Social Holiness: The Prism of the Cross

Social Holiness: The Prism of the Cross

The Cross is the Ultimate Revelation of God

1 Thessalonians 2:9-13

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. Nov. 5th, 2023

C.S. Lewis said that we ought to read books from different eras because each era has its own blindness. That’s a piece of advice I’ve taken to heart. When I prepare for sermons I make sure to read commentaries not just from the last 50 years, but from hundreds of years ago. I don’t just read contemporary theology but works from the Church Fathers or the Reformers or from wildly different contexts. It’s hard to see beyond ones own blinders but also very rewarding. You also get a deeper sense of the blinders of past generations. I remember reading a book from 1907 on Christianity and politics, as one does, and there was a strange aside about the dysgenic consequences of medieval monasticism. You may wonder, what does dysgenic mean? It means the author feared monasticism decreased the quality of the racial stock. In other words, he was using the language of eugenics.

In case anyone isn’t familiar eugenics is the pseudoscience that says we can improve the quality of human beings through breeding. As one improves a dog say, or cattle, one can improve humans. Find a stud, have them breed. Find people with disabilities and keep them from breeding.

Eugenics was once taken very seriously as a science in the United States. In fact one of the centers of eugenic activism and thought was in Michigan. I don’t need to get into that sordid history. Ultimately the Nazis in Germany took eugenics to its logical conclusions and people saw it for what it is. What I really want to focus on is the way eugenics was preached. The American Eugenics Society once held a competition for sermons on the topic of eugenics. Luckily we have the submissions. I want to share a few quotes.

“The Bible is a book of eugenics. The opening chapters of Matthew and Luke are virtually chapters on eugenics. Christ was born of a family that represented a long process of religious and moral selection. He came from a stock of priestly and prophetic men; a stock of men that represented the highest product of religious and moral selection in the history of the world. “

“From Mount Sinai, God is thundering his commandment against bowing down to idols, a sort of worship which an unobserving man might say would do no harm, but which God knew would poison the bodies, minds and morals of not merely the generation that sinned, but of the generations to come. God is warning most solemnly that the iniquity of the fathers will run in the blood of the coming generations, and is pointing out that terrible law of heredity, so clearly established now by scientists, that blood will tell, that criminality, insanity, idiocy, tuberculosis, alcoholism, and other vices, whose strong corruption inhabits our germ-plasms, leap from parents to children, damning the offspring before it is even born.”

"But the fact is that long before a child is born the germ plasm which he will transmit and which will determine the heredity of his offspring has been set aside in little glands and can in no way be affected, except by gross chemical disturbances of the blood, as in alcholic [sic] poisoning, or the penetration of disease germs within these reproductive glands themselves. … The flippant may ask, "What responsibility have we for our neighbors' children?" But those who have apprehended the spirit of religion will reply, "we are one body in Christ Jesus. "And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member is honored all the members rejoice with it." There is a sickness in our body, a faintness and a spread of disease. And we shall seek healing, redemption and salvation, till we behold the coming of the Community of God and its peace.”

These are all men of God, students of Scripture, going to their bibles and producing arguments as to why the disabled should not be allowed to reproduce. We find that morally abhorrent today. We may also think their biblical examples are total stretches. Do the genealogies of Jesus really exist to show us Jesus’ great racial line? Did God really say the sins of the fathers will be visited on the sons because of heredity? Does being one body in Christ Jesus really mean we have an obligation to keep disabled people from having children? But they clearly thought they were preaching the gospel. That the word of God, in their day, meant promoting eugenic theories. What are we to make of this?

This question is no mere academic or intellectual exercise. It’s not an idle matter. It ought to strike us as deeply relevant. Because people did not just turn to their bibles to justify eugenics. They turned to their bibles to justify slavery. They turned to their bibles to justify segregation. They turned to their bibles to justify genocide. All sorts of hellish justifications have been made from scripture. And let us not forget that when Satan sought to tempt Jesus he did so with the words of Scripture.

Paul tells us this morning that when the Church in Thessaloniki received the word of God they recognized that it was not a human word, but it is God’s word. And that God’s word is not idle but is at work within them. That word being the proclamation of Christ crucified and risen. The key to the Scriptures. That is where we must go.

The Gospel of Eugenics, the Gospel of Slavery, the Gospel of Genocide, does this reflect Christ crucified and risen? In all the sermons from the competition that I read, none of them reference the Cross. They cannot. Because they do not present a cruciform Gospel. It is, as Paul would say, another gospel. They may know the words of scripture, but they’ve lost the plot as the British would say. They don’t know the story.

The rule of thumb for Scripture is everything must go through the prism of the ultimate revelation of God, and that is Christ on his cross. Does this reflect the love shown to us in Christ? Does this reflect the gracious action of God in delivering us from sin? Does this reflect Christ’s self-emptying, Christ’s self-donation? Or are we twisting the words to feed another narrative? Do we use Christian like language, and give the words a different meaning? So grace is no longer grace, forgiveness no longer forgiveness, love no longer love.

We must continually challenge ourselves to see clearly, read rightly, and love one another as Christ loved us. This is why we cannot pursue holiness alone. We pursue holiness together in the life of the Church. This is why discipleship cannot be a solo endeavor. Why there is no holiness but social holiness. God brings us together that we would build one another up, and point each other to the Cross and empty tomb.

Social Holiness: Reaching Out

Social Holiness: Reaching Out

Be Perfect as Your Heavenly Father is Perfect

1 Thessalonians 2:1-8

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. Oct. 29th, 2023

John Wesley is often quoted as saying, “the gospel of Christ knows of no religion, but social; no holiness but social holiness. Faith working by love, is the length and breadth and depth and height of Christian perfection.” This is often misunderstood. Some people take “social holiness” to be a more pious way of saying social justice. Certainly holiness and justice do not conflict. But John Wesley really means to emphasize the social, corporate, nature of our salvation. We are not made holy by ourselves. We are not saved by ourselves. God works in and through the Church. God saves us together.

Or, more to the point, holiness simply is a way of relating to each other and to God. There is no holiness but social holiness because holiness concerns our relationships.

One of the effects of sin is to make us selfish. We are selfish almost instinctually. St. Augustine of Hippo said we are full of a lust for domination and were curved in on ourselves. We wish to dominate and control ourselves and others, and we are self-seeking self-aggrandizing creatures. But, generally speaking, a creature that has curved in on itself is a creature that is dead. We can’t be self reliant, we simply have to reach out. Herbert McCabe, a Dominican theologian, put it beautifully when he said the dilemma of human life is that we know that if we truly love others we will get crucified for it, but if we don’t love others we will be dead already. He was just summarizing Augustine’s point, and by extension Paul’s as well. Sin leads to selfishness, control, pride, and a lust for domination.

Holiness reverses that. In holiness we are open to those we encounter. We are selfless in love. We imitate Jesus who cured all who would come to him, who taught all, who engaged all, who died for all. And we imitate our Father in heaven who makes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike. “Be perfect,” Jesus tells us, “as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

There’s a beautiful story Dostoevsky tells in the Brothers Karamazov that illustrates what I mean. I know I’ve told this story before, but a good story is worth retelling. It’s a short parable about a very wicked woman who died in sin. The devils came and plunged her into the lake of Hell. But her Guardian Angel looked for one good deed that she might use to deliver the woman from the torment of hell. I think it’s important to remember that God is not out to damn anyone and makes every effort to save. The angel remembers that the woman once picked an onion and gave it to a beggar. She tells God this and God says, “You take that onion then, hold it out to her in the lake, and let her take hold and be pulled out. And if you can pull her out of the lake, let her come to Paradise, but if the onion breaks, then the woman must stay where she is.”

So the angel goes to the lake of fire and holds out the onion to her. The woman grabs the onion and the angel slowly draws her out of the lake. As soon as her ankles leave the flames the other sinners notice and leap for their salvation. They grip her ankles and form a chain hoping that they all might be taken out with her.

But she was a very wicked woman, so she began to kick them off. “I’m the one being pulled out! It’s my onion! Not yours!” She shouts.

And as soon as those words left her lips, the onion broke. So the angel wept and went away.

Her one good deed may have been used by God to deliver many. But instead of seeing the glory of God she grasped her own salvation in selfishness. And so the onion broke. That is sin. Sin is thinking about ourselves above others, our own glory of overs, being curved in on ourselves and seeking our own satiation at the expense of the suffering of others. Holiness is opening up to others, love in self-sacrifice. Mercy and forgiveness and joy at the glory of God.

We may be the wicked woman, but by God’s grace we may be made into the image of his Son.

This morning Paul talks about his own ministry in Thessaloniki. He says, “We might have made demands as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children. So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us.”

This is holiness, this is love. Paul lays aside his own rights for the sake of his sisters and brothers in Christ. He shares not only the Gospel, but his own self. He, as far as his earthly flesh can allow, empties himself the way Jesus did in taking the form of a slave and taking on human likeness. He imitates the very love of God. Because holiness is imitation of God in the Spirit.

There is no holiness but social holiness. Holiness simply is the reversal of sin, our opening up to others and reaching out in love. And this social holiness is the holiness of the saints.

