Discussion Questions:

1. Reading Genesis 18 in Context:
   ● The sermon describes Genesis 18 and the story of Sodom and Gomorrah as one of the most misunderstood passages in the Bible. What interpretations of this story have you heard before?
   ● How does reading the story through the lens of hospitality, violence, and the treatment of strangers change the way you understand it?
2. Practicing Hospitality:
   ● The sermon emphasizes that hospitality to strangers is a biblical mandate. Why do you think Scripture returns to this theme so often?
   ● Where do you see opportunities for RPPC to practice deeper hospitality in our church, neighborhood, and wider community?
3. Scripture, Love, and Harm:
   ● Pastor Mark challenges interpretations of this passage that have been used to shame or exclude LGBTQIA+ people. How can communities of faith repair harm caused by harmful readings of Scripture?
   ● Augustine wrote that if our interpretation of Scripture does not lead us to love God and neighbor more, we have not understood it correctly. How might this guide the way we read difficult biblical passages?
4. God’s Covenant and Mercy:
   ● The sermon suggests that Genesis 18 shows God being held accountable to the covenant God has made with humanity. What does that image of God stir up for you?
   ● Abraham speaks honestly with God, asking whether the righteous should be swept away with the wicked. What does this conversation teach us about prayer, courage, and trust?
5. Justice, Mercy, and Our Intertwined Lives:
   ● The sermon raises a hard question: How do justice and mercy relate to one another? Where do you feel that tension in your own life or in the world around us?
   ● Pastor Mark asks how we think about the ways our fates are “inextricably tied.” What does that mean for how we live as neighbors, citizens, and people of faith?
6. Faith That Wrestles:
   ● The sermon says faith is not a static statement of beliefs, but a living, evolving relationship with God and one another. How has your understanding of God changed over time?
   ● Have you ever felt like you needed permission to question or wrestle with your image of God? What helps make a faith community safe for honest questions?
7. Applying the Sermon:
   ● What is one way you can practice hospitality to someone who feels like an outsider this week?
   ● How can RPPC continue to be a place where all are welcome, where questions are honored, and where love of God and neighbor shapes how we read Scripture?

The post Sermon Discussion Guide: Disputing with God: Advocating for others appeared first on Roland Park Presbyterian Church.

We are returning now, after a brief hiatus, to the Narrative Lectionary, which is following God’s story from Genesis all the way through the Christian scriptures. We turn our attention now to the book commonly called Acts. The full title is Acts of the Apostles, which kind of is like almost a journal of the earliest apostles and their travels in sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. And this is one of the visits to a town called Philippi, which is in Greece, and it follows the journey of Paul and Silas and what they encounter there.

Acts 16: 16-40 

One day as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a female slave who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling. While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.” She kept doing this for many days. But Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour. 

But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities. When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said, “These men, these Jews, are disturbing our city and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us, being Romans, to adopt or observe.” The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods. After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks. 

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was an earthquake so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened. When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted in a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them outside and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They answered, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. He brought them up into the house and set food before them, and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God. 

When morning came, the magistrates sent the police, saying, “Let those men go.” And the jailer reported the message to Paul, saying, “The magistrates sent word to let you go; therefore come out now and go in peace.” But Paul replied, “They have beaten us in public, uncondemned, men who are Romans, and have thrown us into prison, and now are they going to discharge us in secret? Certainly not! Let them come and take us out themselves.” The police reported these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Romans, so they came and apologized to them. And they took them out and asked them to leave the city. After leaving the prison they went to Lydia’s home, and when they had seen and encouraged the brothers and sisters there, they departed.

For the Word of God in scripture,
For the Word of God among us,
For the Word of God within us,
Thanks be to God.

***

Certainly there is no one who does more to promote the early spread of Christianity than the Apostle Paul. Paul would travel from town to town, region to region, to spread the good news of the gospel. He would often encounter both a warm welcome and resistance from the locals. Today, he’s with Silas in Philippi, a port city in Greece on the Mediterranean Sea. We know that Paul establishes a Christian community there because he would later write a letter which is included among the Christian scriptures.

Yet today’s passage also shows us why Paul is so maddeningly frustrating. On the one hand, we find the feisty and faithful Paul who, when arrested by the authorities, does not succumb to fear or anger, but instead, there in the darkest part of the prison, turns to prayer and song, which radiates out to the other prisoners, strengthening their souls to resist the oppression of the empire. When God intervenes to release the shackles, Paul does not flee for his life, but instead stays and ministers to his jailer, liberating him from a system of violence and intimidation that binds him.

But on the other hand, we encounter the impatient Paul, who is, in his annoyance, cast a spirit out of a young, enslaved girl, thoughtlessly depriving her of the spiritual gift that protects her from an even more unthinkable fate. “After this exorcism, the slave ceases to be of use to her masters or to the story,” writes the Rev. Dr. Barb Hedges-Goettl. There is no follow-through and no follow-up regarding this slave. We do not know if she thinks of herself as healed, if she becomes a follower of The Way, if her masters cast her out, if she is beaten, if she is sold, if she is starved, if she is forced into prostitution to make up for her lost income.

Paul and Silas certainly have their own problems to deal with. But we should stop and notice how easily they and the text move on from this woman without another thought. She’s forgotten.

And before we get all judgy about how women and girls were treated at that time, we should consider how often this same scenario is repeated in our world today. Women and girls are often overlooked, left out, told to pipe down, told that it is all in their head, and on and on. Heck, I admit I barely took notice of the slave girl in my reading until one of my female colleagues pointed it out to me. Then I was shocked that I could so easily overlook her, so easily dismiss her testimony.

For surely the gospel calls us to pay attention, not only to the main characters, but everyone along the way. No one is unimportant in God’s eyes. No one is overlooked. No one is unloved. We need to pay attention and make room in the narrative for these other stories, the ones we too often overlook.

“Making room for others can be hard work,” writes Hedges-Goettl. We forget that the story isn’t all about us. We act as if there are no other characters. We neglect the other plotlines. We refuse to permit any other narrators. But God’s story gives each of us a starring role. God follows all and each of the characters. God honors all of the plotlines. God lets each of us share in the narration.

In her book, Letter to My Daughter, Maya Angelou writes, “I’ve made many mistakes and no doubt will make many more before I die. When I have seen pain, when I have found that my ineptness has caused displeasure, I have learned to accept my responsibility and to forgive myself first, then to apologize to anyone injured by my misreckoning. Since I cannot unlive history and repentance is all I can offer God, I have hopes that my sincere apologies are accepted.”

“You may not control all the events that happen to you,” she writes, “but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” And then she says, “Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.”

Friends, we don’t always get it right. And too often, we do look past others, and we put ourselves at the center of the narrative. But thankfully, God does not look at the world through our eyes. In fact, we are called to look at the world and each other through God’s.

To see each other as God sees us, precious and loved.

Friends, hear these words from the prophet Isaiah: “But now thus says the Lord, He who created you, O Jacob, He who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you, because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you.”

Friends, the good news of the gospel is that there is not one single human being on this planet that God has not said these words to, including you, including me, and including everyone we meet.

And it’s not just that the world will be a better place if we treat each other as precious and loved children of God that we are. But we will hear parts of the story that we’ve too often overlooked, and our understanding of God’s love will only grow.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

The post What Is Her Story? appeared first on Roland Park Presbyterian Church.

Discussion Questions: 

1. Paying Attention to the Overlooked
   o In Acts 16, the enslaved girl speaks the truth about Paul and Silas, yet her story quickly disappears from the narrative. What do you notice about her role in the passage?
   o Who are the people in our communities, churches, workplaces, or families whose stories are too easily overlooked?

2. Paul, Silas, and Imperfect Faithfulness
   o The sermon names both Paul’s faithfulness in prison and his failure to fully attend to the enslaved girl. How does this more complicated picture of Paul help you think about your own faith?
   o Why is it important to tell the truth about both the good and the harmful parts of our actions, even when our intentions are faithful?

