Just Imagine

March 9, 2025, St Barnabas Lutheran Church, Howard Beach, Queens, N.Y.

Saint Ignatius suggested we may hear God’s voice more clearly if we imagine ourselves in the midst of Gospel stories we are reading.

I love to follow this advice. It enables us to divert our eyes from the fading prints of Salman’s Head of Christ and begin to see the real Jesus. As we imagine ourselves in the crowds who witnessed his baptism, or place ourselves in the synagogue as Jesus declares “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,” (Luke 4:18:21), we begin to see a man of extraordinary charisma. Unlike the blond Christ on stained glass windows, we may behold an actual brass age Palestinian: a man with brown skin glowing with sweat, unruly black hair, and large biceps developed by his years as a laborer. We may behold the man whose powerful presence and contagious compassion attracted curious crowds wherever he walked.

Sometimes the stories we read take Jesus away from the adoring crowds. In Matthew 4, after his baptism, he is led by the spirit into the wilderness.

I don’t have any difficulty imagining the Palestinian wilderness, which I visited as a young man in 1974. It is truly desolate with pale, jagged rocks and rugged mountains, so much like the American southwest desert. In 1969 Episcopal Bishop James A. Pike visited the wilderness where Jesus prayed. Pike got lost, attempted to keep hydrated by drinking his own urine, and prayed for help. His body was found days later as he knelt against a rock in a position of prayer.

Clearly it is no small thing to go into this wilderness to pray. And it’s daunting just to imagine yourself, in Ignatian contemplation, at Jesus’ side. There are no other witnesses to hide behind. Just miles of arid emptiness and silent rocks.

In my mind’s eye I see Jesus sitting on one of those rocks. He is looking straight ahead and I wonder if he is praying. Or perhaps he is thinking of the cool waters of his recent baptism, now so far away. 

I move slowly toward him, wincing as sharp rocks press into my Sketchers, and sit on a boulder a few feet from Jesus. Jesus continues to sit quietly and so do I.

Long moments pass and our shadows disappear as the sun climbs high over head. Beads of sweat begin to collect on Jesus brown forehead. 

I glance at my Apple Watch to see how much time has passed. I begin to wonder how much longer we will be sitting silently on unforgiving rocks and the thought jumps into my head that Jesus is supposed to be here for forty days. I gasp. Is that, I wonder, a literal forty days or a metaphorical way of saying “a long time.” And, if so how long?

Jesus turns his head toward me and I sense both his loneliness and his compassion. But we continue to sit in silence.

Over head birds of prey are circling. Probably seeking some distant carrion, I tell myself. Jesus and I are clearly too alive to tempt birds who feast on decomposing flesh. I look at Jesus for reassurance but he has closed his eyes in prayer.

Good idea, I think. I try to remember devotional words from Luther’s Small Catechism. The words of the Lord’s prayer spin through my mind, and so does the Jesus Prayer: “Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Usually the words are a great comfort to me, but I’m a little self-conscious thinking them with Jesus so close. Can he hear me? Are my prayers intruding on his?

I continue to sit quietly, resenting the rock beneath my uncomfortable backside. My hungry stomach begins to grumble and thoughts of the Bagel Emporium menu push the Jesus prayer out of my head.

Cinnamon raisin, poppy seed, blueberry, all sorts of bagels danced in my head. I was sure the rumbling in my stomach could be heard over the desert wind. Jesus turned toward me again.

“Are you okay?” he asks gently. I am startled by the sound of his voice.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I’d be happy to spring for a dozen bagels if there’s a bakery nearby.”

Jesus smiled. “I’m good,” he said.

We had been sitting for a long time and Jesus stood up, stretching his arms. I was grateful for the cue and lifted my aching bums from the sharp rock.

Jesus walked slowly toward a crevasse in the rocks and I followed him cautiously. At the bottom of the chasm was a small trickle of blue water. I suddenly realized I was thirstier than hungry and began to calculate a safe route down the cliff to get to the water. I am not a rock climber and I could foresee a dangerous and perhaps fatal descent.

Jesus looked at me and I was sure he was reading my mind.

“Jesus,” I said, “that’s a long way down. I guess it would take a miracle to get to the bottom safely.”

Jesus smiled. “Then forget it,” he said. He turned and walked back to the rocks where we were sitting. Reluctantly, I leaned against my rock and tried to shift positions so my ass wouldn’t fall asleep.

Jesus closed his eyes again and visions of Fiji water bottles and egg bagels pushed the Jesus Prayer out of my head.

I closed my eyes and tried to imagine what it must be like for Jesus as he sat in the wilderness awaiting his tempter.

Emboldened by our recent exchanges, I cleared my throat. Jesus turned toward me.

“Still okay?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I was just thinking what it’s like for you, the Son of God who was present at the creation of the universe, all this power at your fingertips.”

Jesus looked at me but did not respond.

“And here you are, alone in the desert, no food, no water, no acolytes, no assistants or aides.”

