Ash Wednesday

 

I first met Stephen Bouman in November 2001. He was one of several U.S. church leaders who welcomed a “Living Letters” delegation from the Geneva offices of the World Council of Churches. The delegation representing Christians from around the world came to express pastoral love and support to Americans following the terrorist attacks of September 11. Ground Zero was still smoking as we gathered around its rim to pray.

It quickly became clear to me that Steve – I should call him Bishop Bouman – was in deep mourning for the friends who were lost on September 11. As Lutheran bishop of Metropolitan New York, he knew many of the fire fighters and first responders who died that day. He was grieving their loss and openly angry about the attack.

Over the next several months I heard Steve try to make sense of the terror in sermons in the Interchurch Center chapel and remarks elsewhere. He brought together those of us who were struggling alone with our grief. I came to look upon him as the unofficial chaplain of the Interchurch Center for Nine-Eleven.

On Ash Wednesday of 2002, Steve led worship in the Center’s chapel.

Paraphrasing him, Steve said we had all been living in Ash Wednesday since the terror attacks. We had literally seen the ashes that had once been our friends. A year earlier, many who died on Nine-Eleven had attended Ash Wednesday services and heard the words as a cross of ashes was drawn on their foreheads: “Remember you are dust. And to dust you will return.” 

Today it is Ash Wednesday again and once again Jesus is calling on us to remember our days of life are fleeting and we are called to live our lives in the way Jesus taught us: To love God. To love our neighbors as ourselves. To forgive our enemies. To do justice. To bring good news to the poor, release to captives, insight to those who are morally blind, to set free the oppressed. 

Each year Ash Wednesday calls upon us to do all these things proactively. We are called to add these things to our daily tasks.

Some of us will also honor the sacrifice of Jesus, who gave up his life for us by giving up something that is precious to us. When I was twelve years old, that precious something to me was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. It was the longest Lent of my life.

There are, of course, more substantial things to give up.

On this Ash Wednesday 2026, let us good Lutherans hear the voice of Pope Leo XIV on Lent:”

"I would like to invite you to a very practical and frequently unappreciated form of abstinence: that of refraining from words that offend and hurt our neighbor. Let us begin by disarming our language, avoiding harsh words and rash judgement, refraining from slander and speaking ill of those who are not present and cannot defend themselves. Instead, let us strive to measure our words and cultivate kindness and respect in our families, among our friends, at work, on social media, in political debates, in the media and in Christian communities. In this way, words of hatred will give way to words of hope and peace."

Amen.

Don't Blink

 

February 15, 2026, First Lutheran Church of Throggs Neck, Bronx, N.Y. (Edited from a previous homily on the Transfiguration.)

Stargazing was one of my favorite pursuits when I was growing up in Central New York State. You didn’t need a telescope to enjoy it because the stars and the planets formed a vivid panorama every cloudless night. 

Here, in most of the five boroughs, it’s not so easy to pick out the Big Dipper or Orion’s Belt. In the wonderful Lin-Manuel Miranda musical In the Heights, Abuela Claudia sings about the intensity of the stars over Cuba. “In Nueva York, we can’t see beyond our street lights.”

In Vieja York where I lived, you could lay on your back summer nights and stargaze, occasionally spotting fleeting trails of meteorites blazing on the edge the atmosphere. You could pick out Jupiter and Mars, identify constellations, and ask yourself the same questions our ancestors asked thousands of years before us. What else is up there? Is space infinite? How do I factor into the universe? Does God dwell in the vastness? Is heaven up there?

Sometimes we, like our ancestors, think of heaven as a place “up there,” as distant as star systems millions of light years away, unreachable and unknowable without a special means of getting there. Heaven is where God sends us when we’re good.

That’s why the transfiguration of Jesus is such a wonder to us.

 When God transfigured Jesus, God opened the curtain ever so briefly to show us heaven. To show us 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 and it appears in all three of the synoptic Gospels. It is an event so unique it can’t be ignored. 

It is less likely to have been made up by a group of retired disciples quaffing new wine while reminiscing about miracles they witnessed. 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 remarkably consistent reports about what happened there.

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

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

 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. 

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 anymore, but only Jesus.” (Mark 9:8) In the snap of a synapse, the Transfiguration was over.

 But the effects of the Transfiguration are 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.”

Are We Light and Salt People?

February 8, 2026. Saint Barnabas Lutheran Church, Howard Beach, Queens, N.Y.

If your doctor told you to go on a salt-free diet, would you shrug compliantly and say, “Okay”?

