Lead, Moses, Lead!

 Martha and I spent the early part of last week in Rotterdam, N.Y., sitting with our grandson Beny while his parents were at work. This was not hard work because we love Beny dearly and the house has been thoroughly Beny-proofed. He is very good at entertaining himself and he has free range to explore all three floors. All we have to do is put food in front of him when he is hungry and make sure he doesn’t try to go outside.

During the time we were in Rotterdam, Martha – who is superb at multi-tasking – was keeping an eye on Beny and her ear on a Lutheran zoom class for Intentional interim ministers. When Beny was quiet I eavesdropped on the class to get some free education. One of the lecturers was Tod Bolsinger, Vice President of Fuller Theological seminary for vocation formation and assistant professor of practical theology. Tod was using biblical references to illuminate challenges pastors may face with their congregations.

My ears perked up when Tod asked, “What is the greatest miracle reported in the bible before the Resurrection?”

My mind raced for an answer. Was it Noah’s ability to squeeze thousands of animals into a hand-made boat? Was it Daniel in the Lion’s den? Was it Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego surviving the fiery furnace of Nebuchadnezzar? Was it Balaam’s talking ass? Was it David slaying the giant Goliath with a slingshot?

But the answer should have been obvious to me, given our biblical studies this month. The greatest miracle recorded in the bible prior to the Resurrection was the parting of the Red Sea so the Israelites could escape Pharoah’s advancing army, and the subsequent closing of the waters to drown the Egyptians.

It makes me think of a story we used to tell in Baptist youth camp about a little boy returning home from Bible School.

“What did you learn today,” his father asked.

“We learned how the children of Israel escaped the king’s army.”

“That’s good. How did it happen?”

“Well, the Israelites were trapped at the edge of the water and they could see Pharoah’s army getting closer!”

“Yes, go on.”

“And the people were frightened and begged Moses to help them,” the boy said.

“Then what?”

“Then Moses brought out a hundred pontoon boats and the people got in them. When they got to the other side, Moses called in helicopters and they sprayed Pharoah’s army with tommy guns until they were all dead. And the people said, ‘Yay, Moses!’”

The father looked at his son quizzically.

“Is that what your teacher told you?”

The boy shrugged.

“Well, no, but if I told you what the teacher said, you’d never believe it.”

Unbelievable? Perhaps. But that is the nature of miracles. You don’t believe what you’re seeing with your own eyes. But God’s power is vividly on display.

Professor Bolsinger’s reference to the miracle of the divided waters was a device to study the sociology of congregations – and their pastors – under stress.

When they were sweltering under the heat of oppression, the Israelites endorsed Moses’ platform of “Let My People Go.” They stood by him through ten plagues, even the last one in which they had to scramble to protect their first-born by smearing lamb’s blood on their mantles. What a horrifying night it must have been as the angel of death descended upon them, killing every first-born inhabitant, including Pharoah’s son. How many Israelites went to bed that night thinking, “I hope this works, I hope I smeared enough lamb’s blood, should I go outside and check the door one more time …?”

But it happened as Moses had promised and Pharoah freed them, sending them out of the land of bondage into the bright light of freedom. Moses was the great emancipator, the hero of the hour, and the Israelites patted each other on the back, congratulating each other for choosing such a wise and productive leader. 

They stuck with Moses as he led them on unexpected routes, following a pillar or cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night so they could keep moving. They trusted Moses when he told them to move, when he told them to halt, when he told them to change directions. They trusted Moses when God rerouted them, though the people didn’t realize God was setting a trap for Pharoah by making it appear the people were wandering aimlessly. Seeing that the people had no clear destination, Pharoah – influenced by hardening of the ventricles – resolved to go after the people one more time.

When the Israelites saw hundreds of chariots advancing toward them, they reevaluated their assessment of Moses as a great leader.

In an oral memorandum entitled, “We are concerned,” the people said this:

“Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, bringing us out of Egypt. Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, ‘Let us alone so we can serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness?” (Exodus 14:11-12)

Clearly Moses’ church council is having second thoughts about the direction they are headed. But Moses, who is not the sort of pastor who seeks to compromise with the factions in his flock, stands firm. He doesn’t exactly tell them to shut up, because that would be impolite, declares “The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to keep still.”

