I forgot to bring my voice recorder to the pulpit, and I tried videoing my sermon using the Reels app, but evidently Reels has a 15-minute limit, so Meta didn’t save my video at all. So I offer my apologies for not having an audio file. Enjoy the read! Message presented September 13, 2026, at Mount View Presbyterian Church, Omaha, NE.
Good morning! The Lord be with you!
Well, I had forgotten I was doing the rest of the Sundays in September, so here I am with one more chance to share some insights from Paul’s letter to the Roman church with you. As we read through the passage this morning, I’m sure there were a couple words or concepts that stuck out to you: judging, despising, quarrelling stick out to me, in a negative way. Since the concept of passing judgment is so prevalent in this passage, I think it’s important to take a few moments to dig into the biblical meanings of these concepts.
The word Paul uses for “judgment” (κρίνω krinō) is also the root of our English words “critic,” “critical,” “criticize,” “critique,” and so on. It is also the root in words like “hypocrite” The word can refer to formal verdict from an approved court; discernment between two or more options; an informed opinion about a matter; or a statement of rebuke, whether justified or not, against another individual. One of the definitions for the word in Merriam-Webster is “the process of forming an opinion or evaluation by discerning and comparing.”[1]
The most basic teaching we have about judgment in the Bible comes from Jesus’s own mouth in Matthew 7:1: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” That passage comes from the Sermon on the Mount, so you may be familiar with what comes after it. Here’s Matthew 7:1–6 in full:
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. [2]
This is the kind of judgment, I believe, that Paul addresses in Romans 14. But the gospels and Paul also deal with a legitimate form of judgment, church discipline. I don’t want to spend a lot of time on that this morning, but it is important we have a fuller scope of understanding the concept.
Jesus addresses this in Matthew 18:15ff:
15 “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. 16 But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ d17 If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
18 “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. [3]
Although the word for “judgment” doesn’t occur in this passage, the implication of such is quite clear. It may start as a one-on-one encounter, but any final decision about ostracizing the offending member for a credible charge of sin must ultimate rest with the local church body.
Paul addresses this as well in 1 Corinthians 5:9–13:
9 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—10 not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. 11 But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister a but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people.
12 What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? 13 God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”[4]
Of course, as a church, we hope we never have to employ this kind of discipline. I’ve had enough experience as a pastor in my career to have seen the sequence of Matthew 18 played out on a few occasions.
But as I said above, Paul isn’t really addressing church discipline issues in Romans 14. What he’s dealing with is a clash of Jewish and Gentile cultures, as I’ve discussed all along in Romans. Let’s take a closer look at that passage.
Paul sets the context of his comments with the first verse of chapter 14: “Welcome those who are weak in faith, but not for the purpose of quarreling over opinions”[5] as the version in the bulletin says. First of all, the word for “quarreling” (διάκρισις diakrisis) is based on the word for judgment. This reflects the aspect of judgment about having used your own critical thinking skills to form your own opinion about something. It also carries with it the idea of “distinguishing” between good and evil (Hebrews 5:14) and “discernment” of spirits in 1 Corinthians 12:10.
The word for “opinion” (διαλογισμός dialogismos)[6] is an intensified form of our word for “dialogue.” The NIV translates the word “disputable matters.” In other words, the idea or concept has been thoroughly discussed or thought through, whether in your own mind or by interacting with others, so it’s likely each side is thoroughly convinced of their own view and not open to reconsidering it.
Now if these “opinions” were a matter of faith or proper doctrine, then arguing about them might be a worthwhile exercise, if done peaceably. But the nature of the issues Paul addresses are not matters of faith or orthodoxy. They all seem to be matters related to their respective cultures.
Notice also that Paul is keeping this within the body of Christ in Rome: “Accept the one whose faith is weak.”[7] He’s not saying they have to accept people in their midst who want to work against the mission of the church. Nor does Paul explicitly define which view he considers “weak.” Your diet doesn’t save or condemn you. The days you consider special (or not) don’t save or condemn you. Whether you eat meat or not is not a matter of salvation. Paul’s only admonition here is that, whatever you believe about these things, you should be “fully persuaded” in what you believe. That reflects the word in verse 1 translated “opinion.” It’s a well-thought position that you’re unlikely to be dissuaded from.
Paul emphasizes another attitude that believers should avoid. This is the idea of “contempt” (ἐξουθενέω exoutheneō)[8] in vv. 3 and 10. The reading in the bulletin uses the word “despise.” Paul puts this word in the mouths of his opponents in 2 Corinthians 10:10 when they describe his message as something that “amounts to nothing.” It carries with it not only the idea of a lower status, but also of rejection and ridicule as well, in effect, a form of ostracism. We should not treat our brothers and sisters in Christ in this way over matters that have nothing to do with our faith or salvation.
Paul closes out the first twelve verses by emphasizing what is truly important: our fellowship with one another made possible by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Each one of us is responsible for our own beliefs and behaviors. Yet we also must realize that we live to encourage and love one another as well. Paul goes on to suggest in verse 13 that acting in these inappropriate ways toward one another is akin to putting stumbling blocks in the way of those who may be weak or wavering in their faith.
Paul defends his own positions on these matters but also concedes that if someone believes differently than he does, then that’s okay too. What matters is that we love one another.
I will close this message with Romans 14:17–19, because I think that is the perfect way to send us out into the mission field today.
17 For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, 18 because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and receives human approval.
19 Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.[9]
I preached this message on August 30, 2026, at Mount View Presbyterian Church, Omaha, Nebraska. This is my last Sunday to preach on Romans for this year’s liturgical calendar. Romans 13 and 14 are on the calendar for the next couple weeks when I’m on a short road trip and out of the pulpit, but when I’m in the pulpit again, I’ll either be addressing Philippians 1 or a Gospel passage.
Good morning! The Lord be with you!
At first glance, when you hear or read this passage, I can imagine you have a thousand thoughts going through your mind. On the surface, it sounds like we’ve just read a whole list of commands, by my count 25 in all from verses 9–21. It’s easy to see then, how the pastor at my home church was able to take 12 weeks this summer to work through Romans 12. Each of the would-be commands are great subjects by themselves for sermons. But alas, I do not have 12 straight weeks to do that with you, nor would I want to “borrow” my pastor’s sermons to accomplish such a task. “Twelve on Romans Twelve”; that would make a nice sermon series title.
As I looked at the passage and began to ponder how I might be able to organize my thoughts, it seemed like the paragraph breaks in my version might do for a convenient and simple organizing structure. But as I’m wont to do, especially with a passage that’s a bit challenging, I looked into my Greek text to make sure the paragraph breaks were justified by the text, and I was not disappointed. So, here’s how I’ll approach the text this morning to respect the way Paul wrote it.
The text is divided into three main sections, each beginning with a direct statement that indicates the theme for each section. Beginning in verse 9, we have the statement about love and what that looks like. We might think that could be kind of squishy, but it’s not. We’ll look at the intensity of the concept when we get there.
The next section starts in verse 14, digs a little deeper into our souls, and challenges us to do some things that might be really difficult: “Bless those who persecute you.”[1] Kind of makes you want to squirm a little bit in your seat, right?
Finally, Paul cuts to the heart of the matter directly in verses 17: “Do not repay anyone evil for evil.”[2] Paul gets pretty intense in that last section. So, let’s get started this morning and break this down.
The first three statements in verse 9 are actually summaries of what I’ve just described above, but Paul doesn’t lay them out in the same order. Let’s take a look under the hood here and break down what’s going on.
The lead-statement sets the tone of the rest of the passage. In the original language it is a simple, three-word sentence that makes a statement of fact:[3] “Love is unhypocritical.” This should be a straightforward translation in most cases, but our English translations have interpreted what follows as a series of short commands about things we should or shouldn’t do. [4] So they have transferred that understanding to this first phrase as well: “Let love be genuine” or “Let love be sincere” as some translations have it.
This is completely acceptable when it comes to Bible translation, because the goal is to make it understandable to average English reader. Also, sometimes we have a mindset as Christians that we just want God to tell us what we’re supposed to do and how we’re supposed to live. Then we can just check off the boxes and grade ourselves on how well we think we’re doing. But we also know that living for Christ isn’t just about checking off behavioral boxes and those with a passing grade get into heaven. In fact, it isn’t about checking off boxes at all, really, because we’ve already seen that when we’re “in Christ,” we already have the victory. Christ has checked off all the boxes, so to speak, and has imparted his righteousness to us.
Paul knows this as well, and I think in this case, especially with a mixed group of Jews and Gentiles, I would suggest that instead of giving us a checklist, he’s giving a definition of unhypocritical love. Again, the governing statement is “Love is genuine.” That is an absolute statement of truth. He’s setting a standard, much like he does in 1 Corinthians 13, but customized for the Corinthian culture and church. In fact, what he’s probably doing here in Romans is defining ἀγάπη (agapē) love for both Jews and Gentiles. What follows then is a description of actions that demonstrate what unhypocritical love looks like. So, in some respects it is still a checklist of sorts, but Paul doesn’t want you to see it as a checklist. He wants you to see love as a default setting for your heart and mind.
It is important to note, then, that many of the things that follow this statement are descriptions of other-centered behaviors. Several of the key words in this list are words that are rarely found in the NT, in a few cases only once or twice, so these are worth noting. I won’t go into detail on each one; as the pastor of my home church demonstrated, each one of the concepts is worthy of its own sermon.
I want to save the last two phrases in verse 9 for a little later, so let’s look at verse 10. “Be devoted to one another in love” is how the NIV translates it. Our reading has “love one another with mutual affection.”[5] First of all, the word for “mutual affection” here (“love” in the NIV) is not agapē, but φιλαδελφία (philadelphia)[6], that’s right, “brotherly love.” This of course refers to real love and mutual affection, not the kind of “love” you might get from a Philadelphia Eagles fans, who’ve been known to boo Santa Claus.[7]
The word for “love” in our bulletin reading (“devoted” in the NIV) is a compound of two words that mean two different kinds of love in Greek (φιλόστοργος philostorgos). The first part of the compound is the same as the φιλία (philia) in Philadelphia; the second part of the compound is a word that C.S. Lewis describes as familial love, especially that kind of love a mother and child share.[8] It’s easy to see, then, how the concepts of devotion from the NIV and mutual affection from the NRSV are appropriate for this passage. We’re called to love our brothers and sisters in Christ like we love our own families. If we do that, then the rest of the items in that first paragraph—zeal, spiritual fervor, honor, hope, patience, etc.—fall into place. That’s why “love your neighbor as yourself” is the second greatest command in Scripture.
