Daily Devotions

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth.

Worship the Lord with gladness; come into his presence with singing.

Know that the Lord is God. It is he that made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him, bless his name.

For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations. Psalm 100:1-5

A friend of mine and I are out of town today. We are taking a couple of days off to ride through Texas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. Anticipating being gone, I actually wrote today’s devotion earlier this week. We will be back on Saturday afternoon so we can be in worship on Sunday morning.

Through the years I have noticed that I never really feel like I am back home, after having been away, until I get a Sunday morning under my belt. Sunday morning worship has been a part of the rhythms of my life since my sophomore year in college and certainly since I became a pastor. It is seeing the people. Listening to music and singing. The movement of the liturgy, whether traditional or contemporary. Praying the Lord’s Prayer in a crowd. Those quiet moments immediately before and after receiving Holy Communion. The feeling of “sent-ness” that comes at the end. I sense God and I find myself in worship.

Back in the long haired playing guitar at Bible camp days, we used to sing a song based on Psalm 100. I can’t read the words of this psalm without thinking about that song. It was boisterous and fun. We sang it full throated with smiles on our faces. This ancient song of the faithful still sings!

I remember the days that people used to call the “worship wars.” Such a strange dynamic and such an unfortunate way of talking about worship. Of course I have always been a fan of making room for guitars and drums and microphones in worship alongside organs and pianos and chimes and bells. Through those years I kept remembering the voices of kids at camp saying “Why can’t regular church be more like this?” Well, it can. And it can’t.

Sunday morning worship can never recreate the excitement of being with a bunch of other kids for a week away from home, filled with fully programmed activities designed to impact kids. But even on Sunday morning, the most important musical instruments will always and forever be human voices singing together, driven by the passion of our hearts and minds.

We’re learning that now.

We’re learning that worship as entertainment doesn’t work nearly as well as people thought it might. Few congregations can duplicate the levels of entertainment that people have come to expect. And those that do are beginning to question the depth to which seeds of faith are being planted. Younger people are starting to smell a rat. They are looking for something deeper. And still we sing Psalm 100.

I’ll bet that there are still Lutheran congregations in the Midwest who sing in four part harmony. There are still people who can sing many hymns without looking at the book or the screens in front of the room. But the times are a changing. And still they sing Psalm 100.

I love this line – I don’t know what the future holds but I know Who holds the future. And I know that God will always welcome us home as we come into his presence with singing.

Let us pray: Gracious Lord, put a song in our hearts today. Put a song in our hearts that encourages us and reminds us of your goodness, your power, your compassion, and your grace. Bring us home to worship on Sunday morning with hearts full of gratitude and expectation. Shine through the faces that greet us. Speak to us through lyrics, through scripture, through prayer, and yes, even through preaching. We ARE your people. We trust your promises. We are at home with you. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

They brought in the ark of God, and set it inside the tent that David had pitched for it; and they offered burnt offerings and offerings of well-being before God. When David had finished offering the burnt offerings and the offerings of well-being, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord; and he distributed to every person in Israel—man and woman alike—to each a loaf of bread, a portion of meat, and a cake of raisins.

He appointed certain of the Levites as ministers before the ark of the Lord, to invoke, to thank, and to praise the Lord, the God of Israel. Asaph was the chief, and second to him Zechariah, Jeiel, Shemiramoth, Jehiel, Mattithiah, Eliab, Benaiah, Obed-edom, and Jeiel, with harps and lyres; Asaph was to sound the cymbals, and the priests Benaiah and Jahaziel were to blow trumpets regularly, before the ark of the covenant of God. 1 Chronicles 16:1-6

Sometimes I worry about the future of local congregations. Not the church as the Body of Christ, I trust that will endure until the last day. I worry about the future of local congregations as we have known them. They have been getting smaller and older for years.

There has never been a time in my life, even those years when I had nothing much to do with the church, that there weren’t many congregations around me. All communities of people with histories and futures. Buildings and programming. Cornerstones of community life.

I happened to stumble upon the Lutheran church when I was in college. A Lutheran college begun by farmers who wanted their children to have a good education. I was warmly received. I was accepted at a seminary built by immigrants who understood the value of well educated pastors. Due to their vision and generosity, I was provided with a good, affordable, education. A congregation in Cheyenne, WY, welcomed me for a year of internship. First one, then two, then three congregations in Houston have called me to serve them. I have always felt the shoulders of the giants before me upon which I stand. I have always wanted to return the favor to those that follow. But I worry.