What happens next is recorded in scripture with almost understated simplicity:

“Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. The LORD drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and turned the sea into dry land, and the waters were divided. The Israelites went into the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall on their right and ion their left. 

“Then the Egyptians pursued and went into the sea after them …

“So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea … The waters returned and covered the chariots and the chariot drivers, the entire army of Pharoah that had followed them into the sea; and not one of them remained.”

Not one of them remained. 

We’ve heard this story so often that we missed sheer awesomeness of it: the greatest miracle of scripture just short of the Resurrection. 

So let’s take a breath and consider the power of God that is on display here. And say to ourselves: wow.

But the march toward freedom must have been confusing to the Israelites, moving first in one direction, then in another, marching, standing still, marching again to the edge of the Sea.

Cory Driver, Assistant to the Bishop for Emerging Ministers & Ministries of the Indiana-Kentucky Synod of the ELCA in Indianapolis, puts it this way:

“There were so many confusing reversals in the process of being freed. An ancient Jewish commentary compares the rescue at sea to a man walking alone with his son in a dark night. They walked single-file to remain on the narrow road. When the man sensed a thief ahead, he moved his son behind him to protect him. When the man sensed a wolf behind them, he moved his son in front of him. When both a thief and a wolf approached at the same time, the man put his son on his shoulders to protect him from both threats (Mekhilta d’Rabbi Yishmael 14:19). The son, no doubt, felt confused at being jostled back and forth by his father, though he trusted his father to keep him safe on the dark path.”

But, confusing as it was, God did not fail the people. As we follow their 40-year pilgrimage to the promised land we shall see confusion again. They wandered in so many different directions that one humorist imagines Moses saying, “Recalculating … Recalculating.” Reading on we will see many more occasions when the people doubted, when they were confused, when they kvetched, when they rebelled, when they resolved to fire Moses and, even worse, when they tried to replace the LORD God of Israel with a golden calf.

Sometimes it was too much for Moses, as in Numbers 11 when he cried out, “I am not able to bear all these people alone. The burden is too heavy for me.”

This, Bolsinger observes, is a case of post-traumatic church syndrome. 

But as a leader of a congregation, Moses must realize how deeply his people are affected by the confusing twists and turns of their journey.

We have all been through these ups and downs. Martha and I celebrate the joy of children and grandchildren, and perhaps you have, too. But we have also grieved when close friends lose children to diseases, birth mishaps, traffic accidents, or overdoses. And perhaps you have, too.

I have celebrated professional successes, promotions, and journalism awards, but I have also been fired by non-profit church organizations that could no longer afford me.

I’ve celebrated relative prosperity, but I also know what it’s like to live hand-to-mouth in stringent times.

I’ve celebrated the love of parents and grandparents, but I’ve felt the pain of watching loved ones succumb to cancer, cardio-vascular disease, and dementia.

Life is confusing and it’s not unusual for any of us to blame our spiritual leaders for failing to teach us that life has its ups and downs. And every day with Jesus is not necessarily sweeter than the day before. You’d think Moses’ people had experienced enough in 40 years to know the journey will not always be smooth, and it will not always be Moses’ fault.

Cory Driver writes:

“As we walk along the uncertain path of this life, God’s leading can be deeply confusing. Make no mistake, God calls us all to freedom from sin and death, including freedom from structural sin, like the Egyptian slavery. But sometimes the path is confusing, and our act of faithfulness is to stop standing still and crying out and instead to move forward into what the LORD is doing.”

And when we are able to see the marvelous good the LORD is doing, it’s time to celebrate and dance.

Remember the words we heard today:

“Then the prophet Miriam, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and with dancing. And Miriam sang to them:

“Sing to the LORD for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.”

Life is not easy and sometimes it is very hard, as the migrating Israelites knew.

But in the end they cling to the hope that would be sung by the psalmists who came after them:

“Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” (Psalm 30:5)

Amen.

Run, Moses, Run!

 

Updated 08/30/2026

Romans: Essential Reading

For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, ‘The one who is righteous will live by faith.’ 

When we read Paul’s letter to the Romans, shivers run up and down our spines. Or at least they should.  

Paul is probably in Corinth and he’s preparing the church in Rome for a personal visit on his way to Spain. 