Social Holiness: The Holiness of God

Social Holiness: The Holiness of God

Faith, Love, Hope in Christ

1 Thessalonians 1:10

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. Oct. 22nd, 2023

The story of the Methodist revival in England is remarkable. It all began with a small group of students at Oxford who would gather to read the scriptures, pray, and encourage one another in their walk with the Lord. They were so serious in their devotions that other students derisively called them the Holy Club. Later on they would derisively call them Methodists, because they were so methodical in their personal devotions. One of the leading figures of this group was John Wesley.

John Wesley would later take up a job as a missionary with his brother Charles, the famous hymn writer. The mission was an absolute disaster and nearly ended John’s career in ministry. But when he returned to England he joined with a group of Moravians, a sort of Lutheran pietist, and there famously felt his heart strangely warmed. It was this stuffy Oxford don, and failed missionary who would later join his old friend George Whitfield (perhaps the first celebrity, and an early member of the Holy Club back at Oxford) and preach out in the fields to the workers. Between the powerful preaching of George Whitfield, the beautiful hymns of Charles Wesley, and the preaching and organizational genius of John Wesley, the Methodist revival blew up in England and lasted well beyond John Wesley’s own long life.

When the revival was well underway John Wesley’s United Society gathered in Annual Conference to work through what they were to teach and how they were to teach it. At one point Wesley was asked, “What may we reasonably believe to be God's design in raising up the Preachers called Methodists?”

His answer would become Methodism’s mission statement for decades: “To reform the nation and, in particular, the Church; to spread scriptural holiness over the land.”

The engine and purpose of the Methodist revival was scriptural holiness. But what is scriptural holiness? Or, rather, what is holiness anyway? What does it mean to be holy? To seek holiness? To spread scriptural holiness over the land? There are no self-evident answers to these questions. Perhaps that explains some of the predicament Methodism finds itself in.

Over the next five Sundays we are going to cover Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians with an eye to his teaching on holiness. It is easy to pass over what Paul has to say about holiness because it pervades every letter of his. Holiness is the air Paul breathes. It ought to be the air we breathe as well.

Our reading this morning is from Paul’s thanksgiving at the beginning of the letter. He writes, “We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers constantly remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” Here we have our first description of holiness.

Holiness is faith, love, and hope in Jesus Christ. Holiness is faith, our allegiance to and belief in the God revealed in Jesus Christ. Holiness is love, our seeking the good for others as we would want it for ourselves. Our constant care and concern for others. Our service to the world. And holiness is hope, our dependence on God, our trust in his promises, our conviction that in the end he will make all things right. And all these things are given to us in Christ. When we share in faith, love, and hope, we grow in holiness and are made more like Jesus.

But this dangerously makes holiness out to be a mere moral quality. Maybe you’ve heard the term “holier than thou.” That’s a degradation of holiness. Anyone who uses their moral qualities as a way to one up someone else is not truly holy. That’s another way sin enters our lives.

Holiness is more than a mere moral quality, then. It is also the presence of God in our lives. It is the presence of the Holy Spirit amongst us in power. Paul also writes, “For we know, brothers and sisters, beloved by God, that he has chosen you, because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.” The Church of Thessaloniki was not made a holy Church because of their moral perfection. Because they pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps. Because they made themselves better than other people. The Church of Thessaloniki was made a holy Church because the Holy Spirit dwelt among them in the word preached. They were made a holy Church because of the presence of the Holy Spirit in joy. A presence that was made palpable in their preaching and prayers and song. A presence that made itself known in power.

We must combine these two things then. What is holiness? It is God’s presence in our midst through the Holy Spirit. And when the Holy Spirit is present we are made more like God. And God builds us up in faith, love, and hope in Christ.

There is no holiness without the Holy Spirit who dwells in our midst. And the Holy Spirit imparts gifts, foremost the gifts of faith, love, and hope. This, ultimately, is scriptural holiness. This is the engine of revival, and the purpose of the Church. We are the community where God’s Holy Spirit might dwell. And we are the people who are called by God to be imitators of God in Christ. This is our high calling and purpose. But it is also the work of God in us. Because the whole Christian life, and our walk in holiness is, ultimately, sheer gift.

Kingdom: Faith

Kingdom: Faith

The Kingdom of God is Seen in the Eyes of Faith

Matthew 14:22-33

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. August 13th, 2023

I was recently reading a book about the Kingdom of God. It identified various spheres in our society that, in the books words, need to be “invaded” by God fearing Christians to take the nation back for Christ. In other words, building the Kingdom meant creating a nation by Christians and for Christians. And this required infiltrating many aspects of society. The authors explained how we need to have both the heart of a King and the heart of a servant. We need to exercise the authority and lordship of God by assuming positions of power, but we need to wield those positions as servants for the good of others. But, as Jesus sardonically says in Luke, the kings of the gentiles call themselves benefactors and rule over others.

What struck me reading the book was that in no case did it cover the manner in which Christ rules. “My Kingdom is not of this world,” Jesus says. Why? But because he rules not from a stately throne but from the Cross. If we miss this point, that God rules the nations from a tree, we will miss what it means to speak of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom might morph into our own grasp for power, however much we think we are helping others. When the Kingdom is come in Jesus’ sacrifice on behalf of the world.

Jesus is the personification of the Kingdom of God. In his ministry he brings mercy, peace, and healing. This is all what the prophets said the Kingdom would entail. And, as we heard this morning, he commands even the winds and seas. He would grant this to us as well. But the Kingdom is not a matter of power, of human glory, of wealth, or strength. The Kingdom is seen and grasped only in faith.

This morning we are told Jesus dismisses the crowds and sends the disciples away on a boat. He, himself, goes up to a mountain to pray. James, John, Peter, and Andrew are all fishermen, and knew the waters of the sea of galilee very well. But when the storm arises even they have difficulty and are blown far off course.

Early that morning, when Jesus had planned to meet up with them, they were far from land. But that did not stop Jesus, who walked out on the stormy waters to meet them. At first, the disciples are terrified believing they have seen a ghost. But Jesus called out to them, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”

Now Peter was the stubborn and impudent sort. So he cried out, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” Jesus replied, “come.” So Peter got out of the boat. There’s not a lot of description here, but I can’t imagine Peter jumped out. Can you? I think as boisterous and strong headed as he was he still put a toe out first to test the waters. Then laid down his right foot. Then, seeing the water miraculously held the weight of his foot, gingerly put the other foot out. Until, in joy, he realized he could walk.

But as he walked out on the water a strong wind came, and he was frightened. And fear and faith do not always mix. So he began to sink. Here, again, we’re not given many details. But I imagine the water gave way and he plunged. Peter would likely have been an adept swimmer, he lived on the water all his life. But even adept swimmers struggle with the current and in the waves. He cried out, “Lord! Save me!”

And just when he thought he might perish under the waves Jesus held out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” Jesus asked, “why did you doubt?” And then, at that moment, the storm stopped. And those in the boat began to worship saying, “Truly, you are the Son of God.” Truly, to you belongs the Kingdom.

Peter saw wonders, but even then he had to respond to those wonders in faith. By the power of God Peter could walk on water with his Lord. But even then, only by the power of faith. Faith is confidence in God, trust in his word, strong belief in his presence, work, and mercy. The Kingdom can only be perceived by the eyes of faith.

The one who walked on water, healed the sick, raised the dead, is also the same who was brutally crucified. And yet, what seems like a defeat with fleshly eyes is a victory from the eyes of faith. Through the eyes of faith the Kingdom is witnessed not just in healing, but in suffering. Not just in plenty, but in poverty. Not just in fame, but in obscurity. By the eyes of faith we see the Kingdom in all its glory. By faith we participate in the work of the Kingdom. By faith we may even walk on water. If we would not let the winds of this age drive us to doubt.

Kingdom: Discovery

Kingdom: Discovery

The Kingdom of God is the Kingdom of God

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. July 30th, 2023

The Kingdom of God is the Kingdom of God. I sometimes hear people talk about the Kingdom as if it were our enterprise. In this case the Kingdom becomes a just social order, a moral social order, or a more robust Church. Sometimes I hear people talk about “building the Kingdom.” But nowhere in the Bible does it talk about the Kingdom that we are called to build. Rather, as we see this morning, the Kingdom is a matter of growth, of discovery. It is the little and imperceptible thing that turns out to be a source of great comfort and joy.

When Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God he uses parables. A parable is a story or image, most often out of common life, that leads to some insight beyond the story. Parables can be puzzles, at times Jesus seems to use them precisely to confuse people. At other times parables are great teaching devices that put a point in a clear and memorable way. But other times, as in the case of these parables, they more function to help us see the Kingdom more clearly. If we grasp these parables then we can attune our sight to see the reign of God today.

