Category Archives: Sermon

This is the category for finished sermons.

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough

by

A Sermon for the Salem United Church of Christ of Harrisburg, PA

by Rev. James Eaton, Pastor

Trinity Sunday/A • Mary 31, 2026

Genesis 1:1-2:4a • Matthew 28:16-20

Climbing up the mountain children
I didn’t come here for to stay
If I never more see you again,
Gonna see you on the Judgement Day

You can listen to the song here

Do you know this song? It’s in the style of a spiritual. Spirituals used religious metaphors to signal slaves and call them to take the risks of seeking freedom. It’s striking how often mountains figure in our faith tradition. Ancient people looked up and believed they were looking toward God. So to get higher was to get closer to God, draw nearer divinity. Isn’t that our hope? Isn’t that why we come to worship?—to feel closer to God. Today, let’s listen to these two stories from scripture and let them help us climb the mountain toward God.

Take that long, long story that open Genesis, the book of beginnings. Did you follow it as we read it this morning? When you listen to a song, there are two parts: you listen to the lyrics and you also listen to the music. It’s the same way with this story. The words are the lyrics; the rhythm and balance is the music. It starts out with what our translation calls “the formless void”; in Hebrew, the “Tohu Bohu”, absence of anything and then—light. The light is divided—night and day. There’s a place: now it’s divided, above, below—sky and world. It’s divided: Earth and seas. On the earth, plants, in the sky lights—time and fruitfulness. In the sea, creatures of every kind, in the air, birds of every kind. On the land, animals and cattle, which is to say animals that live mutually with humanity. Finally: us—humankind, gendered and made in the image of God. What we hear if we listen more to the music than the lyrics is an amazing, ultimate ordering, a place for everything, everything in its place. 

Clean Up!

It reminds me of being a boy in the room I shared with my brother. We had closets, desks, and some storage areas. And we had an amazing mess of toys, dirty clothes, books, magazines, half-built plastic models and what I can only describe as “Interesting Stuff”—a special rock, some shell brought back from a beach. My mom would tell us to clean up and we would, in the way boys clean up, which is to say we’d dump stuff into the closets and push it under the bed. But every once in a while, often on a summer day, my mother, in the way of mothers who are never fooled and knew exactly what we’d done, would appear in our room and tell us that today we were going to really clean. We knew what really clean meant: everything came out from under the beds, everything came out from the closet and then, bit by bit, my mother would help us put it all away, dirty clothes to the laundry, beds made without lumps, toys and models on shelves, trash thrown out and Interesting Things examined and put into a box. She brought order and even though we whined about the process, at the end we loved it. She’d stand in the doorway, arms crossed and say, “Now that’s the way this room should be. Try to keep it this way, at least for a little while.”

That’s what this story in Genesis is about. People who want to argue about it as a scientific description of how things came to be are missing the song it means to sing. This isn’t about how things came to be, it’s about how things are meant to be, all in order: night, day, animals, cattle, human beings, ordered by a loving God, everything in its place, everything dancing together to the music of God’s order, just as a choir sings together to the music of the organ. Now there are various names for this order. When it comes to everything, we call it creation; when it comes to human beings, we call it justice. It’s where God is always trying to move us, and the pathway there is the mountain we are meant to climb.

We have to climb it because, just like my brother and I, on the whole we are messy children. We are meant to be caretakers of creation; we wander off and become consumers instead. We are meant to live in the equality of mutually, equally being made in the image of God, recognizing that image in each other. Instead, we create hierarchies, we compete to be better than others and, in our pride, we use our strength to create systems that oppress some and benefit others. Hierarchy always involves coercion and coercion is violence. Violence disorders the balance, the order, God created and like the pressure under a volcano, it gets stored up until finally the coerced erupt against it.

A long time ago, when May was small, she had a problem and needed help. She seriously and carefully explained the problem and then came to what she wanted and said, “That’s where you come in.” Clearly, today we need someone to stand, like a mother at the doorway of a messy room, to clean things up. And that’s where you come in. Yes: we are meant to be part of the solution to putting things back in order. Just like my mother, God has a plan and the plan is in the other story we read this morning. It begins with God seeing the disorder of the world and coming to us, like my mother coming into the room. The signature act of God in Jesus is resurrection. Resurrection is God transcending violence. The cross is all the world’s violence, all the police on someone’s neck, all the politicians refusing to help the needy and helping friends get the benefits of God’s creation. The cross is domination; resurrection is the solution.

Trinity Sunday

The other story we read today pictures Jesus with his disciples on a mountain. “Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.” [Matthew 28:16]. Jesus tells them to do three things: make disciples, baptize, teach his commandments. Today is Trinity Sunday and this is the one place in the Bible where the Trinity is explicitly mentioned. I have a history with the Trinity; the history is that when I was 12, I was in Confirmation Class, the old minister, probably not as old as I am now, tried to tell us about the Trinity and I said, “That doesn’t make sense!” Later he called my mother and asked her not to bring me back. Honestly? The Trinity is a way of trying to encapsulate that God comes to us in many ways. Jesus isn’t preaching theology here; he’s giving commands. Matthew says this interesting thing about the audience: “When they saw him, they worshiped him, but they doubted.” [Matt. 28:17] Believing all the theology doesn’t really matter, apparently; even the doubters are included. So if that’s you, welcome! 

What Jesus is teaching isn’t theology, it’s this: go make disciples. Sometimes we’ve misinterpreted this to mean “force people” but Jesus never forced anyone; he only invites. And what he invites them, what he invites us to do, is to obey what he commanded. It starts with the  power of forgiveness and what is forgiveness? It’s the intentional act of saying, “Let’s start new.” It’s the do-over after a missed opportunity, it’s the refusal to store up grievance and let it become resentment. Baptism is the symbol of this, the symbolic washing that gets rid of the dirt of the past. His ultimate command is love, loving the image of God where ever it’s found, whether in God or in God’s image, the person you meet, the person you haven’t met. To make disciples simply means to help someone else start to live this way, usually because they’ve been inspired by the example you set.

Living Now

This is a disordered moment. The regular rhythms of life are off. We are at war in a distant way that seems to cost mostly other people’s lives and our money. Our politics sounds more like a call to holy war than an invitation to solve problems. We can’t choose whether to live in this time; we can choose how we live. We can’t choose whether we live in a racist culture but we can choose how we live in it. We can use our politics, our money, our social media, our lives to say, to others, “I care about you—you’re a child of God, I’m going to treat you like one.” That’s being a disciple; that’s teaching Jesus way of love by example.

Somewhere, someone is rolling their eyes at this, I’m sure. Somewhere, someone is thinking it will never work. I imagine some days my mother stood in the doorway and thought, “How will they ever clean this up?” Jesus started with 12 disciples; here he is, just a short time later, and already he’s lost one—there are only 11 left to gather in Galilee. But it doesn’t stop him. He knows the truth that our politics always forgets, the one Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., so eloquently voiced when he said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” 

In all the time since that moment in Galilee, there have been plenty of failures. Christians have busily built their own systems of domination and others have had to fight to restore justice. But God never stops trying, never stops coming to clean up. There’s another mountain song that reminds me of this. It’s meant to be a love song but I think of it as God’s love song for us and it begins, “A’int no mountain high enough, a’int no river wide enough, to keep me from you.” That’s the message of the resurrection: there is no power, no principality, nothing that can ultimately overcome God’s hope. When we live in justice, care for creation and each other, appreciate the image of God in creation and and all people, follow Jesus’ commands, then we are part of God’s plan. Isn’t it time to clean up today?

Amen. 

This Is the Day

by

A Sermon for the Salem United Church of Christ of Harrisburg, PA

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2025

Ascension Sunday/A • May 17, 2026

Acts 1:1-11 * Psalm 47 or Psalm 93 * Ephesians 1:15-23 * Luke 24:44-53

Imagine two boys. One is born while his parents still live in student housing. His dad starts a new job; mom stays home with him. His parents don’t have a lot but they get by. The move to a new state; his dad gets promoted. He gets a new brother; he’s not very good at the games bo ys play, he prefers books and his mother feeds that, encourages it. They take vacations with an extended family at the beach. It isn’t luxury but it’s fun. He grows up in a turbulent time, goes to college and marries at 20, moves far from family. The other boy is a surprise; his mother is 41 when she has him. She stays at home at first but then she goes back to college; his dad works a lot and he’s going to school too. So he’s mostly on his own. He learns to make friends; he has two older brothers. By the time he’s a few years old, his parents are both working professionally and the family is doing well financially. He’s smart and engaging and his parents take him on vacations to Europe. These two boys are brothers but if you ask them about their history, you’ll never know they come from the same family.

It’s the same with the stories of Jesus after the resurrection. We have about eight accounts. Mark says nothing; Mark ends in the middle of a sentence, some scholars believe there was more that got lost, like a book you find in a “$1.00 pile” missing the last chapter. Matthew tells us the disciples saw Jesus and he told them to go to Galilee and wait; then he appears there and tells them to go baptize the whole world. John tells us Jesus appeared to Mary and a week later to the disciples and then yet another week later to the disciples and Thomas. Paul sees him years later on the road to Damascus and writes to the Corinthian Christians that he was seen by more than 500 people; we don’t have their accounts. Luke says Jesus appeared to some people on the road to Emmaus who didn’t recognize him at first and only did when he broke bread with them; he tells them to wait in Jerusalem. I suppose some people would come away from this confusion of stories and contradictions wondering whether anyone saw anything. What I take from it is that just like the two boys in different families that are the same, Jesus appeared in different ways at different times to different people.

Luke is the one who tells us about Jesus’ ascension. Luke is the author of both the Gospel of Luke and the Book of the Act of the Apostles. He says Jesus appeared over a period of 40 days; apparently he isn’t counting the appearance to Paul. This is the scene he presents. The disciples are gathered by the Risen Christ. Is it a picnic? A meeting? We don’t know what they thought. Maybe they’re just happy to be with him again. He tells them they are going to be baptized by the Holy Spirit; we’ll celebrate that next week on Pentecost.