Or would you prefer to let salt to cascade down on your burger because salt makes everything taste better?

And when you’re falling asleep at night, do you leave the light on because it makes you feel safer, especially if you need to stumble to the bathroom? Or do you sleep better if you cocoon yourself in darkness, pull the blankets over your head, and try not to think about the problems of the day?

When Jesus called his followers the salt of the earth and the light of the world, he knew they would understand the power of both images. We can’t live without salt and light and to be both salt and light elevates each of us to superpowers of faith.

“You are the salt of the earth,” Jesus said, “but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything but it thrown out and tramples under foot. (Mt 5:13)

I grew up in the heart of salt country. In Central New York, salt was not merely a flavor enhancer but big business.

Syracuse is known as the “Salt City” because of the copious amount of salt it produced and sold.

When I was growing up I assumed there were salt mines close by, but this was not the case. Syracuse’s prosperous salt industry was due to its salt springs on the southern end of Onondaga Lake. As the water evaporated, salt was raked up and then packaged for shipping. Syracuse was a top salt producer in the country for much of the 19th century. When salt producers refused to sell salt to the Confederacy, some speculate this contributed to the South’s defeat because soldiers had no means of preserving meat.

Salt was used as a political stratagem in India by the British empire in the last years of the Raj. The Indian people were forced to get all their salt from Britain and Mahatma Gandhi saw that as imperialistic bullying. 

In 1930, Gandhi led a 24-day, 240 mile non-violent salt march to the sea. Walking from Sabarmati Ashram to the coastal village of Dandi on the Arabian Sea, Gandhi and his followers defied British law by making their own salt.

Jesus also called us “the light of the world.” Again, we dwellers of the twenty-first century don’t always see how potent that analogy is. As Moonface Martin says in Anything Goes, “It’s always darkest before they turn on the lights.” In most parts of the Northern Hemisphere, we take it for granted that we can have light by the simple throwing of a switch.

In Jesus’ day it was not so easy. Amy G. Oden, a professor and spiritual director writes, “Salt and light were both precious commodities in Jesus’ time. Both sustain life. Neither can be produced easily on one’s own. They are gifts of creation that require careful ingenuity to access and conserve. And they make all the difference!”

We are the light of the world and it is because of this we have a responsibility to glow mightily. Our adult children who are parents are teaching their children the same song we taught them

This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine, 
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine. 

Children (and adults) who sing this song are also reminded that we’re not supposed to shine for the mere joy of shining.

Everywhere I go, I’m gonna let it shine . 
In my brother’s heart, I’m gonna let it shine, 
In my sister’s soul, I’m gonna let it shine,
All around the world, I’m gonna let it shine 
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

This is what Jesus meant when he urged us to “let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your father in heaven.” (Mt 5:16)

But Jesus, being fully God yet fully human, knew it was a very human trait to hide part of the light that is in us as if we had lit a lamp and put it under a bushel basket.

What does that mean to us? Have you ever used bushels to hide the light God has given you?

Do you have the gift of song, did you learn to play a musical instrument years ago, but never mention that?

Do you have a special talent for knitting, for embroidery, for quilting, but never mention it?

Do you have the gift of gab, the flair for engaging people in conversation, for making them feel welcome, but remain silent?

Do you have a head for numbers but prefer to let others do the budgeting?

Each of us, with a little introspection, may discover bushels we use to hide the bushels that hide our light.

We can also celebrate the lights that shine in this very congregation: a master woodworker who contributes his artistry to the church; talented singers and musicians who bring joy to worship; acolytes who support the liturgy; teachers who help children, tweens, and adults to better understand the bible; parents who nurture the lights of their children at home; electricians who jump in whenever trouble shooting is required; organizers who assure the success of dinners, Bingo nights, trips to parks, and other congregation-building events. And so many more.

“Jesus gives the central insight that lights don’t magically end up underneath bushels,” writes oden. 

“The only way for our light to be covered is if we put a bushel over it. We can hear the incredulous tone in Jesus’ voice, ‘No one after lighting a lamp puts it under a bushel’ (verse 15). Ridiculous! Jesus is clear: we are not victims inevitably doomed to being distracted and drained by the bushels of inferiority or self-absorption or fantasy. Bushels can only block out the light.”