3. Liberation and Responsibility
   o Paul and Silas are freed from prison, but they do not run away. Instead, they stay and care for the jailer. What does this teach us about liberation, compassion, and responsibility?
   o Where might God be calling you to stay present with someone who is afraid, ashamed, or trapped in a harmful system?

4. Seeing Others as God Sees Them
   o Pastor Mark reminds us that “no one is unimportant in God’s eyes. No one is overlooked. No one is unloved.” How does this challenge the way we see others?
   o Isaiah’s words, “You are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you,” are spoken over all people. What changes when we begin from that truth?

5. Applying the Sermon
   o This week, how can you make room for someone else’s story, especially someone whose voice is often dismissed or minimized?
   o As a church pursuing justice, practicing hospitality, and engaging curious faith, how can RPPC better notice, honor, and protect those who are too often pushed to the margins?

The post Sermon Discussion Guide: What Is Her Story? appeared first on Roland Park Presbyterian Church.

Just two quick words of orientation to our passage today. One is the reminder that here at Roland Park Presbyterian Church, we follow a set of prescribed readings called the Narrative Lectionary, which helps explain why we’re reading about the crucifixion even though we are still in Lent—and Palm Sunday is next Sunday, right? Yes, Palm Sunday is next Sunday. But John’s Gospel is a little bit different than the others.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke dedicate a few chapters to the last week of Jesus’ life and its events. But the entire second half of John’s Gospel is just the last week of Jesus’ life. And so it creates this interesting pace, because the first eleven chapters cover a span of two-plus years, and then the last ten-plus chapters—just one week. And so John really slows down the pace of the narrative here. And as a result, we are slowing down the pace of the narrative and drawing out the story in such a way that we’re telling it over the course of all of Lent, rather than just Holy Week.

The other thing is—and I know this is repetitive for some of you, but it’s so important—John’s Gospel is the source of so much antisemitism. And there’s truth: there’s animosity in John’s Gospel between the burgeoning Christian community and the Jewish community. But that’s not prescriptive for all times and places. That is that particular time and place, as a new community was forming and coming out of another and separating—much like a teenager does from a parent—and there is sometimes animosity that grows in that relationship. But it is still a relationship of love and of closer ties and connections than being apart.

And so I take great care in reading the Gospel because John uses this term very loosely—“the Jews.” And most of the time he refers to the religious authorities, but sometimes he’s just referring to the crowds. But because that can be problematic, I will retranslate that for us when it’s appropriate.

John 19: 1-16a

Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. And the soldiers wove a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they dressed him in a purple robe. They kept coming up to him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and striking him on the face. Pilate went out again and said to them, “Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no case against him.” So Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Behold the man!” When the chief priests and the police saw him, they shouted, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him; I find no case against him.” The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has claimed to be the Son of God.” 

Now when Pilate heard this, he was more afraid than ever. He entered his headquarters again and asked Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave him no answer. Pilate therefore said to him, “Do you refuse to speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to release you and power to crucify you?” Jesus answered him, “You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above; therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.” From then on Pilate tried to release him, but the Jews cried out, “If you release this man, you are no friend of Caesar. Everyone who claims to be a king sets himself against Caesar.”

When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus outside and sat on the judge’s bench at a place called The Stone Pavement, or in Hebrew Gabbatha. Now it was the day of Preparation for the Passover, and it was about noon. He said to the Jews, “Here is your King!” They cried out, “Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!” Pilate asked them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.” Then he handed him over to them to be crucified.

For the Word of God in scripture,
For the Word of God among us,
For the Word of God within us,
Thanks be to God.

***

I wouldn’t blame you if you felt like we’ve been spinning our wheels here for the last few weeks.

John really does draw out this trial scene, and we’ve taken his cue and slowed down so that we can pay attention. But it almost feels like we’re not getting much of anywhere. At the beginning of last week’s passage, the religious authorities bring Jesus before Pilate. And at the beginning of this morning’s lesson, the religious authorities again bring Jesus before Pilate. This game of back and forth between religious and civil authorities is like a ping-pong match…except the religious and civil authorities are trying to play on the same team.

They just can’t decide who should swing the paddle.

I actually used to be a pretty good ping-pong player. Not great, just good. But as we were preparing for a match, I would tell my opponent that I was the state champion in high school. I wasn’t. I don’t even think there was such a thing. It was a complete lie, and soon the truth would become very evident. And we’d laugh, and it was just a silly little joke I used to do all the time. But every once in a while I noticed that my opponent—ever so slightly—maybe their eyes would widen when I would say it. They would be just a little bit intimidated.

It would only last a few minutes.

Now Pilate is me in this weird ping-pong Holy Week analogy that’s getting away from me. Pilate’s the one who’s faking bravado here. Although, unlike me, he’s doing it to intimidate, not as just a silly prank. Because Pilate is the one who sits on the judgment seat, right? That’s why the religious authorities are going to him.

They’ve become equal parts afraid and annoyed with Jesus and his shenanigans, but they do not have the will or political clout—or both—to do what they think needs doing. So the religious authorities bring Jesus to Pilate and tell him he’s claiming to be king of the Jews, which is interesting because that title doesn’t exist. There is no such thing.

And anyway, when Pilate questions him, Jesus responds that his kingdom is not from here. Remember from last week, he told Pilate, “If my kingdom were from here, my followers would be fighting back but they are not.” And so that’s really all Pilate needs to hear. He’s not a threat.

So Pilate tells the crowds, “Look, I find no fault in Jesus,” and he tries to release him. But the crowds refuse and ask for him to release Barabbas instead. That’s the ending of last week’s passage, right?

So beginning in our reading today, Jesus is back in front of Pilate, and Pilate seems to have no clue what to do with him.

So, you know…might as well flog him, I guess. That’s what empires do, right?

But let’s pause here for a second and ask ourselves: who truly holds the cards? Because John is doing something really subtle and very clever here that we might miss.

But we’ve been in John long enough now to know that he likes reversals, especially when it comes to power dynamics.

Remember just a few weeks ago, we read about Jesus washing his disciples’ feet, and Peter protested: “No! You are the teacher, you are the rabbi, you are the one in the position of authority. We should be washing your feet, not you washing ours.” But Jesus says no.

Well, John’s up to his old tricks again.

Because Pilate is supposed to be the one in charge here, right? But everybody is telling him what to do and he’s doing it. He wants to release Jesus; the crowds won’t let him. He tells them he finds no fault in Jesus; they tell him to look again, harder this time.

But it’s not just the crowds, too. Look at Jesus. He’s the one on trial. His life is on the line. Is he cowering at Pilate’s feet? Is he begging for his life?

He is cool as a cucumber…acting as if he’s completely in control of the outcome, and not Pilate.

Finally, the crowd wears Pilate down, and he agrees to charge and crucify Jesus. But he only does it under threat. The line that finally gets him: “If you release this man, you are no friend of Caesar.” It’s kind of the ancient version of, “Can I speak to your manager?”

But then John does something else.

And it’s very subtle, and we don’t get it in our translation because they make the choice for us. But he says that he sat on the judgment seat, which is presumably some sort of fancy chair that symbolizes Pilate’s power and authority given to him by Rome.

But the catch is that the language that John uses here is intentionally ambiguous. He could have made it very clear that Pilate is sitting on the throne—or on the seat—and indeed that is what our translation presents to us. But if we go back to the Greek, we see that it is actually ambiguous.

It could mean Pilate. It could also mean Jesus.

Why would John do that?

Because he wants us to ask the question: who is really sitting on the judgment seat here? Pilate? Or Jesus?

John wants us to be confronted with that question in this narrative.

Another way to put it is to notice that there are two very different types of power on display in this passage: power over and power with.

Pilate and Rome know only dominant power. Might makes right. If you can take it, it’s yours. The one who dies with the most toys wins.

This kind of power relies on fear and violence, punishment and retribution to get its way. It divides people into winners and losers, insiders and outsiders, us and them.