But the disciples are like children: they’re focused on what they want to know, not what he’s telling them. “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” They have in mind the kingdom as a conquest, a reforming of the government. They imagine General Jesus will ride to victory over the Romans and the Herodians and set things right and, oh, by the way, put them in charge. He’s already had to stop them bickering between themselves over who is the best disciple, who will sit at his right and left hands when he reigns in victory. This is like two boys too isn’t it? “Mom loves me best, no she loves ME best!” Jesus has been to Jerusalem, been crucified, died, been raised, just like he said They’re impatient for the next chapter; they want to get on to the good part, where they help him run things. “Will you restore the kingdom now, Lord?”

Jesus, as he always does, forges ahead with his purpose. He tells them in effect that when the kingdom is restored is none of their business: “It is not for to know the times or period that the Father has set by his own authority.” When I was the pastor at Suttons Bay Congregational church, I used to take our youth group to rallies. They were far away and we’d often leave at night. Periodically kids would wake up and say, “Are we there yet?” I’d always say my version of what Jesus says: “In about ten minutes.” It took them a few trip to realize that “about 10 minutes” was the answer regardless of the reality.

Once again, Jesus tells them they are going to receive the Holy Spirit. He tells them they are going to be his witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria. These are places progressively farther away. They’re near Jerusalem; Judea is the larger area. Samaria is next door. “You’re going to be my witnesses in Harrisburg, in Mechanicsburg and Maryland;” something like that. The fundamental point is that they are going to have to go out into the world and tell people about him, about what he taught, about what he did, about who he is. 

Then he’s gone. He ascends to heaven. We are human, we have up and down and sideways, so Luke uses the language of direction to describe this. We get focused on the details: how did he do it? How far up did he go? A confirmation kid asked me once, “Did he sprout wings?” This all misses the point. The point is not that heaven is up there somewhere and he’s on his way. The point is that Jesus is fully revealed as who he is, always has been: the Son of God, Lord, a heavenly one who is now going home.

So one moment they are standing there asking questions, maybe chattering among themselves. Did they hear what Jesus said? Did they understand it? We don’t know. Luke tells us that he gives the command and then ascends and they’re left there, on their own. Oh! Not totally alone: there are a couple of angels. The angels say, “Why are you standing around? Can you imagine this moment? The artist Dali has a wonderful painting depicting just Jesus feet: it’s meant to be what the disciples see as Jesus ascents. I think they must have been stunned; this meeting hasn’t gone like they thought it would. They came prepared to hear the next phase of Jesus’ campaign to take over Jerusalem; they came prepared to be promoted to sit at his right and left hand. Now they are left just standing there, gazing into heaven. And they realize they are not on their own.

Luke says what they did was to worship Jesus and to go back and were in the temple constantly rejoicing. Perhaps they remembered what he’d told them: “I am sending upon you what my Father promised, so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high” [Luke 24:49] In a sense, they are doing exactly what we sang about at the beginning today: “This is the day, I will rejoice”. We’re coming near the end of the season of Easter so it’s a good time to remember this.

Because this IS the day to rejoice.We live in a culture that constantly tells us to worry. We worry about prices: will we be able to afford gas and food and other things. We worry about our country and whether it will be able to sustain the democracy which is its core principle: that all people are created equal and entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We worry about our church and its future. I’m sure you have your own list. Now think of those followers of Jesus. They have most of those things to worry about too. They have the looming shadow of powers that have just executed Jesus but they know this IS the day to rejoice because God’s power raised him up. This IS the day.

This IS the day to do what Jesus said and what Jesus said is: wait for the Spirit. It’s hard to wait, we want to do things, make progress, get ahead. But Jesus wants us, to wait for the Spirit. When I was first on my own, my mother gave me one of the most useful books I’ve ever had. It was the Betty Crocker cookbook. Do you have this? It had recipes for everything. I didn’t know how to cook but all I had to do was open Betty Crocker and she’d tell me exactly what I needed and what to do to produce everything from a hamburger to a cake. I could do it on my own: no waiting. Don’t we often treat church like this? I was ordained in 1975 as the mainline churches began to lose members and Christian bookstores were full of recipe books on how to grow; I still have bunches of them. It felt like I could do it on my own. But I couldn’t. The first time I used one of the big recipes and put together a whole church project that was going to transform our little church in Seattle into a big church, it was a total failure. I hadn’t waited for the Spirit.

This is the day to wait for God’s Spirit here. I am done reading recipes and doing it on my own and I hope you are as well. This is the day that the Lord has made: This is the day to be sure God’s Spirit will come if we wait.

This IS the day to seek that Spirit. We have this wonderful platform, this building, our history. This is a place where enemies were loved: once upon a time Salem was filled with wounded Confederate soldiers from the Battle of Gettysburg. Once upon a time slaves on their way to freedom were hidden here. Once upon a time a crowd of people filled these pews in the new settlement of Harrisburg. But that was then; this is now This is the day when we should look forward. We live in a city full of lonely people and we ought to be praying every single day on how we can heal them, give hope. They don’t need a recipe: they need the love of God. This is the day to offer that love. Jesus said: “You are witnesses” So this is the day to tell someone what God has done in your life and invite others to that Spirit of gentleness, that spirit of acceptance, that spirit that we share.

Amen.

Knowing God

by

A Sermon for the Salem United Church of Christ of Harrisburg, PA

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2026

Sixth Sunday in Easter/A • May 10, 202 – Mothers Day

Acts 17:22-31 * Psalm 66:8-20 * 1 Peter 3:13-22 * John 14:15-21

We recently went to Spain again; we love vacations there. One of the best parts for me are the way every city has so many open spaces: gardens, plazas, always with pleasant places to sit, frequently with service from small cafés nearby. All cities have open spaces where people gather; we have them here in Harrisburg. It’s common to see a group on the steps of the capital and any nice Saturday brings out crowds at the Broadway Market. What’s true for us was true for ancient cities as well. Athens is a place inhabited since before history. We know that by 508 BCE, a man named Solon had organized a community there and founded the world’s first democracy. They didn’t have voting machines, so citizens would gather in a plaza called an agora in Greek to argue, debate, vote. Perhaps that’s why Athens became known throughout the ancient world for its thinkers, its philosophy. It was home to Socrates, to Plato, to Aristotle and though conquered by Rome around 86 BCE, it remained an intellectual center in the ancient world. We see photos of the city with its towering temples now and they are the surviving white marble but in ancient times, in the time of Jesus, the temples were painted bright colors. At the top of Athens stood the great temple of Athena; down the hill was the agora, where people still met to debate. Beyond that was the Areopagus, sometimes called Mars Hill, a rocky up thrust and that’s where we find Paul in today’s reading.

We’ve jumped over a lot in Acts. Last week, we heard about the stoning of Stephen and perhaps you missed the little detail at the end, that a man named Saul held the coats of the people killing Stephen. That Saul was a lawyer who became a prosecuting attorney but on his way to investigate Christians in Damascus, he was struck by a vision of Christ so powerful it knocked him off his donkey. Seeing the Risen Christ, he is overwhelmed and became blind. He has to be taken into the city to be healed. From that time on, he learns about this new faith and he begins to preach it. By the time we met him here, he’s made a journey up the coast of Asia Minor, founded churches, spoken to people and argued forcefully that the new gatherings called in Greek ekklesia, in English, churches, should include both Gentiles and Jews because God’s grace is more important than human distinctions. 

Now he’s come to Athens and as he looks out over the city from the hill, he sees the great temples that fill the city. For centuries, good Jews, and Paul is certainly one, were horrified by the idolatry of pagans. He’s seen that everywhere; it’s all over the ancient world. Can you imagine him there, on a rocky rise, getting ready to speak to crowds who are curious but not interested? Boston University School of Theology where I graduated seminary is a long, high building; another mirrors it just to the east. In between, is a big chapel building, and in front of that an plaza where often preachers, sometimes professors, sometimes students, would set up a lectern and preach to the passing crowds. The street is a broad divided avenue, Commonwealth Avenue, so there are constantly cars passing, people walking past, hurrying to somewhere. A guy used to set up a drinks cart near the lectern; perhaps he knew preaching is thirsty work. So that’s how I think of this moment. 

He begins like all good preachers by connecting to the experience of the listeners, tells them he’s been walking around and he’s noticed they’re very curious about religion. There are lots of temples and there’s even one called, “To the unknown God”. That’s his take off: this God you don’t know, I know, he says, and I’m going to tell you about him. Now “knowing” is so important to Greek that they have at least three differing words for it: one for knowing a fact, like I know the pulpit is wood, one for knowing by experience, like I know that it’s going to be a little warm here until the heat settles down and it’s fully summer, and one for completely understanding, and having full knowledge. That’s what Paul is offering: to fully experience God.

Of course, people have been trying to do that for a long time and just like us, they have rituals that help give them that feeling. The fundamental ritual is to take something valuable and give it to one of the Gods, who are imaged by huge statues. It’s transactional: you give, God helps. We have that kind of religion still; there are supposedly Christian preachers who will tell you that you will get a blessing if you give to their ministry. Paul is clear: that’s not true. 

The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.

From one ancestor he made all people to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps fumble about for him and find him–though indeed he is not far from each one of us [Acts 17:24-27]

This is the hardest Sunday School lesson and the most basic: that God is greater, that God can’t be manipulated like we can. So we often use human images but those ultimately fail. The true God is so much more than human, for as humans, we need things, we need nurture, we need each other; God needs nothing, God is beyond need.

Paul tells them that no matter how wonderful our artful depictions are, God is not made from gold or silver—perhaps today he’d add silicon. There is no image, no picture we can offer that captures God, for God can’t be captured. Finally, Paul tells the Athenians to repent. Now repenting isn’t saying you’re sorry for something bad; repentance means changing your direction. It’s the experience of finally admitting you’re lost, stopping, and getting a new way. Paul calls the Athenians to repent and turn not to an unknown God but to knowing this God who is real and present and always has been. And finally he tells them that the way to know God is through a man who presented God in human form, who was raised from the dead.

