"I Know Where You Are Living" - July 20, 2025

 

Revelation 2:12-17
July 20, 2025

 

“And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write: These are the words of him who has the sharp two-edged sword:

“I know where you are living, where Satan’s throne is. Yet you are holding fast to my name, and you did not deny your faith in me even in the days of Antipas my witness, my faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan lives.  But I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the people of Israel, so that they would eat food sacrificed to idols and engage in sexual immorality.  So you also have some who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Repent, then. If not, I will come to you soon and wage war against them with the sword of my mouth.  Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. To everyone who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give a white stone, and on the white stone is written a new name that no one knows except the one who receives it.

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            The message to the church in Pergamum is cryptic.  Untangling some of its threads, though, the key to it is the very beginning:

“I know where you are living.”

God understands the many and varied circumstances of our lives, and that a lot of situations we face are hostile to a life of faith and discipleship.

            The city of Pergamum was one of the first cities to jump on the emperor-worship bandwagon when Augustus let it be known that it was alright with him if sacrifices were offered directly to statues representing him.  Pergamum was the first city in the province to be allowed to build a temple in his honor and about a hundred years later the emperor Trajan made Pergamum the first city to add another temple for emperor-worship generally.  (Trajan was, of course, the emperor of the day, and had been the general who had leveled Jerusalem early in his military career.)

“I know where you are living, where Satan’s throne is.”

What is it like to live in a place where civic pride is tied to pagan worship?  I don’t know… have you ever been to the Firebird Festival?  A giant bird is built every year to be burnt at the winter solstice while a crowd stands around and cheers on the way to or from the bars – maybe both.  That sounds kind of like a pre-Christian, northern European sort of thing to me.  The difference is that I don’t think anybody there genuinely believes that the return of longer days depends on that ritual, and that nobody is legally required to take part.  In some circles, though, there could be a kind of social ostracism of that one person who balks at it.  In some circles there’s reluctance to be the killjoy.

Backing out of the celebration of the emperor, though, would be worse than being a wet blanket, worse than being unpatriotic.  It would be treason.  Apparently the Christians in Pergamum had taken their chances on that, for which the scriptures honor them, even though one of them paid a steep price, as others would later.  Things were rough, we read,

“Yet you are holding fast to my name, and you did not deny your faith in me even in the days of Antipas my witness, my faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan lives.” [Revelation 2:13]

God wanted his people living there, with that kind of persecution in living memory, to know clearly that he is well aware of what they are up against.

            This should provide a word of support also for situations that are not anywhere near that extreme, but nevertheless real.  With less external social expectation that anyone will have any religious affiliation at all, Christian or not, there is also less acceptance when someone’s faith leads them to opt out of a group activity. 

            Sports is a big one.  Usually we talk about how kids’ leagues now have Sunday morning games.  We ignore the fact that major races for adult runners are usually scheduled for that time.  It’s more than that, though.  One of the things that the early Christians clashed with their society over was having gladiators killing each other for a crowd’s entertainment.  How Christian is it to watch somebody’s skull cracked open and to cheer, “Yeah!  Go for it!”  How Christian is it to bet on the outcome of a sword fight?  Then again, is it right to make money from or to find pleasure in a sport where somebody like Muhammed Ali ends up with so many slugs to the head that his brain turns to mush as he ages?  Say that your boss or an influential client invites you to ringside seats.

            Another spot people find themselves in is when they’re invited to be part of a wedding.  One time somebody I knew asked a close friend to be his best man because he said he was somebody he knew would keep the bachelor party (and I quote) “within the bounds of moral law and good taste”.  These days it tends to be bachelorette parties that get out of hand.  Neighbors of mine were getting married and the bridesmaids threw the bride into an SUV whose back window said, “Trudy’s getting hitched!  Venmo drink money to ______ .”  Should you just volunteer to be the designated driver?  If you do that are you keeping someone safe, or are you enabling their excess?