The year is probably 57 C.E., and that’s what makes us shiver. It’s one of the earliest records we have of Jesus, written just a couple of decades after the resurrection. Paul knew people who knew Jesus, and his own blinding encounter with the resurrected Jesus has made him a firm believer. In Romans, his zeal to proclaim the Gospel is on display.

Martin Luther said the letter to Romans is essential reading.  

“This letter is truly the most important piece in the New Testament,” Luther wrote in 1545. “It is purest Gospel. It is well worth a Christian's while not only to memorize it word for word but also to occupy (themselves) with it daily, as though it were the daily bread of the soul. It is impossible to read or to meditate on this letter too much or too well. The more one deals with it, the more precious it becomes and the better it tastes.”

Moreover, reading the letter to Romans allows us to share a crucial development in our faith. Almost single-handedly, Paul – once a devout Pharisee – transforms the followers of Christ from a tiny sect of Judaism into a universal church, “the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”

Shivers.

For many years, when I tried to imagine what it was like for a distant church to receive a letter from Paul, I saw great celebration when the epistle arrived. I saw Church members gathering to read the letter aloud, perhaps during a meal. And no doubt, I thought, they would post the letter on their door frames so passersby could read it. That was the least that could be expected for a missive that was “the purest gospel.”

But, on reflection, I don’t think it happened that way.

Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus – Nero – had been on the throne in Rome for about three years when Paul wrote the letter.

This stark reality, notes Donghyun Jeong, assistant professor of New Testament at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Texas, makes Paul’s letter quite provocative. The letter is addressed to Christians 

“in the imperial center and proclaiming that his good news concerning Jesus, the son of Israel’s God (Romans 1:1, 1:9), is the real gospel. By implication, this is not the good news of Augustus, the son of the deified Julius Caesar. Paul was “not ashamed of” this gospel because he firmly believed that this is truly “the power of God for salvation” (1:16).

The historian Tacitus portrayed Nero as a torturer and executioner of Christians. Suetonius also recorded Nero as a tormentor of Christians, and Turtullian called Nero the first persecutor of Christians. The mere mention of Nero’s name invokes images of Christians being fed to lions and other ravenous beasts.

Clearly the Christians of Rome did their best to hide who they were. They gathered in sleeper cells in the midst of their enemies and required new believers to know the code – a partially drawn ichthus or fish – before they were allowed into the community. They knew that their safety depended on the strictest secrecy, and they relied on one another’s complete discretion. We know Christians gathered stealthily in the safe house of Priscilla and Aquila, and Paul shows his complete trust in the recipients of his letter by mentioning them by name. “Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my co-workers in Christ Jesus. They risked their lives for me.” (Romans 16:3-4a)

We know that most of the Christians in Rome were Jews but many former pagans seeking respite from their dark lives were also attracted to the message of salvation.

We also know that the Jewish Christians were not thrilled with the new arrivals. These gentiles had not grown up as monotheists, praying to the One God. Their males were not circumcised. They were just – different. At the same time, the gentile Christians saw no reason they should be treated differently from the Jewish Christians and serious dissentions rose in their ranks.

Let’s pause and reflect on that.

For me, it seems odd that a group whose safety depended on mutual trust would splinter into factions. It seems unsafe because sooner or later the quarreling would call attention to the group. It also calls into question whether both sides fully understand Christ’s call to neighborly love.

These may have been among Paul’s concerns when he wrote the letter. For Paul, the letter is a prelude to his hoped-for visit to Rome where he hoped to bring Gentiles and Jews together in a fuller understanding of the good news.

“The inclusion of the Gentiles is a crucial component of Paul’s message,” writes J.R. Daniel Kirk. “Human obedience to God must be as broad as Jesus’ lordship. It is not enough for God to save Israel, as fulfillment of God’s promise in scripture; instead, both Gentiles and Jews must live into the new reality that has begun with Jesus’ resurrection-enthronement.”

L. Ann Jervis, professor of New Testament of Toronto, says the gospel is too big to be splintered.

“The gospel as a power is a very unusual power;” she writes. “it is a power that is not self-protective but self-giving. It is a power that uses its power to save; to save everyone. It comes first to the Jew and also to the Greek (all who are not Jews). It is a power available for all, which nonetheless respects God’s history and commitment to the Jew.”

Paul’s first words in Romans are both a preview of what he will say in the following chapters as well as a testament of the contributions of both gentiles and Jews to his Christian faith.