That man, Jesus Christ, is the one speaking in today’s Gospel reading. It follows right from last weeks’ reading. The context is still the last supper. Jesus has just said he is giving his followers a new commandment, to love one another, and acted out this love by washing their feet, taking on the role of a servant, comforting them, just hours from his own death on a cross. I’ve seen this kind of love once in my life. My father in the faith, Harry Clark, was in the hospital, just diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and complications from it. I knew this meant he didn’t have long to live, and for a few moments we sat just the two of us. We’d both been pastors a long time; we both knew what the diagnosis meant. But my adopted sisters were in denial. Harry and I didn’t talk much, except to acknowledge what was going to happen, that there wouldn’t be a recovery. And then he said quietly, “Don’t tell the girls, they aren’t ready yet.” Here was a man who loved life, loved learning, never stopped living, never stopped thinking, acknowledging his end and in that moment, his one thought was love for his daughters, for all of us.

Jesus knows he’s going to a cross; he knows his time with his friends is about to end. In that moment, his one thought, his one move, is to comfort them. He knows they will fall away, he tells Peter as much. Yet there’s no anger, no pleading to stay faithful. He simply says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. [John 14:15} And then he promises them God’s presence in the person of a Spirit, a Spirit that will let them continue to be with him, will comfort them, advocate for them, lift them. In Aramaic, in Hebrew, in Greek in all the languages these words were first known, the words for spirit and breath and wind are the same. Genesis says that at creation it was the spirit—the ruach YHWH—the moved on the waters to turn chaos into an ordered, fruitful place. It’s the Spirit that divides the sea and lets God’s people escape slavery and it’s the Spirit that brings God’s Word to the prophets. One poet said,

the Air is everywhere.

Holy Air,
Stirring the waters of creation,
Sweeping across the desert.
Breathing life into humans.

Feel the Air, Holy Air,
like the rush of a mighty wind
awakening lost spirits.

Breathe the Air
source of life,
filling a newborn’s first cry.

Breathe deep, the Holy Air,
centring in your Presence.

Breathe on me,
breath of God.
Fill me with your love,
your Holy Air.

[https://worshipwords.co.uk/holy-air-poem-dance-susan-brecht-usa/]

What should we do about such love? Isn’t it precisely what Paul says?—repent. Every week, I sit down on Monday or Tuesday to put together the liturgy we share on Sunday morning. I pick hymns; I insert the scripture readings. But before I get far, I need to think about the Prayer of Confession. It’s a little thing, right there near the beginning and yet it’s the foundation for the whole service. We need that prayer; I need it. I need it because I know that I have not followed Christ’s command to love all the time. I know that I got mad at someone driving; I know I am not loving about the stupid guy who parks his stupid BMW in front of my house in a way that takes up two spaces. I should be more loving; I should be more compassionate. But in the moment, I’m not. So I need to come and say, “Wow, Lord, I hardly got home before I messed up; there are al these times this week when I was off the path, away from the way. Help me get back with you; help me start over right now.” That’s what the Prayer of Confession really is: it’s repenting and choosing to come back to God. It’s determining to know God every day, everywhere, for God is everywhere. It’s the commitment, even though I haven’t succeeded, to walk the way of Christ because he is the way to knowing God.

Amen

Dwelling Well

by

A Sermon for the Salem United Church of Christ of Harrisburg, PA

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2026

Fifth Sunday in Easter/A • May 3, 3036

Acts 7:55-60 * Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16 * 1 Peter 2:2-10 * John 14:1-14

“I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever”  [Psalm 23:6]

We all live somewhere; we grew up somewhere, perhaps moved, made a home, moved again, and so on. All along we were dwelling somewhere. But what does it mean to dwell in the house of the Lord? Today we’ve heard four different affirmations of faith. “In you, O LORD, I seek refuge…” [Psalm 31:1] the Psalmist says. A refuge is a safe place; it’s not hard to imagine someone in a frightening moment looking for a safe place, is it? We get warnings sometimes: “seek shelter!” —a storm is coming. Michigan, where I mostly grew up, gets tornadoes and you learn early to listen for the sirens and go somewhere safe. When I was in college, the night before a final exam, a tornado was sighted near our dormitory so hundreds of us trooped down to the basement, sprawled on the floors, trying to study but also to keep our fears down. This is the Psalmist telling us that in a time of trouble, his or her refuge is in God. Then we heard the last words of Stephen, perhaps the first Christian martyred for his faith. He’s been speaking out against the authorities of his time and place and for that he’s being stoned to death. This is his prayer: “”Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”” [Acts 7:59]. Then we heard from the writer of First Peter, years after Jesus’ ascension, reminding brothers and sisters in Christ, “Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” [1 Peter 2:10] Finally, we have this wonderful section from the Gospel of John, where Jesus comforts his disciples. All of these are really an invitation to come dwell with God.

Think about the context behind what Jesus is saying. This is the moment we call Maundy Thursday. They’re in Jerusalem but darkness is gathering. It’s passover; the city is full of currents. Passover is a reminder of how God brought God’s people out of slavery, defeated Pharaoh and gathered them, in Jesus’ words, as a mother hen gathers her chicks. Now those same people are oppressed by the taxes and the laws of the Roman Empire. Extra troops have been brought to Jerusalem because Passover sparks the Jewish memory of freedom and some might act on it. At the same time, Jesus has been speaking and the authorities are angry and authorities always express fear by using power. So I imagine this is a fearful moment, and certainly Jesus must feel the fear in his friends and he speaks to them to quiet their fears. 

He tells them not to let their hearts be troubled, that he’s preparing a place for them and that with the father there are many dwelling places. That, at least, is the translation we read this morning. But perhaps you grew up like I did with an older translation that instead of “many dwelling places” said “many mansions”. This is an old joke in our family. Jacquelyn grew up with that and sometime after we were together I preached on this passage and explained that what Jesus has in mind is not a sort of suburb with lots of individual homes.

But that’s an American cultural idea. What Jesus has in mind is certainly the sort of homes common in Palestine. They looked like those U shaped motels on the Jersey shore; you know what I mean? Lots of rooms, different levels, all curling around an inner court. At the shore, there’s a pool in the court; I’m not sure if Jesus included the pool. What he’s saying is there is space for you, we’re all going to be together, and there’s a place for you. At first, Jacquelyn didn’t like it: she said, “You took away my mansion and you’re replacing it with a motel?” I said it’s not me, it’s Jesus, talk to him. What Jesus has in mind aren’t separate mansions but a community grouped together; what Jesus has in mind is dwelling together with God.

He shows them how relationships work in that community. It’s in the part just before what we read. He takes a towel and a bowl, wets the towel and bends to wash his friend’s feet. People generally wore sandals in those days so feet got really dirty; there’s mud, there’s whatever they’ve stepped in. Washing feet was a courtesy usually performed by slaves. Yet here is their master bending before them, acting like a servant. It’s uncomfortable. Honestly, it is today among us which is one reason that although I’ve conducted may Maundy Thursday services, we almost never, ever, actually do what Jesu did, wash each other’s feet. It’s too intimate; it’s too personal. Once someone asked if we were going to do that at Maundy Thursday because if we were she wanted to get a pedicure beforehand; she didn’t want ugly feet I guess. The thing about Jesus is that he doesn’t care if your feet are ugly, he wants to teach you to serve others and he does it by acting out a love that makes you beautiful. He doesn’t care when you feel worthless, he gives his life to show you how much yours is worth.

We get to overhear two conversations here. The first is with Thomas. Remember Thomas? We talked about Thomas a couple weeks ago. Thomas wants specific, hard answers. So when Jesus says, “I’m making a place for you and you know the way,” Thomas speaks up and says “No we don’t; Lord we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” [John 14:5] The word ‘way’ here translates a word that has multiple meanings. It can mean road or path; it can mean a whole set of directions. It can also mean a spiritual discipline. Thomas is looking for directions: how do we get where you’re going? Jesus answers with what’s become one of the most quoted verses in the whole Bible: “Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” [John 14:6] I know you’ve heard this, we all have. But often when it’s quoted, the part at the beginning gets left out: “Jesus said to him…” This isn’t a general teaching for everyone: this is specific to Thomas. 

This gets quoted to make Christians feel superior but the whole context here is humility. Jesus washes the disciples’ feet; Jesus tells them not to be troubled. Jesus says, there are lots of places in my father’s house, I”m getting one for you. There’s no exclusion here if you listen to the whole conversation. Just a little bit before, there’s the part we read last week, about Jesus being an open gate; here, there are many dwelling places, enough for everyone. Jesus is offering to include everyone. His point is that you don’t need directions, you don’t need a map, you have his life, you have him. He embodies the way. And if everyone coming to the Father is going that way, it’s entirely possible they are going that way with someone else. Perhaps with Mohammed, perhaps with the Buddha, perhaps Moses. It doesn’t matter where you come from in Harrisburg, if you’re going to the west shore, you’re going over a bridge. It doesn’t matter where you live, what you believe, if you come to the father, you’re coming by way of love and humility. 

One writer put it this way.

Jesus said “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me” (John 14:6).  He didn’t say that any particular ethic, doctrine, or religion was the way, the truth, and the life. He said that he was. He didn’t say that it was by believing or doing anything in particular that you could “come to the Father.” He said that it was only by him—by living, participating in, being caught up by the way of life that he embodied, that was his way.

Thus it is possible to be on Christ’s way and with his mark upon you without ever having heard of Christ, and for that reason to be on your way to God though maybe you don’t even believe in God.

A Christian is one who is on the way, though not necessarily very far along it, and who has at least some dim and half-baked idea of whom to thank. [https://www.patheos.com/blogs/carlgregg/2011/05/lectionary-commentary-“a-progressive-christian-reading-of-john-146”-for-sunday-may-22-2011/]

It’s Jesus himself, his life, that is the way and he welcomes everyone to come along.