But this is not the only kind of power that’s on display here. Jesus is exercising power too. By refusing to dominate people, Jesus lifts up service to others. By refusing to fight and be pulled into violence, Jesus lifts up nonviolence as a way of life. By refusing to give in to vengeance, Jesus lifts up forgiveness.

And John wants to put us at that crossroads. John wants us to choose.

And he points out the danger of religion mixing with dominant power.

The religious authorities and crowds make their choice. They’re seduced by the power of the empire. They exploit Pilate and get him to bring the full force of Rome down on Jesus.

But what happens to them in the process?

They give up the farm. They sell out all their values and principles that drew them to faith in the first place. And by the end, they proudly proclaim the empire’s motto: “We have no king but Caesar.”

Lest we think this is something that just happened 2,000 years ago, last Sunday, self-proclaimed Christian Nationalist William Wolf told his congregation, “We should not blink. We should not hesitate to tell people, this is how we should order our lives together.” Wolf said, “And frankly, yes, we are going to impose it upon you. If you don’t like it, I’m sorry, but this is good and right,” he said, “and I’m going to enforce my morality on you in so much as my morality is God’s morality.”

My goodness, how can he tell the difference?

The temptation of dominant power is great. It can seem like a great way to get things done. Anything else can seem naïve in comparison.

We think to ourselves, sometimes we say it out loud, “Look,” we say, “I’m a good person, and the things I want are good. So what if I take some shortcuts to get there?”

The problem is dominant power does not bow to our good intentions. It corrupts them, pushing the line of what is acceptable further and further out. And suddenly we find ourselves pledging allegiance to Caesar and not God.

By the way, John does something else that’s very clever and worth noting here.

I mentioned a few weeks ago how we like to play the blame game. And again, it’s important to know that this passage is a source of much antisemitism, because it seems like it is the Jewish authorities and the Jewish crowds who are calling for Jesus to be crucified—but that misses the point completely.

John makes it very clear when he says, “the one who hands me over has a greater sin.”

Yes. Who hands him over?

Well, in the immediate context, we would say it’s the religious authorities and the crowds. They were persistent in their efforts, in fact. But how did they get a hold of him? One of his own disciples, Judas, had to first hand him over, right?

But that’s not it.

Then notice what John says when Pilate finally makes his decision: “Then he handed him over to be crucified.”

There is no “they” who handed Jesus over to die. It wasn’t just Judas, or the religious authorities, or the riled-up crowd, or the empire.

It was all of them together.

It was us.

When we choose dominant power over service and nonviolence.

Now if that were all that John gave us, this would be a tragic passage…the type of which we see every day on the news.

But John suddenly asks this question: who is really sitting on the judgment seat?

And even by asking the question, John is suggesting the kind of power Jesus shows us is a viable option for us to adopt—maybe even the right and faithful one.

But that can be hard for us to see, because from all the outward signs, Jesus looks weak and defeated. There he stands on his own. His own friends have abandoned him. His life is on the line.

What a loser.

But does he flinch? Does he waver from his belief in nonviolence and the worth of everyone as an image-bearer of God? Does he stop believing in the power of serving others and empowering others?

He does not—even when it leads to his death.

And in the end, God vindicates his death and this “power with” when Jesus is raised from the dead. Death does not have the final word.

The power of dominance might win in the short term. It often does. But ultimately love, justice, and power that is shared are the ultimate winners.

Look, friends, it’s hard to keep believing in the power of love in a world where bombs are being dropped and missiles are flying daily. And when our leaders call their opponents schoolyard names and bully people who look different or vote different or think different.

Our politics is dominant power on steroids.

And in this kind of environment, kindness and respect and decency… well, they just seem weak and naïve.

But the gospel invites us to believe that they are not.

Indeed, the gospel invites us to believe that they are what true, God-like power looks like.

We have to realize that the real standoff is not between religious and secular, not between Republicans and Democrats, not between any “us” and “them.”

It is between “power over” and “power with.”

And instead of imposing our faith or morality on others through force, it is better in the end, as Madeleine L’Engle writes, “that we draw people to Christ not by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their heart to know the source of it.”

Friends, at the end of our passage, the crowd of faithful people are so turned around, they say, “We have no king but Caesar.”

They betray their faith for a chance at dominant power.

Many Christians today are being seduced in exactly the same way.

And the truth of the matter is that it is not enough for us to be against them and that kind of power.

We have to be for something.

We have to find our own lovely light that God has put in each one of us—a light that shines when we claim we have no king, no king but Jesus.

Amen.

The post Were You There? No Kings (But Jesus) appeared first on Roland Park Presbyterian Church.

Well, sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.

I wish I could claim that I had planned for our renovations to be complete and that I would launch a sermon series on our campaign theme, Come and See. But I didn’t plan it—it just turned out that way. Because the Narrative Lectionary has us in the Gospel of John this January, and that’s where we hear that invitation from Jesus to his first disciples.

He doesn’t say, “Worship me.” He doesn’t say, “Become my disciple.” He simply offers this open-ended invitation: Come and see.

I ran across a quote this week that really summarizes—succinctly and nicely, I think—what the overall message is that I’m trying to impart through all these sermons in the Come and See series. It’s a quote from a mentor of mine, Dave Davis, who’s pastor of Nassau Presbyterian Church in Princeton. He said:

“When it comes to following Jesus, the life of discipleship, the call to be a faithful steward of God’s gifts, and one’s relationship with God—it was never about a memory verse, a poster, a slogan, or a program. It is about an invitation to a divine relationship that offers a window into the very heart of God.”

John 2:1–11

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to me and to you? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the person in charge of the banquet.” So they took it. When the person in charge tasted the water that had become wine and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), that person called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee and revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.

For the Word of God in scripture,
For the Word of God among us,
For the Word of God within us,
Thanks be to God.

***

An exorcism. A wedding. Or a sermon. Either in Nazareth or on the Mount.

It would’ve been nice if the four Gospel writers had gotten the story straight. They don’t even agree on Jesus’ first public appearance. I mean, come on!

Of course, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are from different areas, different times, and they have different overriding concerns and perspectives—which perhaps accounts for the different ways they choose to tell their story.

Mark and Luke don’t agree on everything, but they hold the most in common. And John—John is widely agreed to be the last to be written, and it has the most unique, original material.

Perhaps the most important difference between John and the rest is the characterization of the relationship between the earliest followers of Jesus and their Jewish community. In Matthew and Luke, the Jesus movement is still part of Judaism. It’s under the umbrella.

But by the time John writes later, tensions have grown among the two communities, and they’re starting to fracture.

Now, I’ve used this analogy before, but I think it’s really helpful to think of John as a teenager.

As you know, it is a teenager’s job to grow from being a dependent child into their own unique personhood. The necessary separation between parent and child is rarely smooth—and often includes churlishness, moodiness, and sometimes full-out rebellion. (And that’s just the parents!)

But seriously, we know that it is the job of a teenager to challenge authority.

Now, if we think of John as the teenager of the Gospel writers, then when we see him speak negatively of “the Jews,”—a term he uses often in the Gospel—we can understand that this reflects a very specific and unique period in the long history between Jews and Christians.

It is a misuse of the text to take these temporary sentiments as the all-time stance for the relationship between Christians and Jews.

The truth of the matter is that we share much of the same story as our Jewish siblings, and we do not improve our faith at all by denigrating theirs. Quite the opposite.

No one knows the Jewish story better than they do, of course. Some of my deepest, most meaningful, and impactful theological conversations have been with rabbis. They’ve helped me understand my own faith and tradition better.

I believe—and my experience has taught me again and again—that our faith traditions, Jews and Christians, although unique and distinct, are much more in line and much more complementary than they are in conflict. I would add Muslims to that as well.

So when we read John and his apparent animosity toward “the Jews,” we need to be very mindful and very careful. We do not want to feed into Christianity’s sin of antisemitism—even though, unfortunately, it’s true that these texts have been used as justification for all kinds of evil.

