Sermon: A Root of All Kinds of Evil

First Presbyterian Church, East Moline, IL

September 28, 2025, Pentecost 16C

1 Timothy 6:6-19; Luke 16:19-31

 

 

A Root of All Kinds of Evil

 

 

The opening of Douglas Adams's science-fiction satire The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is an introductory look at a small, sad planet (which is of course Earth) as viewed from the outside. One of the observations from this outside perspective is pretty stinging:

This planet has ... a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much all of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

 

Indeed, if we look around it does seem as if most everyone associates happiness or contentment or pleasure or power or all manner of presumed good things with the movement of those small green pieces of paper or with the things acquired by doing so. And historically, even if those small green pieces of paper were actually gold or silver or copper coins or some other form of currency, the same holds true. The concept of "enough" seems to be widely lacking.

Both of today's main scripture readings hit on this subject, albeit from slightly different directions. The parable read from Luke 16 is probably at least familiar sounding to most of us; the rich man indulging in what his wealth gains him, while the poor man Lazarus is at the gate longing for anything he can eat at all. Both men die, and let's just say they go opposite directions. 

The striking thing about that ending is just how un-self-aware the rich man seems to be, even after he ends up in The Bad Place. He seems to think that Lazarus is somehow at his beck and call, first calling out for him to come dip his finger in water and cool the rich man's tongue - which, ewwwww - and then thinking that Lazarus could still be used as some kind of supernatural apparition to scare his brothers into getting right with God. Even in his Hadean state, the rich man of the parable somehow seems to think of himself from that point of view of wealth and the power that comes with it; I tell others what to do and they do it. Clearly the man had no concept of "enough" and no contentment at all.

At this point it's useful to jump over to the epistle reading and the oft-misquoted verse 10. How often have you heard it simply as "money is the root of all evil"? It's well-known enough that some users of the saying might have no idea that it has its roots in this scripture reading. And to be honest, the short form just quoted is such a deformation of the verse that it really shouldn’t be associated with the scripture reading. 

First of all, it isn't money that is the root of anything. To recall the Hitchhiker's Guide quote from the beginning of this sermon, it isn't the small green pieces of paper that are unhappy. No, it's not about the money, it's about our attitude towards it. It's about the desire for it, or the desire for the things it can bring us in large quantities. Or, to put it bluntly, it's about greed. Being unable to know what "enough" is, not being able to be content, is always on the bad side of scripture; the Bible never has anything good to say about greed. It is a corrosive thing; no wonder it ends up as one of the so-called Seven Deadly Sins. 

Note also what follows: "the love of money is a root...". Not "the" root. Love of wealth, or greed, isn't the only way for the soul to be corrupted. It's a big one, yes, but not the only one. 

Finally, note how this saying ends; this love of money of which we are being warned is a root "of all kinds of evil." There is more than one way to do bad or to go bad or to be bad in this world; the unpleasant truth is that greed ties into many of them. 

But there are other kinds of evil that the love of money gets tied up in. We live in a state where perhaps the truest pandemic is of wealthy business interests using the clout their wealth brings to get laws written to benefit them - shady development deals in places that should not be developed, or, to be blunt, just flat-out buying and owning politicians to do their bidding. Lots of people for whom enough is never enough, just loving that wealth and making absolutely sure it never gets to those who don't have it. Those people are just tools, like Lazarus was to the rich man in the parable.

Maybe one of the more subtle signs of this excess loving of wealth can be found in a bumper sticker that shows up in a few places now and then. It's one that seems harmless or even humorous on first sight but betrays perhaps one of the most insidious "kinds of evil" of which the love of money can be a root. I don't know if it ever made it up here, but mabye? It says, "If 10% is good enough for God, it's good enough for the IRS."

I have no interest in addressing the IRS at all here, but the first half of that sentence has got to be beaten down for the horrible theology it foists upon the world. What distorted scripture are you reading if you think that 10% of anything about your life is "good enough for God"? 

No. One might even have to be brash enough to say "Hell, no" in recognition of the fact that Hell would be exactly where such an idea would come from.

If you are going to be calling yourself a follower of Christ in any way at all, the only percentage of anything of yours that can even remotely be called "enough" is 100%. No less. 

The beginning of the reading from 1 Timothy reminds us that "we brought nothing into this world, so that we can take nothing out of it." The later portion of the reading puts it plainly that it is God "who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment," and that our business with whatever wealth we have is "to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future [that is, eternity], so that they may take hold of the life that really is life." It all comes from God and all goes to God for the doing of God's work here on this earth.

