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Today is Christ the King Sunday. This Sunday is one of my favorite Sundays to preach because the preacher has one job this morning: to talk about the kingship of Jesus Christ.

A few weeks ago, I preached about the end of the biblical story, which is not disembodied life up among the clouds but rather the return of Jesus Christ and the resurrection of the dead. That’s the end, so to speak, although even that isn’t precisely the end but rather the beginning of the fullness of the new creation.

But perhaps that sermon left you wondering. Maybe it left you wondering what Jesus is doing between his ascension and that last, great day when he will return, and the dead in Christ will rise, never to die again. This Sunday is the answer to that question. Jesus Christ is King; he is Lord of Heaven and Earth, yesterday, today, and tomorrow. That’s the first point I want to make this morning.

‌Jesus Christ is King NowWe might be tempted to look at how the world is today and say, “I can’t wait until the day Jesus is King.” There are whole eschatologies, beliefs about the end time, built around precisely this idea. They cannot fathom that Jesus Christ is King already, and so they push his kingship out into the future. This way of thinking is not how the Bible thinks about the kingship of Jesus. ‌

In the Bible, Jesus was enthroned twice, and please notice the past tense. He was enthroned twice. The first time he was enthroned, he was dressed in purple, a crown of thorns was placed upon his head, and a reed was put in his hand as a scepter. And before the soldiers took the reed from him, beat him with it, spit on him, and ripped the garments from his body, they unknowingly spoke a truth that would change the world:

And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!”

Matthew 27:29 (ESV)The king was lifted up, enthroned on a Roman cross, and the same words hung above his head.

And over his head they put the charge against him, which read, “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.”

Matthew 27:37This is Jesus, the King of the Jews. On that day, Jesus was crowned as the King of the Jews, and if he was King of the Jews, then as the Psalmists and Prophets had always said, he was also the king of the whole world. Jesus was enthroned as the king of all the earth on Golgotha, but then he died, rose, and ascended, and this is his second enthronement.

When Jesus ascended on high, he sat down at the right hand of God. We see this in several places.

After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

Hebrews 1:3​But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God,

Hebrews 10:12Even the more extended ending of Mark, which I don’t consider to be canonical but does summarize well certain early Christian traditions says,

So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.

Mark 16:19Do you know what Old Testament chapter is quoted or alluded to the most in the New Testament? It’s Psalm 110.

The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”

Psalm 110:1Jesus was enthroned at his ascension. He took his seat at the right hand of God as the Lord of heaven and earth. And notice that little bit right there: “until I make your enemies your footstool.” That last bit of the verse is what Paul refers to in our epistle reading this morning when he writes:

Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

1 Corinthians 15:24-26If the question is, “What is Christ doing now between his ascension and his second coming?” that’s the answer. He is reigning as the Lord of Heaven and Earth and actively putting all these enemies under his feet by destroying every rule, authority, and power opposed to his kingdom.

The reason that the last enemy to be destroyed is death is because death is not fully and finally destroyed until the day Christ returns and those in Christ rise again to eternal life. But that’s what Christ is doing. He is bringing everything opposed to his rule in subjection under his feet, and nothing is more opposed to his rule than death.

Jesus Christ is king now, bringing the world into subjection under his feet. But here’s point number two, which must be said alongside point one.

‌A Different Kind of KingJesus is a different kind of king. Jesus said:

And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.

Mark 10:42-44Jesus is a different kind of king. He is not the kind of king who is enthroned with great pomp and circumstance. He is the kind of king enthroned upon a Roman cross. And so, when we think about what it means for him to bring the whole world into subjection under his feet, if we imagine power, military might, and great pomp and circumstance, we’ve got the idea completely wrong.

Our king identified not with powerful rules of this world but certainly not with the tyrants and would-be kings; instead, he identified with the outcast, the forgotten, the imprisoned, the sojourner, the hungry, the poor, the thirsty, and the naked. He identified with them so much that he called them his brothers and said that whatever we’ve done to the least of these, we did it to him.

Think about that for one moment. We often describe our ministry to the poor and needy with language that places us in the role of Christ. We will say we’re “the hands and feet of Jesus.” I assume this comes from the idea of being the body of Christ. But if we take Matthew 25 on its own, we must recognize that when we care for the least of these, we are not being Christ to them. They are Christ to us.

And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

Matthew 25:40Or even worse.

Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’

Matthew 25:45Notice who is talking: the king. Our king so identifies with those who are hungry, thirsty, strangers, naked, sick, and imprisoned that however we treat them, for good or for ill, is how we treat our king. There’s no ambiguity about this. They are Christ to us, and how we treat them is how we treat our king. I titled this sermon “The Emperor Has No Clothes,” except it’s not a joke. Our king was stripped naked. Our king is hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick, and in prison. He has no clothes, no food, no water, no money, no health, and no freedom. And every time we care for someone in the same situation as him, his brothers and sisters, we care for him.

Our king intends to bring the whole world in subjection under his feet. Not with the sword. Not with power. Not with weapons. Not with violence. Remember. He was enthroned upon a Roman cross as he emptied himself and was obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Our king intends to bring the whole world in subjection under his feet by pouring his Holy Spirit into his people and enabling them to love others with that same self-sacrificial love. That is why he tells his people to take up their cross and follow him.

The poor and outcast are not there for us to be Christ to them; they are there to be Christ to us. And our king says that how we treat them will have eternal consequences. Treat them like Kings and Queens, and our king will say to you,

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

Matthew 25:34Amen.

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The parable we hear this morning follows the one we heard last week. In that parable, Jesus compared the kingdom of heaven to ten virgins who were waiting for the bridegroom. The bridegroom was delayed, and his delay revealed which of the virgins were foolish and which were wise. The wise virgins brought extra oil with them, while the foolish virgins did not. In short, the wise virgins made provisions for the delay, while the foolish virgins did not. As a result, only those who were prepared were welcomed to the wedding feast, while those who were not were denied entry. Even worse, the Lord says:

But he answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’

Matthew 25:12 (ESV)The final command is not spoken to the virgins but to those listening to Jesus. He says:

Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.

Matthew 25:13In the history of biblical interpretation, this parable is often interpreted as a command to stay vigilant in response to what is known as the delay of the parousia.

‌The Delay of the ParousiaI won’t get into this topic now, but suffice it to say that many have argued that the kingdom of God parables containing this notion of a delay or an extended period were reshaped by the early church because Jesus didn’t return as quickly as they expected. So, the idea here is Jesus takes longer to return than we thought, so the early church reshaped or even invented parables on the lips of Jesus to be able to see, “Look, he told us all along that this would take a while.”

There is no doubt that many of the earliest Christians expected Jesus to return in their lifetime. I suspect many of them thought he would return at the fall of Jerusalem, and some might even argue that he did, at least in some sense of the word “return.” But that does not necessitate that these parables, the one last week and ours this Sunday, were reshaped or invented out of thin air.

That is to say, they make sense in their historical context if we don’t assume that WE are the original audience for the parables. So, this is a reminder for all of us, when we read our Bibles (and I expect and hope that we are reading them daily), that before we start asking what a passage means today, we must first ask what it meant in its historical context.

Before we ask what a passage means, we must ask what it meant.Suppose we apply this principle to last week’s parable and this morning’s parable. In that case, we come away with relatively straightforward and overlapping ideas. The delay in the parable of the ten virgins and the long journey in the parable of the talents are two sides of the same Old Testament idea.

Yahweh, Israel’s husband, was supposed to come back to his land and his people at the end of the exile, but that exile had been delayed and extended. Since then, Israel has been waiting for its God to return, so the question in both parables is: What should Israel have been doing while they waited? ‌

In this morning’s parable, the man who goes on a journey is God, who has entrusted his servants Israel with his “property.” Paul says in Romans about the physical offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob:

They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.

Romans 9:4–5In short, God entrusted his salvific plan to his servants, and he expected them to take what he had given them and invest it back into the world. Notice that, in this parable, the master commends all the servants but one. The only one he does not commend is the one who hid his master’s talents in the ground rather than sharing them with the world.

The imagery ought to draw our mind to Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus says:

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

Matthew 5:14–16Israel was not called to hide the light of the world nor to put their lamps under basked. They were called to give light to all who were in the house. They were called to let their light sign before others so that others may see their good works and give glory to their Father in heaven. In short, they were to invest what God had given them back into the world so that it might multiply to the glory of God.

But that’s what it meant. So what does it mean? How do we cross the contextualizing bridge, as we’ve called it in our adult catechesis? We, too, are waiting for the return of our Lord. That’s what I preached on last week. We are not waiting for him to take us away from here but rather to return, bring back the dead in Christ with him, and usher in the new heavens and new earth.

But in between now and then, we wait, and so parables spoken to Israel while she was waiting speak also to us today. From the Parable of the Ten Virgins, we learn to always live in expectation. The Lord might return at any minute. We must always be prepared and always be waiting.

And from the Parable of the Talents we learn that what God has gifted to us is meant to be invested back into the world so that it might multiply to the glory of God. That is the basic principle, but there are a few more things I want to point out here for your edification and mine.

First, as servants of God, everything we have comes from God and ultimately belongs to God. He entrusts different amounts of talents to various servants, but the amount entrusted isn’t the point. The point, as we say in our liturgy, is: “All things come from you.” Whatever we have isn’t ours. It belongs to God, and to use the language of the parable, he has entrusted it to us.

Second, what he has entrusted to us, he expects to be invested for the good of his kingdom. One servant receives five talents, another only two. The one who receives five makes five more; the one who receives only two makes only two more. To both, the Lord says, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” The only chastised servant is the one who hoards what has been entrusted to him.

Third, God never expects more of you than you’ve been given. Notice that the Lord doesn’t say to the servant who brought back two additional talents, “Why didn’t you bring back five talents like the other servant?” The one who is given five brings back five more. The one who is given two brings back two more. God does not expect more from you than you’ve been given. But he does expect you to take what you’ve been given, your time, treasure, and talents, and invest them into the world to spread his kingdom and increase his glory.‌

That’s the question for us this morning. How are we using what we’ve been given to spread God’s kingdom and increase God’s glory? Some of us are blessed with lots of free time. How are we using our free time to spread God’s kingdom and increase God’s glory?

Some of us are blessed with treasure. How are we using our treasure to spread God’s kingdom and increase God’s glory?

Some of us are blessed with talents. How are we using all the ways in which we are gifted to spread God’s kingdom and increase his glory in this world? ‌

We must wrestle with these questions because, one day, the Lord is coming back, and he expects us to have been wise. He expects us to take what we’ve been given and invest it back into the world for the spread of his kingdom and the praise of God’s glory.

Amen

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Paul begins this morning’s reading by saying, “we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep.”

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.

1 Thessalonians 4:13 (ESV)By “those who are asleep,” he means “those who have died in Christ,” and this is an immediately relevant topic for all of us. We all want to know what it is that happens when we die, and this type of musing is given increased energy when we are faced with the death of a loved one or friend, as all of us have been with the passing of Deacon Bill.

What I find amusing is that while Paul says that he does not want us to be uninformed about God’s plan for those who have died in Christ, many Christians today speak about what happens when we die in vague and incomplete terms that often sound much more like Plato than Jesus or Paul.

So let’s set the record straight this morning. Let’s talk about what happens to those who are asleep both now and when Christ comes again.

Those Who SleepSurprisingly, given what Paul says in the opening verse, he tells us almost nothing about the current state of those who have died in Christ. There is a reason for this, and it gets to the problem of most Christian thinking about life after death. The reason Paul says almost nothing about our state of existence when we die is that his focus, as should be the focus of all Christians, is not on the in-between but on the end of the story.

Paul is not so much concerned about life-after-death as he is concerned about life after life-after-death.

Life after Life-After-DeathHe writes:

For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.

1 Thess 4:14But this “even so” is a questionable translation. The word is οὕτως. It means “in this way” or “in this manner”. And the preposition “through” probably goes with the verb slept, so we end up with something like:

For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, in the same way also, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep through the Messiah.

1 Thess 4:14Paul’s very first point about those who have died in Christ is not to discuss their heavenly existence but to state clearly and unambiguously that God will do for them what he did for Jesus Christ, namely, they will rise again.

This is the first thing we have to get right. When Christians die or when we think about the afterlife, the first thing we should be talking about is resurrection. The first thing that we should say is that God intends to do for us what he did for Jesus of Nazareth. But we’re getting a little bit ahead of ourselves.

One thing to note here about our existence between death and the resurrection is that while Paul doesn’t say much, he does imply clearly that we are safe with God. The metaphor he uses is one of sleep. Maybe he means that we have no conscience existence between death and the resurrection, like we were just napping. Maybe it’s just a metaphor, and all metaphors fall short. Either way, what Paul believes about our loved ones who have died in Christ is that they are safe with God, and just as importantly, when Jesus Christ comes again, he will bring them with him.

That’s the now for those who have died in Christ. They are safe with Christ in God. In Philippians, as Paul considers that his death might be imminent, he writes:

My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.

Phil 1:23Your loved ones, Deacon Bill, and you, when your time comes, will be safe with Christ in God. He will hold you securely in his embrace until that day comes when Christ returns, and he brings the dead in Christ with him.

So that’s the now. But what about the end? What about the last great day? What about the next event on the eschatological timetable?

When I was growing up, the next event on the eschatological timetable was the Rapture, and the idea came from the very verses in our reading this morning.

