of spiritual need. It is easy to confuse grace with the fulfillment of spiritual need, or the life of discipleship with the quest for self-actualization. But for all the similarities there are stark differences.

In the gospel reading this morning we see two miracles. Their stories sandwiched together. A leader of the synagogue comes up to Jesus, kneels before him, and begs him to save his daughter. She has just died, but he knows, he just knows, that Jesus can raise her from the dead. On the way to the leader’s house a woman who has been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve long years recognizes him and touches the hem of his garment. She knows if only she touches him even for a second she will be healed. Jesus stops. Turns to her. And says, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.”

After all that commotion he makes it to the house of the synagogue leader. There are flute players and a crowd making a commotion. It’s like a funeral in there. He tells them all to “go away” because “the girl is not dead but sleeping.” They laugh at him, thinking he’s telling a joke. It doesn’t take a doctor to tell if someone is dead. And everyone knows the dead are not merely asleep. Everyone knows the dead do not wake up.

But the crowd dutifully obeys Jesus’ command. When they walk out the door Jesus grabs the girl by the hand.

And she gets up.

Sometimes we might imagine that the account of the hemorrhaging is closest to our experience of the justifying grace of God. By justifying grace of God I mean the work of God to forgive us our sins and regard us as his child. We might imagine that while we are in our sins we are like the woman enduring a hemorrhage for twelve long years. We are weak, degraded, ostracized, regarded as unclean. But if we reach out to Jesus, then he has the power to heal. If we do our part, God will do his part. If we reach out in faith, then power simply has to come out of Jesus. And we are made well.

In this sense justification would be like meeting some spiritual need. There is some lack within us, something trying to bud. And we are sick with hunger until we find that something. We are incomplete until we are satisfied.

But Paul tells us, “the wages of sin is death.” We are not the hemorrhaging woman when we are enslaved by sin. It is not that we are sick and in need of a healer. Or hungry and in need of food. It is that we are dead and in need of resurrection. We are the little girl lying dead on the bed. Dead to all but God. To God we are asleep. Because God brings the dead back to life. God can do this because God is creator. He, in the words of Paul, “gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.” Even death itself cannot overcome his power.

Justifying grace includes nothing of our own work. It cannot as long as we are dead. We do not reach out to God, but God reaches out to us. Calling us from death to life. Restoring us. Giving us the faith that saves.

Paul says Abraham also experienced this resurrecting power of God when he reckoned Abraham’s faith as righteousness. God made a promise to Abraham, that he would be the father of many nations. But Abraham grew old. And he saw that his body was as good as dead, and his wife Sarah’s womb was barren. Yet he did not lose faith in the promise of God. And this faith in the promise of God was “reckoned to him as righteousness.”

Paul says none of this is recorded for mere historical value. But it is written for us. That we would see in the example of Abraham the power of faith to bring life to what is dead, the power of God to bring to existence what does not exist, the resurrecting and justifying power of God.

Paul writes, “It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.”

This is not self-actualization. And this is not the fulfillment of a spiritual need. It is God’s actualization of us. Taking us from death to life. And it is God’s encounter with us that fills us with faith, giving us something we were never looking for. Something we never knew we needed. So much of modern spirituality tells us what we can do, what we can seek, what quest we might go on. But again and again the Bible says we are so limited by what we see and what we can know. And what God has to offer is so much more than that. Infinitely more than we can ask or imagine, Paul says in Ephesians.

This is what sets the justifying work of Christ apart from all the spirituality of the world. In one case, we are the seeker. We are the heroes of the drama. But here, Christ is the seeker. He is the hero of the drama. He bravely strips himself for the battle and goes to the cross. He contends with sin. He descends into the bowels of the grave. He is victorious. And we are delivered. He would share this victory with us. Raising us from the death of sin, to eternal life.

Alien Life: Pentecost

Alien Life: Pentecost

God’s Spirit is Given to the Church

Acts 2:1-21; Numbers 11:24-30

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. May 28th, 2023

When Jesus left his disciples he gave them a promise. “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.” And so the disciples waited for that promised Holy Spirit so they could fulfill the commission Jesus had given them to be his witnesses through the whole earth.

The morning of Pentecost was no different than this morning. The disciples were gathered in one place, as we are gathered here in this beautiful sanctuary. And those who were gathered in that room were ordinary men and women. Fishermen, tax collectors, activists, peasants, Jesus’ mother. Not the sort you would expect to turn the world upside down. Not the sort you’d expect to throw the whole city of Jerusalem into a rumpus.

But everything changed that ordinary Pentecost morning. Because we are told a sound came from heaven, a sound like a mighty wind, and filled the whole house these ordinary men and women were staying. And there appeared tongues as of fire, resting on each of their heads. They were filled with the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is not something you can contain. When you’re filled with the Spirit you must speak. When the Spirit rests you cannot stay put. And so the disciples left the house and began to prophesy.

Jesus told them that the Spirit would come upon them and they would witness to the end of the earth. And on that morning they witnessed to people from all over the known world. Jews of every nation. But also gentiles as well. They witnessed to them about the things that had taken place in Jerusalem that year. How Jesus was condemned, crucified, and rose from the dead by the power of God. How salvation is found in his name. How we must repent and believe this good news, these glad tidings, this gospel.

And the people of Jerusalem wondered how they could speak in the tongues of every nation, and were amazed at their conviction. They wondered if they must be drunk. So Peter, who once denied Jesus three times, instead filled with the Holy Spirit lets them know no one is drunk, rather the words of the Prophet Joel have been fulfilled. The last days are upon us, and the Spirit of God has been poured out on all flesh.

We are inheritors of this story, and the Spirit that fell upon the disciples that Pentecostal morning is the same Spirit that enlivens and empowers the Church today. We live under the same sky. We have been brought under the same baptismal waters. We follow the same Lord. And we are part of the same Church. As the Spirit broke upon the disciples out of the blue, so too the Spirit works today. Empowering ordinary women and men to witness to Christ, and be his hands and feet in a world of suffering.

Let us have confidence in the Spirit, and let us have confidence in what God has done in us and for us in our baptisms. The Spirit flows where he will, and is the gift given to the whole Church. He is the presence of God in our midst. Directing us to Christ, that we may direct others to Christ.

We may think of ourselves as ordinary. We may think we lack talent, or knowledge, or like Moses we may complain that we are slow of tongue. We may, at times, like Peter shirk away from discussions of faith. We may, like Jeremiah protest that we are too young. Or like Isaiah protest that we have unclean lips. But God only ever chooses ordinary people. God only ever chooses people like us. And every baptism is the enactment of God’s claim over someone’s life, to make them part of his story, and deputizing them to his Holy work.

Ministry is not limited to those with the certifications. God never calls professionals in the Bible. God doesn’t wait until anyone is ready. Ministry is the work of the Church. We are all called to mission, and we all receive that same Spirit of Peter, Paul, and James.

The greatest gift God gives is the gift of himself. And that is a gift offered free of price to all of us. When Moses called the Seventy elders and gave them a portion of his Spirit they prophesied. But two of them remained in the camp and they, too, prophesied. When Joshua got word of it he was horrified, and jealous of Moses’ honor told Moses to make them stop. But Moses knew better than that. The Spirit is not something to be jealously guarded. It’s not our possession. It’s not our work. But, rather, God in our midst. And the Spirit flows where it will. Moses did not condemn the prophesying elders in the camp but instead said, “Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his spirit on them!”

In the age of the Church that wish of Moses’ is fulfilled. Let us never lose sight of the tremendous privilege we have been given. What an astonishing gift. And, with that, the work to which we have been set out. To witness. To worship. To love.

Why I Read

What lies between the strange statement, In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and the equally strange cry of longing, Even so, come, Lord Jesus! What is there behind all this, that labors for our expression?

It is a dangerous question. We might do better not to come too near this burning bush. For we are sure to betray what is — behind us! The Bible gives to every man and to every era such answers to their questions as they deserve. We shall always find in it as much as we seek and no more: high and divine content if it is high and divine content we seek; transitory and “historical” content, if it is transitory and “historical” content we seek — nothing whatever, if it is nothing whatever we seek. The hungry are satisfied by it, and to the satisfied it is surfeiting before they have opened it. The question, What is within the Bible? has a mortifying way of converting itself into the opposing question, Well, what are you looking for, and who are you, pray, who make bold to look? - Karl Barth, “The Strange New World Within the Bible”

I always begin a new TV series or a new fiction book, or a new video game with trepidation. It’s not that I fear it will be bad, but I fear that whatever I seek to consume will only consume me. The book will not let me put it down, the video game will not let me turn it off, the TV series will demand my attention until the run time is over. And, when all is done, my mind will remain trapped in the fictional worlds I visited. Like Alan Parrish I will not be able to leave. Or, if I do manage to escape the strange characters, creatures, and settings of that fictional world will run free. Everything that I see becoming colored by what I saw or read, everything a reminder of the time I spent.