Since we are approaching that time when we are called upon to reckon with the finances of the church and how we will support the work of the church, we should go ahead and say that giving to the church certainly should be a part of that all belonging to God - not merely for the sake of propping up the church itself or making sure we have big shiny things to show off, but to keep the work of the church going. It may even be that there are more ways this church can bear witness in this place, and it may even be that our "wealth" - in the form of this building - can be part of that.

What wealth we have, great or small, is God's, if we claim to be God's. The rich man of the parable clearly didn't get it, and others too if the epistle reading is any indication. The world around us seems to need reminding as well. 

For the call to be rich towards God and others, and to be content with what God gives, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal unless otherwise indicated):#41, O Worship the King, All Glorious Above;  #804, Rejoice, Ye Pure in Heart!; #846, Fight the Good Fight

Well, they used to be green, anyway...

Sermon: Everyone

First Presbyterian Church, East Moline, IL

September 21, 2025, Pentecost 15C

1 Timothy 2:1-7

 

Everyone

 

 

Everyone.

Kind of a definitive word, isn't it?

I mean, how do you put up an argument against something being for or about "everyone" without sounding like an idiot ("you really mean everyone?") or a hatemonger ("surely you can't mean them???") or worse? 

So it had to be a bit bracing for the readers of this letter, whoever they were, to see in this brief passage "everyone" invoked three times, in idea if not in exact word. In a time when the persecution of those identified as "Christians" or "followers of the Way" was beginning to intensify, around the end of the first century, this was going to be a hard pill to swallow.

So what exactly is being applied to "everyone"?

1. Right away, in verse 1, we see the instruction begin: "I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone...".

In case it wasn't clear the author continues, "for kings and all who are in high positions...". Exactly the folks who would be in charge, the emperors claiming divine authority and moving to squelch small, nonconforming movements like the church; pray for them. Even if you do so with gritted teeth, pray for them.

An attempt to sweeten the medicine follows: "...so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity." This is frankly a strange phrase; those last two words - "godliness" and "dignity" - do not appear at all in the New Testament aside from this letter and the two following, 2 Timothy and Titus. This is not Paul-like language at all, for that matter; "dignity" in particular is about as antithetical to Paul's body of writing as anything can be. Outside of these three so-called "pastoral epistles," so named because of their evident direction toward those in charge in the local body, New Testament writers simply don't talk like this. Paul in particularly isn't all that interested in the followers of Christ living quiet, peaceable lives. 

No, the real kicker here is in the second invocation of "everyone," that follows next.

2. "This is right and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." 

Let's strip this down and clarify this: God wants everyone to be saved. Everybody. To put it in good Southern terms, "all y'all." The most elemental, basic reason Christians would be called to play for everyone is simply that God wants everyone to be saved. God wants everyone to know that truth. God has zero interest in the lines we draw between ourselves and others. God wants everybody to be God's own. 

When we're most honest with ourselves, can we really say this? Can we really desire the salvation of those who torment us? And we're not talking in some sarcastic kind of "I really wish God would call this one home already..." wish, but truly desiring God's truth and salvation for them? Do we have that within us, wishing for the salvation - wishing the good - for those who harm us? That's what's being asked of these readers here, let's not miss that.

The word "everyone" doesn't appear again in this passage, but the meaning certainly does when the author adds this:

3. "...there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself a ransom for all (which is to say, everyone)." 

That's pretty complete. We are called to pray for it, God wants it, and Christ gave himself for it: the salvation of "everyone." 

This passage isn't the entire Bible, though, and we do have to remember that other passages of scripture offer words that caution us from getting too excited about this. 

Think of the "parable of the sheep and the goats," at the end of Matthew 25. The dividing line between the two doesn't have anything to do with what either said, how profusely they offered their verbal praises to God, or how strongly they proclaimed the gospel or whatever words they used at all. No, the difference-maker is all about actions that show God's desire for everyone to be saved; as 25:40 puts it, whatever you do for or to "the least of these," what Jesus calls his siblings, you have done to Jesus. 

Or take Matthew 7:21, for example, in which Jesus cautions his disciples that "not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only one who does the will of my father in Heaven." No matter how much God may want it, it takes a response, and a response that is more than words at that. Being saved involves a changed life, a life that reflects Christ's love for us, one given to doing God's will more than to big empty words. 

And let's be honest; a great many folks out there who are extremely eager to present themselves as "Christians" don't live and act in ways that show God's desire to see everyone saved. To put it most bluntly, it's entirely possible that the biggest talkers out there, the ones who have the most to say about who is and who isn't saved, are themselves nowhere near being saved. 

To put it bluntly, not everyone says "yes." 

That doesn't make it any less what God desires for all of humanity, for "everyone." 

That doesn't make Christ any less a ransom for "everyone."

That doesn't make it any less our call to pray for "everyone."

