Watch This!

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

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2025

12th Sunday After Pentecost/C • August 31, 2025

Jeremiah 2:4-13 * Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16 * Luke 14:1, 7-14

These past weeks as schools started up again, a huge source of anxiety has blown up like a balloon. That anxiety is the question going on in the minds of middle school and high school students everywhere: who will I sit with at lunch? Lunch at a middle school or high school is a minefield. There is the cool kids table; you know you can’t sit there. It’s invitation only and how you get an invitation is a mystery so big even AI can’t solve it. There are tables with nerdy boys; no one wants to sit there, it’s a mess. Maybe there’s a band kids table but what if you aren’t in band? I’m sure you can make up your own groups; I imagine most of us can remember this moment. The goal isn’t just to eat lunch; the goal is to Become Cool. That goal animates so much of life. At one end of things, there is the entire fashion industry, devoted to demonstrating what you have to wear to be cool. Remember the 1980s shoulders for women? They were cool; they aren’t anymore. Why? No one knows. At the other end of the struggle to Be Cool are kids, and they are not immune. It’s said that the most common last words for middle school boys in Texas are, “Hey, y’all, watch this!” I don’t think that’s limited to Texas; many of us shiver when we remember some of our own exploits.

Today’s reading from the Gospel takes us to a dinner party with Jesus. Once again, like last week’s reading, the occasion is Shabbat, the sabbath. It’s common to invite someone to share a sabbath meal. Luke says they were watching Jesus closely. Perhaps it’s because in the part that was skipped, he once again healed someone on the sabbath. Surely there’s some controversy about this but no one brings it up here. This is a time and place where “Being Cool” is everything; historians call it “an honor culture”. Your life, your work, everything is woven into your honor, just the way in school, everything counted for Being Cool—or not being cool. One thing that demonstrates your coolness is where you rank at the table. 

It has some consequences for your dinner too. Pliny the Elder was a Roman who described a dinner party in the same period. 

…[the host] set the best dishes before himself and a few others and treated the rest to cheap and scrappy food. He had apportioned the wine in small decanters of three different kinds, not in order to give his guests their choice but so that they might not refuse. He had one kind for himself and us, another for his less distinguished friends–for he is a man who classifies his acquaintances–and a third for his own freedmen and those of his guests. [https://www.romansinfocus.com/sites/www.romansinfocus.com/files/Pliny to Avitus.pdf]

Pliny was horrified by this practice, but it certainly went on. 

Luke shows us Jesus confronting this system of hierarchy and privilege. His comment is simple: 

When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host, and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. [Luke 14:8-9]

Simple advice and yet what it means is to overturn the whole system of hierarchy. What if we all ignored the cool kids? What if their table meant nothing? 

I’ve seen this in operation, I’ve seen this come true. I grew up in the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches, the NACCC. Every year they hold an annual meeting and its concluding event is a big banquet. Most years, I went through the same anxiety the middle school kids are going through. What table should I sit at? How could I network in a way that might help my career? How could I up my cool, in other words? 

Then I went with Jacquelyn. I still remember going into the first banquet with her; I was nervous as usual, I was wondering where to sit, as usual, I was watching tables fill, as usual, but this time, Jacquelyn was quietly holding me back. I scanned the room and so did she but while I was looking for a cool table, she was looking for something else: an empty table. She found one, pulled me along, and said, “Let’s sit here.” I didn’t know how to say, “No, No No! What if no one sits with us? What about the cool kids table we might get into?” So I just sat down. Gradually, the table filled up. I don’t remember who sat with us; I do remember that from then on, every year, we sat at an empty table. Somehow, though, it was all right; we met some people we might not have chosen. Just as important, instead of being anxious, I learned to enjoy the banquet for what it was: a time of fellowship and connection.

Jesus lives like us in a society that puts a lot of value on some, and very little on others. You signify who’s who with all kinds of rituals: where you sit, who greets you, who you greet. But in the kingdom he preaches, the tables are turned: everyone has value, the last are first, the first last, and the only value that counts is faithfulness to the God who is love. The cool kids are going to hate this; the cool kids do hate it and their first century representatives eventually crucify him for it. But they can’t kill him, they can’t kill this idea: that we are all children of God.

The first step to practicing this is noticing others. Look around: see each person. Each one is a gift of God. See them as a child of God. Each one is God saying: “Watch this!—here’s one of my children.” When we do that, the effect transforms us. It begins here, with us, every Sunday, in the welcome we offer. The reading from Hebrews begins, 

Let mutual affection continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. [Hebrews 13:1-2] 

This is the key: noticing others, showing hospitality that doesn’t discriminate between the cool kids and the rest. 

We don’t know what God is doing all the time; we do know what God has done. So it makes sense to pay attention, notice God’s children, to welcome strangers, knowing even before we know them that they are children of God. Who knows? You just might end up welcoming an angel. 

Amen.

By Faith

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

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2025

Tenth Sunday After Pentecost/C • August 17, 2025

Jeremiah 23:23-29  • Hebrews 11:29-12:2 • Luke 12:49-56

…since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us [Hebrews 12:1]

What witnesses surround you? We all live with them, we remember them in stories, we are guided by examples. Do you have a favorite recipe you got from your mom? Maybe a teacher helped you imagine your adult life. Sometimes those witnesses are very present; sometimes we’re not even conscious of how they influence us. Our church has a family story as well and Susan Nelson works so hard at gathering and maintaining the materials that tell that story; we all owe her a great debt. I often take a moment to look at the model of the log church, our original meeting house, and wonder about the people who worshiped there. I wonder if one day another pastor of this church will look back at this time and wonder about it as he or she hears stories about Pastor Sue and how she was such a blessing here after a long search. It’s good for us to share stories and that’s just what the writer of Hebrews is doing in today’s reading.