And so, we cannot simply read John and these passages and ignore this history.

Therefore, I find it helpful to re-translate. When John says “the Jews,” I re-translate that to “religious authorities,” or sometimes “Jewish religious authorities.” The purpose of this is to remind us that John was not talking about Jewish people in general—and certainly not Jewish people of all times and places. He was talking about a very specific group of mostly religious leaders who were opposing these earliest followers of Jesus.

The real difference between people of faith is not between Jews and Christians. It’s between those genuinely seeking a path of spiritual enlightenment and a way of living—and those who would use their power for their own desires.

So let me stop explaining and start showing.

Today’s passage is a familiar one: the wedding at Cana.

Jesus is there with his pals. His mother’s there too. We notice that in John’s Gospel, she’s called the mother of Jesus—never by name, Mary. Right?

This introduces us to something unique John does: he’s more apt to refer to people by their relationship to Jesus, rather than by their name. So it’s not just Mary, but the mother of Jesus. It’s not just disciples, but the beloved disciple, for example.

In addition, Jesus’ response when his mother points out that the host has run out of wine—it’s probably not meant to be as harsh as it sounds in English. I have so much trouble reading that! I don’t know how to read those words without it sounding insulting. But I don’t think it was meant that way.

So there we are. Jesus and his followers are at a wedding where the host has run out of wine—a huge faux pas. A big shame on the host. His mother alerts him to the problem. He indicates he’s not really ready to start the show quite yet—I mean, you only get one chance at a first impression, right?

But despite this… his mother just proceeds without him!

Jesus decides to do something about the situation. He spots some large jars used for Jewish rites of purification. He asks the stewards to fill the jars with water, which they do. And when the chief steward draws water from the jar, it turns out to be wine.

And not just any wine—but good wine. Twenty to thirty gallons of good wine added to the pot. The party’s saved. Everyone’s impressed.

That’s the story.

So what do we make of it?

Some interpreters like to focus on the detail about the jars being used for Jewish purification rites. Why tell us that detail? Could this be an indication that Jewish purification rites are no longer needed? That they’ve been replaced by the wine of celebration now that Jesus is here?

A clear indication of the supremacy of Christianity over Judaism?

Have you heard that one before? I have.

It seems to me that it misses the point—big time.

I mean, you have to do some pretty fancy footwork to make it all work. Maybe the jars were just there because… they were there!

You know, there’s a difference between approaching Scripture like a miner—whose job is to extract the one and only possible truth—and approaching Scripture like an explorer: someone who is curious, asking questions, enjoying the process of learning and discovery.

So let’s look at the passage again.

John chooses a wedding as the setting of Jesus’ first public act. Not a pulpit. Not a house of worship.

A wedding.

A celebration of joy and love. Where the whole community is invited and participates. Where so much fun and joy and fellowship is happening that they run out of wine.

I mean… what a party, right?

And what about Jesus?

He’s simply there to celebrate with the newlywed couple. And when the wine runs out, he doesn’t take the spotlight. In fact, the only people who know he had anything to do with it are his mother, the stewards, and his followers.

Everyone else just assumes they brought out more wine—or maybe they were never aware it had run out in the first place.

Sounds like not everybody was in the best shape, right?

In either case, the party continues. And at heart, that’s what this story is about.

Did you notice what John calls all of this?

He doesn’t call it a miracle. He calls it a sign.

The other Gospels talk about Jesus’ miracles. But in John, he prefers the word sign.

Why is that?

Well, a miracle is more of an aberration, isn’t it? It’s an exception to the norm.

But a sign… a sign is an indication. A marker that you’re on the right path. A glimpse into the way things really are.

In her Pulitzer Prize–winning book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard tells of growing up as a child in Pittsburgh. She was about six or seven at the time, and she played this game where she would hide a shiny new penny—one of her very own—along the path where someone else might find it.

She’d tuck it off to the side, in a crack in the sidewalk or under a leaf. Then she’d hide and watch to see if someone would notice it.

If no one did, she’d put up a sign that said something like, “Surprise ahead!”

She just believed—deep down—that there were signs in the universe for those who had the eyes to see them.

Jesus’ signs are like that too—offered with great generosity and great love.

And these signs are everywhere. They invite us to consider our surroundings. [NOTE: audio appears to drop out briefly here]

English author Terry Pratchett once said that humans believe in the strangest miracles—flowers blooming in concrete, weeping statues. But what if it’s not that we need more miracles… it’s that we need better eyes?

Maybe everyday miracles are enough. If we’re open enough to experience them. If we can see.

God’s love and grace constantly surround and uphold us.

Like two people committing themselves to each other in love.
Like a community joined together in celebration.
Like the good gifts of food and drink.
Like justice over hate.
Like the company of family and friends.

These are signs that we are on the way—Jesus’ Kingdom way.

After a week like the one we just had, Reverend Ginger Gaines-Cirelli reminds us what this way looks like. She writes,“Christianity is not about controlling others or protecting our privilege. It is about following Jesus, who consistently chose love over domination, who chose compassion over cruelty—every time.”

Before worship today, I gave a bunch of pennies to some of our youth with the intention of hiding them around the church where people could find them.

I’ll encourage you to look for them today. There are a few on the communion table, too—they’re all over.

Also—your star word for 2026 is up here on the table. You’re welcome to come receive it.

Friends, our Lord invites us to Come and See the Kingdom signs that are all around and within us. The everyday miracles that remind us that:

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.

Amen.

The post Come and See: Everyday Miracles appeared first on Roland Park Presbyterian Church.

Well, it’s time to get back on track.

We have—I know this is shocking—we have strayed and veered from the narrative lectionary for over a month now. So it’s time to return to our habit of following the narrative lectionary. This year, the gospel is the Gospel according to John. And, as we will find out throughout the year, John’s a little bit different than the other gospel writers. And that’s a good thing.

So, we read part of the first chapter of John before Christmas and on Christmas Eve, and we will continue now with John chapter 1, verses 35 to 51: 

John 1:35-51

The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter). 

The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”For the Word of God in scripture,

For the Word of God among us,
For the Word of God within us,
Thanks be to God.

***

Come and see.

That has been the theme of our capital campaign, which started nearly two years ago. It’s the invitation that Jesus gives to his first disciples in John’s Gospel. They are seeking the Messiah, and when they find Jesus, they don’t want to lose him. So they ask, “Where are you staying?” And instead of simply saying, “Well, I’m staying down there in that village,” Jesus offers up an invitation:

Come and see.

Then a little later, Philip echoes the invitation when Nathanael doubts that the Messiah—or anything good—can come out of Nazareth. To Nathanael’s skepticism and cynicism, Philip shares the invitation that Jesus first offered him:

Come and see.

It is this same open-ended invitation that inspired us to make our building not only more accessible and welcoming but intentionally inviting. As stewards of Christ’s generous and gracious invitation, our job is to make sure that we don’t get in the way.

Like Nathanael, right? With his doubts and biases.

Removing physical barriers is important because it provides real access to people who need it. But it also serves as a reminder that we need to continually check those interior barriers that we may carry with us, which may keep us from extending the gracious invitation of Christ to all—which is what we celebrate on Epiphany later this week.

Typically, on the Sunday closest to Epiphany, we recount the story of the Magi following the star, bringing gifts to the baby Jesus. We read how the Magi visit Herod, supposing that such an important birth would take place somewhere special. Meanwhile, Herod is very interested to learn of this baby some are saying will replace him. So Herod tells the Magi to come back once they’ve found him and report on his whereabouts. But they choose to return home by another way after being warned in a dream not to go back to Herod. And then consequently, Jesus and Mary and Joseph flee from Judea to Egypt to escape danger.

In 1952, Pope Pius XII said, “The Holy Family of Nazareth fleeing into Egypt is the archetype of every refugee family. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph living in exile in Egypt to escape the fury of an evil king. For all times and all places, the models and protectors of every migrant, alien, and refugee of whatever kind, who whether compelled by fear or persecution or by want, is forced to leave his native land, his beloved parents, relatives, his close friends, and to seek foreign soil.” Now, not everyone agrees with this analogy.

