Sermon: Reformation in 2020

Full service here.

Reformation Sunday

October 25, 2020

Jeremiah 31:31-34

 

INTRODUCTION

         Happy Reformation Day! This is one of the few days of the church year where we get the exact same lineup of texts assigned every single year (the other being Christmas Eve). And each is chosen with its particular connection to Reformation Day, the day we remember Martin Luther first posting his 95 Theses on the door of the church, 95 ways he felt the Church needed to change, which started more than the conversation he intended it to: it started a revolution.

         So let’s look at these texts: first, we’ll hear from Jeremiah, in this lovely text that assures us that our sins will be forgotten by God. So much of Luther’s initial complaint was about the issue of indulgences, and the expectation that people must pay money or do certain things in order to be saved, but here Jeremiah says that God is forgiving, and “remembers our sin no more.” Psalm 46 is the text on which Martin Luther based his epic hymn text, A Mighty Fortress. The hymn is decidedly a paraphrase, but see if you can find some of the similar imagery as you hear the Psalm in a moment, and as we sing the hymn later.

         The Romans reading is what finally smacked Luther over the head about the true Gospel of Jesus Christ: that a person is justified, or saved, not by works (such as buying indulgences, or even good deeds) but by faith alone. And finally in John, Jesus promises that the truth of this gospel message is indeed what sets us free from our enslavement to sin, and allows us to live freely in love.

         As you listen, hear the abundance of good news in these texts! Reformation is a day when we really devote ourselves to celebrating the essence of the gospel: that we are saved by Christ’s acts, not our own, that we live in grace, that we are free from death. Hear this life-giving message for you this day! Let’s listen.

[READ]

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

         The second wave of a deadly illness is sweeping through the land, killing hundreds of thousands, even millions of people.

         New technology is revolutionizing communication, making the spread of information with large numbers of people easier and more accessible.

         And the ways the Church has operated for hundreds of years are being turned on their head, challenged, even completely changed.

         No, I’m not talking about 2020. I’m talking about the Reformation in the 16^th century. The parallels are eerie this Reformation Day, as it feels like we are enduring our own sort of reformation right now. Instead of the bubonic plague, we have Covid-19. Instead of the printing press disseminating information at dramatically increased levels, we have all manner of social media. Instead of changes in the Church such as worshiping in the vernacular and making communion more accessible to the laity, we are worshiping online and getting creative about how we can make communion once again accessible to the laity.

As a result, this year I’ve found I have more empathy for the emotional burden of the Reformation of the 1500s. Though now we deck out in festive red and sing triumphant songs on this day each year, we are also all too aware, perhaps this year more than any previous year, that reformation is really, really hard, often quite painful, and frankly, exhausting. It requires losing things we had counted on, and learning a lot of new things, and new ways of doing things. And change, even in our personal lives, often comes with as much (or more) grief as it does excitement, but on a national or even global level, an entire reformation changing the very functioning of society, all the more! So when the ground is shifting beneath us on a daily basis… where can we find something solid?

I love these words from Jeremiah, about how God’s law and promises will be written on our hearts – right where we cannot forget them. And when I’m searching for that solid ground we so badly crave during so much reformation, I find I return to those things that God has written on my heart, those things I know deep in my being. I remember some nights when Grace was a baby, and sleep just wouldn’t come. I’d rock her and sing all the songs I knew, and often the songs that came to mind were the ones we sing in the liturgy – the songs and texts written on my heart from a very early age. I’d sing her Kyries and Lamb of Gods and parts of evening prayer. I sang her the Lord’s Prayer. As I sang them, she would calm down, because I would calm down – returning to our solid ground has that effect on us. I sang these songs as a child, they are the ones that came to mind without even trying when I was calming a fussy baby, and these will be the last songs I am singing someday in a nursing home (or maybe that Grace will be singing to me)! They are the promises of God that ground me in shifting sand, that comfort me in uncertainty, that sustain me in exhaustion – they are the promises that are written on my heart.

         “I will put my law within them,” God says to Israel, “and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” What has God written on your heart? What has God written that no pandemic, or economic crisis, or election, or social unrest can take away? What is your solid foundation during times of reformation?