First, Jesus tells us, the Kingdom is like a mustard seed. Though it is the “smallest of seeds” he says, it grows into the greatest of shrubs. Even into a tree. And even the birds of the air can come and take rest in its branches. The Kingdom, then, grows from the small, the imperceptible, the seemingly insignificant. The Kingdom does not come by grand gestures, but by the day to day. When I was hanging out with Catholic Workers they had a sign over the sink that said, “everyone wants a revolution but no one wants to do the dishes.” Everyone wants to sign a big check, but no one wants to hand a twenty or buy a lunch. Everyone wants to cure the sick, but no one wants to lend a helping hand. That is hyperbole, of course. As the whole parable is. But the Kingdom arrives on a short and narrow road. Not a freeway. God makes his grace known in the little acts. When you’re not seen, when you don’t have a clear end in mind, that’s when God works.

Second, Jesus says, the kingdom is like yeast a woman mixed in with flour. Until all was leavened. This parable is much like the first. You don’t see the yeast in the flour. But you see the result. You don’t see the Kingdom, but you see what it accomplishes. The imperceptible microbes make a big difference. The giving of alms, the little acts of renunciation, the little prayers, do much in the economy of God.

Third, Jesus compares the Kingdom to a treasure hidden in a field. Someone finds the treasure, and hides it. And since he knows the treasure is worth more than all he owns, he joyfully sells all he has to buy that field. And wins the treasure. He also compares the Kingdom to a merchant in search of fine pearls. And when he finds an absolutely astonishing pearl he sells all he has to purchase it. Here the Kingdom isn’t something that is made, or built, or cultivated. It is something that is found. And the discovery is so overwhelming, so exciting, so joyous, that they run off to sell all that they have to buy it. Jesus tells us to seek first the Kingdom of God and its righteousness. They put the treasure first, forsaking all they have, giving it all up, for the sake of the treasure. That is the Kingdom of God. Something more joyous, precious, and worthwhile than all things on this earth.

And, finally, he compares the Kingdom to a dragnet. This hearkens back to last Sunday. The Kingdom is like a net that drags in all sorts of fish. And the fish needed to be sorted at the end of the trip. So too with the Kingdom! God claims many people. God claims our whole selves. God is not very picky. But, in the end, all will be sorted out. Important here, I think, is that the Kingdom of God is shown to be the Kingdom of God.

So what is the Kingdom? It is God’s rule. It is the joy he brings. It is a life of peace. It is mercy and forgiveness, not just from God but also amongst one another. It is the bonds of charity that make us one. And it is not so much something we do, as much as something we find. Something more precious than the life we once knew. Something more precious than all the treasures of this world. And it is something that is at first imperceptible. But when it grows many may find comfort and rest. It is something that is here but yet awaits its full completion at the end of the age. But now we may find peace, comfort, and joy in the power of God in our midst.

Kingdom: Patience

Kingdom: Patience

God Calls Us to Patience

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. July 23rd, 2023

Pastor Phil, before he retired, left me a garden. I am not half the gardener he is, and I have not been nearly as attentive as I ought to be. The garden he left me was full of a variety of fruits, greens, root vegetables, and the like. Varieties that I did not know existed grew in that garden. And all I needed to do was water it. Year two rolled around and I let it lie fallow. Mainly because of my own laziness. Though I justified it to myself by saying the land needs a sabbath year.

But this year I’m taking it seriously. I’ve planted squash, tomatoes, peppers, onions, cabbage, things I’m certain I will put to use. And I’ve been diligent in watering it. But what I have underestimated, what I’m having difficulty dealing with, is the sheer amount of weeds that keep sprouting up. Weeds in the flower bed. Weeds among the rhubarb. Weeds in the onions. Weeds by the peppers. Weeds, weeds, and more weeds. I was generous enough to leave a patch of land for the weeds to grow and help the pollinators. But do you think the weeds appreciated that? No, they grow where they will.

In Jesus’ parable this morning, his parable about the Kingdom, the weeds don’t grow simply because they will. They grow because of sabotage. Jesus compares the Kingdom to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But one night, while his servants were sleeping, an enemy snuck in and sowed weeds among the wheat. Or, literally, he sowed weeds in the wheat. And left before anyone noticed. Over time the weeds that the enemy sowed grew up among the wheat. Perplexing and troubling the servants who knew all the seed they sowed was good.

The owner of that farm knew what was going on. “An enemy has done this,” he said. The servants asked if he wanted them to go and pluck the weeds. The sort of backbreaking labor I have been putting off for days and weeks. But the owner tells them no, because the weeds are so entwined with the good wheat that if they were to pull the weeds they would damage the good wheat too. But when harvest comes they will take it all and separate the good and the bad.

Matthew doesn’t explain all of Jesus’ parables, but we get an explanation here. The disciples ask Jesus to explain the ominous parable of the weeds. And he tells them the one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. We might imagine, given the similarity of the parables, that the seed of this parable is the same of seed from the parable of the sower. It is the seed of the word, the seed of the gospel, the seed of faith that grows in receptive hearts. The field is the world, the good seed is the children of the Kingdom. But the bad seeds are children of the evil one. And the reapers are angels. At the end of days, Jesus says, God will send his angels to harvest, separate the good from the bad. The bad will be burned. The good will go to everlasting life.

This parable reminds us of two things. The first is that we live in a mixed and messed up world. Good is constantly intertwined with bad. It can be hard to discern what is righteous and what is unrighteous. The line between child of God and child of the devil runs through our own hearts as well. Problems we experience in the Church are not new. The Church has always been mixed, always been encumbered by weeds, and has always been handicapped in her mission. If that mission were entirely the responsibility of her members.

But the second thing the parable reminds us of is more important. We don’t need Jesus to tell us that the good can be opaque, evil is all around us, and the Church has a mix of the two. That’s empirical. From the earliest Church we see false teaching, lies, immorality, greed, and so on. What’s important is what Jesus tells us to do about it. And that is be patient.

The workers of the farm are impatient. They want to solve this problem that plagues the crop. And so they ask if they can go out into the field and tear out the weeds. But the owner tells them if they do that they will tear up the good seed too, the two are so intertwined. We might wish for a pure Church. But then we’d have to remove ourselves as well. That line runs deep. And in this age the two, good and evil, cannot be so easily separated. So the owner tells them to be patient. Not lazy. But patient.

Wait. Wait for the end of the age. When all is harvested, when all is sorted, when we will be able to judge the good fruit from the bad, the bad seed from the good. Patience can be hard for us to hear, or hard for us to bear. But patience is a premiere Christian virtue. We can afford to be patient in the midst of trial and scandal because we put our hope in the one who is patient for our sake. Who desires that no one be condemned. Who has given us all the time in the world to spread good seed, and to know his grace.

The Kingdom of God, in this age, is a mixed kingdom. But it is also a kingdom of patience. A kingdom of patient people following a patient God. Relying on him to perfectly fulfill his promises at the end.

Kingdom: Wisdom

Kingdom: Wisdom

Jesus is the Wisdom of God

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. July 9th, 2023

It’s easy to pine over the legends of old. What would it have been like to see Martin Luther King Jr. preach? To watch the Lombardi Packers at Lambeau? Or see the Beatles live? We may have legends in our own time, sure. But they don’t reach that stature until they’re already gone, before they become whiffs of nostalgia.

If only the people of first century Palestine could appreciate the absolutely legendary individuals who walked among them! John the Baptist, who Jesus himself calls the greatest of men. A man who lived an absolutely angelic life in the wilderness. He devoted himself to prayer, to fasting, to preaching the word of the Lord. He managed to subsist on nothing but locusts and wild honey. He wore nothing more than camel’s hair. He preached powerful hellfire and brimstone and many came to hear him speak.

And there was also Jesus. A man who could cast out demons, cure the sick, raise the dead. A man who confounded pharisees and scribes. Who comforted the downtrodden, the tax collector, and sinner. Who proclaimed the good news of the Kingdom of God.

Yet we hear this morning from Jesus himself neither of them were appreciated in their time. “For John came neither eating nor drinking,” Jesus says, "and they say, 'He has a demon.’” John was a little too strict, a little too otherworldly. People swarmed to hear him speak, but he was also a subject of gossip. No man could live that way, we might imagine them saying. He must be possessed. We know Herod Antipas himself feared him, he had him arrested because he told Herod not to marry his brother’s wife. But he kept him around because, entranced by his weirdness, he liked to listen to him. But he didn’t want to follow him.

Jesus, too, we learn became a subject of mockery and opposition. “the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’” No one knows what they want! If John is too strict and otherworldly, Jesus is too debauched. Where John fasts, Jesus does not fast. Where John stays in the wilderness, Jesus finds his home among tax collectors and sinners. That is to say, among the wrong sort of people. The sort of people who run afoul of the Law, the sort of people who are not like us upstanding citizens with all the right opinions.

God blessed that generation with two of the greatest men of all time. And both were rejected for two opposite reasons. “Yet,” Jesus says, “Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”

Everyone seeks wisdom. Wisdom is the sort of knowledge that leads to good and right action. We all want wisdom because we all want to live well. We want to be happy. We want to do good for ourselves and others. And because we are made free wisdom doesn’t come to us by instinct. We need to learn wisdom. Unlike many things we learn in life, how to read, how to do math, the history of our nation, wisdom cannot be taught in a classroom or by a text book. Wisdom can be hard to find. We can easily be led astray. We can be given bad directions and go down the wrong roads. And yet we only have one life to live, only a lifetime to learn wisdom and make use of it for ourselves, our families, our communities, and our world.