Esau McCaulley writes, “Some critics accuse us of using a central element of the Christian story for political ends, when we should be focusing on singing our hymns and saying our prayers instead. But eyes are not so easily closed,” he writes.

And this is on the front of your bulletin:

“The incarnation of the Son of God as human ties him to all other human stories.
If God is going to take up residence with humanity, then surely his narrative touches all other narratives. What God has joined together, we cannot allow man to tear asunder.”

He continues:

“The Christian narrative does not and cannot create a specific immigration policy. That’s not its goal. Its purpose was to reveal God’s humility, his fragility, so that all might gather around him and worship for a while. At the same time, we can’t ignore that in introducing himself, God also revealed the kinds of people he wants his followers to attend to—the neglected and pushed-aside people of the world. You cannot worship a vulnerable God and smash hurting people in his name. That is blasphemy.”

So this year we have an Epiphany mashup of sorts.

You all know what a mashup is, right? It’s when they take two songs and blend them together.

This year, we are reading John’s telling of the first disciples being called, with Jesus’ words: Come and see. And at the same time, it is Epiphany, and the story of the Magi following the star is seared into our collective consciousness.

Now, when we put these two stories together, I think we get a pretty cool invitation for the new year: Come and see. Come and see how much God loves us. And come and see the people that God calls us to love and protect as well.

In just a moment, we will gather around the Lord’s Table, where we taste and see that the Lord is good—where we are reminded that we are one human family, all deserving of love and grace.

As you come forward, you are also invited to pick up a star which is on the table. Each star has a word on it. That word will be your star word for 2026.

May the word that you pick guide you in new and unexpected ways in the new year, and may it be a year of love and justice for all—a year where, like Philip, we echo the invitation of Christ: Come and see.

Amen.

The post Come and See: An Epiphany Mashup appeared first on Roland Park Presbyterian Church.

We are skipping over a whole lot to get from where we were last Sunday, which was Moses and Aaron had led the people of Israel out of Egypt and out of slavery, out of Pharaoh’s grasp. And they escaped through the Red Sea, and they find themselves in the wilderness.

And after just a short amount of time, they begin to wonder what they’re doing out there—where their next meal is going to come from—and they begin to question the plan. And Moses and Aaron reassure them: “No, God will take care of us. We just have to trust each day in our daily bread.”

Well, as I mentioned last week, that was at the beginning of their forty-year journey in the wilderness. We are on the other side of that journey—and through the time of the Judges, where local authorities were more in charge—and now to this time where they’re trying to consolidate power, consolidate government under kings and prophets.

1 Samuel 3:1–21
Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.

At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was. Then the Lord called, “Samuel! Samuel!” and he said, “Here I am!” and ran to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call; lie down again.” So he went and lay down. The Lord called again, “Samuel!” Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call, my son; lie down again.” Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. The Lord called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, “Go, lie down, and if he calls you, you shall say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’ ” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” Then the Lord said to Samuel, “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle. On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. For I have told him that I am about to punish his house forever for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be expiated by sacrifice or offering forever.”

Samuel lay there until morning; then he opened the doors of the house of the Lord. Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli. But Eli called Samuel and said, “Samuel, my son.” He said, “Here I am.” Eli said, “What was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also, if you hide anything from me of all that he told you.” So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. Then he said, “It is the Lord; let him do what seems good to him.”

As Samuel grew up, the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan to Beer-sheba knew that Samuel was a trustworthy prophet of the Lord. The Lord continued to appear at Shiloh, for the Lord revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the Lord.

For the Word of God in scripture,
For the Word of God among us,
For the Word of God within us,
Thanks be to God.

***

Rob Bell noticed that his children had this odd habit when they called out for him. Instead of just saying, “Daddy,” to get his attention, they would always say, “Daddy, Daddy”—always three times.

Why three times?

He always wondered about this peculiar calling until one day he was at the playground with his kids. They were having a good time on the slides and the swings and they were playing with the other kids. And he was looking on and watching when suddenly his phone buzzed.

And he looked down, and he checked it, and sure enough—it was an email from his publisher. He’d been waiting for this response, and he opened it with great anticipation.

And as he was reading the email and making sense—not only of what it said, but all that it meant for him and his career and their future—he heard this strange noise off in the distance.

“Daddy…”

Then again, this time a little bit closer:

“Daddy…”

And then finally, full volume—realizing that one of his children was right in front of him, tugging on his shirt:

“Daddy!”

And that’s when he finally understood. It wasn’t some quirk of theirs. They had learned that it takes three times to get his attention. Because he has this habit of being there—but not really being there. Distracted by work, by his phone. His kids had gotten used to saying his name three times to get his attention.

Well, it took the Lord four times to get Samuel’s attention.

He called out, “Samuel, Samuel. Samuel…” and even then, it was Eli who realized what might be happening.

The first three times, Samuel thought that he was hearing his mentor, Eli, in the other room. He must be the one calling him in the night. Who else could it be? No one else was there. And yet he keeps hearing, “Samuel… Samuel…” until it’s so close that you can no longer deny it. It is like the voice is right there in the room with him.

And Eli, who has more experience with this sort of thing, says: “Go back. And if you hear it again, say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’”

Now, there are several things that we can take away from this exchange.

According to Amy Oden, she says:
Notice how this encounter happens at night. First, both Samuel and Eli are lying down—a posture of stillness and receptivity. A spiritual practice.

What listening practices do we have? What pauses or openings do we create in our daily lives for the holy?

Second, God calls Samuel by name. God addresses Samuel directly. Separately from messages that God sends more generally to the whole people, God is speaking here to just Samuel. There is an intimacy in God speaking Samuel’s name directly—and persistently.

It’s hard for most of us to imagine, isn’t it? Much less accept that God could be speaking to us personally—to our particular time and place, to our own biography, our own personality.

Have you ever thought about that?
Have you ever asked yourself:
Am I willing to let God speak personally to me?
To my particularity?
What does it sound like when God calls my name?

Third, Samuel doesn’t recognize the voice. It’s reassuring, isn’t it?

Even when God speaks his name directly, Samuel doesn’t recognize God’s voice. It takes someone else—his mentor Eli—to help him even entertain the possibility that it is the Word of the Lord speaking to him.

Professor Oden writes: that’s what the body of Christ—that’s the role that we can play. We need each other to help us pay attention and recognize when God is speaking in our lives. Sometimes it’s easier for our friends to notice it, right?

“Can you not see what God is saying to you?”

Fourth, God is persistent.
God doesn’t get fed up with Samuel not getting it.

This means the divine revelation does not depend on our spiritual quickness, but on God’s faithfulness to us. If we don’t get it, God will try again.
And again.
And again.

And last, and not least—we may not like what we hear.

There’s no denying the message that is given to Samuel for Eli is hard. Eli doesn’t want to hear it.

How do we receive what God is saying to us—and what sermon might come from listening to God—as we determine its meaning for our lives?

Now, anytime I start listing things, I always feel like I need to give the caveat: I don’t want it to sound like these are the steps for having a faith of our own. If only it were that easy.

There are no one-size-fits-all prescriptions for forming faith, nor is there a single outcome.

One of the things that this story shows us is that each of us has our own calling.
Each of us has our own story.
Each of us hears scripture in our own way.

They’re all different, and no two are the same—and that’s good. Because faith is not monochrome.

And the further I get in my own ministry, the more and more I am convinced that my role is not to teach the faith or espouse a particular set of doctrines.

Rather, it’s to help us—as individuals and as a community—to be able to articulate our own faith, our own particular beliefs and doubts. Questions.

Isn’t that an exciting vision of what church could be?