“I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish — hence my eagerness to proclaim the gospel to you also who are in Rome,” he writes. (Romans 1:14-15)

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel;” he declares. “it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, ‘The one who is righteous will live by faith.’” (Romans 1:16-17)

Luther’s 1545 introduction to Romans is a celebration of what is to come as we continue our study of the epistle over the next few weeks:

“We find in this letter, then, the richest possible teaching about what a Christian should know,” Luther declares, “the meaning of law, Gospel, sin, punishment, grace, faith, justice, Christ, God, good works, love, hope and the cross. We learn how we are to act toward everyone, toward the virtuous and sinful, toward the strong and the weak, friend and foe, and toward ourselves. Paul bases everything firmly on Scripture and proves his points with examples from his own experience and from the Prophets, so that nothing more could be desired. Therefore it seems that St. Paul, in writing this letter, wanted to compose a summary of the whole of Christian and evangelical teaching which would also be an introduction to the whole Old Testament. Without doubt, whoever takes this letter to heart possesses the light and power of the Old Testament. Therefore each and every Christian should make this letter the habitual and constant object of his study. God grant us his grace to do so. Amen.”

_____

Preached May 7 at St Paul's Lutheran Church, Rye Brook, N.Y. 

Go, Teach, Love

April 16, 2023. The Lord is Risen! Hallelujah! The Lord is risen indeed.

Today is Easter Sunday for millions of Orthodox Christians around the world.

Orthodox Easter takes place between April 4 and May 8, following the first full moon after Passover. Orthodox Easter always falls after the celebration of Passover because the biblical accounts say the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus took place after he entered Jerusalem to celebrate Passover.

For Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and other western Christians, Easter is determined by the Gregorian calendar established in 1582 by edict of Pope Gregory XIII. Orthodox Christians use the Julian calendar which means we celebrate the same holidays on different days.

The last time western and eastern Easters were on the same day was in 2017, and the next time will be 2025.

As you might suspect, many people think it is a bad witness to the non-Christian world that Christians cannot agree on the day to celebrate the most important event in the Christian year. When I was on the staff of the World Council of Churches there were occasional quixotic efforts to get both traditions to celebrate Easter on the same date every year. But I’m not going out on a limb to predict this will never happen. Orthodox Christians are convinced that their formula of placing Easter on the first full moon after Passover is the correct one. And who is to say they aren’t right?

So today, on Orthodox Easter, we read of Jesus’ great commission to all the church – and note the repetition of the word “all:”

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything” – all – “that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

There’s no room for misunderstanding these orders.

And yet here we are on an Easter Sunday that exposes the divisions that exist among all the disciples of all the nations. 

Ain’t that a shame?
My tears fell like rain
Ain’t that a shame?
You broke my heart
When you said we’re apart
Ain’t that a shame?

Given that Jesus gave us all the same commission, it’s a shame we are all apart.

There’s not enough time to trace the history of the early church to see how we ended up this way. 

But perhaps we should take a closer look at how all of us Christians lost track of Jesus’ real message in his great commission.

And perhaps the first question to ask, is, who and where are the nations we are seeking to make disciples?

In the very early years of the church, Saint Paul interpreted the Great Commission as a call make disciples of all outposts of the Roman Empire, including Rome itself.

Simeon Bachos the Eunuch, who was baptized by Saint Philip in Acts 8, is thought to have carried the message of the resurrected Lord to Ethiopia.

Saint Thomas, who we call “Doubter,” traveled to India and established churches. Today the Mar Thoma and Malankara Orthodox churches trace their origins to his missionary efforts.

All of these churches are different from one another because of cultural differences, but all of them and many more were faithful baptizers and teachers of Christ’s commandments.

But as the shadow of medievalism darkened across Europe, the idea of disciple-making took a sinister turn.

Alarmed by the presence of Islam in Jerusalem, Christian popes and monarchs sent eight murderous crusades to the Holy Land between 1096 and 1291. Thousands of Muslims were slaughtered in the name of Christ.

In 1597, Martin Luther’s Ninety-five theses led to badly needed reforms in the church. But they also led to violent divisions between Catholics and Protestants that erupted into holy wars. For decades, Catholics burned Protestants at the stake, and Protestants burned Catholics. It was a far cry from creating disciples who would follow Christ’s commandments.