         Most essentially, is what Jeremiah just said: “and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” Isn’t this a remarkable promise? Jeremiah is speaking to a rebellious people who have really blown it a number of times. And yet, God still says, “I know times are tough right now and the future looks grim. I know things haven’t been perfect, but know this: I have not given up on you, nor will I. I am not going anywhere.” To me, this is perhaps the promise written most deeply on my heart, a promise we all received in baptism: that God will never ever let us go. That whatever earthly foundations may shake, God remains trustworthy and true. In short, God has got this.

         With that promise securely etched on our hearts, we can start to find some more. One that is helpful to me right now is from Romans. “There is no distinction,” Paul writes, “for all have fallen short of the glory of God.” Now, that alone may or may not bring you much comfort, but it actually does me because it is a reality check. When anxiety is high, patience is low, and rage is increasingly a norm, it helps me to remember: everyone messes up. Even me. Even you. We are in the same boat. “We are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves,” to quote those words of the liturgy that have been etched on my heart since before I could talk. Such a recognition moves us from a place of self-righteousness to a place of empathy, if we’ll let it!

But the foundational good news comes in the next part: “they are now justified by his grace as gift, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ.” I know Paul’s writing can be hard to follow at times, so let me make this clear: even though we can all be real jerks sometimes, and frequently fall short of what God had hoped for us, God still makes things right, forgives our sins, longs to be in relationship with us, promises us salvation, and does all of this not because we have earned it or deserve it, but because Christ has. Furthermore, that goes for you, for your neighbor with the wrong yard signs, for that troll on social media, for your crazy uncle – we have all fallen short of the glory of God, every last one of us, and Jesus has brought all of us back into relationship with God, even so.

         Those are a couple of things that are written on my heart, a couple of truths that hold me steady when the world around me is changing, sometimes in ways I like and sometimes in ways that terrify me. When hoards of devils fill the land and threaten to devour us, we can stand unmoved in our God’s promise we belong to Him, and He to us, and nothing can change that. When we are ashamed at how we have acted or not acted, or said something we know was hurtful, or just get too big for our britches, we know that God’s grace is big enough to hold us still, that we are still beloved and forgiven. Furthermore, we know that this is not because of us, but because of Christ, so there is nothing we can do to change it. Christ is made our sure foundation.

         When we know these truths, we can hold them against the deluge of false information and phony promises the world offers us. With these truths written on our hearts, we are freed from the fears, anxieties, and rage that would try to drag us under, or would shake our foundations. We are freed, even as the world changes all around us, to stand strong and firm in the knowledge that God has got all of this under control.

Let us pray… Steadfast God, the world is changing and reforming all around us, and it is unsettling. Help us to trust the truths you have written on our hearts, and to find our foundation in you. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Sermon: Navigating being a Christian and a Citizen (October 18, 2020)

Full service here. 

Pentecost 20A

October 18, 2020

Matthew 22:15-22

 

INTRODUCTION

         Religion and politics. The two things you should never talk about in polite company, right? And certainly not together! Yet today the lectionary brings these two together in an undeniable way. In the Isaiah text, the prophet announces that God is using a Gentile, the Persian king Cyrus, to bring about God’s purpose of bringing the Israelites back from exile. It’s a story by which we see how God can use even an unfaithful ruler to bring about God’s plan.

Then in Matthew, some Jewish leaders try to trick Jesus again with a question about taxation, and whether taxes should be paid to the emperor, the king. It doesn’t get much more political than that! As usual, Jesus is not caught in their trap. But the exchange brings to mind how it is that we are called to live as both people of faith, and people who are a part of a political society.

As you listen today, consider how your identity as a citizen and your identity as a Christian complement or enhance each other – or how they don’t – and what scripture might be saying about how to balance these dual identities. Let’s listen.  

[READ]

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

The Pharisees and the Herodians were not friends. The Herodians were followers of Herod, collaborators with the oppressive Roman government. And the Pharisees were the very religious Jewish leaders, who were being oppressed by said government. They didn’t agree on much, but one thing they could agree on was that Jesus was trouble, and so they work together to devise this trap for him, first flattering him and his teachings, and then asking him if it is lawful to pay taxes to the emperor. It’s a good trap: if he says no, they shouldn’t pay taxes, then the Herodians will brand him a revolutionary, and get him for breaking the law and rising up against the Roman government. On the other hand, if he says yes to paying taxes, he will be a traitor to the Jewish people who are being oppressed by this very tax. Either way, Jesus is toast.