But there are few more engrossing works of literature than the Bible. If there were any book to get lost in, any book to eat you and your whole world up, it is this one. When I pick up my Bible I am transported to Ur where Abram hears the call of a strange God calling him to a strange land. I sit with David and his mighty men as they camp in the wilderness, on the run from the manic King Saul. I watch in horror as the forests devour the armies of Israel. I weep with the elderly King David as he cries, “Oh, my son Absalom! Oh, my son! My son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you! Oh, Absalom, my son! My son!”

I walk the paths of Galilee along with Jesus and watch as he heals the blind and lame. I am confounded and enraptured by his parables. I flee with the disciples when he is captured. I shout “crucify him!” with the crowds. I sit in despair at the foot of his cross. I am enraptured by his resurrection.

The Bible is meant to eat us up. Its details are meant to be memorable, its silences are meant to grab hold of us. The Bible seeks to grasp our imagination. That we would understand ourselves to be part of that same story.

The more I read, the more I understand. The more I see. Not just the work of God in the story. But I see the story playing out in my life and in our world. That is why I return again and again and again.

Alien Life: Hope

Alien Life: Hope

Cast Your Cares on Him

1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. May 21st, 2023

I’m going to close out this series on the eccentricity and peculiarity of discipleship on a personal note. I hope you will bear with me. I have borne the burden of anxiety for the majority of my life. I was first diagnosed with an anxiety disorder in the fourth grade. I would wake up with such terrible panic attacks and general anxiety that I refused to leave the bathroom until about 10AM. When I was finally able to get to school after a week or two I was supplied a cot in a corner of the school library. If I had an attack, which was often, I could go to the library to calm down.

I was medicated, I went to therapy, but it never really went away. Every morning until 10AM I simply had to force my way through this anxiety to get to school and try and pay attention. By high school I had developed a whole routine where I got up at a certain time, showered, got dressed, and went for a walk. I had timed the walk perfectly so that I would get home just in time to be picked up for school. I couldn’t bear to sit down, the walk was my way of coping.

Things lessened up in undergrad. I imagine because I had considerably more freedom than in grade school. But It never went away. And while I have had a string of very good years, and I haven’t had to worry about any disruption to my life I know I can’t really say it’s gone away. It can always return.

These experiences are very formative to me. It’s the reason I may seem very laid back and aloof. I monitor myself all the time. I second guess myself a lot because I know I have a mind that tells me to be afraid when there’s nothing to fear. But, in the end, it’s also strengthened my faith because I had to depend on God.

Middle school was probably the darkest time. I simply assumed that the panic attacks and anxiety I was experiencing then was going to remain for the rest of my life. That I would simply need to manage a working life where I was anxious each and every morning. When the slightest thing could set me off. Or maybe nothing at all. It’s terrible that this went through my mind back then. I realize that now. But through it all I retained a faith in God that brought me through. Through it all I knew that I could trust in him to give me a good future. I had hope.

Peter tells us this morning, “Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.” And, “Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in your faith.” The sufferings and anxieties of Peter’s time are the suffering and anxiety of persecution. Christians being booted from their homes or professional associations. Being ostracized. Being shamed. We, by the grace of God, do not endure the persecution of first century Christians today. But we do have our own burdens, pains, anxieties.

I was thinking recently about how one of the worst things about my experience with anxiety is how lonely it was. I didn’t know anyone else with the same experience. While I knew it was no moral failing, I sometimes thought it was. But now it’s a lot more common for people to talk about their experience with anxiety and other forms of mental illness. And if the reports are correct, childhood anxiety is growing. We may live in a land of affluence, but that doesn’t mean we don’t suffer.

I learned to cast my anxiety on God. I learned to take it up in prayer. It didn’t always mean my anxiety went away. But it gave me something to cling to. And it gave me the hope that carried me through it all. And the same goes for us today. One thing that makes us peculiar is that we can be a people with hope. That whatever we endure we know God is in control and is bringing all things to their end. And we can resist the devil who prowls putting thoughts in our minds about our own unworthiness and trying to rob us of our hope.

Jesus endured much, and is victorious. We may, at times, endure much as well. But we know the victory is won and the victory is ours. And that makes all the difference.

Not Against Us

“Teacher,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.” “Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “For no one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us. Truly I tell you, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to the Messiah will certainly not lose their reward. Mark 9:38-41

In the days following the September 11 terror attacks President George W. Bush announced the War on Terror to a joint session of congress. “Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make.” He famously said, “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” He invoked the logic of “you are either with me or against me” which is the logic of war, of politics, of strife and conflict.

Jesus, astonishingly, refuses the logic of “with us or against us.” When John tells him that someone is casting out demons in his name without his permission, and seeks to jealously protect Jesus’ name, Jesus tells him to let it be. “For whoever is not against us is for us.”

We too easily see through the lens of us versus them, but that is not the lens Jesus asks John to use. Certainly there are people who make themselves enemies of Christ, enemies of the Church, enemies of the poor, and those Jesus calls brothers and sisters. Jesus told us how to deal with such people. But for everyone else, Jesus says, we are to understand that they are on our side.

I worry at the defensive footing I see so many Christians take. Worrying about secularization, or decline, or new mores. Jesus never counsels a defensive footing. The Church that circles the wagons is the Church in its death throes. He tells us not to worry about tomorrow, and to love our enemies. “Take heart,” he says, “I have overcome the world.”

Alien Life: Defense

Alien Life: Defense

We Give Reason for our Hope by Sharing Jesus

1 Peter 3:13-22

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. May 14th, 2023

One of my friends grew up Lutheran but after he was confirmed didn’t attend Church much. He worked with a lot of atheists and agnostics who could be pretty vocal about their opinions and he didn’t know what to say. But he knew me well enough that I was the argumentative sort. Still am to a degree. And that I would likely relish the chance to discuss these matters with one of his co-workers. So he arranged for us to have breakfast on short notice.

I was still in undergrad at the time and this was before I learned the pleasures of waking up in the morning. Generally I’d wake up more around lunch time. So I groggily walked into the restaurant, wishing I had a chance to sleep in. I sat down and we all exchanged niceties. My friend brought up the topic of discussion, can we be sure of the existence of God? Now, under most any other circumstance I would have been well able to make a case. I knew about the cosmological, teleological, and ontological arguments for God. I was comfortable discussing the historicity of the Bible and the life of Jesus. I could launch an offense on the argumentation and assumptions of my friend’s co-worker. But I really wanted to sleep.

So rather than get into all that, I asked him why he thought what he thought. He told me about some childhood experiences. I expressed my sympathy. And I switched topics to 90’s television shows we both watched. I could tell my friend was disappointed.

Did I fail to “make a defense” for “the hope that is in me”? This verse is often used by apologists, or people who rationally defend the faith. They not only use it to justify their work, but oftentimes suggest that all Christians ought to be able to rationally defend the faith. That this is what it means to make a defense for the hope that is within us.

I certainly think there is a place for making a rational defense of the faith. Like I said, I do like to argue. I enjoy the give and take and the chess match of finding my way a step or two ahead. I know the cosmological, teleological, and ontological arguments for God. I don’t think that’s wasted knowledge. But I also know that’s me, and that’s not necessarily anyone else. Not everyone enjoys an argument, and not everyone can retain the knowledge needed to sustain a good argument.

I would hate for anyone to think there is some defect in their discipleship if they cannot memorize all these arguments or employ them effectively. Sometimes people are in situations like my friend where they are close to someone, a co-worker or family, who challenges them and they don’t know how to answer. But what would Peter say?

Apologetics can be a useful tool, and I emphasize that it’s only a tool. But Peter is not talking about apologetics in our passage this morning. When he calls for the exiles of the dispersion to give a defense for the hope that is within them he is not asking them to pick up some Josh McDowell books. What he means is that we ought to be prepared to tell people about Jesus.

Peter expects that the exiles of the dispersion, that we, would be people of hope. And he also expects that this hope will be strange and peculiar. That there will be something noticeable about the hope that is within us, something that would make even persecutors enquire. He expects that we should be so patient, so kind, so long-suffering, and so merciful that people will want an accounting of how this can be.