I want to return to the second phrase in vs. 9, “Hate what is evil.” I must point out that this is first phrase Paul uses to describe unhypocritical love. Love doesn’t overlook evil. Love doesn’t tolerate evil. This verse would seem to tie into verses 17–21, since “evil” seems to be a prominent theme there, although it is a different Greek word [κακός (kakos)] that emphasizes evil deeds and actions specifically. In verse 9, “evil” refers to an evil thing, not an evil person as it does in the Lord’s prayer.[9]
The word for “hate” is another one of those words that only appears once in the New Testament. It is not based on the typical word for “hate” that is used in the New Testament. It derives from the root of our modern English word “stigma.” The Greek word has a prefix added to it that implies your hatred of evil should be so strong that you run away from, much like Paul often warns his audiences to flee sexual immorality, idolatry, and greed.
While physically removing yourselves from situations that could cause you to stumble greatly, the practicality of that may not always be expedient. If you see someone in danger, for example, you might be inclined to help, up to and including self defense if necessary. That would be a noble act as well, especially if you can avoid returning evil for evil as verse 17 says. You may have training in conflict resolution or deescalation of a situation that would prove beneficial for all involved. So, it’s not just about fleeing evil things, but about figuring out how you can do the right thing, the good thing, to overcome evil when it comes your way. Unhypocritical love overcomes evil.
The exhortations here are again positive: Do what is right, live at peace if you can, don’t take revenge. So again, Paul is speaking to our mindset, encouraging us to develop default behaviors. It’s all about practice and training, getting that “muscle memory” firmly ensconced in us. Doing the right thing speaks volumes in our culture that increasingly, as I said last week, sees violence as an acceptable solution. Certain Proverbs come to mind here:
12:25: Anxiety weighs down the heart, but a kind word cheers it up.[10]
15:1: A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.[11]
16:14: A king’s wrath is a messenger of death, but the wise will appease it.[12]
20:3: It is to one’s honor to avoid strife, but every fool is quick to quarrel.[13]
I’ll close by looking at the third phrase in verse 9: “Hold fast to what is good.” The word for “hold fast” there is another rare word in the New Testament. It’s used to describe the sexual relationship between a man and a woman, in the opposite contexts of marriage and prostitution. Peter uses the word in Acts 10 when he speaks of his call to go share the Gospel (and a meal) at the Gentile Cornelius’s home. Like the other descriptions throughout our passage today, the focus is other-centered, even when the “other” is one who is persecuting you.
The word for “persecute” (διώκω diōkō) here is interesting because it is the same Greek word that is translated as “pursue” in the previous verse in reference to hospitality. In other words, the word has the positive meaning of pursuing good things for others but the negative meaning of pursuing someone for whom you intend harm. The latter negative meaning is made obvious in the context when Paul emphasizes blessing the persecutors, not cursing them. In Paul’s context, a curse was a various serious thing, essentially wishing death on the one cursed.
Verses 14–16 also have a strong undertone of humility as well. Know your place; know your limits. Live together in harmony. That may be easier to do when you’re all of the same mindset. But remember Paul is addressing a mixed group here of Jews and Gentile Romans. I’m sure they had to put forth significant effort to make things work in their ethnically diverse house churches.
Romans 12 is certainly a strong contender for the best chapter on love in the New Testament. In some areas, it seems to cover a little more ground as far as the dos and don’ts of love in the Christian setting. But again, the cultural differences between Rome and Corinth can’t be ignored. Paul had to deal extensively with the speaking in tongues issue in Corinth, but there wasn’t a word about that in Paul’s gift list in the first part of Romans 12. On the other hand, Paul doesn’t deal very much with evil in 1 Corinthians 12–14, while in Romans 12, we see a great deal about that. Corinthians deals more with church order and practice, while Romans seems to focus on some larger cultural and societal issues that impacted the Roman churches.
We won’t settle the “best chapter on love” debate here, but I think we can all agree that, when we practice loving our neighbor as ourselves and loving God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, we are doing our part to advance the kingdom of God and bring about that great day of redemption and reward, when sin finally will be defeated. May the peace of God go with today and the rest of the week. Amen.
[3] Formally known as indicative voice; in this case the “to be” copulative verb “is” is implied, as is often the case with simple Greek copulative sentences.
[4] In the Greek text, what follows is a series of participial phrases through the end of verse 13. Participles typically take on the aspect of the main verb, which in this case would be the implied copulative. If the translators think the implied copulative is imperative, then translators would interpret all the participles linked to that main verb as imperative, as seems to be the case in modern translations. As you will see, I am taking a different approach.
I preached this message on February 22, 2026, the First Sunday in Lent, Year A.
When you think about it, Satanism, the worship of Satan, is an oxymoron. I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right. “That’s a weird way to start a sermon, preacher!” Yep, guilty as charged. But seriously, why would anyone want to put their “faith” in Satan when all the evidence points his core nature? He’s pure evil. He’s deceptive. He hates those who worship God. I would dare say he’s more interested in getting you to not worship and serve God than he is having people worship him. But he can ignore those people, because they’re already solidly in his camp.
John says this about the devil when he confronts the Pharisees in the Temple in John 8:
44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! 46 Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? [1]*
Adam and Eve had a first-hand encounter with Satan in the very beginning. He lied about what eating the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil could do for them. Yes, after eating the apple, they did experience the shame of their nakedness, so at least that much of what Satan said was true, but it was a half-truth at best. The lie that Satan told Eve was “You will be like God.” That was a lie in so many ways, and here’s why:
God is not just omniscient, knowing all that can be known, but he is omnipotent and omnipresent as well. Adam and Eve, relatively speaking, only got a fraction of the knowledge that God had about such things and NONE of the power or presence that God had. Their shame at disobeying caused them to fear the presence of God when God had designed Eden and the world for them to live in his presence. They lost power, because at that point, death became a necessity for survival. An animal would have to die to clothe them. Blood sacrifices became necessary for temporary atonement. And God’s son would have to die to redeem them forever from the curse.
Satan won that first round with God’s precious new creation, but out of that came the first prophecy of Satan’s defeat at the hands and feet of God’s son. It’s no wonder, then, that he thought he could try and pull that off when God’s one and only son came on the scene. If he could get Jesus to stumble, the world would be his, or so he thought.
In the garden, Eve had become convinced somehow that the forbidden fruit “was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom.” It shouldn’t surprise us that Satan used those same three categories to tempt Jesus in the desert as in our Gospel passage this morning. “I know you’re hungry for some food, Jesus. Go ahead and turn these stones into bread.” But Jesus knew, unlike Adam and Eve, that there was more to God than producing a little supernatural “manna” to satisfy what must have been an intense human experience of hunger. “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
Satan tried to trick him by twisting a promise of God into a perversion of wisdom. “Come on Jesus. You know God will catch you if you jump off the top of the Temple here! Imagine the scene when the crowd watches the angels swoop you up at the last second! You’ll be a superhero!” But Jesus knows it is foolish to put God to the test like that, and rebuked Satan with that fact in no uncertain terms.
Satan had one more chance. He took Jesus to a high mountain where he had a “pleasing sight” awaiting him—”all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.” But once again, Jesus knew the price was too high to go along with Satan’s schemes, and he knew none of them would bring about what God had promised him when he fulfilled his mission. “You know the commandment, Satan. I will have no other gods before me. He was there to “worship the Lord God and serve him only.” The liar failed at trying to fool the one in whom there was no lie and only truth.
And that was the beginning of the end for Satan. Jesus won that battle, but Satan didn’t give up that easily. He had to switch his focus to others, and most of you know who that would be: someone from his inner circle. The signs would be there early on that something wasn’t quite right with Judas. Even Peter gets some of the blame, but that, it seems, may have been more to his impetuous nature at times, and Jesus had other plans for him anyway.
The power of death was defeated at the cross. I’m sure that was something that Satan actually felt. Jesus had even told Peter that the gates of hell could not withstand the coming of God’s kingdom, and I think for a while anyway, as the church began to coalesce after Pentecost, God and Jesus kept Satan at bay to give the fledgling believers a head start at getting the gospel out.
I want to turn now to Romans 5:12–19, the other New Testament passage in the Lectionary readings today, to look at the results, if you will, of Jesus’s victory over death and how he, as the New Adam, broke the curse brought on by the First Adam, who through passivity allowed his wife to give in to the serpent and joined her in her disobedience. Romans 5 has a powerful message about how you and I can be strengthened in our own faith walk because of what Jesus accomplished on the cross and in his resurrection from the dead.
Hear what Paul has to say:
12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—
13 To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. 14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.
15 But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! 16 Nor can the gift of God be compared with the result of one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. 17 For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!
18 Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. 19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.[2]
Even though Paul says plainly in 1 Timothy 2:14 that it was Eve who was deceived and sinned first (sorry, ladies, I’m just the messenger here), Paul considers the blame for “original sin” to be squarely on Adam’s shoulders. Adam had one command, and he (and Eve) blew it. But because it was a single command and the Law had not come yet, God could not permanently charge Adam with a violation of his law. Instead, they were expelled from the garden because they could not be trusted. That doesn’t mean they weren’t loved, though. God would declare even as he announced their punishment that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent.
Paul demonstrates that Jesus fulfilled the role that Adam never could. Adam’s disobedience or lack of faithfulness brought sin into the world, but Jesus’s one act of faithful obedience, submitting to crucifixion, is the only act that could defeat the power of sin once for all and bring righteousness to all who would follow him. It took one sin by Adam to mess up things for everybody, but one faithfully obedient savior to restore us to God in his righteousness.
Romans says that Jesus Christ is our righteousness. He earned that designation by fulfilling the whole Law of God. But God still needed that once-for-all blood sacrifice that would make the animal and grain sacrifices of the Old Testament completely obsolete. Jesus was the only one who could be that spotless lamb. But it wasn’t just because of his 100% obedience to the law. The crucifixion had one more element that made it absolutely effective and impossible for the devil to challenge or destroy: It was love, pure and simple.