         Except, Jesus is too clever for their trap. First, he calls them out, tells them he knows what they are trying to do. “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites?” Then he tells them to take out a coin – and in doing so, he spins the situation against the accusers. When they present the coin, he asks, “Whose face is on it?” It is Caesar’s – and in admitting that, the Pharisees are caught red-handed. There, on the heads side of the coin is indeed the head of Emperor Tiberius with the words, “Tiberius Caesar Augustus, son of the divine Augustus.” In other words, “King Tiberius, son of a god.” Merely by having the coin in their possession, they have broken the first commandment to have no other gods, and the bit about graven images, and pledged allegiance to something and someone other than God. In the context, this “gotcha” moment would have been clear to all involved.

         Still, Jesus goes on to explain. Caesar’s face is on there, he says, so it’s his. “Give back to the emperor what is the emperor’s,” he says. His response is so contemporary – though of course we no longer have an emperor, our 21^st century minds substitute for that our own government and tax system, in which the law requires we give money to the government, to our own sort of “Caesar.” We need not get into a conversation about tax policy here and now – I think it is clear enough that the mere reality of putting a significant portion of our income toward taxes, and our agreement or disagreement about who pays that, how much money it is, and how it is used, strikes enough of a nerve to still get the point across today.

         In fact, the issue of paying taxes hits so close to home, that sometimes we miss the real climax of this passage, which comes in Jesus’ next words: “and [give back] to God what is God’s.” The concept of giving back to Caesar may be controversial, but it is at least fairly clear-cut, but this statement about God leaves room for question. What is God’s, exactly, that we should give it back?

         You may immediately think, “Well everything belongs to God!” and you would be right, but Jesus’ words are even more specific than that. The clue is actually back in the first part of Jesus’ statement, as he explains what should go back to Caesar and why. The currency used to pay the emperor his tax is a coin, specifically a coin with the emperor’s head engraved on it. So, when Jesus has them pull out one of the coins and asks, “Whose image is on this coin, and whose likeness?” it is very obvious to whom that coin belongs, to whom it should be returned.

So, if a coin is the currency by which we give back to the emperor, what is the currency by which we give back to God? If we are to follow the same logic, it is that which bears the image and likeness of God. What could that be?

 “Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness. … So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God, he created them.” It’s right there in the book of Genesis: we are the currency, you see, by which we give back to God. We are – our hearts, our minds, our strength, our souls, all that is in us, all that God first gave to us – we are the means by which we give back to God. From our very creation we have borne the image of God in our very being. In our baptism we were marked again with this image when a cross was traced on our foreheads with the words, “You have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.” God is our being. Christ is engraved upon us. When we give to God, we give all of us – our selves, our time, and our possessions.

We’ll be talking more about giving our possessions and time in a couple weeks when we begin our stewardship campaign. Watch in the mail and email for info on that at the end of the month. But today let’s spend a bit of time exploring that first part – giving our selves, our made-in-God’s-image, marked-with-the-cross-of-Christ selves. How do we give ourselves?

One thing that is likely on all of our minds right now is the upcoming election, and our political life right now. It’s pretty clear in this text that a life of faith and civic life exist side by side, or may even be intertwined. And if we are image-bearers of our Creator everywhere we go, then our spiritual lives and our civic lives must cohere – that includes when we vote in an election, when we discuss political views, when we donate to a campaign, or a cause, like The Children’s Agenda. For a God-image-bearer, it is necessary always to ask ourselves, “Does this action I’m taking as a citizen also reflect the God whose image I bear?” Does it show selfless love? Does it lift up the most vulnerable, and the broken-hearted? Does it break down walls and build tables, where enemies may gather to break bread together, and have humble, loving conversation?