In the late fifteenth century, when Europeans discovered other lands across the sea, the scramble to accumulate fruitful real estate began. To simplify matters for European Christian sailors who found themselves in strange lands, the Doctrine of Discovery had been proclaimed by Pope Nicholas V in 1452.

The doctrine allowed sovereigns to claim territories that were uninhabited by Christians. The doctrine proclaimed that indigenous peoples in the Americas were not human so any land conquered by Europeans was considered uninhabited.

When Columbus arrived in 1492, it is estimated that the Americas were inhabited by 100 million people, about one-fifth of all humans on the planet. (www.ictinc.ca) These human beings were slaughtered, conscripted into slavery, exposed to fatal European diseases, and forced to witness the purging of their ancient cultures.

A mere eighteen days ago, on March 30, 2023, the Vatican press office announced “in no uncertain terms” the repudiation of the doctrine of discovery.

But of course the damage had been done. And you and I no doubt know individuals who continue to be affected by the fall-out of the doctrine.

I have a friend, a professor of theology at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in Chicago, who is a member of the Kiowa nation in Oklahoma. Tom is also a drummer in his own band, and he handles those sticks with rhythm and an energy that makes your heart pump faster.

“It’s kind of a revenge,” Tom once told me. “The missionaries who came to us thought drums were of the devil and they took them away from us.”

Missionaries also discouraged their charges from holding on to their customs, speaking their languages, and expressing their beliefs in a God the missionaries didn’t recognize.

Too often, it seems, we have responded to the Great Commission by going forth to teach peoples we think of as “other” – people who we think are different from us. Years ago, Martha and I were stunned at a commissioning ceremony at a local Baptist church to send a young man into the mission field. The field? Ireland. He was being sent to convert Christians to Christianity.

For years the foreign mission arm of the United Methodist Church sent missionaries to Russia, no doubt with the aim of bringing Jesus to godless communists. But these good intentions raised the ire of Christians who remained active, namely the Russian Orthodox Church. Life in the Soviet Union was difficult enough, the Patriarch said, without Christians sending missionaries to convert Christians to Christianity.

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.”

What is the essence of Jesus’ message to us?

It is this:

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:33-36)

The Great Commission of Jesus is to go throughout the world to proclaim the message that God’s love is for all people. 

And let the Holy Spirit take it from there.

In the late 1990’s, I received a powerful lesson on what trust in the Holy Spirit can do.

The World Council of Churches organized in San José, Costa Rica, a gathering of Orthodox Christians and Latin American Pentecostal Christians. The theological and cultural differences between these groups could not be more vast, but Orthodox and Pentecostal Christians place great reliance on the Holy Spirit. The gathering was called to explore their similarities.

Somewhat to my surprise, Nicaraguan Pentecostals said they do not re-baptize the Roman Catholics they have converted.

“We know the Holy Spirit was present during their Catholic baptism,” they explained, “and we respect the Holy Spirit.”

But more than that.

The Pentecostals said they also reject the notion that their non-Christian neighbors, as well as their indigenous ancestors going back thousands of years, are irredeemably lost souls because they never accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior.

“God’s love is for all God’s creation,” the Pentecostal pastor said. “God was present in the lives of our pagan ancestors, and the Holy Spirit dwelled within them. Their religious practices were different, but the Holy Spirit led them to an understanding that a great and loving power presides over the world.”

Today we have the full story of Who that power is, and the love the Father has for God’s creation. 

God’s love is the message we are commissioned to spread throughout the world.

And the Holy Spirit will bring that love to fruition in God’s own time.

Recognizing Jesus

(Preached March 19, 2023, at St Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church, Rye Brook, N.T.)

Several times a week at the grocery store, I pass a fundraising table for a Christian camp or project I’ve never heard of. The sign invites passersby to “Help Change Lives”.

I always smile benevolently at the middle-aged man behind the table.

“Can you help us?” he asks.

“No thanks,” I reply.

“Okay. Have a blessed day.”

This happens often, though not so often that the guy recognizes me as the smiling old dude who never gives a cent.

But to be perfectly honest, the word “Christian” in the camp’s name raises questions. There’s no time to vet the place while buying bread and milk.

The man standing behind the collection box looks nice enough, and it may well be that the camp serves children of all ethnicities and social classes and encourages them to imitate Jesus’ example of loving and accepting everyone.