            Where is the line when someone tells an offensive joke or uses a derogatory term?  Have you ever ghosted someone online and, if so, why?  Would you do the same to someone else if your general relationship to them was different?  What if your dealing with somebody you sort of dislike to begin with; would you be acting on principle or would their behavior just be the excuse for holding them at a distance or blocking them in a way you’ve wanted to do for awhile anyway?

            I guarantee that these situations or ones akin to them are going to arise, and I guarantee that there will be times, no matter what you do, that you ask yourself afterward if you did the right thing, and I guarantee you that the answer you get will be “maybe” or “I hope so” or “we’ll see”.  In that moment

“I know where you are living,”

says the Lord. 

Jesus walked the earth in a time and place of deep ambiguity, and people who were out to get him tried to entangle him in easy answers to complicated questions.  He always turned things back on the questioners to make them examine their own hearts.

“And they came and said to him, ‘Teacher, we know that you are sincere and show deference to no one, for you do not regard people with partiality but teach the way of God in accordance with truth. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?’ But knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, ‘Why are you putting me to the test? Bring me a denarius and let me see it.’  And they brought one. Then he said to them, ‘Whose head is this and whose title?’ They answered, ‘Caesar’s.’  Jesus said to them, ‘Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.’ And they were utterly amazed at him.” [Mark 12:13-17]

He does the same thing to us, understanding the pressures that people face when they do love both God and neighbor.  He’s asking us to be faithful in all our ways, not to be separated from life. 

It’s when we embrace his ways in the midst of life’s pressures that we become witnesses to his love, because it was the embrace of God’s ways in the face of an unfaithful world that led him to the cross, and his unflinching love for the human beings who put him there that guarantees our pardon.  He knows where we live and came in person to find us, and to help us live, here and now, and forever.

“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.” [John 3:17]

He is the one who will always wipe the slate clean, no matter what.  In the midst of group pressures and all kinds of influences that is always going to be between each human being and him.

“To everyone who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give a white stone, and on the white stone is written a new name that no one knows except the one who receives it.” [Revelation 2:17]

"What You Are About to Suffer" - July 13, 2025

 

Revelation 2:8-11
July 13, 2025
 

And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: These are the words of the First and the Last, who was dead and came to life:

“I know your affliction and your poverty, even though you are rich. I know the slander on the part of those who say that they are Jews and are not but are a synagogue of Satan.  Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Beware, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison so that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have affliction. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life. Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. Whoever conquers will not be harmed by the second death.”

 

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            It seems silly now, but I dreaded turning thirty.  My annual physical that year didn’t exactly help anything, either, since my family doctor decided that was time to look into his crystal ball.  “Yeah,” he said, “your eyesight is pretty good right now, but in ten years you may be thinking about glasses.”  A few minutes later it was, “Your weight is good, but if you aren’t careful, you may have some problems keeping it off down the road.”  Then it was, “Given your family history, I’m not especially worried but you might want to avoid whole milk and go easy on the fried foods and ice cream before they sneak up on you.”  Next, “We should really take a baseline EKG so it’s in your records in case there’s a surprise in fifteen or twenty years.” 

Gee, thanks!  Fortunately, I knew him well enough that I could say, “Hey, Glenn!  Remember when you were a resident working with Dr. Hekking?  Didn’t you have all your hair back then?” and he smiled and backed off.  Mind you, I consider him one of the best family doctors I have ever known.  He was totally right to try to prepare his patients (not just me) for the predictable future. 

John’s brief message to the church in Smyrna is sort of a parallel to my doctor’s observations.  John could foresee where events (no doubt including his own banishment) were leading, and that the Christians in Smyrna would be in a rough place very shortly.  He felt it on his heart to speak, and he did.