What makes John and Jesus so unpalatable is the wisdom they present is peculiar and counterintuitive. It is peculiar and counterintuitive because it is not human wisdom, but God’s wisdom. Jesus says, “All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” This is the wisdom hidden from the intelligent and wise. This is the wisdom that is so off-putting at times, and difficult to understand. That wisdom is Jesus himself.

"Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” The Bible speaks of the Covenant as a yoke Jews put on themselves. Jesus, too, begs us to put on a yoke. To put on his yoke. To learn his wisdom. To bear his burden. To follow him in his suffering, in his meekness, in his forgiveness, in his peacefulness. To know his wisdom. A wisdom vindicated by his resurrection, and his deeds of power.

The wisdom of Christ makes no sense in the world as it is. The meek do not inherit this earth. Peacemakers are not always appreciated in their time. Those who weep do not always laugh. Sometimes things do not turn out alright in the end. But Jesus came proclaiming a Kingdom. A Kingdom where he is Lord. A Kingdom where the world is turned upside down. And when we see things in light of this Kingdom, and we discipline ourselves to see the rule of God in our midst, the wisdom of Christ comes into focus. And we understand, truly, how it is that the way of the cross leads to life and peace.

The next few Sundays we will be focusing on different parables and teachings Jesus gives about the Kingdom of God. And we will see how when we understand the Kingdom we understand the wisdom of Christ. We will see how the yoke of Christ’s wisdom, when we put it upon ourselves, proves to be less burdensome than we might imagine. Instead, we find, it is easier than the so called wisdom of the world. It lighter that the demands of this world. Because the wisdom Christ is, alone, leads to eternal life.

Justified: Gotta Serve Somebody

Justified: Gotta Serve Somebody

God Gives Life

Romans 6:12-23

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. July 2nd, 2023

One of the best things about moving to the Thumb is the lack of mosquitos. I don’t know if it’s because there’s less standing water, or if the wind blows them all away but I can sit out in my backyard without a care in the world. When I was in the UP the parsonage was, unfortunately, behind a swamp where the local pond emptied out into. The wind blew the mosquitos out of the swamp and into my backyard. They would swarm like gnats if I sat out there for too long. And there’s only so much bug spray can do for you.

My body would get eaten up by the mosquitos and black flies each summer, no matter how much I did to stay away. And I knew what I’m supposed to do with mosquito bites. You’re supposed to ignore them and the itching goes away. Or, if it’s really bad, you can put camomile lotion on the bite. What you’re absolutely not supposed to do, however, is scratch. The more you scratch the more the bite itches. The more the bite itches, the more you scratch. And it becomes a vicious cycle until finally you scratch too hard and begin to bleed. Though, hopefully, once it gets that far it stops itching.

I know better, but I do it anyway. Isn’t that the condition of Sin? When Paul talks about Sin he means more than acts we commit. We can distinguish between sin with a little s and Sin with a capital S. With a little s we mean discrete acts. A lie we tell, the act of theft, or what have you. But we do not commit little s sins simply because we want to. We commit little s sins because of the power of capital S Sin. Sin with a capital S is a slavedriver. A bad boss. A furious foreman. Sin with the capital S commandeers us. Uses our members as its weapons. Forces us to do what we would prefer not to do. Takes the things we do and twists them to hurt ourselves and others.

I used the example of scratching an itch for relief even though I know scratching that itch comes with consequences. But there are other itches Sin commands us to scratch. The little s sins. We know we shouldn’t tell tales but we do it anyway. We know we shouldn’t lust but we lust anyway. We know we shouldn’t be vengeful but we are vengeful anyway. We know we shouldn’t be envious but we show envy anyway. This is all evidence of being held captive by a power stronger than we are. Paul diagnoses that power as Sin, in league with another power called Death.

We might like to imagine that we are free when we engage in sin. That obedience to God is what’s constraining our wills. When we sin we do what we really want. The fun stuff. When we are holy we are doing what we don’t want. Eating our vegetables. But that is not the picture Paul gives us this morning. The picture we are given is of two Lords. Sin and God. And we gotta serve somebody.

Paul writes, “For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.” There are two ways. We can serve Sin, we can serve the Lord. But we will never serve ourselves. Sin claims we are free, but we actually grow sin addicted. We find ourselves bound by the things that hurt and harm. God tells us to be obedient, but what we come to find in obedience is life and happiness.

For as Paul famously says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Sin is the taskmaster that makes us earn death. But God doesn’t ask us to earn anything. God doesn’t require our work. God only asks for our faith. God accepts the ungodly. God forgives the sinner. And God gives to us his life.

It goes without saying that everyone is looking for happiness. Sin promises happiness, but all we are doing is scratching an itch so hard we open a wound. God promises happiness as well. It is happiness founded in obedience. It is happiness given as a matter of grace. God promises happiness to all who have faith, to all who cling to Christ and the work he has done. And God’s promises are always fulfilled.

Justified: No Dominion

Justified: No Dominion

God Brings Us From the Sphere of Death to Life

Romans 6:1b-11

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. June 25th, 2023

Paul’s teaching on justification is radical. He says that God regards as righteous not those who follow the Mosaic Law, but those who have faith in Jesus Christ. We are not regarded as in the right by God because we have remained faithful to the covenant given to the patriarchs and Moses, but because God has done a new thing in Jesus outside of that covenant. By the death and resurrection of Jesus, by his blood and by his life, we may know salvation.

What makes this so radical is that it takes the work of salvation out of our hands. We do not stay in grace by doing the “works of the Law.” We stay in grace by clinging in faith to Jesus. Salvation is not a matter of what we do. Salvation is a matter of what God has done. This is what Paul means to emphasize.

But Paul’s emphasis on the priority of God’s action in our salvation can lead to misinterpretation. John Wesley, one of the founders of Methodism, was very worried about how Paul’s teaching on justification might be misinterpreted. He worried that people might hear that we are justified by faith alone and think good and evil do not matter. That it doesn’t matter what you do at all. You can lie, cheat, and steal and none of that has any effect on your salvation. This is what is called antinomianism. The idea that morality doesn’t matter, good and evil doesn’t matter, rules don’t matter. If that’s what Paul is getting at it certainly puts him at odds with the rest of scripture!

But in our reading this morning Paul wants to take this misinterpretation of his teaching head on. He asks, rhetorically, “Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?” That is, if as I said last week God justifies the ungodly. And if it is precisely the ungodly who are justified and no one else. Shouldn’t we keep on in sin so that we receive grace upon grace? If God is this cosmic mark handing out grace to everyone who comes begging, shouldn’t we just remain in sin and keep getting the handouts?

Paul’s response is emphatic, “by no means!” But his reasoning is interesting, “How can we who died to sin go on living in it?”

Some people misunderstand justification by putting it in isolation from the rest of the Christian life and thinking that it is simply a matter of God’s declaration and nothing more. That God looks on us miserable sinners and says “you’re a saint.” Like I might look at a pomeranian and say “that’s a wolf” or a box turtle and say “that’s a dragon.” In other words, God is lying or pretending. You see this sometimes with people who think of salvation in terms of being “once saved always saved.” They can tell you the day, hour, or minute they accepted Jesus Christ as savior and Lord. They said the prayer. They gave their life over. But then turned around and lived about the same way as they did before. But they said the prayer! They’re reckoned as righteous in the sight of God!

Paul says that we can’t do that because we who have died to sin can’t go on living in it. Justification is not simply a matter of having our sins forgiven. It is not simply a matter of God regarding us as righteous even though we aren’t. It is a matter of being incorporated into the divine life. Of being regarded as children of God. That means being taken out of one sphere into another. We are ripped out of the domain of death, and we are brought into the Kingdom of God. And this is done through our incorporation into Jesus’ death so we may know his resurrection.

“Do you not know,” Paul writes, “that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” Baptism literally means “immersion” or “dipping.” The earliest baptisms were all done by dipping people under water and bringing them back up. The symbol is not that of being cleansed, but of being killed. Of plunging your old self under the waters so you can be raised as the new self. In fact, the earliest baptismal liturgies we have that are intact include rites where the baptisands strip naked, are oiled up like gladiators, descend into the waters, rise, and are clothed with white linens. It signifies that they died and were born again. Took off the old self and put on Christ.

How can we turn to the old ways when our old self has died? How can we continue in Sin when God has plucked us out of death’s domain? For whoever has died is freed from sin.” Paul writes, “But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.  We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.”

This world is dominated by three spiritual powers. Flesh, Sin, and Death. The Flesh is the evil inclination within us. Sin is the cosmic force that enlivens the flesh so that we do not do what we want to do, but do instead what we don’t want to do. And Death is where all this leads. The destruction of creation, the destruction of our lives. But in the fullness of time God sent his son, Jesus, to deliver us from the Flesh, Sin, and Death. To beat the devil. And restore the divine life within us, to deliver us to the Kingdom of God. When we are justified, that is begun in our lives.

Justification is the moment when we are drawn out of the world of Death and brought into the Kingdom of God. It takes time to grow in the love of God, to overcome the power of the Flesh within us. We call that Sanctification. It is also a work of God in our lives. But that’s for another time. The important thing here is that justification is God’s mighty act of deliverance. That we may die in Christ, so we might die no more.