“For God so loved the world.” Only a perfect man with a fully divine nature who showed us beyond a shadow of doubt how he and his Father loved us in person and face to face could make that sacrifice. The bulls and goats and birds that were sacrificed under the Old Covenant could not ever love us the way Jesus did and does, which is why his sacrifice stands not only above the old sacrificial system, but above every other religion as well. Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, was a real person, but he never loved anything about the world that should have mattered to him. He just tried to obtain a state of nothingness, a very selfish goal that no one else, by definition, could help him achieve. There’s no personal connection there and no promise of any help from the supernatural realm. Jesus’s sacrifice was by far the most superior of any that could have happened on this world God created with love, and the only one that can guarantee us eternal life in God’s glorious new kingdom.
As believers, then, know that you are “in Christ” in every sense of the concept. We are baptized “into Christ,” which means we are baptized into his death. So we share in his death so we can be free of the requirements of the law, beneficiaries of grace, and servants of righteousness. As you go forth in the world from here, declare God’s word unashamedly to those who need to hear the hope of his good news. Amen.
[1]The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. *I didn’t say it in my message, but I sure thought about adding: “The Pharisees must have had Jesus Derangement Syndrome.”
I preached this message October 19, 2025, one week after Mount View’s 70th Anniversary celebration.
The Lord be with you.
In the late fifth century BC, Athens successfully defended its right to govern itself as a democracy in the Peloponnesian War. In the Funeral Oration of Pericles, its author Thucydides says this about freedom to the Athenians: “For you now it remains to rival what they [Pericles and the soldiers who died in the first year of the Peloponnesian War] have done and, knowing the secret of happiness to be freedom and the secret of freedom a brave heart, not idly to stand aside from the enemy’s onset” (Per Bartlett’s Quotations; alternate translation: “These take as your model, and judging happiness to be the fruit of freedom and freedom of valor, never decline the dangers of war”[1]). In other words, freedom required everyone to defend it as a matter of lifestyle.
About 800 years before that, about 2,000,000 newly freed slaves found themselves at the foot of Mount Sinai ready to receive their document of freedom from Egypt and self-governance: the Ten Commandments. But just before that happened, Moses had a visit from his father-in-law Jethro. Up to that point, Moses had been the sole judge and leader of Israel through the early days of wilderness wandering. Jethro realized what a huge task Moses had before him and suggested he might want to delegate some of the responsibility to capable men to help ease his burden. Jethro gave him this advice in Exodus 18:21–22a:
Select capable men from all the people—men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain—and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. 22 Have them serve as judges for the people at all times, but have them bring every difficult case to you.”[2]
For our gospel passage this morning, it’s important to note what the qualifications are for the first judges ever appointed for the Hebrews: “Men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain.” Contrast that with the description of the judge in our gospel passage this morning: “A judge who neither feared God nor respected man.”[3]
As we’ve been going through Luke gospel, we’ve seen quite a few parables, and a few of them have featured some rather questionable characters. In the Parable of the Lost Son, we saw the son who wasted his inheritance on riotous. Immediately after that parable, we looked at the parable of the shrewd manager who did some sneaky stuff to make himself and his master look good. Then we saw the rich man who ignored the invalid Lazarus at his gate. So it shouldn’t surprise us to find an unscrupulous judge in this parable who has no regard for the law of God or the human condition.
But we also have a persistent widow in our passage today, and some of these same parables we’ve looked at had a persistence theme in them as well. Just before the Parable of the Lost Son, we have two parables about a woman who swept her whole house to look for a lost coin and a shepherd who left his 99 sheep unattended in the pen while he went off to search for one lost sheep. We also have the story of the ten lepers who cried out to Jesus to heal them, and of course, he did.
And one more thing before we get to our passage this morning: Jesus has just finished answering the pharisees’ question about when the end would come. He addresses them only briefly by telling them “The kingdom of God is in the midst of you.” Jesus turns to his disciples and paints a rather bleak picture of what the end will look like. Not only does he compare the end of days to the fire and brimstone of Sodom and Gomorrah, but he also speaks of separation from their loved ones.
So you can see why Luke introduces the Parable of the Persistent Widow with “He told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.”
So we come to the high point of the story here: the faithful persistence of a poor widow who had no family, apparently, to help her versus a heartless, uncompassionate, and corrupt judge who only looked out for himself. Who will win this showdown?
Now even though this is a parable, some might think Jesus has a particular judge in mind when he starts this parable. It’s interesting that Jesus begins this parable with the words (according to most English translations) “In a certain city….” What most English translations don’t let you know that the word translated “certain” is also used to describe the judge: “In a certain city there was a certain judge….” Now it gets more intriguing.
Based on Jesus’s final statement in verse 8, he could also be referring to the general state of justice in Israel. It’s like he’s saying to his audience: “You know how it is. Wherever you go, there’s always that one judge. Yeah, you know the type: corrupt as a three drachma coin!” In spite of the judge being a scoundrel, the woman peacefully (that’s important to note) but repeatedly came to the judge to request protection from her “adversary.” It’s not clear who her adversary was or why they were her adversary; that’s not important to the story. And it’s not clear what sort of “attack” the judge feared from the woman. It’s doubtful it would have been a physical attack; more likely an accusation about the judge’s integrity and ability to be a fair judge.
The end result in the parable is that the judge does grant the woman relief. Jesus goes on to give the lesson of the parable: We need to be persistent in prayer. “Pray continually” as Paul puts it in 1 Thessalonians 5:17. Jesus throws in a rhetorical question, however, at the end of the passage: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” The implication here is that the kind of faith that prompts people to pray at all, let alone continually, may be extremely rare in the last days.
I was at my home church’s annual men’s retreat on Friday and Saturday. I think I’m the only one left with perfect attendance at the retreats since they started in 2013. I was encouraged to see a lot of younger men come out this time, many new faces, who were excited about their faith and the opportunity to fellowship and develop that deeper connection to God. God is on the move to bring revival again, especially with the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and I think if Jesus came back today, he could answer the question about finding faith on earth a resounding yes.
But it will take more than just persistent prayer to maintain that faith. The power of prayer is supported by the foundational truths of the faith as written in Scripture. The other New Testament passage in the Lectionary today focuses on that: 2 Timothy 3:14–4:5:
14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15 and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God p may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
4 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: 2 Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. 3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5 But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry. [4]
The last part of chapter 3 we just read emphasizes the need for continuing in and continually learning from God’s word by diligent study. Timothy himself had been steeped in the study of God’s word from early on in his life; he probably knew more about scripture than most of the apostles, and so he had, seemingly, a greater responsibility for taking the lead in spreading the good news.
We also see here the familiar passage about God’s word being fully inspired, that is, “God-breathed.” The original “written” word would most likely have been considered 100% accurate in spite of being first written by the hands of men. While Paul’s statement here primarily refers to the Old Testament scripture, we do get a hint in 2 Peter 3:16 that Paul’s letters seem to be quickly attaining the status of Scripture as well. Scripture is “profitable” (ὠφέλιμος ōphelimos) for “teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness”; dedication to studying Scripture helps solidify it in our hearts and minds.
Paul ordains Timothy in the opening verses of chapter 4, most likely for taking over the leadership of the church at Ephesus. Paul wants Timothy to make sure the church in Ephesus will stay strong in their faith. His primary charge to Timothy is to “Preach the word!” The tradition of the Christian university where I attended seminary referred to a young man sponsored by his home church to go to Bible college as a “Timothy.” The rallying cry of that school when it was founded just after the end of WWII was “The Preachers Are Coming!” Note that this preaching included the very things that chapter three said about the word of God: “Correct, rebuke, and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.”
The current revival we’re seeing especially of young people either returning to or for the first time checking out church reveals that we have been in a time that Paul describes in 4:3: people are concocting and promoting crazy ideas about God, Christianity, and faith. We are a family of people who love our brothers and sisters in the faith deeply, yet the world tries to make a caricature of that by projecting their own shortcomings onto believers broadly.
Like Lyle said last week, if we want to have another 70 years of fruitful ministry, we need to trust “the man with the plan,” Jesus. We can certainly pray for more people to come but we also have to be willing to take some action steps as well to get the word out. We have to let people know that we’re here for them by going out and meeting them where they’re at. We can plant and we can water. We can serve and persuade. We can invite and enroll. But ultimately, as Paul says in Corinthians, it is God who causes the growth. He sends just what and who is needed to accomplish his will and purposes for the kingdom, and he does it in his good timing.
I think Paul says it best in Romans 10:14–15: 14 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15 And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”[5] In other words, we need a spiritual pedicure. Now I thought I was the only one with an odd enough sense of humor who could come up with the phrase “spiritual pedicure,” but when I searched the phrase, I found a sermon by Josh Cardwell from Revolution Church in Crossville, Tennessee entitled “Time for a Spiritual Pedicure.” I’m gonna have to meet this guy.
I am proud of this congregation and I am grateful that I got to share in the 70th anniversary celebration last Sunday of your “beautiful feet,” the ministry you’ve sustained during that time. It’s kind of wild for me to realize that I was born within the first 10 years of this congregation. My how time flies. My hope and prayer is that Mount View will continue to be a vital presence in this community and neighborhood. We have a rich tradition and experience to offer those seeking to get reconnected with the kingdom of God. I pray that we continue to be a bright and shining light in a dark world. Amen.
[1] Thucydides. 1910. The Peloponnesian War. Medford, MA: London, J. M. Dent; New York, E. P. Dutton.
I preached this message August 31, 2025, the Sunday after the school shooting in Minneapolis. This was a rough one to preach, as I tried not to get too political. But I’ve also had a long history of interacting with the LGBT community and promoting a compassionate response from Christians even in the face of sometimes harsh disagreements. The congregation received it well.
Jesus says this in Luke 12:8–10:
8 “I tell you, whoever publicly acknowledges me before others, the Son of Man will also acknowledge before the angels of God. 9 But whoever disowns me before others will be disowned before the angels of God. 10 And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.[1]
The events of this week compel me to address a completely different subject than what is suggested by the texts we read in the bulletin today. But other passages from today’s Lectionary readings are completely on target for what I’m addressing today, so I will work those in as I go along.
With each school shooting or other mass casualty event perpetrated by those who seem to have lost their moral compass, the common-courtesy sentiment of “Our thoughts and prayers are with you” seems to come under increasing attack by those who rarely, if ever, have expressed any modicum of faith in God. As a Christ-follower, I find this attitude incredibly difficult to understand. When a loved one dies, many of us will say something like, “I’m sorry for your loss” and perhaps follow that up with “My thoughts and prayers are with you.” How long before “I’m sorry for your loss” becomes a target of those who have no faith in God?