The poet David Andrews expressed his own spiritual journey in his poem

Salt and light

Yesterday, you were my God
I saw you, in the eyes of a stranger
I heard you, in their indignation
And I felt you, in their sorrow
And I did nothing

Today, you are my God
I saw you, growing my garden
I heard you rustling through the trees
And I felt your warmth, on my face
And I smiled
Tomorrow, you’ll still be my God

I will see you, if I dare to look
I will hear you, if I am still
And I will feel you, working within my heart
For you are the same God
Yesterday, today, and forever

Help me to be salt,
to those who need to taste
And light,
to those who are lost in their own darkness
And compel me to act,
today.

Amen.

  

Loved and Blessed

February 1, 2026. Saint Barnabas Lutheran Church, Howard Beach, Queens, N.Y. 

What is charisma?

In 1971 Philip Roth wrote Our Gang, a political satire featuring President Richard Nixon (dubbed Trick E. Dixon) and populated with characters who resembled real politicians of the era. For example, the mayor of New York appears as John Lancelot.

In the novel, President Dixon is plagued the memory of President John F. Charisma and his stylish widow, Jacqueline Charisma Colossus.

For those of us of a certain age, the sly manifestation of the Kennedys is all we need to know about charisma.  The Kennedy’s had it. We saw it.

In theological terms, charisma is a charism, a spiritual gift, an extraordinary power given by the Holy Spirit. Webster describes it as a “personal magic of leadership arousing special popular loyalty or enthusiasm for a public figure.”

Did Jesus have charisma?

Frankly, it’s hard to see it if our knowledge of Jesus is derived from the antiquated Elizabethan language of the King James bible or the meticulously accurate translation of the New Revised Standard Version.

But who can doubt that Jesus had charisma? In the opening verses of Matthew there is something extraordinary about him, an undefinable aura that makes him irresistible to people. In a chance encounter with Peter and Andrew, Jesus says, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of people” and “immediately they left their nets and followed him.” (MT 4:19-20)

Then he saw James and John in a boat with their father Zebedee and “he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.” (MT 4:21-22)

The unhesitating decision of these men to turn away from everything they know suggests that Jesus had a magnetism that far exceeded the power of the force, “these are not the droids you are looking for.”

“So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought to him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he cured them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.” MT 4:24-25)

Some biblical scholars note how astounding it is to attract crowds in a sparsely populated area where people are preoccupied with putting food on the table, finding water to drink, and surviving the daily degradation inflicted upon them by their imperial overlords. And hundreds or thousands of people – whatever number constitutes a “great crowd” – turn away from their daily tasks to follow Jesus. Jesus Charisma.

Jillian Nelson of Texas Christian University writes that it’s not only charisma that attracts the attention of the crowd. “Matthew shows Jesus to be an active agent of God’s power among the people and an authoritative teacher, highlighted by what is arguably the most famous of Jesus’ teachings, the Sermon on the Mount.” 

This comes at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. He has come through a period of testing. He has been baptized by John. He outsmarts Satan who comes to him in the desert to show Jesus how he could benefit from his Godly powers. 

Jesus reveals the strength of this otherworldly power when he calls his first disciples and they find it impossible to say no to him. He has tested his mettle by proclaiming the good news of the empire of God in the synagogues. He is astounding people by curing sick. 

Now he’s ready to begin his ministry in earnest. As a crowd gathers around him, he begins to speak. The sermon he will give is his manifesto, his declaration of how he will conduct his ministry, how he will interpret the law, and how he expects people to respond to him and to each other.

The overture of this powerful declaration are the Beatitudes.

We’ve read and recited the Beatitudes so often we can almost repeat them by heart. But what did they mean to the crowds who listen to him. What do they mean to us in an age and culture that is so very different from first century Palestine?

A few examples:

Blessed are the poor in spirit. 

The poor in spirit are the people – in Jesus’ day and in ours – whose bodies and spirits are crushed by poverty. These are the people who can’t put food on the table because SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) has been cut back. These are the people whose spirit is crushed when millions of dollars that could have gone to health care are diverted to hire ICE agents.

Now Jesus is declaring that in the Kingdom of Heaven God will set things right. 

This is not a version of “Pie in the Sky When you die,” an empty promise made by oppressors, union busters, and oligarchs to keep their minions under control.

Jesus is saying that the Kingdom of Heaven is here now, and those of us who claim to be members of that Kingdom have the responsibility to set things right: to organize food programs, to advocate for universal health care, to lobby government to provide safety nets for persons living at the poverty line, to open our arms and hearts to the poor in Spirit.

Blessed are those who mourn.

“Grief comes for all of us,” writes Jillian Nelson, “but mortality rates were higher in the ancient world. Parents simply could not expect their children to survive infancy, let alone make it to adulthood. It was not a given. War, food and housing insecurity, and infectious diseases could cut a life short.”