Jesus did not respond. I cleared my throat again.

“I mean, look at all the earthly power that has been amassed in your name. Emperors, monarchs, popes, presidents, television evangelists, superchurch pastors.”

Jesus continued to look at me silently.

I shifted uneasily on my rock.

“I mean, doesn’t it drive you crazy, all this power humans have seized in your name while you – the ultimate power in the universe – sit here on a rock in the Palestinian desert?”

Jesus was silent.

“It doesn’t make you crazy?” I persisted.

Jesus turned away from me.

“Nah,” he said.

We spent the next hour sitting in silence. The silence was putting me on edge and I began to plan my exit from this Ignatian revelry that was bringing me closer to the real Jesus.

I leaned against my rock for a few more minutes and then stood to signal my ethereal departure. Jesus turned to me one last time.

“It’s been real, Jesus,” I said, “and I feel I’ve gotten closer to you than ever before.”

Jesus smiled.

“But I gotta ask,” I said. “Weren’t you supposed to be tempted by the Devil here?”

Jesus smiled again. 

“Oh? You missed him?”

He closed his eyes and turned away from me.

I opened my eyes, grabbed a water bottle out of the fridge, and hopped in the car for a brief drive to Bagel Emporium.

How Close is Heaven?

March 2, 2025, First Lutheran Church of Throggs Neck, Bronx, N.Y.

Heaven, like star systems millions of light years away, is unreachable without a special means of getting there.

 When God transfigured Jesus, God opened the curtain ever so briefly to show that Heaven is not “up there” but here and now, all around us.

 In astrophysical terms, God opened for just a few minutes a holy wormhole to Heaven.

 A wormhole, as Star-Trekkers know, is a hypothetical and unobservable phenomenon related to Einstein’s theory of relativity. While no one has ever seen a wormhole, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and other science fiction doyens posit they exist.

 Wormholes are conceived as celestial corridors that enable one (if one is so inclined) to travel incalculable distances in an instance, as if the fabric of space was folded together like a blanket to unite distant point A with unreachable point B.

 On the Mount of Transfiguration, God has opened the wormhole for a stunning glimpse of Heaven.

 The Transfiguration is one of many mind-blowing events in the life of Jesus. But, as anyone knows who has tried to argue with secular humanists, that is not definitive proof of divinity. A lot of the miracles could be figments of fertile imaginations. Turning water into wine, walking on water, curing lepers, raising the dead – all are remarkable to be sure. But none of these events would be difficult for a skilled illusionist to duplicate. In a recent Broadway reprise of Godspell, the wine and water events are convincingly displayed.

 It’s also possible that purported witnesses to these events, eager to portray Jesus as special, made them up. In the years before and after the birth of Jesus, magicians, mystics and prophets wandered Palestine hoping to draw attention as potential messiahs. Many of them used miracles to convince crowds of their specialness. 

 That doesn't necessarily diminish the uniqueness of Jesus of Nazareth. But he wasn’t the only rabbi working the crowds.

That is why the Transfiguration is hard to ignore. The unique event is less likely to have been made up by a group of retired disciples quaffing new wine while reminiscing about major miracles. The Transfiguration seems likely to have been based in reality than on some one’s creative fancies. You couldn’t make it up. 

 Here’s Jesus with Peter, James and John, all by themselves, on a high mountain. No one knows which mountain, although the Franciscans built the Church of the Transfiguration on Mount Nebo. Others think it was Mount Hermon, which was closer to Jesus’ stomping grounds of Caesarea-Philippi. But wherever it happened, there are consistently remarkable reports about what happened there.

 “Jesus was transfigured before them,” Mark writes, succinct as always. And lest his readers fail to grasp what that means, he adds a somewhat tedious clarification akin to a Clorox commercial: “And his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them.” (Mark 9:3) 

 Matthew adds that Jesus’ face “shown like the sun” (17:2), and Luke reports, “they saw his glory” (9:32).

 None of the gospel writers actually witnessed the event and their descriptions were based on traditions that had been repeated through several generations. They undoubtedly captured the essence of what Peter, James, and John told people all their lives, and even their references to bleached garments are passably poetic.

 In our own era, computer generated images may simulate what the Transfiguration must have looked like, but even then it would be an illusion based on digitally produced light and virtual images. It wouldn’t answer the ancient question, what was it that the disciples really saw?

 Luke mentions (9:32) that Peter, James, and John “were weighed down with sleep” when Jesus began glowing and Moses and Elijah appeared at his side. Were they dreaming? Back in the psychedelic sixties, when I was in college, this kind of question seemed reasonable because we knew the mind was capable of generating some fantastical illusions. But as one who never admitted inhaling, I doubt a simple toke is the equivalent of divine inspiration.