Now most of you, I think, can attest to the fact that I have been extremely cautious about addressing politics in my messages. For me to address something that might even come close to a political position, I would need to lay out a clear biblical principle for which I think we have some common ground as Christ-followers. Our salvation does NOT depend on our politics: who we voted for; what platform we support, and so forth. Our salvation depends completely on what Jesus accomplished on the cross and in his resurrection. Period. This morning is one of those mornings where the spiritual and faith issues outweigh whatever political concerns may be.
This issue of people who perceive themselves to have a certain amount of power and influence criticizing our “thoughts and prayers” is insulting to Christ-followers in more ways than one. That sentiment is NOT political, but spiritual, and it’s a spiritual act of warfare against those who may only have thoughts and prayers to offer. First, it calls into question the sincerity of those who express “thoughts and prayers.” It is an act of arrogant judgment against well-meaning people who are in fact more likely to pray and think about those affected than their self-absorbed critics are. Do they really expect that everyone has something more actionable to offer up? It’s almost as if they’re saying, “Just keep your mouth shut about God and let us handle it.
Second, those who have a critical attitude about “thoughts and prayers” have probably crossed over the line of the unforgiveable sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit by denying the power of our thoughts and prayers. The cultural, societal, psychological, and political issues raised by tragic events are extremely complicated many times and as such can be overwhelming to the average person. “My thoughts and prayers are with you” is a simple statement that on the one hand represents “I understand the enormity of the situation,” but on the other hand is a desire to reach out to a power greater than themselves and perhaps try to gain some insight into actionable solutions, especially within their own faith communities.
Third, “thoughts and prayers” is an immediate, courteous response to a tragedy. It’s another way of saying “Let me know how I can help” or “Let me know what specific things I can pray about for you.” It’s an invitation to build community, especially in situations where the victims may have been vulnerable or marginalized. It is an offer to drill down deeper and address the root causes of the symptomatic manifestations of the problems and not just the symptoms themselves. It may be true that actions speak louder than words, but thoughtless actions or actions that fly in the face of God’s divine plan or a Judeo-Christian ethical framework may lead to even more disastrous results. I fear that we may be on the brink of the latter if we as Christ-followers do not act upon God’s prompting to give thoughtful consideration to both how we pray and what we pray for. In fact, this seems to be an age-old problem that the psalmists and the prophets wrestled with thousands of years ago.
Hear these words from the prophet Jeremiah 2:4–13 as he warns Judah of the coming exile:
4 Hear the word of the Lord, you descendants of Jacob, all you clans of Israel.
5 This is what the Lord says:
“What fault did your ancestors find in me, that they strayed so far from me?
They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves.
6 They did not ask, ‘Where is the Lord, who brought us up out of Egypt and led us through the barren wilderness, through a land of deserts and ravines, a land of drought and utter darkness, a land where no one travels and no one lives?’
7 I brought you into a fertile land to eat its fruit and rich produce.
But you came and defiled my land and made my inheritance detestable.[2]
8 The priests did not ask, ‘Where is the Lord?’
Those who deal with the law did not know me; the leaders rebelled against me.
The prophets prophesied by Baal, following worthless idols.[3]
9 “Therefore I bring charges against you again,” declares the Lord. “And I will bring charges against your children’s children.
10 Cross over to the coasts of Cyprus and look, send to Kedar j and observe closely; see if there has ever been anything like this:
11 Has a nation ever changed its gods?
(Yet they are not gods at all.)
But my people have exchanged their glorious God for worthless idols.
12 Be appalled at this, you heavens, and shudder with great horror,” declares the Lord.
13 “My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.[4]
When we look at a school shooting like what happened in Minneapolis this past week or at a Tennessee Christian school a couple years ago or even the one in Uvalde, Texas, we’re dealing with two primary causes in my mind. The first is a mental health issue. Setting the issue of gender dysphoria aside for the moment, which appears to have been a contributing factor in at least two of these instances based on the shooters’ manifestos, I think most of us agree that something went terribly wrong in the minds of those who think they needed to vent whatever anger or hatred they had on soft, easy targets like a grade school. Somewhere along the way, someone missed or intentionally overlooked important clues about a child’s or young person’s possible predisposition toward violence, if it was even there.
The fact that we’re human and NOT omniscient about everyone’s predispositions is, then, one of the primary reasons why we need “thoughts and prayers.” Our thoughts help us to examine a situation or situations we find ourselves in and make judgments about what is going on around us. “See something; say something” is the typical line we use. I would rather be guilty of misjudging a potential problem than ignoring it all together.
The second thing we’re dealing with is the problem of evil. My experience in interacting with people in the LGBT community goes back to the mid-1980s when my pastor asked me to speak with someone my age who was struggling with overcoming his attraction to men. We met a couple times and he even came to a couple of our college-group Bible studies. This was right before I left for seminary in 1987, so I lost touch with him and never found out where he landed.
When I got to seminary, I had a friend in the college who wanted me to talk to another young man about similar issues. If I remember correctly, he was a former student at the Bible college. But then I also had a college friend in the dorm at seminary who was raped by a male seminary student. He was kicked out of the seminary.
When I started as a campus minister in 1989 at Northern Illinois University, I discovered they had the largest “Gay-Lesbian Student Union” in the nation. Their rhetoric in the student paper was extremely hostile to Christianity and the church. But I was undaunted at the time and walked straight into the lion’s den and said I would like to have a productive, public dialogue with them and give them a more positive view of Christianity. I was invited to several forums to discuss the issues and concerns and had earned the respect of some of the panelists and leaders. I was able to present the conservative Christian view of homosexuality at a diversity conference back before DEI was a thing. I was even interviewed for a grad student’s documentary on gays in the military, and my commentary was included in the final production.
In the past ten years the issue has hit closer to home as I have several friends and extended family members who’ve had to navigate these kinds of issues. I am not without compassion when it comes to these issues, but I have strongly held beliefs based on nearly 40 years’ experience.
I say all this not to pat myself on the back, but to show that I’ve got some street cred when I speak about LGBTQ issues and that I’m not just spouting viewpoints from one particular perspective. I’ve done my homework., and I think that’s an important part of the “thoughts” when I say my thoughts and prayers are with the victims of the latest school shooting.
When I say this is a problem of “evil,” then, it is “evil” in the sense that I have developed a firm conviction that ANY sexual activity outside the bonds of heterosexual matrimony, regardless of the gender of those involved, is deemed to be a violation of God’s divine design for humanity. The author of Hebrews says in 13:4: “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.”
For whatever reason, the apostle Paul in his treatise on “the obedience that comes from faith,” otherwise known as Romans, feels it’s important in the first chapter to address the issue of “unnatural” relations between women and the “shameful acts” between men (Romans 1:24–32). He makes no bones about having the proper relationship with the opposite sex and keeping that relationship pure.
One more thing before I move on. The word translated “homosexual” in 1 Corinthians 6:9 is translated as “fine clothes” in the gospels, and “soft” in reference to an animal’s coat or a grassy field on which horses train in ancient Greek literature. But when the word is applied to persons in ancient Greek literature, it always takes on a negative connotation. In the Iliad, it is used to describe a ship captain, Hector, who is dead because his body was “softened” with many spears. It also applies to a soldier who does not want to fight bravely. But in 1 Corinthians 6:11, Paul assures his readers that, because of their redemption, they no longer bear that shameful title.
I think it’s important as a church then, no matter how uncomfortable we may be, to address the issue of gender dysphoria. At a very high level, what happens is that a young person somehow develops a certain stereotype of what they think it means to be a boy or a girl, or a young man or a young woman and then decides their mindset somehow better aligns with the opposite sex or that they don’t like the stereotype for themselves.
Now I’m not trained in counseling people with gender dysphoria, so I can’t say for sure what happens to a young person at this point, but I think it’s safe to say that influences on them become more intense and come from a number of different angles and perspectives, some of which may not be honorable or based in a Christian compassionate care model. In other words, it can get really confusing for a young person who isn’t even sure if their initial self-analysis of the stereotype is based in reality. It’s easy to see why they feel anxious about what is going on in their lives. They and their families must be under an incredible amount of pressure given the potential backlash they may encounter.
Compassion must be the key here, and often it’s not. Gender dysphoria is, by definition, a psychological or mental health diagnosis. As such, then, the first method of treatment in many people’s minds should be some form of mental health counseling, and many States have already passed such laws to require that prior to any discussion of transitioning. Providing a physical, surgical “fix” to a person’s gender dysphoria issues is far from a perfect fix, and studies show that it creates a whole new set of mental health issues in many cases, and not a few have desired to be detransitioned. In some respects, it’s like soldering an electrical cord to the two ends of the battery contacts in a battery-operated radio. The radio is designed to run on the voltage of a couple batteries. It’s not designed to take 120 volts straight from the outlet! You need an adapter. But God did not design the human body to undergo such a transition. Great Britain, to their credit, has stopped transition surgeries on youth altogether because they have begun to recognize the solution was worse than the original problem.
I started out by saying I wanted to defend those who say “My thoughts and prayers are with you.” What I’ve given you hear is a sampling of the “thoughts” that I bring into the situation, and no one can accuse me of not having any intention of taking action on this subject consistent with Christian compassion and not in defiance of God’s creative order. This isn’t an empty sentiment with me, and I’m sure it’s not with you either. I’m guessing some of you have these experiences in your own families or among your friends and that you’ve already formed your opinions. I’m speaking from my own perspective here and I don’t expect everyone to agree with me. Jesus died for everyone, and that includes trans people or anyone else in the LGBT community. Regardless of where you fall on this issue, always show compassion and the love of Christ to those who need it most.
As for prayers, this is not an empty sentiment either, especially when we consider what the Bible tells us to pray for. Here’s just a sample: [NOTE: The congregation received a separate list of these verses as a help to guide them in their “thoughts and prayers.” I ran out of time when we got to this point, so I picked a few and said a brief prayer based on each one to close out the message.]
2 Chronicles 7:13–14:
13 “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, 14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.[5]
Nehemiah 6:9, as the Jews are being threatened for rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem:
9 They were all trying to frighten us, thinking, “Their hands will get too weak for the work, and it will not be completed.”
25 You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David:
“ ‘Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?