The other conversation we get to overhear is with Philip. “Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” [John 14:8] Now, Philips question has a long history. Throughout the Bible, throughout history I imagine, people wanted to see God. Jacob wrestled with an angel and said, “I have seen God face to face yet my life has been spared” [Genesis 32:30] Moses asks to see God’s glory and God passes by. [Exodus 33:18-22] Isaiah sees God seated on a throne. [Isaiah 6:1] The truth is we can only see what our eyes tell us and what we imagine and God is greater than either one. As you know, Jacquelyn and I just came back from a week in Spain. We visit Cathedrals and art museums when we go and they’re both full of wonderful, artistic pictures. They mean to show God but they can’t. You can’t see the ocean, you can only see the surface and it’s the same here.

So Jesus tells Philip the truth, the greatest truth of Christian faith: that God is fully in him, so if you want to see God, look at Jesus. “Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? [John 14:9] Every Sunday we gather here, every Sunday I come here with one mission. I learned it years ago in a little church where I was a supply preacher. The pulpit had a little brass plaque that said, “Sir, we would see Jesus”. That’s my mission: to show Jesus. Because if we see Jesus, we’ve seen the Father. If we know Jesus, we know the Father, who has always known us.

I read a book on preaching once, trying to learn to do it, and it said every sermon should have an easy answer to, “what do you want the congregation to do?” The author meant that there should be a ringing challenge to some great action. I don’t think this is good sermon in that way; I’m not going to challenge you today to do anything except this: pray for us here at Salem to be a place where it’s obvious God is present. Pray for us to be a church where we are dwelling well with the Lord. Pray for us to feel God’s spirit moving so that indeed, we will know the way and the truth of God’s love.

Amen.

Never Too Late

by

A Sermon for the Salem United Church of Christ of Harrisburg, PA

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2026

Second Sunday in Easter/Year A • April 12, 2026

John 20:19-32

When I was in college, and later seminary, a lot of my life was dominated by deadlines to write papers. I had a bad habit of putting off doing these until right before the deadline, so they were often late. My favorite professor was Dennis Duling, a New Testament scholar who taught my last class in seminary. I turned the final paper in a day late as usual; when I got it back, there was a big ‘A’ on the front and a note: “I’m not taking the usual points off for your usual lateness. You are about to learn there is no way to hand a sermon in late.” He was right and for most of my life, I’ve lived with the fact that on Sunday morning there is an absolute deadline. These days it’s 10:30 AM on Sunday. That’s it, no matter what else is going on, I have to be ready to walk in here, look out at all of you and say with conviction, “The peace of the Lord be with you.” There’s no excuse, no matter what else is going on, for being late. It’s not just me, either. Jacquelyn’s work as a flight attendant demands absolute timeliness. If she isn’t ready for a flight, the flight can’t leave. So it’s a very serious matter. She deals with it by being an hour early at the airport; I deal with it by going off to my office about five minutes early. How do you deal with staying on time? I ask because today’s gospel is the story of a man who was late for the most important moment in his life. Today we’re listening to the story of Thomas and the disciples and how Easter came to them.

There’s so much to hear before we get to Thomas. Just imagine the disciples’ situation. For perhaps three years or so, they’ve left their lives and followed Jesus, cared for him, accepted his care for them. He lifted them up in hope of a coming kingdom. Even when they were worried about the journey to Jerusalem, they followed along. They must have been amazed at the crowds entering the city. They must have wondered seeing him in the Temple, trashing the money changers. And they must have been scared when suddenly the soldiers appeared at Gethsemene and arrested Jesus, took him away roughly. They saw he’d been beaten, they saw the blood from the crown of thorns and they saw him gasping out his last breaths on the cross. They saw the death of Jesus; they felt the death of hope. 

Now they’re together and they’ve locked the door, the text says “in fear of the Jews”. This has nothing to do with Jews as a people; they’re afraid of the same authorities who arrested Jesus and sent him to the Romans, the only ones with the authority to execute him. They’re gathered for the funeral luncheon. The woman have told them a crazy story about seeing the Lord and an empty tomb, but they didn’t believe them. They believe in common sense: dead people stay dead. All you can do is grieve and get back to normal.

So there they are: you know how these things go, quiet conversations, food, no one eating much, people hovering around the family. Here there is the locked door; here is certainly the memory of their last supper a few days ago, perhaps a happy seder. Suddenly, Jesus appears. He walks through the door. I always wonder: does that make any noise? Does the door creak when he passes through it? There he is: alive. Wow. Did they all go silent? Did they drop plates they were holding? Imagine if you’d just taken a big bite of something, do you swallow? “Peace be with you,” he says. Shalom aleicham: the common every Friday greeting of shabby, what someone says at the beginning of the service. Yet so much more here.

He shows them his wounds. Isn’t that how we all connect? A long time ago, Jacquelyn gave me the most important advice I’ve ever gotten about sermons; “Don’t be the hero of your own story.” When I want to illustrate something for you, I deliberately show the times I failed, times I got it wrong. I want you to see my wounds because we are all wounded and when we see each other’s wounds, we know each other. They see his wounds: they know it’s him.

Don’t miss this part of the story running on to hear about Thomas, we’ll get to Thomas but stay here and see this. Jesus walks through a door, Jesus is alive, and he comes and the first thing he says is, “”Peace be with you.” I think today a lot of us are locked up in rooms for fear. We are careful talking about our politics, our religion, because it’s easy to give offense. So we lock up the doors but listen here: Jesus walks through doors. Jesus goes where everyone is excluded. Jesus comes even when we’re hopeless and sad and this is what he as to say first: “Peace be with you.”

That’s not all, though. He goes on to say that he’s sending them; he’s sending us. And he’s sending us just like the Father sent him. This is what it means to be the Body of Christ, that we are sent just like him, and our job is to forgive sins. In other words, to give peace to others, just as he gives it to us. You know, the church picked up on the last part, “…if you don’t forgive sins they are retained,” and used it as a fund raising tool. The only way to get forgiven is to come to us! But that’s not the gospel, that’s not the command; the command is to go out and forgive sins. The command is to go out and be Jesus to others.

We’ll talk more about this another time but I want to get on to Thomas. Remember Thomas? This is a story about Thomas. So the story is the whole group gathers a week after the crucifixion. Maybe they’re celebrating shabbat, maybe they’re just grieving. They’re scared of the authorities; they lock the door. But Jesus walks right in, says Peace be to you and then gives them a mission. But Thomas was late; Thomas wasn’t there. So a week later when he does show up, they all tell him, “We have seen the Lord!” Thomas pouts. Maybe he looks around, sees this group he’s spent so much time with, sees that nothing has changed. They’re still the same folks, the door is still locked. Thomas doesn’t believe them about seeing the Lord. Why would he? They aren’t out forgiving, they aren’t out being Jesus. They’re still in a locked room.

So once again Jesus walks through the door, once again Jesus says, “Shalom alchem—peace be unto you”. Once again he shows his wounds. Thomas touches them. And finally, Thomas says, what we all say finally: “My Lord and my God.” Thomas believes; Thomas receives the Spirit. 

We had a fine service last Sunday celebrating Jesus’ resurrection. Caleb and Joe and Carmen provided wonderful music. We got to sing those old familiar hymns, “Christ the Lord is Risen Today”, and a newer one, “Pass It On”. We heard the story, we listened to God’s Word. Now, what’s different? What did we do this week to show someone we know the love of God in Jesus Christ? Think for a minute: what did you do to show someone Jesus?

It’s a hard question, isn’t it? The simple humility of Jesus doesn’t match the angry moment in which we’re living. Many of you know we have a boat down in Baltimore. A few days ago, I was down there, staying overnight. There’s wifi in the lounge, I had a sermon to write, so I was there in the lounge, working away, alone and a guy came in and sat down, turned on the TV. 

Now all of us at the marina have boats in common, so there’s always something to talk about. But that night President Trump was speaking about the war he had started in Iran and he put that on. There was this long uncomfortable time while we watched silently, both of us afraid to say anything, to comment; we all know how angry conversations about politics can get. Finally, he said something not too off base, I replied, and we both relaxed and realized we were on the same side and then the conversation flowed. But we had to make sure we were ok first. 

That’s common today, I think. I didn’t show off Jesus that night. I just found a comfortable conversation. How do we move beyond those? We start with compassion. I have a favorite flight attendant story that doesn’t involve Jacquelyn, my personal flight attendant. It’s about a plane that lands late in Salt Lake City one night. You can imagine the situation: everyone’s tired, everyone just wants off the plane, arrangements have been disrupted, people are anxious. As the plane was rolling toward the gate, one of the flight attendants got on the PA. 

The flight attendant asked passengers to raise their hand if they were ending their journey in Salt Lake City, the flight’s destination. After most of the hands in the cabin went up, he continued.“Now, everyone who has their hands up: Imagine the anxiety you’d feel if you had to catch another flight tonight and weren’t sure you’d make it. Put your hands down. And now, those connecting to Palm Springs, and Denver, raise yours!” “Everyone, look around,” the flight attendant requested. “These are the people who’ll be sprinting off the plane tonight as soon as we land. Look at them, and imagine this was you.”

The flight attendant then implored everyone in the cabin who didn’t have a connecting flight to stay seated and give the other passengers space to get out as quickly as possible.

“If we all play our part, they can make it,” the flight attendant said. “Thank you so much for your consideration and help. Every one of those guys appreciates you for it.”The energy in the cabin completely shifted.

Everyone suddenly shared the same mission,” “We all knew who the people were that needed to hustle now. And we were all in it with them, feeling their adrenaline in our veins.”

When the plane landed only connecting passengers stood up. Others helped them with their bags. Afterwards, the remaining passengers patiently got up, grabbed their things, and exited calmly.

“The whole plane was rooting for them,” one passenger said.

It’s not much, is it? One plane, one group of people. But think how that compassion changed the moment for everyone there. Everyone landing on that plane wanted off as soon as possible; that flight attendant took their wants and transformed them into compassion.

That’s our job every day: to be the people who turn desire into compassion, who take pride and turn it into humility, who take guilt and forgive it and turn it into a new life. Last week, and the week before, I asked you to imagine asking Jesus, “What now?” Today we have the answer: go out and be Jesus, go out and forgive, go out and show the love of God every day. People are angry because they’re wounded; it’s our job to be the healers, the hopers, the helpers. At the very end of that reading in John, when he’s closing out the story, there’s one more thing we shouldn’t miss: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” That’s us.