On the other hand, the place could be a project of the insanely homophobic Westboro Baptist Church, or a training ground for an evangelical agency that sends missionaries to Ireland to convert the Christians to Christianity.

So doubt paralyzes my impulse to grab my wallet.

Recently I joined Martha and Katie at 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  Fergie’s “Glamorous” in a fulsome, falsetto voice:

“If you ain’t got no money, take yo’ broke ass home/you say it
If you ain’t got no money, take yo’ broke ass home.”

I turned to leave the room but the man caught sight of 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 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 crisp 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.

Immediately after his resurrection, Jesus’ closest friends failed to identify him. Mary Magdalene, the first to arrive at his empty tomb, didn’t realize Jesus was the man talking to her until he called her name.

In Luke 24, the resurrected Jesus joins two of his disciples on a walk to Emmaus, but Luke reports “their eyes were kept from recognizing him.” (v.16). Mark reports, a bit mysteriously, that Jesus appeared to them “in another form” (Mark 16:12) which, as author Garry Wills writes in What Jesus Meant, is “hard to interpret.”

“Jesus appeared in numinous form (Wills writes) … his body was not the earthly body any more, but one both outside time and space and affecting time and space.”

From our 21st century vantage point, where digital media create incredible virtual realities on Hi-Def screens, the sensationalism of the resurrection begins to dim. Jesus’ strange post-death appearances, which galvanized his contemporaries into the fiery evangelical movement that transformed the world, no longer excites many modern minds. The figure in the Easter stories makes is too much like an exhilarating Elvis sighting or the unexpected reappearance of John F. Kennedy, Jr.

But how will we know him when we see him? Even his contemporaries didn’t know who he was when they encountered their resurrected leader on the road or in their homes. Two millennia later, in an age of secularism and doubt, how can we possibly recognize him?

Fortunately, Jesus made it easy for us. He is present, he declared, whenever we mingle with our fellow humans.

For 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 some clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me … Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:35-36; 40b)

“The least of these” certainly include persons we meet in chance encounters:

The homeless mother and her children, holding out a cup as we pass her as in a grocery store parking lot;

The man pulling a flimsy blanket more tightly around him as he sleeps on a heating vent in the city;

The veteran who needs a few bucks and stands in the cold in the middle of a traffic line at a red light, hoping to attract some driver’s attention;

The thousands of LGBTQ teens and young adults who have been cast out of their homes and struggle day-to-day to survive;

The hundreds who live at the poverty line and below and seek to supplement their diets at church food pantries.

Help for all these folks is within our reach every day.

But nationally and world-wide, the problem extends beyond our reach.

According to the USDA, more than 34 million people, including 9 million children, in the United States, cannot be sure of a meal tonight.

After steadily declining for a decade, world hunger is on the rise, affecting nearly 10 percent of people globally. From 2019 to 2022, the number of undernourished people grew by as many as 150 million, a crisis driven largely by war, climate change, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Earthquakes are estimated to have directly impacted 26 million people across Turkey and Syria. The focus has now shifted to providing essential support for survivors who have lost their homes, belongings, livelihoods and loved ones.

Millions of people have been uprooted from their homes in Ukraine and are need of humanitarian assistance, in what has become the largest and fastest displacement crisis in Europe since World War II. Of these, over 8 million have fled to neighboring countries as refugees and millions more people displaced within Ukraine are also in need of urgent humanitarian assistance. 

And the beat goes on. 

It’s easy to bow our heads in despair because we have no direct means of helping people in these dire situations.

But all is not lost because there are many relief organizations reaching to hungry, displaced, and suffering people in our country and around the world. Saint Paul’s supports the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and Lutheran World Relief which reaches out to work hand in hand with vulnerable communities to feed them, house them, and help them rebuild after disaster strikes – and to help communities avoid or prepare for future disasters. 

These relief efforts are supported by your contributions to this church, and you can also make direct contributions at lwf.org. Other relief organizations include Church World Service and the Red Cross. 

No doubt many people perform such deeds of caring with no idea that they were ministering to Christ, writes Dr. Carla Works, professor of New Testament at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington.