The RaptureSo let’s say a word about the rapture. If you don’t know what this is, the basic idea is that when Christ returns, he will take all the Christians from this earth and initiate his judgment upon the world. First, it is not a historic Christian doctrine. The idea didn’t exist until about the 1830s, and it originated among American fundamentalists. It is not in the Creed, nor do you find it in any of the writings of the early church. Of course, that doesn’t matter if you can find the Rapture in the Bible, and that leads me to my second point.

Second, the rapture is not found in the Bible. Let’s look at this. If you were to turn to Revelation and ask, “Where is the rapture?” the best answer anyone could give you is that you can find the rapture in the white space between chapter three and chapter four. That means it’s not there. But that’s really okay for those who believe in the rapture because Revelation isn’t the key text. That responsibility falls on our reading this morning, particularly verse 17.

Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.

1 Thess 4:17He’s going to show up, take us with him into the clouds, and then he will take us to heaven, and we’ll be with him forever. That’s what it says, right?

No. Wrong.

The whole movement in this text is not from earth to heaven but rather from heaven to earth. And Paul is trying to describe the impossible, something that humans cannot conceive of, in the only way he knows how. N. T. Wright describes Paul’s language here as trying to describe different colors to a blind person. Paul is grasping at language to describe that moment when Christ finally returns, and all those who are dead in Christ return with him and are re-embodied, that is, resurrected, and those who are alive in Christ are likewise transformed with resurrected bodies, and so he chooses at least two Old Testament images to try and describe this moment.

SinaiThe first is Sinai. On the third day of Moses going up and down the mountain, the Lord himself is said to come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of the people.

For on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people.

Exod 19:11And when he does, there is thunder, lightning, and thick clouds, and there is also the blast of a very loud trumpet.

On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled.

Exod 19:16Now read 1 Thess 4:16 again.

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.

1 Thess 4:16Notice again, the emphasis on resurrection. This is not the rapture. This is the resurrection, and the first imagery Paul uses to try and describe this event is taken from Sinai, from the moment God descended from heaven and came to rest on the mountain with loud thunder and the blast of a trumpet.

Daniel 7The second imagery is more subtle but just as important. Jesus said several times that when he returned, he would come riding on the clouds. This language comes from Daniel 7, where the Son of Man, in his vindication, comes on the clouds not from heaven to earth, but rather, from earth to heaven. He is lifted up to the very throne of God so that the eternal judge can render a verdict. He is coming on the clouds, and so, on that day, when he returns again, we, too, will ride the clouds with him.

Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.

1 Thess 4:17Those who are alive will be caught up together in the clouds with Christ and with those who have been raised from the dead, and we will join him in triumphal procession as the Lord himself descends to earth to make all things new and to restore and renew creation.

That is our hope – not life after death, but life after life after death. Our hope is that God will do the very same thing for us that he did for Jesus, that he will not leave us for dead, that he will not let death write the last words of the story of our lives. Our God is a God of life, and our hope is that he will raise us back from the dead.

So if you’re grieving…. maybe over the loss of a loved one recently… maybe over the loss of Deacon Bill… maybe over the loss of a loved one not so recently… it’s okay to grieve, but don’t grieve as those who have no hope.

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.

1 Thess 4:13And our hope is not disembodied life in the heavenly realm. Our hope is more than that and greater than that. Our hope is that God will do for us what he has already done for Jesus Christ, our Lord. Our hope is that just as God raised him from the dead on the first Easter morning, in the same way, he will also raise us from the dead on the last great day when the Lord descends, the trumpet blows, the living are transformed, and the dead in Christ rise again, and we all, as one resurrected body of Christ join him in triumphal procession into his new creation.

That is our hope.

Amen.

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“I believe in the Communion of Saints.”

That affirmation in the Apostles’ Creed has been repeated by billions of Christians for nearly 2000 years.

The Communion of Saints encompasses not only linear time but also two additional dimensions of reality—physical and spiritual. You and I became part of the Communion of Saints through our Baptisms. As today reminds us, we are ALL saints, not by spiritual accomplishments, but by God’s grace.

What does the Communion of Saints mean to us?

We probably understand best the PHYSICAL expression of the Communion of Saints.

Why? Because we physically see, hear, and touch each other. We regularly worship, study, fellowship, and minister with and to each other. In the physical dimension of reality, we are tangible to each other.

One purpose of All Saints Day is to give thanks for our corporate life together. One can only imagine how empty our lives would be if we didn’t have each other.

This, of course, raises the question, “What happens to us when we are no longer physically visible to one another?” That time will inevitably come to each one of us. Death separates us from the physical world that we now occupy.

Does this mean that we are no longer in the communion and fellowship of the Church? Does death have the power to break our fellowship with one another? The answer is emphatically “NO!”

How can we affirm this truth? We affirm our continuing fellowship beyond death because we stand on the most basic truth of the Christian Faith.

Jesus Christ rose from the dead! Because He lives, we live also!

But how do we live? What is our relationship with each other after death takes place? Do we continue to be in community with each other as we are at present?

When we consider that the Living Jesus Christ is the basis of our community with one another, the answer is “YES!”

Regardless of whether we function in this life or the next, our common foundation of community with each other is Jesus Christ. In this world, as well as the next, Jesus stands as the recipient of our prayers of praise, intercession, thanksgiving, and petition. We are also the focus of His prayers of praise, intercession, thanksgiving, and petition. This reality expresses an unbreakable bond between Jesus and us. What a beautiful affirmation of our eternal security!

To affirm this bond, we can turn to today’s reading from Revelation. John has a vision of God’s heavenly community being united with His earthly one. The first part of John’s vision is set on earth as the 144,000 are sealed from the coming worldly disaster. These 144,000 represent the Redeemed Israel.

Since this is a vision—and visions are usually symbolic of a greater reality– we can interpret these people as the vanguard of a perfectly complete EARTHLY communion of Saints encompassing every race and culture. How do we see this biblical truth symbolically in the vision of the 144,000?

First, 12 is interpreted as the biblical number for community. We are given in this vision the square root of this number (12 X 12=144). The square root of this biblical number 12 symbolizes the perfection or completeness of this community. We can recall the 12 apostles or the 12 Israelite tribes, which point to the symbolic completeness of God’s community in biblical language.

Finally, 144 is multiplied by 1000, which is a biblical way of symbolizing the great worldwide extent and inclusivity of the Communion of Saints.

This great number is being redeemed from the suffering of this earth. They include literal Israelites—since the 12 tribes are mentioned—and spiritual Israelites because the Church is often called the New Israel. Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans (2:29), speaks of this New Israel when he says, “He is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart, spiritual and not literal. His praise is not from men but from God.” Thus, Paul is including Gentiles who also have a heart to trust in God’s promises—the promises He first revealed to the Jewish nation, but now is meant to be shared worldwide.

However, we can go a step further. The lesson from Revelation makes it clear that the Communion of Saints exists not only on earth with the sealed and redeemed people but also in heaven.

Revelation 7:9 testifies, “After this I looked, and behold a great multitude which no man could number from every nation, from all tribes and people and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.”

This is a vision of the Communion of Saints in heaven worshipping Jesus the Lamb, who sits on the throne representing God’s encompassing presence. We are shown that both in this world and the next, Jesus is the recipient of our prayers of praise, intercessions, thanksgiving, and petitions. All these prayers to Jesus comprise the expressive lifeblood of the Christian Church, which we share. When we pray to Jesus for and with one another, we are experiencing the Body of Christ at its best. We can understand that we are linked to one another both in this life and the next because we are meant to share the resurrected life of Jesus.

A pressing question for us on this All Saints Sunday is this. Is there some kind of bridge which keeps us connected with our loved ones who have died?

The Bible is very clear that we are not permitted to communicate with those who have died. Deuteronomy 18:10-11 says, “Let no one be found among you who —consults the dead.”

In the Parable of Dives and Lazarus, found in Luke 16:19-31, Jesus has Father Abraham refusing to send someone from the dead to warn the family of Dives about their sins.

Scripture simply does not support communication with the dead. To deliberately seek out and try to talk with our departed loved ones is simply not in God’s will. Anything outside of God’s will is demonic.

Those who claim to speak with the dead through psychic means are interacting with demonic spirits who can deceive this person into believing that they are talking with departed loved ones.

This doesn’t mean that there aren’t authentic moments of memory which can spontaneously come to us. Part of our grieving process is sometimes feeling the presence of a departed loved one in dreams or in association with times and places meaningful to you and your loved one. These associations have strong impacts on our memories. We feel as though our loved ones are right there with us. Those moments can be most comforting, and we can thank God for them, but we are not to be deliberately seeking them. In cases like these, it is God bringing them to our remembrance for healing moments.

If the bridge between us and the heavenly Communion of Saints is not self-initiated communication with our departed loved ones, how do we describe this bridge?

Our bridge link with the heavenly Communion of Saints is sacramental. It centers on Jesus, who presents Himself for our remembrance at every Eucharist. “Do this in remembrance of me.”

John’s vision described in today’s lesson from Revelation reminds us that there is a heavenly community greater than any person can number surrounding Jesus and worshipping Him on His throne.

This sacramental bridge focuses on the altar, which we see on one side, while we perceive the heavenly throne radiating from the other side.

The Altar and the Heavenly Throne are linked by Jesus presenting Himself to us in remembrance.

Remembrance, in the biblical sense, has a very special meaning. It is not simply revealing a person or event from the past. It is God exercising His lordship over time and space to bring His personhood or biblical event into our present moment. This kind of remembrance happens between Jesus and us at every Eucharist, as well as countless other times when we need to perceive His presence.

The Communion of Saints has both heavenly and earthly forms as we are linked by a Jesus-constructed bridge. The prayers we offer before this visible altar are received by Jesus and united with the prayers of the saints who have departed this life and are at this moment praying before the Heavenly Throne.

We pray for them, and they pray for us. Jesus gathers these prayers all together as our supreme intercessor and presents them before the throne of God.

This is how the Communion of Saints functions. It can be described in the words of our Prayer Book as “a fellowship of love and prayer.”

Today, we give thanks for this “fellowship of love and prayer” because it sustains us not only in this life but also in the life to come.

For this reason, I believe in the Communion of Saints.

Amen.

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For the last several Sundays, we’ve been hearing of the challenges to Jesus’ authority by Temple authorities. They may have thought something like this: “This small town upstart comes in here, to Jerusalem, and thinks he can just turn things upside down as if he owned the place. Who does he think he is? They call him ‘rabbi’, but exactly where did he study the scriptures? The Nazarene Podunk Synagogue?“

Since our Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the powers that be were extremely uncomfortable about their hold on power and influence over the Jewish nation. The different religious and political factions, such as the chief priests, the elders, the Pharisees, scribes, Sadducees, and even the Herodians, were normally adversarial to each other, but now they were threatened by someone whom they saw as the common enemy. Their hold on power and prestige was slipping away.

Saint Matthew dedicates chapters 21, 22, and 23 primarily to the attacks of these groups, individually or in concert, to our Lord. The parables of the Two Sons, the Evil Tenants, and The Wedding Feast were all aimed directly at these groups, and they felt it. Jesus came to Jerusalem to rock the boat and cause the climax of history to come about on Calvary. The established leaders were in for a fight for which they were ill-prepared.

It’s easy to read these chapters and think about how vast and deep the corruption was in the Temple. It’s easy to read these parables and duels of wit and think about how bad the Temple authorities were and miss the lessons for our own lives.

This morning’s Gospel makes me ponder what it is that I cling to that belongs to God. It’s a question we all need to ask ourselves.

When I first became a Christian, I was often bothered, worried, and annoyed about the Tithe. I was just a “3-Striper” in the Air Force with a wife and 3 kids. How was I supposed to follow the Tithe Rule? Our big treat was frozen pizza night once every couple of weeks, and I was supposed to take a 10% pay cut? At some point in our walk in the Lord, we noticed that we were finally “honoring the tithe.”

After that time, I heard a message on the radio about tithing. This particular preacher, I can’t remember his name, suggested that we need to honor God with all our being and that the tithe was a mere representation of that honor. He even went on to say to please NOT give 10% to the church. He said that any number returned to God would be an indicator of our love for Him. He’d much rather we give 9 % or 15% or 50%, anything but 10%, because 10% was merely an attempt to follow a rule and NOT an expression of our love for God.

That was a few years ago. Around that time, Keith Green had a song called “To Obey is Better Than Sacrifice”, a title taken from 1 Samuel 15:22. A lyric that still haunts me occasionally is:

“To obey is better than sacrifice.

I don’t need your money

I want your life

And I hear you say that I’m coming back soon

But you act like I’ll never return.”

Later it continues…

“To obey is better than sacrifice

I want more than Sunday and Wednesday nights

Cause if you can’t come to Me every day

Then don’t bother coming at all”

…Simple, strong, and convicting lyrics.

Thinking about those poor Pharisees and Herodians we heard about today who brought the proverbial “knife to a gunfight” when they tried a Catch-22 ploy with our Lord, I often thought, why didn’t they counter with the question, “What then belongs to God?” I now realize that they knew but hadn’t yet realized that EVERYTHING belongs to God.

They knew from their studies of the scriptures that God had created all things (seen and unseen). So, they could not ask that question, certainly not in public or even to themselves. They knew in their heads but not in their hearts. They refused to be liberated from their bonds of covetousness and greed that perhaps we’re all born with. Being freed from those innate bonds takes a miracle. Acceptance of that miracle takes a leap of faith. That miracle is manifest in our Lord Jesus, that “upstart small-town rabbi who wants to crash into our lives and turn things upside down. Who does he think he is anyway?”