Today is a part of Children’s Interfaith Weekend, organized by The Children’s Agenda. It is the Sunday each year when faith communities in our area commit to writing letters on behalf of vulnerable children, and donate money and goods. Advocacy for children, in this case writing letters urging the governor to include funding in the budget for early intervention for kids with developmental delays and disabilities, is the perfect example of how our faith and our citizenship coincide. We are driven by our faith to speak up on behalf of the vulnerable in our community, just as Jesus did. (Jen will talk more about this during Moments for Mission!)

Another area of public life where we are called to be God’s image-bearers is in our daily discourse. In this divisive context, with such high stakes, I think many of us have grown quicker to judge, to label, and to discount someone else’s perspective, or even the actual person who doesn’t believe or support the right people or causes. But if we are bearers of the image of God, giving to God what belongs to him, how does that change our discourse? For starters, it requires us to listen to one another with genuine curiosity and compassion, something we just don’t see much of these days. It means offering grace and generosity to one another, something Jesus has done for us though we certainly have not deserved it.

That’s pretty tough these days! Paying taxes seems like the easy part, huh? The work of living out our political convictions with a Christlike humility, with compassion for our political others, is much more difficult. If we belong to God, and are indeed always striving to give God back what is rightfully God’s, then we must practice our faith and even our politics in ways that reflect who God is – regardless of whether we like or agree with our political leaders. To commit to doing this is not being dishonest or backing down from our deeply held beliefs. It is a matter of remembering the traits of the God whose image we bear.

As surely as Caesar’s image is stamped and engraved on a denarius, the image of God has been stamped upon us, upon our hearts, upon our lives. That image is of a God who is endlessly loving, merciful and compassionate. As Christ gave everything for us, so that we would have life, may we who bear that image bear it also to the world, in what we say, do, how we vote, and how we treat one another, and in so doing, may we bring life and light into the world.

Let us pray… Lord of all, you have created us in your image and marked us with the cross of Christ. Help us to live out this image in the church and in the world, guiding each of our decisions and actions toward your praise. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Sermon: Finding God in a difficult parable (Oct. 11, 2020)

 Full service here.

Pentecost 19A

October 11, 2020

Matthew 22:1-14

 

INTRODUCTION

         Today Jesus continues to share parables meant to challenge the religious elites of the day – but they are no less challenging for us still, in 2020. Today’s parable is particularly difficult, as it paints a picture that seems like it should describe God, inviting everyone to a royal feast, but it ends up looking very little like the God we know and love and worship.

         The other three readings are far more immediately edifying. Isaiah will also speak of a rich and satisfying feast, at which God will wipe away tears, and at which we will rejoice and be glad in his salvation. Psalm 23 describes a table set for us in the presence of our enemies, in which our cup will overflow with goodness. Even Philippians, while not about a feast, is about rejoicing, and praise, and relishing in the goodness of Christ, who will guard our hearts and minds, and whose peace surpasses all understanding.

Hold tightly to the promises you hear in those first three readings, friends. Then, as you listen to the difficult gospel lesson, be guided by the question that best guides all of Jesus’ parables: what does this story show us about who God is, or perhaps, who God isn’t. Let’s listen.

[READ]

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

         I’ll admit, this is not my favorite parable. As I struggled with it this week, I looked back to previous years of sermons for inspiration, and turns out, I have never preached on it. And no wonder: just looking at the gruesome details of the story itself, with its violence, destruction, and judgment, it is… not a very uplifting story.

         And then there is the interpretation of it. The traditional reading is an allegory in which the king is God, the original guests are the Jews, the servants are prophets, and those who finally do come (and commit to wearing the right clothes) are the gentiles who come to Christ and commit to their baptismal promises (a wedding garment was likely not unlike a baptismal garment). It is straightforward, simple, but the supersession of the Jews with that reading is troubling. What it comes down to for me, really, is that if the king is supposed to be God here… then that is a God who is not familiar to me. Where is the mercy, the compassion? The slowness to anger, and the abounding in steadfast love? The king in this parable is more like the tyrannical kings, like Herod, that Jesus spoke out against. Why would the kingdom of God be compared to that sort of king?

         I found some hope in one commentary I read this week that said that while we can’t simply dismiss an allegorical reading, we also don’t need to take it as the only reading. This interpretation may well have worked for Matthew in his particular ecclesial community, but for us 2000 years later, we may need a different interpretive lens to see the life and good news here.