            Part of what John saw was increasing conflict.  As background, there was a time early in the church’s history – the church as a whole, not just in Smyrna – when Jesus’ followers thought of themselves as Jews who had identified the Messiah and were following his teachings.  To some extent, for many decades the Romans saw Christians as a subset of the Jews.  But then there were a series of wars in Judaea and ugly infighting among the Jews as well as the destruction of Jerusalem.  The suspicion and resentment spilled out into centers of Jewish life all around the Mediterranean, apparently including Smyrna.  John says to his friends,

“I know the slander on the part of those who say that they are Jews and are not but are a synagogue of Satan.”  [Revelation 2:9]

Unfortunately, that language has been used unfairly against Jews down to this day, long after the two sister faiths have grown apart, and has been used to justify bigotry and persecution.  Ironically, John was warning the church in Smyrna that he was hearing slander about Christians (not of Jews) from within the religious community that he foresaw turning into a pretext for persecution from outside it. 

Now, as then, when people of faith fail to respect one another, it gives permission for others to follow their example, and trouble follows.  The toxic atmosphere of our own day is one where it is increasingly common to hear church people express their thoughts about who is the “real Christian” or the “fake Christian”.  Whether with indignation or sadness or embarrassment, we could all identify a group or two who say they are Christian, but we all know that they are really nothing but a gathering (that’s what the word “synagogue” means: a gathering, a coming-together; a rally, if you will) of the like-minded and the wrong-headed.  “Those people!”  “Them!” 

Whatever happened to “us”?  We can question people’s actions, but it’s not our place to question their faith.  Here’s the thing, too – the predictive element of the message.  It’s easy to see this becoming worse quickly, and for our self-righteousness to be exploited in very harmful ways and for very bad ends by people who truly do not care about right or wrong.

It’s reached the point where to say, as I’m trying to do, to leave party politics outside the church doors can be taken as dragging politics into the pulpit.

Dr. Ortley could offer his advice because he knew my family’s medical histories, and knew how we, as people, behaved.  Fifteen years later I would walk into his office and he would start out, “I saw your parents last week.  What are they not telling me?”  He understood how things work or didn’t work.

In my own capacity, I feel like I’m in a similar spot.  For what it’s worth, I’m putting a few ideas out there, too, and you can take them or leave them, but they’re not coming from no place at all.  My observations and conclusions may be wrong, but they aren’t random, and I think they are fully in line with the scriptures and with what John needed to tell the Smyrnans.

            Since 1954 in this country we have had an understanding that church and state each have their place.  They both have a right to speak, but they should take their turns instead of shouting each other down or manipulating each other.  Neither would hijack the other.  Sure, there is always a gray area, but people who live with complex identities and relating to both God and Caesar in varying ways should treat one another with respect without making power plays or using matters of conscience as means of manipulation.  Traditionally, we’ve called this “a wall of separation” between church and state.

            The embodiment of that has been in an IRS policy (of all places) called the Johnson Amendment.  That has said that non-profits, including religious institutions, have the right to advocate for issues they consider important, but not to endorse specific parties or candidates.  Violations could result in the loss of non-profit standing.  So I can stand here and tell you that from my reading of the scriptures, it is wrong to support policies being espoused by a candidate, but I cannot tell you whom to vote for.  To push that further, I will repeat that it is no one’s place to identify someone as Christian or non-Christian by the color of their hat, nor to put down anybody whose social or political views derive from their beliefs as a Muslim or a Buddhist or even an atheist.

            That has been the social and religious consensus embodied in law for the past seventy-one years.  It has, for the most part, worked well.  This past week, however, the IRS reversed itself, declaring to a federal court that

“When a house of worship in good faith speaks to its congregation, through its customary channels of communication on matters of faith in connection with religious services, concerning electoral politics viewed through the lens of religious faith, it neither ‘participate[s]’ nor ‘intervene[s]’ in a ‘political campaign,’ within the ordinary meaning of those words. … Thus, communications from a house of worship to its congregation in connection with religious services through its usual channels of communication on matters of faith do not run afoul of the Johnson Amendment as properly interpreted.”[1]

In other words, the deal is off.  But from my own perspective it was a wise policy and I intend, to the best of my ability, to stick to it.