When we give a defense for the hope that is within us, when we give an accounting for why it is we are so patient and forgiving, we wouldn’t say “well imagine a being greater than that which can be conceived…” Or “nothing comes from nothing.” Rather we would tell a story about this man Jesus who was also patient and kind. Who also endured suffering. Who also endured mockery. And overcame the shame of the cross, being raised on the third day. And that I can endure what I endure because I have hope that as he lives so too I may live. I can forgive because I have hope that he has forgiven me.

That’s a defense that can be given in season and out of season. That’s a defense that doesn’t require a seminary class or a dusty old book. That’s a defense that is born out of our living faith. Our witnessing to the truth in word and deed, and our telling the story that our lives depend on.

Alien Life: Communion

Alien Life: Communion

We Are Made One in Christ

1 Peter 2:2-10

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. May 7th, 2023

I have in my pocket a device called an “iPhone.” Over two billion of these have been sold since it was released sixteen years ago. When I was growing up we had a rotary phone and I thought my grandparents car phone was incredibly novel. If I wanted to “surf” the “world wide web” I had to go to a local cyber cafe because we didn’t have the internet in the house. Now with the iPhone not only can I made phone calls wherever I want (as long as there’s reception) but I can also go online as much as I want (as long as there’s enough reception).

It’s a wild world we live in.

Apple likes putting the prefix “i” in front of its products. iPhone, iPad, iPod. It started with the iMac, which first came out 25 years ago now. The “i” has a dual meaning. In the first case it means “internet.” Apple wanted to emphasize that the iMac went online out of the box. Which was somewhat novel at the time. They also wanted to emphasize that they had applications pre-loaded on the computer that made use of internet connectivity. But secondly the “i” stands for individual. Or me. It was a personal computer after all.

So the iPhone is the internet connected me phone. It is a powerful communications device that allows me to talk to billions of people around the world. I can check the news, watch tv and movies, play games, argue with people, spread false information, and more. And it’s all in the palm of my hand, and fits in my pocket.

My iPhone reminds me of Psalm 115. “But their idols are silver and gold, made by human hands./ They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see./ They have ears, but cannot hear, noses, but cannot smell./ They have hands, but cannot feel, feet, but cannot walk, nor can they utter a sound with their throats./ Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them.” My iPhone matches the psalm frighteningly well. It’s made by human hands, it has a speaker, but does not speak. It has a camera, but cannot see. It has a microphone, but does not hear. Though I don’t think it has smell-o-vision yet. But the more one is glued to their phone, or whatever device, we have a danger of being made in the form of that device.

The more I use a computer the more I imagine myself like a computer. I “communicate” with people, “connect” with people. I might imagine my soul as an operating system powering my brain that might one day be downloaded into a chip. I understand my interactions with others in real life as on par with my interactions with others online. I begin to see the world the way my friends on facebook see the world. Which is a very frightening and angry place. Quite unlike the one I would experience in this community where we might have our differences but are family.

And, I think most importantly, I become alone. Because I interact with my friends not in person with all that entails, but through a screen. I understand myself as isolated. Going from app to app, webpage to webpage. Consuming various media. I am the individual hooked up to the machine, receiving various inputs, producing various outputs.

Today is Communion Sunday, so I want to contrast this state of affairs with what we are shown in communion. In the communion prayer I say, “By your spirit make us one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world.” And, after I break the bread I tend to say, “Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf. The bread which we break is a sharing in the body of Christ.” And “The cup over which we give thanks is a sharing in the blood of Christ.”

When we share communion together at this one table. When we share from a common loaf and a common cup, we acknowledge that God will not save us as individuals, but God saves us all together. That to be Christian means to be made part of the body of Christ and it is by being in Christ that we are those who receive forgiveness of our sins and eternal life. Salvation is not afterlife insurance that we, as individuals, may subscribe to. It is a common life offered to us, a common life that is eternal life, a common life modeled and foreshadowed for us in this meal.

This, too, is why we read in 1 Peter this morning that, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” We are the people of God, though we were once not a people. We are the recipients of his grace and mercy, though we once did not know mercy. We have been made into a nation, a priesthood, set apart and offered to the world.

Communion is not simply  our own personal connection to God, as my iPhone is my connection to the internet and therefore the world. Communion has a horizontal and vertical aspect, and these two aspects cannot be separated. But it is because we are united in Christ that we are united together. And being united together we may be united in Christ. This is not a pill, it’s a meal. A common meal we share at a common table. And in this meal we are made into a common body. That we might have a common witness to the world. That whatever our differences, we may witness to our common Lord.

Alien Life: Suffering

Alien Life: Suffering

We Are Called to Follow Jesus

1 Peter 2:19-25

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. April 30th, 2023

The Bible is God’s gift to us, and it is powerful and life giving. But the Bible can also be difficult. It can be difficult in two ways. Some of the Bible is very obscure. I had a conversation recently with someone about the nephilim in Genesis. We are told the sons of God had relations with the daughters of men and gave birth to nephilim, giants, men of renown. And the nephilim are never heard of again. The Bible can be obscure that way, assuming that we know things that has largely been lost to us. Or, the Bible can be difficult because we understand what it says all too well. In John’s gospel Jesus teaches the crowds that he is the bread of life, and if they don’t chew on his flesh they will not have life in him. The crowd’s response is to leave him. “This is a hard teaching,” they say, “who can accept it?”

Today’s scripture from 1 Peter is difficult in this sense. It is a hard teaching. But a hard teaching can also be life giving when placed in its proper context. And though it is hard it is no less life giving. It is no less the word of God.

Peter commends his audience for bearing suffering unjustly. “For it is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly.” He writes, “If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God's approval.” What is especially difficult here is Peter does not seem to have persecution in mind, specifically. Indeed, he’s taking about slaves bearing the unjust blows of their masters. Peter is, seemingly, no John Brown or Nat Turner. That may trouble us.

It may trouble us because we have a strong sense of justice, and a strong sense of fairness. Even if we don’t always agree on what is just or what is fair. I think we’ve all been in situations that were unfair and we had no means to resist or fight back. And I’m sure we can feel empathy for those who are oppressed. People trapped by circumstance. Anyone who suffers unjustly.

And Peter says that we are simply suffer, simply endure.

I doubt anyone wants to hear this. Except maybe the slave master. What good does it do to suffer and not fight back? Where is the justice in endurance? This is antithetical even to the spirit of our nation, which was won by the sacrifices of revolutionaries.

Who can bear it?

Before we say “get behind me Satan” and pass judgment on the Apostle we should  look at his reasoning and give him a chance. Remember that Peter addresses this letter to the “exiles in the dispersion” and opened the letter taking about the new birth through the Father, and new life in the Spirit that has been given to the Church. Here we are seeing one way that Christians are strange, peculiar, eccentric. One way that we have been given an alien life, being an alien people with a different inheritance.

He says, “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps.” John also tells us in his first letter, “he who says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.” We talk about following Jesus, being like Jesus, being disciples of Jesus, loving like Jesus, asking “what would Jesus do?” And Peter points us to the one part of Jesus’ life that is hardest for us to follow, the part that we might like to ignore or explain away, the part Peter himself once tried to reject! And that is “When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly.”

Jesus offers himself up freely awaiting his Father’s verdict. The verdict of the Father is the resurrection of Jesus. The Father could not bear to see his son remain in the grave. And so Jesus won the victory. That victory and that life he would share with all of us. But if we are to join in that victory, and have a share in his life, in our inheritance, that means following him. And following him takes this form. That we would endure pain even unjustly. That we would consider it a credit. That we would hope in our resurrection.

This is, like I said, a hard teaching. But we see how it ties in with the cross of Christ. It is no accidental teaching. But is an intrinsic element of our strange, alien, eccentric life together. But it is not something we are asked to do without aid. For the Bible does speak of a peace that surpasses all understanding. The Bible does speak of a joy that can be known in all circumstances. The Bible speaks of the grace of God that is more than sufficient to bring us through all the unjust sufferings of this world. Knowing we do not entirely belong to this world, but in being given a new birth our citizenship is in heaven.

Alien Life: Transcendence

Alien Life: Transcendence

We Are Free to Love

1 Peter 1:17-23

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. April 23rd, 2023

One blessing I’ve had the past number of years is I’ve never been far from the night sky. When I lived in North Carolina I lived in a big enough city that the light pollution blocked all but the brightest stars. When I was in the Upper Peninsula I could see the milky way from my backyard. Here, the dark night sky is not far away.