An acid trip may be full of colors and wavy motions, but there is nothing miraculous about it. One of my summer school roommates was a dabbler in LSD and his excursions from reality were evidently terrifying. Late one July night I returned to our room in the midst of a violent thunder storm. I was wearing my Air Force raincoat, which billowed behind me like a cape, and when I stepped into the room my roommate awakened to see me silhouetted by a flash of lightning. He stood wordlessly, walked deliberately to the window, and jumped out. (Fortunately we were on the first floor.) The next morning, after a night of fitful sleep in the dayroom of a neighboring dorm, my roommate returned. “What a night,” he said. “I thought Dracula had come for me.” Whatever his experience had been, it was not a metaphysical revelation.

 The Transfiguration of Jesus on the mountain transcends and surpasses any glib encounters with magic or spirits. For one thing, the event could not have been simulated by sleight of hand or optical illusion.

 When Jesus’ face glowed like the sun, the sheer potency of the unexpected event scared Peter, James, and John out of their wits. And when Moses and Elijah appeared, Peter succumbed to babble. 

 Then Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. (Mark 9:5-6)

 Peter stopped just short of calling on John to send out for matzos and mackerel. The three disciples had seen Jesus perform miracles before, but this one was a stunner that took their breaths away. 

 That’s what sets the Transfiguration apart from other miracles: it shook the very souls of its human witnesses and left them without doubt that they were viewing a pivotal moment in the history of creation. Here on the mountain, God and humanity connected. Time bonded with eternity. And the medium that brought heaven and earth together was Jesus of Nazareth, the evidently normal man with whom the disciples ate, drank, walked, and slept. The Transfiguration showed a dimension of Jesus they couldn’t imagine, and with frightening clarity before their very eyes.

 And ears:  “Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came as voice: ‘This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him!’” (Mark 9:7)

 The disciples swung around to see Moses’ and Elijah’s reaction but, with exquisite timing, they were gone. “They saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.” (Mark 9:8) In the snap of a synapse, the Transfiguration was over.

 But the effects of the Transfiguration were eternal. The disciples stood on the mountain with Jesus so briefly but in the few moments that passed they saw who Jesus was and is and will be forever. That is why Christian theology assigns such significance to the Transfiguration. It is the bridge between Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, a holy glimpse of the perfection of heaven, a clear declaration from God that Jesus is “my son, the Beloved.”

The Transfiguration is also a bond between the disciples, and between other Christians who lived and died across the centuries.

 In his book, Reaching Out, Henri J. M. Nouwen tells of an encounter with an old friend he had not seen in a long time. They greeted each other and sat in the sunshine.

 “It seemed that while the silence grew deeper around us we became more and more aware of a presence embracing both of us,” Nouwen wrote. “Then he said, ‘It is good to be here,’ and I said, ‘Yes, it is good to be together again,’ and after that we were silent again for a long period. And as a deep peace filled the empty space between us he said hesitantly, ‘When I look at you it is as if I am in the presence of Christ.’ I did not feel startled, surprised or in need of protesting, but I could only say, ‘It is the Christ in you who recognizes the Christ in me.’ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘He is indeed in our midst,’ and then he spoke the words which entered into my soul as the most healing words I had heard in many years: ‘From now on, wherever you go, or wherever I go, all the ground between us will be holy ground.’”

 When Jesus and his three disciples climbed the mount of Transfiguration, they sensed what would follow: crucifixion, martyrdom, persecution and terrible suffering. But for a moment, the Transfiguration transcended all that and reminded them of the salvation promised by God.

 So it is with all of us. Life has its ups and downs, its moments bitter and sweet, and none of us know when or how our lives will end.

 But in Reaching Out, Nouwen reminds us that all our worries and fears are in God’s hands: 

 “Jesus showed us all that the very things we often flee – our vulnerability and mortality – can, at any moment, become the place of holy transfiguration, for us and for our world.”

Satyagraha. Luke 6:27-36

February 23, Saint Barnabas Lutheran Church, Howard Beach, Queens, N.Y. 

I have led a Forrest Gump life.

As a church magazine editor, I never did anything important. But I got to stand next to some amazing people.

I have shaken hands with Dr. Jonas Salk. I have schmoozed with Jimmy Carter. I have watched the tall, august figure of Civil Rights icon Dorothy Height stroll the corridors of the United Nations. I have smelled the aroma of cigar smoke clinging to burley form of Teddy Kennedy. I have sat in a meeting with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict, though I was not sure I really knew which of the white-haired red-capped cardinals in the room was him.

I have led a Forrest Gump life.

In 1982 Columbia Pictures invited church communicators to preview Gandhi, the epic biographical film of the great Indian leader. I was among the privileged few to view the film from luxuriously padded chairs in a small screening room. And although our hosts never let our wine glasses go dry, I stayed awake throughout all the 191 minutes of the film.

I was deeply impressed by the story of Gandhi and his confrontation with the British empire. The next morning I went to the Columbia bookstore and bought every book on Gandhi they had, about five books. Over the next several days I devoured them as if they were brain candy. I learned the details of Gandhi’s life that couldn’t fit in the film. In particular I learned about Satyagraha.