How many articles have I read through the years about how people are losing faith, not in Jesus, but in the local congregation? The days of “oh, they’ll come back when they have children” seem to be going quickly away. “We’re losing the millennials!” the articles tell us. Why? Usually the blame rests on the local congregations. I don’t buy it.

Seldom does anyone note that it takes work to get up every Sunday morning in time for worship. It takes time to volunteer doing things to make a local congregation function. It takes money to pay the bills of the staff and the building. And even more money as local congregations pitch in for community efforts to help the homeless, the hungry, the victims of disasters, as well as other ministries like colleges, seminaries, missionaries, etc. It takes work, time, and money that are all voluntary. It is far easier to sleep in, let someone else do it, and keep all of our money to ourselves. So I worry.

Then I watch the resurrection happen again on Sunday morning as, once again, the people gather. People who have been around their whole lives, and people who are brand new. And I remember that it is the Holy Spirit who calls and gathers the Christian church. My hope is renewed.

David gathered the people together in the wilderness. He set up a tent for worship. They didn’t have air conditioning but I trust they still appreciated getting out of the sun. He brought the ark, the very presence of God, into the presence of the people. They celebrated with worship and a barbeque. He set aside some people for service in the worship life of the people. They did church. Simple. Gathering, worshiping, eating, celebrating, and moving on with life. And we are still doing it today. My hope is renewed.

Let us pray: Dear Lord, we take so much for granted in life. In every age you raise up people who shepherd the worship lives of your people. You raise up people committed to carrying on the work of Jesus. You raise up people who delight in their heritage and devote themselves on your future. Thank you for local gatherings of Christians, for congregations of every flavor and stripe. Thank you for creating so many spaces that invite us to give of ourselves, our time, our talents, and our treasures in blessing the world with reminders of your presence. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Hannah prayed and said, “My heart exults in the Lord; my strength is exalted in my God. My mouth derides my enemies, because I rejoice in my victory. There is no Holy One like the Lord, no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God. Talk no more so very proudly, let not arrogance come from your mouth; for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.

The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble gird on strength. Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry are fat with spoil. The barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn. The Lord kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up. The Lord makes poor and makes rich; he brings low, he also exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, and on them he has set the world.

He will guard the feet of his faithful ones, but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness; for not by might does one prevail. The Lord! His adversaries shall be shattered; the Most High will thunder in heaven. The Lord will judge the ends of the earth; he will give strength to his king, and exalt the power of his anointed.” 1 Samuel 2:1-10

As this 2^nd chapter opens, Hannah is praising God for hearing her prayers and blessing her with the birth of her son, Samuel. Now she has shown up to fulfill her promise. She will leave Samuel in the care of the priest, Eli. This is a profound moment and painful for our modern ears to hear.

After years of wanting a child, years of feeling “less than” her husband’s other wife, Hannah had prayed fervently for a child. Eventually her prayers took her to the place that we sometimes take ours – striking a deal with God. “Lord, if you give me a child, then I promise that I will offer him to your service.”

These are dangerous prayers. They turn God into Santa Claus as we bring our wish lists and promises to be good little boys and girls. The danger comes when we either get what was ask and then take back our promise or when we don’t get what we want and we come away resentful. Expectations are seeds for future resentment. Resentments damage relationships.

But Hannah bore no resentment. She is keeping her promise, handing her little boy over to the priest. Who could do that?

The truth is that people do that far more often than we realize. Birth parents hand newborns over to the care and keeping of adoptive parents. It is an act of the deepest self-giving love, as is the act of receiving an adoptive child.

This fall we sent Kelley’s daughter off to college. It is part of the letting go and moving on process of parenting. It isn’t easy. It is scary. And it is right. It is the way of things. It is what children and parents do. We’re sent off in God’s care and keeping, to fulfill the callings that God lays on our lives.

One of the dominant themes that runs throughout the entire Bible is how God turns everything we expect upside down. You can see that in the songs of Moses and Miriam after the children of Israel cross the Red Sea (Exodus 15), repeatedly in the Psalms and wisdom literature, in the song of Mary (Luke 1), the poetry of Revelations, and here today in the song of Hannah. These are all songs full of trust that God is in, with, and under all aspects of our lives. That God will provide, will bring about justice, and that no one will ultimately be left behind.