26 The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against his anointed one.[7]
…
30 Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”
31 After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.[8]
Romans 12:9–21, esp. 17–18
17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.[9]
Ephesians 3:10–11
His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, 11 according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.[10]
Ephesians 6:12
12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.[11]
1 Timothy 2:1–2
I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people—2 for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.[12]
James 5:16b
The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.[13]
Psalm 81:10–16
10 I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt.
Open wide your mouth and I will fill it.
11 “But my people would not listen to me; Israel would not submit to me.
12 So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices.
13 “If my people would only listen to me, if Israel would only follow my ways, 14 how quickly I would subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes!
15 Those who hate the Lord would cringe before him, and their punishment would last forever.
16 But you would be fed with the finest of wheat; with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.” [14]
I preached this message July 13, 2025, at Mount View Presbyterian Church in Omaha, NE.
Good morning. The Lord be with you.
I imagine that most of us either grew up watching Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood or had young children who watched that show. (It’s okay to admit it if you watched it with your kids.) As a kid, one of my favorite parts of the show was when he sang “Who Are the People in Your Neighborhood?” He would usually find someone who could demonstrate their talents or skills. When I watched it with my kids later on, that had become a visit to a factory where something was made. I was fascinated by the episode on how aluminum foil was made.
Of course, being a train lover, my other favorite part of the show was when Trolley went to the Magic Kingdom. I never thought much about it as a kid, but as a parent it dawned on me, spoiler alert here, that Mr. Rogers was doing most if not all of the puppet voices.
As a kid, it was just a fun show to watch. But as I watched it as an adult with my kids, especially in the small rural town we lived in in Illinois and where I served as a pastor, I began to broaden my concept of who my “neighbors” were. I used to think “neighbors” were just the people who lived in the houses around us. But as I would go for walks with the kids or go to the park with them, we would meet people we didn’t know or I would meet the parents of my kids’ classmates.
If I said hi to someone in passing, my kids sometimes asked, “Who was that?” If I didn’t know their name, I would usually say, “That’s one of our Paxton neighbors.” After all, they may have been neighbors to people in our congregation, so I wanted to make sure they knew that the newcomer to the town wanted to fit in.
In Mediterranean culture, the concept of neighbor had a slightly different nuance. Their culture was steeped in the concept of “in-group” vs. “out-group.” The concept of neighbor went much further than just people who live near you. Bruce Malina, a Theology professor who taught for 48 years at Creighton before his death in 2017, defined “neighbor” in the Bible this way:
“The term refers to a social role with rights and obligations that derive simply from living close with others—the same village or neighborhood. Neighbors of this sort are an extension of one’s kin group.”[1]
In other words, neighbors were family and were to be treated like family. Along with that, being considered family meant you had a certain degree of honor in the community as well. But that wasn’t a hard-and-fast rule for Jews. If you did something to violate the honor or trust you had in the community, you would most likely be shamed or even ostracized. If you got drunk and embarrassed yourself or got in a fight or damaged someone else’s property, the community would not excuse or overlook such behavior. If you stole from your neighbor or committed adultery, you got more than a slap on the wrist. You would find yourself in the out-group.
These concepts of honor and shame, in-group and out-group, have lost their force in modern culture. Malina documents that in one of his other books.[2] In fact, in some respects, this has been flipped on its head. The in-groups value law and order in their communities and have certain expectations about what good behavior looks like, while the out-groups, something that used to carry shame and guilt, are now intentionally and sometimes violently trying to disrupt the law and order and care little about good behavior or even trying to be restored to an in-group.
It’s not that there’s only one in-group for everybody either. Several in-groups peacefully coexisted in neighboring communities and were distinguished by any number or combination of cultural and ethnic characteristics. But they all had the overarching concept of honor and shame and could peacefully interact with other in-groups when they acted honorably and without malice. If anyone acted with malice or violence toward another in-group, the gloves were off at that point.
This is some of the cultural background that was assumed by the authors of the Bible when they wrote. We in America tend to read the Bible through our 21st-century cultural lens and will sometimes get a little uncomfortable with the way the Bible describes a certain scenario. That’s because the scenario is set in a time and place with a completely different worldview. This Mediterranean worldview is the lens through which we should view the Parable of the Good Samaritan.
One caveat, I’m not excusing anyone’s behavior in the story. Jesus clearly expects the expert in the law to come up with the only right answer to the question he asked after Jesus finishes the story. Yet we’re somewhat uncomfortable with the fact that servants of God bypassed the wounded man in the parable.
First off in the story, we notice that the man is not identified by any ethnic or cultural features. In the story, he’s just a man. He also appears to be traveling alone. The path from Jerusalem to Jericho was a bit of a challenge, a descent of nearly 3,400 feet over 17 miles, so that’s a 200-foot change in elevation every mile through rocky terrain. Plenty of places for bandits to hide.
Priests and Levites were generally respected in that day, and they were easily recognizable as well by the garments they wore. As such, many people would have looked up to them, even those people who were not Jewish, so they would not have typically been targeted by bandits. It’s not that the bandits cared about their reputation with any one group; they just knew that the civil and legal penalties for them would have probably been a lot more severe.
For the priest and Levite, those jobs were their livelihood and gave them a certain social standing within their “in-groups.” When each of them walked by the bloodied-up man on the side of the road, their first thought wasn’t to help. There’s no indication in the story that either of them even bothered to check if the man was Jewish himself. No, their first thought was, “If this man is dead, I’m going to be unclean and not able to do my job.” They had a legalistic view of the law that they thought they could use to protect their “status” in their in-groups, but we all know by now that Jesus wasn’t interested in the legalistic interpretation.
The people hearing the story, including the expert in the law who asked the question, probably expected that would be the behavior of the priest and the Levite. But then Jesus throws a twist into the story that the expert may not have been expecting. He says a Samaritan came along and helped the man thoroughly, even using his own money to pay for his care until he could return. Now Samaritans were definitely not part of the Jews’ in-group. So when Jesus asks the expert to identify which one was the neighbor, you can imagine that the expert must have gulped a bit and tugged at his collar uncomfortably.
Since the Jews were known for walking around Samaria rather than going through it, which was the more direct route, one could say here that the priest and the Levite treated the wounded man like a Samaritan, even though they probably didn’t know if the man was a Samaritan. If the man was a Jew, then they actually violated a cultural norm that was probably considered to be on the same level with the Law.
Meanwhile, the Samaritan, who doesn’t hate the Jews as much as the Jews hate them, chose to treat the man like he would treat his own family, without concern for whether the man was Samaritan, Jew, or some other ethnic background. In other words, as the law expert correctly discerned, the Samaritan treated the man like a neighbor.
What Jesus is obviously getting at here then is that being a neighbor or showing a stranger the same level of respect as a neighbor isn’t a noun or an adjective, it’s a verb. It doesn’t matter what your background is; you’re considered a neighbor by the way you treat those you come in contact with. That doesn’t mean you’ve abandoned your primary in-group and joined the stranger’s in-group, nor does it mean you’ve adopted or supported any beliefs or customs of the stranger’s in-group contrary to your own. When you act like a neighbor, you’re not “guilty by association,” at least not from Jesus’s perspective.
In verse 29, Luke tells us the legal expert wanted to “justify himself” by asking the question. Do you suppose the legal expert accomplished that? I’m guessing not, but we’ll never know. Just because Jesus tweaked the definition of neighbor here doesn’t mean he overturned the idea of one’s own “kinship” in-group, though. The question each of us must ask, then, is the same question Mr. Rogers sang in his show: “Who are the people in YOUR neighborhood?” Not only that, but “How are you loving the people in your neighborhood?” You may have guessed by now that when I say “neighborhood,” I don’t just mean inside these four walls.
In an age where we’re personally and increasingly isolated by either technology or mobility, it’s important that we have a neighborhood to connect with so we can feel the support, love, and encouragement that comes from those associations. I pray that you might get to know a new neighbor this week and share the love of the savior with them. Peace to you. Amen.
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[1] Malina, Bruce J. Windows on the World of Jesus: Time Travel to Ancient Judea. Westminster/John Knox Press, Louisville, KY, 1993, p. 52.
[2] Malina, Bruce J. The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology. Revised Edition. Westminster/John Knox Press, Louisville, KY, 1993, pp. 82–86.
My opinions are my own, except where otherwise cited.
A Testimony by Scott Stocking (my views are my own).
Last week, I had the opportunity to see some of Nebraska’s unique monuments and historical sites. I have already written about my experience at Fort Robinson last weekend and how impactful that was to my spiritual well-being. The Sunday after that, I decided I would get a couple places in my National Parks Passport book checked off, essentially since they were relatively close by and no more than a reasonable detour for my trip home.
From Fort Robinson, I headed west on US 20 to Harrison, Nebraska, and from there, I took Nebraska State Highway 29 south toward Mitchell, Nebraska. (I don’t think there’s any hidden meaning in the fact that I had begun my trip west on State Highway 92.) The sign I saw when leaving Harrison said, “No services next 56 miles.” That should let you know just how remote that part of Nebraska is. I saw more tumbleweeds blow across the highway between Harrison and the outskirts of Mitchell than I did residences!
I did find some relief, however, at the Agate Fossil Beds National Monument about halfway between Harrison and Mitchell. The visitor center is about three miles off the highway and was modern and welcoming. I watched a 12-minute movie about the ancient history of the site revealed by the fossil finds, as well as the more recent history of the Native Americans who dwelt in the region. If I had had more time, I would have loved to venture off to one of the dig sites, with the fossil display and the James Cook Gallery (James Cook is the rancher who discovered the fossils).
My next stop was Scotts Bluff National Monument. This is an impressive geological feature along the historic Oregon Trail that served as milestone for travelers along that trail. I had not known that you could drive to the top of the bluff, so I took advantage of that opportunity as well (you can see about 80 miles from the top barring any terrain obstructions). At the top is the placard to Hiram Scott (links to NPS history), who had been abandoned by his employer and died in the vicinity around 1828. The details of his demise are uncertain as we have a few post-mortem accounts of his death up to six years later from various sources that do not agree on every detail. He doesn’t appear to have done anything remarkable or noteworthy other than having been a fur trader, yet his legend was significant enough to ascribe his name to the area, which later became a national monument. In fact, it occurred to me that the sheer face of the bluff is shaped like a giant tombstone.
My final stop at a national monument site on the way home was Chimney Rock National Historic Site (U.S. National Park Service). This has long been an iconic symbol of Nebraska, having the privilege of being the image on the obverse side of the State’s quarter dollar coin. The first thought of most, I think, is that it is the inert remnant of a volcano, given the “chimney” is made of different stuff than the rock it rises from.