This section actually started back with what we read last week. Even before that, the writer begins, “Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” [Heb 11:1] Then the writer begins all the way back with Abel, moves through Noah and Abraham, includes Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, Moses and the Exodus, and then through all those mentioned in today’s reading. Hebrews is part of the earliest church and most of the Christians for whom this was written are Jews; this is their family story. Not all the names and stories are as familiar to us: do you remember Rahab? She helped Joshua spy out Jericho. Gideon defeated the Midianites and tore down altars to Baal. Samuel was the judge in Israel who first anointed a king and David is the great emblem of a godly King. These are the family stories; these are the witnesses, the ones who stand behind these Christians who are hearing this just as we heard it read today. “This is who you are,” the writer is saying—to them, and to us.

Who is hearing this sermon? We think that Hebrews was written about 60 AD, so it’s about 30 years after Jesus has ascended. There may have been about 6,000 Christians, mostly in Jerusalem and the eastern Mediterranean. There are churches in Greece, probably in Rome. They’re having a tough time. Most are Jews; some are converts from the worship of other gods. Now Roman gods weren’t simply religious; they were part of the civic life of places. Each city had a patron god and, they were worshiped at festivals. We see the same thing today in many places where the label is Christian, but the real theology is politics. So Christians were seen as unpatriotic. 

Being unpatriotic means you could get in trouble with the Roman authorities. Christians were persecuted in some times and places; we have legends of martyrs from the period, beginning with Stephen who was stoned to death. This is part of the family story too: Hebrews says, 

Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection. Others suffered mocking and flogging and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death; they were sawn in two; they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented— [Heb 12:35b-37]

This is the family story: it goes way back to Abraham and Sarah, it comes forward to friends in prison, friends stoned, friends who have died for their faith. They know that faith in Christ is not easy; they know it can mean division. 

These are the people for whom this was written; these are also the people for whom Luke is offering the sayings from Jesus we heard this morning. It’s a strange passage, isn’t it? Luke in particular goes out of his way to call Jesus, “the prince of peace”. Yet there’s nothing peaceful here. “I have come to cast fire upon the earth,” he says. Wow! Umm… no, thanks? What we’d really like is just to live out our lives peacefully? Fire is scary. 

Yet there’s a great truth here. Fire can be violent and deadly, but in the ancient world especially, it’s thought of as a way of purifying. We still do this; if something happens with the drinking water in the pipes, we’re told, “Boil water” and the way we do that is by lighting some kind of fire or heat. Jesus talks about division as well, and that can scare us. The Roman world was patriarchal; families were ruled by the eldest male. I can’t imagine he was pleased when some family members became Christians. I remember the early 1960s when boys grew their hair out to look like the Beatles. Just long hair was enough to set off my dad and most other dads.

So here is the little group of Christians, some divided from families, some afraid to go to family dinners like Thanksgiving because they are divided from the family. The writer of Hebrews is reminding them that there is a long family story of faith of which they are a part. They are not alone; they are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses. 

Now that’s a lesson for us as well. We are living in a time of great division. Churches have divided over issues like marriage for all, over politics, over whether to have a praise band and so many other things. In the midst of the arguing, Hebrews wants to remind us: we are not alone, we have a cloud of witnesses, watching, sustaining us. And they hope we will simply look to Jesus, Hebrews calls him the pioneer and perfecter of faith. It doesn’t matter that we don’t agree about the length of hair, or the type of music; it doesn’t matter that we vote for different people; it doesn’t matter that we don’t agree about other things. What matters is one thing: are we following Jesus? 

In a few moments, we will share communion. I hope you see the others here sharing this symbolic meal. I don’t mean just the people in this room but the others as well who are sitting with us. The few who came here so many years ago and began this church; the ones before them, who inspired them, taught them. The one who will come after us. I hope you see the cloud of witnesses.

…since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us [Hebrews 12:1]

So indeed: let us run that race, following Jesus, knowing we are part of the cloud of witnesses to the love of God in this place.

Amen.

Freedom Now

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

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2025

Ninth Sunday After Pentecost/C • August 10, 2025

Luke 12:32-40  

Years ago, I was a high school track parent. My older daughter Amy was a lithe, fast girl. She ran sprints and she ran relay races. Now the thing about being a track parent is that the meets take hours and your kid, the one you want to see, be seen cheering, runs for maybe five or ten minutes. We lived in a small town, so I knew lots of people, many in my congregation, so a track meet was a chance to mingle, check-in with people, maybe talk to one of the Trustees. The problem was that it was so easy to get involved in doing the business of being a pastor that it was easy to miss Amy’s races. 100 yard dashes take place fast. They line up, bend over in the runner crouch, someone calls ready, set go, shoots of a phony gun and BAM! Ten or 15 seconds later the whole thing is over. It’s easy to miss; it’s easy to let every day things distract you. 