            The gist of Revelation, is to warn us that when rulers look for endorsement they will start to expect endorsement and in time, as under the Romans, to demand endorsement.  When the churches of the New Testament had to tell the political powers that they would not go along and rubber stamp everything the authorities wanted to do, they ended up with a situation where somebody like the exiled prophet John had to pass on a word from the Lord to the rest of the believers, a word that said:

“Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Beware, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison so that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have affliction. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.” [Revelation 2:10]

That was a true word.  That continues to be a necessary word.  It’s one that must not be forgotten or overlooked.  But it’s not one you want to hear spoken in your own day.  Do not let the state overstep its place, because once it has done that it is harder and harder to keep it from trampling places it has no business going, and it is bad for everyone.

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[1] https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txed.232590/gov.uscourts.txed.232590.35.0.pdf

cited in a New York Times article by David A. Farenthold on July 7, 2025 found at

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/07/us/politics/irs-churches-politics-endorse-candidates.html

 

"The Love You Had at First" - July 6, 2025

 

Revelation 2:1-7
July 6, 2025

 

“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands:

“I know your works, your toil and your endurance. I know that you cannot tolerate evildoers; you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not and have found them to be false. I also know that you are enduring and bearing up for the sake of my name and that you have not grown weary. ⁴ But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember, then, from where you have fallen; repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.  Yet this is to your credit: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. To everyone who conquers, I will give permission to eat from the tree of life that is in the paradise of God.

 

************************************

 

            For some reason, reading this letter to the church in Ephesus leaves me with one question going around and around in my head.  I’m sure it’s a question that at least one or two other people here are asking themselves: Who were the Nicolaitans?  Why was it a good thing to hate their works?

            I went to my fallback source for answers, the Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, pulled down the K-Q volume, and began to read.

“NICOLAITANS… Followers of a Nicolaus.  Their works and teaching in the churches of EPHESUS and PERGAMUM are condemned by John.  Since the same practice and teaching of immorality and of idolatry appear in the church of Thyatira, the Nicolaitans, though not named, were probably present also in this church (Rev. 2:20-25).  Thus three out of the seven churches to whom John wrote were afflicted with this heretical sect.  In Ephesus their deeds were hated by the church and by Christ; in Pergamum there were some who held their doctrine; in Thyatira the woman Jezebel, a self-styled prophetess, was tolerated and allowed to teach and to beguile Christ’s servants. …”

The author goes on for another paragraph until he writes:

“Nothing is confidently known about the Nicolaitans beyond John’s references to them.  Their works are hated, but not described, in the letter to Ephesus. …”

Another half a page goes by explaining not only why we know nothing about them, but listing a lot of ancient and early medieval authors who also knew nothing about them, either.

            However.

            The time and energy, paper and ink wasted on this question is, in fact, a wonderful illustration of the message that we can and should take from this passage, which is not to become distracted.  Stay focused on the main point of discipleship.  Live faithfully and proclaim the good news.  If you get off track, get back on.

“I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.   Remember, then, from where you have fallen; repent and do the works you did at first.” [Revelation 2:4-5]

Churches do a lot of good.  The more good they do, though, the easier it becomes to find motivation in the sense of accomplishment rather than in the sense of Christian mission. 

            Every year, when December rolls around, you see advertisements for performances of Handel’s Messiah.  It’s a terrific piece of music, of course.  Putting it on is an achievement in itself because of the work it takes to arrange an orchestra, find the right venue, recruit enough singers and four decent soloists.  (And you really, really, really have to have a good soprano.)  At the end of the performance (speaking for myself here) there’s a sense of relief similar to the end of a baseball game that has gone into extra innings.

            Messiah was not composed for holiday entertainment, though.  It was written to raise funds for three charities in Dublin.  One was a hospital, one was a clinic, and one was a prison ministry.  In fact, the first performance raised enough funds to spring 142 people from debtor’s prison.  Seventeen centuries earlier, long before Dublin was founded by Vikings, a Galilean carpenter named Jesus announced himself as the Messiah using the words of Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me

to bring good news to the poor.

 He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to let the oppressed go free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” [Luke 4:18-19]

 

That first performance of Handel’s oratorio was right in line with that.  Subsequent concerts have often – not always, but often enough – had other impulses behind them.