When you see the night sky, truly see it, you understand why the ancients thought the planets and stars were divine. Why they so obsessively plotted the courses of the planets. Why they told tales about the various constellations. Why they thought that the stars and planets determined the course of life on earth. That sense that the heavens are the realm of immortal life may have faded from us now, even those who check their horoscopes probably don’t think the stars are living entities determining their destiny. But we have a greater appreciation for the sheer expanse of interstellar space. We have seen photographs of the Horsehead Nebula and the Pillars of Creation. Some of us watched as astronauts walked on the moon. We know the stars in the sky are so far away that the light we see is thousands or millions of years old. And we know we’re not even in the center of our own galaxy let alone the universe. The night sky may remind us of our relative insignificance.

And then consider the length of history. A human lifetime is but a speck. The industrial revolution, in the grand scheme of things, happened but yesterday. It is as Macbeth says in the Scottish Play, “Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player/ That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,/ And then is heard no more. It is a tale/ Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/ Signifying nothing."

The ancients, too, knew their time was short. And they manufactured various ways to cling to immortality. They sought the honors of their peers, and hoped their deeds would be immortalized in stone and song. They contemplated wisdom, focusing on that which they knew was unchanging and eternal. They raised children to carry on the family name. And they died because no one gets out of life alive.

We, too, manufacture various ways to cling to a semblance of mortality. We may not have the same honor culture but we do seek fame. The more people notice us, the more we are remembered, the more our memory may pass on in some respect. We, too, raise children and tell stories and build things with our names on them.

Our mortality, the shortness of our life, the smallness of our planet in the grand scheme of the cosmos, leads us to seek transcendence. Because we know we are meant for more than this. But most attempts at transcendence fail. How many ancient greeks can you name? How many people from a generation ago can you name? Human attempts at transcendence end in futility. As Peter tells us this morning, “You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors.” The futile ways of the ancients aren’t much different than the futile ways of us moderns. Though perhaps we have, at times, been more destructive.

But we are not condemned to those futile ways for as Peter goes on to say, “You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God.” We do not need to continue in the futile ways of our ancestors because we have new ancestors. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, those who relied on God in spite of all they suffered and faced. We are born not of a seed that perishes, but we are born through an imperishable seed. We are born again to eternal life.

Having been freed to eternal life we are free to a different sort of life. Peter says, “Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart.” We are made free to lead lives characterized by love. We do not need to make a name for ourselves. We do not need to save our own lives. We do not need to seek out our own fame or glorification. Because we have our hope in Christ. And following Christ we love. We love one another. We care for one another in our troubles, we forgive one another our foibles. We suffer for one another if need be.

This is what Christ showed us by giving up his own life and receiving it again.

Alien Life: Inheritance

Alien Life: Inheritance

We Are Given a New Homeland

1 Peter 1:3-9

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. April 16th, 2023

I grew up in a small town, not much larger than Bad Axe, that at one time was among the fastest growing towns in Michigan. In the ten years between 1880 and 1890 Menominee Michigan grew by 223%. At its peak it had almost 13,000 people and produced more lumber than any other town in the United States. It was a bustling town at a time when Europeans from many different countries were immigrating to the land of opportunity and looking for a place to settle.

When I was in high school I spent some summers volunteering at our local museum. A busy afternoon was maybe five families. So I was often given free reign to look at all the different exhibits. One of the items they had was an old map of the town, from the lumbering days, that outlined where the various neighborhoods were. There was the polish neighborhood, the french neighborhood, the irish neighborhood, the anglo neighborhood, and so on. People who had left their homelands but still found each other halfway across the world. The Churches, too, retained an ethnic identity. The museum itself was inside the oldest Catholic Church in town, which was built by the irish. The town’s McDonald’s was built on the former site of the french parish.

These neighborhoods developed not so much out of ethnic tension, though that certainly existed, but so that people who spoke a common language and held common customs could share in a common life. Over time those ethnic differences began to fade. But back in those days to be French in Menominee was to be part of a diaspora, and to live in a strange land among a strange people.

Peter addresses his first letter to a diaspora. “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithnia…” The diaspora Peter addresses is not the Jewish diaspora, which was spread abroad the Roman world for centuries. But a new Christian diaspora. Not because they had been exiled from their homelands, but because they had gained a new homeland. Not exiled on account of their ethnicity, but because they had gained a new ancestry, and a new inheritance.

He goes on to write, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” In other words, by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ we have been given a new birth. We have been regenerated. That New Birth is our own resurrection. A resurrection into a new life. With a new inheritance, one that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. It is a strange new life that makes us strangers. It is a strange new life that puts us out of place in this world.

It is this theme of the strange new life we have in Christ that I want to focus on the next few Sundays using Peter’s letter as a guide. I hope to make Christianity strange. To focus on the oddness of this letter. After all, is it not odd to say that a man has risen from the dead? And is it not also odd to say that we may share in the eternal life he has? Is it not odd to claim our homeland is not America but the New Jerusalem? Is it not odd to put our hope in what we do not see?

The Christians Peter addresses know they are odd, strange, exiled. Some may have been abandoned by their families. None of them participated in the festivals of their cities. Some may have even refused to go to the marketplace, as it was overrun with idols. They knew where they stood in their society.

But we are not always aware of how odd our faith makes us. That being born of God through the Spirit makes us strange. That we believe in virgin births, forgiving (and not just seven times), turning the other cheek, rejoicing in sufferings, and the conquest of death. These are odd things.

Perhaps there was a time when Christianity simply made sense. One became Christian by osmosis, because it was a Christian society. But now we are more like the immigrants of Menominee, Michigan. Members of a dispersion, from a different land, strangers to the land through which we sojourn.

But this is not cause for despair. On the contrary. What makes us strange is our hope. The greatest hope. What makes us strange is the grace of God. What makes us strange is the new life he offers. A life full of adventure. A life full of joy. A life full of peace.

Encounter: Mary Magdalene

Encounter: Mary Magdalene

He is Risen

John 20:1-18

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. April 8th, 2023

Today is the most important day in the Christian year. It is the day where it all comes together. Where it all makes sense. It is the day where we move from the darkness of ignorance and sin into the light of the gospel. It is the day we remember each Sunday. The day that changes everything for us. The day that changes the world, because it is the first day of the new creation.

It was still dark when Mary Magdalene got up and went to the garden. It was still dark as she wove through the streets of the city. It was still dark as she made her way through the garden trails. It was still dark when she got to the tomb, and to her shock witnessed the stone rolled away and the cave empty.

It was still dark when she ran to Peter and the disciple who Jesus loved. It was still dark when they witnessed the empty tomb in wonder. And it was still dark when Mary wept outside the tomb. This is how Easter Sunday begins. In darkness, grief, wonder, and fear. Mary sees two angels seated in the tomb, but she does not recognize them as angels. They ask her, "Woman, why are you weeping?” She tells them they’ve taken away her Lord, and she doesn’t know where they put him. In all the pain of watching him die, must she lose the body too?

But as she turns around Jesus is standing in her midst. She doesn’t recognize him at first. Perhaps because of his resurrection body. Maybe it looked slightly different or could only be recognized in faith. Maybe because it was yet dark and, not expecting to see her Lord she couldn’t place him. For whatever reason Jesus stands in her midst and she does not recognize. He asks her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?”

And in one of the most beautiful passages in all writing she begs him in her fear and in her grief, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”

He offers only one word in reply, “Mary!”

And she recognizes him. “Rabbouni!" Or Teacher!

Mary weeps in the darkness before the empty tomb. She alone remains. And for that hope beyond hope, that faith beyond faith, she is the first witness of the resurrection. She is also made the first to proclaim the Gospel, "Do not hold on to me,” Jesus says,  “because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'"

What is this good news that Jesus deputizes Mary to deliver? What is it she is called to proclaim? And, by extension, what is it that we are to deliver? What are we to proclaim?

She proclaims two things. The first is that “I have seen the Lord.” This, too, is what we proclaim. He is risen. He who has died is alive and will never die. He shares with us his life. We who die in him will be raised in him. We who trust in him know eternal life. And we may see him and know him. It all hinges on “I have seen the Lord.”

But there’s another part of what she proclaims that I really want to dig into this morning. Jesus tells her to tell the disciples, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” It’s easy for us to pass over this line, especially with everything else that is going on in the account. But it is pregnant with meaning. Indeed, it contains the gospel in so many words.

At the beginning of John’s Gospel he tells us, “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.” That is, Jesus was born that all who would have faith in him should become children of God not by blood but by the adoption of God.

Jesus unites himself to our humanity, he takes on our flesh, that we might take on his divine life. Jesus becomes a human being that we might become the children of God.

John leaves this promise hanging throughout his gospel until we come to Mary’s proclamation. Jesus tells her to tell the disciples that he is going to “my Father and your Father, my God and your God.” That is to say, that through his resurrection we may become children of God.