This is just what Jesus is talking about in the section we read today. Honestly?—I’m not sure why this set of verses was put together for reading; they don’t go together. So let’s take them apart and see how they can each feed us. The section begins with the startling statement, “”Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” This verse really goes with what we read last week. Remember the parable of the rich fool who thought he could store up enough stuff to maintain his life? Instead of storing stuff, Jesus says God is giving us the whole kingdom. No bill: no payment, free gift, free grace. This verse and others like it led theologians like John Calvin, the originator of Reformed Churches, to talk about ‘violent grace’, by which they meant that God gives the grace of including us in the kingdom without our doing anything to earn it, whether we want it or not. This is freedom: freedom now, freedom to live in God’s kingdom.

If the kingdom is given as grace, what do we do then? We don’t have to work at earning it; we don’t need barns to store up grace. So Jesus tells this parable. Palestinian houses weren’t like ours, they were little fortresses. Frequently several families lived in one house. Think of those old U shaped motels our parents took us to when we were kids: a bunch of rooms, surrounding a central courtyard. The houses were walled because robbers were a constant threat. So at night, the main gate into the courtyard was shut up.

Now imagine the head of the house coming home late at night; Jesus says, coming from a wedding banquet. Wedding banquets could and did run for days at a time, so there’s no way of knowing when the head of the house will return. What’s the job of the servants? Their whole job is to be ready, whenever that return happens. “Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit”, the parable says. Don’t be asleep, don’t be busy with something else, or you’ll miss it. 

What happens when you are ready and open the door to the Lord? “Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them.” Wow! It’s a total reversal of things. Masters never serve slaves; what Jesus pictures is a total reversal of what we would expect that comes from being ready to serve. From the prophets to Jesus, the image of a banquet at which all are welcome is a fundamental picture of God’s kingdom. Here, the kingdom is recognized by being ready to serve, so the moment isn’t missed. 

What does this look like in practice? It might mean something small, like passing by the school supplies aisle and remembering we’re collecting such things this month. It might be saving someone’s life. The village of La Chambon in southeastern France is just a small place. Most of the people worship in the same Reformed tradition we do here. Instead of German Reformed, they are French Reformed, called Huguenots. Hundreds of years ago, they were persecuted by Roman Catholics and the Kings of France, and they haven’t forgotten. In 1940, when the Nazis defeated France, La Chambon was left in the unoccupied zone. But even there Jews were persecuted. Pastor André Trocmé and his congregation offered shelter to these refugees. Many were not French; no one cared. They put them up in private homes, in schools, in their church. They forged identity cards and ration cards for them; some of them were guided across the Swiss border to safety. From 1940 to 1944, they sheltered 5,000 people; 3,500 of them were Jews. A majority of them were children.

There was a cost. On February 13, 1943, Pastor Trocmé and his assistant were arrested and interned. They were eventually released but had to go into hiding. His cousin, Daniel Trocmé was arrested in 1943 and sent to Auschwitz, whether he was murdered. Others who helped were shot by the Gestapo. In recent years, they have been recognized by France and by Israel, where they were honored by being included in a list of rescuers called the “Righteous of the Nations.” After talking with many residents, a filmmaker was so impressed with how they saw what they did as ordinary, that he said, 

“These days we seem to think that good people are those who agonize. They ” sleep on it” and maybe in the morning their conscience gets them to do the right thing. No- this idea is wrong. People who agonize don’t act. And people who act don’t agonize.” [LeChambon]

What’s needed is simply a moral readiness that doesn’t count political party or our own opinions, that only counts what is right, what path Jesus points out. 

Last Tuesday, I was in the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel in heavy traffic. There are two lanes into the city and both were jammed; we were creeping along at 15 miles an hour, frequently stopping. Suddenly, far behind me, I saw flashing red lights, and then I heard a siren. An ambulance was trying to get through, and my first thought was, “No way it’s getting through.” Then I noticed something strange for city traffic: people were stopping, letting the left-hand lane drivers in ahead of them, clearing the lane. It all happened fast and suddenly the ambulance, with all its signs of emergency, was flashing past me. The kingdom comes like that. This is what Jesus is teaching, that the kingdom comes as a sudden, urgent, immediate moment and our job is to cooperate with it, move with it, help it to come. Like the servants in the parable, we are told: be ready, live ready, because kingdom moments come when we least expect them. 

In a few moments, we’ll release a group of butterflies, signs of hope, signs of fluttering beauty. But before they were butterflies, they were in a chrysalis, an enclosure. Then at some moment, each one pressed against the chrysalis, bursting it, freeing its wings, expanding them, ready to fly. That’s God’s invitation to us: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” The kingdom is coming; you don’t know when. Get ready; live ready, every day.  Amen.

Raised

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

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2025

Eighth Sunday After Pentecost/C • August 3, 2025

Colossians 3:1-11 * Luke 12:13-21

So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth,
[Colossians 3:1f]

Paul is talking about baptism here: early Christians were frequently immersed for baptism, held by someone, who dipped them into water, and then literally raised them up. They saw it as acting out Christ’s resurrection. Do you remember your baptism? I’m guessing most here don’t because you were too little. Who was baptized here? We’ve lost that scary part of baptism, traded it in for a fun blessing of a baby. We don’t talk about death when we baptize anymore. 

I’ve done a lot of baptisms over the years. Twice i’ve been a minister in churches where we had lots of families having babies; once in a church where we probably had more baptisms than communion services. There’s been all kinds. Once I almost lost the baby; I was young and not used to holding infants, the child was in a huge christening gown and I felt her slipping inside the gown, so I hurried through the prayers. I’ve had them spit up on me, cry, smile, gurgle as if to talk back.