Barbara Brown Taylor writes:

“What if people were invited to come tell what they already know of God, instead of to learn what they’re supposed to believe?
What if they were blessed for what they’re already doing in the world instead of chastised for not doing more at church?
What if church itself felt more like a way station than a destination?
And what if the church’s job were to move people out the door, instead of to keep them in—by convincing them that God needs them more in the world rather than in the church?”

In other words, the church at its best is like Eli in this story—helping to discern God’s voice, not insisting that the next generation be a replica of the previous. Not viewing diversity of opinions as a threat, but as a blessing.

Eli is Samuel’s spiritual mentor and his guide. He’s not simply telling Samuel to walk the same path that he did, but he gives him the freedom and the support to find his own path.

Now to be clear—I’m not suggesting that one generation doesn’t have wisdom to share with the next. Clearly, each generation has wisdom to share. But each new generation also has its own path.

So I hope you hear what I’m saying today.
Because it’s really important.

You do not simply have to accept what has been passed down to you without your question or input.

Our faith is never set in stone. It is alive, and it is evolving.

You’re allowed—indeed, you’re encouraged—to bring your own thoughts, your own questions, your own doubts, experience to bear on this faith that we are trying to live out together. That’s both individual and communal.

Because that’s the tension that we live in.
We share our faith with one another, but without insisting that we all have to agree on every last little thing.

It’s been pointed out that you can insist on being right, or you can be loving, but you can’t necessarily be both.

Love of God and neighbor means that we hold onto our beliefs and our doctrines lightly.

What I mean by that is not that we don’t take them seriously—in fact, quite the opposite. We take them very seriously and realize that they can have great impact.

Which is why we also hold onto them lightly—because sometimes our beliefs can have unintended consequences. And if we find that our beliefs have caused harm to others that we did not intend, then we need to be willing to re-evaluate those beliefs, rather than valuing dogma over people.

Notice that it’s become popular once again to proclaim this hierarchy of love.

“I love—” you know, we’ll list them on a t-shirt or whatever—
“I love God first, then family, then my country, then my Honda…” I don’t know. Whatever it is. “I love this first, and then I love that.”

But where does Jesus ever talk about love in any kind of hierarchical way?

He very specifically says when asked:
Love of God and love of neighbor are not ranked.
They’re the same thing.

So if our dogma—if our beliefs—result in us harming our neighbor, whether we intend it or not, whether our neighbor be female, or queer, or foreign, or poor, or Black, or Brown, then it’s our dogma—our belief—that needs reevaluating, not the other way around.

Because as William Sloane Coffin reminds us:

“The time is always right to change our minds when to do so is to widen our hearts.”

Amen.

The post A Faith of Our Own appeared first on Roland Park Presbyterian Church.

Discussion Questions

1. Hearing God’s Voice

• The young Samuel hears God’s call repeatedly but does not recognize it until Eli guides him.
  o Have you ever felt uncertain whether something was “from God” or not?
  o Who or what helps you discern God’s voice in your life?
• The sermon reminded us that “God doesn’t give up.”
  o How does God’s persistence in calling Samuel speak to your own spiritual journey?
  o Where in your life do you feel God might be trying to get your attention?

2. Creating Space for the Holy

• Samuel and Eli were lying down, a position of rest and openness.
  o What practices help you slow down and listen for the holy in your life?
  o Where do you create space to be spiritually receptive—in your home, routine, or relationships?

3. Intergenerational Wisdom

• Eli didn’t push Samuel to copy his own path; instead, he supported Samuel in listening for God’s unique call.
  o What role does mentorship or spiritual friendship play in your life right now?
  o How can we as a church support different generations in finding their own voice?

4. Faith that Evolves

• Pastor Mark said, “Our faith is never set in stone. It is alive and evolving.”
  o How has your understanding of faith changed over time?
  o What questions or doubts are part of your faith right now?
• The sermon encourages each person to articulate their own faith.
  o If someone asked you what you believe, what would you say today?

5. Holding Belief Lightly and Lovingly

• The message reminded us that belief should never harm others—and if it does, it must be reexamined.
  o Have you experienced moments when belief was used in a hurtful way? How did you respond?
  o How can we as a church hold our beliefs in ways that expand love, not limit it?

6. Faith in Action

• Quoting Barbara Brown Taylor, Pastor Mark asked:
  “What if church felt more like a way station than a destination?”
  o How does this change how you think about the purpose of church?
• What might God be calling you to do or become right now?
  o What’s one small step you can take this week to follow that call?

The post Sermon Discussion Guide: A Faith of Our Own appeared first on Roland Park Presbyterian Church.

In many ways, we can think of the book of Genesis—the creation stories, the story of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph—as kind of prequels to this story in Exodus. Because, in many ways, this is the foundational story—the foundational text of our faith tradition—as well as that of our Jewish brothers and sisters, and that of our Muslim brothers and sisters as well.

The story of Moses meeting God in the burning bush and being called to confront Pharaoh… to let the people of Israel out of their bondage in Egypt.

Exodus 2:23-25; 3:1-15; 4:10-17

After a long time the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned under their slavery and cried out. Their cry for help rose up to God from their slavery. God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God looked upon the Israelites, and God took notice of them.

Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness and came to Mount Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight and see why the bush is not burned up.” When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

Then the Lord said, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. Now go, I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” He said, “I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”

But Moses said to God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ” God also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’:

This is my name forever,
and this my title for all generations.

But Moses said to the Lord, “O my Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor even now that you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.” Then the Lord said to him, “Who gives speech to mortals? Who makes them mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you are to speak.” But he said, “O my Lord, please send someone else.” Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses, and he said, “What of your brother Aaron, the Levite? I know that he can speak well; even now he is coming out to meet you, and when he sees you his heart will be glad. You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth, and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth and will teach you what you shall do. He indeed shall speak for you to the people; he shall serve as a mouth for you, and you shall serve as God for him. Take in your hand this staff, with which you shall perform the signs.”

For the Word of God in Scripture,
For the Word of God among us,
For the Word of God within us,
Thanks be to God.

***

When Dave Muir was born in 1961, the doctors predicted that he would be some kind of athlete—maybe a football player—because even as a newborn, he had these strongly defined muscles. He was like a jacked little baby.

But as his mother observed him as he grew, she started to notice some things. When he started to walk as a toddler, he would do this weird thing where his foot would halt before he fully put it down. Then one day he was playing, but he couldn’t get himself up off the floor. And these instances kept occurring, to the point where Dave’s parents began to worry. So they took him to see the doctor.

And the doctor ran some tests and then broke the news to them: their young boy, Dave, had muscular dystrophy.

So the doctor explained the prognosis. Eventually, he would not be able to walk or breathe on his own. Even his heart—that all-important muscle—would cease to work on its own one day.

The doctor said that he probably wouldn’t live past the age of 12.

Dave’s parents took the news hard, of course. But Dave—Dave was not deterred.

When he was in elementary school, he was in a wheelchair, and at playtime he got his friends to push him as fast as they could to clear that ditch in the playground—then again toward the berm so that he could catch some air in his wheelchair. Even in the hallway between classes, he would have his friends race him down the hallway, calling out to everybody, “Watch out! Watch out!”

The principal seemingly had his parents on speed dial.

In addition to being a little bit rambunctious and a bit of a troublemaker, Dave was also an unstoppable communicator. That’s a nice way to put it. His dad called him a “motor-mouth.” He loved to talk, to debate, to laugh.

In fact, when he was in high school—yes, high school, well beyond his original prognosis—he threatened to sue the school’s administration because they had not provided a ramp, even though the law required it of them. And so, at his behest, they put one in.

But in his twenties, the muscular dystrophy began to affect his breathing. He needed a tracheostomy to breathe. But it took away his ability to communicate.

Still, he would not be deterred.

He got an idea: if you put a valve in the tube that would act kind of like a door—releasing air or keeping it trapped—you could recreate the pressure that is necessary for your vocal cords to make sound. And so, with the help of an ENT specialist, this ended up being the Passy-Muir Valve, which is still in use today, giving hundreds—even thousands—of people their voice back.