That's our job. That's what God calls us to do.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #353, My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less; #697, Take My Life; #700, I'm Gonna Live So God Can Use Me

Sermon: Who Tells Your Story?

 First Presbyterian Church. East Moline, IL

September 14, 2025, Pentecost 15C

1 Timothy 1:12-17

 

Who Tells Your Story?

 

 

The groundbreaking Broadway musical Hamilton was noted upon its arrival for its deft blending of many different popular musical styles (of which hip-hop was most frequently noted) with solid dramatic technique and casting to create a riveting show, one which still commands audiences and popular acclaim even ten years after its premiere. (As if to make the point, a filmed version of a theatrical performance that was supposed to run for this past week was extended through this coming week by popular demand.)

The most arresting moment in the show, though (at least according to one viewer - raises hand) is quite the opposite of those characteristics; for all its brashness and volume-up theatricality, the show ends with a moment of near-silence, courtesy of Hamilton's widow Eliza. She retells, in the finale, how after his death she took up the work of preserving and telling his story; interviewing soldiers with whom he had once served as well as going through his voluminous writings to sort out how they might be preserved, not to mention raising funds for the Washington Monument, speaking out against slavery, and finally starting an orphanage in respect to Alexander's own orphan status. At the last, though, she can't help but wonder if she did enough; the company brings the show to a close with an almost-whispered restatement of the questions that have recurred throughout this finale: who lives, who dies, who tells your story?

I'm pretty sure that when we saw the show at a packed theatre in Orlando, no one in the audience made a noise for ten seconds. I'm not sure anybody breathed. I know I didn't.

So what does all this have to do with Paul and with this letter from which I've just read? 

Clearly this reading is about Paul himself. While it doesn't directly repeat the account of Paul's conversion experience (you can read that in Acts 9), the circumstances and characteristics ascribed to Paul in this letter are clearly developed from that account of Paul's blinding encounter on the road to Damascus and his subsequent healing through the hands of Ananias. 

It's not uncommon in Paul's letters to see him refer to his experience on that road, and he also describes in some cases just what kind of non-follower of Christ he was in the time before that encounter. He will in some places get quite dramatic in describing his state before the event, although in at least one case, in Philippians 3, he takes a seemingly opposite tack: 

circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee' as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. 

 

Yet in the very next sentence Paul brushes that righteousness aside with the declaration "Yet whatever gains I had, I have come to regard as loss because of Christ."

While the two are not necessarily incompatible, one might wonder if the passage in 1 Timothy is in any way informed by Paul's self-description in Philippians. One might be forgiven if one feels as if the two passages, while not at all contradictory, don't quite seem to line up with each other. It's not an end-of-the-world contradiction by any means, but it just doesn't quite sound the same. It still speaks of God's grace and redemption as experienced by Paul. It still speaks of the transformation in Paul, and of Paul's gratitude for God's work in him. But to be honest, when you've taken a few spins around Paul's letters, there are times such differences start to show. 

Now here's where that finale from Hamilton comes in.

1 Timothy is, along with its partners 2 Timothy and Titus and possibly Ephesians and Colossians, increasingly regarded in biblical scholarship as unlikely to have been written or composed by Paul, even if his name is attached to the letter. Such letters are called the "deutero-Pauline" epistles. There are various reasons for such evaluations; sometimes the Greek is extremely not like Paul's writing, sometimes it's a lack of evidence that the letter was even written during Paul's lifetime (which ended at the hands of the Roman Empire around the year 62). 

Whichever the case, most likely the letters were written by someone who had been associated with Paul, or perhaps a student of such a person. Such individuals likely sought to preserve Paul's reputation as years passed and other leaders came to the fore, or to apply Paul's teaching to situations in the church that had arisen since his death. It wasn't an uncommon practice at the time and was not remotely limited to the fledgling Christian church, even if it might feel a little bit ethically "icky" to us today. 

So, if this letter is not actually written by the actual apostle Paul, what's happening here? 

Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?

Paul's significance in the early church was tremendous and widespread. As time passed and that presence waned, those of his students and coworkers who felt that loss sought to share that wisdom, that teaching, that presence that had made so much difference in their own lives and work and, at least in this portion of the letter called 1 Timothy, one such student of the apostle's work did so by telling Paul's story - not in the way that Paul would have told it, by any means, but as best as they could in an age where they felt that loss. 

It's not like we don't see this play out in different settings, even in our own day. For example, every time you see in the news a conflict over the raising or lowering of a statue of a Confederate general, or the naming or renaming or re-renaming of a fort or camp for such a figure, you are seeing a struggle over who tells the nation's story. Even in this week of violence, we already see a struggle in which one side not only insists on the right to tell the shooting victim's story but also moves to silence anyone who dares tell a different story. Stories matter an awful lot. 

