God's Empire Does Not Deport Its Citizens

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

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.

In recent weeks hundreds of people risked beatings and arrest to intervene when ICE agents moved in to arrest their neighbors, friends, or employees who could not offer proof of citizenship or residency. Last week after an ICE agent shot an innocent woman in the face and lied that he was afraid for his life, tens of thousands of people poured into the streets to protest. They protested the obvious lies about the tragedy that were told by the director of Homeland Security, the director of the FBI, and the President of the United States. They protested cruel and extreme policies that far exceeded promises to deport only dangerous criminals. And they protested the unprofessional, ham fisted, and often violent style of ICE agents.

Not all of these protesters were Christians. But all knew instinctively that there is no place in the Bible, the Quaran, the Torah, or Gita, that sanctions separating families, deporting arrestees to brutal prisons, or instilling fear in children and families. They are calling on our justice system to be aware of the commandments of God’s empire when unholy policies are being forged.

Those commandments are easy enough to understand.

Jesus said: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (LK 4:18-19)

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

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.