Our parents went to church, took us, at whatever the appropriate age was, brought us up front, someone put some water on us, maybe made the sign of the cross, prayed over us, and presto! Raised with Christ before we knew it. Perhaps that’s why we don’t often take it as seriously as we should. Today I want to bring some of the things we’ve been talking about this month, making connections, listening to God’s Word, living prayerfully with God’s presence as a way of confronting our world. These are ways to do what Paul says: live raised with Christ, set on things above, not this world.

I want to start with what we read in Luke. Imagine the scene with me. I love the way the old King James Version describes it: “ an innumerable multitude of people, insomuch that they trode one upon another,” Wow: we’ve all been in crowds, I hate that feeling don’t you? People pressing against each other. And remember, this is before deodorants! Jesus is almost certainly seated in the center; rabbis’ taught seated. There’s no pulpit, no sound system, just Jesus teaching. The crowd is certainly murmuring; someone is saying “be quiet, I can’t hear” someone else is saying “hey you stepped on my foot”. Someone yells out, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” So annoying. There is a thing I think all clergy hate. You’re just about to go in to lead worship, you’re just about to try to inspire a whole congregation, you’re about to preach the Word of the Lord—and someone comes up and says, “oh hey pastor, what did you think about that item at consistory last week?” This is the same thing! The man is teaching eternal principles, but this guy wants him to judge a complicated inheritance case. Moreover, he doesn’t want a fair judgment; he doesn’t ask Jesus to listen to his brother and him, he doesn’t care about his brother at all, he just wants Jesus on his side. He just wants the money, the inheritance.,

Jesus says, “Man, who made me the judge between you and your brother? Then he sets the issue up: “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” Then he tells this story. Just like in the parable of the sower, a farmer has had an incredible, miraculous harvest. The story says the land produced abundantly. Notice who is the active agent in this story: it isn’t the farmer, it’s the land itself. So the abundance is really a gift of God. Now the man has a problem and it’s the same problem we all have. ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ For him it’s crops, for the rest of us it’s our stuff.

George Carlin is an old comic who had an entire monologue about stuff. He said,

The whole meaning of life is trying to find a place for your stuff. That’s all your house is, your house is just a place for your stuff. If you didn’t have so much stuff, you wouldn’t need a house, you could just walk around all the time that’s all your house is, it’s a pile of stuff with a cover on it. You see that when you take off in an air, and you look down, you see everybody’s got a little pile of stuff. Everybody’s got their own pile of stuff and when you leave your stuff you got to lock it up when want somebody to come by and take some of your stuff. 

They always take the good stuff they don’t bother with that stuff you’re saving ain’t nobody interested in your fourth grade arithmetic papers they’re looking for the good stuff that’s all your house is it’s a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff. Now, sometimes you’ve got to move you got to get a bigger house. You’ve got to move all your stuff and maybe put some of your stuff in storage imagine that there’s a whole industry based on keeping an eye on your stuff.

This is the problem the farmer has: too much stuff! Abundant crops: what to do? What he decides to do, of course, is entirely reasonable. “I’ll replace my barns with bigger ones!” Bigger barns will hold more stuff. Even before he’s called an architect, before the new barns are built, he’s already imagining the wonderfulness of it all. “I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ He’s going to have it made!

It’s worth paying attention to the language of this story. First, even before this abundant crop, he’s already a rich man. He has everything he needs; the abundant crop is all surplus to what he needs. Second, over and over again he refers to himself: “’What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ From start to finish, it’s all him, the subject of every part is himself: “I / I / I /I”

At the end of this part of the story, everything is great. The Rich Man is ready to party! That’s where it all collapses, that’s where it all goes wrong. The Lord enters the story, most unusual for Jesus’ parables. And the Lord’s comment on the man is simple, and direct:
“You fool.” This may have meant more to Jesus’ listeners than to us. We equate foolishness with reckless or silly actions. Popular culture has a word for this: “Acting the fool.” But in the Wisdom literature of ancient Israel, the fool is a common term for those who forget God or live apart from God’s rules. Psalm 14:1, for example, says, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God’” When Kings act badly and repent, the Bible often says they have been foolish. This rich man is a fool because he believes his riches can secure his future. Instead, God says, to the fool: “Today your life is demanded of you.” All the stuff will go to someone else. Finally, Jesus leaves us with this principle: “So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

We know all about getting more stuff. We track sales so we can get more stuff for less money, we know how to invest in stuff to get more stuff. Sometimes in all the stuffing of stuff into our lives, I wonder if there is space for God? How can we be rich toward God?

The things we’ve talked about the last few weeks, connecting with others, listening to God’s Word, a discipline of prayer, these are designed to put stuff in its place. The problem isn’t that we have stuff; the problem is when our focus is so firmly on ‘I’ that we forget God altogether, like the rich man in the story. In the part of Colossians we read, Paul talks about things that take us away from God. He mentions some and summarizes with greed which, he says, is idolatry. And that’s the ultimate human failure: setting up idols that look like us, instead of listening to God and following the path God lays out. 

It isn’t always easy to follow that path. Abraham and Sarah didn’t rejoice every day as they wandered, yet their faith kept them on a path that led them to indeed, as God promised, become a blessing to the whole world. When God freed the Hebrew slaves and sent Israel out from Egypt, they endlessly complained on the way. There’s a point where some said, we should have stayed, at least we got something to eat! But those who kept on the path became God’s people and bore the Ten Commandments to us. We could go on with so many examples, up to and including Jesus’ disciples themselves. They walked with him and frequently misunderstood him; when he rose from the dead, they didn’t immediately believe. 