We, the church, are historically the body charged with, among many other things, telling Christ's story. The church has sometimes done this well, and other times it has done so poorly as to make a mockery of that story. Of course, we are also charged to live that story, and frankly we sometimes struggle mightily with that task too. Then, when those who come behind us are charged to take up the task, what story will they tell of us? 

It may well be that one of the great challenges we as the church face is what kind of story do we leave behind. Do we leave a story that can be easily twisted for darker or more nefarious purposes? Or is the story, the legacy we leave so intricately bound in the life and work and teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ that it cannot be turned for false ends? For all of Paul's failings and fumblings his story inevitably led to the story of that Christ who so blindingly reordered Paul's life on that road to Damascus. Paul's story pointed to Christ. May that also be true of each of our stories and of our story as a church. 

Who tells your story? What story do they tell of you?

Thanks be to God. Amen. 

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #620, PraIse, My Soul, the King of Heaven; #12, Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise; #634, To God Be the Glory

 

Sermon: One Really Disruptive Letter

First Presbyterian Church, East Moline, IL

September 7, 2025, Pentecost 13C

Philemon

 

One Really Disruptive Letter

 

 

There are five books of the Bible, across the Old and New Testaments, that were not in the course of history subdivided into chapters. The lone such example in the OT, the book of the prophet Obadiah, is not wildly different than its longer prophetic siblings. The letters named 2 John and 3 John and Jude are likewise similar if not nearly so long as the general epistles found towards the end of the New Testament. None of those books appear in the Revised Common Lectionary. Today's book, however (which does appear in the RCL), is significantly different.

It's a letter that should not be overlooked, as the book has had an influence out of proportion to its size across the history of both the church universal and the church particular in this country, especially in the US South. That influence was not good, largely because those who interpreted it did so more for convenience than from any genuine desire to learn from it. 

You see, this little letter became, in such empires or nations as sanctioned the practice, a primary scriptural justification for the institution of slavery. That list of such nations, of course, includes the USA for about the first two hundred-plus years of its colonial and national history. To be blunt, the only reason you’d have ever heard a sermon on Philemon was in order to support or prop up slavery as “biblical,” frequently (although not exclusively) in the southern part of the country, in churches that separated from their northern fellow churches over slavery – including, yes, Presbyterians.

The tragedy of it is that this could only be done by emphasizing something that is not in the letter. For all that Paul says in the letter, there is one thing he does not say: “Slavery is wrong.” (He also doesn't say "slavery is right.") Neither does he explicitly order Philemon to free the slave Onesimus (although in verse 8 Paul does claim the spiritual authority to do so). And hey, if Paul doesn’t say slavery is wrong, then it must be OK, right?

This was not the only such passage of scripture that preachers of the past would have used to justify slavery, but it made this letter damaging all out of proportion to its size and was also completely contrary to the spirit of the burden that Paul laid upon his “dear friend and coworker” Philemon.

I could have left off some of the preliminary and concluding verses of this chapter in the interest of shortening the reading and focusing on the “important stuff” in this little letter. In the case of this letter, though, the preliminary and concluding verses of the chapter are really part of the “important stuff.” The salutation of this letter names other members of the “church that meets in your house,” specifically “Apphia our sister” and “Archippus our fellow soldier”. This wasn’t a truly ‘private’ letter; the whole community is being addressed and included here, and what Paul asks of Philemon is in effect being asked of the entire community, not just the one who actually owns the slave in question. At the same time, the end-of-letter salutations from Paul's fellow workers - Epaphras, Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke - wraps them up in Paul's instruction and request to Philemon.

That brings us to the central character, or object, of the letter. Onesimus was a slave, this much is clear. Even if there were no other clues about his identity his name itself would be a giveaway; the name ‘Onesimus,’ which translates as ‘useful,’ was not given to a free-born person in the Roman Empire. Would you name your child ‘Useful’? (And yes, this makes a bad pun of Paul’s words in v. 10 about Onesimus being formerly “useless” but now “useful”.)

Onesimus’s situation is less clear. Most interpreters of this letter believe that Onesimus had run away from his master. Others suggest that possibly Onesimus was guilty of some other wrong against Philemon, maybe some kind of theft or some mistake that had cost Philemon. Aside from the "useless" pun in verse 10, we don't know what's going on, but there is some reason Onesimus doesn't want to return to Philemon and Paul is interceding on his behalf, via letter (he can’t do so in person because he’s in prison, remember). It might be simply that Paul wants Onesimus to work with him, and Onesimus wants that too. It could just be as simple as a slave wanting to be free, maybe even free to do a work God is calling him to do.