What an astounding promise Christ makes to us. What an extraordinary gift is given to us through the Spirit. That God claims us has his own. And more than that, God grants us his life. That we may know that great inheritance of eternal life.

Jesus is risen that we might become his brothers and sisters. Jesus is risen that we might share in his life. This is the gospel we proclaim. This is why we celebrate. No longer in the darkness of our own sinfulness and ignorance, we experience the light of life. No longer bound in our own fears and griefs, we may be carried in hope. Let us celebrate today the awesome things God has done.

Encounter: Lazarus

Encounter: Lazarus

Jesus Gives Life

John 11:1-45

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. March 26th, 2023

I am amazed at the faith of Mary and Martha. Their dear brother, Lazarus, had fallen ill and wasn’t getting any better. These were days before hospitals and nurses. The full burden of caring for him fell on them. They washed him, they moved him, they fed him, they gave him something to drink. And they watched as he slowly went downhill and, in the end, died.

While Lazarus was ill they sent out for Jesus. These were the days before telephones or the postal service. So they had to find someone willing to travel the day or two it would take to get to Jesus and relay the message. Time was short and they hoped Jesus would rush to Bethany the first he heard. Instead, Jesus delays two whole days. And in those two days Lazarus died.

By the time Jesus makes it to Bethany Lazarus has been dead for four days. Mary and Martha are surrounded by mourners. They’re trying to put the pieces of their life back together, not knowing what the future might hold. If I were either of them, and if word was to arrive that Jesus had made it, I would be upset. How dare he show up now, when my brother was already dead. What kind of love is that? And what is his excuse? The man could heal with a word. We know the story of the Centurion’s servant, I assume Mary and Martha must have heard similar. Or seen similar. When Jesus went to heal the man’s servant, he sent someone else to stop Jesus. “Only say the word and my servant will be healed.” And over distance the deed was done. What kept Jesus from doing the same for Lazarus?

But that is me. Perhaps you might have felt the same way. But that is not Mary and that is not Martha. Instead when they hear Jesus has arrived Martha rushes out to meet him. “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” She says. “But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” What amazing faith. She acknowledges that Jesus could have healed her brother, but she shows no bitterness toward him. Instead, she expresses her trust in him. Though her brother is dead, yet Jesus may yet still work some miracle. Though she is in the darkness of grief, yet the light of Christ may still somehow shine.

Jesus replies, “your brother will rise again.” Martha, the pious one agrees, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”

But no. That is not what Jesus means. He does not refer to the resurrection on the last day. He refers to resurrection in the here and now. Resurrection that comes through the person of Jesus Christ. “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"

What an astounding claim. Jesus does not say he can raise the dead. He goes even farther. He says he is resurrection. He does not say he can bring to life. He goes much farther. He says he is life. And he doesn’t say that all who believe in him may know his resurrection power. But all who believe in him will know his resurrection power. And he asks Martha if she believes this. If she truly believes this. In the face of her brother’s death, can she affirm this?

She says yes.

Jesus goes to manifest his glory, and do his Father’s will. He weeps before the tomb of Lazarus, joining in the sorrow of the mourners. Joining the sorrow of Mary and Martha. Joining all of us in our grief when we confront the event of death. But through his tears he commands Lazarus to come out. And he does. Bound in his funeral wrappings Lazarus climbs out from the tomb. And the people unbind him and take him home.

Death is a reality we have all come to face, or we will all come to face. Death is tragic and unfair. And people lose their lives in all manner of different ways. Some are cut short like Lazarus was. Some live to a ripe old age. But no matter how it comes about, we all die. And each death, when we encounter it, feels wrong. It shatters our world. We sense, deeply, that it’s not supposed to happen. That it wasn’t meant to be.

Mary and Martha have a great reason to feel that. They call upon the man who can give life, who can heal, and nothing happens. Perhaps you’ve experienced the same thing. Not all prayers are answered as we hope. Life is far from fair.

But Mary and Martha also possess the hope beyond hope. They possess the faith beyond faith. And they are witness to the glory of God. Jesus is resurrection. Jesus is eternal life. And the life Jesus possesses is a life all may receive. The resurrection Jesus is is a resurrection we may all come to know. The power over death Jesus reveals in the raising of Lazarus is a power that belongs to him. A victory that he has won. A victory he would give to each and every one of us.

In all the sufferings, and grief, and loss of this world we may hold this in full confidence: Jesus is life. That life he freely gives. And the day is coming when there will be no more death. When his victory will be manifest and certain. And we all may join together in that resurrection life.

Encounter: Man Born Blind

Encounter: Man Born Blind

Jesus Gives Sight

John 9:1-41

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. March 19th, 2023

One question that has troubled me is how I might have responded to the ministry of Jesus if I were a Jew or a peasant in 1st century Galilee. I’m sure we all wish we would be part of the crowds who flocked to see him. Perhaps we might imagine ourselves as some of his ardent disciples. But the gospels tell us even Peter denied him in the end. And three times at that. There’s a very troubling passage in Mark’s gospel where Jesus’ own family tries to seize him claiming he has gone out of his mind. If anyone knew Jesus you’d hope it’d be his family. And then the religious experts from Jerusalem arrive and allege that it is only by being in league with Beelzebul, that is Satan, that he casts out demons. Many times the people you’d expect to get Jesus, don’t. And the people you don’t expect to get Jesus, like the syrophonecean woman who breaks into his house and begs him to heal her daughter, do.

I’d like to think I’d be the syrophonecian woman, or the centurion who sends his servant ahead to say “I am not worthy that you should come under my roof, but only say the word and my servant will be healed.” Jesus said he hadn’t seen such faith in all of Israel. And yet, I have biblical knowledge like a pharisee. I have the wealth of a tax collector. And who is to know how I might respond even today to the Spirit moving where he will. Who knows how I would respond even today if Jesus were to pass on by.

Our gospel reading this morning hammers on this point. How are we to recognize the work of Christ in our midst? How are our eyes opened? How do we see Jesus? How can we be sure of the work of God in our midst in whatever form it might take? We are told there is a man who was blind from birth. Jesus’ disciples ask how it is that this man was born blind. Was it his sin or the sin of his parents? It’s an odd question to ask, but such questions were not uncommon in those days. Jesus tells them this man was not born blind on account of anyone’s sin, but that he might heal him and show forth his glory. Because Jesus is the light of the world, giving light to the eyes.

Jesus then spits on the ground, makes mud from the dust, and puts it in the mans eyes. He commands him to go to the pool of Siloam, which means Sent. And how ironic is that, the one who is sent to save us sends the man to the pool of Sent. There the man washes out his eyes, and he can see.

One might think this would be a joyous occasion. A blind man received his sight! But it’s actually a moment of crisis. First, his neighbors have no idea what to make of the situation. Is this really the man who was formerly blind? Is it his doppelgänger? How did it even happen? Not knowing how to make sense of the situation, they send him to the pharisees to look for answers. But the Pharisees are upset because the healing took place on the Sabbath, when no work was to be done. Let alone a healing. And they are upset because he attributes the healing to Jesus, who they are sure is a sinner. In the end, they cast the man out of the synagogue because he will not recant. This man, Jesus, healed him. Once he was blind, and now he can see. A sinner could not do such a thing. A prophet could not do such a thing. No one has ever heard of a man blind from birth receiving his sight. Why, such a sign points to one thing. Jesus came from God.

When Jesus hears that they cast him out he returns to find him, and reveals his identity as the Son of Man. When the formerly blind man begins to worship him Jesus says, “I cam into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” And here is the punchline. There are some Pharisees mucking about and they hear Jesus say this. “Surely we are not blind, are we?” They ask. After all, they have the scriptures, they have the tradition, they have the training, they have the smarts, they do the work. Surely they can see? But Jesus replies, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘we see,’ your sin remains.”

Jesus performs a wondrous work. He heals a man who was blind from birth. But in so doing he renders the pharisees blind. They have a blindness far worse than physical blindness. They have a spiritual blindness that prevents them from seeing the works of God.

Why can’t they see the power of God in Jesus’ encounter with the man born blind? But because Jesus heals on the sabbath, which is not according to their tradition. Jesus does not act in the way they expect their messiah to act. He does not come from where they expect their messiah to come from. And he is not part of their group. So they assume that what he does must be sin. They assume that he is a charlatan, or in league with evil forces.

They have all sorts of preconceptions that keep them from seeing God’s manifest work. They have an ideology that makes them blind. And we have this same danger today. It is easy for us to assume we know what the Bible must say, it is easy for us to assume that we know who is and is not of the Kingdom. We assume too easily that discernment has been accomplished, or that is unneeded. We might be like the pharisees who too readily have the answers, and are rendered blind.