Justified: Offense

Justified: Offense

The Gospel Brings Scandal

Romans 5:1-8

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. June 18th, 2023

The Gospel is offensive. It is offensive on multiple levels. Today in our reading from Romans Paul points out two ways that the Gospel is offensive. It is offensive because it centers on a moment of shame. And it is offensive because it is grossly unfair. By the world’s standards it is eminently unjust.

In the first case, the Gospel is offensive because of where we put our hope. We do not put our hope in a great military victory. We do not put our hope in some profound mystical experience or in some grand ideology or powerful argument. We put our hope, instead, in the execution of an itinerant jewish preacher. Our hope is in the nail marks of his hands and feet. We rejoice at the hole that was stabbed in his side. We marvel at the water and blood that flowed out. It is not in his earthly victory that we boast, but instead in his whippings, his nakedness, his shame.

Paul says in another passage that “Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” We can produce no great sign. The evidence of his resurrection remains an empty tomb and the witness of his followers. We also can produce no great wisdom. At least, not the sort of worldly wisdom that leads to winning friends and influencing people. What we have is the cross, a stumbling block and foolishness. That is a scandal. Telling proud people to put their hope in that is offensive.

There’s an old story about a missionary who went to preach Christ crucified to the saxon tribes in modern day Germany. The chief of the tribe was so infuriated by the injustice that was being perpetrated on an innocent man that he loudly announced, “If I was there this man would not have died!” It’s easy to have that indignation for the injustice of it all. It’s a lot harder to be told that it is only by the shedding of innocent blood that you can be saved. That if you were there you should stay your sword, as the disciples did. Peter was prepared to fight to the death until Jesus told him to put his sword away. Then he denied him three times.

But that is not the only offense of the Gospel. The second offense is still greater than the first. It is so offensive that I am, perhaps, burying the lede. Paul writes, “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” Jesus says in another place that he came “not to call the righteous, but sinners.” Jesus lays down his life, the most precious thing he could give, for the sake of his enemies. For the sake of the ungodly. For the sake of sinners. More to the point, Paul tells us, “to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness.”

Justification is only given to the ungodly. God’s grace is given precisely to those who, according to worldly standards, do not deserve it.

This greatly offends our sense of justice. In his book The Great Divorce C.S. Lewis has an episode where a soul on his way to heaven discovers that the guide sent to bring him across the field and into the Kingdom is a murderer who used to work for him. How could the murderer end up in heaven and he is stuck outside? He never hurt anyone. All he wants is his rights. He’s simply better than the man who has come to fetch him. The former murderer tries to explain to him the nature of grace, how everything has changed. But to no avail. The man refuses to enter the Kingdom because he wants his rights.

Could a murderer make it into the Kingdom on a last minute prayer? Isn’t that what happens at the cross? “Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.” The man we call a thief tells Jesus. But mere thieves don’t get sentenced to crucifixion. “Truly I tell you,” Jesus replies, “this day you will be with me in paradise.” Even in his suffering on the cross Jesus justifies the ungodly.

It’s not a matter of our rights, or our virtues, or our propriety. God, it seems, does not care much about that. It’s about Jesus. His work. His love. And on account of Jesus we may be justified. On account of Jesus we may be transformed. On account of Jesus we may be saved.

And in our salvation, when the love of God has been so fully poured into our hearts that we truly love God and our neighbor with our all we will not look upon the ungodly about us with disgust or horror. Instead we will rejoice. Rejoice at the power and love of God to deliver even that person. Rejoice that God could save me, even me, the chief of sinners. Rejoice at the absolute grandeur and glory of God that is bigger than our sense of fairness, justice, or propriety. The power of God to save.

Justified: Death to Life

Justified: Death to Life

God Brings Us from Death to Life

Romans 4:13-25

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. June 11th, 2023

Year after year polls show the fastest growing religious demographic is not Christianity, or Islam, or Buddhism, or even atheism. It is “none.” These nones are something of a mystery. What does it mean to put down your religion as simply “none”? Nature abhors a vacuum, and so does the spiritual life. Many of these “nones” are likely “spiritual but not religious.” That is, they believe in the divine (otherwise they could have simply identified as atheist), but they don’t trust any given organized religion. They want to make their own path, follow their own way, satisfy their own spiritual needs.

There are many teachers and teachings on offer for the spiritual but not religious today. Most of them have been on Oprah. One can acquire crystals or do magic. Or one can practice the law of attraction and manifest one’s desires. There are apps for guided meditation and mindfulness. One of the fitness apps on my phone even has a tab devoted to “tracking my mindfulness” which I’m sure would make a number of buddhist monks laugh. Buddhist mindfulness is about self-denial, but American mindfulness has become about wellness.

It is also no wonder why people would distrust organized religion today, between terrorist bombings, abuse cases, and political division. We shouldn’t be surprised someone would be fed up. So why not be like Harry Potter and awaken your own power or connection to the universe? Why not take the first step on your own heroes journey in actualizing your true self.

I don’t mean to make an apologia for the Church, but I want to contrast the justifying grace of Jesus Christ with the quest for self-actualization or the fulfillment of spiritual need. It is easy to confuse grace with the fulfillment of spiritual need, or the life of discipleship with the quest for self-actualization. But for all the similarities there are stark differences.

In the gospel reading this morning we see two miracles. Their stories sandwiched together. A leader of the synagogue comes up to Jesus, kneels before him, and begs him to save his daughter. She has just died, but he knows, he just knows, that Jesus can raise her from the dead. On the way to the leader’s house a woman who has been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve long years recognizes him and touches the hem of his garment. She knows if only she touches him even for a second she will be healed. Jesus stops. Turns to her. And says, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.”

After all that commotion he makes it to the house of the synagogue leader. There are flute players and a crowd making a commotion. It’s like a funeral in there. He tells them all to “go away” because “the girl is not dead but sleeping.” They laugh at him, thinking he’s telling a joke. It doesn’t take a doctor to tell if someone is dead. And everyone knows the dead are not merely asleep. Everyone knows the dead do not wake up.

But the crowd dutifully obeys Jesus’ command. When they walk out the door Jesus grabs the girl by the hand.

And she gets up.

Sometimes we might imagine that the account of the hemorrhaging is closest to our experience of the justifying grace of God. By justifying grace of God I mean the work of God to forgive us our sins and regard us as his child. We might imagine that while we are in our sins we are like the woman enduring a hemorrhage for twelve long years. We are weak, degraded, ostracized, regarded as unclean. But if we reach out to Jesus, then he has the power to heal. If we do our part, God will do his part. If we reach out in faith, then power simply has to come out of Jesus. And we are made well.

In this sense justification would be like meeting some spiritual need. There is some lack within us, something trying to bud. And we are sick with hunger until we find that something. We are incomplete until we are satisfied.

But Paul tells us, “the wages of sin is death.” We are not the hemorrhaging woman when we are enslaved by sin. It is not that we are sick and in need of a healer. Or hungry and in need of food. It is that we are dead and in need of resurrection. We are the little girl lying dead on the bed. Dead to all but God. To God we are asleep. Because God brings the dead back to life. God can do this because God is creator. He, in the words of Paul, “gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.” Even death itself cannot overcome his power.

Justifying grace includes nothing of our own work. It cannot as long as we are dead. We do not reach out to God, but God reaches out to us. Calling us from death to life. Restoring us. Giving us the faith that saves.

Paul says Abraham also experienced this resurrecting power of God when he reckoned Abraham’s faith as righteousness. God made a promise to Abraham, that he would be the father of many nations. But Abraham grew old. And he saw that his body was as good as dead, and his wife Sarah’s womb was barren. Yet he did not lose faith in the promise of God. And this faith in the promise of God was “reckoned to him as righteousness.”

Paul says none of this is recorded for mere historical value. But it is written for us. That we would see in the example of Abraham the power of faith to bring life to what is dead, the power of God to bring to existence what does not exist, the resurrecting and justifying power of God.

Paul writes, “It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.”

This is not self-actualization. And this is not the fulfillment of a spiritual need. It is God’s actualization of us. Taking us from death to life. And it is God’s encounter with us that fills us with faith, giving us something we were never looking for. Something we never knew we needed. So much of modern spirituality tells us what we can do, what we can seek, what quest we might go on. But again and again the Bible says we are so limited by what we see and what we can know. And what God has to offer is so much more than that. Infinitely more than we can ask or imagine, Paul says in Ephesians.

This is what sets the justifying work of Christ apart from all the spirituality of the world. In one case, we are the seeker. We are the heroes of the drama. But here, Christ is the seeker. He is the hero of the drama. He bravely strips himself for the battle and goes to the cross. He contends with sin. He descends into the bowels of the grave. He is victorious. And we are delivered. He would share this victory with us. Raising us from the death of sin, to eternal life.

Alien Life: Pentecost

Alien Life: Pentecost

God’s Spirit is Given to the Church

Acts 2:1-21; Numbers 11:24-30

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. May 28th, 2023

When Jesus left his disciples he gave them a promise. “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.” And so the disciples waited for that promised Holy Spirit so they could fulfill the commission Jesus had given them to be his witnesses through the whole earth.