Can we start to see ourselves (at least sometimes) in those poor misguided Pharisees and Herodians who resisted Christ on so many occasions?

Have we come to realize and not just know that “All things come from you, O Lord, And of your own have we given you”? This is a truly liberating realization… It’s ALL His. He lets us enjoy His blessings; He abundantly blesses us in the love that He has for us in Christ Jesus so that we can, in turn, love Him back, as well as His children, with the overflow of His love.

As children of God, we are called and gifted to share this Gospel of liberation with the world. Resisting that call and discarding His gifts makes us as guilty as those who resisted Him 2,000 years ago. Amen

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This morning, Isaiah prophecies a feast upon the mountain of the Lord, the Psalmist’s cup overflows, Paul commands us to rejoice, and Jesus tells a parable about a wedding. The common theme here is that a party is going on, so we should get on board.

I hear from a few of you each week who graciously say, “I thought you were preaching directly to me.” I assure you. I am never preaching at any of you. If there is anyone in that building I am preaching at, it is me, and that is especially true this Sunday. If the sermon happens to help you as well, that is a bonus.

Those who know me well know I have been frustrated lately. I will not get into the specific reasons because this is not the appropriate time for that conversation. Nevertheless, I have been frustrated. I have been anxious. I have been nervous. Some of it has to do with Synod. Some of it has to do with this church. Some of it is personal. All of it concerns money, which is probably my least favorite topic to address. I do not know how to say that our annual giving is down for the year without sounding like I am asking more from you, but I assume you are already giving what you reasonably can. I do not know how to convince the diocese that spending money for the kingdom of God is good but also has to be paired with wise stewardship of God’s gifts. And it feels like all these things and others are coming to a head, and I am a wreck because of it.

And then, I sit down to sermon prep, and I see verses like this:

Again he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, “See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast.”’

Matthew 22:4 (ESV)You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Psalm 23:5–6He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”

Isaiah 25:8–9Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:4–7So what is it the Lord is telling me through these verses?

‌Christians Should Always Be CelebratingFirst, I should always be celebrating, or to put this more broadly, Christians should always be celebrating. We should always be rejoicing because our joy is not based on our present circumstances but on the gift of eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This logic is why Romans 8 is so important. Without it, Philippians 2 is unreasonable and perhaps even unethical to say to anyone going through difficulties and hardships in their life. If all we have to say to people is, “Rejoice, the Lord wants you to be happy, not sad, so put a good smile on and soldier on,” we not only unfairly gloss over the pain people experience now but also fail to put that pain into a proper redemptive perspective.

As he does on two separate occasions, Paul can only say that he rejoices in his sufferings because his perspective is on his finite, present moment. Paul’s perspective is eternal and theological. He believes that nothing in all of creation can separate us from the Love of Christ Jesus our Lord. And so, with Paul, we should not be fixated on our present experience. I am not saying that we should negate them or gloss over them. I am saying we should place them in their proper context, which means that whatever is going on today, this week, or even this year, the end of our story is always eternal, resurrected life with the triune God, and if that is not a reason to rejoice, then what is?

So, if life is weighing you down, if you have been like me for the past several weeks, maybe even months, and you feel like there is this black cloud following you around, if you find yourself constantly grumpy and agitated, spend some time reminding yourself, or hang around with people who will remind you that despite whatever may be happening in our present there is nothing in this finite moment that can keep you from eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Because of this, Christians ought to be the happiest, most celebratory people on planet Earth, not because our lives are perfect, but because we put our lives within the context of our life with God in Christ.

‌All Christians Should Bring Their Anxieties to God in PrayerSecond, I should bring all my anxiety, worries, concerns, and fears and lay them at Christ’s feet. Or, more generally, all Christians should bring their anxiety, worries, concerns, and fears and lay them down before the throne of God. Paul says:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Philippians 4:6When I had a particularly bad day, I did two things. First, I came to church. I showed up here on Wednesday morning not to preach, celebrate, or even be the pastor. I sat in these pews you are sitting in now and listened to the liturgy, the sermon, and the celebration of communion, but mostly, I prayed. You don’t have to do that here. You can do that at home. You can do that in the car (albeit with your eyes open). You can do that at your desk at work for a few moments. You can do that in the park. Regardless of the where, the most crucial part is that in everything, in all the finite moments of our lives that can bring us so much worry and concern, we bring those moments to God and say, “God, you know what to do with this. I do not. Help me.” ‌

So, the first thing I did was pray, but the second thing I did was ask other people to pray for me. You need to find, whether they are in this room right now or not, several people who you know that if you say to them, “Please pray for me about X,” they will stop right then and there and lift you up before God. Being a Christian is not an individual activity. Being a Christian is a group project, and it is one that we are engaging in together here at St. Dunstan’s. That is what this is. That is what a local church is. It is not the place that we gather together to hear the pastor preach, heaven forbid. A local church is the primary place where we gather to be Christians together. We pray together. We study the Bible together. We celebrate communion together. We eat together. And we should be experiencing life together as a Christian community, sharing each other’s burdens as best as we are able, and most importantly, lifting each other up to God in prayer.

We pray and lift each other up in prayer because prayer is the path to peace. Notice what Paul says:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6–7If you are worried, if you are fearful, if you are anxious, prayer is the path to peace. The peace of God, which surpasses all our human understanding, will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus if you bring your fears, anxiety, and worry to God and lay them down at his altar. To be clear, that is not to say that Christians should not seek professional help in dark moments. They absolutely should. God often works through what appears to be purely natural means. Nevertheless, while we seek professional help or even help from friends, prayer must be a vital part of the process. It is God, ultimately, who will protect your heart and mind.

So, if you are like me and feel you have had a bad couple of weeks, maybe a bad couple of months, I want you to do two things. First, I want you to spend time each day trying to rejoice. Try to give thanks every single day that our lives are not defined by finite moments but rather by our eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Second, when you try to rejoice, and especially if you are unable to, I want you to take all your anxiety, worry, and fear and lay it at the feet of Christ in prayer. Tell God everything on your heart and mind, and his peace will guard both. Today. Tomorrow. And forever.

Amen.

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Last week we were reminded that simply coming to church and saying our yes to God and his call for us to work for his kingdom is not enough. The son who does the will of his father is not the brother who says yes and then refuses to work in the vineyard, but rather the brother who initially said no, but then went to do the work.

Today’s Gospel reading, which follows immediately after that parable of the two brothers in Matthew’s Gospel, strikes a similar theme but asks the next logical question.

What happens when we do not do the work that God has called us to do?

Now, in Mathew’s Gospel, Jesus admittedly takes things a bit further. He draws on the Song of the Vineyard in Isaiah 5 not only to say that those responsible for the vineyard have failed in their vocation but also to say that, even worse, they have actively conspired against the vineyard owner. The vineyard owner has been sending them servants to collect the fruit he is owed from the vineyard, but those responsible for the vineyard have beaten and killed those messengers, and now, at last, he is sending them his son, whom they throw out of the vineyard and kill in order to gain his inheritance, i.e. the vineyard.

I don’t want to dwell here this morning, but I want to remind you that this parable further proves that Jesus understood Israel’s long story to be climaxing in himself. Throughout Israel’s history, God had sent them prophets, but now, at long last, he was sending them his son, and everything would depend on how they treated his son. Israel’s story comes to an end, quite dramatically, with their rejection of the Son, whom they will take outside the city and kill.

But rather than focusing on Jesus’s parable of the vineyard, I want to take a step back and look at Isaiah’s version. I won’t read Isaiah’s version again since you have it printed in your insert, but suffice it to say that the parable compares Israel and Judah to a vineyard. The opening verses of the song retell all that God had done for Israel, and in fact, later versions of Isaiah 5, like the Targums, expanded the description here to get even more specific about what God had done for them. In short, the vineyard owner had done everything he could for his vineyard, and yet:

… he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.

Isaiah 5:2 (ESV)For context, wild grapes were sour, inedible, and useless for making wine.

The Lord then asks:

What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?

Isa 5:4And then comes the judgment:

And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and briers and thorns shall grow up; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.

Isa 5:5–6And in case it wasn’t clear what this was all about, Isaiah tells us:

For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting; and he looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, an outcry!

Isa 5:7Israel had been called for a specific vocation. Not only were they to be the means by which God would set the world to rights, as we have been discussing in our Romans course in Adult Catechesis, but they were to be the means of bringing God’s justice and righteousness to fruition in the world. But when the vineyard owner came looking for that fruit, what he found instead of sour grapes, he found bloodshed and an outcry from those who were being wronged.

In Isaiah, because of this, because of Israel’s failure in its vocation, the vineyard is to be destroyed. On the lips of Jesus, because vineyard tenants had been unfaithful in their vocation and even adversarial to the vineyard owner, the vineyard is given to other tenants. Nonetheless, the point is the same: failure in our vocation may result in judgment.

Now let’s push this a step back to the two brothers. One says, “Yes,” I’ll do the work, but then doesn’t go. The other says “No,” and then goes to do the work anyway. The one who does the will of his father is not the one who says yes to his vocation but then refuses to do the work but rather the one who actually does the work of the kingdom.

By being here today, I assume you’ve all said yes to the vocation of being God’s kingdom people and bringing God’s justice and righteousness to fruition in this world. So, what I want you to do is take a few moments as I’m speaking, and I want you to imagine your perfect life in Christ. What I’m asking is for you to picture what it would be like if your walk with Christ, if your work in the vineyard, was firing on all cylinders. Imagine your prayer life. Imagine your Bible study time. Imagine the poor and needy that you would help. Imagine your involvement at church. Imagine the people to whom you would witness and show Christ’s love. Imagine all of it. Imagine what your perfect life in Christ looks like, and while you hold that thought in your mind, I want to read one verse again.

What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it?

Isa 5:4God is asking Israel what more he could have done for them to enable them to be the people he intended them to be, and the answer, of course, is nothing. God had already given Israel everything that it needed to fulfill its vocation, and that’s even more true for us who have the gift of the Holy Spirit. So ask yourself, given that God has already done for you and given to you everything that you need to experience your perfect life in Christ, “What is it that keeps me from being the type of Christian I want to be?”

If God’s already given us everything that we need, then I suspect the answer is “us.” We’re the problem. We’re the ones keeping ourselves from experiencing that full life in Christ. He’s already given you everything that you need. He’s given you hours in the day. He’s given you his Holy Word in your own language. He’s given you this church as a wonderful community of committed disciples. He’s given you access to Bible studies and study Bibles and prayer groups and more opportunities to serve the needy and the lost than you could ever possibly imagine, both inside and outside the church, so what is it that keeps you from being the person you imagined moments ago? What is it that keeps you firing on all cylinders in your walk with Christ?

Is there some sin that’s weighing you down? If so, be done with it. Is there some hobby that consumes the hours in the day you should spend working for Christ and his Kingdom? If so, move on from it. Are you older, maybe feeling weaker and less able than you were before? Then fall to your knees (or sit comfortably on your couch) and pray. Pray for others by name. Pray for me. Pray for this church. Pray for our youth. Pray for God’s righteousness and justice to come to fruition in this world. If you’re young, use the time and energy God has given you to work the vineyard and bring God’s kingdom to this earth.

No matter what stage of life you are in, please understand this simple truth: it likely that the only thing keeping you from that life in Christ that you imagined is you. You make the decision each day about how you will spend your time, how you will spend your treasure, and how you will spend your talents. The problem is us. The problem is our selfishness and our infatuation with the world and its temptations. The problem is the mundanity of life that lulls us to sleep and keeps us from working in the vineyard despite how enthusiastically we might say yes on Sunday mornings.

You are what keeps you from that full life in Christ that you imagined. For his part, God has already given you everything you need to care for the vineyard of your life. The owner of the vineyard has given you all that you need, and he expects your life to bear good fruit.

Amen.

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Our parable this morning reminds me of the words of the Apostle Paul. We have been studying the opening chapter of Romans in our Adult Catechesis course, and in Romans 2, Paul says this:

​For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.

Romans 2:13 (ESV)In this section of Romans, Paul argues that Israel is under equal indictment alongside the Gentiles. Merely receiving and hearing the law was not enough to make someone righteous. Israel would have had to keep the law, but it had not.

The Song of the VineyardLikewise, in our parable, Jesus talks about two brothers whose father asks them to work in the vineyard. For context, Jesus is about to tell another parable about a vineyard; in this case, the vineyard is Israel, and the work of the vineyard is Israel’s vocation. Jesus may not mean the same thing here, but it is worth remembering that referring to Israel as a vineyard does not begin with Jesus but instead goes back to the prophet Isaiah.

‌Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.

Isa 5:1The Parable of the Two SonsEither way, back in Matthew, the vineyard owner tasks his two sons with working in the vineyard. One says yes, while the other says no. In a turn of events, however, the one who said no goes to work in the vineyard, while the one who said yes did not go. So Jesus asks,

Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him.

Matt 21:31–32What is going on here?In this section of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus is indicting the religious establishment, so we would do well to sit up and notice what he says. Jesus is concerned about people who give verbal assent to the kingdom of God but do not go out and follow Jesus in the way of righteousness. It is easy to stand up in church and say “yes” or “amen” to everything we are supposed to say in the liturgy, but saying that yes is not the same as going out those doors and doing the work of the kingdom. The one who does the will of God is not the one who gives his assent but then does not do the work, but rather the one who says no, changes his mind, and then goes out to do the work after all.