Satyagraha, which means “truth force,” is a policy of nonviolent political resistance against oppressors. Without firing a shot, Gandhi led a massive movement that led to India’s independence in 1948.

Here, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., used satyagraha to show the evils of Jim Crow and racial abuse by white oppressors.

And, if you look closely at today’s scripture, Jesus is advocating a form of satyagraha to his listeners, a satyagraha based on love and forgiveness.

“Love your enemies,” Jesus said.  “Do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you; pray for those who mistreat you.” (Lk 6:27-28)

These are not easy commandments.

My three older daughters, now adults, are mixed race or Black, and for many years we attended a Baptist church in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. I taught a Sunday School class of seventh grade girls.

There were, granted, some tiny cultural differences between them and me. Like we were speaking different languages.

I didn’t realize how different until I tried to teach the passage we read today.

“Jesus,” I began confidently, “said to love your enemies.”

I thought I heard a gasp so I paused. The girls were staring at me with gaping mouths and horrified eyes.

“He what?” said one.

“Naw, he didn’t say that,” said another.

“Stupid,” said a third.

I hesitated. These girls had good and loving parents who made sure their hair was braided with colorful ribbons and they wore Sunday dresses and patent leather shoes. They were in church every Sunday. How could they miss this essential teaching of Jesus?

“Well,” I said, “you can see where he said it in the Bible …”

“Then he was wrong,” said one of the older girls, no amused at my ignorance. “Jesus tried loving bullies in the seventh grade, he’d be beaten to a pulp.”

The other girls nodded.

After class, I realized the girls were teaching me.

Jesus may have been telling us to turn the other cheek. But surely he wasn’t advocating being beaten to a pulp.

In some churches, Jesus’ commandment to love those who persecute has been taken to an extreme. Wives who tell their pastors that their husbands have beaten them are told it’s because they aren’t showing their husbands enough love. They are sent home with instructions to be more loving and more submissive.

And certainly there are episodes in scripture where Jesus did submit and allow himself to be beaten. But there was also the Jesus who rose up against the abuse of power and tossed the tables of the money changers while flailing a whip.

Scholar Mary Hinkle Shore writes, “The great majority of the Sermon on the Plain …  including its exhortations to love enemies and show mercy like that of the Most High, is spoken to the community of those listening to Jesus. This ethic is not meant to be tried alone. The text is not a directive, for instance, to an individual suffering spousal abuse to bear up under it while the rest of her Christian congregation looks the other way. In the reign of God, we live and act in community, which means, bluntly, that we concern ourselves with each other’s business more than the transaction ethic might suggest we should.”

This is where the concept of Satyagraha takes on a Christian aura.

“Jesus offers his ethic as a way for the community of his followers to resist the tit-for-tat of the present age, not to be passive in the face of it,” Shore writes. “When we live the ethic of this Sermon in the face of this world’s violence, we are collectively saying to those who hate, abuse, strike, judge, and condemn, ‘You are not the boss of me.’ We are demonstrating that bad behavior cannot goad us into reacting in kind. We are resisting the evils we deplore.”

When I look back on my life, I am appalled by the times I allowed evil to be the boss of me.

I grew up in a tiny hamlet in Central New York State. Madison County is rural and predominantly white. However, Peterboro, N.Y., was an outpost of the Underground Railroad and in the 1860s several African American escapees settled there. I knew many of their descendants, and I also observed how they were insulted, belittled, and mistreated by my fellow white folks. I did not participate in the abuse. I ignored it, to my shame.

When I was growing up in the fifties and sixties, many persons had to struggle in solitude with their sexual orientation. This was decades before the Stonewall uprising or Act-Up of Pride, and for many their sexuality was a cause of shame. It wasn’t until I attended class reunions decades later that some classmates showed up with partners of the same gender. They were welcomed, of course, with love. But I cringe to think what it must have been like for them as teenagers when they hid their truth in silence because their contemporaries were not ready to hear it.

When we consider times when we allowed evil to be the boss of us, it is good to revisit the portion of the Sermon on the Plain that we read last week, and update the context:

Blessed are you suffer racism, for you will be free.

Blessed are you who are gay or lesbian or trans, for you will be loved.

Blessed are you when you suffer domestic abuse, for you will find safety.

Blessed are you who feel the darkness now, for you see the light.

Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you, for you are to be counted in the beloved community of the most high.

Love is the thread interwoven throughout the Sermon on the Plain. Love is the thread interwoven thought all scripture and Holy Writ. Love is the thread interwoven through all the mountains and valleys of our lives.

“Love,” said Zora Neale Hurston, is like the sea. It’s a moving thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from the shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.”

“Love,” said Zora Neale Hurston, “makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.”

“I believe,” said Martin Luther King, Jr., “that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality … Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

May love and light and justice embrace us all.

Amen.

Buttons and Bows and Blessings and Woes

February 16, 2025, Saint Barnabas Lutheran Church, Howard Beach, Queens, N.Y.