Even if that means upsetting the apple carts of our expectations of what that might all look like.

Let us pray: Gracious Lord, we marvel at the faith of Hannah, how you sustained her throughout the painful years of her life, and how you blessed her with the birth of Samuel. She trusted you, opened her heart to you, and relied on you. Gift us with such faith, that we might see you at work, and that we might be about your work where you have planted us in the world. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

You shall eat your fill and bless the Lord your God for the good land that he has given you. Take care that you do not forget the Lord your God, by failing to keep his commandments, his ordinances, and his statutes, which I am commanding you today.

When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, an arid wasteland with poisonous snakes and scorpions. He made water flow for you from flint rock, and fed you in the wilderness with manna that your ancestors did not know, to humble you and to test you, and in the end to do you good.

Do not say to yourself, “My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.” But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today. Deuteronomy 8:10-18

I spent some time yesterday with a senior member of our congregation. She was telling me about a recent purchase she had made. It was pricey and well worth it. She told me that a friend questioned her about spending so much money. As I was listening to the story I came to her defense, “But it was YOUR money you were spending, wasn’t it?”

Without hesitation she said, “No it is not my money. It is God’s money.”

Bam. That is one of the things I appreciate about spending time with people who have been around the block a few more times than me. I always learn something.

Just last week, at our stewardship team meeting, I had led a devotion that got us thinking about what it means to say that God is the owner of everything. And then how quickly we leave such thoughts behind when we start talking about money and property and taxes. Last week I made my points with the group…and then yesterday I was reminded of how quickly I too can get my thinking all twisted up.

It is a constant challenge, isn’t it? We might even pray to God for help along the way but how quickly we forget when good things happen and we take all the credit ourselves.

It often reminds me of one of those poems that every child learns (or used to learn):

Little Jack Horner

Sat in the corner,

Eating a Christmas pie;

He put in his thumb,

And pulled out a plum,

And said ‘What a good boy am I!

I’m assuming here that Jack didn’t build the house or the chair. He didn’t bake the pie. And yet he gives himself credit for earning a moral red ribbon for accidentally sticking his thumb in a plum. “Do not say to yourself, ‘My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.’ But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth…”

Let us pray: Dear Lord, thank you for all that we have and all that we are. Thank you that we have enough and more than enough. We have plenty to share with others. We have far more than we deserve and the true riches in our lives are not what we have earned. Help us keep that straight. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ.

For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision, by putting off the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ; when you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.

And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it. Colossians 2:6-15

From the very beginning of the Christian movement there has always been tension among those who seek to follow Jesus. As often as people describe the Bible as a “rulebook” or a “guidebook” for life – which always sounds so good given our heart-felt desire for such an easy paint-by-the-numbers path through life – the unavoidable truth is that it doesn’t work that way.

The faith has always been messy. There has always been conflict around who we ought to follow as we follow Jesus. Paul lived with those controversies and tensions. He also rose above them by steadfastly pointing to Jesus, the cross, the resurrection, and the resurrected body of the church. We very well can find ourselves at different points on the circle but the center will always be Jesus. This, even the internecine arguments, must be God’s plan for us. To get us talking about things worth talking about.

In today’s reading we hear two strong arguments. That we “continue to live your lives in him [Jesus], rooted and built up in him and established in the faith,” and that we “see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe.” We get that. There is a difference between Jesus and those who would twist Jesus to their own desires. We get that. It is just hard for us to know sometimes how to tell the difference.

So what are we to do? We are to do our lives. We constantly pray “Lord, what would you have me do?” We are to be mindful this morning, and every morning, that we have been baptized into Christ. We died with Christ so that we might walk in newness of life. And what is so new about it? It is rooted in love and guided by law, not the other way around.

Let us pray: Jesus who have named and claimed us as your own. As you prayed that we might be one, we are. In you. The mysterious movement of the Holy Spirit keeps us united even as the winds around keep tossing us about. You are Lord and we are yours. Let that be enough. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Do not fret because of the wicked; do not be envious of wrongdoers, for they will soon fade like the grass, and wither like the green herb.

Trust in the Lord, and do good; so you will live in the land, and enjoy security.

Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. He will make your vindication shine like the light, and the justice of your cause like the noonday.

Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him; do not fret over those who prosper in their way, over those who carry out evil devices.

Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath. Do not fret—it leads only to evil. For the wicked shall be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land. Psalm 37:1-9

“Fret” is not a word that I often use. I doubt, in fact, that I have ever used it. It means to “be constantly or visibly worried or anxious.” It is derived from the Old English word fretan, “to eat up, to consume.” Three times in this Psalm we are told not to fret.

We are not to fret about wicked people or wrongdoers. They won’t win in the end.

We are not to fret about people who prosper by doing such evil or wrong things.

We are not to fret because it just makes us angry and eventually leads us to do evil as well.

Those are hard words to hear today as the Incitement to Fret industry seems to be working overtime. We are constantly assaulted by voices that find occasion to fret under every rock, behind every candidate, implicit in every doomsday report, over every tragedy.

Don’t fret. Easy to say, hard to do as a hurricane bears down on the eastern seaboard continuing the destruction it has already caused in places that seem so already over burdened.

My Grandma Fay was the consummate worrier. Worry was her constant companion. She worried about everything. She saw the black cloud in front of every silver lining. She worried about what it meant if she wasn’t worried about something. I remember talking to her about not worrying about things so much. It probably left her worrying about me.

The fact is, if we think that we are always the victims of everybody else’s evil schemes, if we think Candidate A or Candidate B is the golden key to make us great or the glue that makes us stronger together, we probably DO have a lot to fret about. Which is why God cautions us not to fret. What does God invite us to instead?

Trust in the Lord and do good. Take delight in the Lord, who always wins in the end and even wins in the middle if we slow down and notice. Commit our lives to the Lord’s care and keeping, where there are no term limits or back alley shenanigans. And if that doesn’t sound immediately hopeful enough to calm our worried minds, to be still before the Lord and wait patiently.

Notice also the promise in this psalm – Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Notice always that it doesn’t say that God will give us everything we desire; it says instead that God will give us the very desires for that which is truly good and satisfying. Which most likely is not getting everything we want.

Let us pray: Gracious Lord, worry and anxiety can overwhelm us. They draw our attention away from all the good happening around us and all the good you call forth from us. Help us find that quiet place, that eye of the storm, where we are safe though the winds and seas rage about us. Draw our hearts to you. Give us the patience to wait and the courage to act. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.

If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you. But ask in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind; for the doubter, being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord. James 1:2-8

We are doing a new thing this year at Faith Lutheran Church. “First Steps @ Faith” is our adult catechumenate program. “Catechumenate” is an old word. It means “a course of instruction in the basics of the Christian faith.” We currently have seven candidates, each of whom has been assigned a sponsor to guide them in their journey. We meet every Wednesday night for Bible study, conversation, and prayer. This week we talked about faith and doubt. How timely given the reading assigned to us today.

James tells anyone of us who is lacking in wisdom (you can certainly count me amongst that crew) that we ought to ask God for the wisdom we lack. So far so good. He tells us to ask in faith. I’m down with that. Saying any prayer, bringing any request to God, is an act of faith. Again, so far so good.

But then James takes it one step farther and tells us that we must ask “in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind; for the doubter, being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord.” I read that line and remembered again how is no wonder that – early in his career – Martin Luther considered James an “epistle of straw.” Here in a nutshell is why:

Luther wrote, “But to state my own opinion about it…I consider that it is not the writing of any apostle. My reasons are as follows. First: Flatly against St. Paul and all the rest of Scripture, it ascribes righteousness to works…Second, its purpose is to teach Christians, and in all this long teaching it does not once mention the Passion, the Resurrection, or the Spirit of Christ…”(From Luther’s Works, vol. 35, p. 362)

In my experience of life, faith and doubt go hand in hand. They are two sides of the same coin. In fact, I think they are necessary to one another. Faith can’t be faith without doubt – without doubt, faith would be certainty and certainty isn’t faith. Certainty is certainty…and I’m not completely certain about much at all. I will ever appreciate Frederick Buechner for calling doubt the “ants in the pants of faith.”