As is the case when you only hear one half of a conversation, we can’t be sure about much. But one thing is inescapable; how Paul envisions Onesimus being received by Philemon (and Apphia, Archippus, and the church in his house) is dramatically, life-alteringly, status-threateningly different than the way Onesimus had functioned in Philemon’s household before, and Paul understands that Philemon has to choose, himself, to take this radical step.

Paul is not asking Philemon to readmit Onesimus to his former slave status. A reset, a return to status quo would not require words like these:

·      Paul calling Onesimus “my child” “whose father I have become during my imprisonment” (v. 10);

·      Paul telling Philemon “I am sending him, my own heart, back to you” (v. 11);

·      Paul encouraging Philemon to receive Onesimus back “no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother … both in the flesh and in the Lord” (v. 16);

·      Paul charging Philemon to “welcome him as you would welcome me” (v. 17).

 

This isn’t “take him back and I’ll make up your loss and nothing changes," even if Paul does promise in verse 19 to make up any loss Philemon has sustained due to Onesimus. This is “change everything,” “totally turn things upside down.” And it's not how any self-respecting Roman citizen treats a slave. If you can figure out how to treat a piece of property with no legal human status as a beloved brother or sister, the way you would treat the man who brought the gospel of Jesus Christ to you, well, you’re evidently cleverer than me.

What Paul asks is not without consequence for Philemon; you didn’t just free your slaves all willy-nilly and get away with it. Besides the social stigma and cultural backlash such an act likely to face, Philemon could even face legal consequences for such treatment of Onesimus, even if he did not technically “free” Onesimus. Anything that had the potential of setting off unrest among slaves or upsetting the social order could be punished by Roman authority; and seeing Onesimus gaining status and acceptance in Philemon’s household could very well provoke such disruption. Paul does not care and engages in monumental arm-twisting to persuade Philemon while in every technical respect leaving the choice in Philemon’s hands (in the context of the community of faith in which Philemon lived and moved; Apphia and Archippus and the church.).

An aside: one of the great wrongs of slaveholding societies is their utterly misguided and destructive attitude towards work. Work was, in such societies, beneath the well-off. Work was for other people - those people, whoever that society demeaned with such a label. It seems needful just after Labor Day to note that labor of whatever sort is an honored thing in God's eyes. Remember the words of Qoheleth in Ecclesiastes, about how there's really nothing better than to do one's work and enjoy the fruits of it. The business of exploiting the labor of others for one's own convenience simply has no place in the kingdom of God, where any and every human being is a fellow child of God; this is part of what Philemon is now charged to learn.

While I hope there aren't many today who would seek to restore the discredited practice of using this letter to justify slavery (although one can't be completely sure these days), plenty of forms of oppression fall under the ban if we take this letter seriously. Racism simply cannot stand in the face of a call to love others as beloved siblings in Christ. Any kind of bigotry at all, any claim that the world would be just fine if they would just “stay in their place” or “not rock the boat” or simply stay quiet and out of the way, has no place in the mind of a follower of Christ, no matter how entrenched or enmeshed in our culture such an attitude may be. “That’s just the way it is” might have made a great song for Bruce Hornsby back in the 80s, but it can never be the response of a follower of Christ in the face of any injustice or oppression. (And if you remember the song, even Hornsby wraps that "just the way it is" chorus with the imperative “but don’t you believe it”.) 

If it is a coincidence that this scripture happened to fall on a Sunday when the Lord’s Supper is being observed, it is a happy one indeed. The table of the Lord is decidedly non-selective about who is welcomed. Anyone – anyone – who calls upon the name of the Lord is welcomed as beloved brother or sister. And if that fact produces anything other than an “amen” from us, it might be well for us to remember that this radical openness might just benefit us as much as anyone. 

We don’t know what Philemon did in response to Paul’s letter. It seems unlikely that such a personal and particular letter would have come into the canon of scripture, even under the Holy Spirit, if Philemon had responded to Onesimus’s return with thirty lashes and an order to “get back to work, Useless.” We do know that later in the century, a bishop named Onesimus served in the city of Ephesus and may have even been responsible for the preservation of many of Paul's letters. Even if not the same Onesimus, somebody’s slave became a “beloved brother” along the way. And we should note that evidence suggests that in the communities touched by Paul's preaching, all who were part of that church - rich and poor, male and female, slave and free - were really together in community, just as Paul is instructing Philemon and all the church in his house to be.

But in a way, not knowing the outcome places the burden of answer on us. How do we respond to one who, like Onesimus, of no status or even humanity in the eyes of the world or especially of our nation in this time, is set before us as beloved in Christ, one of God’s own children, no matter how much troubler it might cause us?