The morning of Pentecost was no different than this morning. The disciples were gathered in one place, as we are gathered here in this beautiful sanctuary. And those who were gathered in that room were ordinary men and women. Fishermen, tax collectors, activists, peasants, Jesus’ mother. Not the sort you would expect to turn the world upside down. Not the sort you’d expect to throw the whole city of Jerusalem into a rumpus.

But everything changed that ordinary Pentecost morning. Because we are told a sound came from heaven, a sound like a mighty wind, and filled the whole house these ordinary men and women were staying. And there appeared tongues as of fire, resting on each of their heads. They were filled with the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is not something you can contain. When you’re filled with the Spirit you must speak. When the Spirit rests you cannot stay put. And so the disciples left the house and began to prophesy.

Jesus told them that the Spirit would come upon them and they would witness to the end of the earth. And on that morning they witnessed to people from all over the known world. Jews of every nation. But also gentiles as well. They witnessed to them about the things that had taken place in Jerusalem that year. How Jesus was condemned, crucified, and rose from the dead by the power of God. How salvation is found in his name. How we must repent and believe this good news, these glad tidings, this gospel.

And the people of Jerusalem wondered how they could speak in the tongues of every nation, and were amazed at their conviction. They wondered if they must be drunk. So Peter, who once denied Jesus three times, instead filled with the Holy Spirit lets them know no one is drunk, rather the words of the Prophet Joel have been fulfilled. The last days are upon us, and the Spirit of God has been poured out on all flesh.

We are inheritors of this story, and the Spirit that fell upon the disciples that Pentecostal morning is the same Spirit that enlivens and empowers the Church today. We live under the same sky. We have been brought under the same baptismal waters. We follow the same Lord. And we are part of the same Church. As the Spirit broke upon the disciples out of the blue, so too the Spirit works today. Empowering ordinary women and men to witness to Christ, and be his hands and feet in a world of suffering.

Let us have confidence in the Spirit, and let us have confidence in what God has done in us and for us in our baptisms. The Spirit flows where he will, and is the gift given to the whole Church. He is the presence of God in our midst. Directing us to Christ, that we may direct others to Christ.

We may think of ourselves as ordinary. We may think we lack talent, or knowledge, or like Moses we may complain that we are slow of tongue. We may, at times, like Peter shirk away from discussions of faith. We may, like Jeremiah protest that we are too young. Or like Isaiah protest that we have unclean lips. But God only ever chooses ordinary people. God only ever chooses people like us. And every baptism is the enactment of God’s claim over someone’s life, to make them part of his story, and deputizing them to his Holy work.

Ministry is not limited to those with the certifications. God never calls professionals in the Bible. God doesn’t wait until anyone is ready. Ministry is the work of the Church. We are all called to mission, and we all receive that same Spirit of Peter, Paul, and James.

The greatest gift God gives is the gift of himself. And that is a gift offered free of price to all of us. When Moses called the Seventy elders and gave them a portion of his Spirit they prophesied. But two of them remained in the camp and they, too, prophesied. When Joshua got word of it he was horrified, and jealous of Moses’ honor told Moses to make them stop. But Moses knew better than that. The Spirit is not something to be jealously guarded. It’s not our possession. It’s not our work. But, rather, God in our midst. And the Spirit flows where it will. Moses did not condemn the prophesying elders in the camp but instead said, “Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his spirit on them!”

In the age of the Church that wish of Moses’ is fulfilled. Let us never lose sight of the tremendous privilege we have been given. What an astonishing gift. And, with that, the work to which we have been set out. To witness. To worship. To love.

Why I Read

What lies between the strange statement, In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and the equally strange cry of longing, Even so, come, Lord Jesus! What is there behind all this, that labors for our expression?

It is a dangerous question. We might do better not to come too near this burning bush. For we are sure to betray what is — behind us! The Bible gives to every man and to every era such answers to their questions as they deserve. We shall always find in it as much as we seek and no more: high and divine content if it is high and divine content we seek; transitory and “historical” content, if it is transitory and “historical” content we seek — nothing whatever, if it is nothing whatever we seek. The hungry are satisfied by it, and to the satisfied it is surfeiting before they have opened it. The question, What is within the Bible? has a mortifying way of converting itself into the opposing question, Well, what are you looking for, and who are you, pray, who make bold to look? - Karl Barth, “The Strange New World Within the Bible”

I always begin a new TV series or a new fiction book, or a new video game with trepidation. It’s not that I fear it will be bad, but I fear that whatever I seek to consume will only consume me. The book will not let me put it down, the video game will not let me turn it off, the TV series will demand my attention until the run time is over. And, when all is done, my mind will remain trapped in the fictional worlds I visited. Like Alan Parrish I will not be able to leave. Or, if I do manage to escape the strange characters, creatures, and settings of that fictional world will run free. Everything that I see becoming colored by what I saw or read, everything a reminder of the time I spent.

But there are few more engrossing works of literature than the Bible. If there were any book to get lost in, any book to eat you and your whole world up, it is this one. When I pick up my Bible I am transported to Ur where Abram hears the call of a strange God calling him to a strange land. I sit with David and his mighty men as they camp in the wilderness, on the run from the manic King Saul. I watch in horror as the forests devour the armies of Israel. I weep with the elderly King David as he cries, “Oh, my son Absalom! Oh, my son! My son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you! Oh, Absalom, my son! My son!”

I walk the paths of Galilee along with Jesus and watch as he heals the blind and lame. I am confounded and enraptured by his parables. I flee with the disciples when he is captured. I shout “crucify him!” with the crowds. I sit in despair at the foot of his cross. I am enraptured by his resurrection.

The Bible is meant to eat us up. Its details are meant to be memorable, its silences are meant to grab hold of us. The Bible seeks to grasp our imagination. That we would understand ourselves to be part of that same story.

The more I read, the more I understand. The more I see. Not just the work of God in the story. But I see the story playing out in my life and in our world. That is why I return again and again and again.

Alien Life: Hope

Alien Life: Hope

Cast Your Cares on Him

1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. May 21st, 2023

I’m going to close out this series on the eccentricity and peculiarity of discipleship on a personal note. I hope you will bear with me. I have borne the burden of anxiety for the majority of my life. I was first diagnosed with an anxiety disorder in the fourth grade. I would wake up with such terrible panic attacks and general anxiety that I refused to leave the bathroom until about 10AM. When I was finally able to get to school after a week or two I was supplied a cot in a corner of the school library. If I had an attack, which was often, I could go to the library to calm down.

I was medicated, I went to therapy, but it never really went away. Every morning until 10AM I simply had to force my way through this anxiety to get to school and try and pay attention. By high school I had developed a whole routine where I got up at a certain time, showered, got dressed, and went for a walk. I had timed the walk perfectly so that I would get home just in time to be picked up for school. I couldn’t bear to sit down, the walk was my way of coping.

Things lessened up in undergrad. I imagine because I had considerably more freedom than in grade school. But It never went away. And while I have had a string of very good years, and I haven’t had to worry about any disruption to my life I know I can’t really say it’s gone away. It can always return.

These experiences are very formative to me. It’s the reason I may seem very laid back and aloof. I monitor myself all the time. I second guess myself a lot because I know I have a mind that tells me to be afraid when there’s nothing to fear. But, in the end, it’s also strengthened my faith because I had to depend on God.

Middle school was probably the darkest time. I simply assumed that the panic attacks and anxiety I was experiencing then was going to remain for the rest of my life. That I would simply need to manage a working life where I was anxious each and every morning. When the slightest thing could set me off. Or maybe nothing at all. It’s terrible that this went through my mind back then. I realize that now. But through it all I retained a faith in God that brought me through. Through it all I knew that I could trust in him to give me a good future. I had hope.

Peter tells us this morning, “Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.” And, “Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in your faith.” The sufferings and anxieties of Peter’s time are the suffering and anxiety of persecution. Christians being booted from their homes or professional associations. Being ostracized. Being shamed. We, by the grace of God, do not endure the persecution of first century Christians today. But we do have our own burdens, pains, anxieties.

I was thinking recently about how one of the worst things about my experience with anxiety is how lonely it was. I didn’t know anyone else with the same experience. While I knew it was no moral failing, I sometimes thought it was. But now it’s a lot more common for people to talk about their experience with anxiety and other forms of mental illness. And if the reports are correct, childhood anxiety is growing. We may live in a land of affluence, but that doesn’t mean we don’t suffer.

I learned to cast my anxiety on God. I learned to take it up in prayer. It didn’t always mean my anxiety went away. But it gave me something to cling to. And it gave me the hope that carried me through it all. And the same goes for us today. One thing that makes us peculiar is that we can be a people with hope. That whatever we endure we know God is in control and is bringing all things to their end. And we can resist the devil who prowls putting thoughts in our minds about our own unworthiness and trying to rob us of our hope.

Jesus endured much, and is victorious. We may, at times, endure much as well. But we know the victory is won and the victory is ours. And that makes all the difference.