It’s impossible to drive around the metropolitan area without being enticed by billboard signs for the New York Lotto or the MegaMillions lotteries. Last week the Lotto was dangling $2.9 mill before our eyes and there was $110 mill in the Mega pot. 

These figures are mind boggling, way beyond our ability to imagine them in our bank accounts. But there’s no harm in dreaming about it, and most of us do. There is an old story about a man who prayed daily that God would let him win the lottery. But with every drawing of the lottery God was silent, until the man pleaded with God, “Please, please, let me win the lottery.” And after a few seconds of silence, a voice came down from above: “Can't you at least buy a ticket?”

Many of us do buy tickets, especially when the lotteries reach astronomical heights. Martha and I have been known to purchase lotto tickets to buy ourselves a few hours of fantasizing what it would be like to be rich. We invoke Dorothy Parker, the acerbic writer for the New Yorker, who said, “I don’t know much about being a millionaire, but I’ll bet I’d be darling at it.”

Yes, buying lottery tickets is fun, especially knowing the chances of winning are infinitely slim. And when we don’t win, we can shrug it off and resume our normal lives.

Our Gospel reading for this morning reminds us what we already knew: that we should place our hope in God and not the New York Lottery.

Luke 6:17-26 is known as the Sermon on the Plain, because we are told Jesus came down “and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people.” (Lk 6:17)

The first thing we notice about the Sermon on the Plain are beatitudes very like the ones in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount. (Mt 5)

This is not surprising because Matthew was written before Luke wrote his Gospel, and it’s possible Luke was aware of Matthew before he put pen to parchment.

It’s also possible that Jesus preached similar sermons on the mount and the plain and in many other places. Many rabbis teach by repeating lessons many times until their listeners know them by heart. This would explain why the words of Jesus are remembered so clearly by Gospel writers decades after his ascension.

But the Sermon on the Plain adds something new. In addition to blessings, Jesus invokes woes on his disciples.

“But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.

“Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.

“Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.

“Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.” (Lk 6:24-26)

Woe, woe, woe. Who is Jesus addressing?

I very much fear it could be me. And us. Dwellers of the richest nation in the history of the world.  

Are we rich? Certainly not in comparison to the one percent. But compared to the homeless, compared to starving babies in Gaza or Rwanda, “we have received our consolation.”

Are we full, as Jesus put it? Beyond doubt.

Do all speak well of us? Perhaps.

These are worrisome questions. It’s more comforting to seek solace in the beatitudes of the Sermon on the Plain.

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.

“Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.” (Lk 6:20-21)

But Mary Hinkle Shore of Brevard, North Carolina, wonders if these beatitudes are all that comforting.

“The difficulty in preaching this text in a 21st-century American, mainline Christian context is that most of us who will hear this word are not inclined to trust it,” she writes. “When are the poor and hungry anything but a cause for sadness (except when they inspire an odd sort of gratitude, as in, ‘There but for the grace of God go I’)? And who can endure character assassination, which we know as canceling or bullying, even for the sake of our faith? We aim to be rich, full, laughing, and respected. Hearing the beatitudes from Jesus, we may be tempted to think, ‘I’ll take my chances with the status quo.’”

Be that as it may, there are times when we desperately need Jesus’ reassurances. 

Life is a roller coaster of ups and downs, laughter and weeping, joys and depressions, toils and snares. Even in the richest country on earth, for many, the status quo sucks.

Many live from paycheck to paycheck, or on Social Security, or on food stamps. Many are crushed by credit card debt. Many are sorting out their bills to decide which must be paid now and which can wait. Many are facing eviction and homelessness. Many are facing health issues and wondering how to pay for insulin, cardiac medicine, and other drugs. 

And many are cynical about the power of God and Jesus to lift them out of their poverty.

And many overlook the fact that when Jesus promises food and laughter, he’s not talking about miraculous manna from heaven of a mass replication of bread and fish. He’s reminding us, as John Kennedy said in his inaugural address, “Here on earth, God’s work must truly be our own.” God’s hands are our hands. The poor, the suffering, the oppressed, are everyone’s responsibility. We are called to have each other’s backs.

Martin Luther forgive me, I think this is clearly set down in the Epistle of James.

Luther, who systematically excised biblical books he didn’t like (declaring then “Apocrypha”), didn’t care for James’ smug missive, which he called “an epistle of straw.” 

Luther objected to the church’s habit of extorting “good works” from its beleaguered congregations for its own profit, and he declared a gospel of works was a tool of the devil.

Given the corruption of the church in Luther’s day, it’s hard to disagree with him.

In our day, however, James seems to be raising urgently legitimate questions:

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. James 2:14-17.

That’s another way of saying that if one truly has faith, good works must follow automatically. There can be no good works in the absence of faith. And if faith is present, good works cannot be stifled.

That’s a sobering thought for any faithful Christian who has stepped over a sleeping homeless person or brushed off a hungry panhandler.