The liturgy can lull us into a sense of checking boxes. I have discussed this in a somewhat different context, but the metaphor also applies here. The liturgy has everything that we need for a healthy diet of Christianity. It is a well-balanced meal to which we give our assent by repeating the words and, most powerfully, by saying Amen.

And then it ends.

And then what?

The last words of the liturgy are “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord,” to which you all reply, “Thanks be to God.” You give thanks that God had fed you and called you to work in his vineyard for his glory and the good of others, but what happens when you leave here? I am not a prophet, so I cannot see through some spiritual window into your soul to know what is going on there, nor do I know what you do with the other hours of your week once you leave this place. What I do know, however, is that what matters is not the “yes” you say in this space but rather what you do when you walk out those doors. Only you know which of these brothers you are. Alternatively, maybe you feel like a brother who is not mentioned here. You say your yes, and you work. That is obviously the best option here, and I know many people like that in this congregation.

However, that may not be you. Maybe you say your yes on Sunday, and then you sit there Monday through Saturday wondering what exactly you do for the kingdom of God. If that is you, I want you to know that today is the day you can change your mind. You can do an about-face and work in the vineyard, too. Whether through this church or an outside parachurch organization, there is plenty of work to be done in this vineyard of the Kingdom of God.

Moreover, you do not need to work for the kingdom through a church or organization. You can do it yourself by simply loving others with self-sacrificial love in the name of Jesus. So, there is no reason to wait. If something is going on at church and you want to serve, great, but there are numerous opportunities to share and show the love of Jesus in our daily lives.

If you are asking yourself what this looks like, then I want you to take the insert in your bulletin with the Scripture lessons on it and look at the reading from Philippians 2 because Jesus is the model. Paul writes:

​Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Phil 2:3–8If you want to know what it means to work in the vineyard today, that is the model, and the result is glory.

‌Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name.

Phil 2:9However, before we get to the glory part, we must do more than say yes when we gather in church. We have to say yes and then go out and do the work of the vineyard, which means not acting with selfish ambition or conceit. It means treating others as more significant than yourself. It means caring for and looking after others as you look after your interests. It means emptying yourself, becoming a servant of all, and being obedient even to the point of death. This is the work of the vineyard, the work of the kingdom. To say yes to this calling in this space and then go outside those doors and fail to do the work is to be on the wrong side of this parable.

May we always be found doing the will of our Father, both in this space and outside our doors.

Amen.

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Like every passage in the Bible, in today’s Gospel reading, context is king. The first word in our reading is “for” because Jesus intends this parable to explain what he has said moments ago. Our English Bibles put a chapter break here, but that break is artificial. At the start of chapter 20, Jesus is continuing his discourse from the end of chapter 19.

Jesus, the Wealthy Young Man, and PeterAt the end of that chapter, a wealthy young man asks Jesus, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?”

And behold, a man came up to him, saying, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?”

Matthew 19:16 (ESV)We all know this story, and it ends with Jesus telling the young man to sell all he has and give it to people experiencing poverty. But…

When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

Matt 19:22​Jesus then tells the disciples that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven, and the disciples are astonished and ask, “Who then can be saved?”

When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?”

Matt 19:25They ask this question because of how they understand God’s blessing to work in the world, i.e., those whom God favors, he blesses with material wealth. So, if it is as impossible for a divinely blessed, rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven as it is to fit a camel through the eye of a needle, then who possibly could be saved? To be clear, Jesus presumably is referring not to all wealthy people but specifically to those who love their money more than him, like the rich young man.

Jesus then responds to their amazement by saying that with man, it is impossible, but with God, all things are possible. If this were our text for this Sunday, I would probably preach for 15 minutes about God as the initiator of human salvation and waxing eloquently about how the first move is always from God to us and never the other way around. However, I will save that for a different Sunday.

Peter seems to seize on this moment. He just heard Jesus tell the rich young man to sell all he had and give it to the poor, and then he would have treasure in heaven. So, if Jesus values poverty, particularly poverty by choice for the benefit of others, then Peter thinks to himself, “What about us? We must have all kinds of riches heading our way.” So he says to Jesus in verse 27:

Then Peter said in reply, “See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?”

Matt 19:27‌Jesus replies:

Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.”

Matt 19:28–29Peter is probably rubbing his hands. It may not be right now, but Jesus said he will be rich when it matters. And then Jesus says one more thing.

But many who are first will be last, and the last first.

Matt 19:30The Parable of the Laborers in the VineyardOur parable this morning is intended to explain this last verse. It explains why Jesus, as Peter and the others are already counting in their heads the hundredfold blessing they are going to receive, says, “But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

I will not rehearse this morning’s parable in detail since we all heard it minutes ago, and it is printed on the insert in your bulletin. Suffice it to say that the master of a house hires laborers at different times of the day to work in his vineyard. When it comes time to pay the workers, the master of the house tells his foreman to pay first those he had hired last. Even though they had not worked the entire day, those hired last received a full day’s payment. Those who had worked the entire day, seeing what those who had only worked part of the day had received, expect to receive even more. They, too, receive a full day’s payment. They are like Peter, looking around at others, like the rich young man who had walked away from Jesus, and they, too, are already counting the extra blessing they will receive. As we might expect, those who had worked the entire day complain, but Jesus replies,

But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’

Matt 20:13–15And then, referring back to the last verse of the previous chapter, he says,

So the last will be first, and the first last.”

Matt 20:16I want to make a few points regarding this parable and its context.

‌We are not the arbiters of God’s grace.First, we are not the arbiters of God’s grace. Some people are called into the church from a very early age. My children were baptized as infants. Some people do not repent and turn to Christ until their deathbed. Some people seem to us like good people, the kind of people we would expect to be recipients of God’s grace, while some people might seem to us to be the wrong kind of people, and while we might never say it out loud, internally, we might wonder if they are the right kind of people to receive God’s grace. Thanks be to God that we do not make these decisions about others or ourselves. God’s grace is for all people, and he is free to dispense it as he pleases without input from you or me. We do not earn it. We do not control it. We have no say in who receives it. God is the one who decides who receives his grace and when they receive it.

‌God’s grace is divinely equitable.Second, God’s grace is divinely equitable. That is to say, we might not think the way God dispenses grace is fair, but it is not up to us. The master in this parable treats everyone the same. The reward, which includes in context at least entrance into the kingdom of God, is not based on how long one has worked for God, how much one has sacrificed, or how much one thinks he or she deserves. Everyone in the story gets the same reward for their work regardless of how much work they have done. From our human perspective, we might question the fairness of an employer who pays everyone the same regardless of how much they work, but the fairness of God’s grace is not measured by our standards but by his.

‌Therefore, we are not to serve with rewards as our ultimate goal.Third, and as a result of the first two points, therefore, we are not to serve with rewards as our ultimate goal. This is a little tricky, but place yourself in the shoes of the vineyard workers for a moment. Why were they grumbling at the end of the day? They were grumbling because they expected to receive more. The issue wasn’t with the master of the house setting wrong expectations. The issue wasn’t that other people had been blessed beyond what was, by our reckoning, appropriate for the amount of work they had done. The problem was their expectations about what God would do for them because of their hard work, as it was for Peter.

Then Peter said in reply, “See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?”

Matt 19:27The call to follow Jesus, as we see in the immediately following scenes, is the call to serve others, even to the point of death. In what follows, Jesus predicts his death for the third time, and then the mother of James and John comes to him, presumably at their behest, and asks for her sons to sit at his right and left hand in his kingdom. You see, the disciples, throughout the beginning of this chapter and the end of the last one, are concerned about what they will get and what their reward will be. That is not what Jesus wants them to be doing.

Jesus does not want them focused on how many treasures they are storing up in heaven, which, in case it is not apparent, is simply another form of the struggle the rich young man had. That does not mean there are no rewards waiting for them just beyond the horizon. Jesus clearly says there are. Nevertheless, we are not the arbiters of God’s grace; despite what we may think, his grace is divinely equitable. When all things are sorted on the last day, we may very well be surprised when we see that the last, by our reckoning, were first by God’s, and vice versa. So, do not focus on what you are going to get. Instead, focus on serving. Focus on being as faithful to the task God has given you as possible, and trust that God will work it out in the end. And no matter what, as Jesus says, do not begrudge his generosity.

Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’

Matt 20:15​That generosity is our only hope.

Amen.

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IntroductionIn our Adult Catechesis course, the Story of the Bible, we began by talking about worldviews. Everyone has a worldview. Actually, you probably have several because worldviews aren’t typically consistent in any one person. Our worldview is how we make sense of the world. It’s basically the stories that we tell ourselves (stories that were first told to us by others, typically) about how the world works and our place in it. Our worldview determines how we find meaning, purpose, and value, which gives direction to our lives.

To think about our worldview, I proposed five questions:

Who are we?Where are we?When are we?What’s wrong?What’s the solution? For this morning, on the first Sunday of Advent, I want to think for a bit about that middle question.

‌When are we?In Romans 13, Paul is wrestling with this question. he has summarized all of human history down to two periods: one of dark and one of light, night and day. He says in verse 11, and you can see here how he’s wrestling with this question of “when are we?”:

Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.

Romans 13:11 (ESV)Then he says in verse 12:

The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.

Romans 13:12Part of being a Christian is recognizing when we are and living accordingly. We’ve divided the story of the Bible into five acts in our adult catechesis course, and part of the point of that is to help us understand that living biblically, or living appropriately within the story of the Bible, means recognizing where we are in that story. If we’re supposed to be in Act Five, but we’re living like we’re in Acts One through Four, we’re not going to be living rightly or living biblically. We have to know when we are.

Similarly, Paul is saying at a moment in history where the darkness that preceded the coming of Christ is far gone, and the new day that has dawned with his birth, death, resurrection, and ascension is shining its light on the world. And so we have to make a choice.

Do we want to live like people of the night or like people of the day?You see, most of us go through our lives believing these incredible truths about Jesus Christ and what he has done, about how the world has changed, is changing, and one day will change forever because of Jesus. But then what happens? What happens when we go back out these doors and into the world? For many of us, we live the new day hasn’t dawned. We live like it’s still nighttime. We live like Jesus didn’t come. And Paul is talking specifically about sins, but this where I want to jump over to Matthew 24 because the imagery there is a bit different.

Noah isn’t mentioned much in the New Testament, but he is mentioned here. The days of the coming of the Son of Man, a topic we won’t get into at the moment, is compared to the days of Noah.

For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

Matthew 24:37–39Whatever Jesus means by the coming of the Son of Man here in Matthew’s Gospel, his comparison to Noah isn’t about sin. It’s actually far more terrifying than that. Just ask yourself, based on Matt 24:38, what were the people doing before the flood came?

For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark,

Matthew 24:38To put that in other terms: they were getting on with life. Life was normal. Jesus isn’t talking about gross sin, which is certainly a danger to people of the light and antithetical to our claim that the world’s true light has come in Jesus Christ. He’s talking about the danger of normalcy.

‌The Danger of NormalcyI know this as well as anyone, so this is another one of those sermons that are an exercise in public self-indictment. I am always preaching to myself, and if it happens to help you all, that’s great too. It’s very easy to walk back out those doors and return to a life that, by all worldly and cultural definitions, would be a normal life. But there’s something dangerous about that normalcy, not the least of which is the fact that this normalcy is defined by our culture and not the kingdom of God.

But you know what time it is, brothers and sisters. You know that the hour has come for you to wake out of sleep. I think here of Hume awakening Kant from his dogmatic slumber. The sleep Paul refers to isn’t physical sleep. It’s one of the mind. The malaise we all feel when we are comfortable. It’s the repetition in our lives that lulls us to sleep and never once gives us the chance to ask the question:

Am I living like Christ and his kingdom have come to this world?Am I living like the new day has dawned, or am I living the same life I would be if Jesus had never come and there was no kingdom of God? This is the question I want you to wrestle with this morning.

‌What if Jesus hadn’t come?Would your life be any different than it is right now? If your honest answer to that question is, “I don’t think my life would be much different. I’d probably still have the same job, the same hobbies, and spend my time the same way,” then now is the time for you to wake out of sleep. For there is no important event in the history of your life or anybody else’s life other than the coming of Jesus Christ, which we anticipate in this Advent season. And if his coming is the most important event in your life, then you need to live like that is true.

Let us walk properly as in the daytime.

Romans 13:13You need to walk properly as in the daytime because that’s what time it really is, and when we live like people of the darkness, whether that’s by sinning or by being lulled back to sleep by the normalcy of our lives, by eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, our lives say to the world that the light of the world hasn’t come. That Christmas never happened. That there is no new day.

But that new day has come. With the birth, death, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord, a new day has dawned on this world. Much of the world is still in darkness. There is more light to come. But the light is here, and if call ourselves people who have seen that light, if we expect others to believe us and to see that light too, then we must live like it. We must wake out of sleep. We must cast off works of darkness and put on our Lord Jesus Christ, for our salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed, and when our Lord Jesus Christ comes again, he is bringing his salvation to those who walk in his light.

Amen.