According to the NPS Web page, Chimney Rock is the most-referenced geographical feature in pioneer diaries. One quote about it compares it to an ancient pyramid. I bought a T-shirt there that suggests maybe there’s a flying saucer hidden under the structure and the spire is its antenna! I think it would have been a much better site for filming Close Encounters of the Third Kind! While I’m waxing fancifully about conspiracy theories, I might as well speculate that maybe Sasquatch has a secret hideout there as well!
None of these fanciful theories detract from the beauty and majesty of single cone surviving in that region amongst all the giant bluffs and buttes one sees to the west of that location along the historic pioneer trails. For those early pioneers, it was a sign that they were on the right track and had some hope of making it to points further west.
Monumental Lessons
I suppose one could make any number of subjective spiritual connections to these monument sites depending on their life experiences. Many years ago, I wrote about my own “exodus” from Egypt that was Illinois, governed primarily by corrupt Chicago-machine politics with an unemployment rate twice that of Nebraska. If ever there was an argument for a governor of a State to be elected by an electoral college (and Chicago only gets one elector!!) instead of the popular vote, it would be Illinois. In that article (A Tale of Two Photos | Sunday Morning Greek Blog), I wrote about the fiery red sky I’d taken a picture of, with the clouds moving west (usually they would move east).
After the fact, I interpreted that as God calling me back to Nebraska (a Big Red cloud bank moving west, get it?). It was around that time I started hearing the Nebraska fight song in my ears, and it was NOT the ring tone on my flip phone. When I remarried in 2014, my wife and I made annual trips to her family’s cabin in Poudre Canyon. We would fly along I-80 at 75+ mph toward Cheyenne, but I always wished that we’d had a little more time to take the long way around to see Chimney Rock and Scotts Bluff, places I hadn’t seen since my childhood.
Seeing Chimney Rock especially reaffirms the decision I made 15 years ago to follow that “Big Red” cloud west back to Omaha, where I grew up. But I also knew I needed to eventually get to Chimney Rock, that signature geographic wonder in my home State, to have a fuller experience of what it means to be a proud son of Nebraska.
Although Scotts Bluff is named after someone who was just doing his job as a fur trader and had the misfortune to die in the valley near the bluff (the monument to him is on top of the bluff, but the legend says he died somewhere along the North Platte River), I think I can find a more suitable spiritual lesson for myself. The sheer face of the bluff is probably not suitable for rock climbing, that doesn’t mean you can’t get to the top. If I’d had the time and a way to protect myself from rattlesnakes, I might have walked the short trail up to the top. Instead, I took the easy way, a road that winds up to the top traversing through three tunnels along the way.
For me the lesson is simple, and perhaps overly simple enough to be a bit cheesy, but ascending to the top reminds me that I should never stop reaching for new heights in my spiritual journey. One thing I learned on this trip, both at Scotts Bluff and traversing Sow Belly Canyon in NW Nebraska, when you reach new heights, you have a better view of who you are in God’s creation. We humans are “fearfully and wonderfully made,” but to view the vast expanse and beauty of his creation he’s entrusted us with is indeed humbling.
I am grateful that I’m not living in a Matrix-like cocoon (or a Paradise-like underground city) where some sophisticated software engineer has created a simulation for us to live for who-knows-what purpose. It is good to touch and see and smell and feel and hear the wonders of God’s creation all around. No simulation could ever hope to capture the incredible diversity God has granted us in his creation. With views like I witnessed on my swing through western Nebraska, it’s easy to see how the psalmist could write Psalm 148 NIV | Bible Gateway.
Finally, I think I can even draw a spiritual lesson from the Agate Fossil Beds. I’m a young-earth creationist, so I don’t for a moment believe the fossils of ancient animals are 19 million years old. A global flood or a massive caldera explosion (like the one in Yellowstone that’s due!) would have buried those animals rapidly and given the appearance of great age, at least in the modern scientific paradigm.
I wish I could say all my old man behaviors have become extinct, but I know I still struggle from time to time. The good news is, God has not left me alone to deal with behaviors and attitudes that could lead to my untimely extinction. He’s given me life and hope in Jesus for a brighter future and a resurrection from the dead, one that will NOT leave my old bones in the grave, but like Jesus himself experienced, one that is a complete transition from our earthly bodies to our heavenly bodies. And unlike the Visitor Center there at Agate, I do not need a museum display to remind me of my past sins. God has separated them from me as far as the east is from the west.
Agate, Scotts Bluff, and Chimney Rock are all monuments of my faith, and my Fort Robinson trip (Sowbelly Elegy: The Majesty of God in Exegesis | Sunday Morning Greek Blog) reflects, in part, my community of fellowship at this time in my life. They remind me where I’ve come from and what I can look forward to; what I’ve lost and what I’ve gained; who I am and whose I am. I look forward to taking the trip again next year and mixing up the trip home to see more of the beauty of this great State I live in. I trust and pray that you have some special places you can go to have your own “Sabbath Rest” and reconnect with yourself and with God’s son, Jesus, the resurrected one.
I preached this message May 18, 2025, at Mount View Presbyterian Church, Omaha, NE. Fifth Sunday after Easter, Year C.
I find it interesting that in the weeks after Easter, the gospel passages in the Lectionary are revisiting Jesus’s Holy Week events. That probably shouldn’t surprise us with John’s gospel, though, as the last half of his gospel deals with the events of Holy Week. One explanation for this, I think, is that Jesus taught his disciples so much in that last week, and much of it occurred, apparently, immediately after the “Last Supper.” Given what happened in the 24 hours that followed that last supper, I think it’s safe to say that the apostles probably didn’t remember too much of that teaching. It’s a good thing John wrote it down, then! This gives them the opportunity to revisit those precious final moments with Jesus and to review his teachings to see what they missed about his death and resurrection.
Since we’re going back to Holy Week, and especially since today’s passage comes after John’s unique account of the Last Supper, I think it’s worth it to take a look at his account, especially, and add in the details that Matthew, Mark, and Luke provide. At the beginning of John 13, we see that the meal is already in progress, but we don’t get the “ritual” language we’ve become accustomed to from the other three gospels.
There’s no “This is my body” or “This cup is the new covenant in my blood poured out for the forgiveness of sins” in John’s gospel. That’s not to say there’s a contradiction here in the storyline: John focuses on a more radical form of demonstrating the forgiveness that would come from the shed blood of the Messiah. He tells us that the Messiah himself washes the feet of ALL the disciples. When Jesus gets to Peter, we find out a little more about Jesus’s motivation for doing this: “Unless I wash you, you have not part with me.” Jesus turns this act of service into a living, “practical” memorial that his disciples would not soon forget. Not only has he said his blood would bring forgiveness; he touches each one of the disciples, even Judas, who he knows will sell him and out, and Peter the denier, to give them “muscle memory” of forgiveness.
Matthew, Mark, and Luke all say something about the bread and the cup. Matthew and Mark both say simply: “This is my body,” while Luke adds two extra phrases: “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19). Notice that none of the gospel writers ever say, “This is my body broken for you,” although the piece of unleavened bread in this part of the ceremony was the only one formally broken. The church through history almost naturally added in that bit about “broken for you” to parallel what happens to the bread. Note also the references to the cup in the three synoptic Gospel accounts have Jesus saying that the wine is “the new covenant in my blood” or “the blood of my covenant.” Matthew is the only one who connects the blood with the forgiveness of sins.
One thing that Jesus says in all three gospel accounts may get overlooked: “I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”[1] Jesus here is looking far beyond his own time with this statement: he’s looking ahead to his second coming where we will share in the glorious feast of the Lamb with him in heaven. It’s also worth noting here that Jesus still considers what he’s drinking is “the fruit of the vine” and NOT blood at all.
But this also begs the question: what does Jesus mean when he says, “This IS my body” and “This IS the new covenant in my blood”? I think as Presbyterians we can agree there is not some mystical transubstantiation of the wine into Jesus’s blood. Nor is there a mystical transubstantiation of the bread into the flesh of Christ. But I also don’t think the cup and the bread are merely “symbols” either. I prefer to use the word “signify” to describe the elements because they do have significance for my faith.
In this way, communion is akin to baptism. What does Paul say about baptism in Romans 6:3? “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?”[2] Baptism signifies (there’s that word again) that we have come in contact with blood of Christ, which Matthew affirms is for the forgiveness of sins. That is our “initiation” rite, a marker or monument, if you will, that God has done something special in our lives and that we are set apart for something special. The water doesn’t become the blood of Christ when we’re baptized. But in a way that only God knows, the waters of baptism are infused with the power of spiritual cleansing and renewal.
Communion, then, is our regular connection with our baptism, because in communion, as we’ve said, we also encounter the blood of Christ, or what it signifies, in the cup at the communion table. The bread reminds us of the physical suffering Christ endured on the cross. But it also reminds us that we are all part of the body of Christ as well—that’s why we take it together, whether it’s monthly, weekly, or whenever we gather in his name. Out of all the different denominations out there, communion reminds us what we have in common: faith in Christ.
I’ve been studying what the Bible says about communion for quite a long time. It was the topic of one of my early blog posts. In my home church, we take it every Sunday, because that seems to be the practice of the early church in Acts. But my church also typically qualifies it when giving the communion meditation: “If you’re a believer in Christ, we invite you to participate.” There’s no official check for membership or a communicant’s card. Just a simple question to be answered on your honor. Some denominations or branches of mainline denominations require you to be a member of the church. Others may even suggest you’re committing heresy or blasphemy if you take communion in a church where you’re not a member.
The variety in how communion or the eucharist is handled in the modern church concerns me. Communion should be about what Jesus accomplished on the cross, not about your personal affiliation with a particular church. In that early blog article, A Truly Open Communion?, I asked the question this way:
If Jesus calls sinners to himself and eats with them; if Jesus broke bread at the Last Supper with a table full of betrayers and deserters; if Jesus can feed 5,000 men in addition to the women and children with just a few loaves of bread and some fish; why do many churches officially prohibit the Lord’s Table (communion, Eucharist) from those who are not professed Christ-followers, or worse, from those professed Christ-followers who are struggling with sin or divorce or other problems?