“Jesus says that whenever they gave food to the hungry, welcomed a stranger, clothed the naked, or visited the sick or imprisoned, they acted in kindness toward Jesus himself,” writes Dr. Works. “Jesus can identify with the least of these because he has walked in their shoes.

“On the other hand, those who have failed to see the needs of the disadvantaged have acted as though they have never seen Jesus. They have not followed in Christ’s footsteps.  They have not continued to do the work that the Master has called them to do (24:45-51).  They have not displayed who the real King is.”

But the bottom line, Jesus told us, is that he never left us. He is with us when we least suspect it.

Which brings me back to my earlier question: was the ex-con I encountered in the restroom of a local restaurant Jesus?

I have the answer to that on the highest authority. 

Of course he was.

This is most certainly true.

Imagining the Gospel

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.

Science and God

Sermon prepared for Science Sunday, St Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church, Rye Brook, N.Y., February 12, 2023.

Two years ago one of my former pastors, John P. “Jack” Irwin, died of Covid-19 at the age of 95.

Jack was an amateur astronomer. In the mid-1960s, when the United Church Youth Fellowship met on Sunday nights, he would show black-and-white slides of stars, nebula, and universes light years away. We looked at pictures of alpha centauri, a triple star system that is the closest to our own sun.

By “closest,” Jack explained, it would take a beam of light, traveling at 186,000 miles per second, four and a third years to reach it.

Jack showed other slides of solar systems a hundred and a thousand light years away. In a darkened living room, with Jack’s soothing voice describing the far reaches of space, it was difficult to stay awake. But when the lights came on and we blinked against the brightness, Jack asked a question none of us ever forgot:

“How many of you,” he asked, “have a concept of God that is as large as outer space?”

I suppose we were 15 or 16 years old and certainly we didn’t think of God as an entity of astrophysics. God and science were two different things, God being a powerful but approachable figure some call “the man upstairs;” and science, by contrast, is the empirical exercise of verifying phenomena by observation and experience rather than pure speculation.

Until Jack Irwin’s slide show blew our minds, we were content to keep our notion of God within reasonable bounds, perhaps as a white-bearded grandpa figure who created the world a few thousand years ago and raised Jesus from the dead.  There was no reason to assume the bible was not literally true.

In many respects, we adolescents were at the same intellectual and emotional stage as millions of people in the mid-19th century. Back then most people kept their idea of God under reasonable constraints, and when God said, “Let there be light” (Genesis 1:3), it was not necessary to explain how God did it.

Then in 1859, scientist Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species, a meticulously documented study that concluded plants and animals responded to changes in their environment by passing their strongest traits on to future generations. 

Today this idea of natural selection and evolution is generally accepted in biological studies.

But Origin of Species exploded like a bomb in church circles in 1859. If, for example, apes could theoretically evolve into thinking and talking beings – if, in fact, human ancestors were monkeys – then humans were not just a little lower than the angels, but just a little higher than the simians.

Church leaders and politicians responded to Origin of Species with rage. It’s worth noting that both Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln, born on February 12, 1809, were portrayed as apes by cartoonists of the day.

But it may have been the poets of the Victorian era that felt the pain of Darwin most deeply. Suddenly they were confronted with a God who was not an all powerful and generally benign creator, but an inattentive God who was allowing creation to develop on its own.

If you were a literature major in school, you may have read Thomas Hardy’s “Hap,” a depressing poem in which he lamented good and evil were governed by mere happenstance. If God was causing pain, Hardy wrote,

Then would I bear it, clench myself, and die,
Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited;
Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I
Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.

But not so.   How arrives it joy lies slain,
And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?
—Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,
And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan. . . .
These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown
Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.

In the United States, the reaction to Origin of Species was simpler. Many states made it illegal to teach the theory of evolution.

In 1925, in one of the best known confrontations between biblical inerrancy and free thought, the state of Tennessee accused high school teacher John Thomas Scopes of violating the Butler Act, which forbade teachers from teaching evolution in any state-funded school.

The issue came to blows in the “Scopes Monkey Trial” in which perennial presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan defended the inerrant bible, and famed criminal lawyer Clarence Darrow defended John Scopes.

The trial was staged to draw attention to the issue. Bryan and Darrow sparred over the issue of biblical literalism and in the end Scopes was convicted and ordered to pay a $100 fine.