But we tend ignore human needs far greater than that and assuage our guilt in precisely the fashion James warns us about: by praying for the desperate, as if to invite them to “keep warm and eat your fill.”

We Lutherans address these needs through Lutheran Family Services and Lutheran World Service. Most mainline denominations have similar programs to support the poor at home and around the world. Our work through USAID has been crucial. Many church leaders warn that millions of people will die as a result of the U.S. decision to stop USAID funding, and hundreds of millions more will be condemned to “dehumanizing poverty.”

“Life consists in the provision of God, a provision evident in Jesus’ presence, healing, and teaching among the people,” writes Mary Hinkle Shore. “With the beatitudes, Jesus announces that the provision of God is trustworthy when the world is offering poverty, hunger, grief, and rejection.”

God’s provision is trustworthy when it is carried our through our hands, when he poor, the suffering, the oppressed, are everyone’s responsibility, when we respond to the call to have each other’s backs.

May God open all our eyes to hunger, suffering, and oppression in every facet of our lives.

Amen.

 

Fishing for Leaders

February 9, 2025, First Lutheran Church of Throggs Neck, Bronx, N.Y.

Luke 5:1-11

It’s a biblical Twilight Zone scene.

Imagine, if you will, a crew of exhausted fishermen, struggling to stay awake after a futile night with no fish for their nets.

But a man on the shore bids them take the boat out again and drop their nets one more time.

The men think the man is taunting them after they had spent the night demonstrating the utter dearth of fish in the lake. 

But they are too tired to argue so they set out once again to try their luck.

Suddenly, their nets are stretched to the breaking point by a blitz of fish, and the boats become so heavy they begin to sink.

We’ve heard this story so often that we no longer get excited about it. But Simon, up to his neck in fish, is stunned by the power of Jesus. Deeply aware of his unworthiness, he sinks to his knees, crying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” (Lk 5:8b)

I wonder if Jesus smiled or simply shook his head. “Do not be afraid,” he says to Simon. “From now on you will be catching people.”

What are we to make of this dramatic moment? Can you hear the eerie music of Twilight Zone in the background?

Maybe it’s the huge number of fish that does it, but over two millennia many have concluded that we are to be catchers of as many people as possible. 

To be faithful to God’s call, our churches must be growing churches. By this standard, Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church in Houston, with 45,000 in attendance every Sunday, must be what Jesus is talking about. And the most faithful fishers of our time are Rick Warren, Creflo Dollar, Kenneth Copeland, and T.D. Jakes.

I do not dispute the excitement of sitting in a huge congregation with other Christians. In 1967 Billy Graham went to London for a two-week “crusade” in Earl’s Court. I was a 21-year-old Air Force chaplain’s assistant stationed in England that year, and scores of Americans on base were eager to see Billy. The chaplain directed me to organize nightly round-trip bus excursions between the base and Earl’s Court. As a result, I got to hear Billy Graham many times. I learned by heart the words “How Great Thou Art.”

Billy had a different sermon each night and I was thrilled by the pageantry. A huge choir made up of local church choirs sang hymns with rising crescendos. When Billy issued his invitation to accept Jesus, hundreds rose from their seats from all over the hall and walked forward to the make-shift altar. And when the collection was taken up, the sound of sterling coins being tossed into hundreds of baskets rumbled like thunder.

It was an experience I will never forget.

But it wasn’t exactly church. 

There was no feeling of being joined in the pews by dear friends and close family in a home church.

There was no possibility that your personal joys would be celebrated by many who know you and love you. 

There was no possibility that the pastor or friends or loved ones would surround you with love and tears in times of sorrow or tragedy.

There was no possibility that the pastor would take time to sit down with you to discuss your doubts, your fears, your questions about God.

There was no possibility that the pastor and other member would help one another become aware of the needs in the community; who has lost everything in a fire and needs clothing and furniture; who has just entered a hospice for palliative care; who has just lost a job; who is old and lonely and unable to leave their homes; who is being taunted and abused because of their race or religion or age or mental health or sexual orientation; who is hiding behind locked doors in their homes for fear of being arrested by immigration police.

You’re not going to learn anything like that in a Joel Osteen service.

An authentic congregational experience is when we are bound together in love and compassion for one another, when we share each other’s burdens, when we seek peace with one another when we disagree, when we have each other’s backs.

All of this is possible when each of us – pastor or layperson – seek to become ministers and leaders in a congregation, in a synod, and in the Church of Christ.

When Jesus told Simon that he will be a fisher of people, an essential portion of the people who are being fished are people who hear their calling to be leaders of the church.

In this year of turmoil and uncertainty and transition, we are all looking for leaders who will take us safely through the dangers, toils, and snares of our lives. We pray our new bishop will be this leader. We pray our new permanent pastor will be this leader. We pray this type of leader will heal the divisions and hates that have torn our nation apart.

But who are these leaders we are waiting for? And where will we find them? 