The women go to the tomb, find it empty, tell the disciples the Lord has risen. The disciples don’t believe them. So Jesus comes to them in person to show them he’s alive. Thomas doesn’t believe it when they tell him, so Jesus again, says the same things, does the same thing. It’s the same for us: it’s never too late, Jesus just keeps coming, Jesus just keeps hoping that we will be his body, carry his Spirit, live the new life he means to give. 

Amen.

Conversations Before the Cross #5: Come Out!

by

A Sermon for the Salem United Church of Christ, Harrisburg, PA

by Rev. James Eaton, Pastor

Fifth Sunday in Lent/A • March 22, 2026

Ezekiel 37:1-14 * John 11:1-45

Throughout this season of Lent, we’ve been overhearing Jesus’ conversations. We heard him talk to Satan, responding to each temptation to live from his own needs with God’s Word and a determination to live that Word. We heard him tell Nicodemus about new life by being born from above, from living as a child of heaven. We heard him offer a woman at a well in Samaria living water, flowing from the love of God, baptizing her in a way that opened the way to new life. We saw him heal a man born blind and the conflict it caused when his eyes were opened and he believed in Jesus. Now we come to this story and there are so many people, so many conversations going on that it’s hard to hear Jesus directly. What do you hear in the story?

See how carefully John invites us into the scene. Bethany is a suburb of Jerusalem. Mary and Martha are gathered there; Lazarus, their brother, is deathly ill. I know this scene and perhaps you do as well. It’s played out in hospital waiting rooms every day. Right now, at Harrisburg Hospital, at Hershey Hospital, some family is gathered, waiting, talking, worrying. Nothing has changed; nothing is different, then, now. Their brother has been sick, perhaps for a long time. Everything has been tried; nothing has worked. Now they try one more thing. Jesus has a reputation for healing and he’s their friend. So someone, another friend perhaps, is sent to get him. Imagine their hope, their last hope, that Jesus will swoop in and save the day. 

But he doesn’t. In fact, after the messenger arrives with his frantic plea, Jesus doesn’t rush off, Jesus doesn’t interrupt whatever he’s doing, Jesus stays where he is, the text says, two more days. The story invites us into an irony that reflects our own fears. When the messenger arrives, asking, begging Jesus to come to Bethany, his disciples are afraid. “The last time we were down there, people rioted and we barely got out with our lives!”, they remind him; that’s what it means when it says they were stoned. At the moment Jesus is asked to intervene and prevent Lazarus’ death, the disciples urge him not to go because they’re afraid of death.

This delay is one of the most interesting parts of this story. It lifts up our own question, doesn’t it? Why doesn’t Jesus come when we summon him? Here I am Lord, here’s what I want. That’s the subtext of a good deal of prayer life, I suspect. Here’s Lazarus’ family reaching out in what they think is their most needy moment. When he does eventually arrive, they can’t let it go. But, as John Fairless observes,

If Jesus had arrived on their timeline, He would have healed a sick man. Admirable, certainly—a demonstration of compassion and power. But John, the writer, has a deeper revealing in mind. Healing the sick was routine in Christ’s ministry. Raising someone dead for four days is categorically different. [John Fairless, “Divine Delay”]

The disciples don’t want to go because they’re scared; Jesus waits because the moment isn’t right yet.

When his disciples were discussing the man born blind, he told them, “I am the light of the world.” Now he gives them an example of living in the light and makes his way to Bethany. There he encounters first Martha and later Mary, the sisters of Lazarus, and each one confronts him with an accusation: “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.” They are grieving, they are hurt, they are angry and their anger and faith have mixed into a bitter blindness. Swirling around this entire conversation is a group of other mourners as well and emotions run high. Jesus is himself caught up in the moment; the text tells us “Jesus wept.” Grief is real; hurt is real. Jesus doesn’t tell them, “Oh, stop”, he enters into the moment with them. He weeps; he mourns.

Now I imagine we’ve all been to a funeral and probably to that time before the service, calling hours, wake, different names for the same moment. Usually there is a casket or an urn at the front of the room and a line leading to it with a grieving family off to one side. I don’t know what you think of as you wait in that line but for many, it’s what to say to the family. What comfort can you bring? What story can you share? So I imagine this scene like that: the family and friends gathered around as Jesus, Lazarus’ great friend, comes forward through the crowd. See him walking slowly? See him weeping? Now he comes to the opening, he tells them to roll away the stone and they object: the odor of death will escape. But the grave is opened and suddenly he speaks, he says what no one imagined or expected, what none of us would say:
“Lazarus, come out.”

Jesus shouts: “Lazarus, come out”, the same word—‘shout— is used at his entrance about the way the crowds shout “Hosanna!”, the same word is used days later when the same crowd shouts, “Crucify!” The crowd changes from moment to moment; Jesus never does. His voice doesn’t come from an impulse. This is what we often miss about Jesus. I don’t believe he suddenly decided to talk to Nicodemus or the woman at the well; I don’t believe he suddenly decided to heal the man born blind. And he doesn’t just call Lazarus out of the tomb because they are friends. Jesus lives from who he is. He says, “I am the resurrection and the life.” This is the quality of his life that inspired and continues to inspire: he doesn’t act like resurrection, he is resurrection; he doesn’t act like he loves, he is love. 

Now he calls Lazarus: “Come out!” And now there is a faint. The family wanted healing, Jesus brings resurrection. Now there is a noise from inside the tomb, now there is the sound of stumbling feet, now there is a shadow moving, moving toward the light from the darkness, just as the man born blind moved from blindness to sight, just as the woman at the well moved from her loneliness to love. “Come out, Lazarus!” And Lazarus stumbles forward, wrapped still in the linen cloths with which bodies were bound in that time. Jesus offers a new command: “Unbind him and let him go.” And they do. Notice that in each command, Jesus invites others to take action. He tells others to move the stone; he doesn’t pull Lazarus out of the tomb, he calls him out; he doesn’t unbind him, he asks the whole group there to do this. Jesus works through a community around him, commanding, inspiring, calling, showing them what to do and inviting them to do it.

The fundamental Christian mission is to go to where the power of death is working and call God’s children to life, to go to darkness and bring light. Perhaps a story from almost two thousand years ago is so distant it seems irrelevant. But there are still times when Christians are called to go into tombs and bring life. In 1940, Holland was overwhelmed by a German assault and captured almost in a few days. Soon the Nazi focus on eliminating Jews made itself felt. In Amsterdam, a large theater was gutted and used as a detention center and nearby another called the Creche, was used to gather Jewish children. A small group of Dutch resisters, both Christians and Jews, began to work to save these children. Despite the increasing risks, for the next three years they organized networks to smuggle children out of the creche to homes in northern Holland and other places where families would hide them and help them. The creche was meant to be the first stage of a tomb for these children and so it was for thousands. But thanks to the efforts of these who walked into that tomb and spirited them out, hundreds of children were saved.

But it’s not simply a story of heroes and happy children. Many of the group were lost to the Gestapo, arrested, tortured, murdered. Darkness is powerful; death does not give up. The only power greater than death is resurrection, the only thing that can keep the light alive is the power of God’s love. All along his journey, Jesus has faced conflict and threats. We saw the anger of the Pharisees last week when he healed the man born blind. We know that the charge, “He eats with sinners,” was frequently used and that included people like the woman at the well certainly. Beyond the reading for today, John tells us that the raising of Lazarus leads directly to the plot to arrest and execute Jesus. Remember how Jesus’ conversation with Satan ended. Satan did not say, “I give up”; instead, we’re told, he left him for a more opportune time. Now that time is coming. The darkness is closing around him even as he himself brings light. I wonder in that moment what his followers thought; I wonder what we would have thought, what I would have thought. I read this story and I want to rejoice but it scares me as well. I wonder: what now Lord?

For the story of Jesus calling someone to life from death isn’t just history; it is the present too. Over and over in my ministry I have seen this happen. Some person, nurtured by a congregation, comes alive. Perhaps it was a woman whose life had been bound by walls of oppression; perhaps it is a man who turns a life around. Perhaps it is someone who only comes to church for a little while and then moves on. This is what sustains me on my journey. I’ve seen Jesus call people to life. I’ve felt Jesus call me to life.  

Every moment is a gate between the past and the future; every moment comes with a context and holds possibilities. As we go out each day, we have to choose among those possibilities. How will we choose? The power of resurrection comes into our lives when we face the day, face the possibilities, face the choices with this question first: what now Lord? What now? If we ask, surely he will answer; if we ask, surely he will show us how to walk in the light, how to live following the one who is life. Amen.

Note: The account of the Resistance group working to save children is found in The Heart Has Reasons: Holocaust Rescuers and Their Stories of Courage

Conversations Before the Cross 4

by


A Man Born Blind from Birth

A Sermon for the Salem United Church of Christ, Harrisburg, PA

by Rev. James Eaton, Pastor

Fourth Sunday in Lent/A • March 15, 2026

John Chapter 9

What are his references? That’s a question most of us ask in one way or another from time to time. Employers ask it: no one hires someone without at least trying to find out how they did previously. And the answer doesn’t always have to be positive! I was fired from my first job as a ministerial intern in seminary after a long period of conflict with the senior minister. A while later I began looking for a new job and found a church and minister that really excited me. I told them about my experience, trying to be objective, not trying to hide any of the details; I remember the minister interviewing me saying, “So, you resigned from your last job? I said: No, I was fired. The minister said he didn’t feel a need to check my references, but of course he did, so he did something ministers do under the circumstances: he called a friend in a church nearby. So not long afterward I was called into the senior minister’s office to hear him say, well I decided to do a little checking on you after we talked, so I called a friend who knows the situation in the church where you worked…and he said the guy you worked for is crazy and being fired there is an honor!

What are his references? It’s a question that creeps into our relationship with Jesus in one way or another. We see his story through the glasses of our common sense, our life experience and our own individual histories. We look for the points in these histories that can connect and explain his story. These are Jesus’ references. There’s nothing new about this process, the earliest Christians did the same thing. They were in many cases Jews who looked for a special person from God, just as God had sent Abraham, Moses, Elijah, David and Elijah. In many ways Jesus met these expectations, but in others he did not. The story about the man born blind from birth was remembered because it spoke to the questions of Christians trying to live their daily lives in harmony with God’s intention—trying to understand whether Jesus of Nazareth was a part of that intention.