But history remembers Darrow’s defense of the sacredness of ideas, as recorded in the 1960 film, Inherit the Wind. As Henry Drummond, representing Darrow, Spencer Tracy declares the divinity of

“The individual human mind. In a child’s power to master the multiplication table there is more sanctity than in all your shouted ‘Amens!‘, ‘Holy, Holies!’ and ‘Hosannahs!’ An idea is a greater monument than a cathedral. And the advance of man’s knowledge is more of a miracle than any sticks turned to snakes, or the parting of waters!”

The theory of evolution signifies the miracle of the advance of human knowledge. Even so, we know it is still illegal to teach it in many parts of our country – just as it is illegal to teach Critical Race Theory, the 1619 project, the lingering effects of slavery in America, and the genocide of indigenous peoples in our land.

Origin of Species continues to be a threat to right wing Christianity and in many churches Charles Darwin is regarded as the Great Satan. I learned as a Baptist magazine editor that dropping Darwin’s name caused subscription cancellations and angry letters.

I sometimes suspected some of the readers of The American Baptist magazine would have been happier subscribing to Answers in Genesis magazine, still readily available on your smart phone at answersingenesis.org.

In the “answers” section of this web page we learn the following:

1. The earth is approximately 6,000 years old. “If we believe the earth is billions of years old and shows no sign of a worldwide Flood,” we are reminded, “then that belief contradicts the biblical account of Noah. If we accept God’s testimony regarding the Flood, we cannot logically believe in millions of years.”

2. All animals that now populate the earth are the genetic descendants of the animals rescued on Noah’s ark.

3. Dinosaurs were among the land animals God created on the sixth day of creation, which was about six thousand years ago. According to answers.org, dinosaurs and humans existed at the same time. I imagine the massive tyrannosaurus rex reaching out helplessly with its tiny arms to snatch a panicky human being from a cave. For some, The Flintstones is a scientific documentary.

4. Finally, the bible is the inspired, infallible word of God, Adam and Eve were real people, and the bible provides the “correct chronology” of human history on our very young planet.

It’s no wonder science and particularly Darwin are such fearsome threats to many people. 

I was a bit surprised a few years ago when Martha, Katie and I visited Westminster Abby in London and discovered that Darwin is buried there among the monarchs, clergy, politicians, and poets who Britain reveres.

Charles Darwin is not the Great Satan in England. In fact his image is on the 10-pound note. In England, Darwin is remembered as a faithful Anglican layman whose theory of natural selection and evolution were not intended to challenge faith. On the contrary, they vastly expand our concept of God and our scientific understanding of the intricate details of God’s creative miracles.

For many, On The Origin of Species had the same effect on intellect and faith as Pastor Irwin’s question had on his youth group so long ago:

How many of us have a concept of God that is as large as the theory of evolution?

How many of us have a concept of God that is as large the new vastness of space revealed by NASA’s Webb telescope?

How many of us have a concept of God that is as large as the ideas that have developed in human brains 

To create vaccines for serious illnesses? 

To write the computer codes for space travel?

To write the computer codes for diagnostic tools such as CAT scans and MRI’s to maintain our health?

Science expands our concept of God to the very limits of human imagination. And because of Charles Darwin, God is bigger, not smaller. And while we draw breath on this earth, we will never truly comprehend the infinite vastness of God.

C.S. Lewis, the great Christian writer and teacher, wrote an Evolutionary Hymn so show his faith in the vastness of God:

Lead us, Evolution, lead us
Up the future's endless stair;
Chop us, change us, prod us, weed us.
For stagnation is despair:
Groping, guessing, yet progressing,
Lead us nobody knows where.

Wrong or justice, joy or sorrow,
In the present what are they
while there's always jam-tomorrow,
While we tread the onward way?
Never knowing where we're going,
We can never go astray.

To whatever variation
Our posterity may turn
Hairy, squashy, or crustacean,
Bulbous-eyed or square of stern,
Tusked or toothless, mild or ruthless,
Towards that unknown god we yearn.

Ask not if it's god or devil,
Brethren, lest your words imply
Static norms of good and evil
(As in Plato) throned on high;
Such scholastic, inelastic,
Abstract yardsticks we deny.

Far too long have sages vainly
Glossed great Nature's simple text;
He who runs can read it plainly,'
Goodness = what comes next.'
By evolving, Life is solving
All the questions we perplexed.

Amen.