            It’s so easy to slip off course, when some good but secondary cause presents itself.  It’s so easy to get wrapped up in a fundraiser and forget what the money is for, or to let numbers or applause or likes or human approval be the way to define success instead of asking if whatever is going on would make Jesus smile.

            Remember, as John told the Ephesians, “the love you had at first.”  Keep going back to that.  Then go and do great things for the sake of that love, instead of wasting time and resources on side issues and false starts.

“Rise up, ye saints of God! 

Have done with lesser things. 

Give heart and mind and soul and strength

to serve the King of kings.

 

Lift high the cross of Christ!

Tread where his feet have trod. 

As partners with the Son of Man,

rise up, ye saints of God!”

"Endurance and Testimony" - June 29, 2025

 

Revelation 1:9-11
June 29, 2025

 

^“I, John, your brother who share with you the persecution and the kingdom and the endurance in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.  I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, “Write in a book what you see, and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamum, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.”

 

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            The last book of the Bible, Revelation (no ‘s’ on that), is a favorite for people who want to convince others that they have a special inside line to God about what the future holds.  It gets mixed into a sort of stew with chunks from the books of Daniel and I Thessalonians and is served up with gravy made from the events of the interpreter’s time, and gets washed down with a glass of gloating at the ill fortune of the enemy of the day.  That does nothing in the long run to call people to faith in Christ or to strengthen believers.

            Nevertheless, it is a great book, one that the church has taken as inspired by God himself, although because of its strange imagery and complicated symbolism it took centuries longer than the other books of the New Testament to gain acceptance.  Its greatness lies in its message, that comes to us through a man about whom we know little and that was first directed to churches spread out along the southwestern coast of what is now Turkey. 

That message, delivered to them at a time of threat and fear and suffering, is about as audacious as it could be – dangerously so, which is why much of it was sent to them in a sort of coded, symbolic way.  That message is still a courageous declaration: the world is going to keep on being the world, and making the innocent suffer; but keep on doing what is right – no matter what – and the true Lord of all will sort things out and set them right in the end. 

“‘Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near.  Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy.’

‘See, I am coming soon; my reward is with me, to repay according to everyone’s work.  I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.’” [Revelation 22:10-13]

            At the start of the book, the author, whose name was John, establishes his right to speak that message on behalf of God.  He tells us who he is and what his Christian experience has been.

^“I, John, your brother who share with you the persecution and the kingdom and the endurance in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.” [Revelation 1:9]

He speaks as a brother, an equal, to the people he writes to.  Like them, he is going through a time of persecution that calls for endurance, which he does for the sake of Jesus and his kingdom. 

For John that had meant exile to the island of Patmos.  In the words of Karen Engle,

“Juvenal, the Roman satirist, active toward the end of the first century AD, describes several Greek islands that are near to Patmos as ‘rocks crowded with our noble exiles.’ While Juvenal does not mention Patmos specifically, this smallish island, no more than 30 miles in circumference, might well also have served such a function, a place to which to send largely elite undesirables, removing them from their places of influence where they might foment trouble or otherwise cause embarrassment for Rome and its leaders.”[1]

If exile was all that John had faced, he had gotten off lightly.  It was around his time that the Roman emperors were beginning to get rid of Christians more permanently.  The problem was that the emperors had decided that it would be good for an empire that included peoples who worshiped a variety of gods to have at least one unifying divine figure they could all worship together.  That would bring a sense of one-ness to everybody from Britain to Syria to Egypt and North Africa.

That one additional god would be whatever Roman emperor was in charge at that time.  Failure to recognize Nero or Caligula or Trajan or whoever as a god when called upon to do so would be seen as treason.  And we all know what happens to traitors.  Not every place in the Empire enforced those laws all the time, but for two centuries they were a constant threat used whenever local rulers wanted to assert their control or prove their loyalty to Rome. 