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Christ the King SundayThis is, arguably, my favorite Sunday. Please remember, though, that I speak in hyperbole, so I reserve the right to call many other Sundays my favorite Sunday. But this, I think, really is my favorite Sunday besides Easter because on this Sunday, I get to confess as clearly and as loudly as I want to the most basic confession of the Christian faith:

‌Jesus Christ is LordYou can see this confession throughout the New Testament.

Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.

1 Corinthians 12:3 (ESV)For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.

2 Corinthians 4:5so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

​Philippians 2:10–11 This is the Christian confession in its most basic form. This is the Christian faith at the most fundamental level. And what worries me is that I think we get this wrong. We give lip service to it. Sure. Who’s not going to say this? What Christian is going to say, “Well, I’m not really sure if Jesus is Lord or not? I’m still kind of deciding. I’m weighing my options.” We all say, “Jesus Christ is Lord,” but often we say one thing with our words, and another with our lives.

‌Jesus Christ is LordLet me be abundantly clear. Nobody makes Jesus Lord except God the Father. You don’t make Jesus Lord of anything, including your life. He is Lord, and he is Lord of your life, and you can choose to submit to him or you can rebel. You can choose to serve him and his kingdom or you can choose to serve something and someone else and take your chances. But there shouldn’t be an ambiguity here. There’s no middle ground.

God isn’t calling you to dip your toes into the Christian faith. God isn’t calling you to see how it feels to be his disciple and then decide if it’s right for you or not. He is calling you to submit your life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, who is seated at the right hand of God as Lord of Heaven and earth, and Paul says that there:

For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

1 Corinthians 15:25–26Jesus Christ reigns now, and he is in the process of putting all his enemies under his feet, of bringing the whole created world into his eternal kingdom. And I get, generally speaking, two and half hours a week to remind you of this.

‌Two and a Half HoursLet’s do some math. There are 168 hours in a week. For approximately 50-60 hours of that week, you’re asleep, so let’s say there are 110 waking hours in a week. I know you have to work. I know you have to be with your family. I know you have all kinds of things that you have to do, and I’m not faulting you for any of it. But for most people, their engagement with the Christian faith only happens on Sundays. They come to worship. Maybe they come to Sunday School. And then that’s it. Two and half hours. Maybe less.

And what’s happening the rest of those waking hours… the other 107 waking hours of the week? It’s not just that we’re with family. It’s not just that we’re at work. It’s not just that we’re having recreational time. During those other 107 hours the world is bombarding us with other narratives, with other truth claims, with other priorities and values.

What does the statement, “Jesus Christ is Lord,” have to do with your life once you leave this place? The answer, obviously, is that is has everything to do with your life once you leave this place, but the reality is that for most Christians it doesn’t.

So I’m pleading with you. Pleading. If I have to get on my hands and knees, I will. Find ways to engage with your Christian faith every day of your life. There shouldn’t be a day that doesn’t begin in prayer. There shouldn’t be a day that doesn’t end in prayer. There shouldn’t be a day that doesn’t have some moment where you just stop and say, “God, I need you. I need your grace. I need you.”

There shouldn’t be a day that goes by without you engaging with the Word of God. I mean, seriously, what day of the week is it that we don’t need to hear from God? Is it Mondays? Is that the day we don’t need to hear God’s Word? No, we need to hear from God every day.

There shouldn’t be a day that goes by in which you don’t show the love of Christ to other people created in God’s image.‌

And why? Why do we need prayer in our lives every day? Why do we need God’s word in our lives every day? Why do we need to show the love of Christ and work for his kingdom in some small way every day?

‌Because Jesus Christ is LordAnd the second you walk out the door, it’s easy to forget that truth. It’s scary easy because almost everything outside this place is designed to make us forget it. The world is incredibly deceptive. It begs for your allegiance to things that aren’t Christ, and I get two and a half hours to beg you (if I have to) to go out from these doors and let the refrain repeat in your mind that Jesus Christ is Lord and nothing else. Let it repeat so loudly that you can’t hear the incessant radio and television commercials over it, that it blocks out the advertisements that try to tell you that there’s actually something else you need other than Jesus Christ, something else that will make your life complete and full and give it meaning. Let it repeat so loudly in your mind that it blocks out the politicians who promise if you only swear your allegiance to them and their agenda they will make the world a better place. Let it repeat so loudly in your mind that it blocks out all the external and internal voices telling you that you aren’t good enough, that you aren’t worthy of love, that you aren’t special. You are because Jesus Christ made you that way, and he is Lord, and anyone who tells you anything else about yourself is lying to you, even if it’s your own voice.

I cannot control what you do when you go from this place. I cannot control the voices you listen to, the books you read, or the way you spend your time.

‌Jesus Christ is LordOn Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, Jesus Christ is Lord. And if you’re saying, “I want that life… I want that life where my mind is constantly focused on Christ and his kingdom,” now is a great time to start.

‌New Year’s ResolutionsNext Sunday, the season of Advent begins. Advent marks the start of the new church year. With the secular calendar, we make New Year resolutions. I’m asking you (begging you) to the same with the liturgical calendar. You’ve got a week. Spend it in prayer, thinking about what you want your life in Christ to look like. Do you want to commit to reading your Bible every day? Do you want to commit to praying every morning and evening? Do you want to commit to some new ministry or project to advance the kingdom of God in this world? Whatever it is, right it down, commit to it, and then start. Just start. If you miss a day, no big deal. Continue the next day. Build into your life habits, things that you do every day, habitually, that reflect this most basic Christian confession: Jesus Christ is Lord.

‌Jesus Christ is LordGo home and ask yourself what that sentence means. Not just when you’re here, but when you’re not here. When you’re at work. When you’re with your family. When you’re with your friends. When you’re alone. Ask yourself what it means that Jesus is Lord in those moments too, and then build into your life the habits that reflect that basic, but life changing truth.

Amen.

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Our reading in 2 Thessalonians is a striking and powerful indictment of idleness in the early Christian Church.

If anyone is not willing to work let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not just at work but busybodies. Take note of that person and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed.

2 Thessalonians 3:10-11, 14It appears that those who don’t contribute are rebuked and ostracized. This appears to be harsh on the surface. OR IS IT?

Paul is working to create a new kind of family in the creation of a new Christian culture.

This was a new orientation, a new King requiring allegiance and worship. It was not like what was demanded by Caesar. This King gives unending love.

Thessalonica was one of the first Christian family communities, and loyalty overrode many considerations.

Resources were pooled. St. Stephen, one of the first deacons, is a great example of this occurring in the early church in the care of widows and food distribution. He created the first food bank.

Labor is needed for the community to grow.

The creative energy of all is required for the Church to survive.

These ideas were revolutionary. The foundation of society was shaken. The new Christian family grew. It grew and grew. A Jewish reference describes it as a new root transplanted to new soil and watered from a different spring.

If you belonged to it, you did not belong to the outside world anymore. Everything changed. You changed. The new family was not at ease with the pagan or traditional Jewish culture and establishment anymore.

Once you discover a better way, it is hard to go back. This created problems for the neighbors you interacted with.

In the first decades of existence, this led to persecution by pagans, by the government, and by the Jewish community who did not accept Jesus as Lord and Savior.

The new community was viewed as subversive. They were labeled as different, with secret vices as the drinking of blood.

Christ would not give homage to the emperor, and Christians resisted doing so.

Imagine how a traditional Jewish family felt when a family member became a Christian. They felt betrayed and often shunned or ostracized the person.

You may lose your job due to your new beliefs. Your boss may think that it is bad for business. This still exists today. Dennis and I were in Japan and attended a Methodist Church while there. They were a self-contained community. Often working for each other as it was hard to maintain employment with the non-Christian world around them.

In the early existence of the church, it was commonly believed that Christians subverted the normal social and cultural life of the empire.

A young Pharisee named Saul was so enraged with hatred that he gained the authority to attack and harm Christians. He traveled widely, seeking them out. Often citizens informed authorities about Christians and where they lived. St. Stephen was murdered for his unwavering beliefs and testimonial to his accusers. He was our first documented martyr for the faith.

So back to Paul and our Thessalonian verses. Paul (the reformed Saul) demands that there is no idleness in the new family. All talent, energy, and resources are needed to succeed. Jesus and the Holy Spirit are working to inspire and hold the new family together. The new community is given new life and new tasks.

Let’s ask ourselves why Paul is doing this. Why? Why? Is he trying to strengthen the new family by demanding adherence to the way? Is he trying to protect the new Church from relapsing into its former lifestyle?

The new Christian structure and community give strength to face trouble and persecution. It provides family solidarity. It provides a model that peers into an uncertain future. We trust in God, even when trouble surrounds us. When one of us suffers, we all suffer.

Paul later gives the idle Christian a road back. We are to treat them not as enemies but as brothers to admonish, correct, and accept back into the fold.

Do not regard him as an enemy but warn him as a brother.

2 Thessalonians 3:16Paul himself was given a way back to Jesus Christ. He intervenes out of love.

In Luke 21, our Gospel reading for the day, it tells us that trouble and persecution don’t end. It forewarns the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. It holds throughout history to today. Jesus’s words guide many believers down throughout time.

And they asked him, teacher when will these things be and what will be the sign when these things are about to take place?

Luke 21:7In verse 9, Jesus tells us, and when you hear of wars and tumults, do not be terrified, for these things must first take place, but the end will not be at once. Then he said to them, nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes and, in various places, famines and pestilences. (We know all about pestilence after experiencing COVID-19, but I digress.) Let’s continue: And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven. But before all this, they will lay hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up in the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake.

Jesus in Luke tells us that we continue to be persecuted as the end will not be at once.

Today we see persecution around the world. In China, as in our recent adult bible study taught us in the book, “Faith in the Wilderness.”

Christians in Myanmar

The Coptics in Egypt

Baghdad

The United States of America: Our secular world minimizes our beliefs. In some circles, the Bible is labeled as hate speech. Two weeks ago, three attacks on church buildings occurred, including a Cardinal residence in New York City, and all were vandalized. On election day, a church was burned to the ground in Jackson, Mississippi. The list goes on. All you have to do is watch the news.

So, what do we do now? Right now.

Fidelity to Jesus Adhere to our Christian way of lifeDisplay firmness and faithfulness in our beliefsAn ongoing investment in one anotherLove The greatest of these is love.

We are a part of a network of Christians throughout the world. We support missions locally and around the globe. We show charity to those who are unable to care for themselves. We provide an example of love to the outside world. When we do this, we can earn the respect of others. It can bear witness and show others that fear of Christians is unfounded. The world is watching. The world is watching our actions carefully.

Our St. Dunstan’s family is a community that supports each other in good times and bad. We often pool our resources and come to the aid of our own.

Meals delivered in times of personal crisisHelp in moving a refrigeratorHelp a member find a new place to liveFinancial assistance for an unexpected expense due to tragedy It gives converts an example to follow and a way to find wholeness and oneness with the group. Family. We are family. We are fortunate today. If you become a new Christian, you have generations of experience from grandparents, parents, siblings, friends, saints in the church, and experienced clergy to rely on for help. You have over 2000 years of tradition and learning to guide you. The Bible is available throughout the world in many languages. In the early Christian community, it was so new that often there was confusion and a lack of human leadership. Without the Holy Spirit, it would not have survived.

I challenge you to find your place in this St. Dunstan’s Community. Find a service or mission and pour your heart into it. Pray, assess your gifts, and figure out what you are drawn to. Try something new. Bring a new project to the table, and don’t be afraid to think big. Serve out of love and as a result of your love for Jesus Christ.

Paul in Thessalonians encourages us to endure to the end, until Christ returns.

In the meantime, we work.

We work to spread the Gospel.

We love.

We wait.

Lord Bless our Church family.

Lord Bless our worldwide Christian family.

Give us the strength to endure.

May God find us worthy.

Amen

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YesterdayYesterday, I started my morning by checking my calendar. Now I’m pretty bad at reaching out to people on their birthdays, but I’m trying to get better. I have started adding birthdays to contact information, and I’m trying to reach out to people on their special day. I’m still awful at it, but I’m trying to improve. Yesterday, my phone alerted me of a birthday. It was Chuck Jaeger’s birthday. He would have been 72.

Every death we’ve had at this church since I started here has been hard for me, but some more than others. I took Chuck’s particularly hard. He was kind, loving, never asked for anything, and as generous as he could be.

I’ve been thinking about my dad a lot too. None of you got a chance to know him at all. He moved down here shortly after we did, but he was in rehab or the hospital until he passed away. My dad loved the Miami Dolphins. We had season tickets for as long as I could remember, and even if I had upset him and he was angry with me, I always knew I could get him to talk to me if I just started talking about the Dolphins. The reason I’ve been thinking about him lately is because the Dolphins are doing well, and for most of my life, even after I left home, if there was news about the Fins or something going on, he’d be the first person I’d call. And then, five years ago, that stopped. I couldn’t call him anymore.

I don’t understand how people can go through life thinking that this is all there is, that people who are of infinite value to us (how do I put a value on my father, my mother, my wife, my kids?) can be here one day and gone the next, and that’s it.

Truthfully, most people don’t actually believe that. Modern philosophers talk about the haunting of our world. We thought we closed off the roof and could make sense of the world purely in terms of immanence. We thought we had cut off transcendence, but now we’ve found that the space is haunted. That voices call out to us from the dark. That we can feel a presence there that we can’t explain.

All Saints’ DayIn Christian theology, we have a term for this: it’s called the Communion of Saints, and it’s what we celebrate today on All Saints’ Day.