For the call to answer that question, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns: (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #515, I Come With Joy; #761, Called as Partners in Christ's Service; #529, Draw Us in the Spirit's Tether; #765, May the God of Hope Go With Us

Sermon: We Didn't Come This Far Just to Come This Far

First Presbyterian Church

July 27, 2025, Pentecost 7C

Colossians 2:6-19; Luke 11:1-13

 

We Didn't Come This Far Just to Come This Far

 

 

The quote itself can be found attributed to a number of different individuals, including a sci-fi/fantasy author and a reality TV star. It came to my attention, though, when it was quoted several times by one of the top athletes on the Kansas City professional sports scene. No, I'm not talking about Patrick Mahomes or Taylor Swift's boyfriend or anybody on the Chiefs. I'm talking about Bobby Witt, Jr., the young All-Star shortstop for the Kansas City Royals (Side note: if I were going to talk about *the* top athlete, it would have to be someone from one of KC's soccer clubs. You can't play that sport at all without being an insanely good athlete.)

As the Royals were making their unlikely push for the playoffs, Witt Jr. was increasingly the member of the Royals sought out by the media to get a feel for where the team was. First as the team assured themselves of a winning record for the first time in nine years, Witt Jr. refused to be satisfied with that achievement; then when the team clinched a playoff spot, that wasn't enough either; finally, winning that first playoff series prompted that same refusal to be satisfied one more time, in these words: "We didn't come this far just to come this far." The quote and the spirit behind it became popular enough to be turned into a t-shirt. [show t-shirt]

Wherever Bobby Witt Jr. came up with that line, it's a good one, even for churches. 

We've been through two years together of study and reflection on this church and its place in this community, sometimes intense, sometimes more casual. We've looked at questions about how things have changed since the last time this church called a non-temporary pastor, whether it might be time to think about the building or about a part-time pastor or even if closing the church might be an option (not at this time, came the conclusion). Then a Pastor Nominating Committee was formed and did the work of putting together a profile of the church for potential pastors to consider. They conducted several interviews, narrowed the field of candidates, and finally chose Pastor Amie Vanderford, who will be in this pulpit next Sunday and the Sundays going forward. Eventually I’ll be off to another church to do this process again.

For any church looking to go forward, there are always precautions to be observed and things to remember. Our scriptures for today offer a couple of examples. Neither of these should be earth-shaking, but they're still worth remembering.

The rather dense passage from Colossians, one of those books with Paul's name on it but probably not actually written by Paul, contains some language that isn't typical of Paul's letters but nonetheless does make a point that Paul would want to make: do not be put off from the fullness of Christ by things that are, so to speak, only human. Here our author speaks of "hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of the world" as a thing to be avoided; indeed he urges the church to "let no one take you captive" to such things. 

It might be a shock to see "human tradition" cast in such a negative light, particularly given the church's propensity to honor and revere tradition in its theology and practice. I find (and I freely admit this is my own conclusion) that this statement might be better understood in modern minds by reference to a variant of that word: traditionalism. 

Tradition is a foundation, something that can be and is even meant to be built upon. Traditionalism, on the other hand, uses that foundation to build a prison, limiting and constricting rather than growing and encouraging. In the words of theologian Jaroslav Pelikan, "Tradition is the living faith of the dead, traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. And, I suppose I should add, it is traditionalism that gives tradition such a bad name."[1]

There will be temptations in this community around us, seeking to impose "human tradition" on us. To put it bluntly, there will be churches in this town that condemn this church for calling a woman as pastor. Clearly, they've never read Romans 16, in which Paul commends the deacon Phoebe, the evangelist Prisca, and the apostle Junia for their work in the church. Those strictures are "human traditions" best left aside.

The foundation of our faith in Christ is in Christ. Seems like a redundant thing to say, but clearly the church has a habit of forgetting that on a regular basis. But in all earnestness, the foundation of our faith in Christ is in Christ, and nothing else. Not human-enforced doctrine, or human-based tradition, nor even in human comfort and familiarity.

Speaking of familiarity...

Hopefully you've noticed that the passage we heard from Luke sounds familiar and sounds different at the same time. (I truly and deeply pray that no one said that it sounded "wrong"...) As is often the case, the same event - the disciples asking Jesus to pray - is covered by both Matthew and Luke, but those two gospel writers cover it just a little bit differently. 

You might notice that Luke, in comparison to Matthew, doesn't quite finish the prayer. And of course, where we are accustomed to asking God to "forgive us our debts," here the text simply says "Forgive us our sins." Admittedly "debts" can be a big deal, but "sins" really does get to the point more directly and clearly. And yet churches can split over which version or translation of the Lord's Prayer is used in a service. 