Not Against Us

“Teacher,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.” “Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “For no one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us. Truly I tell you, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to the Messiah will certainly not lose their reward. Mark 9:38-41

In the days following the September 11 terror attacks President George W. Bush announced the War on Terror to a joint session of congress. “Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make.” He famously said, “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” He invoked the logic of “you are either with me or against me” which is the logic of war, of politics, of strife and conflict.

Jesus, astonishingly, refuses the logic of “with us or against us.” When John tells him that someone is casting out demons in his name without his permission, and seeks to jealously protect Jesus’ name, Jesus tells him to let it be. “For whoever is not against us is for us.”

We too easily see through the lens of us versus them, but that is not the lens Jesus asks John to use. Certainly there are people who make themselves enemies of Christ, enemies of the Church, enemies of the poor, and those Jesus calls brothers and sisters. Jesus told us how to deal with such people. But for everyone else, Jesus says, we are to understand that they are on our side.

I worry at the defensive footing I see so many Christians take. Worrying about secularization, or decline, or new mores. Jesus never counsels a defensive footing. The Church that circles the wagons is the Church in its death throes. He tells us not to worry about tomorrow, and to love our enemies. “Take heart,” he says, “I have overcome the world.”

Alien Life: Defense

Alien Life: Defense

We Give Reason for our Hope by Sharing Jesus

1 Peter 3:13-22

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. May 14th, 2023

One of my friends grew up Lutheran but after he was confirmed didn’t attend Church much. He worked with a lot of atheists and agnostics who could be pretty vocal about their opinions and he didn’t know what to say. But he knew me well enough that I was the argumentative sort. Still am to a degree. And that I would likely relish the chance to discuss these matters with one of his co-workers. So he arranged for us to have breakfast on short notice.

I was still in undergrad at the time and this was before I learned the pleasures of waking up in the morning. Generally I’d wake up more around lunch time. So I groggily walked into the restaurant, wishing I had a chance to sleep in. I sat down and we all exchanged niceties. My friend brought up the topic of discussion, can we be sure of the existence of God? Now, under most any other circumstance I would have been well able to make a case. I knew about the cosmological, teleological, and ontological arguments for God. I was comfortable discussing the historicity of the Bible and the life of Jesus. I could launch an offense on the argumentation and assumptions of my friend’s co-worker. But I really wanted to sleep.

So rather than get into all that, I asked him why he thought what he thought. He told me about some childhood experiences. I expressed my sympathy. And I switched topics to 90’s television shows we both watched. I could tell my friend was disappointed.

Did I fail to “make a defense” for “the hope that is in me”? This verse is often used by apologists, or people who rationally defend the faith. They not only use it to justify their work, but oftentimes suggest that all Christians ought to be able to rationally defend the faith. That this is what it means to make a defense for the hope that is within us.

I certainly think there is a place for making a rational defense of the faith. Like I said, I do like to argue. I enjoy the give and take and the chess match of finding my way a step or two ahead. I know the cosmological, teleological, and ontological arguments for God. I don’t think that’s wasted knowledge. But I also know that’s me, and that’s not necessarily anyone else. Not everyone enjoys an argument, and not everyone can retain the knowledge needed to sustain a good argument.

I would hate for anyone to think there is some defect in their discipleship if they cannot memorize all these arguments or employ them effectively. Sometimes people are in situations like my friend where they are close to someone, a co-worker or family, who challenges them and they don’t know how to answer. But what would Peter say?

Apologetics can be a useful tool, and I emphasize that it’s only a tool. But Peter is not talking about apologetics in our passage this morning. When he calls for the exiles of the dispersion to give a defense for the hope that is within them he is not asking them to pick up some Josh McDowell books. What he means is that we ought to be prepared to tell people about Jesus.

Peter expects that the exiles of the dispersion, that we, would be people of hope. And he also expects that this hope will be strange and peculiar. That there will be something noticeable about the hope that is within us, something that would make even persecutors enquire. He expects that we should be so patient, so kind, so long-suffering, and so merciful that people will want an accounting of how this can be.

When we give a defense for the hope that is within us, when we give an accounting for why it is we are so patient and forgiving, we wouldn’t say “well imagine a being greater than that which can be conceived…” Or “nothing comes from nothing.” Rather we would tell a story about this man Jesus who was also patient and kind. Who also endured suffering. Who also endured mockery. And overcame the shame of the cross, being raised on the third day. And that I can endure what I endure because I have hope that as he lives so too I may live. I can forgive because I have hope that he has forgiven me.

That’s a defense that can be given in season and out of season. That’s a defense that doesn’t require a seminary class or a dusty old book. That’s a defense that is born out of our living faith. Our witnessing to the truth in word and deed, and our telling the story that our lives depend on.

Alien Life: Communion

Alien Life: Communion

We Are Made One in Christ

1 Peter 2:2-10

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. May 7th, 2023

I have in my pocket a device called an “iPhone.” Over two billion of these have been sold since it was released sixteen years ago. When I was growing up we had a rotary phone and I thought my grandparents car phone was incredibly novel. If I wanted to “surf” the “world wide web” I had to go to a local cyber cafe because we didn’t have the internet in the house. Now with the iPhone not only can I made phone calls wherever I want (as long as there’s reception) but I can also go online as much as I want (as long as there’s enough reception).

It’s a wild world we live in.

Apple likes putting the prefix “i” in front of its products. iPhone, iPad, iPod. It started with the iMac, which first came out 25 years ago now. The “i” has a dual meaning. In the first case it means “internet.” Apple wanted to emphasize that the iMac went online out of the box. Which was somewhat novel at the time. They also wanted to emphasize that they had applications pre-loaded on the computer that made use of internet connectivity. But secondly the “i” stands for individual. Or me. It was a personal computer after all.

So the iPhone is the internet connected me phone. It is a powerful communications device that allows me to talk to billions of people around the world. I can check the news, watch tv and movies, play games, argue with people, spread false information, and more. And it’s all in the palm of my hand, and fits in my pocket.

My iPhone reminds me of Psalm 115. “But their idols are silver and gold, made by human hands./ They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see./ They have ears, but cannot hear, noses, but cannot smell./ They have hands, but cannot feel, feet, but cannot walk, nor can they utter a sound with their throats./ Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them.” My iPhone matches the psalm frighteningly well. It’s made by human hands, it has a speaker, but does not speak. It has a camera, but cannot see. It has a microphone, but does not hear. Though I don’t think it has smell-o-vision yet. But the more one is glued to their phone, or whatever device, we have a danger of being made in the form of that device.

The more I use a computer the more I imagine myself like a computer. I “communicate” with people, “connect” with people. I might imagine my soul as an operating system powering my brain that might one day be downloaded into a chip. I understand my interactions with others in real life as on par with my interactions with others online. I begin to see the world the way my friends on facebook see the world. Which is a very frightening and angry place. Quite unlike the one I would experience in this community where we might have our differences but are family.

And, I think most importantly, I become alone. Because I interact with my friends not in person with all that entails, but through a screen. I understand myself as isolated. Going from app to app, webpage to webpage. Consuming various media. I am the individual hooked up to the machine, receiving various inputs, producing various outputs.

Today is Communion Sunday, so I want to contrast this state of affairs with what we are shown in communion. In the communion prayer I say, “By your spirit make us one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world.” And, after I break the bread I tend to say, “Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf. The bread which we break is a sharing in the body of Christ.” And “The cup over which we give thanks is a sharing in the blood of Christ.”

When we share communion together at this one table. When we share from a common loaf and a common cup, we acknowledge that God will not save us as individuals, but God saves us all together. That to be Christian means to be made part of the body of Christ and it is by being in Christ that we are those who receive forgiveness of our sins and eternal life. Salvation is not afterlife insurance that we, as individuals, may subscribe to. It is a common life offered to us, a common life that is eternal life, a common life modeled and foreshadowed for us in this meal.

This, too, is why we read in 1 Peter this morning that, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” We are the people of God, though we were once not a people. We are the recipients of his grace and mercy, though we once did not know mercy. We have been made into a nation, a priesthood, set apart and offered to the world.

Communion is not simply  our own personal connection to God, as my iPhone is my connection to the internet and therefore the world. Communion has a horizontal and vertical aspect, and these two aspects cannot be separated. But it is because we are united in Christ that we are united together. And being united together we may be united in Christ. This is not a pill, it’s a meal. A common meal we share at a common table. And in this meal we are made into a common body. That we might have a common witness to the world. That whatever our differences, we may witness to our common Lord.

Alien Life: Suffering

Alien Life: Suffering

We Are Called to Follow Jesus

1 Peter 2:19-25

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. April 30th, 2023

The Bible is God’s gift to us, and it is powerful and life giving. But the Bible can also be difficult. It can be difficult in two ways. Some of the Bible is very obscure. I had a conversation recently with someone about the nephilim in Genesis. We are told the sons of God had relations with the daughters of men and gave birth to nephilim, giants, men of renown. And the nephilim are never heard of again. The Bible can be obscure that way, assuming that we know things that has largely been lost to us. Or, the Bible can be difficult because we understand what it says all too well. In John’s gospel Jesus teaches the crowds that he is the bread of life, and if they don’t chew on his flesh they will not have life in him. The crowd’s response is to leave him. “This is a hard teaching,” they say, “who can accept it?”