When Matthew’s gospel first appeared the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 C.E. had already happened. They knew very well what it was like to mourn. 

So do we know what it’s like to mourn. We’ve watched the genocidal retaliation against Gaza, the clandestine invasion of Ukraine, and deep political and spiritual divisions in our own country. Yet to those of us who mourn, Jesus proclaims release and comfort.

Blessed are the Meek.

“The third beatitude continues this emphasis on both human misery and divine activity,” writes New Testament Professor Warren Carter. “The beatitude’s blessing on the meek derives from Psalm 37, where four times, the meek are promised that they will inherit the land. The psalm defines the meek not as the humble or wimps but as the literal powerless and poor who lack the life-giving resource of land. The wealthy powerful have plotted against them, used violence, and oppressed them. God promises to remove the wicked and to give the land to the meek.”

As Jesus continues his sermon, his message is clear. The Good News is that the travails and struggles of hungry, grieving, meek, and oppressed peoples will be wiped away in God’s kingdom. 

Blessed are those who are persecuted 

Contrary to a popular trope, American Christians are not persecuted because we proclaim Christ. Millions gather congenially and safely in churches all over the land. 

“But do not be deceived,” warns Professor Carter. “When we live a life for justice for the oppressed and marginalized, when we extend mercy to the outcast, when we live the values outlined in the beatitudes, the rulers of this world will resist us. 

“For those of us living comfortable lives in the wealthiest nation the world has ever known, how can we embody the beatitudes? How can we pursue justice, righteousness, and peace? How can we embody God’s promises to those that are poor, mourn, and oppressed?”

Even if we can’t always see God’s kingdom around us, God calls us to be active members of the kingdom with all people we meet and in every thing we do.

Thirteen years ago the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America declared an annual day of service, usually in early September. 

The day is called, “God’s work. Our hands.”

The day declares “that all of life in Jesus – every act of service, in every daily calling, in every corner of life – flows freely from a living, daring confidence in God’s Grace.”

That is how we embody God’s promises. Every day. Every hour. God’s Work. Our hands.

Amen.

God's Empire Does Not Deport Its Citizens

January 25, 2026, First Lutheran Church of Throggs Neck, Bronx, N.Y. 

[Church cancelled because of severe snow storm.]

If the stories told in the fourth chapter of Matthew were rewritten as a Netflix mini-series, there would be four episodes;

Episode One: Jesus in Galilee

Episode Two: Jesus Declares the Empire of God

Episode Three: Jesus Calls his Followers

Episode: Jesus Preaches and Heals

Jesus in Galilee

Before Episode One begins, a voice says “Last season on Matthew Four” which featured John the Baptist crying out in the wilderness, the birth of Jesus, the baptism of Jesus, and the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. Again, four dramatic episodes.

As episode one of season two begins, Jesus receives the bad news that his cousin John the Baptist (portrayed by Jim Gaffigan) has been arrested by evil King Herod (played by Danny Trejo). This means John’s prophetic voice is silenced and no one doubts Herod will find a way to kill him. Jesus, played by Timothée Chalomet, is now the main lead in the epic of Matthew Four. Jesus withdraws to Galilee, to the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, and settles in Capernaum.

The mere mention of Zebulun, Naphtali, and Capernaum would bring back bitter memories for most people reading Matthew in the first century. “The names,” writes Warren Carter, Professor of New Testament at Phillips Seminary in Tulsa, designate tribal allocations of Canaanite land that God had sworn to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, had shown to Moses (Deuteronomy 34:1-4), and were assigned by Joshua (Joshua 19:10-16, Zebulun; 19:32-39). These covenant-evoking names frame the land as divine gift yet this land is now occupied by imperial powers.”

Matthew’s mention of these place names remind us these places were a gift from God, are again being ruled by Gentile imperialists, and the people sit in darkness. But soon they will see a great light, “and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death, light has dawned.” (Mt 4:16).

The darkness is a ruthless empire with Herod as its puppet, an empire that scoffs at the One God of Israel and places crushing burdens on God’s people.

But Matthew declares God’s people “will see a great light,” and Jesus has come to usher in the Empire of God.

Jesus Declares the Empire of God

“From that time Jesus began to proclaim, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of God has come near.’” (Mt 4:17)

We tend not to think of God’s reign an “empire,” although the word Matthew uses – basileia – can mean empire, kingdom, of reign.