This story matches the story of the church. It is our story. We also are people who encountered Jesus, were changed by him and now live in a world where his presence is not always apparent. We look forward to a final time when our Lord will appear beside us and we will be able to see him and touch him. Our problem is what to do in the meantime. This is finally an individual challenge: remember, neither the blind man’s friends nor his parents, neither the crowds nor the Pharisees, were any help to him in understanding how to live with his new sight. There is a mystery here, a mystery that lies at the heart of the way God loves us. For in the structure of our relationship with God there is a scandalous particularity, an individuality, that shakes the foundations of every life that takes it seriously. “Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?”, the Psalmist asks, and the answer is always someone’s name, some particular name, some particular person. 

Why one person and not someone else? Why you and not me? Why me and not you? This scandal, this particularity, lies near the heart of all our questions about suffering and meaning. Who is this blind man that he should be healed—while others remain blind. Is his moral life more faithful? Does he pray more deeply or more eloquently? Is his faith stronger or in need of strengthening? Nothing in the text answers such questions, nothing in the action of the story gives any explanation. So it is with us, isn’t it? Since ancient times, one strand of thought in Israel held misfortune and disability and disease to be the direct consequence of sin, sometimes a consequence carried on through generations. There is a part of our religious impulse that always wants to quantify. So much sin, so much grace: measured out like the sugar and flour of a cake mix, balanced off like the weights on a jeweler’s scale. But Jesus directs attention away from the surface to the deeper realities of the situation. Sin is related to grace, of course, but not as the disciples think. The man’s life is not a result of his own action but is part of the structure of God’s revelation. The blind man is about to become the living gospel, the person who bridges the gulf between God and human being.

“Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord and who shall go for us”, the Psalmist asks, and the answer is always some particular person at some particular moment of time. So Jesus came to a small village for a moment and opened a blind man’s eyes. We tend to think of such characters as special, different, not like us, but the fact is that he is precisely like us. He is a young man who has overcome the obstacles of his life, found a trade and is working industriously at it. He is just like us: pregnant with the possibility of epiphany, capable of becoming the candle by which the divine flame of God is seen to burn and give light. The disciples want to give this man a practical explanation, almost a scientific one. “Who sinned?”, they ask, “This man or his family?” But to Jesus the man’s circumstances including his blindness are an occasion for showing God’s presence. “This happened so that the work of God”—some translations say glory of God—“might be displayed in his life.”

The Pharisees of the story are puzzled because Jesus doesn’t follow what they expect: His references are nonexistent and his behavior is scandalous. Since they don’t know who he is they concentrate on the how: their concentration on the question of how Jesus healed the man is so striking that he finally asks if they also want to become his disciples. They are seeking a clue to the who through the how: They want the regular procedures followed; they want the rules to apply to everyone. They want to know who Jesus was: where he came from, where he’s been, what schools h attended, how he learned to heal. There is comfort in the past: it is predictable, it is safe, it can’t get out of hand and surprise you. “We are disciples of Moses,” they tell the man.

But they’ve forgotten Moses was once a wild, free spirit on fire with God. They’ve forgotten the Moses who asked to see God, though that was against all rules. They remember only the rules Moses left. Moses said, “Keep the sabbath holy” and they have transformed that into something else entirely: don’t work on the sabbath. They can’t see that healing is holy; they only see Jesus breaking a rule. Finally, they conclude, he can’t be from God. They don’t know his references and so they simply say, “As for this man, we don’t know where he comes from”.

But the blind man is amazed at this: here are the religious and political authorities of his life puzzled. 

Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from yet he opened my eyes. If this man were not from God he could do nothing! 

This is the ultimate testimony of the believer, the follower of Jesus Christ: that our lives have been changed, healed. And that this is so, regardless of how the world may see or understand that change. Sometimes the change is remarkable and radical. Sometimes it is internal and quiet. Sometimes it leads to moments of soaring courage; more often to the simple endurance of living life hopefully each day. The blind man’s history hasn’t changed but now he lives with vision. He is healed. His future is new; as Paul said, “In Christ there is a new creation.” Christ calls us to a new creation, a creation beyond the rules we knew and lived by.

“Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?” This blind man—this particular life, at this particular moment—is the means by which God chooses to work and call others. Who would have thought God would choose such people: a nine or ten year old shepherd, a blind man sitting by the road side. You, me, the person sitting in the pew next to you: are these really the means by which the Almighty God chooses to work and become known? Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? It’s us: there isn’t anyone else. The people of these Bible stories are not the heroic figures we romantically assume. They are people who are busy about their lives and getting on with them. People who have their own hearts and hopes but who are changed when they become the particular way God’s work is demonstrated and moved forward.

The blind man’s story is our story as well, if we are the followers of this Jesus of Nazareth. The blind man is not any more prepared to become the visible agent of the invisible Spirit than you or I, and the whole event causes considerable disruption in his life. Friends desert him. His parents refuse to defend him. The religious and political authorities of the village and the area cross-examine him and threaten him and are finally puzzled by him. Through all this, the agent of his change—Jesus, the one who caused the change—is nowhere to be found. If this is, as I suggested, intended to be not only the story of the blind man but the story of the church and therefore our story as well, what does it suggest the task of faithful Christian people is?

The clue to the answer is near the end of the story. After all the shouting has died down the man meets Jesus again, though of course he doesn’t recognize him—remember, he’s never seen Jesus before. “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” Jesus asks, and when the man asks who this is, Jesus reveals his identify: the man replies, “Lord, I believe.” What is the most important task of believers? Perhaps it is simply to be believers—to live as believers—to keep living as believers. This is, a simple and yet enormously difficult formula. Our culture, like the culture of the first century Christians who remembered this story, is hostile to Christian faith and seeks to erase it by a concentration on the technological question, the question of how things are to occur, how life is to be lived. So our culture constantly offers us formulas: take control of your own life, read this book, listen to this speaker, see this therapist, try this diet. In this culture, our faith offers not a how but a who: Jesus of Nazareth, God’s anointed, the Christ who comes into the world. We offer an invitation: not to take control of your own life but to offer your life to God who is known in this man.

To respond in this way is anything but easy. It’s striking to realize how difficult the blind man’s life becomes after he is healed. His friends and family desert him, his trade is lost and the local authorities keep after him. Does he have moments when he wished he had his simple life back, wished the l light would go out again and he could sit by the side of the road begging? Perhaps, but what the story suggests is a man so transformed by this experience that he can hardly imagine his former life. At the end of the story, when he knows Jesus, the text simply says “he worshipped him”. Christian faith is finally this: the ability to worship Jesus, not because you have been given satisfactory references but because you have seen what he has done and know that if this man were not from God, he could do nothing. What are Jesus’ references? You are—I am—we all are together. “You are the Body of Christ and individually members of it”, Paul says. We are the ones he is healing; we are the ones he has taught to hope. Hope is ultimate healing. It comes not from a reference or a technique but from a decision about whom you will believe and what you will worship. 

Nowhere is that decision more clearly defined than at the end of this story. There finally we have the alternatives we also face. The blind man responds to Jesus simply when Jesus reveals his identity: “‘Lord I believe’..and he worshipped him”. The Pharisees are still fussing, still asking, “What are his references?”. By the end of the story, the blind man has a vision that lights his life; the Pharisees are blind. 

We walk in a forest throughout our lives. There are dark shadows that stretch out; there are places where the path is not clear. There are dangers and difficulties and moments when the way opens on inexpressible beauty. As we walk through this forest, we must ultimately decide whether we will trust the vision of Jesus Christ or stumble blindly, hoping on our own to avoid the pitfalls. Nothing guarantees our choice. Putting a cross on the sign does not mean we will not act like Pharisees inside. Only our decision to freely embrace Jesus as a guide can keep us on the path; only our commitment to come to him, as the blind man did, whatever our lives, whatever our history, and simply say, “Lord, I believe”.

Amen.

Conversations Before the Cross #2

by

A Sermon for the First Congregational Church of Albany, NY

by Rev. James Eaton, Pastor

Second Sunday in Lent/A • March 1, 2026

The black and white flickering picture on the screen highlights the dark points of farm implements, makes the wrinkles on faces stand out, tells us the movie is sometimes long ago. It’s the beginning of the Wizard of Oz, but it begins with the dust and dreary farm and the harsh black and white light. We’re in Kansas in the depression. Dark clouds forming a funnel, an image burned on everyone who’s ever lived in tornado country as disaster in motion, and suddenly the house is lifted, Dorothy with it, whirling through the air. When it lands and she opens the door suddenly the world is transformed: it’s now in color. Perhaps you know the story, how Dorothy sets off to find the wizard and a way home. Along the way she meets the Scarecrow, who wants a brain, the Tin Man, who desires a heart and the Cowardly Lion who begs for courage. Each is invited to come along and each has to ask the same question this conversation asks us: do you believe in the possibility of transformation? Can the world change color, can the leopard change his spots, can the whole world change—can you change?

That’s the question Nicodemus is left pondering. He comes to Jesus at night, when good Jewish men are locked up in their gated homes. He is a substantial man, well off, presumably married with kids at home. He’s respected, a leader in his community and his synagogue. Yet something brings him out, some need, some emptiness. Long after Nicodemus, St. Augustine would write, “Lord, you have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in you.” [Augustine, Confessions 1.1.1] Perhaps he has a restless heart. Perhaps he’s just curious.