Today’s scripture from 1 Peter is difficult in this sense. It is a hard teaching. But a hard teaching can also be life giving when placed in its proper context. And though it is hard it is no less life giving. It is no less the word of God.

Peter commends his audience for bearing suffering unjustly. “For it is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly.” He writes, “If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God's approval.” What is especially difficult here is Peter does not seem to have persecution in mind, specifically. Indeed, he’s taking about slaves bearing the unjust blows of their masters. Peter is, seemingly, no John Brown or Nat Turner. That may trouble us.

It may trouble us because we have a strong sense of justice, and a strong sense of fairness. Even if we don’t always agree on what is just or what is fair. I think we’ve all been in situations that were unfair and we had no means to resist or fight back. And I’m sure we can feel empathy for those who are oppressed. People trapped by circumstance. Anyone who suffers unjustly.

And Peter says that we are simply suffer, simply endure.

I doubt anyone wants to hear this. Except maybe the slave master. What good does it do to suffer and not fight back? Where is the justice in endurance? This is antithetical even to the spirit of our nation, which was won by the sacrifices of revolutionaries.

Who can bear it?

Before we say “get behind me Satan” and pass judgment on the Apostle we should  look at his reasoning and give him a chance. Remember that Peter addresses this letter to the “exiles in the dispersion” and opened the letter taking about the new birth through the Father, and new life in the Spirit that has been given to the Church. Here we are seeing one way that Christians are strange, peculiar, eccentric. One way that we have been given an alien life, being an alien people with a different inheritance.

He says, “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps.” John also tells us in his first letter, “he who says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.” We talk about following Jesus, being like Jesus, being disciples of Jesus, loving like Jesus, asking “what would Jesus do?” And Peter points us to the one part of Jesus’ life that is hardest for us to follow, the part that we might like to ignore or explain away, the part Peter himself once tried to reject! And that is “When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly.”

Jesus offers himself up freely awaiting his Father’s verdict. The verdict of the Father is the resurrection of Jesus. The Father could not bear to see his son remain in the grave. And so Jesus won the victory. That victory and that life he would share with all of us. But if we are to join in that victory, and have a share in his life, in our inheritance, that means following him. And following him takes this form. That we would endure pain even unjustly. That we would consider it a credit. That we would hope in our resurrection.

This is, like I said, a hard teaching. But we see how it ties in with the cross of Christ. It is no accidental teaching. But is an intrinsic element of our strange, alien, eccentric life together. But it is not something we are asked to do without aid. For the Bible does speak of a peace that surpasses all understanding. The Bible does speak of a joy that can be known in all circumstances. The Bible speaks of the grace of God that is more than sufficient to bring us through all the unjust sufferings of this world. Knowing we do not entirely belong to this world, but in being given a new birth our citizenship is in heaven.

Alien Life: Transcendence

Alien Life: Transcendence

We Are Free to Love

1 Peter 1:17-23

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. April 23rd, 2023

One blessing I’ve had the past number of years is I’ve never been far from the night sky. When I lived in North Carolina I lived in a big enough city that the light pollution blocked all but the brightest stars. When I was in the Upper Peninsula I could see the milky way from my backyard. Here, the dark night sky is not far away.

When you see the night sky, truly see it, you understand why the ancients thought the planets and stars were divine. Why they so obsessively plotted the courses of the planets. Why they told tales about the various constellations. Why they thought that the stars and planets determined the course of life on earth. That sense that the heavens are the realm of immortal life may have faded from us now, even those who check their horoscopes probably don’t think the stars are living entities determining their destiny. But we have a greater appreciation for the sheer expanse of interstellar space. We have seen photographs of the Horsehead Nebula and the Pillars of Creation. Some of us watched as astronauts walked on the moon. We know the stars in the sky are so far away that the light we see is thousands or millions of years old. And we know we’re not even in the center of our own galaxy let alone the universe. The night sky may remind us of our relative insignificance.

And then consider the length of history. A human lifetime is but a speck. The industrial revolution, in the grand scheme of things, happened but yesterday. It is as Macbeth says in the Scottish Play, “Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player/ That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,/ And then is heard no more. It is a tale/ Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/ Signifying nothing."

The ancients, too, knew their time was short. And they manufactured various ways to cling to immortality. They sought the honors of their peers, and hoped their deeds would be immortalized in stone and song. They contemplated wisdom, focusing on that which they knew was unchanging and eternal. They raised children to carry on the family name. And they died because no one gets out of life alive.

We, too, manufacture various ways to cling to a semblance of mortality. We may not have the same honor culture but we do seek fame. The more people notice us, the more we are remembered, the more our memory may pass on in some respect. We, too, raise children and tell stories and build things with our names on them.

Our mortality, the shortness of our life, the smallness of our planet in the grand scheme of the cosmos, leads us to seek transcendence. Because we know we are meant for more than this. But most attempts at transcendence fail. How many ancient greeks can you name? How many people from a generation ago can you name? Human attempts at transcendence end in futility. As Peter tells us this morning, “You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors.” The futile ways of the ancients aren’t much different than the futile ways of us moderns. Though perhaps we have, at times, been more destructive.

But we are not condemned to those futile ways for as Peter goes on to say, “You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God.” We do not need to continue in the futile ways of our ancestors because we have new ancestors. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, those who relied on God in spite of all they suffered and faced. We are born not of a seed that perishes, but we are born through an imperishable seed. We are born again to eternal life.

Having been freed to eternal life we are free to a different sort of life. Peter says, “Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart.” We are made free to lead lives characterized by love. We do not need to make a name for ourselves. We do not need to save our own lives. We do not need to seek out our own fame or glorification. Because we have our hope in Christ. And following Christ we love. We love one another. We care for one another in our troubles, we forgive one another our foibles. We suffer for one another if need be.

This is what Christ showed us by giving up his own life and receiving it again.

Alien Life: Inheritance

Alien Life: Inheritance

We Are Given a New Homeland

1 Peter 1:3-9

Rev. Tim Callow

Preached Sun. April 16th, 2023

I grew up in a small town, not much larger than Bad Axe, that at one time was among the fastest growing towns in Michigan. In the ten years between 1880 and 1890 Menominee Michigan grew by 223%. At its peak it had almost 13,000 people and produced more lumber than any other town in the United States. It was a bustling town at a time when Europeans from many different countries were immigrating to the land of opportunity and looking for a place to settle.

When I was in high school I spent some summers volunteering at our local museum. A busy afternoon was maybe five families. So I was often given free reign to look at all the different exhibits. One of the items they had was an old map of the town, from the lumbering days, that outlined where the various neighborhoods were. There was the polish neighborhood, the french neighborhood, the irish neighborhood, the anglo neighborhood, and so on. People who had left their homelands but still found each other halfway across the world. The Churches, too, retained an ethnic identity. The museum itself was inside the oldest Catholic Church in town, which was built by the irish. The town’s McDonald’s was built on the former site of the french parish.

These neighborhoods developed not so much out of ethnic tension, though that certainly existed, but so that people who spoke a common language and held common customs could share in a common life. Over time those ethnic differences began to fade. But back in those days to be French in Menominee was to be part of a diaspora, and to live in a strange land among a strange people.

Peter addresses his first letter to a diaspora. “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithnia…” The diaspora Peter addresses is not the Jewish diaspora, which was spread abroad the Roman world for centuries. But a new Christian diaspora. Not because they had been exiled from their homelands, but because they had gained a new homeland. Not exiled on account of their ethnicity, but because they had gained a new ancestry, and a new inheritance.

He goes on to write, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” In other words, by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ we have been given a new birth. We have been regenerated. That New Birth is our own resurrection. A resurrection into a new life. With a new inheritance, one that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. It is a strange new life that makes us strangers. It is a strange new life that puts us out of place in this world.

It is this theme of the strange new life we have in Christ that I want to focus on the next few Sundays using Peter’s letter as a guide. I hope to make Christianity strange. To focus on the oddness of this letter. After all, is it not odd to say that a man has risen from the dead? And is it not also odd to say that we may share in the eternal life he has? Is it not odd to claim our homeland is not America but the New Jerusalem? Is it not odd to put our hope in what we do not see?

The Christians Peter addresses know they are odd, strange, exiled. Some may have been abandoned by their families. None of them participated in the festivals of their cities. Some may have even refused to go to the marketplace, as it was overrun with idols. They knew where they stood in their society.

But we are not always aware of how odd our faith makes us. That being born of God through the Spirit makes us strange. That we believe in virgin births, forgiving (and not just seven times), turning the other cheek, rejoicing in sufferings, and the conquest of death. These are odd things.

Perhaps there was a time when Christianity simply made sense. One became Christian by osmosis, because it was a Christian society. But now we are more like the immigrants of Menominee, Michigan. Members of a dispersion, from a different land, strangers to the land through which we sojourn.

But this is not cause for despair. On the contrary. What makes us strange is our hope. The greatest hope. What makes us strange is the grace of God. What makes us strange is the new life he offers. A life full of adventure. A life full of joy. A life full of peace.