“The Gospel imitates imperial language and structures (God’s dominating power),” Warren Carter writes, “yet redefines them as the subsequent scene of Jesus’ healing and liberating power displays (Matthew 4:23-25). The Gospel envisions God’s empire/kingdom as already established in the heavens. It is now being extended among humans in Jesus’ activity (‘your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’)”

The people who accepted Jesus’ call to “repent” knew that citizenship in the Empire of God didn’t mean the Empire of Rome would stop harassing them. But they knew that repentance meant choosing God’s rule over the tyranny of the Emperor. And they knew there might be times when they would have to choose between God and the Emperor at great risk to their lives.

That risk, to varying degrees, must be taken by all of us who have become citizens in the empire of God. Some might risk ridicule when they explain their faith to colleagues, or threats when they intervene with bullies who are taunting women wearing hijabs, or menacing people thought to be gay or trans. We may not always have the courage to do it. But we will always know in our hearts that God’s justice requires it.

Complicating that knowledge, there are times when God’s empire chooses to protect itself with behavior that clearly offends God.

For too many years to count, some Roman Catholic prelates sought to protect the church by covering up the behavior of pedofile priests by sending them to other parishes. Their rationale was that if these misbehaving priests gave the church a bad name, that undermined and might even cause people to reject the Gospel of Christ. It’s a strange and twisted reasoning that the Holy Gospel is more important than several hundred young victims of pederasty. And attempts to cover it up didn’t work because offending priests resumed their predatory ways in new parishes.

I hasten to add that the vast majority of priests are good and Godly men who preach Christ’s essential Gospel and seek to “these little ones” and all parishioners from danger.

And of course it goes without saying that most church groups have shared the guilt.

When I was 28 years old I was appointed director of communication for my denomination. I was green and uneasy about being a spokesperson for the whole church, but I knew my commission was to tell the truth and let the good news of our mission speak for itself.

Then one morning the general secretary called me to his office and greeted me with a pained expression on his face.

“We’re going to need a press release immediately,” he said. He explained that a high-ranking and very well known member of the staff had been caught in predatory behavior with a female member of the church board.

“He’s out, of course,” general secretary said, “but we can’t let our churches know why. I need you to write a press release saying Harry is utterly exhausted by his tireless commitment to mission and I have relieved him to take a well-deserved rest.”

Um, okay. So my first major press release would be a lie. I could have protested, of course, and point out that people are going to find out eventually, as they did when Harry became pastor of a large church and resumed his abusive behavior.

But I didn’t have that kind of moral courage. I wrote the press release. I became part of the problem. And I abandoned my role as a member of the Empire of God. I think the lesson here is this: try to be true to your citizenship in God’s Empire, but don’t get cocky.

Jesus Calls His Followers

Jesus’ then calls two sets of brothers to be his followers (Matthew 4:18-22). They are fishermen, embedded in the imperial economy. Rome asserted control over the land and sea, their production, and the transportation and marketing of their yields with contracts and taxes. Jesus disrupts these men’s lives, calls them to a different loyalty and way of life, creates a new community, and gives them a new mission (fish for people). His summons exhibits God’s empire at work, this light shining in the darkness of Roman-ruled Galilee. (per Carter)

The men’s immediate positive response in following Jesus is stark. Readers have imagined previous and extended conversations but such “solutions” destroy the dramatic urgency of the scene. More compelling is to recall the presentation of Jesus in previous chapters. As God’s agent, he is to manifest the light of God’s saving presence and empire/reign. Such initiative and gift are appropriately welcomed with an instant response. (per Carter)

As one who vacillated a long time before deciding on full-time religious work, I am both impressed and shamed by their unhesitating response to follow Jesus. And – Respect. 

Jesus Preaches and Heals

This is the Jesus we know and love: the itinerate teacher and healer. Jesus began his ministry in Galilee by mingling with the poor and curing disease with a power that seemed to transcend the laws of nature and medical science. He made blind people see. He made lame people walk. He cured horrible skin diseases with a glance. He raised the dead.

Father James Martin, a Jesuit writer and scholar, acknowledges that “The most difficult question that the modern, rational, intelligent person can ask about the Gospels may be this: How can I believe that these things really happened? This, in essence, is the question that Jesus poses in the Gospel of Matthew to two blind men who ask Jesus, in so many words, to be healed: “Do you believe that I am able to do this?”

Some Christians attempt to explain Jesus’ miracles by suggesting alternative explanations. They suggest that bread and fishes distributed among the 5000 was the acts of thousands of people sharing their food baskets. Isn’t that a miracle, too?