Those who have died are not gone, and we’ve had many pass away in the past five years. The collect begins: “Almighty God, you have knit together your elect into one communion and fellowship in the mystical Body of your Son.”

I love that language. We have been knit together, we who are alive today and the saints who have preceded us. We have been knit together in the body of Christ.

We are one in Christ with all those who have gone before us. My dad is not gone. Chuck is not gone. The others we have lost this year and in previous years are not gone. We are still knit together with them in the body of Christ. We are still one with them. They are not far from us. They’re very near.

The Body of ChristBut, of course, All Saints’ Day is about more than merely being united with those who have gone before us. Sometimes Paul’s language can be a little difficult to unravel, but I want us to look at what he says in our reading from Ephesians this morning.

having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might

Ephesians 1:18–19 (ESV)He speaks in verse 18 of “the hope to which he has called you, that is, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and the immeasurable greatness of his power towards us who believe.”

Paul’s not listing different things. They’re all the same. Our hope, the riches of his inheritance, and the greatness of his power are all the same thing, and Paul says that they are going to happen according to the working of his great might

that he worked 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 one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Ephesians 1:20–23There’s so much theology here it’s difficult to untangle it all, but what Paul is saying is that the hope of all the saints is that on the last day, God will do for us what he has already done for Jesus Christ. But this is our hope, not merely because God has said it is, but because with all the saints, we are one with Christ in his body, his resurrected body.

When Paul says that the church, with saints past and saints present, is the body of Christ, he isn’t speaking merely metaphorically. This is why the collect speaks of the body of Christ as “mystical.” When Paul speaks of the body of Christ, he isn’t saying merely, “the church is like a body.” He’s saying, “the church is spiritually and mystically connected with Christ in such a way that we are his physical presence here on earth, and though, like his body, we may be broke, God will raise us up by the same power by which he raised Jesus from the dead, seated him at his right hand, and gave him the name that is above every name. It is by that same power that he will raise us up, and not just us, but us with all the saints, with Chuck, with my Dad, with all the saints who have gone before us, and he will do this because we are Christ’s body, and the Gospel says that God raised Christ’s body from the dead. He did this for Christ on the first Easter morning, and he will do this again for all the saints on that last great day.

Amen.

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Preacher: Fr. Lucas Dalgelish

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Preacher: Dcn. LJ Figueroa

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On occasion, every priest will have something on his mind that he would like to communicate with his parish, but the Sunday lectionary doesn’t exactly agree. The readings point in one direction, while the priest wants to go another. Today is not one of those Sundays. In fact, before even looking at the lectionary, I had already planned to spend some time at our quarterly meeting talking about prayer, and if you were paying attention, that was the theme of the parable which we heard in our Gospel reading this morning.

Sometimes we are left to wonder what exactly a parable might mean, but not with this parable. Luke tells us from the start what Jesus intends by this parable.

Luke 18:1 (ESV)

And [Jesus] told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.

I will not spend any time this morning digging into the parable of the persistent widow. Suffice it to say that if you look for analogies within the parable, you end up making God the unjust judge, which should signal to us that looking for allegorical analogies in the parables might not be the best reading strategy. It might work in some parables, but certainly not in all of them.

The point of the parable is that the woman comes to the unjust judge every day demanding justice, and eventually, because of her persistence, the unjust judge acquiesces. What’s going on here is an analogy, just not an allegorical one. The Jewish rabbis widely use a form of argument known as:

Qal Va-HomerQal Va-Homer means “light to heavy” or “minor to major.” This type of argumentation reasons, “if the lesser has this or that property, then the major must undoubtedly have it.” In this case, the argument works like this. If an unjust judge can be swayed by the persistence of the widow, how much more so can God our Father be swayed by the persistent prayers of his people?

Or let me give a more personal example. I’ll probably pay for this later, but that’s ok. I know you all think Anna and Joshua are perfect angels, but sometimes they do act up. I know. It’s shocking. And when they do, one of the forms of discipline we use in our house is to turn off the internet on their devices. Now let me tell you what happens when we do this. It doesn’t happen immediately, but eventually, because the kids know I’m the keeper of all things internet-related, they come to me, like the persistent widow, and they beat me down by their pleading to have the internet back.

Usually, I stay strong for a little bit, but eventually, because I’ve got work to do or just want to relax, and I can’t do either with those two voices begging their hearts out for their devices to work again, I’ll turn the internet back on so that they’ll stop bothering me. And you all know how stubborn I can be. This overcoming of something I’ve decided by their constant pleading is not easily accomplished, but eventually, as Luke says of the unjust judge, they beat me down. Luke 18:5 ESV

yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’ ”

And as funny as this might sound, that’s the attitude we should have toward God when we think of prayer. Not because he’s the unjust judge or a stubborn father, but because if an unjust judge and a stubborn father can be swayed by continual pleading, how much more so our heavenly Father who loves us and wants to give us all good things.

Our Quarterly MeetingNow, about today. We are obviously having a meeting today, hence this combined service. This is not a decision-making meeting. This will be an information-providing meeting. Your vestry and various committees have been thinking about and praying over the recommendation of Horizons Stewardship. The executive summary that Horizons provided to us will be made available to all of you before the meeting, and Jimmy’s going to talk through it and give you all an update about where we stand currently.

There are two goals for this meeting. The first is to provide you all with the information we received. We don’t want anyone to feel like anything is being done in the dark or in the shadows. I have enough of that in my life currently, and we’re certainly not going to do that here. But the second goal relates directly to our reading this morning. I’ve asked you all before, and I’m asking you all again, to please be praying about the future of our church. Not because our church is in jeopardy but because we want to make sure that in every decision, the big and small, we are seeking the Lord’s will and asking both for his Holy Spirit to lead us and for God to give us the faith to walk wherever the Spirit leads.

I hope it goes without saying that I expect you to be praying whether I ask you to or not. Prayer is part of being a disciple of Jesus Christ, and if you feel like you don’t know how to pray or if you’re struggling in your prayer life, I would encourage you to come talk to me or talk to some of our prayer warriors, and we can talk to you about prayer and how to get started and how to grow deeper in this beautiful time with God. However, while it’s my expectation that all of you will be praying whether I invite you to or not, what I haven’t done well is consistently encourage you and direct you to resources about praying for our church. A couple of months ago, Mary Lou Hayes created a three-page document with scripture verses and prayers for our church. We printed. I hope all of you took it home. I hope all of you are using it. In case you’re not, I’ve printed it again, and I’m stapling it to the executive summary you all will receive later because those two documents go hand in hand.

I want to quickly bullet point each of the petitions Mary Lou invites us to pray in this document:

Pray that our entire congregation would be deeply committed to seeking God in prayer.

Pray that our church body will worship, adore, and praise God in spirit and truth.

Pray that our church members would dedicate themselves and their families to becoming mature disciples of Jesus Christ.

Pray for our Clergy and Vestry Members as they lead and guide our church and seek God’s direction for St. Dunstan’s.

Pray for guidance, wisdom, and discernment as we make decisions regarding the facility and location of St. Dunstan’s.

Pray for unity of purpose within our church body.

Frankly, I was going to make my own document for us to pray through, but why? This nails it. These are exactly what we should be praying for our church, and I am asking you to take it home with you and make it a part of your prayer life.

Prayer and FastingIn fact, I’m going to ask even more of you. I’m going to ask you to join me not just in prayer but in setting aside one day a week as a special day for prayer and fasting – one day a week, not forever, but from now until November 17, which is the date of our November vestry at which your vestry will have to make some important decisions.

Now, to be clear, fasting is not expected of anyone for whom it would endanger their health, and traditionally, fasting does not mean full abstinence from food and water. Roman Catholics, for example, say this:

When fasting, a person is permitted to eat one full meal, as well as two smaller meals that together are not equal to a full meal.

I’m not going to dictate to you how you fast, but I am asking you to join me in setting aside every Friday, between now and November 17th, as a day of fasting and prayer, specifically prayer for our church and for wisdom and faith for our leadership. I hope you’ll use Mary Lou’s handout, but even if you don’t, remember, as funny as it might sound, when you’re coming to God with these petitions, these requests, I want you to remember Anna and Joshua pleading for the internet on their devices to be turned back on, because if their stubborn, grumpy father can be beaten down by their constant pleading and the desperate looks on their cute faces, then surely our Heavenly Father, who wants all good things for his people and the best for this church, will hear our prayers and answer them.

Amen.

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Give Praise to GodOur Gospel reading is a familiar story. There’s nothing particularly under the surface here, no secret meaning revealed by the Greek New Testament or by diving into Jewish backgrounds. What we have, rather, is a simple story of Jesus healing ten lepers while he is on his way to Jerusalem, and instead of all ten returning back to him to praise God, only one does, a Samaritan, whom Jesus calls a “foreigner.”

Luke says that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem when he was met by 10 lepers who stood at a distance and called to him. The call him by name, and then they call him “master,” but note this isn’t the word kyrios. The word ἐπιστάτης, here translated as ‘master’ is typically an administrative title, but I don’t think we should make too much of that.

The lepers lift up their voice and cry out,

“Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.”

Luke 17:13 (ESV)And Luke writes,

When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed.

Luke 17:14All ten are healed, but only one leper returns.

Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks.

Luke 17:15–16And then Luke adds:

Now he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”

Luke 17:16–18Luke emphasis, quite clearly, is on the attitude on the outside. Those outside the people of Israel are responding appropriately to Jesus while those on the inside are not. And there are a whole host of directions that we could go from this point, but what I want us to reflect on this morning is this:

Why didn’t the nine return and give praise to God?

Keep in mind as you reflect on this question that these are the people of God. Not outsiders. Not pagans. These nine are people of God, just like you and me, and when God intervenes in their life, they don’t return to Jesus and give him thanks. And we can make some guesses about why they don’t come back. Maybe they’re doing what they were told. Jesus didn’t command them to make sure they came back to him to give him thanks, he said, “Go and show yourself to the priest.” Maybe that’s what they did. Maybe they were so focused on being obedient and doing the right thing, that they forgot to come back to Jesus.

Or maybe they were so excited about what had happened that thanking Jesus simply slipped their mind. These are people who were outcasts in their society, separated and cut off from their family and friends, and suddenly they are healed, and maybe their first thought is to run back to their family and friends and share the news of their healing with them. Maybe in their excitement they forgot to thank Jesus.

Or maybe Jesus was such a controversial figure at this point that they didn’t want to be associated with him. They got what they wanted from Jesus, and now that they’ve got it, they’re going to keep him at an arm’s distance.

All of these are just guesses. Luke doesn’t tell us why the nine don’t return, and I suspect this is left open-ended in this way because it invites us to reflect on all the times in our own lives where we have failed to come back to Jesus and give him thanks. It’s easy for us to give thanks for the big things, which is what makes the nine lepers failure to do so so startling. If we got a clean bill of health from the doctor, like when the doctor called me and told me they had cut all the cancer out of my back, for many of us it would be our natural reaction to give thanks to God for this healing we had received, for the clean bill of health.

But in Christian theology, we don’t say that only the big things in our lives come from God. We say that everything we have, every breath we take, every meal we eat, every dollar in our bank account, everything comes from God. In fact, I hope you all are paying attention, because we say this practically every single Sunday.

The celebrant prays:

Yours, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for everything in heaven and on earth is yours; yours is the Kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as Head above all. All things come from you, O Lord, And of your own have we given you.

This prayer follows immediately after the bread and wine are placed on the table, and they are part of the people’s offering to God, but this is also typically the time in which the offering plate is passed around, something we don’t do here, but it’s meant to signify that your gift to the church is (1) a means of giving thanks to God for all that he has done and (2) an act of giving back to God what was already his because all things, everything we have, comes from him.

This is why Paul can say in Ephesians that Christians should be:

giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,

Ephesians 5:20Of course we know this, but practicing it is a different matter.

Genuine thankfulness, the kind that results in praise to God for everything we have in our lives, begins with the understanding that everything we have is from God. There is nothing good in your life that doesn’t come from God the Father and isn’t redeemed by God the Son. So our attitude as Christians, once we wrap our heads around this thought, ought to be one of constantly coming back to God, and giving him thanks in the name of Jesus for everything good that we have in our lives.

There are many reasons why we might not do this always and for everything. Maybe we’re too busy dutifully going about our lives to come back to Jesus and give thanks. Or maybe there’s so many exciting things going on in our lives that it’s hard to remember to pause, take a breath, and give him thanks. Maybe we’re ashamed to say his name in public. Or maybe we don’t truly believe that everything we have comes from him. We think we’ve earned it. We think it’s ours by rite.

Whatever the reason, we don’t want to be like the nine lepers who went on with their life healed but never came back to Jesus to give him thanks. For lots of people get healed in this world, and lots of people have breath, and food, and enough money to live off of. God’s grace is common. It extends to everyone. But notice what Jesus says to the one who returned:

And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”

Luke 17:19But the word for rise is the word for resurrection. And the words for “made you well” are literally “saved you.” All ten were healed. All ten were made well. But only one was saved that day, and only one heard Jesus tell him to rise, and that was the one who came back and gave him thanks.

Amen.