Professor Abraham Smith of Perkins School of Theology in Dallas, recalls a pertinent question raised by Professor Marvin McMickle: “Where have all the prophets gone?”

McMickle “saw preachers who had become parochial promoters of culture wars, passive, acquiescent backers of political parties, performers of vacuous praise and worship demonstrations, and proclaimers of a perverted social gospel of prosperity.”

In the public sphere, Professor Smith writes, “God knows we need some true leaders today—not the narcissistic occupants of offices who seek to line their own pockets with the public’s wealth, not the intemperate officeholders who use their positions to embark on revenge tours, and not the uninformed politicians who take little stock in facts and often issue baseless ex cathedra pronouncements. So, where have all the true leaders gone or why do we not see true leaders emerging today?”

One great leader I was privileged to work for was the late Bob Edgar, a United Methodist cleric, a five-term Congressman from Pennsylvania, president of Claremont School of Theology, General Secretary of the National Council of Churches, and Executive Director of Common Cause.

Bob thought it was a big problem that most of us were waiting in hope for the leaders we need. If I heard him say it once, I heard him say a hundred times:

“We Are the Leaders We Have Been Waiting For.”

Dr. Smith, a professor of New Testament, encourages we potential leaders to re-examine Luke 5:1-11 – the “Great Catch” episode – to see a deeper meaning. Jesus is not necessarily calling on us to fish for followers. He is calling on us to be leaders.

For Dr. Smith, a professor of New Testament, Luke’s story of “the great catch” is not necessarily Jesus’ invitation to we leaders to fish for followers.

The “great catch” episode in Luke is “not the massive haul of fish that Simon and his fishing partners brought to Lake Gennesaret’s shore but instead Jesus’ own ‘great catch’ or his ability to gather and grow leaders.”

“When Simon said, ‘I am a sinner,’ Jesus did not cast his sight elsewhere. Jesus was not looking for perfect people—just committed ones.

“Potential leaders must not be stymied by sins—by present foibles. Self-recognition of our own wounds is the formative idea in Dutch priest Henri Nouwen’s famous book, The Wounded Healer. Self-recognition also lies at the heart of the refrain ‘It’s me, It’s me, It’s me, O Lord’ in the Black spiritual, “Standing in the Need of Prayer.” Potential leaders do not have to be perfect—just committed.”

“We Are the Leaders We Have Been Waiting For.”

Black History is American History

 

Recognizing Jesus

February 2, 2025, Saint Barnabas Lutheran Church, Howard Beach, Queens, N.Y.

Not long ago Martha and Katie and I went to our favorite restaurant. After we were seated, I excused myself and went to the bathroom to wash my hands.

Inside, I was startled to see a tall man bent over the sink. He was scrubbing his face with an excess of hand soap while crooning “Let it Be” in a fulsome, falsetto voice.

I turned quickly to leave the room but the man saw me.

“Sir, excuse me,” he said. He gestured grandly toward the sink and stepped aside. “After you,” he said as soapy water drizzled into his beard.

“No,” I said, “Please finish up.”

The man pulled small scraps of paper towel out of a miserly dispenser and dabbed at his face.

“I got time,” he said. “Waiting don’t bother me. I been in prison three years. Just got out.”

I glanced at the bathroom door and stepped warily to the sink. I let a little water trickle in my hands and quickly shook it off.

“Are you heading home?” I asked.

“I am,” he said. “As soon as I can get the bus.”

“You must be a happy man.”

“Thinking about getting out is all that kept me going.”

I usually don’t offer benedictions in public restrooms, but the guy seemed so joyful.

“God bless you,” I said. “I hope it all goes well from here on.”

“God bless your kind self,” he said.

He continued in the same genial vein.

“Spent all my money on the bus ticket,” he said. “Haven’t eaten today. Can you help me out?”

I tend to ignore requests like that when I don’t have time to think them over.  My hesitation probably stems from conflicting genes I inherited from my paternal grandparents. During the Great Depression, Grandma was famous for doling out samples of her canned meat to starving hobos, while Grandpa was known to defend his larder with a .45 revolver.

I inherited more of Grandpa’s tightness than Grandma’s generosity, but Grandpa never negotiated with an ex-con in a restaurant bathroom.

“Don’t have a lot,” I mumbled, reaching for my wallet. I pulled out three wrinkled dollar bills and gave them to the man.

His eyes crinkled as he grinned.

“God bless you more,” he said, almost laughing. He clutched the money to his chest. “God bless you, man.”

I smiled and backed slowly out of the bathroom.

Martha and Katie were still waiting for our food when I took my seat. I glanced back at the bathroom and saw the man had also exited and was pressing the three dollar bills on the counter. The waiter nodded and brought him a basket of bread. The man stuffed a bread stick into his mouth. He chewed thoughtfully as he packed the rest of the bread into his jacket pocket and walked out of the restaurant.