One comparison in our own day would be to North Korea.  A group called Open Doors describes conditions there this way:

“If your Christian faith is discovered in North Korea, you could be killed on the spot. If you aren't killed, you will be deported to a labour camp and treated as a political criminal. You will be punished with years of hard labour that few survive. And it's not only you who will be punished: North Korean authorities are likely to round up your extended family and punish them too, even if your family members aren't Christians. …

Recognising any deity beyond the Kim family is considered a threat to the country's leadership. ‘Anti-reactionary thought laws’ were enacted in December 2020. These made it even clearer that being a Christian or owning a Bible is a serious crime and will be severely punished.”[2]

Consider the powerful message of Revelation to North Korean Christians: Kim Jon-Ung is not a god.  His father was not a god.  His grandfather was not a god.  His successors will not be gods.  He holds power now, through his use of starvation and terror, but he will fall under the more powerful judgement of the true God, who does not forget Kim’s victims and their suffering.

            Consider the powerful message of Revelation for all the peoples of the earth, even our own nation.  Love your country but love God more.  Honor the laws of your nation but honor God’s laws first.  There are good rulers and bad rulers, and they will do good ill to their people.  But while rulers come and rulers go, the King of kings remains, the Alpha and the Omega.

Revelation describes a vision of the rule of that Lord of lords as an eternal and righteous kingdom ruled not by the likes of Caesar or Genghis Khan or Pol Pot or even the less lethal but still proud George III or Queen Victoria.

            John wrote what he heard and saw, and it would be far better.

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

‘See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them and be their God;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.’”

 

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[1] https://www.logos.com/grow/where-is-the-island-of-patmos-and-whats-it-like/?msockid=3cea78d49e6d6d323f9d6df69fdd6c4d

[2] https://www.opendoorsus.org/en-US/persecution/countries/north-korea/  This report is cited in official report on religious freedom published by the U.S. State Department in 2022, found at https://www.state.gov/reports/2022-report-on-international-religious-freedom/north-korea/  .

"It's Beyond Us" - March 12, 2025 (Community Lenten Service)

 

Romans 10:10-13
March 12, 2025
PACA Lenten Service
First Presbyterian Church, Phoenixville

 

            The algorithm on YouTube has picked up a few things about me and pushes things onto my feed that it calculates will keep me listening while I bump around the kitchen in the morning feeding the dogs, making my oatmeal, and emptying the dishwasher.  One of them a couple of days ago was from a particularly grumpy commentator with some very clear denominational preferences who decided to spend his time picking apart a bunch of hymns whose words he considers heretical.

 

            It caught me off-guard because I realized that I had done something similar to another hymn in my sermon on Sunday.  Of course, I was just doing that as a disclaimer before getting to the part that I approve of.  The other guy was doing it because he enjoys his superiority, regardless of the fact that his theology is not simply mistaken but wrong.

 

            So how wrong does somebody have to be to be wrong wrong?  Christians have a pretty extensive track record of trying to figure that out and never quite getting to a satisfactory answer. 

 

Read through the book of Acts and you get an account of how Paul and Peter and James had a series of fallings-out over the question of whether a gentile (or as Paul would say, “a Greek”) could participate fully in the Christian community without first accepting Jewish law and practice as a rule of life.  In Acts 15, they seem to reach a compromise, then hug it out.

 

Then turn over to Paul’s letter to the Galatians, where you get a different picture.  Even after the meeting discussed in Acts, the sniping and undermining of each other’s ministries went on.  Paul wrote to the Galatians about people who were telling them that gentile converts needed to observe specified ritual practices, including circumcision, and he did not hold back on what he thought about that:

 

“I wish those who unsettle you would castrate themselves!” [Galatians 5:12]

 

Then in the next words he writes, it’s as if he realizes he might need to explain why he would make a comment like that, what was at stake for him in the entire argument, and he goes on,

 

“For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.” [Galatians 5:13-15]

 

To put in another way, what lies at the heart of Christianity has to be something other than us –  our behaviors, our practices, our explanations, our anything.  It has to be our response to God’s love in Christ, a love that doesn’t begin with us nor end with us.