“To which I answer no,” says Father Martin. “This easy-to-digest interpretation reflects the unfortunate modern desire to explain away the inexplicable and to downplay miracles in the midst of a story filled with the miraculous. Almost one-third of Mark’s Gospel, for example, is devoted to Jesus’ miracles. To my mind, some of the interpretations that seek to water down the miracle stories reflect unease with God’s power and Jesus’ divinity, discomfort with the supernatural and, more basically, an inability to believe in God’s ability to do anything.”

As Jesus begins his ministry in Galilee, we will see many events that will confound us. The Creator of Universes has come to us in the form of a man. And the miracles that follow will be all the more wonderful if we believe God can do anything.

“Power and Riches and wisdom and strength and honor and blessing and glory are his. For the lamb who was slain has begun his reign. Alleluia.”

Amen.

The Baptizer's Testimony

January 18, 2026. First Lutheran Church of Throggs Neck, Bronx, N.Y.

 If we only had the Gospel of John, we’d have no idea what John the Baptist looked like.

We may think of John as an eccentric preacher who secured his camel hair wrap with a leather belt while munching on locusts and honey. But all those images are in the other three gospels.

In John’s gospel there is no mention of the Baptist’s parents Elizabeth and Zechariah, no visit of the mother of Jesus to her pregnant cousin, no baby leaping in Elizabeth’s womb when Mary approaches.

In John’s gospel, the Baptist appears fully formed in the wilderness, freshly showered as far as we know and dressed in a clean muslin robe. It falls to the priests and Levites to ask, “Who are you,” and John responds by quoting Isaiah, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord.’”

His testimony made him famous because John appears in sources that are not the bible. In his Antiquities written around 70 C.E., the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus noted John’s prominence in Jewish history:

(John) was a good man and had urged the Jews to exert themselves to virtue, both as to justice toward one another and reverence towards God, and having done so join together in washing. For immersion in water, it was clear to him, could not be used for the forgiveness of sins, but as a sanctification of the body, and only if the soul was already thoroughly purified by right actions.

Josephus misses an important fact about John: his testimony about the coming of the Messiah:

I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Chosen One.” (John 1:33-34)

On January 11 many churches celebrated the baptism of Jesus, one of the seminal events in Jesus’ life and in our church year. The Synoptic Gospels – Matthew, Mark, and Luke, inspire a profound meditation on baptism, the sacrament that marks when our life in Christ begins.

Dr. Cody J. Sanders of Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn., notes, “the portrayal in John’s Gospel opens space … to address the role of testimony in Christian life, and the role of John as testifier to Jesus’ identity.”

Let’s address a common trope. Baptism is easy. Testimony is hard.

It is very hard for me, as a closeted introvert, to tell people about my faith. This was a special burden for me as an erstwhile Baptist because so much stress was placed on “witnessing.”

Baptists tend to lob Jesus’ own words at those of us who preferred to silent:

“Everyone, therefore, who acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven, but whoever denies me before others, I will also deny before my Father in heaven.” (Mt 10:32-33)

When Billy Graham invited persons in his audience to “get up out of your seat and come forward to accept Jesus,” he had a special admonishment for people who didn’t want to attract that kind of attention. “Remember,” Billy would say as the choir crooned Just As I Am, “everyone Jesus called to follow him he called publicly. If you feel him calling you, get out of your seat.”

And I assure you that Baptists understand the awful tug and pull of conscience as they sit paralyzed in their seat, saying, “I should get up and ask Jesus to be my personal savior. But not yet.”

Most Lutherans don’t experience this dilemma. Whenever someone asks us if we have found Jesus we may respond, “No, because Jesus has found me.” Martin Luther taught us that we were saved when Jesus died on the cross and was resurrected. Jesus is not asking us to make a “personal decision” to follow him. It is the Holy Spirit that enables us to have the saving grace of faith and we should stop worrying about it. If someone says to you, “Hey, when did you get saved,” the Lutheran testimony is this: “I was saved 2000 years ago when Christ died for the sins of the world.”

Another uniquely Lutheran testimony is that we’re not perfect. Martin Luther said that all of us are simultaneously saints and sinners. And he said it in Latin, Simul Justus et Peccator.

John’s testimony about who Jesus is and what Jesus did for the world is one we should emulate every day of our lives. When we are baptized, when the Holy Spirit has ignited our faith, we should tell people about Jesus. This should be as natural to us as dissecting the finale of Stranger Things around the office water cooler or appraising the Yankees with friends at the local bar.