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At the start of his most influential letter, Paul says this: Romans 1:16 ESV

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

And then he says:

For in it the righteousness of God (δικαιοσύνη γὰρ θεοῦ) is revealed from faith (ἐκ πίστεως) for faith (εἰς πίστιν), as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

Romans 1:17 (ESV)This quotation is from our Old Testament reading this morning. Paul is quoting Hab 2:4, and given the way in which Paul quotes this passage here and in Galatians 3, its significance for Paul is obvious.

But what does it mean?Often it’s suggested that Paul isn’t really aware of the OT context for many of his quotations. In this case, it suggests that Paul is aware that this particular phrase exists somewhere in the Old Testament, and so he uses it because it helps him make his point. If that’s the case, then there’s no point in looking at Habakkuk for Paul’s understanding of faith because Paul doesn’t have Habakkuk in mind. To find out what Paul means, we only need to look at what Paul has said.

However, as some of you know, I am not convinced that Paul is as contextually unaware as some scholars say he is. I think he knew his “Bible” well, and I think you should too. Plus, Habakkuk is our reading this morning and not Romans 1, so I want to look at what Habakkuk meant when he wrote the words…

… the righteous shall live by his faith.

Habakkuk 2:4b (ESV)The book of Habakkuk was written sometime near the fall of Assyria and the rise of Babylon, so probably between 640-615 BCE, so about 2600 years ago. At the start of the book, the prophet makes a complaint to the Lord. He wants to know why the Lord permits violence and iniquity even among the people of God. Habakkuk is a bit sparse on historical details, so we’re left to fill in the blanks a bit, but it appears that in 1:2-4 the prophet complains that God’s people are not who they are supposed to be God continues to allow it. The people’s sin goes unchecked, the law is useless, and there is no justice, or more precisely, what justice there is is perverted.

So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted.

Habakkuk 1:4 (ESV)God’s answer to this complaint is shocking. It spawns Habakkuk’s second complaint. God says,

“Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told.

Habakkuk 1:5 (ESV)Knowing what God is about to tell Habakkuk, I can picture the prophet going, “Uh oh. ‘Even if I told you, you wouldn’t believe me’? That doesn’t sound good.” And it’s not good. God says, in answer to the people of my people, just like I raised up the Assyrians to judge Israel, so now I am raising up the Chaldeans to judge Judah.

For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, who march through the breadth of the earth, to seize dwellings not their own. They are dreaded and fearsome; their justice and dignity go forth from themselves. Their horses are swifter than leopards, more fierce than the evening wolves; their horsemen press proudly on. Their horsemen come from afar; they fly like an eagle swift to devour. They all come for violence, all their faces forward. They gather captives like sand. At kings they scoff, and at rulers they laugh. They laugh at every fortress, for they pile up earth and take it. Then they sweep by like the wind and go on, guilty men, whose own might is their god!”

Habakkuk 1:6-11 (ESV)To which I can hear Habakkuk reply, “You’re going to do what? through whom?” Guilty men? Whose own might is there God? That’s who you’re going to use to solve the problem of violence and iniquity in the land? But that can’t be God.

Are you not from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O Lord, you have ordained them as a judgment, and you, O Rock, have established them for reproof.

Habakkuk 1:12 (ESV)You’re from everlasting. You’re Holy. You’re my God.

You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he?

Habakkuk 1:13 (ESV)Notice that phrase, “more righteous than he.” How can God use an unrighteous, godless (in terms of serving the true God), unholy people like the Chaldeans to judge his people, who might be bad, but certainly, they are more righteous than the Chaldeans. How can you, a holy God, permit this?

Habakkuk continues for a bit, saying some more bad things about the Chaldeans, and he uses a metaphor that we might call fishers of people, but instead of fishing for the people’s salvation, the Chaldeans are capturing the whole world in their fishing nets and devouring them. Remember that the prophet said that their own might is their God. Now he says,

(the singular he here refers to the Chaldeans as a whole or possibly to their king)

Therefore he sacrifices to his net and makes offerings to his dragnet; for by them he lives in luxury, and his food is rich. Is he then to keep on emptying his net and mercilessly killing nations forever?

Habakkuk 1:16–17 (ESV)If God will use unrighteous people to bring judgment on the righteous, what then? Will God let the unrighteous reign forever? Will he let them devour nations and cities and towns forever? Will they live by their might and power and privilege and prestige forever? No. For God answers the prophet and declares that judgment will come upon the unrighteous, but not yet, for the vision of that judgment still awaits its appointed time.

For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.

Habakkuk 2:3 (ESV)The one who lives like the Chaldeans, God says, like people who trust in their power, their privilege, their prestige, and their prosperity, those people are puffed up. Their souls are not right within them.

“Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith.

Habakkuk 2:4 (ESV)But in contrast, the righteous shall live by faith, which means, in the midst of a world full of sin, in the midst of a world full of violence and wickedness, in the midst of a world where God can even use the unrighteous to judge the righteous, that God’s people, the righteous, must always live in hope of the day when God will set the world to rights.

For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.

Habakkuk 2:3 (ESV)And in case you can’t see the punchline here, that vision, that appointed time for which the righteous must wait faithfully, that day is announced in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the announcement of the death and resurrection of Jesus in which God has judged the powers of this world and begun to set the world to writes so that one day the vision of Habakkuk will come true and the earth…Habakkuk 2:14 ESV

For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

Not just filled with the glory of God, for the glory of God is always there. The angels sing of it. We say it and sing of it. But knowledge… recognition… of that glory by the whole world. Ask yourself, how do waters cover the sea? They can’t be separated, and that’s the point. A day is coming when the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as waters cover the sea. A day is coming when God’s righteousness will stand forth, and all the wickedness in this world will be judged, and all the world will be turned upside like Mary said it would, and to live by faith, as Habakkuk says and as Paul says, is to wait in hope for that day, a day which has already begun in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.

Habakkuk 2:3 (ESV)It may feel like that day will never come, but it will, and to wait for it is to live by faith.

Amen.

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As many of you know, the thing I like to talk the least about is money. I’m happy to stand here and ask for help when one of our brothers or sisters is in need, but talking about the offering or church finances publically makes me terribly uncomfortable. I was having a conversation with the Wardens, who concluded that one of us needed to stand up one day and say something about our finances this year, and I flat out said to them, “It’s not going to be me.” I say this because, after being jokingly told last week that I should have preached on the Gospels, I fully intended to do so this morning, and if you were paying attention, you already know my problem. This morning’s reading is the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. Ok, so maybe another week preaching from the epistle won’t be bad, and then you get to verse 17:

As for the rich in this present age …

1 Timothy 6:17 (ESV)And our OT reading and our Psalm are no help either, so it would appear that the lectionary has forced me into a corner, and I have no option but to preach my way out. So, here we go.

The Bible is full of hyperbole. I appreciate this because I speak hyperbolically all the time. Something is either the best or the worst. It’s either my favorite, or it’s terrible. There is very little in between. I do not have a list of my top 10 favorite movies, but there are about ten dozen movies about which I have said, “It’s my favorite movie.” If we don’t recognize hyperbole for what it is, we can misunderstand what someone is saying, and this is especially consequential when it comes to the Biblical text.

Jesus says in Luke 18:22

When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”

Luke 18:22The church has always interpreted this type of language as hyperbolic. It was meant to push the rich young ruler and expose something in his heart. It has never been commonly interpreted as a commandment for all of the people of God to follow. Instead, more commonly, what we find for the people of God is instruction like we heard from 1 Timothy 6 this morning:

As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.

1 Timothy 6:17–19That is to say that the Bible doesn’t condemn people for having wealth but does charge them not to set their hope on their finances but instead to set their hope on God because he is the one who provides. And those with means are to use this gift for good, to be rich in good works, as Paul says, and to be generous and ready to share so that they are investing in eternity and not merely in their retirement. So that’s one thing the Bible repeatedly says about money. If you have, use it to do good, and don’t set your hope on it.

But there’s something else the Bible frequently says about money and wealth, and at first glance, it’s a little hard to square with what the Bible says elsewhere about using our wealth for good. The Bible is unambiguous in its belief that the new covenant brings with it a great reversal in which the high, mighty, and rich will be thrown down, and the poor and lowly will be elevated.

Mary sings of it:

He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.

Luke 1:51–53Empty.

Jesus teaches on it:

And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

Luke 6:20And in the next verse:

“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied. “Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.

Luke 6:21There is a reversal coming upon the world in which the poor and hungry now will inherit the kingdom of God while the rich are sent away empty. That’s what’s going on in our parable this morning as well. And please, remember, this is a parable. I know far too many people who want to draw their ideas of the afterlife from this parable, which you shouldn’t because it’s a parable, but also because this story is common across the ancient near east. This tale is not unique to Jesus. This is not his special insight into life after death. This is a commonly told story that illustrates a future reversal for the haves and the have-nots.

So, how does all this square with Paul what Paul says in 1 Timothy, where he doesn’t say, “hey, if you have money, you better give it all away so that when the great reversal happens, you’ll be poor and inherit the kingdom of God.” Since that’s not what Paul says, how do we reconcile the two?

I want to get a bit outside our readings and solve this dilemma with a phrase used elsewhere in the Gospels. Jesus is referred to in Matt 11 and Luke 7 as “a friend of tax collectors and sinners.” Jesus was known, and even the most critical of NT scholars won’t deny this, for being a friend to all the wrong kinds of people, in particular, sinners, the poor, the needy, the outcast, and the sick. This is to say that when the great reversal comes, God won’t be checking your bank account to see which side you’re on. Jesus is going to side with the poor. Jesus is going to side with the hungry. Jesus is going to side with the stranger and the outcast, and even the imprisoned because he has chosen to be on their side. He has chosen to be their friend, to identify with them to such an extent that he can say things like this:

For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’

Matthew 25:42–45That’s how much Jesus identified with the least of these in the world, and that’s our way out of this problem. Jesus doesn’t generally command his people to sell all that they have and give it away to the poor. But he does say, or technically his mother says, that there is a reversal coming upon this world, and the hungry will be filled with good things, and the rich will be sent away empty. So… pick a side. No one is asking you to give up every dollar that you have. But Jesus does insist, for your own benefit, that you choose to identify with all the wrong kinds of people. Be known as the friend of the poor. Be known as the friend of the hungry. Be known as the friend of the stranger and the sick and the imprisoned. Be known even as the friend of sinners. Because the reversal is coming when Jesus comes again to judge the living and the dead, and he won’t be asking to see your bank statement. He’ll be asking which side you chose. He’ll be asking with whom you identified most in the world. Was it the rich, the powerful, the influential? Or was it the poor, the hungry, and the sick? Be sure to choose the right side.

Amen.

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I want to talk about prayer this morning, specifically prayer for our leaders. Paul, in our reading from 1 Timothy, finally gets to the body of his letter. All of chapter one is essentially an introduction and greetings, but now with chapter two, Paul moves into the formal body of his letter, and he says,

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

1 Timothy 2:1–4 (ESV)This is why we pray every Sunday for our leaders. We do not have a favorite political party here at this church, and you will never see a politician on this property giving a campaign speech so long as I have anything to say about it because when we are here, we serve Christ and his Kingdom and I pray that continues when you walk outside those doors. But we will pray for our leaders, whether we think they’re doing a good job or not, because, Paul says, this is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior.

I remember when I was at All Souls, there was this sweet older woman who was scheduled to read the prayers of the people on the Sunday after President Obama had won the 2008 election. And she walked to that lectern, read through the prayers of the people, prayed for George our President, and then said, “and … ughhh…. for Barack our President-elect.” I’ve told that story before, typically as an example of someone letting their politics influence what’s happening at church, but there’s something to be said for the fact that she still prayed for him.

I am aware that merely bringing up politics at all, much less in a sermon, is like playing with matches near a bunch of kindling. But I think it has to be said that whether you’re on the right or on the left, whether you’re an R or a D or something in between, our natural instinct is to pray for our guy, whoever that is. But what Paul exhorts us to do, not just on Sunday, but every day, is to pray for our leaders, whether we like them or not. Ironically, if we don’t like them and think they’re doing a bad job, that’s even more reason that we should be praying for them and lifting them up to God in prayer, intercessions, and thanksgiving, but instead, I think our typical response is ughhh.

And remember, if we use a conservative date of the mid-60s for the writing of 1 Timothy, when Paul writes these words, Nero is the emperor. The Roman historian Suetonius says that Nero burned part of Rome to make room for his Golden House, and another Roman historian Tacitus says that when Nero needed a scapegoat for the fire, he blamed and then persecuted Christians. He is even said to have burned them alive, and this is the guy in power in Rome when Paul says that prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings should be made for kings and all who are in high positions. So, if Paul can exhort people to pray for Nero, then I can exhort you to pray for our current President, and the President after that, and the President after that.

But there are a few more things I want to say about this text. First, It’s important that we notice the reason Paul exhorts us to pray for our leaders. He says we do this so that

we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

1 Timothy 2:2bWhat we want is peace. This is the same thing the prophet Jeremiah said to the exiles who were praying for the overthrow of Babylon:

Jeremiah 29:7 ESV

But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

The word welfare could be translated as peace. In its peace, you will find your peace. There certainly were prophets who were called to speak against Babylon, and those prophets had better do their jobs, but for the rest of the people, they were to pray to Lord for Babylon, for in its peace, they would find peace. So also we pray for our leaders

for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

1 Timothy 2:2But notice what else Paul says:

This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

1 Timothy 2:3–4And then in verse 7

For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.