         So, let’s shake it off for a second, shake off any baggage about this parable, and then maybe turn the parable upside down or sideways, to see it from a different angle, with new eyes, and see what God might be saying to us today. We know that Jesus often told explosive and exaggerated stories to make his point more obvious, so that’s likely happening here. We also know the good news of Christ does not secure our salvation and comfort at the expense of others, but rather, is inclusive, radical, and often disruptive and earth-shattering. (In fact, just a few chapters after this, Matthew’s version of the resurrection story will actually include an earthquake – the good news is literally earth-shaking!) So how might we find this good news, this life-giving, earth-shattering Jesus, in the story?

         Let’s start with this possibility: what if the king is not the God figure in this story? I mean, just picture this scene: the king in this story is so thin-skinned, he would use his armies against his own people, beating them down, killing them, and burning down the city, all to appease his wounded ego after no one showed up for his party. (And by the way, why wouldn’t people accept an invitation to a royal wedding? What’s up with that? Who would pass that up, unless it was some sort of protest? Or maybe fear?) Then, having filled the people with the fear of retribution, he coerces them to come to his party, celebrate his son, and have a good time doing it, doggone it – even as his armies are wreaking havoc and destruction on their city right outside. This is all horrifying to imagine, but then the clincher, this king throws one guest out, bound, into the outer darkness, simply for not dressing right, for not following the rules? Isn’t God all about helping those who lack, healing the sick in body and spirit, and bringing in the outcasts and sinners – not casting them out into the outer darkness?

Does this sound like our God? It sounds more to me like some of the tyrannical earthly leaders of the world, than our loving God of compassion and life.

         So, if the king isn’t God, who is the God figure in this parable?

What if… it is that one guest who will not submit to the terms of this tyrannical king, the one who refuses to wear a wedding garment for this forced celebration? The one whose silent resistance renders the king speechless, and brings this whole sham banquet to a standstill? The one courageous guest who is willing to be “bound hand and foot” and thrown out into the outer darkness – into Gethsemane, Calvary, the cross, the grave – rather than accept the authority and tyranny of a violent and loveless king?

         Now, I may be way off. This may not at all be how Matthew intended this parable to be read. But parables don’t have a “correct” interpretation; their purpose is to draw us in, to help us to see God and know God. Some parables show us who God is, and some parables show us who God isn’t. And the God I know, whom I love and who has loved me immeasurably though I frequently miss God’s invitations, or show up without my proverbial wedding garment, that God does not look like the king in this story. My God looks much more like the one willing to sacrifice everything to stare down the tyrants and boldly say, “No. This is not of God, and I will not submit to it.” And, we know, our God will not, finally be defeated by a mere outer darkness, but will find a way to turn even that into new life.

         God does look like this king in one way, though: our God, too, invites us to the king’s banquet. But the banquet to which our God invites us is one of grace. It is one that says, “Come as you are, come ready to receive God’s gracious love and forgiveness.” As our hymn in a moment will say, God’s celebration is one in which we are “dressed no more in spirit somber, clothed instead in joy and wonder; for the Lord of all existence, putting off divine transcendence, stoops again in love to meet us, with his very life to feed us.” That is our God: who loves us and feeds us with his very life, forgiving our sins and inviting us into life everlasting.

         This God is trustworthy and true, my friends. As many of you receive the bread and wine, the concrete expressions of this promise, today after worship, know that you receive Christ himself, regardless of whatever burdens you bear. If you do not receive these physical elements this day, know that you, too, are inheritors of this promise: forgiveness of sin, life, and salvation. Thanks be to God.

         Let us pray… Loving, gracious God, you invite us to the wedding feast that has no end, as we celebrate the love, forgiveness, and everlasting life given to us by your Son. Thank you for stooping to meet us once again, and for feeding us with your very life. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Sermon: Faithfulness when emotions are complex (October 4, 2020)

Full service can be viewed here.