Yet they eventually walked his way and changed the world.

So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth, [Colossians 3:1f]

That’s the final issue: are you going to live as someone raised with Christ? Set on the things that are above?— or on building bigger barns for bundles of stuff? It’s the choice we all make; it’s the chance we all take when we follow Christ. See how Paul offers the question?—“if you have been raised with Christ.” You get to answer; you get to live your answer. You will live your answer every day. 

Amen.

Standing In the Need of Prayer

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

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2025

Seventh Sunday After Pentecost/Year C• July 29, 2025

Genesis 18:20-32 • Luke 11:1-13

In 1972, I was a newly licensed ‘Reverend’, hired for the summer to be an interim minister, while a church outside of Detroit started to search for a new pastor. A few days after I started, I was asked to visit a member in the hospital. The man was dying, the family was gathered. It was my first hospital call and as I stood there, I felt out of place; I had no idea what to do. Finally, one of the family members said, “Reverend, could you do a little prayer.” And I did. It’s more than fifty years since that first hospital visit and what I’d discover as I went on was that people always asked for a little prayer; in all that time, no one has ever asked for a big prayer, even though I’ve been asked to pray for big things. Today, we heard the disciples of Jesus ask him to teach them to pray, and I want to think with you this morning about what it means to pray. 

Let’s start with what we heard from Genesis. Isn’t this the most ideal setting for prayer? Abraham is talking to the Lord like you’d talk to your boss. Just before this, God appeared to Abraham and Sarah. They’re senior citizens; the days when they left You’re on the promise that God would provide children and a place are long gone. Like any couple, I suppose they’ve adjusted, had some hard times, but overcome them, settled into a life. Now God comes and, even though Sarah is long past child bearing, blandly tells them that she’s going to have a child before the spring. Incredible! Amazing! Ridiculous! So ridiculous that Sarah laughs at God, though later she denies it. In that deep wisdom of women, I suspect she’s thinking, “It may be God, but God doesn’t know much about women and babies.” 

We’re told that after this, the men look toward Sodom on the horizon. Now because of a misunderstanding about Sodom, it’s important to say as soon as we mention it, that the sin of Sodom has nothing to do with sexuality, gay or straight. The sin of Sodom is violently treating people who aren’t citizens. It’s the violation of hospitality that stains Sodom, and God is angry about it. “How great is the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah and how very grave their sin,” God says. And then we have this sort of prayer; after all, any conversation with God is a prayer. I’ve always loved this prayer, this conversation, where Abraham changes God’s mind.

The Lord is about to destroy Sodom. Abraham asks, “What if there are 50 righteous men in the city?” God agrees it would be wrong to destroy the city if there are 50 righteous men; Abraham argues and finally gets God down to ten; ten righteous men are enough to save the city, it turns out. This tradition continues today: ten men are called a minyan, the minimum number required for a synagogue to hold worship. Isn’t this an ideal image of prayer? God is right there; Abraham argues, God relents, and finally agrees to what Abraham asks. 

Wow. I wish my prayer life was like that, don’t you? Hey God, look, I don’t like your idea about what to do about…fill in whatever is annoying you. How about changing that? Hey God, I have this problem, could you solve it please? Hey God, my friend is sick, could you heal her please? Annie LaMott says there are really only two prayers: “Help me Help me Help me” and “Thank you, thank you, thank you”. I guess those qualify as little prayers, and I know I’ve prayed both of them. 

When we want more than a little prayer, we often turn to written prayers. My first job in a church was writing a prayer of invocation for each Sunday; I was 16 and fortunately none of those prayers survive. In the same way, Jewish people have and had prayers commonly said. The Caddish is a prayer offered at times of mourning but also in the regular synagogue service, dating back to the time of Jesus. It begins,

Heightened and hallowed be his great name in the world he created according to his will. And may he establish his kingdom in your life and in your days and in the life of all the house of Israel, very soon and in the coming season.
[https://virtualreligion.net/iho/prayer.html#qaddish]

There are other prayers as well, including one called, “The 18 Benedictions”. Certainly there were others, and Jesus’ disciples apparently believe that John the Baptist taught his followers a particular prayer. So now we hear them ask Jesus to teach them to pray.

What follows is what we call “The Lord’s Prayer.” We usually use a longer version given in the Gospel of Matthew. But clearly the same prayer is envisioned here. It begins with something we translate, “Our Father.” But the original language has a sense “our father” doesn’t convey. I don’t know about you, but I never referred to my father this way; we called him dad, among my brothers and I and to his face. Jesus begins with ‘Abba’. Some translators and scholars believe this should be translated, ‘daddy’; some disagree, but all agree that what’s said in this beginning is a relationship of intimacy and care. So right from the start, Jesus is saying our relationship with God is like a child cared for by a good parent.

This is the point of the parables he tells as well. Palestinian homes were little fortresses; at night they were locked up just as we lock our houses. That’s my job at our house; every night I go around and make sure the doors are locked. But see what Jesus asks us to imagine: a friend comes asking to borrow bread so that he can offer hospitality to a guest. Hospitality is a key virtue in the kingdom and the question is, will you get up and help or lay in bed? Jesus says you’ll get up, at least because the guy keeps knocking. Then he asks simply, do you think you are better than God? None of you would give a child who asked for an egg a scorpion; 

If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!
[Luke 11:13]

What’s being taught here isn’t a formula, it’s a relationship. It isn’t a set of words, it’s a way of being with God. 