But how might we see? In the case of the man born blind, why, it’s as simple as he was once lost and was found was blind but now he sees. Sometimes it’s as simple as the work of grace in our lives. And, you know, when you see it’s hard to interpret that for others. Very hard. And takes a lot of grace.

But to put it to the point. How might we know if a preacher is a true preacher, the Spirit is alive in a given Church, if a revival is a revival, if someone has truly received the new birth? How do we know if God has called someone into his Kingdom? Or if God has called us to a particular work? How do we discern the work of God in our midst? It’s easy to say we were once blind and now see. But what about us spectators?

It can be hard to see beyond your nose. If we don’t want to fall into the pharisees error it takes humility. It takes courage. It takes patience. It takes prayer. It takes not just our own individual discernment, but discernment with the whole Church. It takes clear and evident spiritual fruit. It takes the grace of God, in the end, to keep our eyes open. To guide us to his light.

Encounter: Samaritan Woman

Encounter: Samaritan Woman

Jesus Seeks Sinners

John 4:5-42

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. March 12th, 2023

Jesus isn’t always in the places we expect, or with the people we expect. Last week  a pharisee found Jesus in the middle of the night. The teacher of Israel sought his Lord, though he did not know it at the time. This morning Jesus crosses the borders of Judea, and enters Samaria.

The Samaritans were and are the descendants of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. The short version of their history is that following the reign of King Solomon the Kingdom of Israel divided in two. The Northern Kingdom was made up of ten tribes, the southern Kingdom based in Jerusalem was made up of two. After the destruction of the Northern Kingdom at the hands of the Assyrians, and the conquest and exile of the Southern Kingdom of Judah at the hands of the Babylonians, the Samaritans were the people who remained. But when the Jews returned from their exile they found much to disagree with the Samaritans. They worshiped on Mount Gerazim, not on Mount Zion. Their Law was different, and the Jews regarded them as unclean.

Samaritans and Jews did not get along. In Luke’s Gospel we are told Jesus was refused when he tried to pass through Samaritan lands. It is this enmity between Jew and Samaritan that forms the backdrop of Jesus’ famous parable of the Good Samaritan. The Samaritan looks beyond the enmity between his people and the beaten down Jew, but simply has compassion on the man and saves his life.

Jesus stops near Sychar, at the well Jacob dug and gave to his son Joseph. It is about high noon when a woman comes by to draw water. This is a strange scene for a number of reasons. First, Jesus the Jew is in the land of the Samaritans. Secondly, Jesus the Jewish man alone in the presence of a woman which broke the rules of propriety. And, finally, what is this woman doing drawing water in the heat of the day? It would be more reasonable, and was more common, to draw water in the morning when it was cool. But she left her home, perhaps a mile or more away, to bear the scorching heat and the weight of the full jar. Much of this scene does not add up.

When Jesus sees the woman arrive he says, “Give me a drink.” The woman is puzzled, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?”

But Jesus is the very wisdom of God walking the earth. He is God incarnate, the light of the world, the Lord of Israel. He does not seek a drink, he seeks a soul. So he begins to reach her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman is further confused. Living water happens to be an aramaic idiom for running water (which is just an english idiom for water that moves). So she interprets Jesus saying there is water that he would give her. “"Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?  Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?”

Indeed, he is. Because the water Jesus has to offer is not the water that you drink and you are thirsty again. The water Jesus has to offer is the water of the Spirit. “Those who drink of the water that I will give them” Jesus says, “will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”

Excited to receive this water, likely still thinking he means the sort you drink, she says, "Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Jesus tells her to go get her husband and come back, if she would receive the water. But she admits that she has no husband. And here we come to perhaps the most perplexing part of the episode. Jesus says, “You are right in saying, 'I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!"

Perhaps here we finally see why it is that the woman bore the heat of the day in drawing water around noon. She was a woman who, for whatever reason, had many husbands and presently lived in what the samaritans of the day (and the Jews as well) would have regarded as adultery.

So let’s take a step back and count everything that’s wrong about this scene. Jesus, a Jew, is in the country of the Samaritans. Samaritans don’t take too kindly to Jews around them parts. Jesus, a Jewish man, is alone with a Samaritan woman and even asks for water. Again, not the sort of thing that commonly happened. And, finally, that woman lived with a man who was not her husband. She would have been regarded as a sinner. And yet Jesus spoke to her, asked her for a drink, and shared the gospel with her. "I know that Messiah is coming,” the woman said. ”When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” But Jesus says to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

Out of that conversation a whole village came to know the good news of the Messiah of God, the Lord of Israel. But that good news was not shared in the expected place, a synagogue, a jewish town square. But it was shared among the wrong people, to a sinner. And yet, and yet, it is a message that must always be shared to the wrong people. Jesus encounters the wrong people. Jesus is found among the wrong people.

Paul reminds us this morning, “while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” And, “God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.” And, “For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.” Jesus said once he came not for the well but for the sick. Not for the righteous but for the sinner.

The message of Jesus Christ, his life and death and resurrection is for all who know their sin and weakness, who do not know where to turn. Who have nowhere to go. Who are forced to bear the noonday heat and draw the water alone. Jesus came for us who know our sin, who seek a new life. And by his death we may know life. By his resurrection we may know salvation.

Encounter: Nicodemus

Encounter: Nicodemus

You Must Be Born Again

John 3:1-17

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. March 5th, 2023

Nicodemus was not a dumb man. He was a member of the Pharisee party, and a leader of the Jews. His whole life up to this point would have been devoted to an intensive study of scripture. His life would have been formed by the prayers and rituals of his people. He would have spent his days disputing with others over how to apply the Law in even the most outrageous of circumstances. And he was also charged to care for the Jewish people under his stead, giving them loving guidance according to the teachings of scripture and precepts of the Law.

The man who goes to visit Jesus in the cover of night is no fool. Rather, he is one of the best and brightest of Israel. A leader of his people. Perhaps one of the most gifted men of his day. And, moreover, it is due to his mastery of scripture and knowledge of the Law that he comes to visit this strange itinerant rabbi who is causing a storm. He tells Jesus, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” He sees the things Jesus is doing, and knows he must be from God.

But mastery isn’t enough. Seeking mastery, or putting our trust in mastery, can be a great temptation. Especially mastery in matters of religion. By mastery I mean a comprehensive and complete knowledge of some subject matter, or skill in some discipline. In this case, Nicodemus exhibits mastery in the Scriptures and Law. But that mastery isn’t enough. As we will see, that mastery still leaves him blind to what matters.

Jesus exposes his blindness when he says, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Here Jesus does something that will become characteristic in the Gospel of John. Something that we will see again and again through out Lent. He uses a double entendre that we can’t hear in english. But is very plain in greek. When he says “born from above” the same phrase can also be rendered “born again.” Same words, two very different meanings. And Jesus says this to fish out how Nicodemus might receive the phrase. Will he hear the phrase in a spiritual sense? Or will he hear the phrase in a fleshly sense?

Nicodemus hears the phrase in a fleshly sense. “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?” What Nicodemus hears Jesus saying is that we must be born again, climb into the womb and come out a second time.

But that is not what Jesus means. He means we must be born again but from above. “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, 'You must be born from above.’” Jesus is saying that the knowledge Nicodemus has come to master is not enough. It is not enough to master the things of this world. To have a comprehensive knowledge of earthly things, of facts and figures and propositions. It is not enough to be skilled in argument, or skilled in jurisprudence. Because what is important is that we may enter the Kingdom of God by being born through water and the Spirit. By knowing that new birth that is given in baptism. By being transformed through the grace of God, given to a new life.

One may be skilled in knowledge of the things of this world, but if we are to be skilled in the matters of the Kingdom of God we can only receive that from above. We need to be born again into God’s new creation, God’s new reign.

This encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus is characteristic of the encounters that we will continue to see throughout Lent. Jesus meets someone who is somehow blinded to who he is, or what he is doing, or the things of God. Jesus begins to speak in a double entendre, that is then misunderstood. It is misunderstood because the person he’s talking to is too focused on the earthly and not on the heavenly. Having exposed that, Jesus begins to clarify, and he clarifies in such a way that exposes what rendered his conversation partner blind.

"Are you a teacher of Israel,” Jesus asks “and yet you do not understand these things?” What is it that Nicodemus does not understand? He does not understand that the Spirit moves where it wills. He does not understand that the Son of God must come and die. He does not understand that through Jesus there is eternal life. That he must abide in him, trust in him. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

I can easily identify with Nicodemus. I can easily be the person who seeks mastery of earthly knowledge and facts of the Bible. I can easily imagine that by knowing things about the Bible, and knowing things about theology, that it somehow means that I have a relationship with God. But that is not the case. Knowing things about the Bible means dip without the New Birth. Somehow reading all the theologians of the world means little without trusting and believing in him.