I know that this is a horrifying thought. There's a reason we Presbyterians are the butt of a particular version of the old light bulb joke. It goes like this:

Q.: How many Presbyterians does it take to change a light bulb?

A.: Change???!!!

 

If that's you, I have news for you: some things will change.

Pastor Amie, who will be in this pulpit next Sunday, is going to be a different pastor and preacher than I am or than Pastor John was before me. Change will happen. 

Here's the thing, though; things would have changed anyway, no matter what pastor you called. For that matter, some things would have changed even if Pastor John had stayed all this time. It is an inevitability of human existence and of the church in a world that changes. Things change. It simply happens.

If the church remains rooted in Christ, as Colossians instructs us to do, all the change in the world cannot change that. If the church remains rooted in Christ, all the "human tradition" and the "basic principles of the world" cannot change that. If the church remains rooted in Christ, in fact, we will discover that some things about the way we do church may need to change, but the church's rootedness in Christ does not change. Whether we say "debts" or "trespasses" or "sins" in the Lord's Prayer does not change the need for the church to remain rooted in Christ. 

While the Royals don't look like there's another playoff charge in them this season, Bobby Witt Jr. still got one thing right: we really don't come this far just to come this far. Next Sunday will mark a new beginning for this church, not the end of anything. 

We didn't come this far just to come this far. The church still has more work to do.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #41, O Worship the King All Glorious Above; #275, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God; #693, Though I May Speak (The Gift of Love)

 

 

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[1] Jaroslav Pelikan, "The Vindication of Tradition: The 1983 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities.

See, it really did get made into a t-shirt...

Note: this was the final sermon I preached at First Presbyterian Church of Independence.

Sermon: In Praise of Martha. Yes, Martha.

First Presbyterian Church

July 20, 2025, Pentecost 6C

Genesis 18:1-10a; Luke 10:38-42

 

In Praise of Martha. Yes, Martha.

 

Hot on the heels of the Good Samaritan parable (which, you’ll remember, ends with Jesus’s instruction to “Go and do likewise” in showing mercy to those in need), we come to an event that almost – almost – seems to contradict that instruction. 

A little context is helpful here: this happens, as does last week’s account, during the journey that takes up the central portion of Luke’s gospel. In 9:51, Luke tells us that “when the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” That particular idiom points not only to the geographical destination of the city of Jerusalem itself, but also the inevitable confrontation that would take place there – the “final showdown” of Jesus’s earthly ministry that would end (or so it seemed) in his crucifixion. While trying to trace out a map of Jesus’s journey to Jerusalem according to Luke would be a pretty vexing task, this unnamed town was apparently on the way. Even the most determined travelers need to stop and rest on occasion, after all.

We are told here that “a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home.” This raises a lot of questions for such a seemingly simple sentence: who is this woman Martha? Did she know Jesus already? How is it she is the “head of the household,” so to speak – it wasn’t unprecedented in this time, but it wasn’t common either. Did Jesus already know Martha? And what happened to the disciples? Were they not invited in? Luke, however, isn’t interested in such details.

The story is pretty familiar: Jesus enters the home, where Martha is at work on the tasks of hospitality. Her sister Mary sits at Jesus’s feet – the traditional posture of a teacher’s disciple at the time – and listens, offering no help to her older sister (it’s not said, but you just know that Mary is the younger sister, don’t you?). Martha loses her patience, but rather than calling upon Mary to help, she appeals to Jesus to make Mary help her. Jesus declines, answering Martha with the somewhat cryptic words of verses 41 and 42, and that’s the end of this brief narrative.

It’s at least possible, and maybe even likely, that Martha knew who Jesus was and vice versa. Earlier in chapter 10 Jesus commissions seventy of his followers to go out and visit and proclaim in the towns he intended to visit on his journey. It’s possible that Martha had hosted one or more of those witnesses in her home, and some have even suggested that she and Mary had actually been among those seventy. At any rate, that mission might well have prompted Martha to welcome Jesus into her home. 

Whatever the case, Jesus enters the home, where we first encounter Mary. We never hear from her, though, and there’s no suggestion that she speaks at all, even if she is in the disciple position at Jesus’s feet. This is actually a little odd, in that exchanges of questions and answers would have been expected between teacher and disciple; perhaps Luke just didn’t care about recording that, or perhaps she never spoke. Whichever was the case, she wasn’t providing any help to Martha, and this eventually got to Martha. She complains; Jesus does not come to her aid, and the story is over. 

And from this, for decades if not centuries, Martha has been made into the “bad guy” (so to speak) of the pair. And this isn’t fair. There is, in the end, a needed lesson that comes out of this encounter, but the church has long mastered the art of getting the wrong lesson.