 

            In his book What’s the Least I Can Believe and Still Be a Christian? Martin Thielen (full disclosure – the author is a United Methodist pastor with a Lutheran-sounding name, and the book is published by the very Presbyterian Westminster John Knox Press) retells a story that he heard.  He writes,

 

“Several decades ago, a group of theologians gathered in England for a conference on comparative religions.  They grappled with the question ‘Is there one belief completely unique to the Christian faith?’

 

            As they debated that question, world-famous theologian and author C.S. Lewis walked into the room.  ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

 

            Someone told him that his colleagues were discussing the question ‘Is there one belief unique to Christianity?’

 

            C.S. Lewis responded, ‘Oh, that’s easy: it’s grace.’

 

            By the end of the conference, the theologians agreed with Lewis. … In one way or another, every religion of the world requires people to earn God’s approval – every religion except Christianity.  The one belief that is completely unique to the Christian faith is grace: God’s unconditional love and acceptance of us just as we are. …That grace, more than anything else, draws people to Christianity.”[1]

 

So back to what Paul says in Romans.  He holds out hope.

 

            The hope begins with the news that salvation does not begin with us, we who are implicated in the world that we would change if we could.  The hope begins, in fact, with our powerlessness.  We are not – and this is truly good news – the saviors of the world.  We have made so much of it in our own image, and look what a mess we have made.

We see a handful of billionaires across the globe holding onto the vast majority of wealth while people starve in Sudan and Yemen and struggle for the very basics in Venezuela.  We can see rich and powerful nations cut off assistance that they had promised the hungry and the sick in foreign lands or even in their own.  We can ask why women or various ethnic groups are denied full participation in their societies.  We can shake our heads at the disrespect we see among people in our own neighborhoods or within households.  We can feel angry at the injustices and we should.  And our souls are every bit as messed up as the outer world; it all goes together.

 

But there is grace from beyond us, and salvation that is broader than our judgments, a grace that draws us together in more than intellectual agreement or uniformity of practice.  It makes us one even if often we cannot stand each other.  It’s the same grace that we experience first and before all from God, and a grace which goes out to others and offers both forgiveness and the challenge to love as God has first loved us.

 

“For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. The scripture says, ‘No one who believes in him will be put to shame.’ For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. For, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’” [Romans 10:10-13]

 

We can count on that, thanks be to God.

 

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[1] Martin Thielen, “What’s the Least I Can Believe and Still Be a Christian?” A Guide to What Matters Most (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 82-83.

"Root, Trunk, and Leaf" - June 15, 2025 (Trinity Sunday)

 

John 16:12-15

June 15, 2025

Trinity Sunday

 

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.  When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.  He will glorify me because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.  All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

 

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            Today is Trinity Sunday, which is not exactly on the radar when it comes to popular awareness.  You aren’t going to find Trinity Sunday cards at the CVS.  And while it would be a great excuse to eat a lot of shortbread (since it’s made with three ingredients: butter, flour, and sugar and often cut into triangles), or maybe donuts – just because they’re donuts – chances are that the bakeries are not exactly overrun with that during strawberry shortcake season.  Nevertheless, the Sunday after Pentecost is a good time to reflect on what it means to worship a three-in-one, one-in-three God.

 

            A good place to start is with the classic exposition of Christian faith that we call the Nicene Creed, which was worked out at a gathering of Christian leaders in the year 326 in the city of Nicea and refined a bit in 381.  They had come together in response to disagreements over how Christianity describes who God is and about how we interpret the words of Jesus when he talks about God as his Father and the Holy Spirit being sent by him from the Father.  So let’s start there.

 

            There are a lot of places in the New Testament where Jesus speaks about how the three work together as one, but also places where he goes further to say that they are one in their deepest being.  A lot of those moments are found in the gospel of John and today’s passage from that book is a good example.  Jesus told the disciples that he would send the Holy Spirit from the Father to them, and that the Spirit would have the full wisdom and power of God to continue the work that Jesus had accomplished among them.

 

            John is not the only gospel writer to acknowledge the interlocking nature of God the Father, God the Son (Jesus), and God the Holy Spirit.  At the end of the gospel of Matthew, Jesus sends the disciples out into the world not just on his own behalf, but to invite all people to be part of the mission of a creative, redemptive, renewing Trinity.