Jesus doesn’t call us to mastery, he calls us to trust. He doesn’t call us to master the things of this world, but to be born again, through him, in him. And being born again means being an infant again. It means humbling oneself again. It means entrusting others to care for you again. It means being transformed again. And in here is new life. And in here is good news.

Encounter: Temptation

Encounter: Temptation

Jesus Removes Concupiscence

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7; Matthew 4:1-11

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. Feb. 26th, 2023

The Venerable Fulton Sheen told a story about Adam going out for a walk with his young sons Cain and Abel. Heading west they come across the entrance to Eden. From a distance they can see the cherubim with his flaming sword, baring the way. Preventing Adam from ever returning to paradise again. He looks back to his sons and says with a sigh, “kids, this is where your mother ate us out of house and home.”

Of course, Adam is not being honest here. Perhaps, we can chalk up his comment to the effects of sin. We heard this morning how God planted a garden and appointed Adam to till and keep it. It was a very good deal. He was allowed to eat freely of every tree in the garden. But there was only one tree whose fruit was forbidden: the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil.

True it is Eve who encounters the serpent. A creature, we are told, who was craftier than any other wild animal God had made. The serpent tells Eve that if she eats the fruit she will certainly not die, but will be made like God. With the words of the serpent in mind she notices the fruit is desirable to the eyes, looks good to eat, and can even make her wise. Now it was Adam who received the command not to eat it, and Adam’s responsibility to intervene. But he doesn’t. You see, he’s there the whole time. And when Eve offers him the fruit he eats.

It was not just Eve who ate the first family out of house and home.

This story of of the temptation of our first parents, and their fall, is contrasted with the account of our brother and Lord Jesus Christ. He too is tempted by Satan. And they are enticing temptations. First, the starving man is tempted to break his fast by turning stones into bread. But he counters with Scripture, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” The words he awaits in his fast.

Seeing he’s getting nowhere Satan takes him to Jerusalem and places him on the pinnacle of the Temple. He tells him to cheat death and jump because the Bible promises God’s protection. But Jesus says “it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

Getting frustrated Satan takes Jesus to a very high mountain and gives him a vision of all the kingdoms in the world, all their wealth and splendor. And he promises Jesus it can all be his, if he will only bow down and worship him. That might seem like a bargain. But Jesus will not take the world by the devil’s means. So he casts Satan out.

Adam is disobedient, Jesus is obedient. Adam sins, Jesus is righteous. When we sin we are like our father Adam. But when we have faith we are like our brother and Lord Jesus. Jesus confronts Satan and resists his temptations to show us that it is possible: through him.

But what makes Jesus different than Adam? Or Eve? You might say he’s God, and very well, but he’s also completely and utterly human. You might say Jesus is without sin, but so where Adam and Eve. There is something that goes wrong for Adam, wrong for Eve, that also goes wrong for us. But it doesn’t go wrong for Jesus. And identifying that will help us as we continue our journey through Lent.

When the serpent tempts Eve, and reveals the fruit of the knowledge of Good and Evil will not kill her, we are told she, “saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise.” She looks at the tree and her desire is inflamed. And while she once looked at the tree as something harmful or dangerous, she now looked at the tree and saw it was “good.”

When we sin it is the same. I do not think anyone sins because they wish to do something harmful or dangerous. At least not in the moment. We sin because we think it’s good to be angry, or it’s good to be greedy, or our envy is justified. We sin because our desires are inflamed, and we have delight in the wrong things.

But it’s more than simply having our desires inflamed. Because surely Jesus’ desire was inflamed by the notion of warm bread. Few things are better when you’re starving. Or surely Jesus was enticed by the promise of cheating death. Who wouldn’t be? It’s about acting on those desires, looking for nothing more than self-fulfillment and disregarding the commands of God.

There’s a big word for this in Christian moral theology. Consider it our word of the day. And that word is concupiscence. The word comes from latin, literally meaning “I desire strongly.” It names our tendency to earnestly and deeply desire the wrong things. To have our hearts inflamed for things of the world, things of the flesh, and not the things of God. Martin Luther characterized it as being curved in on oneself. Sin in our life makes us self-absorbed, and desire nothing more than simple self-satisfaction. But the more self-absorbed you become, the more self-satisfaction you satisfy, the more miserable you become. Because we are not meant to be curved in on ourselves, we are meant to be open to God and others. The creatures that curve in on themselves, in the end, are the dead.

Adam and Eve have this concupiscence, this curving in on themselves. They desire the fruit, against God’s commands, because it looks good to eat and offers a promise they don’t quite understand. Jesus does not have this concupiscence. He is not curved in on himself. He lives for others. He is truly free. And would free us as well.

The next few weeks we will witness Jesus encountering others who are burdened by the effects of sin, and how he opens them up to grace. By extension too, we will see how we may be opened up.

Reign: New Heavens and New Earth

Reign: New Heavens and New Earth

God Creates

Isaiah 66:16-25

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. Nov. 13th, 2022

In the year 587 BC King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon captured Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple, and drove the elites of the city into exile. For most peoples an event like this would have marked the end of their history. They would have been assimilated and forgotten their own history. Their language would have become the language of Babylon. Their customs become the customs of Babylon. Instead the Jews remained faithful to the God of their ancestors, kept their customs, and in 538 BC were restored to the land of their ancestors and given permission to rebuild their Temple.

The experience of exile changed the way the Jews saw their God. They realized the God of Israel was a deity among deities, one of the many local gods the tribes of humanity might take on as their own. But rather, the one universal God who exposes all other so called gods to be false and liars. The prophets had insisted that God is sovereign, that God is jealous, that the people of the covenant were called to remain faithful to the one true God and not take on foreign gods. But as the books of Kings recount, the leaders of Israel and Judah were given to worship foreign idols, and to promote their worship among the people of Israel. In the experience of exile the Jews discovered that God did not abandon them when they were removed from the land. Instead, God fought for them, and restored them to the land of his promise.

“Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her hat her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.” Isaiah wrote. “A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” With these words the people were restored to the land, and in time rebuilt the Temple and restored the sacrifices.

But the restoration of Israel did not happen the way many had expected. Jerusalem was still rendering tribute to foreign powers on which she was dependent. Many in the land still did not keep the Law. And the visible glory of the Lord had not returned to the Temple. It was a restoration, yes, but a restoration that left much to be desired. Those who listened to the prophets had expected so much more.

God speaks this morning to remind his people that he has not settled. The promises of God exceed the settlement of Jerusalem with the Persians. The promises of God exceed the liberty and blessings many experience here in America. The promises of God exceed any temporal political arrangement. The promises of God exceed those moments of our life when we have known the greatest bliss. The promises of God concern a peace, a joy, an eternity beyond our imagining. What God promises for us can only be described as new. A new heaven. A new earth.

“For I am about to create,” God says, “new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.” The promises will be fulfilled, God says, when “no more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.” In the new earth God makes, “The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent--its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the LORD.”

We still await this promise. After the restoration of Israel, we await this promise. After the resurrection of Jesus, we await this promise. Through every tribulation, season of doubt, grief, and suffering, we await this promise. The total recreation of the world. The restoration of the heavens and the earth. Not into something unlike it is today, but perfecting the world we now know so that there will be no more death, no more pain, no more grief.

God can do this because of the glorious mystery the Jews discovered in their Babylonian Captivity. God is not bound to fate. He is not like the gods of the Greeks who overthrew the titans and established civilization. He is not like the gods of the ancient near east who formed the earth through combat and violence. But he stands above all creation, having spoken the heavens and the earth into being from nothing. There is no power on this earth that remotely competes with the power of God. There is no force on this earth that is as strong as God. God cannot be frustrated. God will not be dethroned.

But God will fulfill the promise we have heard this morning. After the wars and rumors of wars. After the false messiahs and the false promises. After the wannabe caesars parade their lies and boasts. After the charlatans tell us what our itching ears want to hear. After all this goes down, God will remain. We will be raised. God will recreate. And the former things will pass away. Our tears will be dried. And we will know the joy for which we were created. “I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight.”

Reign: All Saints

Reign: All Saints

God’s Saints Receive a Kingdom

Luke 6:20-31

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. Nov. 6th, 2022

The Lord reigns! Paul tells us this morning, “God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come.” The Lord reigns! “And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.”