Even so, it remains true that chatting with friends is easy; telling them what you think about Jesus is hard.

The testimony of John the Baptist included a more dangerous note than his declaration that a messianic figure greater than himself would soon follow. I don’t suppose that predicting a messiah disturbed the authorities very much because preachers had prophesied the coming of the messiah for years. What got John in trouble – and this should be of particular concern for each of us – was his habit of speaking truth to power.

This story is told in Matthew’s gospel:

For Herod had arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, because John had been telling him, “It is not lawful for you to have her” .... But when Herod’s birthday came, the daughter of Herodias danced before the company, and she pleased Herod so much that he promised on oath to grant her whatever she might ask. Prompted by her mother, she said, “Give me the head of John the Baptist here on a platter.” ... (Herod) sent and had John beheaded in the prison. His head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, who brought it to her mother (MT 14:1-12)

Do you know important politicians or business titans or church leaders who have abused their power? And have you resolved to confront them about it?

The great Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer left a comfortable position at Union Seminary to return to his native Germany to oppose the Nazi regime. He was accused of being associated with the July 20, 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler and was hanged in April 1945 at the age of 39. How many of us have Bonhoeffer-like courage to openly oppose evil at the risk of our lives? Not I.

In the 1960s I joined a veteran’s group to oppose the Vietnam War. But it was a safe kind of protest, marching with thousands of like-minded people in Washington, singing Pete Seeger ballads, raising my fist in power-to-the-people salutes. But despite sniffing occasional wafts of tear gas, I knew my life was never in danger.

What opportunities do we have today to go to people in power and warn them they are acting against God’s law? And how can we be sure we know what that law is?

We can be sure because we have heard the Messiah whose coming was foretold by John the Baptist:

“In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this is the law and the prophets.” (MT 7:12)

The notion didn’t originate with Jesus. There is a story told of the great Rabbi Hillel, who died about the time Jesus was a little boy.

One doesn’t have to be a scholar or even particularly religious to know God’s rule for basic human behavior. Do to others what you would have them do to you. This is the rule of love. This is the basis for human decency. This is the source of compassion, of empathy, of kindness.

Sadly, so many people haven’t got the message.

For more than a year it has been the policy of our country to chase, bind, wrestle to the ground, and deport anyone who is suspected of being – as the calumny goes – “illegal.”  Too often this includes our friends, colleagues, spouses, family members, and neighbors who do not possess a Green Card or who are not regarded at first glance as legal residents.

Reports from ProPublica and other sources detail numerous cases of U.S. citizens, legal residents, and even elected officials detained by ICE agents in 2025.

Despite a stated policy that only the worst criminals will be deported, data shows that thousands of people arrested by ICE have no serious criminal records.

According to The Guardian, thirty-two people have died in ICE custody. Some had arrived in the U.S. recently, seeking asylum. Others had arrived years ago, some as young children. Some had been picked up in the administrations’ indiscriminate ICE raids.

Earlier this month, a masked ICE agent shot a woman through her car window. Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said the woman had “weaponized her car” to threaten the agent, despite public videos showing the agent shooting the woman several times as she attempted to drive away.

How are patriotic Christian Americans to respond to these people in power? What is the truth we should speak to them? What is our testimony?

Some of us may question whether it is appropriate even to raise these questions in worship when we would rather seek God’s solace.

Others will say it is our responsibility of Christians armed with an understanding of God’s justice, secure in our understanding of Christ’s Gospel of unconditional love, and encouraged by the audacity of John the Baptist’s testimony to, challenge the powerful. We must speak out.

Our testimony is this:

This is not what our God expects of us.

This is a sin.

This is wrong. 

This is not America. 

And many consciences s are crying out:

In the name of God, this must stop.

Remember Your Baptism

January 11, 2026. Saint Barnabas Lutheran Church, Howard Beach, Queens, N.Y.

I begin with a confession.

I have been baptized twice.

The first one I don’t remember. I was an infant. I suspect I was held in the arms of our pastor, the venerable Charles Bergner, who sprinkled a few drops of water on my fontanelle and handed me back to my mother.

The second one was twenty years later, on November 6, 1966, and I remember it vividly. I was in the Air Force in England and was going through a born-again Baptist phase. The chaplain, a Southern Baptist, said my first baptism didn’t count because I was not a believer. Wanting to cover all bases, I agreed to do it again. There are no dunking facilities in Air Force chapels so the chaplain arranged for me to be baptized in the Baptist church in nearby Woodbridge town.