Pentecost 18A

October 4, 2020

Matthew 21:33-46

Philippians 3:4b-14

INTRODUCTION

Today’s Gospel will pick up right where we left off last week. You remember, Jesus has just marched triumphantly into Jerusalem (on Palm Sunday), has turned over the money-changers tables in the temple, and has generally upset the authorities. They have just asked him, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you that authority?” Jesus responded with a trick question that they couldn’t (or wouldn’t) answer, and then a parable that calls out the religious and political authorities on the ways they have not fulfilled their duty to God. And now he will tell another parable, about wicked tenants who are called upon to care for a vineyard, but who are not merely negligent, but actively work against God’s kingdom. Jesus is not making any friends here – Matthew tells us that the chief priests and Pharisees start looking for a way to arrest him. 

The Isaiah text will pick up on the vineyard theme, with a parable and love-song about how God cared for this vineyard and hoped for great things for it, but has been disappointed that it yields only wild, sour grapes. God is so grieved, he rips out the lot of it. 

Both texts are about how people have squandered God’s providence, neglecting to seek justice and love. Neither of these delivers much in the way of good news, but you will find some solace and hope in the epistle, about how nothing we do or don’t do is more powerful than what Christ has done for us. As you listen, dwell in the hope of this promise! Let’s listen.

[READ]

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

On Thursday, news broke that one of President Trump’s closest advisors, who had been with him, unmasked, on Air Force One, had tested positive for Covid-19. By Friday morning, news had spread that both the President and the First Lady had also tested positive. On Saturday news broke that the president was showing symptoms as early as Wednesday. This weekend, we’ve learned of several people in Trump’s inner circle who have also tested positive, and many others who had close contact are at risk, including Vice President Joe Biden, and Amy Coney Barrett, whose formal nomination for the Supreme Court during an event in the Rose Garden last weekend is now suspected to have been a super-spreader event. It’s very unnerving that the most protected couple in the country, if not the world, is just as vulnerable to this virus as the rest of us.

As anyone could have predicted, in a country where feelings about the president and his administration range from devoted love to raging hatred, the responses to this news have been varied. I’m sure you have seen, as I have, the whole gamut, from deep concern on one end, to rejoicing on the other, to a shrug and recognition of irony saying, “That’s too bad, but he brought it on himself – I’m surprised it took this long.” 

Some in our country are feeling angry. They’ve been frustrated all along that the president has been holding large, unmasked rallies, and has been inconsistent at best about wearing a mask, even mocking Joe Biden just this week for wearing a mask as often as he does. And now this negligence has placed hundreds of people, including much of our government, at risk. Some people are even further discouraged that the vulnerable public can’t seem to get any straight answers about who knew what and when, and what the president’s health status actually is. This anger, I think, is justified.

        On the other hand, many are taking seriously the biblical mandate to “pray for kings and those in high positions,” and are now doubling down on their prayers, perhaps including not only the Trumps, but also adding the increasing number of people on Capitol Hill who are testing positive or are in harm’s way. This is a good and faithful response. We don’t want any of God’s children to suffer, regardless of how we feel about them, and it is our duty as people as faith who are also citizens to pray for the president, both in sickness and in health. This is a good and faithful response.

        But I suspect for many Christians, people who are called upon to love and pray for our neighbor, there is actually a mixture of feelings going on – the ones I mentioned and a million others. How do you pray for the well-being of someone at whom you are enraged for their reckless endangerment of others? And even if that doesn’t describe you, I’ll add this: that while this is a Very Big and Important example, it is also not the only example of Christians being faced with the question of trying to produce the fruits of the kingdom in the midst of emotionally complex situations. We have all experienced that at some point!

        “Produce the fruits of the kingdom” – that’s what Jesus is ultimately talking about in our Gospel reading today. The parable he tells is a difficult one, at least it is if we take it seriously and don’t assume that we couldn’t possibly be the wicked tenants in the story, the ones who have shunned God’s messengers and reviled them and not taken them seriously. I assure you, we have all, at some point, been confronted with God’s word, God’s call, God’s intention for the world and for us and said, “Nah, no thanks,” and done instead whatever it is that best serves us and our earthly desires. I know this because we are, all of us, captive to sin and cannot free ourselves. We all make mistakes. We all think thoughts and do things we know are not what God would want. We all understand Paul’s lament when he says, “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” So how, in emotionally complex situations, and with our sinful nature always within us, do we act in a way that produces the fruits of the kingdom? 