The rhythm of that being is behind the words. It begins with affirming God’s reign: who’s in charge here? Is always a great question. It’s especially important to affirm in a culture where we are taught that we are in charge of ourselves. Who’s reigning in your life? It moves to our daily needs, symbolized by bread. We are creatures who need to eat every day and putting the two things together—God’s reign and our need to eat—reminds us of who we are. And then at its center, is the prayer for forgiveness, a way to let go of where we failed and to have compassion on the failures of others. Finally, the prayer asks that we not be tested, a reminder of how Jesus himself was tested. There’s a lot that could be said about all of these but for now the most important thing to say is that Jesus doesn’t seem to be teaching a set of words but a way of living. That way is knowing God reigns, and we are God’s people.

Two weeks ago, we listened to the Parable of the Good Samaritan and I talked about its teaching of compassion; last week we talked about listening to the Word of the Lord. Today we hear Jesus invite us to not just say a little prayer but live our lives as prayers, knowing God as a compassionate presence, knowing we sometimes fail, offering our needs and our failures both to God. 

Taken together, these three pieces—connection, listening to God’s Word, prayerful life—are a recipe for daily discipleship. They are the manual for Christian life and the foundation of our faith. Next week, I’m going to talk more about putting this into action but if you want to get a head start, it’s easy. Pick a quiet time; imagine someone who really annoys you, and ask God to help you understand it’s hard to be them, and for God to help them. Listen to God’s Word; feel free to take the bulletin home, they’re free, read over the lessons from today. Listen to them in your heart. Ask God for whatever you need; remember that God reigns and gives good gifts. Remind yourself that one of those good gifts is you, yourself.

There’s an old spiritual, “Standing in the Need of Prayer,” from which this sermon takes its title. It describes where we all are, every day. Jesus doesn’t teach a prayer: he teaches a prayerful way to live. May that life be ours.

Amen.

Hearing Aid

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

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2025

Sixth Sunday After Pentecost/Year C • July 20, 2025

Amos 8:1-12, Luke 10:38-42

Three days a week, May works from an office downtown and on those days I take her to work. We stop for coffee at Lil Amps on State Street about 7:45 or so; early enough that I can leave before the parking people catch me. Most days, it’s just a few people at that hour. A couple of other regulars; you know you’re a regular when they ring up your order before you give it. A few people on laptops. But when the legislature is in session, it changes; there are guys in suits and ties. No one knows what they’ll order. They are busy being important; after all, they are the ones who get things done.

Today we call them by titles like Senior Staff Assistant and Executive Director. But the same pattern goes back thousands of years. The truth is, no leader can get everything done on their own. The most powerful people in government all have drivers and assistants who do things. There’s a famous story about a night a former President and his wife went off for date night, out to dinner, trying to be a married couple. They went to a fancy place in Washington, DC at the end of the dinner, he presented his credit card to pay the bill. His card was declined; it had been so long since he’d paid for anything, the credit card company had deactivated the card. Assistants pay the bills. Assistants give advice too. 

Now in the ancient world, those assistants existed as well and they were often called prophets. We know that these court prophets existed, and we have bits and pieces in the Bible about them. We hear from them in the book of Jeremiah, for example. But there was another kind of prophet as well and These prophets heard God’s Word in their heart. They weren’t royal advisors, they didn’t wear suits or ties, but they came to be a force in Israel. The first of them to have his message written into a book that we have today was a man named Amos. Amos lived about 740 years before Jesus in northern Israel, and he was a true prophet, bringing God’s Word to Israel.

This was a time of peace and prosperity in Israel. After Solomon, David’s kingdom had split into two parts: Judah in the south with Jerusalem as its capital, the larger part, Israel in the north, with its capital at Samaria. It should have been a time for thankfulness; it became a time for the rich to exploit the poor. Of course, there had always been richer and poorer people in Israel, but there wasn’t a great distance. We know from archaeology that in this time, that changed; the rich exploited the poor and stole their land. Great houses were built for them while most people lived in hovels in a land Israel’s faith said had been the gift of the Lord. It’s also a time when the cult of Baal, a sort of prosperity religion, much like today in some churches, grew and there were shrines to other Gods set up.

Amos’ word starts with a vision: a basket of fruit would remind people of the late summer fruit harvest, a time of celebration and prayers for continued prosperity. Instead, Amos brings a word of condemnation. It’s actually funny, a sort of satire. The New Moon is a great festival, something like Christmas; an ephah is a standard measure and a shekel is a coin that’s supposed to have a standard value. So Amos caricatures the rich, imagining them saying, 

“When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath, so that we may offer wheat for sale? We will make the ephah smaller and the shekel heavier and practice deceit with false balances, buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and selling the sweepings of the wheat.” [Amos 8:5f]

The point here is that the rich are cheating. Amos addresses this to those who “trample the needy” and “bring ruin to the poor”.  The result, he says, is that “The songs of the temple shall become wailings on that day,” says the Lord GOD; “…the dead bodies shall be many, cast out in every place. Be silent!” [Amos 8:3] Silence is God’s judgment. There is going to be a famine of God’s Word, the prophet says. In other words, all blessing, all experience of God, all direction from God, is going to cease and Israel will be destroyed.