Dave writes:

“I learned many things from this experience. I learned that anger, if turned toward a problem rather than toward oneself or circumstances, can be overcome. And God can work wonders. Indeed, just as I thought God had turned his back on me, He, in reality, gave me an incredible opportunity to help myself and others.”

Our passage today—God hears the pleas of His people and God speaks to Moses from a burning bush.

It starts with the Israelites suffering under slavery, writes Justin Michael Reed. The severe oppression goes beyond slavery when Pharaoh commands genocide against the newborn boys. At the start of our passage, the tyrannical king has died, but the oppression continues. It’s now become systematic. And therefore Exodus says:

“The Israelites groaned under their slavery and cried out to God.”

And God tells Moses that He has heard this cry and is sending him to the new Pharaoh to demand to free the people.

But Moses, you’ll notice, has questions.

First, he asks, “Who am I that I should go?” The implication being that Moses is nobody. It’s not really important. He’s not a prince of Egypt or a hero of Israel. He’s just some guy who was caught in between.

But God tells Moses not to worry. He promises:

“I will be with you.”

Next, Moses objects because he’s afraid that people are going to ask God’s name. And Moses doesn’t know it. You kind of get the impression that Moses just wanted to know it anyway—he’s kind of using this as a bit of an excuse. He’s like, “So… you know… tell me your name.”

So God reveals the divine name to Moses:

“I Am who I Am.”

God tells Moses, “Tell them I Am sent me to you.”

That should keep them occupied for a while—parse that sentence.

Finally, Moses brings out his big objection. He says, “God, I think you’ve overlooked something in this plan. I’m really not good at talking to people.”

The text is a bit vague, but the Hebrew literally means:

“I am of heavy mouth and heavy tongue.”

You can see why scholars and rabbis have theorized through the years that Moses maybe had some sort of speech impediment. And that’s the way they expressed it—”I am of heavy mouth and heavy tongue.”

So God responds that Moses doesn’t have to go it alone. Aaron will be there to help him—to speak this truth to power.

So there’s this interdependence that’s part of God’s plan.

Sarah Wolf explains that this interdependence is not beside the point—it is the point. God is thus simply explaining to Moses that just like God can’t and doesn’t speak directly to most people, so too Moses does not have to do all the speaking himself. God not only reassures Moses that he will have support, but also admits to Moses that God’s own role requires assistance, too.

I think Robert Williamson summarizes our passage for today this way. He says:

“The way God works in the world, it seems, is through people like Moses, who pay attention when things are on fire in the world and don’t ignore them or run away. But even Moses—one of the heroes of scripture—is at first afraid to do what God asks of him, begging God to send someone else, anyone else. Yet it turns out that this God of ours is an equipping God who gives Moses what is needed for the task ahead of him: a staff, a partner, even the divine name.”

During a major renovation of our sanctuary in the late 1950s, a wooden sculpture was added—it’s just out of my sight over here—that is a depiction of the burning bush and the divine name.

So this passage has special meaning for us as a congregation who, for over 60 years, has worshipped with that sculpture in our space. It reminds us of those who have gone before us. It reminds us of our grounding in God’s story. It reminds us that God’s revelation is not “once upon a time,” but is ongoing. God is still speaking—sometimes in ways that are just as strange as that.

And so it also reminds us to keep asking: Who is God calling us toward today? And how is God equipping us for the task at hand?

I would say it reminds us of a theological reality too—and that is that the eternal work of God is the work of liberation.

Famed liberation theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez writes:

“The God of Exodus is the God of history and of political liberation.”

So that God calls Moses to go to Pharaoh and say, “Let my people go”—it’s not a surprise, right?

But what might catch us off guard, what we might not always notice in the story, is that in order to do that, God must first free Moses. Free him from self-doubt and pity. Free him from what others have labeled as a disability. And God also frees Moses of this notion that he has to go it alone—to show him that he is, in fact, dependent on others.

And this interdependence is a good thing. It’s a really good thing.

Desmond Tutu, the renowned South African Anglican bishop and social rights activist, once stated:

“My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.”

This powerful quote encapsulates the interconnectedness of individuals and emphasizes the significance of our shared humanity. It calls upon us to recognize that our well-being and our fulfillment are deeply intertwined with the well-being and fulfillment of others.

Friends, today is the last Sunday that we are going to worship in this sanctuary as it is. For the next several weeks or so, we will worship downstairs in our assembly hall while work is done to make this space more accessible, more open, and more friendly for all of God’s children.

A big part of our renovations over the past several years has been about making our building ADA accessible and making sure that people who have abilities that are labeled as different from the norm are made to feel welcome and valued just as they are.

This place where I am standing now is the last place in our building—literally—that is not ADA accessible. And so I cannot overstate the importance of the ramp that we are putting up here.

It’s not just a structure. It is the physical embodiment of who we want to be—who we believe God is calling us to be.

But like Moses, we’ve had our reservations and our objections along the way. There’s been self-doubt, other priorities, and that ever-present temptation of the status quo.

Yet God’s call has persisted.

And in seeking to invite and welcome others, in responding to God’s call—maybe, I hope—we have found our own sense of God’s grace deepening as well.

We have experienced God equipping us.

We have experienced our vision expanding.

We’ve grown our ministries.

And through it all, we’ve learned what Moses and Dave Muir and Desmond Tutu know:

We are all connected.
Our freedom and our well-being are inseparable.

You know what?

In a world that seems to increasingly believe the lie that we’re different because of where we come from, or where we’re born, or the color of our skin, or our socioeconomic status—in a world that believes that lie and wants us to live in that lie—it seems to me that as people of faith, we have a story to tell and a truth to proclaim.

Yes, with our voices—but also with our actions.
And yes, even our building.

That we are connected.
That we are all God’s children.
That each and every one of us are recipients at a table of grace.

May we find the courage to speak and to live this truth.
And let our hymn now be our prayer and our call.

Amen.

The post Let My People Go appeared first on Roland Park Presbyterian Church.

We have been, for the latter half of the summer, looking at the last book of the Christian Scriptures—the last book of the Bible—the book of Revelation. A very misunderstood book, a very misinterpreted book.

We have been reading Revelation, as Eugene Peterson says, not as prediction but as perception. It is a book about what the people of God at that time were experiencing, but it’s also a book of hope—that the way things are now is not necessarily the way they’re going to be, or that they have to be.

One of the reasons the book is so misunderstood is because it’s so heavy into the use of symbolism and metaphor. There are talks of dragons and lions and lambs and all of these kind of fantastical things. But these are really symbols that are pointing to realities that the people of that time would recognize and—as we’ve hopefully seen through this series—that you and I might recognize as well.

Just a quick word or reminder, as always—and I know some of you are like, “Mark, you say this all the time, we got it”—but our culture is so strong in the opposite message. And that’s just simply that this word apocalypse, this word revelation, it’s not a big scary word. It doesn’t mean the end and judgment and fire. It actually refers to—kind of just what I was joking about a little bit—those little miracles that pop up that we can claim, that give us a glimpse.

That’s what the word apocalypse means. It means kind of like—it’s the idea of pulling back a curtain to reveal something that you didn’t see. It’s been there, but you didn’t see it. So that’s literally what the word apocalypse means: a pulling back of the curtain or veil to show us something.

And so the idea is that these little miracles, these little things, are instances of us getting a glimpse of grace, a glimpse of God’s reality kind of infusing our own. And it gives us hope, even in the midst of some difficult circumstances, to keep on going.

And with that, we will be reading toward the end of the book of Revelation. This whole thing has been building—there have been battles and all of these things—and then it’s kind of a nice surprise ending.

Let us pray:

You are our God, and we are Your people. And in Your kingdom, every place is holy. We pray for hearts open to see Your face reflected all around us, not only here. Even now, already, Your glory shines, and You bid us taste and see that You are good.

Give us a glimpse—even a moment—that we may be strengthened for the living of these days. Amen.