First, we need to know: what are those fruits? And I think we all have a pretty good idea. Think: what do we believe is true, in God’s kingdom? That is, God’s eternal kingdom, but also the kingdom we pray would come to earth as in heaven, so that even now in this life we would be living as God intended. What orders such a godly life? 

        Well the first fruit of a godly life is… life! That’s what God is all about, after all, what he intended to give us by being born and dying and rising again. So a fruit of the kingdom is anything that brings about a fuller life, especially for those most in need. That is a consistent message of the prophets (traditionally understood to be represented in this parable by the servants the landowner sends to collect the harvest). The prophets preach a return to God’s path: care for the poor, release to the captives, freedom for the oppressed. In short, life, for those on the margins.

        Another obvious fruit of the kingdom is love. Love of God and neighbor is a central commandment throughout the Hebrew Bible and of course in Jesus’ own teachings it is named as the commandment on which all the other commandments hang. That means love for those easy to love, of course, as well as those who are difficult to love, our so-called enemies – people with whom we disagree on important issues, people who aren’t taking simple measures to keep others healthy during a pandemic, people who make racist comments, people who are too obsessed with being politically correct, people who wish to undermine your rights or the rights of others you care about. Love them all, God says. This is a fruit of the kingdom. 

And of course, Paul lays out nine fruits of the Spirit, that could also be considered fruits of the kingdom: in addition to love, also joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control. Oh, some of those are particularly hard to harness when we are feeling so many complex emotions!

        Okay, so with all that in mind, how does a God-fearing Christian who wants to produce fruits of the kingdom respond when a divisive President is diagnosed with a deadly virus, or when any situation arises in which our own emotions make it hard to be God’s kingdom people?

        A good first response, I think, is always repentance. It is always important to recognize, as I said earlier, that we are all sinners in need of God’s grace, we have all fallen short of the glory of God. Starting with repentance puts us in a space of humility, which is always more likely to produce fruit of the kingdom.

        The next response is to pray. I suggest we start by praying for ourselves, that God would guide our thoughts, words and deeds, and not let the evil of sin guide our ways. If you aren’t sure even then what to pray, draw on the Holy Spirit, who God promised would “intercede for us with sighs too deep for words.” If you just need to sigh deeply for a while, letting the Spirit supply the words, God will surely hear those prayers, and you will surely not regret the additional oxygen, proven to lower anxiety! If you would prefer to have some words to pray, “thy will be done” is always a good and faithful option.

        If you are in a place to pray more words, remember that God is foremost a God of life. So pray for life, and whatever it is that will bring that about most fully. One colleague of mine offered this prayer: “God of healing, God of shalom, we pray a prayer of healing and a release of bondage for the President of the US. We pray that he may be healed and released from all infirmities that hold him in bondage, including Covid-19, so that he may be transformed.” I’d be delighted if someone prayed that prayer for me – Lord knows I have plenty that is holding me captive, plenty of need for healing of body and soul, and a constant desire to be transformed into the woman God has envisioned for me to be. So as you pray, let an underlying hope for life and for transformation guide whatever prayers or interactions you have in response to the news or any challenging situation.

        People of God, take a deep breath. Truly, do it right now. The whole country – the whole world! – is anxious right now. You know what is causing your anxiety, and no matter what it is, that anxiety is real and it is holding us back from producing fruits of the kingdom. Then, dear friends, remember that God is a God of life and of love, and so whatever it is that you have, or have lost, whatever credentials you may or may not have, none of that can affect God’s love for you, or your salvation that is from Christ. Our righteousness, as Paul writes to the Philippians, is from Christ, not from our own actions. So: give yourself a break. If you are not proud of the way you have acted, or spoken, or how you feel about this week’s news, know that Jesus still loves you, and that your righteousness comes through faith in Christ, not your own merits. God’s grace has got us covered.

        And so, knowing that, we press on, trusting that Christ has made us his own, and has shown us the way toward life. May we ever seek to attain such life, for ourselves, for our enemies, and for all the vulnerable, all of whom God loves so very much. 

        Let us pray… Forgiving God, we are wretches who are deserving of a miserable death, yet you love us anyway. Draw us out of our fears and anxieties, out of our human captivity to sin, and into a life that produces the fruit of the kingdom. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.