 

“And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name…”

 

(note: “name”, not “names”)

 

“…of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,”

[Matthew 28:18-19]

 

and with the promise that

 

“I am with you always, to the end of the age.” [Matthew 28:20]

           

That is a promise kept through the presence of the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ (we use all those terms) in our lives as individuals and as a community of faith.

 

            When the Council of Nicaea met, they were emerging from a time when Christianity had been illegal and entering a time when it was gaining official support from emperor Constantine and his eventual successors (which would prove to have its own drawbacks).  There was a desire to be unified in their teaching, and the creed they drew up was supposed to provide some guidelines.  What they produced was a statement that would not just speak, but sing.  And it would provide a framework for the sharing of insight of the sort Jesus had promised that the Spirit would bring from the Father.

 

“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.  He will glorify me because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.  All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” [John 16:13-15]

 

            They developed the concept, or encouraged the awareness, of God as the Trinity.  The word “trinity” is not found in the Bible, as some critics point out.  So what?  It’s a word we have developed as a shortcut for expressing an inexpressible reality that sums up a way to honor God in his fullness by celebrating what God has done in his particularity.  Let me offer an example or two, which will not be perfect analogies.  They won’t be as majestic as the Nicene Creed, nor as precise, but they will make sense in their own way, I hope.

 

            Try this one.  A tree has roots, branches (including the trunk), and leaves.  It cannot stand without the roots.  It cannot absorb nutrients and water without the roots.  The plant begins as a clump of roots and without the roots there would be no tree.  When the seedling appears, it isn’t clear whether there is a root pushing upward or if there are leaves coming out of the ground.  The trunk and branches appear as a sort of connection between roots and leaves, but then the branches start to grow and it seems like they are producing the leaves that at first seemed to come right from the roots.  Without the branches, there would be no more leaves.  (Yes, there are plants like ivy that work differently.  I said this wouldn’t be a perfect illustration.)  No branches, no leaves, and if the leaves die, the tree dies.

 

            Root, trunk, and leaf are each separate and necessary.  Under the right conditions, they each have the wherewithal to produce an entire tree, but that isn’t how it happens.  They work together simply to exist, and the existence of the whole depends on the interlocking existence of each part.

 

            Or, again, what about a candle?  You have the material side of it, the wax and the wick.  In a way, though, it isn’t fully a candle until you light it.  Up until the moment that you ignite the wick, it’s just sort of a wax stick.  But when you ignite it, the heat of a flame starts a self-perpetuating cycle where the material candle produces light and heat, and the heat keeps the reaction going until the wax is used up.  But take any part of that away, and there’s not going to be either heat or light.

 

            We live in a universe that is filled with – even defined by – these sorts of relationships between the parts and the whole.  It’s in the small things and the large things.  Knock one part of the environment out of alignment, and suddenly the whole thing either adjusts or, failing to adjust, there are extinctions on the way.  Right now we can see what happens when there are disruptions in what used to be called “the social contract” or “checks and balances”.  No natural system is exempt from change and no human system or culture is perfect.

 

            What is perfect (or should I say who is perfect) is the God whose inner being is revealed in the intricacy of the universe and the realities beyond it.  (Remember that the Nicene Creed even speaks of God as “Creator of all that is, seen and unseen”.)  There is, within the divine being, a mutuality of love that overflows into the created world to bring us grace and hope and joy and peace and, yes, understanding of God’s love.  Again, Jesus said,

 

“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.  He will glorify me because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.  All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” [John 16:14-15]

 

We don’t have adequate words to express the full wonder of God and when we try we generally either start blundering around in a lot of academic terminology or oversimplify things in ways that also present a problem.  But we know that when we love God’s children, we love God; we are made in the image of God, which means we are made to live beyond ourselves, since the ultimate expression of the Father’s love is how the Son, through the action of the Holy Spirit, came to earth and lived beyond himself, for us, in Jesus.