With Jesus comes power. With Jesus comes might. With Jesus comes authority. He alone is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He alone brandishes all power and rule. He alone has conquered the powers of hell. His dominion extends farther than any emperor. His armies are more innumerable than any great power. And his reign is ceaseless, unending.

His disciples knew his great power. That’s why one day James and John made a request. “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.” They knew his glory far surpassed that of Caesar. They knew he would come to rule as he has. And they knew he loved them. So they wanted to sit in the seats of choicest honor, to his right and to his left. Jesus, however, told them they did not know what they were asking. Because they did not understand the nature of his power, the nature of his authority. He asked them if they were willing to undergo his baptism, or willing to drink the cup he would drink. They said they were able, in their foolhardiness. They did not realize he was asking them if they were willing to be martyred, to join him in his death.

The other disciples grumbled among themselves at the request of James and John. How dare they think they were better than the other disciples? So Jesus told them among the gentiles Kings lord themselves over others. But not so among those who belong to the Kingdom. For us, for the Church, it is the servant of all who is ruler. And the son of man comes not to dominate, but to give his life as a ransom for many.

Another time the disciples were bickering among themselves about who will be greatest in the Kingdom of heaven. So Jesus took a child and put him in their midst and said, “unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Or, another time when his disciples were trying to keep the children away, Jesus demanded that they let the children come to him, for to such the kingdom of heaven belongs. The Kingdom of heaven is not about physical power, charisma, wealth, might, greatness. It is instead about meekness, humility, forgiveness, love.

Jesus truly rules. He has conquered. But he conquers through his cross. Not with an army. Not with a sword. But by giving up his own life. Laying it down of his own accord. By giving his life as a ransom for many he rules. And so, too, life in the Kingdom of God entails that same self-giving. That same humility and meekness.

Today we celebrate All Saints Sunday, which is a feast that dates back to the middle ages. Early on in the Church’s life it became customary to celebrate the lives of God’s saints on the anniversary of their death, which was understood to be the day of their entrance into the church triumphant. By celebrating the lives of the saints we celebrated the grace of God that made such saints. The process of naming and celebrating saints was, at first, largely informal. Some feasts, like the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, took off like wildfire and were quickly celebrated throughout the church. Others remained more localized as particular churches celebrated their own saints.

Soon we began to recognize that there are many saints who were being unjustly forgotten. In the book of Hebrews we read that we are “surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses.” The Book of Revelation speaks of a multitude wearing white robes washed in the blood of the lamb that was too many for John to number. The saints of Christ do not make up a tiny number. In two thousand years of history we have not seen so few saints that we failed to fill up the 365 days of a solar year. But the saints are innumerable. Because the grace of God is abundant to transform all of us and to make all of us like Christ.

All Saints began, then, as a day to celebrate all the saints God has given to us. Not just the widely celebrated like a Francis of Assisi or a John Wesley, but also the practically unknown saints whose memory remains in the churches in which they died.

We should not be surprised that there would be so many ordinary saints. So many faithful Christians who lived lives of love, forgiveness, mercy. So many who trusted in Christ so fully that they truly lived out his command to love even their enemies, to give to all who came across their path, to pray for even those who hurt them. I think we can all say we’ve known such saints. We should not be surprised because Christ reigns, and we ought to see such signs of his reign. We should not be surprised because the grace of God is sufficient for all. And we should not be surprised because being a saint is not about being better than anyone else. Being the smartest, or fastest, or getting first place. Being a saint is about love and forgiveness and humility. There is no scarcity in such things. All may love and we’ll never run out. All may forgive and we will never run out of forgiveness. All can be humble and no one loses their position.

On this All Saints let’s celebrate God’s reign by remembering those who witness to it: the ordinary saints in our midst who taught us the way of the cross. The way of life and peace.

Reign: Repentance

Reign: Repentance

God’s Grace Precedes Repentance

Luke 19:1-10

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. Oct. 30th, 2022

Jesus says the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost. We may like to think of the lost as the people who fall through the cracks. Good, decent, people who fall on hard times and are forgotten by society. But for Jesus the lost are very visible, indeed. He counts among the ranks of the lost prostitutes. He seeks out Samaritans, and marvels at the faith of powerful gentiles. He also regards tax collectors as among the ranks of the lost. Even the chief tax collectors, those who benefit most from their unseemly dealings.

When we think of tax collectors in Jesus’ day we shouldn’t think of the IRS. These aren’t government bureaucrats. Ancient states, like Herod’s Judea or Tiberius’ Rome, relied on tax revenue (and tribute) to keep afloat as any state does. But they lacked the power of modern states. The IRS can do audits because the records at least ought to exist. Zacchaeus was never going to threaten someone with an audit, though he could call the soldiers in. Instead ancient states would farm out their tax collection to individuals whose job was to go door to door, homestead to homestead, village to village, and demand taxes in the name of the sovereign.

Zacchaeus would have been loathed for three reasons. First, no one likes to pay taxes. I’d say that’s a constant throughout history. Second, tax collectors were believed to skim off the top. King Herod might demand so much money from the tax collector, but the average peasant has no idea what is required. So the tax collector would defraud the peasant by asking for more money than was required and living well off of the surplus. But third, finally, and perhaps most importantly, tax collectors like Zacchaeus were thought to be collaborators with their imperial oppressors. They benefit from working for King Herod, who himself benefited from being a friend to Caesar. And money collected in taxes was also money given in tribute to Rome.

No wonder, then, tax collectors like Zacchaeus were regarded as sinners. Literal outcasts. Despised. Hated. But Jesus regards Zacchaeus as simply lost. And makes it his mission to seek him out, and save him.

We’re told Jesus was passing through Jericho, the hometown of Zacchaeus. A man who was not merely a tax collector, but chief of the tax collectors! And rich. Zacchaeus heard about Jesus, a charismatic preacher able to produce miracles, and wanted to see him. But someone was too short. Traditionally we think Zacchaeus was too short, a wee little man was he. But in truth the story is vague. Jesus might have been the short one! In either case Zacchaeus can’t see through the crowds and climbs up a sycamore tree.

While Zacchaeus is hanging out in the tree like some child Jesus looks up and notices him. “Zacchaeus,” Jesus says, “hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” I’ve read some people suspect Jesus knew who Zacchaeus was because of his supernatural knowledge. But I prefer to believe Jesus knows who Zacchaeus is because he’s the chief tax collector, and Jesus is known to hang out with his underlings.

Zacchaeus is overjoyed by Jesus’ overture, and hurries down the tree to invite him into his home. At this point the crowds grumble. Why is Jesus going to a sinner’s house? Doesn’t Jesus know what kind of a despicable man Zacchaeus is? How he defrauds the people of Jericho, how he benefits from the unjust and cruel rule of Herod, how he’s a collaborator with Rome?

But here’s the astonishing thing, while everyone outside is grumbling about how much of a sinner Zacchaeus is, inside Zacchaeus is joyfully repenting. "Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” In giving to the poor he is following the command Jesus gave to the rich young ruler, the command the ruler couldn’t follow because he was too much in love with his possessions. In saying he will pay back four times as much to anyone he has defrauded he is saying he will follow the mosaic law on the matter, which does indeed demand that four times the amount be paid back.

What an astonishing reversal! The man who was widely regarded to be a miserable sinner, the sort no one of good taste should ever hang out with, is now showing himself to be a man of righteousness. In the joyful presence of Jesus he is joyfully repenting of all wrongdoing, and showing himself to be, indeed, “a son of Abraham.” And so Jesus says, “salvation has come to this house.”

This account tells us something about the nature of repentance. We tend to think of repentance being a matter of remorse, of tears, something that only comes about by great suffering. And while Zacchaeus is certainly pledging to give up a lot of money, at great cost to his own livelihood, he does not repent through tears. Though, perhaps, tears of joy. There is a repentance that is born out of suffering, but there is also a repentance that is born out of joy. Zacchaeus is an example of the latter.

Jesus seeks Zacchaeus out. He invites himself to dinner. Zacchaeus stands in the presence of the Lord, in the presence of God almighty. He perceives, there, in that moment, the awesome glory of God. The glory for which we are created. He knows his soul filled. He knows the grace of God’s presence. Being given such a gift, knowing such grace, what can he do but repent? Must such meager things as money just melt away in such an awesome presence?

Zacchaeus reminds us that before repentance, at all times, comes the grace of God that calls us joyfully into the presence of God. That presence for which we were created, the presence which alone satiates the hunger of our soul. And when we know that presence, sin itself is seen as the shadow, the emptiness, the nothingness that it really is. The lost Zacchaeus, known as a sinner for miles around, repents by the grace of God. He puts away all he thought mattered, for the sake of what truly matters.