Should we really be denying or discouraging those who come to church looking for forgiveness and a connection to the body of Christ the very elements that Jesus uses to signify those things—the bread and the cup? Author John Mark Hicks says this in talking about communion as a “missional table”:
The table is a place where Jesus receives sinners and confronts the righteous; a place where Jesus extends grace to seekers but condemns the self-righteous. Jesus is willing to eat with sinners in order to invite them into the kingdom, but he points out the discontinuity between humanity’s tables…and the table in the kingdom of God.[3]
The implication here is that Jesus is in our midst in a special way, I think, not just because “two or three are gathered in his name,” but because we are doing this “in remembrance” of Jesus. The Old Testament concept of “remembering” is what is key here. In the Old Testament, when the writer says something like, “Then God remembered his promise to Abraham” or “Then God remembered his covenant with Israel,” this not God just calling a set of facts to mind. When God remembers like this, he also acts, and usually in a mighty way.
So when we remember, I believe it is also a call to action on our part, to be empowered by the presence of the Holy Spirit in that moment to make a commitment to action for the days that follow. It’s similar to what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:23–24): “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.”[4] By his blood we are forgiven and cleansed to start afresh. By remembering Christ, we are empowered to go out and serve.
As we come to today’s gospel passage again, we find ourselves at the end of the dining part of the Last Supper gathering. Jesus wants this time to be memorable for his disciples, because he tells them this is the last time they’re going to have any meaningful contact with him, at least in his earthly form. John makes a point of saying “When [Judas] was gone,” Jesus began delivering his final instructions, his “action plan” if you will, to give them assurance that they will have the guidance of the Holy Spirit after his death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. All of the elements leading up to his crucifixion have been set in motion, and there’s no turning back now.
That is why Jesus can say, “Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him.” He knows what is about to happen. Although Jesus will experience many strong emotions, including betrayal, abandonment, and those associated with excruciating pain, he knows the end result will benefit all mankind for eternity. It’s the day he prepared for but perhaps had hoped would never come, or at least had hoped he would not have to endure alone. He knows the days ahead will be difficult, so he gives them a new command.
“Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34).
That word “as” carries a huge load with it. It’s not the regular word for “as” in Greek, which is also a two-letter word. The word John uses is a compound word that has the sense of its root words: “love one another according to the way I loved you.” The theme of this new command is found in a few other verses in this part of John, as well as in Luke 6:31: “Treat others according to the way you want to be treated.” “Love” is less about a feeling and more about action. Earlier in John 13, Jesus says, “I have set you an example that you should act toward others according to the way I have acted toward you.” In 15:9, he says, “I have loved you according to the way the Father has loved me,” and then repeats the command from John 13 a few verses later.
Showing this radical, sacrificial, agape kind of love that expects nothing in return is how we show the world we are Jesus followers. It calls us in some cases to reach out beyond our comfort zones and to be hospitable and welcoming to strangers. The author of Hebrews exhorts us in this way in 13:1: “Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. 2 Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.”[5] We could all use an angel in our lives from time to time, right? The first chapter of Hebrews (1:14) mentions the function of angels: “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?”[6] God uses angels, in conjunction with the Holy Spirit, to empower and enable us to show love to others. But I digress just a bit.
God demonstrated his great love for us in Jesus through his life among us, his crucifixion, and his resurrection. I want to bring in the last couple verses of our reading from Psalm 148 this morning, because it is one of the foundational prophecies that show us what the Israelites expected of the Messiah, and Jesus proved faithful to that promise:
Jesus is our horn, the strength that we need to endure each day. Let us continue to hold fast to our Savior so that the world will know him, his salvation, and the power and love of God Almighty. Amen!
[3] Hicks, John Mark. “The Lord’s Supper as Eschatological Table” in Evangelicalism and the Stone-Campbell Movement, Volume 2: Engaging Basic Christian Doctrine. William R. Baker, ed. Abilene: ACU Press, 2006.
With apologies to VP JD Vance for mimicking his title.
I do not do much personal reflection in this blog. I’m mostly about exegesis (studying the text of the Bible in its original languages), hermeneutics (applying the results of exegesis to the understanding and meaning of the Bible), and lately homiletics (declaring the understanding and meaning of the Bible, especially as a sermon or homily, or in this case, a blog post). This ties in with the taglines for my blog that I put on my “business” card: “Dig deeper. Read Smarter. Draw Closer.” This past weekend, I took the opportunity to go to Fort Robinson State Park in northwest Nebraska to share in a fly fishing expedition with several guys (and the wife of one of them) from our church, including our pastor. The Fort Robinson area has several excellent fishing areas, including several streams and creeks; the first ten miles or so of the White River, which ultimately runs through the Badlands in South Dakota and empties into the Missouri River; and several ponds. Many of these locations are stocked by the State fisheries with trout and other popular species of freshwater fish.
I had never done fly fishing before, but the chance to get away and spend some time with friends old and new outweighed any anxiety I may have had about that. I only spent a few hours fishing at a couple ponds and in the White River, but it was long enough for me to observe others doing it, and I got pretty good at the casting part. I had a few curious little fish check out my fly, but never did land anything, which was okay by me. I was just grateful to be there.
Putting the Pieces Together
Part 1: Reflecting on Exegesis
The timing of the trip was divinely appointed for me as it coincided with some serious reflection I’ve been doing about the relationship between the depth of Bible study I typically do (“Dig Deeper”) and what I expect from the small groups I attend or help lead. That reflection was prompted by a recent post from one of the other pastor-bloggers on WordPress, Veritas Domain, and his short article about his “simplified” exegetical method. His method is similar to mine in that there is a heavy focus on the text itself, which is not unusual. I’m trained in Greek and Hebrew, so I start with those texts first, or at least have them open in parallel with the English translation so I can take note of key words (“Read Smarter”). If I’ve done those first two steps, the “Draw Closer” principle usually follows quite nicely.
In my comment back to “SlimJim,” I mentioned that my method was similar, but along with that, I’m finding that my experience with the two small groups I’m connected with at my church and even with my preaching is that having the knowledge that comes from that kind of in-depth study may not always go over well with those who don’t have that specialized training. In our men’s group, I can typically get away with sharing that when I feel it adds something to the discussion, but even then, one of my friends in the group (who happens to be a preacher’s kid) will sometimes say “All that is nice to know, but I want to know what makes me a better Christian, a better man of God.” That is, he wants to get to the “Draw Closer” part.
This brought to mind an article I read a number of years ago (a 1997 issue of Leadership magazine) by Haddon Robinson, in which he’s quoted as saying, “More heresy is preached in application than in exegesis.” In other words, some of us preachers may be pretty good at exegeting and interpreting God’s word, but how are we doing about translating that into action for our respective audiences? Does it really matter if a divine command is in the aorist tense versus the perfect tense if we don’t follow the command ourselves or encourage our audiences to follow the command, or worse, manipulate the command with malicious intent?
Part 2: The Fort Robinson Retreat
I had decided I would drive to Fort Robinson from Omaha, where I live, by way of Nebraska State Highways 92 (first half) and 2 (second half). Together, those two routes take you through the heart of the State, east to west. In addition, Highway 2 runs through the heart of the Sandhills. If you look at a satellite view of Earth along Highway 2, you’ll see that these Sandhills look like a bunch of sand dunes, but they all have grass growing on them, and several small ponds or lakes are scattered throughout. As I was driving through the Sandhills and listening to Rich Mullins and the Passion CDs (yeah, those date me), I began to understand what the Holy Spirit was trying to teach me. But he was only getting started.
I arrived at Fort Robinson State Park after dark, but not so late that I didn’t get to connect with my church friends who had already been there for a full day. We had breakfast the next morning at a small café in nearby Crawford, then struck out to fish. I went with a friend who had been in my small group when I moved back to Nebraska in 2010 and two of his (now grown) sons whom I hadn’t seen in quite some time. It was my first time fly fishing, so my goal was to get the hang of casting and extending my line. We tried the Ice House pond and then walked about a mile to couple bends in the White River (only about 10 miles from its headwater at that point, so no more than about eight feet wide if that. I had a few nibbles at the pond, but nothing in the river. From there we went back to the Grabel ponds, where I finished out the morning having developed a pretty good technique to cast and extend my line, even landing it on top of a 12-inch fish and spooking it away for a moment.
While I was at the section of the White River, I couldn’t help but think and marvel about how God created a means for distributing life-giving water throughout a continent (I knew the term “hydrology,” but I had to look up “limnology” as I was writing this paragraph), especially since, at the end of this month, my brother and I will be at the other end of the White River in South Dakota where it flows through the Badlands (and earns the name “White” from its sediment) and into the Missouri River south of Chamberlain for another fishing trip. God’s creation is an amazing and wonderful thing. That was what the Holy Spirit was continuing to show me, but not for the reason you might think.
Part 3: Sowbelly Canyon Road
One of the sights I had heard about from the guys who had gone up the previous year was Sowbelly Canyon, just north of Harrison, Nebraska. I had no idea what to expect from a “canyon” in Nebraska; certainly nothing like Poudre River Canyon in Colorado where my wife’s family has a cabin. Poudre Canyon is about 50 miles long, and the Poudre River is relatively wide in the canyon. Sow Belly is unique in its own way and was surprisingly beautiful and “cool” in more ways than one. I wish my wife would have been able to come along on this trip.
As you’re driving west on US 20 toward Harrison, you see nothing but a bunch of gently rolling hills on either side of the highway. One would never expect a place of such beauty was just beyond those rolling hills. Even as you crest the top of the canyon, you see an amazing sight below: a single lane dirt road running under a canopy of trees, with unusual rock formations atop the buttes, some of which have formed at right angles. The descent is moderately steep, and at times you have a wall of the canyon on your right (descending) and your left (ascending). At the bottom of the canyon is a small, babbling brook that must have taken a few centuries to form the canyon.
Just before you get to the end of Sowbelly Road on the east end (where it joins Pants Butte Road; no, I’m not making that name up), there’s a spot where you can see at least 80 miles to the north to the Black Hills in South Dakota (the dark mound in the far horizon). Something special happened between God and me via the Holy Spirit on that road, and especially with this particular view. I gained a whole new appreciation for the beauty, majesty, and grandeur of God’s creation. I’d expect something like that in Colorado; I never expected that in seemingly plain old northwestern Nebraska. Boy, was I wrong. What God had started teaching me in the Sandhills came to full fruition at the top of Sowbelly Road.