For Christians to shame one another – be it from James himself or some well-meaning person over coffee – because of lingering doubts is a tragedy. It is the sort of tragedy that drives our real selves into hiding so that we replace ourselves with some kind of Stepford wife plastic self of conformity and fundamental dishonesty. False pride replaces humility and sinners remain stuck in their sin. Even some of those who showed up to see Jesus off in the 28^th chapter of Matthew doubted!

It isn’t doubt that separates us from God, it is idolatry and disobedience. It is chasing after gods who are not gods or blatant disregard for the good that God would bring into our lives or into the world through us.

The real question is not “Do we have doubts?” (of course we do!) – the real question is “What are we doing with our doubts?” or “What is our doubt doing with us?”

My doubts, left to their own devices, would lead me to self-serving and self-destruction. But God has claimed me and I choose to surrender to my faith in the face of my doubts. Only then do my doubts drive me to Jesus. They drive me to the cross and the empty tomb. They drive me to the water of my baptism and the Bread and Wine through which Jesus comes to me again and again.

By the way, near the end of his life, Luther came to a new appreciation of James. But never about this particular passage. I hope I can watch them argue it out in heaven.

Let us pray: Dear Lord, honestly, it would be wonderful to be so fully possessed of your grace that we never have to feel the pangs of doubt in our lives. We could add that to the list of all sorts of other wishful thinking that will likely never come to be. So we don’t pray to rid us of all doubt. We only pray to give us the courage to trust you in all things, to turn to you in faith, to rely on your light when all we can see is darkness. For in that, we trust that you will also teach us wisdom. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see whether perhaps he would find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. He said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard it.

Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves; and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. He was teaching and saying, “Is it not written,

‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”

And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him; for they were afraid of him, because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching. And when evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city.

In the morning as they passed by, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. Then Peter remembered and said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.” Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you. So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. Mark 11:12-24

Thank you, Stephen Covey, who is credited with saying: “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” There is a lot of wisdom in that line. Even, perhaps especially, in the church.

The writer of Mark loves to emphasize the points of his storytelling by framing one story around another. Here, he begins with the lesson of the fig tree, moves into Jesus cleansing the temple, and then comes back again to the fig tree. This is as harsh as Jesus ever gets. What is the main thing in the story?

The purpose of the fig tree is to produce figs; the purpose of the temple is to focus our attention on God as we commune with God in prayer. When fig trees don’t produce fruit, they miss their purpose. When a temple is turned into a marketplace that exploits people, it has lost its purpose. That is the main thing to keep in mind.

In the world of baseball, October is about the playoffs. In the world of the church, October is about the budgeting process and preparation for annual congregational meetings. We can well understand the pressures of each. We know that the church is people, not buildings, but people like air conditioning and padded pew seats and good music and lots of things that cost money. Money doesn’t grow on fig trees. So there is lots of money pressure going on in October.

Is this story intended to make us feel guilty about raising money for fixed costs, youth trips, hurricane relief, staff salaries, homeless shelters, organ repairs, or a new parking lot? Yes, if we fail to keep the main thing the main thing. No, if we are mindful of God’s life giving activity breathing through the generosity and good intentions of God’s people.

Let’s keep the main thing the main thing.

Let us pray: Gracious Lord, it is easy for us to get all caught up on business as usual, losing sight of the real business of the church. You call us together that we might connect with you and one another, grow in our discipleship, be sent into the world to be reflections of your love, and invite others to come and see. Help us maintain our focus on you lest we too fall prey to losing ourselves in the marketplace. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

When he entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, appealing to him and saying, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, in terrible distress.” And he said to him, “I will come and cure him.”

The centurion answered, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only speak the word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and the slave does it.”

When Jesus heard him, he was amazed and said to those who followed him, “Truly I tell you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

And to the centurion Jesus said, “Go; let it be done for you according to your faith.” And the servant was healed in that hour. Matthew 8:5-13

Before I say anything about these verses, I want you to notice what is happening here.

A Roman military officer, in charge of 80-100 other soldiers, a walking talking embodiment of Roman power and oppression, the sight of whom would normally strike fear, and hatred, in the heart of a Jewish peasant, personally travels to Capernaum so he can talk to Jesus. Why? Because a beloved servant of his is ill and the centurion has nowhere else to turn.