First, let’s be sure that we understand that Martha’s work itself is not the problem. I'm from Georgia, and I know that southerners tend to think they have the corner on hospitality, but both the Jewish tradition Martha inherited and the Mediterranean culture in which she lived both mandated the provision of hospitality to any guest, even an unexpected one. The former is demonstrated in the reading from Genesis we heard earlier. Note that when the three men passed near Abraham and Sarah’s dwelling, Abraham went out of his way to welcome the unknown guests. (Just because Abraham referred to “my lord” – small ‘l’ – doesn’t mean he knew he was speaking to The Lord –  capital “L”.) Both Abraham and Sarah end up thoroughly busy preparing food and drink for the three men, without the guests even asking. For the most part this story is told because of that out-of-the-blue promise by the stranger that Abraham and Sarah would have a son before long, but the extravagant act of hospitality offered by the two is almost prototypical of the expectation of hospitality in that tradition. So Martha is not wrong to be doing the work of hospitality: indeed, in ninety-nine similar situations out of one hundred, Martha would have likely been judged to be in the right.

But what makes this Situation No. 100? Notice how Martha is described: not as “busy,” but as “distracted.” Do you ever have the experience of getting so involved or overwhelmed, or “distracted,” by the “many tasks” involved in preparing for company that you almost forget you have company at all or why that company matters? That’s a bit of where Martha has ended up, and Mary’s absence doesn’t help. The tasks themselves take over in her mind, rather than the guest for whom those tasks are performed. 

That’s a problem. And that problem is amplified by the fact that this is no ordinary guest Martha is hosting. Much as it turned out for Abraham and Sarah, this is not an occasion to be distracted and miss the message that this guest is bringing.

Remember, this is the Jesus who has “set his face towards Jerusalem,” and who had sent out witnesses in advance to the towns he intended to visit on the way. Whether or not Jesus had met Martha and Mary before this visit, it seems pretty clear that Jesus’s presence in this village was not an accident, and quite likely neither was his presence in Martha’s home. And when Jesus  (again, Martha knew enough to call him “Lord” – capital “L” - rather than the more common “my lord” – small “l”) has come specifically to you, to speak to you and to listen to you, it’s kind of important not to miss that.

And it’s definitely out of line to seek to prevent another from being present for Jesus. Honestly, for me it’s pretty easy to be suspicious of Mary in this story and to suspect that she’d quite likely behave the same way whether the guest was Jesus or not, but in this case she does get it right. Jesus is here, and (as Jesus himself knows whether or not Mary or Martha do) Jesus won’t be there for long. Listen while you can. 

Here lies the dilemma for us, those of us today who would learn from this story. The mandate that was given at the end of last week’s parable (which, you’ll remember, leads directly into today’s reading) doesn’t go away. We are still called to do. We are still charged to show mercy to the ones in need, to refuse to engage in hatred or fear of the stranger or the wounded or the foreigner in the land. We are still charged to provide hospitality. That doesn’t go away. 

But we are also charged to stop and listen to the speaking of God. We are still called to study and reflect on the words of Jesus. And we are called to listen, listen always for the leading and prompting of the Holy Spirit, that pervasive presence of God that broke out at Pentecost and still moves and breathes and acts and, yes, speaks in the world today. God has not shut up; God, the Holy Spirit, still speaks.

We are still charged to listen for the calling of God. God is not a closed book, confined or imprisoned forever in history or tradition or bound up in the pages of any book. God is not contained, and the moment we decide we’ve got God all figured out and don’t need to listen anymore, we become heretics. Yes, I used that word.

God still calls. Believe me, sometimes I wish God had stopped calling people years ago and that I was still in that comfortable old academic life I used to know. Being a pastor in this day and age is no picnic, but God does still call women and men into the vocation of service, whether in ordained ministry or in any other form. God still calls us to do the more mundane tasks of love and compassion and mercy as well. But being able to answer that call requires listening, and sometimes that requires stepping away from the work and taking time to be disciples, sitting at Jesus’s feet and doing nothing but listening.

In short, there are times and places to be Martha, and times and places to be Mary. Honestly, we live in a world that needs a whole lot of Martha-ing. Need and suffering are endemic, and when people are calling empathy a sin, compassion and basic human decency are in seriously short order. Our call is not to stand down from the world and retreat into some kind of splendid isolation or contemplation. We have work to do.

However, in order to do that work properly, we do need to spend time, maybe even in isolation, listening for God, awaiting the moving and prompting and sometimes cajoling of the Holy Spirit, studying and taking in the words and life of Christ, and making ourselves ready for that service to which we are called. 

For Mary and for Martha, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal unless otherwise indicated): #634, To God Be the Glory; #----, This One Thing Only (insert); #361, O Christ, the Great Foundation