Part 4: Worldview, Wonder, and Wisdom
So let me bring this all together now. You might remember I started out talking about exegetical methods, methods that were heavily focused on the textual features like grammar, syntax, verb mood and tense, etc. Then it hit me: nothing in my exegetical method intentionally accounts for the majesty and glory of God and his creation. I knew I had to work that in somehow. But God still had one more piece to show me, and it hit me last night at our last small group of the season. Our senior pastor had been with us on this trip, but Sunday morning, one of the teaching pastors was preaching on the trauma Job experienced. I had tried to listen to it Sunday morning while driving through the remotest part of western Nebraska, but just couldn’t get a steady signal.
Fortunately, our Tuesday night group covered it in the study last night, and it was when we were talking about the ending of the book of Job that everything God had been teaching me finally made sense. Job had been arguing with God and his friends about how righteous he was and how he had always given God glory and so on, but God put him in his place. God recounts for Job all that He did by questioning Job: Did you lay the foundations of the earth? Did you create Leviathan and Behemoth? Who are you to tell me how I should act toward you?
That’s when I realized that I’m like Job in that moment. I think I have such a great exegetical method that will keep my doctrine sound and shred every stronghold that tries to set itself against God Almighty, but God’s word is more than the text and the grammar and verb moods and tenses and the participles and the conditional clauses. Those things are static, unchanging. But what does Hebrews 4:12 say? “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”[1] Can grammar and syntax do that? I think not.
The other thing that occurred to me is the backstory of how the Jews would understand God’s word versus us gentile Christians. I’ll use just one example here: Communion, or as some call it, the Lord’s Supper or the Eucharist. When we look at the elements (“substantiational” leanings aside), we are meant to experience Christ in some way by “remembering” him. We see one man crucified and risen. But what do Jews remember at Passover? Not one man dying, but ALL the firstborn dying who weren’t protected by the blood of the lamb that they themselves applied to their doorways. They remember God parting the Red Sea so the Israelites could escape the oncoming Egyptians. The disciples didn’t understand immediately that Christ’s death had won them forgiveness and freedom. The Jews DID understand that immediately, with hearts pounding witnessing the very miracles of God at work to rescue them, even as they would tell the stories year after year to their descendants.
Conclusion
In other words, when I exegete and interpret Scripture, I need to look beyond the text and the grammar and all the other “in-the-weeds” details to comprehend a grand vision of a great God and all that he has done and made. That’s where the “draw closer” takes place, as it did for me this past weekend, when I understood who I am in God’s kingdom and that, in spite of his greatness and grandeur, he looks with love at the least of us, at the humblest of us, at our faithfulness. He looks with compassion at those who are lost and searching and even at those who may be angry with him or agnostic toward him, prompting us to share God’s “living and active” word with those who have not yet comprehended that greater vision.
From this point forward, then, I’m adding a couple permanent elements of my “principlizing bridge” (to use Grasping God’s Word’s language) will be to ask first, “How does this passage reveal the glory and majesty and mystery of God to the world?” and second, “How is this passage ‘alive and active’ not only to me but to those I encounter as well?” I feel like I drew a little closer to God this weekend. I pray that my testimony here will do the same for you.
Pastor Scott Stocking, M.Div.
All contents herein are the creative and intellectual property of this author unless otherwise attributed.
I preached this message on April 6, 2025, which was also National Tartan Day. I wore the standard Gordon family kilt (great-great-grandfather through the maternal line) and the necktie is Gordon Red (purchased in Scotland). I’ve included a few pictures. Now I can say I’ve preached in a kilt! :-)
The Lord be with you.
Before I get to my main message, I want to go back a few months when I preached on Psalm 126, our Old Testament reading this morning, because it was also our reading on October 27. At that time I said that we should consider verse 4 a prayer for this congregation: “Restore our fortunes, Lord, like streams in the Negev.” That continues to be my prayer for this congregation today, and I hope it is yours as well. I heard recently that church attendance is starting to pick up again, so I pray we can take the opportunity to tap into that resurgence.
Our gospel passage this morning, John 12:1–8, is one of the few stories of Jesus’s ministry that all four gospel authors included, probably because Matthew and Mark both said that what she’d done would be told wherever the gospel was preached. Matthew and Mark both include the story after the time of Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem and two days before the Last Supper. Luke places it much earlier in his gospel, and he emphasizes that the woman’s sins were forgiven because of what she’d done. We can’t be sure why Luke has the story so much earlier. He may be “borrowing” it from the future in his gospel so he can tie it in with the story of the response to forgiveness based on the depth of one’s sins.
But in our passage this morning from John, he places the story just before Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. This event may serve to bring to mind the anointings that the Israelites were commanded to do for their priests and kings. Listen to what David says in the very short Psalm 133:
This refers to Leviticus 8, where not only was the oil poured on Aaron’s head for consecration, it was also used to consecrate everything in the newly assembled tabernacle. Matthew and Mark do not name the woman who brings in the alabaster jar. Nothing in those accounts suggests they know who the woman is. Luke says the woman lived a sinful life and suggests she shouldn’t even be there.
John is the only one who names the woman in his gospel. The woman is Mary, Lazarus’s sister. We do know a bit more about Mary and Martha than other people mentioned in passing in the Gospels. At the end of Luke 10, Martha is frustrated with Mary because she is sitting at Jesus’s feet listening to his teaching while Martha is busy preparing a meal. This probably isn’t the meal John mentions, and it’s nowhere near Luke’s account of the foot anointing. In the previous chapter of John, Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead to prove he was the “resurrection and the life.” Lazarus’s death seems to have hit Mary the hardest in that story, as she is the one who seems most disturbed by Jesus’s delay in coming to see Lazarus. It makes sense, then, that Mary would be the one who wanted to anoint Jesus’s feet for resurrecting her beloved brother.
John is the only one who doesn’t indicate that the container for the nard was an alabaster jar, but the alabaster jar was considered the most appropriate container for nard or perfume at that time, so I think we’re safe to assume it was. Alabaster was made from gypsum, so it was somewhat delicate and finely textured. Breaking the seal probably meant that the neck of the jar had to be broken to pour the thick nard out and apply it. It wasn’t a very big jar either. We know it was about a pint, and it would have all had to have been used at that moment; otherwise it would spoil or lose its aroma. Matthew and Mark say the woman poured the nard on Jesus’s head, much like it would have been for the OT priests mentioned above, while Luke and John say the woman poured it on Jesus’s feet, perhaps an acknowledgment of Jesus’s servant attitude.
Although the details of this story vary among the gospel accounts, a couple themes of the story do stand out across the board. Many of those present at the dinner, especially Judas Iscariot in John’s account, view this as a wasteful act. This perfume was not cheap; Judas, along with other players in the parallel account, are concerned that such a valuable commodity could have been sold so the money would be given to the poor. John reminds us though that Judas’s concern was more selfish than compassionate. Judas had been helping himself to the till.
What this tells us, I think, for our walk with Christ today is that it’s okay to be a little extravagant when giving to the Lord’s work. Now obviously we don’t need to prepare Jesus for another crucifixion as the woman was doing in that day. But just as Jesus turned the water into the best wine served at the wedding at Cana for his first miracle, so we too can dedicate our excellence in whatever we do for or offer to the body of Christ and the work of the kingdom.
A second principle at work here is that, while the work of helping the poor is noble and a never-ending ministry of the church, there will be times when we have to take care of our own, and I’m not necessarily referring to when we die. It’s not selfish when we do that. It’s a necessary part of taking care of our family. While our loved ones are alive, we buy thoughtful gifts for them. When they pass, we pick out a nice coffin or urn. The ancient Jews used an ossuary, basically a stone box, to store the bones of a loved one once the flesh had decayed and often would put some sort of inscription on it. When the Jews brought Joseph’s bones out of Egypt, it was most likely in an Egyptian mummy case. That’s a little odd for us to think in those terms today, though, so we find other ways to memorialize our loved ones.
Unlike the pharisees and Judas Iscariot then, we should not look with judgment on those who do nice things for their loved ones at death. How we choose to remember a loved one is an important part of the grieving process. But I have to wonder here: Mary had already witnessed Jesus raise her brother Lazarus from the dead. Did she, or any of the other disciples for that matter, have any inkling that Jesus’s impending crucifixion might be followed up by his own resurrection? Judging from the disciples’ reaction in the gospels when Jesus spoke of his death, I’m pretty sure they hadn’t put two and two together yet.
Our gospel passage this morning has focused on what Mary did to prepare Jesus for his death. But what was Jesus doing to prepare his disciples for his death? We’ll address some of this after Easter in the Sundays leading up to Pentecost, but for now I think it’s important to see that, although he was speaking somewhat figuratively at times, he did not leave his disciples without reason for hope after his death.
The next event after our gospel passage this morning is Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem: Palm Sunday as we’ve come to know it. Chapter 13 is the Last Supper, where Jesus imparts his final teachings to his disciples before his arrest and crucifixion. John recorded five chapters worth of Jesus’s words, longer than the Sermon on the Mount. In those final hours he has with his disciples, he:
Models servanthood by washing their feet
Predicts Peter’s denial
Reassures them that he’ll come back to take them to the place he’s preparing for them
Promises the Holy Spirit will dwell in them and guide them in all truth
Encourages them to stay connected to the vine, to Jesus, so they can bear fruit
Reaffirms the coming, indwelling power of the Holy Spirit
Predicts that they will be scattered, but they will also eventually know peace
Prays for their unity so that the kingdom can move forward and their faith will be unshakable.
That must have been quite the emotional and gut-wrenching after-seder gathering. Most of what John records in those chapters was unique to his gospel. None of the other Gospel come close to the depth of this teaching. Luke and Matthew have passing references to receiving the Holy Spirit without too much detail to describe it. As a gospel writer, John seems to have had special dispensation to capture these final teachings. He, after all, was the only one who shows up at the cross on crucifixion day.
This is not to discount the other teachings of Jesus prior to his triumphal entry. His whole ministry was about preparing you and me for the new way God would work among his people. The Sermon on the Mount and the parables in Matthew; Luke’s sermon on the plain; and Mark’s emphasis on the urgency of Jesus’s ministry are all signs in their own way that Jesus was preparing ordinary people to extraordinary things for the kingdom of God.
Isaiah looked forward to this new time in 43:18–19:
As we continue toward Easter, you and I know how the story ends. We do not need to fret like those first disciples. We know we have the victory. We know we have forgiveness. We know we have the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. Let us go forth from here boldly and confidently in that knowledge and be shining lights for the Savior! Amen.
Sunday Morning Greek Blog 