He comes to Jesus with courtesy, calling him Rabbi, a term of respect, roughly comparable to “Reverend” or “Teacher”, and he says that he knows Jesus “came from God”. He’s been impressed by the signs Jesus has done. Presumably, he means the healing which was an important part of Jesus’ ministry. He doesn’t ask a question; he simply comes. What would you have asked? What do you want to know from Jesus? Perhaps Jesus is used to such seekers; perhaps he simply sees the restless heart before him. He says, simply, directly: “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”

What do you hear Jesus saying? We are so used to American cultural religion with its emphasis on what we do, on the gospel of achievement applied to salvation, that we may hear the familiar phrase, “You must be born again.” But that’s not what Jesus says. First, he doesn’t command anything. There’s no imperative here. It’s a simple, flat statement: “No one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above.” I think Nicodemus must have heard the born again part, as we often do. Because he immediately focuses on the physical: no one can be born again he says. We apply the same thought, often, to ourselves. Nicodemus makes the obvious argument: grown up, grown old, we can’t go back ad start over. “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?”

Isn’t this really what most of us think? You are born, you grow up, you learn things, you experience things. You have some tough times; you have some good times. At times you prosper, at other times you don’t. Through it all you accumulate all those bits and pieces that make you, you. And among them are some scars, some injuries that left a mark. Maybe it was a marriage that didn’t work out; maybe it was a loss, maybe it was a friend who isn’t a friend any longer. Maybe you never quite lived out some dream you had earlier on. How do you go back and restart  after all that? I’ll tell you a secret only two people in the world know: I wasn’t that great a parent to my oldest child. I didn’t know how to be a parent, I certainly didn’t know how to parent a girl. I didn’t tell her how proud she made me nearly enough, and I wasn’t kind enough, and I didn’t know how when she raged to think, “Well, she’s 13, it’s just hormones,” and walk away, so I yelled back. I’d give a lot to  go back and change that. But I can’t.

Maybe you have something like that, something you wish had been different but never will be. So maybe you agree with Nicodemus: you can’t go back. If you do, then it’s so important that you listen closely to what Jesus says. Because you and I and Nicodemus have all misunderstood Jesus if we thought he was talking about going back. He says,

‘You must be born from above.’

The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” [John 3:8]

Jesus isn’t talking about being born again at all. He’s talking about being born of the Spirit: being reborn. Jesus isn’t talking about undoing the past: he’s asking about the future. The wind blows where it will: it’s hard to predict, it’s hard to see. So is the future, and the question isn’t what about the past, but what are you going to do about the future? Can you live as someone born new today from God’s Spirit?

This starts with seeing. How many of God’s blessings do you see each day? How do you see other people. We are being asked today by a great political movement to see people of other faiths, Muslims particularly, as fearful. Do you see others, strangers, as children of God, the same God who loves you? Can you see this way? Can you start, not over, but fresh each day, freshly looking out for what God is doing. There was a moment when Western surgeons learned to treat cataracts which were often the cause of people being blind from birth. Annie Dillard talks about some of these people in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, concluding with this case.

…a twenty-two-year-old girl was dazzled by the world’s brightness and kept her eyes shut for two weeks. When at the end of that time she opened her eyes again, she did not recognize any objects, but ‘the more she now directed her gaze upon everything about her, the more it could be seen how an expression of gratification and astonishment overspread her features. She repeatedly exclaimed,
‘O God! How beautiful!’ [Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, p. 30f]

Jesus invites Nicodemus  to a new life, not to a do over of his old life; not to be born again but to be born from above, into a new spiritual life.

This, he says, is his purpose: 

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

And the first step is to believe and begin the journey. 

What happened to Nicodemus? We don’t know; the gospel never mentions him again. But sometimes it takes a while for the seeds of the spirit to sprout and blossom and bear fruit. There is a moment when the Tin Man, the Scare Crow and the Cowardly Lion think the gifts they seek, the new life they hoped to find, will never happen. What happens then? The wizard gives them each a gift to recognize the gifts they already have. The Scarecrow gets a degree, the Tin Man a heart and the Lion a medal for courage. What about you? What would it take to change your life? What would it take for you to believe that’s possible, that you can be born from above? 

Perhaps it is to simply to see God’s love, the way that girl saw the world. Maybe one of your wounds is that somewhere along the way, someone suggested God was sitting like a judge, writing up everything you’d ever done wrong. Maybe your list is long. Then listen: God is here, not to judge, but to love; God is here, not to judge, but to save. God is here, inviting you to start fresh today. God is here: how beautiful.

Amen.

Conversations Before the Cross 1:

by

Satan Speaks

A Sermon for the Salem United Church of Christ
of Harrisburg, PA

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2026

First Sunday in Lent/A • February 22, 2006

Matthew 4:1-11

What was the best day of your life? Go there for a moment: remember it. Was there a party? Were you with a few people, family, a crowd, or were you alone? Was there cake? There’s often cake on the best day of your life. What did it smell like? How did it taste? Did you know then it would be the best day of your life? I mention all this because Jesus’ baptism must have been about the best day of his life, even though there is no report about cake. I don’t think chocolate cake had been invented yet, so perhaps it doesn’t matter. But there was a crowd, his friend John, and wow: a voice from heaven! Even when Jacquelyn and I were married, there was no voice from heaven, though she looked like an angel. “You are my beloved child, I’m pleased with you.” Some of us live our whole lives waiting to hear that; it must have been amazing. 

All of this is a prelude, it turns out, because no one gets to live in the best day of their life forever ,and for Jesus, the next day is terrible. It’s like living here, having it hit 50 degrees one day and then a couple of days later barely making 16. Ouch: things sure can turn around. In the life of Jesus, the turnaround is to go from heaven opening to being driven into the wilderness and going hungry for 40 days. No cake; no food at all. Just the dangerous, daunting, desert wilderness where all you can hear is your empty stomach begging to be filled. This is the site of temptation: this is where temptation always occurs, when we are empty. How can I get what I need? Isn’t that the question that leads to temptation? 

“Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” Matthew, Mark, and Luke all include this story, apparently using two different versions which they combine. Since no one else is present, we can only conclude they are relying on Jesus’ own account of his time in the wilderness. Geography is theology in the gospel. To go from the Jordan River into the wilderness is to go backward on the journey of God’s people. There, just as they had been, Jesus is hungry, thirsty, and there he faces temptation. He faces it alone: the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove has flown off; the voice from heaven is silent. Jesus, as the song says, has to walk this lonesome valley by himself.

Alone, hungry, vulnerable, Jesus fasts for forty days and nights. Here is the first thing to learn about temptation: it often comes when we are most vulnerable. Today we rarely practice the spiritual discipline of fasting in Protestant churches, but our fathers and mothers in the faith did. We took over Thanksgiving from the Pilgrims; seldom mentioned and almost never included in Thanksgiving is the fast that preceded it. Today, the Lenten discipline of giving something up has fallen into disfavor, but giving something up, taking something off the table of possibility, induces temptation. It walks us into the valley where Jesus walked.

Imagine him there in the desert. He’s lost but beyond worrying about direction. There is a moment when you become so focused on your hunger that nothing else matters. This is the moment he hears the voice of temptation; this is the moment, alone, hungry, vulnerable, he is like us, on his own, facing temptation alone. Three temptations are mentioned, but in a sense, they are the same temptation. All of them circle back to this simple principle: who’s in charge here?

“If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread.” This is the first test.

A few days before, he is acclaimed as Son of God, but what does that mean? The first temptation is to use who he is to sustain himself on his own, to feed himself. God fed the people of Israel with manna, bread, in the wilderness; why shouldn’t the Son of God feed himself by making bread appear? It is a test: if you are the Son of God—the question suggests that perhaps he is not the Son of God after all. Does he believe in what’s been said? Does he believe in his own call? And can that call, that power, be used for himself, to meet his own needs? The second temptation, to recklessly throw himself out into the air, depending on the angels to save him, is like it. Both ask: do you believe who you are? Show it by using the gifts of God not for God’s purpose but for your own.

The Wizard of Earthsea is a long story about a young wizard who becomes so proud of his gifts that he uses them to show off. But in showing off, a dark side of him splits off, and the rest of the tale is a story of how that darkness darkens the world until finally, as a wizard named Sparrowhawk, he must confront the darkness. Along the way, he learns this most important lesson: that all gifts are given with a purpose, and the purpose is to serve others and serve the larger unfolding, blossoming purpose of the creator. The challenge of the temptation to Jesus asks whether he will serve his own needs or stand in humility and serve the unfolding purpose of God. Why am I hungry, he must have wondered: the answer is so that in hunger, he can learn humility.

The final temptation in the wilderness sums all temptation up because it asks who Jesus is serving. All the kingdoms of the world are offered, a way of summing up worldly success; only serve me, the tempter says.

How does Jesus face these temptations? He faces them by living from God’s Word. Today we live in such a self-regarding culture that worship is often judged by the standards of entertainment. “I really enjoyed that,” someone will say, and there are endless advertisements for preachers to help us make worship more fun, more interesting, more lighthearted. But worship is really a way to come back to the Word of God. This is what finally answers temptation and it is the only thing that answers it. Three times Jesus is tempted; three times he quotes back God’s Word to the tempter.

We all walk through times of temptation. We all walk through wildernesses. We all face questions. Tracy Cochran writes, 

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. “[Quoted by Tracy Cochran, In the midst of Winter, an Invincible Spring, Parabola, Spring, p. 26]

If we want to find the adventure, we have to walk through the temptation and answer the question of who we are serving. 

This year, this season, this Lent, I hope to walk with you, listen to God’s Word, listen to the characters in the story, listen to their questions. Here is the first and most important and the tempter is asking it every single day: who are you serving? Rainer Rilke, a German poet, said in a letter to a young friend, 

I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear sir, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” [Rainier Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, 1903.]

This season, we are challenged to live the questions God’s Word asks, to confront them, to wonder with them, to let them live in us and change us.

Amen.