And Jesus, who no doubt grew up fearing Roman soldiers just like poor people living on the wrong side of the tracks (which Nazareth was) sometimes grow up feeling afraid of police officers, did not hesitate a second in saying that he would come and help. Why? Because that is who Jesus is! Didn’t he tell that to his friends back in Nazareth? “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…”

Helping the servant of a Roman army officer is right up Jesus’ alley! And this is where the story gets really interesting.

The centurion suggests that Jesus doesn’t need to go out of his way and travel to the centurion’s home. The centurion suggests that Jesus could just say the word and the servant would be healed. The centurion, who understands what it means to be a person with a great deal of personal authority, already perceives in Jesus a man of even greater authority. A despised pagan Roman soldier sees what the religious people around Jesus refuse to see.

Jesus immediately picks that up. Jesus is amazed. “Truly I tell you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith.”

And then comes the kicker. Jesus says that there are people who are cocksure that they are the ones “in the know”, on the inside, most valuable players on God’s kingdom team…but the truth is, they don’t have a clue. Remember again, when Jesus spoke those words to the religious folks back in Nazareth they got so angry with him they wanted to throw him off a cliff!

Let all of this be a lesson to us today. What creates the bonds of humanity between people of different races and social classes is not power and domination, it is rather the vulnerability to admit our mutual brokenness, the humility to recognize and admit we need help, and the mutual desire to help one another toward lives of justice, wholeness, safety, and peace.

And when you hear the voices of religious people rising in indignation, pay very close attention to what they are indignant about. If their cries are self-serving, if they are about retaining rather than sharing power, if they are protecting an inhumane status quo, if they are exclusive rather than inclusive, those same voices would also probably cry out that Jesus should be thrown off a cliff.

Let us pray: Gracious Lord, you took the time to heal a Roman servant. You had room in your heart for a Roman soldier. From the cross you forgave the very soldiers who nailed you up there. Thank you that there is room in the wonderful, broken, bleeding heart of yours to continue welcoming us into your love, your forgiveness, and your hope. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, for the sake of the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus, To Timothy, my beloved child: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. I am grateful to God—whom I worship with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did—when I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy. I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you. 2 Timothy 1:1-5

The letters to Timothy come to us as words of advice, counsel, and encouragement from the Apostle Paul to a young church leader. In these opening verses, Paul names the two women who have shaped Timothy’s faith. His grandmother and his mother.

This passage sparked our conversations yesterday in two different rooms. In one, a circle of parents of young children and, in the other, the parents of middle school students. Around each circle people were given the opportunity to share stories about who along the way has shaped their faith, and how they did it. It was a privilege for me to sit in those circles and hear what people had to say.

Certainly parents and grandparents played a large role. In some families, the Christian faith was such a deep part of their identity that it wasn’t about what they did but about who they were. In other families, the children (now adults) were basically on their own. Some of the folks didn’t have much of a faith foundation at all while they were growing up.

I was particularly struck by the stories that mentioned seeing college students as camp counselors at summer camp, and even more, by the person who said she was so impressed by the other adults who came along as chaperones, taking their vacation time, to bring kids to camp and spend a week with them there. Especially those adults who had no children of their own attending.

Today there are significant questions among New Testament scholars about whether or not these letters were really written by the Apostle Paul or whether they were written by someone else paying homage to Paul by using his name. I understand those discussions and what is at stake in them but, at the end of the day, what you and I are left with is the witness to the faith inscribed in the letters themselves. That seems to be all that God needs in connecting with us. It isn’t about the “who” is sharing the faith as much as it is about the divine appointment that God has set where we are personally confronted with the witness.

No one knows anything about Lois. She is mentioned here as the mother of Eunice. We don’t know her either. But we can trust that as Lois held her little girl in her arms she dreamed of how God would bless, and use, Eunice in blessing the world. In the stories she told, in her conversation, in how they structured their time, Eunice would come to embrace the faith of her mother and later would pass the same faith down to her own son. Centuries later, you and I are also the recipients of their witness. This is how the Christian faith works.

Let us pray: Dear Lord, we are all at different places in our faith journeys. For some of us, this is all brand new. We feel like infants with so much to learn and to experience for ourselves. For others, we have been wrestling with the faith our whole lives. Thank you for those people along the way who took the time to model a faith worth following, a love worth passing along, and a purpose for living much deeper than just looking out for ourselves and surviving another day. Continue to guide us, and to walk alongside us, as you continue to bring models of faith into our lives. In Jesus’ name. Amen.