Soon our food was delivered. I leaned back in my chair and mused how I would tell this interesting story to Martha and Katie. I knew I had time to think about it because Martha was staring intently at her iPhone and Katie was absorbed by a large bowl of macaroni and cheese.
 
Suddenly I had an epiphany, or thought I did.

“I wonder,” I said, picking up my fork, “if I just talked with Jesus.”

Martha glanced at me quizzically.

The passage from Matthew was running through my head.

“I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” (Matthew 25:35-39)

Actually, I was fretting about the more negative passage:

“Just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” (Matthew 25:45)

Jesus, I said to myself. I should have sprung for more than three bucks.

I took some solace in the fact that the man seemed satisfied by my grudging largess.

And of course there’s always a chance the man was just who he said he was – not Jesus but a recently paroled convict looking for a meal as he waited for the bus home.

But it doesn’t make any difference because Jesus made it plain that we should treat convicts and strangers as if they were him.

That’s a helpful thing to keep in mind, not only because otherwise we’d treat convicts and many strangers with contempt, but also because it’s not always easy to recognize Jesus.

That is one reason the story of Jesus’ presentation in the temple is so remarkable. He was a 40-day old infant, his face partially covered in swaddling, being carried by working class parents. They must have been like hundreds who came to the temple every day to present their first-born and offer a sacrifice to God, obscure, invisible.

But two elderly strangers, Simeon and Anna, recognized the baby immediately.

Simeon took the baby from Mary’s arms and praised God. With joy in his voice, he uttered the benediction we recite every Sunday, the nunc dimittis,

“Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace … for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and glory to your people Israel.”

This is even more astounding than the fact that, out of all the first-born babies who pass through the Temple, the old man knows this one is special. More than that, he recognizes that the savior has been sent not just to Israel but to all the peoples of earth.

This revelation, before the baby had made his first smile, is why we observe Jesus’ presentation in the temple as a special event that shines a bright light on who Jesus is. Many churches celebrate with candlelight processions, which is why this day is marked in the church’s calendar as Candlemas. Many Christians keep their Christmas decorations up until Candlemas, 40 days after the nativity. The tree is still lit art casa Cruz y Jenks. (And we have every intention of taking it down before Ash Wednesday.)

Simeon cuddles the baby in his arms with great joy, but he knows the path of Messiahship will not be easy, for Israel or the baby’s mother. 

“The child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed.”

“A sword will pierce your own soul too,” he tells Mary.

Thus we are reminded that amid the joy of Christmas and Epiphany, God has sent God’s son into the world to suffer and die. And Mary, now pleased and amazed by what Simeon is saying about her son, will one day feel pain cutting through her soul as she stands helpless beneath the cross.

The other figure in the temple who recognizes the messiah is Anna, an 84-year-old widow.

The Rev. Doyt L. Conn, Jr., an Episcopal priest from Seattle, sees Anna as a different kind of prophet.

“She is a bit more mysterious, sort of a master, like a Jedi master, like Rey from The Force Awakens,” he says. “Anna fasts and prays like a warrior, strong and indominable, and her mastery of the spiritual exercises, gives her access to the mind of God.  And so, she sees quickly and clearly that the child, Jesus, is the salvation of Israel. And so, without inhibition or hesitation she announces that he is the redemption of the nation.”

Simeon and Anna recognized the infant Messiah because they opened their hearts to God and were guided by God to greet the one who will change history forever.

For us, we have the benefit of scripture and a cloud of witnesses to help us recognize the mewling baby as the Savior who will come into our lives. We are called to seek his presence in all who populate our lives.

Dr. Shively Smith of Boston University School of Theology, suggests the story of the presentation “is a wonderful invitation for our churches to consider the diversity of messages, voices, and locations among us as we celebrate the birth of Jesus as the Christ. The story of Jesus’ birth and early life in Luke makes room … for women and men. It makes room for youth and elder. It makes room for the poor, disappointed, and unsuspecting.”

On this day, February 2, 2025, we understand full well what Simeon meant when he said “The child is destined for the falling and rising of many …, and to be a sign that will be opposed.” Our nation and our churches are bitterly divided over religion and politics. The Rt. Rev. Mariann Budde calls for love, compassion, and acceptance for gay, lesbian, and transgender children, and points out that the majority of immigrants are tax paying good neighbors. Yet many who heard her, many who consider themselves Christian, did not recognize Holy Scripture or the voice of Christ.

Dr. Smith points out that “the good news of Jesus’ birth is that insiders and outsiders of our immediate communities and families can carry the good news of God’s salvation, liberation, acceptance not just to others in the world, but to us as well.”

We need to cup our ears to make sure we are hearing Simeon’s words clearly. The baby in his arms is God’s salvation “for all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and glory to your people Israel.” But some will rise and fall and some will be opposed.

Let us pray that God will enable us to testify that love, humility, compassion, empathy, and acceptance are the marks of the Christian life. So that at the end of our days, we may say with Simeon,

“Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace … for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and glory to your people Israel.

Amen.