Remember Who You Are

by

A Sermon for the Salem United Church of Christ of Harrisburg, PA

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2026

Fifth Sunday After Epiphany/A • February 8, 2026

Isaiah 58:1-12 • 1 Corinthians 2:1-16 • Matthew 5:13-20

What are your rules?  We all live with rules. Before I got here things morning, I put on a suit and tie; I grew up with a rule that said this is how professional men dress. Even when I was a little boy, my mom would make me dress up and stick a clip on tie to my shirt. Today, wee drove down Front St.; Jacquelyn drives and she obeys speed limits. I came in, put in the code for the alarm because that’s the rule for entering the building. And before I came to lead worship, I put on this robe. The robe originated in the 16th century; it’s what college people wore. It was a reaction against the fancy vestments of Anglican and Roman Catholic clergy. Somewhere along the way over the years, we added on a bit of the vestment for color, and that’s why I have this stole. It’s a symbol that says I’m ordained to lead worship and administer the sacraments; the color is chosen by the rules for different seasons, it’s not just whatever I feel like wearing. So you see, already before I even said, “The peace of the Lord be with you”, I’ve already threaded my way through and entire matrix of rules. We all live that way: I’m sure you could think for a moment and list a half dozen rules about dress and behavior you’ve already observed today. I begin today with rules because the scripture lessons we’ve heard today are all about rules and how to understand them.

To understand, we need to know a bit of history. In 586 BCE, the Babylonians stormed Jerusalem and destroyed it. They took the gold from the Temple and burned it, the Temple that had stood for 400 years, since the time of Solomon. They took the leaders and many others into captivity in Babylon. Fifty years later, the Babylonians were defeated by the Persians from present day Iran. The Persian king allowed the captives to return and rebuild the Temple and they began to do that. To commemorate this wrenching history, four days of fasting were instituted each year: one for the day the siege had begun, one for the day Jerusalem fell, one for the day the Temple was burned and a fourth that commemorated the murder of an early leader in the rebuilding. 

The oracle we heard this morning comes from the third prophet to use the name Isaiah, and he lived during this period. Perhaps you’ve seen pictures of European cities after World War 2, full of ruins, people slowly moving among them. That’s how we should imagine Jerusalem in this time. Temple worship was renewed, and the fast days were proclaimed. But people did not feel God’s presence and that’s what’s reflected here. It’s a about people who are performing the rituals of faith without its heart—and God’s reaction.

Shout out; do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins.

“Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?” Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day and oppress all your workers. You fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high.

[Isaiah 58:1ff]

In other words, their world is falling apart and their connection to God is distant; they don’t feel God answering them. 

It’s as if they’re looking for God and saying, “Hey! You’re not obeying the rules! We fasted, we spent a day in ashes, we went to worship, home come you’re not working for us?” It’s as if faith in God were a transaction. Go to a store, pay your money, you get your goods; doesn’t God work that way? Fast, pray, observe the rituals—shouldn’t God do God’s part? How many of us have tried this. Someone we love is sick or in danger, something we dread threatens, and we pray what I call the “If prayer”: “If you heal this person, avert this disaster, do what I want just this once, God, I’ll go to church, make a donation, or do something we think God wants.” These people are doing the If prayer in a larger way, and it isn’t working. They think God isn’t abiding by the rules, but the truth is, God’s rules are simply different.

So the prophet goes on to explain the sort of fast that God wants.

Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them and not to hide yourself from your own kin? [Isaiah 58:6f]

If you remember last week’s reading from Micah, you may be thinking this sounds a lot like what Micah said, that God wants us to do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with God. That’s the heart of God’s rules; that’s the core of Torah and Jesus is going to sum it up when he’s asked and say the greatest commandment is to love God completely and to love your neighbor as yourself.

That’s great in general. But as one leader said, “People don’t eat in  general, they eat every day.” How can we embody this day to day? We’re living through a difficult time. People are so divided that even simple social events have become minefields. No one wants to lose friends and yet, we are meant to live by God’s rules. This is why the downtown clergy organized the pilgrimage for peace. We didn’t want another partisan demonstration, we didn’t want signs—although some people brought them—we didn’t want to shout. We wanted to step back and say just what we begin every worship service with here: “The peace of the Lord be with you.” We wanted to show our community what the mind of Christ looks like and that it’s so much more important than the labels on our churches or our politics. Peace is not just refusing to argue; peace is something deeper, it is seeing the dignity of each person, understanding they are a child of God. That lifts yokes, as Isaiah says. 

Living this way is what the Apostle means by having the mind of Christ. The people fasting and complaining are failing because they think outward gestures alone will attract God. Having the mind of Christ means looking at things differently, a way that shows a concern for others. That’s not how our culture is teaching us to think these days. We all know the signs: the way that we’re constantly invited to division. When I was an elections official, we once spent ten minutes talking about what colors of clothing were appropriate for poll workers: no blue, no red, no hats, no slogans. It’s more rules than the ones for which stole! We can all see where this has gotten us: two people shot and killed in Minneapolis, the arrest of thousands of people just trying to do exactly what our great grandparents did, go to America, work hard, make a life. How do we change this shift? How do we live with the mind of Christ.

I found a story the other day that I want to share about a man my age who learned to do this. His name is Frank and this is how Frank woke up.

I almost threw a punch in the checkout line last Tuesday. Not because I’m violent, but because at 74 years old, I finally woke up.

My name is Frank. I’m a retired mechanic from outside Detroit. I live alone in a house that smells like old dust and silence. My wife, Ellen, passed six years ago. My kids? They’re busy in New York and Atlanta, chasing careers, raising grandkids I mostly see on FaceTime.

I realized recently that I had become invisible. I was just “that old guy” blocking the aisle with his cart, counting pennies because Social Security doesn’t stretch as far as it used to.

Every Friday, I go to the big superstore on the edge of town. It’s the highlight of my week, which tells you everything you need to know about my life.

That’s where I met Mateo.

He was the cashier at Lane 4. Young, maybe 22. He had a piercing in his eyebrow and tattoos running down his arms—sleeves of ink that disappeared under his blue vest. To a lot of folks from my generation, he looked like trouble.

His English was heavy with an accent. He’d say, “Did you find everything okay, sir?” and most people wouldn’t even look up from their phones. They’d just shove their credit card at the machine.

I watched people treat him like furniture. I heard a lady in a fancy coat huff, “Can’t you go faster?” I heard a man mutter, “Learn the language or go home.”

Mateo never flinched. He just kept scanning, smiling, and saying, “Have a blessed day.”

Three weeks ago, I was behind a young mother. She looked exhausted, dark circles under her eyes, a baby crying in the cart. She was buying store-brand diapers and two jugs of milk.

When she swiped her card, the machine buzzed. Declined.

She turned beet red. “I… let me put the milk back,” she stammered, holding back tears. “I get paid on Monday.”

Before I could reach for my wallet, Mateo was already moving. He didn’t make a scene. He didn’t announce it. He just pulled a crumpled ten-dollar bill from his own pocket, scanned it, and handed her the receipt.

“It is covered, Miss,” he said quietly. “Go feed the baby.”

She looked at him, shocked, whispered a thank you, and hurried out. The next customer immediately started complaining about the wait.

But I saw.

That night, I sat in my recliner and stared at the wall. Here was this kid—working for minimum wage, getting treated like dirt—giving away his own money to a stranger. Meanwhile, I’d spent the last five years feeling sorry for myself.

The next Friday, I wrote a note on a napkin. When I got to his register, I slid it over. It said: “I saw what you did for her. You are a good man.”

Mateo read it. He looked up, and for the first time, his professional mask slipped. His eyes got watery. “Thank you, Mr. Frank,” he whispered.

We started talking. I learned he works two jobs. He takes night classes online to become a Paramedic. “I want to save lives,” he told me. “My parents sacrificed everything to get me here. I cannot waste it.”

Then came last Tuesday.

The store was packed. Tensions were high. Inflation has everyone on edge. A large man in a baseball cap was slamming his items onto the belt. Mateo made a small mistake—he had to void an item. It took an extra thirty seconds.

The man exploded.

“Are you stupid?” the man shouted, loud enough for three lines to hear. “This is America. Why do they hire people who can’t even work a register? Go back to where you came from!”

The air left the room. People looked at their feet. The cashier next to us looked terrified. Mateo just stared at the scanner, his hands trembling slightly.

My heart was hammering in my chest. My whole life, I’ve been the “keep your head down” type. Don’t make waves. Mind your business.

But this was my business.

I stepped forward. My joints ached, but I stood as tall as my 5’9″ frame would let me.

“Hey!” I barked. My voice cracked, then found its steel.

The angry man spun around. “What?”

“He works harder in one shift than you probably do all week,” I said, pointing a shaking finger at Mateo. “He is studying to save lives. He helped a mother buy diapers when she was broke. What have you done today besides yell at a kid?”

The man turned purple. “Mind your business, old man.”

“Decency is everyone’s business,” I said. “You want to be a tough guy? Be tough enough to show some respect.”

The line went deadly silent. Then, a woman behind me started clapping slowly. Then another guy nodded. “He’s right,” someone muttered.

The angry man grabbed his bags and stormed off, muttering insults.

I looked at Mateo. He wasn’t trembling anymore. He was standing straight, shoulders back. He looked at me, and nodded. A silent bond between a 74-year-old rust-belt retiree and a 22-year-old immigrant student.

I walked to my car shaking like a leaf. I cried in the parking lot. Not out of sadness, but because for the first time in years, I felt alive. I felt like a human being again.

Yesterday, Mateo handed me my receipt. On the back, in neat handwriting, he had written: “My father is far away. Today, you were like a father to me.”

I’m sharing this because we are living in angry times. We are told to hate each other. We are told to pick sides.

But here is the truth I learned at Walmart: You don’t have to solve the border crisis. You don’t have to fix the economy. You just have to change the air in the room.

Be the one who speaks up. Be the one who sees the person behind the name tag.

We are all just walking each other home. Make sure you’re good company. 

[https://www.facebook.com/MindInspireofficial/posts/i-almost-threw-a-punch-in-the-checkout-line-last-tuesday-not-because-im-violent-/716147278216554/]

God’s rules aren’t complex or difficult. Love God, Love your neighbor. Have the mind of Christ whether you’re here or at Walmart or Giant or work or somewhere else. In the mind of Christ, all people are God’s children. It’s the ultimate birthright citizenship: every single person included. When we live like this, when we make our church a temple of this kind of love, we are truly God’s people. Then we shine like a lighthouse of love; then indeed, we are like a lamp set on a stand that gives light. So remember who you are: God’s child, Christ’s follower. Act like it, live like it, share it.

Amen.