Some scholars believe Amos’ entire prophecy was delivered in one afternoon, one sermon, one bright moment of vision. Then Amos went back to his life as a sheep herder and a vine dresser, a farmworker. We don’t know for sure if that’s how this happened. It can’t have been a popular message, and largely, I imagine, it was ignored. After all, the leaders of Israel were doing well in 740 BCE, and if some were poor, well, wasn’t that their own fault? I’m sure the rich said what the rich always say: they should work harder. Nothing happened after this sermon. There was no lightning bolt, no earthquake. The New Moon festival went on that year and for years after. The rich continued to cheat the poor. About twenty years after Amos, Israelite society had become divided. So when the great power of Assyria swept down on them in 720 BCE, they were defeated. Assyrian colonial policy was to move conquered people to other places so they wouldn’t be a problem. Israel was not just defeated, it was destroyed. They believed God’s Word would save them, but there was a famine of the Word of God in Israel.

We have our prophets. Martin Luther King, Jr., was a prophet who brought God’s Word to the struggle for freedom in the South. Forty two years ago, he was in jail and he wrote a letter to white churches like this one. He said, in part, 

I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their “thus saith the Lord” far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.

Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
[https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html]

Every Sunday, we hear from the Hebrew scripture and the Epistles, the record of the early church, and we say together, “This is the Word of the Lord.” Every Sunday, we hear from the gospel and we say, “We hear your words, O Christ.” The true Word of God is like a seed so if we are truly hearing the Word, shouldn’t it be taking root, germinating, bearing fruit? What if there is a famine of the Word of God because we as a people refuse to hear, refuse to listen, refuse to let it grow up in us? We like hearing the Word of God when it comforts us, when it promises healing, when it helps us feel at peace. But justice is also part of the Word. Amos didn’t come preaching a political message; he came announcing God’s Word. Did anyone listen? 

Today’s Gospel lesson is right on this point. We hear about Jesus’ twelve disciples and sometimes forget that he actually traveled with a larger group. Now they’ve come to the home of Martha and Mary and hospitality is expected, hospitality is one of the values God’s Word teaches, one that Jesus embraces. Imagine 20 people showing up for dinner at your house; what would you do? How would you feed them? We know what it takes to organize a simple after church lunch for 25 or so; what if it was your house and your responsibility?

It’s easy to identify with Martha, isn’t it? She’s doing her best, I’m sure she’s rushing around, trying to get food, get wine ready, abruptly ordering those around her to do things. Set the tables! Here, put these out. Go next door and see if we can borrow some cups, we don’t have enough. I imagine some in the crowd are helping, some always do, but others are just lounging around on the floor near Jesus, listening to him, being near him. At some point, Martha comes out, and sees one of these is her sister, Mary. Wow: wouldn’t that make you mad? Why isn’t Mary helping? Why is she lying there, at the feet of Jesus, doing nothing? The culture of the time doesn’t imagine women doing this; it puts them out in the kitchen. So Martha goes to Jesus, asks him to tell Mary to get herself in gear and help. 

I hate this text, some years honestly I’ve skipped it when it came up. I hate it because I know my tendency is to be like Martha. I’ve spent so much time as a pastor rushing around, getting things in order, making sure churches were functioning, projects going forward. It’s annoying when some people won’t help and I’ve gotten annoyed. And I’ve heard over and over sermons where people were asked are you a Martha or a Mary and felt like saying, “Yes! But if we all were like Mary, nothing would get done! No one would get fed!” 

But this time, reading this, thinking about it, I’ve seen something new in this old story. I think this isn’t as much about Martha and Mary as it is about us. I think Jesus isn’t condemning Martha’s work; I’m sure when dinner is shared, he will thank her. What he’s doing instead is giving an invitation: “I’m here, appreciate that, listen to me.” He is the Word of God in person; that’s what Paul means when he says in Colossians, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” [Col 1:15] If you’re so busy you don’t take time to listen, then you miss the Word, the presence there with you. That’s what it means to say, “You’re worried about lots of things; one thing is important.” What’s the important thing?—listening to Jesus. Because Jesus has come at a time when there is a famine of the Word in his land; over and over he lifts up the Word and preaches it, teaches it, says, “Look, you’re missing the point, because you’re too busy making loopholes.”

So today, here, in this wonderful church, let me ask: are we choosing the better part? Are we hearing the Word, hearing God’s justice the way we sometimes hear trains or traffic from outside?—or are we just rushing around making sure everything gets done? Jesus means to be a sort of hearing aid for God’s Word. So often, the Word gets drowned out by all the noise of our lives. So often even in church, we are anxious about how we’re going to get things done, we’re rushing around, getting annoyed with people who don’t help. Like Martha, today the Lord invites us to listen, listen, listen, to hear the Word of the Lord, to hear it and let it root in us and bear the fruit of the Spirit.

Amen. 

Connection

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

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2025

Fifth Sunday After Pentecost/C • Boat/Picnic Sunday • July 13, 2025

Luke 10:25-37

Aren’t we fortunate to live in this beautiful area, gather in this beautiful place by the river? Jacquelyn, May and I live close enough to the river to visit frequently, I hope you notice it as well as you go about your day. The water is constantly changing, sometimes in obvious ways, like when it freezes in the winter, or floods in the spring. Sometimes it’s still and mirrored; other times it foams with energy. 