It was a cold November that year and the Baptist church had no central heating. The large baptismal pool was filled and a small kerosene heater was tilted near the edge of the pool to warm the water. It wasn’t working. As I stood in my white baptismal robe I noticed ice was forming around the perimeter. When the chaplain immersed me, my lungs froze and I thought I was going to die. When I finally regained my breath I understood why baptism was said to symbolize rebirth from death to life.

It was a memorable and even holy experience and I admit I enjoyed the attention as the women of the chapel brought me a towel, caressed my head, and praised God that another sinner had been reclaimed by heaven.

But now I understand that a second baptism as an adult was unnecessary. The Holy Spirit was powerfully present when I was baptized as an infant and there was no need to be re-baptized.

As a member of the World Council of Churches staff I attended a meeting with Latin American Pentecostals in Costa Rica. An intensely evangelical group, Pentecostals have been aggressive in bringing lapsed Catholics into their fold. But a Pentecostal pastor reported that his church does not re-baptize converts who were baptized as infants in Catholic parishes. “The presence of the Holy Spirit is for all time,” he said. “The Holy Spirit does not expire.”

I do not blame my Baptist Air Force friends for pushing me to be re-baptized because I know they did it out of love and concern for my salvation. I think they thought like Delmar O’Donnell, one of the three escaped prisoners seeking their fortune in the movie Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou, a Coen brothers film based loosely on the Illiad. As Pete and Ulysses and Delmar pass a pond where people are being baptized, Delmar suddenly breaks away and runs into the water. He returns to his companions dripping wet and smiling. The following dialogue ensues:

Pete: Well I’ll be danged. Delmar’s been saved.

Delmar: Well that’s it, boys. I’ve been redeemed. The preacher’s done warshed away all my sins and transgressions. It’s the straight and narrow from here on out, and heaven everlasting’s my reward. The preacher says all my sins is warshed away, including that Piggly Wiggly I knocked over in Yazoo.

Ulysses: I thought you said you was innocent of those charges?

Delmar: Well I was lyin’. And the preacher says that that sin’s been warshed away too. Neither God nor man’s got nothin’ on me now. C’mon in boys, the water is fine.

It certainly is a stretch to assume the mere act of dunking guarantees everlasting heaven.

How can water do such great things?

“Certainly not just water,” Martin Luther wrote, “but the word of God in and with the water does these things, along with the faith which trusts this word of God in the water. For without God’s word the water is plain water and no Baptism. But with the word of God it is a Baptism, that is, a life-giving water, rich in grace, and a washing of the new birth in the Holy Spirit, as St. Paul says in Titus, chapter three: “He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by His grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. This is a trustworthy saying.” (Titus 3:5–8)

Luther declares, “St. Paul writes in Romans chapter six: ‘We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life’” (Rom. 6:4)

For Luther, baptism was an essential step to salvation. We’ve read his words in his Small Catechism: “Baptism works forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this, as the words and promises of God declare.”

The importance of baptism is founded on the fact that Jesus, who was without sin, demonstrated its importance by being baptized himself.

We know the familiar paintings that depict this scene: John standing awkwardly before Jesus protesting he was not worthy to baptize him; Jesus insisting that he do it anyway.

The three other Gospels tell similar stories of Jesus’ baptism. Mark, the writer of the oldest Gospel, writes, “In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

That’s the old, old story we love to tell

Professor Mitzi J. Smith, J. Davison Philips Professor of New Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia, also sees hidden meanings in Luke’s version of the story.

“Before Jesus has done anything,” she writes, “before he begins his public ministry in Luke, the voice from heaven publicly announces, ‘I am well pleased with you’ (3:22b). The only thing Jesus has done so far is to humble himself by submitting to be baptized by a man who describes himself as unworthy to untie Jesus’ sandals and who has lived in the margins of society.

Perhaps this demonstrates God giving value to the lowliest in a society where wealth is concentrated in the top 1–2 percent. Maybe this God gives value, purpose, belonging, and a sense of dignity and worth to persons born into social statuses relegated to the bottom of a society. This divine affirmation and confirmation will allow Jesus to unapologetically speak truth to power, to stand in the midst of hostile crowds, and to stand firm before religious and political leaders.”

Thus Jesus’ earthly ministry begins on a high note, with God placing him among the most common people of his time while instilling him with a power and authority that will change the world forever.

And it all begins in water, that is, “a life-giving water, rich in grace, and a washing of the new birth in the Holy Spirit.”

As preachers all over the world are admonishing each of us today, 

“Remember your baptism.”

Come on in. The water is fine.