1 Timothy 2:7Paul understood that when our environment is at peace, when we are able to lead peaceful and quiet lives that are godly and dignified in every way, that is the context in which the Gospel can flourish. It is God’s desire that all people of every race, color, and nationality, hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but when the world is in turmoil, that becomes more difficult. So we pray for peace in the empires of this world so that the empires of this world will be at peace and the Gospel of Jesus Christ can spread, and all people can be saved.

But that leads me to my second additional point. It’s subtle, but notice what Paul says in verse 3:

This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior,

1 Timothy 2:3In Paul’s day, it was not uncommon for emperors to refer to themselves as saviors. So what Paul is saying is, “yes, pray for our leaders, no matter who they are, no matter if you like them or not, pray for them, but also don’t fall for their propaganda. The world has a Savior, and he’s not Caesar. There is a leader of the free world, but he’s not POTUS. Kings come; kings go. Empires rise; empires fall. But Christ and his Kingdom, they are forever, which is why Paul says right in the middle of our reading:

For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.

1 Timothy 2:5–6Pray for our leaders, but they’re not gods, they’re not saviors, they are not our hope, and they are not our salvation, no matter what they say.

Amen.

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In homiletic textbooks (these are books on how to preach), they often say that a good sermon has three main points: an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. Then they break this down even further and say that the body of the sermon likewise should have three and only three points, and if you’re really skilled, the beginning of each point will be alliterative. In contrast to this model for a good sermon, I only have one point to make this morning, and this is all the introduction you are going to get.

My point is right there on the screen: We are all sinners. Full stop.

Now, I have a pretty good suspicion about what just happened inside most of your heads. Some of you said to yourself, “Well, of course, I’m a sinner.” Ok, that’s a good start. The problem is that I don’t believe you actually think that. Meanwhile, some of you said, “Well, yeah, I still sin, but….” No buts. No what-about. We are all sinners.

But here’s the good news: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, to save people like you and me. Look at what Paul says:

The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.

1 Timothy 1:15 (ESV)Do you really think Paul was the foremost of sinners? Let’s just consider his pre-conversion life. Yes, he persecuted the Church, but does that make him the foremost of all sinners? Was he worse than Judas? The hyperbole here, and that’s exactly what this is, serves a point. It gives us a window into how Paul thought about himself. He thought of himself as a sinner, as a person who didn’t deserve anything that God had given but rather was entirely dependent upon the grace and mercy of God.

And notice that he doesn’t say “of whom I was the foremost.” He says, “of whom I am the foremost.” “I am the foremost of sinners,” he says, but I received mercy.

But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.

1 Timothy 1:16Mercy. A few verses earlier, he speaks of the grace of our Lord overflowing to him. Mercy and grace. To sinners. That’s the Gospel. So let me be as clear as I can. The moment you make the shift from thinking of yourself as a sinner in desperate need of the grace and mercy of God to thinking of yourself as a good person who maybe stumbles sometimes but is generally doing ok, the moment your brain makes that shift, it’s game over. You no longer believe the Gospel. If you’re not a sinner, then you don’t need grace and mercy, and heaven help you if you stand before the judgment seat of Christ without grace and mercy and instead get exactly what you deserve. If Paul thinks of himself as the foremost of sinners, but you think you’re probably doing ok, then something has gone terribly wrong.

We Are All SinnersThere are not sinners out there and saints in here. We are all sinners. And thank God for that. Thank God that you’re a sinner because Jesus Christ came into the world to save whom? Sinners.

Somehow the church today seems to have gotten this all wrong. We see people outside the church living lifestyles that we don’t approve of or behaving in ways that we don’t condone, and we call them sinners with a scowl on our faces as if that isn’t precisely the group of people for whom the Son of God came into the world and died on a Roman cross.

The church today seems to function as if the two most operative words in the economy of salvation are not grace and mercy. We seem to operate as if, for various reasons, we deserve this, as if our inheriting of salvation is us getting exactly what we deserve. But I promise you, despite the way that so many professing Christians talk and think these days, you don’t want to live in a world where people always get exactly what they deserve, especially when it comes to you and God. What you should want is to live in a world overflowing with mercy, overflowing with grace, overflowing with forgiveness because those things are your only hope for eternal life.

Let me ask a question. I won’t ask you to raise your hands. Just be honest about the answer in your own heart. Do you want to live in a world that’s fair? The answer is no. You don’t want to live in a world that’s unfair because injustice prevails, but you also don’t want to live in a world that’s totally fair. The world you want to live in is a world full of mercy, grace, and forgiveness, and those things aren’t fair because you don’t deserve any of them.

It shocks me how opposed to mercy many Christians are today, and the only conclusion I can reach is that it’s because we no longer think that we need mercy too. We think we’re generally doing ok, and so long as we get what we deserve, everything’s going to work out for us. But that is not the Gospel. In fact, that is anti-Gospel. The Gospel says that I am a sinner, you are a sinner, and the people outside our walls are all sinners too. We are all sinners, and we are all in desperate need of the grace and mercy of God.

So we can no longer permit our knee-jerk reaction to sin in other people’s lives to be one of disgust or disdain or disapproval or rejection. When we see a sinner, what we should see is the lost coin and the lost sheep; what we should see is exactly who we would be apart from the grace of God; what we should see is an opportunity for rejoicing when what was lost is now found.

Jesus says at the end of the Parable of the Lost Sheep:

Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

Luke 15:7But here’s the punchline, in case you don’t see it already. There are no ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. Not me. Not you. Not now. Not ever. There’s only ever been one righteous person who needed no repentance, and unless you are Jesus of Nazareth, you’re not him. There aren’t ninety-nine righteous and one unrighteous; there’s one hundred unrighteous and one who knows he’s a sinner, and that’s the one you want to be. So I’ll say it again. I’m a sinner. You’re a sinner. The people outside our walls are sinners. But here’s the Gospel.

The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

1 Timothy 1:15So I’m a sinner, you’re a sinner, the world is full of sinners, and thanks be to God because Jesus came to save sinners.

Amen.

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Sunday, December 29, 2019 | The First Sunday of Christmas, Year A The post Two Great Stories appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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Sunday, December 1, 2019 | The First Sunday in Advent, Year A The post He Comes to be our Judge appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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Sunday, November 24, 2019 | Christ the King, Year C The post This is Christ the King appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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Sunday, November 17, 2019 | Proper 28, Year C The post The Day is Coming appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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Sunday, November 10, 2019 | Proper 27, Year C The post Seven Brothers appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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All Saints Day | Sunday, November 3, 2019 The post All the Saints appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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Proper 25, Year C | Sunday, October 27, 2019 The post Going Home Justified appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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Sunday, October 20, 2019 The post Wrestling with God appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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Fr. Michaels Sermon from Sunday, August 18, 2019 The post The Race that is Set before Us appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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A Sermon for the 6th Sunday after Trinity, July 28, 2019 The post Paradox and Faith appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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Fr. Michaels Sermon for the 5th Sunday after Trinity, July 21st, 2019 The post One Thing Is Necessary appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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Fr. Michaels Sermon for the 2nd Sunday after Trinity, June 30th, 2019 The post Freedom, Fruit, and the Spirit appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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A Sermon for Trinity Sunday, June 16, 2019 I am of the opinion that it’s nearly impossible to speak about the Trinity without committing heresy unless one is simply repeating the great creeds of the Church. Some of you will remember from a comedic video I played one night after one of our theme dinners in which Saint Patrick tries to explain the Trinity to two simple Irishmen by way of analogy. The point of that video is to say The post Faith in the Triune God appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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Fr. Michaels Sermon for the Feast of Pentecost, June 9, 2019 The post The Spirit and the Church appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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The church says, “Come, Lord Jesus,” and Jesus says, “Go into all the world.” The post Come and Go appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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Fr. Michaels Sermon for the Feast of the Ascension, May 30, 2019 The post The Body of the Ascended King appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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Fr. Michaels Sermon for May 26, 2019, the Sixth Sunday of Easter The post The Heavenly City appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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Fr. Michaels Sermon from Sunday, May 19, 2019, the Feast of St. Dunstan The post What’s in a Name? appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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Fr. Michaels Sermon from the Fourth Sunday of Easter The post The Shepherd of the 144,000 appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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Yes, Lord, you are forever worthy of our praise for you have made us and you have saved us, and through us you are making all things new.” The post The Lion, the Lamb, and the Throne Room appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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The world needs to see and feel and experience the love of Jesus, and if the church is the body of Christ, and it is, then when the world asks to see the wounds of Christ, the proof of his love, then we must show them our wounds, but we can only do that if we have first been wounded. The post The Wounds of Christ appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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Because this day isn’t just about his resurrection, it’s about our resurrection too. They are the same. His now; ours later. The post The Future is Now appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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Jesus gave up everything for the good of others. Jesus died for others. Jesus loved others so fiercely that he ended up on a Roman cross. And that is truth. The world can’t see it, and often Christians seem to ignore it, but Good Friday is truth. The post What is Truth? appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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Although he is the king of kings and Lord of lords, he comes to you not as a king like Judas or Antiochus or Caesar, but as the sacrifice, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, the lamb of God who shows the world the things that make for peace. But do you believe him? Do you choose Jesus over Judas? The post Jesus, Not Judas appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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You can’t be conformed to the glory, unless you are first conformed to the cross. To say that his story is our story means to take all of history, not just the parts that we like. The post Easter is Coming appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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We too like sheep have gone astray, we too sometimes feel lost, we too sometimes wonder if our sin has pushed us too far away from the arms of our loving father, we wonder if we can ever return. And today we hear from Jesus the divine YES! Yes, you can. The post Coming Back Home appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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Because Mary dies to self, because she chooses God’s will over her own, the light of heaven that will scatter the darkness of the world begins to grow in her womb as the God of the universe, the maker of heaven and earth, unites himself to humanity forever. The post From the Womb to the Grave appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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God had freed us from sin, death, and the devil, baptized us into the Messiah, leads us by the Spirit, and feeds with spiritual food and drink not so we can go on living however we please but so that we can be the people that God has called us to be. The post Overthrown in the Wilderness appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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If we must look up to the heavens, let us not look for our home, but let us look for our savior, for he is coming, and while we wait for that glorious day, let us work for his kingdom. The post Our Citizenship is in Heaven appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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A Sermon for the First Sunday of Lent, March 10, 2019 St. Dunstan’s Anglican Church, Largo, FL The Very Rev. J. Michael Strachan Luke 4:1-13 In comic book cinema, which is all the rage right now, one of the biggest problems in the DC Universe is how powerful Superman is. If you’ve seen the latest Justice League movie, then you know what I’m talking about. The team of superheroes is assembled. There’s Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Cyborg, and the Flash, The post Jesus is Not Superman appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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We tend to think of Jesus as something like Superman. He’s stronger than us, more powerful than us, and comes from a different place to be our Savior. He looks like us, talks like us, and even acts like us, but he’s more than us. But Jesus isnt Superman. The post Is This Not the Fast that I Choose? appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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There is only one path that leads to Easter. It’s the way of the cross; it’s the way down the mountain; it’s the way out to a broken and hurting world. The post Back Down the Mountain appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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The way of life is the way of death. The way of the Lord is the way of the cross. The way up is the way down. The post There are Two Ways appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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The glory of the Lord has been revealed in this child whose birth we celebrated at Christmas and whose parents bring him to the Temple this morning. And with him comes the kingdom of God. The post A Light for Revelation and Glory appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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We are, as a community, placed in a particular place at a particular time. It is our mission as a church to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God to every home in this area. The post The Gospel and the Kingdom appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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In his new Temple, Jesus Christ, God has swallowed up death forever, and he has begun the celebration of our salvation, and if that isn’t a reason to get together, and if that isn’t a reason to come together as a community and have a party, then I don’t know what is. The post There’s a Party Going On appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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Be the blessing that God had promised to the world. Be the ones who help lead others to Jesus so that they too may bring the best of who they are and what they do and lay it as his feet. The post Be the Star appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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We don’t have to search for him. We don’t have to wonder where he’s been. We only have to gather, share a meal, and he will be made known to us in the breaking of the bread. The post Two Stories appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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For his story is our story, and our story is his story. We are forever inseparably intertwined. The post Inseparably Intertwined appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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A Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, December 23, 2018 St. Dunstan’s Anglican Church, Largo, FL The Very Reverend J. Michael Strachan Luke 1:39-55 You may have noticed that something is missing in the story of Advent and Christmas as it’s told by the lectionary that the Church gives to us. We began a new church year with Advent, and with the new year starts a new year in the lectionary. This is year C, that’s the year we The post Blessed Among Women appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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Jesus Christ is King right now, and he reigns over heaven and earth. The post Jesus Christ is King appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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If you are being sanctified, you have already been perfected in Christ. The post Those Who Are Being Sanctified appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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The body of Christ should be broken, not divided. The post Giving Thanks for the Broken Body of Christ appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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We share in Jesus cross and mission by drinking his cup and being baptized into his death. The post Baptism and the Cup appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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Draw near with confidence to the throne of grace. The post The Throne of Grace appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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St. Francis preached the Gospel to all of creation. We should too. The post Preaching the Gospel to All of Creation appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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The choices before us matter. Be salt. The post Got Salt? appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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In order to be great, one must be the servant of all. The post Greatness and the Cross appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

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The people of God must be rooted in Jesus, compassionate to the world around us, and focused on the mission of bringing the good news of the kingdom of God to the broken and lost. The post Loving in Deed and Truth appeared first on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.