Revelation 21:1–6, 22:1–5

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 

“See, the home of God is among mortals.

He will dwell with them;

they will be his peoples,

and God himself will be with them and be their God;

he will wipe every tear from their eyes.

Death will be no more;

mourning and crying and pain will be no more,

for the first things have passed away.”

And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him; they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

For the Word of God in scripture,
For the Word of God among us,
For the Word of God within us,
Thanks be to God.

***

The very first verse of the very first chapter of the very first book of the Bible—Genesis—reads: “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.” In Revelation, the last book of the Bible, we read about a new heaven and a new earth. In Genesis 2, we read about the Garden of Eden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the river watering the garden flowing from Eden. In Revelation, we read of the river of the water of life flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb, and the tree of life on its shores. Clearly, the author of Revelation wants us to hearken back to the beginning—that original vision of paradise.

In many ways, that is the story of the Bible. It’s the story of getting back to the Garden of Eden. That first ideal. That original wholeness and completeness. Generations have been asking, “How do we get there?” Is it through power and might, by conquering neighboring kingdoms? Is it through obedience and faithfulness? How do we get there?

And it almost seems like the harder we try, the worse it gets. First there’s the flood—where things are so bad, God wants to restart. Just like a malfunctioning computer or device: “Have you tried turning it off and on again?” Now, initially this seems to work, but then more trouble comes. In Egypt, the golden calf. Wandering in the desert. Exile in Babylon. And on and on.

But then for us Christians, eventually Jesus arrives on the scene with a direct link to the divine. And he shows us what is possible: loving God and loving neighbor, sharing our bread, caring for the widow and the orphan. But these are the very things that put him in opposition to the empire. His message of love and justice is a direct threat to the status quo and the powers that be. So eventually, they arrest Jesus, and they put him on trial for sedition. And at this, the crowds—who had once gathered to hang on his every word and welcomed him into town with shouts of “Hosanna!”—lose hope yet again. Their shouts of praise turn to cries of “Crucify!” As one hymn puts it: “A murderer they save, the Prince of Life they slay.”  All of our attempts to return to the Garden—to get to God—fail. In large part because we prefer the empire and the status quo to the Kingdom of God.

One way of understanding the book of Revelation is that it is kind of a retelling of this biblical narrative. A fantastical reworking of salvation history, with the Roman Empire as the beast and with Jesus as the Lamb, and the people of God caught between these two ways of being in the world. Revelation portrays the battle between these forces, where everything seems to be at stake.

And this is the thread most often picked up from Revelation—this eternal battle between good and evil, along with its vivid imagery. This is why Revelation is such an inspiration for so much art—for paintings, for music, for movies, for novels.

Though it’s interesting that many of these artistic interpretations—as well as regular interpretations—suppose, like those first crowds who followed Jesus, that love and justice are ultimately no match for the ferocity and power of the empire. We just—just cannot imagine, in the language of Revelation, the Lamb outlasting the beast. If this were a video game, the beast wins 100 out of 100 times.

And I’m guessing that most of us, if asked about Revelation, might say something about the final judgment, about the end of the world. But as we’ve hopefully learned over these past several weeks, Revelation is not about the end of the world. Rather, as the band R.E.M. put it in the ’80s—maybe early ’90s—“It’s the end of the world as we know it.” To get that distinction—it’s so important. It’s not the end of the world. But it is the end of the world as we know it.

As we just read, Revelation doesn’t conclude with destruction, but new birth. New creation. It is about that return to the Garden. The reunion of God and humanity. But instead of us finding our way to God, God comes to us. “Behold, the home of God is among mortals.” Turns out we’ve had it wrong all along.

Richard Rohr describes this theological reality when he writes: “Most of us have been taught that God would love us if and when we change. In fact, God loves us so that we can change.” Turns out we don’t need to prove ourselves. We don’t need to earn God’s love. It’s been with us all along. We just have to trust that love to guide us. And most of the time, you and I do not believe that it’s powerful enough to overcome all that we face.

Throughout this series, I’ve made some unusual comparisons to help us dive deeper into the message of the book of Revelation—and maybe to demystify it a little bit. You might remember in one of the first sermons in this series, I said that Revelation was like the children’s book Goodnight Gorilla. A few weeks ago, I equated it to a New Yorker cartoon that appeared in the magazine shortly after 9/11, in which a man was standing on a street corner holding a sign—and instead of “The End Is Near,” he proclaimed the message: “It’s All Going to Be Okay.” Then last week, I used the example of an uptight college admissions counselor from an elite private college to remind us that God’s grace is not stingy, but sweeping.

Today, in my final sermon in this series, I want to offer one last comparison: The book of Revelation is like one of those Hallmark movies that my wife loves so much. She agrees with me that they’re a bit cheesy and predictable. In fact, that’s the reason that she loves them. With so much in our world that is complicated and depressing, it’s nice to escape from that reality to one in which love does, in the end, always win.

I sometimes tease her about how predictable these movies are. Here’s the typical plot:

Two people meet in some unexpected fashion, right? And there’s a spark—an attraction—but it can’t be. Circumstances are preventing it. They’re from two different parts of the world. Perhaps one’s already in a committed relationship. Inevitably, one’s from a small, quaint, picturesque country town, and the other is from the big city. Am I doing okay so far? Yeah? I’m doing okay.

The person from the big city has big dreams. But the person from the small town also has big dreams—although they seem a little bit more humble and quaint. Despite these differences, circumstances just keep somehow bringing these two people together—until eventually they can no longer deny their attraction. But still—still—their circumstances prevent them from seeing a future together. But then, finally, in the end, something changes. The opportunity presents itself. And they can both live out their dreams together in some previously unforeseen way. And eventually, love wins. And the movie ends—usually with the two people getting engaged, or maybe there’s the beginning of the wedding—and almost always with a kiss.

Sometimes I lovingly joke with my wife that just once—just once—I’d like to see a sequel that goes back to this couple years later when they’ve been married for a while. Maybe when they have kids and a mortgage. Maybe when their careers don’t quite pan out the way that they had hoped. But that never happens, because of course, that would ruin the fantasy, wouldn’t it?

Did you notice that Revelation ends with a wedding? The wedding of the Feast of the Lamb.
It’s this metaphor that we’ve encountered many times throughout the Bible— The marriage, the unification, of God and God’s people. Ultimately, the book of Revelation is like a Hallmark movie. It’s about hope and the perseverance of love. Not hope that life is without struggle or that the battle is easily won. Not hope that the empire never wins anything—only that those wins are short-term. The long-term—the end—belongs to our God who loves us and promises never to leave us to our own devices. Hope that all of this is only the tip of the iceberg, and that beyond this reality, there is a benevolent way of being where truly love and justice do reign.

Hope, on the one hand, writes Walter Brueggemann, is: “An absurdity too embarrassing to speak about, for it flies in the face of all those claims that we have been told are facts.”

(This is on your bulletin cover, by the way.) “Hope is the refusal to accept the reading of reality which is the majority opinion, and one that does that at only great political and existential risk. Hope,” Brueggemann says, “is defiant and insists that God is not finished writing the story.”

Throughout this series, we’ve been saying Revelation is not about prediction, but perception. The truth of the matter is: the author has no special insight into the future.

Rather, he has a vision. And it is a vision that we, as fellow Christians, are invited to adopt as well: The belief that love is stronger than hate. That life is stronger than death. And that in the end, all will be well. So if it’s not well, it just means it’s not the end. And if it’s not the end, then you and I have work to do.

Now, it is my understanding that in the Jewish tradition, when they come to the end of a set of biblical readings, they always end by going back to the beginning, where they read the first sentence of the first reading of the next year. In this way, they remind themselves that the end is not really the end—but just a new beginning—and that everything is in this continual loop. Likewise, next week we will begin again at the beginning, in Genesis chapter 1, where God invites us to join in the work of creation—to be co-workers and co-creators with God—because God is not done with us yet. The story is still being written, and the promise is that the best is yet to come.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

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