Water weaves through scripture as an important mark of God’s power. At the beginning, we’re told God’s Spirit moves on the waters and creation results. Later, the signature act of salvation for God’s people is the division of waters that allows them to escape the enslaving Egyptians and again, the waters are divided when they enter the promised land. Washing as a ritual was important in Judaism and still is. The first sign of the advent of the Kingdom is the baptism John offers at the River Jordan and Jesus’ story really begins when he is baptized. At the same time, we know that water can be devastating. I imagine some of you have lived her long enough to remember the flooding in 1972, when Harrisburg was devastated, and we’ve all felt some of the grief over the terrible flooding in Texas that killed so many.

Still, we come to the river, seeking God, and God is here waiting for us to discover that presence. Think of the Susquehanna itself. It’s over 300 million years old. It begins up in New York, near Cooperstown, at Otsego Lake. I live with baseball fans and Cooperstown is the home of the Baseball Hall of Fame, so I’ve been there, seen that pretty lake. From there, the river winds its way 444 miles along mountains, past farms, past cities, past forests. Just north of here, it flows past a replica of the Statue of Liberty and Fort Hunter before it flows to us, past us, past Harrisburg and our church, around this island on which we’re met. 

From here, it heads on in a windy, southwestern way, past Three Mile Island and its nuclear reactors, past marshes and towns and finally comes to a great dam at it’s mouth near Havre De Grace in Maryland. There it feeds the Chesapeake; it’s the reason the Chesapeake is not simply salty like the ocean. Its waters flow south, past the Patapsco River that leads to Baltimore, past Annapolis and then the Potomac until at Cape Charles its waters join the ocean.

Think for a moment about how this river, connects us to others. Perhaps others are picnicking along its banks somewhere; perhaps they also search the map of its flood plain when buying houses. It’s not just contemporary people either, the Susquehanna has for centuries nurtured people along its banks, as it does us. How many fish have fed hungry mouths? How many beaver and muskrats have lived along its banks? I remember my first walk down to the river, watching the sun set over its winding water and suddenly seeing a little head pop up: a groundhog was watching me as intently as I watched the river. The river connects us to all these: the people who live along it, the animals, the communities it has nourished for so long.

Now if we think of connection, a good place to begin in scripture is the parable we read today, often called the parable of the Good Samaritan. Luke sets it with an introduction. An educated person is talking to Jesus, asking the deep question I suppose we all ask at some time: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” as he often does, replies to the question with a question: “How do you read the law?” The man replies with a quote from Deuteronomy: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” But then he asks another question: who is my neighbor? That’s the tough one, isn’t it? We know “love God, love your neighbor” but who exactly is my neighbor? 

So Jesus tells this story. A man is robbed and beaten and left bleeding along the way from Jerusalem to Jericho. Three men encounter him. Now, Amy-Jill Levine, an Orthodox Jew who teaches New Testament, says that the shape of Jewish stories suggests that once we’ve been told that the first is a priest, the second a Levite, everyone expects the third to be an Israelite. It’s how these stories go usually. But, of course, here the third person is not an Israelite, not even a Jew. It’s a Samaritan. It’s a definitively bad guy. The first two pass him by; only the Samaritan stops to help, and he helps in the most generous way. He bandages him, assuages his hurts with what serves as medicine in that place, takes him to an inn and promises to pay whatever it costs for him to recover. “Which one was his neighbor?” It’s not a hard question at the end, is it?

The first two guys who passed him weren’t bad guys; they’re just on their way somewhere. Maybe the first one is in nice clothes and doesn’t want them messed up by a dirty, half dead man. Blood stains are hard to get out. Maybe one has an appointment in Jericho, and he thinks about stopping, but he just doesn’t have time. So they do the obvious thing, they stay on the other side, they go on by. What’s different about the Samaritan? What does the story tell us? “He was moved with compassion.” It’s that simple: compassion. He sees a man hurt, he doesn’t worry about being late, he doesn’t worry about dirt or whether the hurt guy is a friend or enemy; he’s simply moved with compassion. 

That isn’t always easy. I know I don’t always do it. A few weeks ago, I think my first Sunday as the interim pastor here, it had rained and when I got here, there were two guys sleeping under the arches by the doors to the church. Neither one was bleeding, as far as I know, and I don’t think either one had been beaten up. Clearly, they just wanted a place out of the rain, and they’d found it. They’d both brought big pieces of cardboard to sleep on. I’d like to say I was moved with compassion, invited them in, cooked them breakfast, and connected them with a program to get them housed. But the truth is I didn’t. I said to the one by the east door, “I’m sorry, you’re going to have to wake up and move.” He stirred, looked at me, silently got up and left; the movement alerted the other one, he left too. I picked up the cardboard and put it by the trash. Later, thinking about this, and especially preparing this sermon, reading this parable, I realized my mistake and prayed for forgiveness. Who is my neighbor? I didn’t see him when he was lying right there in front of me.

Thank God I get another chance; thank God I live with an example of compassion. You see, every work day, Jacquelyn deals with hundreds of strangers. Some are great, excited to be going somewhere fun or visiting friends or family. Some are nervous; some are difficult. She has an amazing ability to deal with them even when they are being bad. She has a whole menu of things she does, but my favorite is her final, last straw. That’s when all the smiling and being nice and trying to compromise fails, and she says, “I see it’s hard to be you.” Just that: “I see it’s hard to be you.” 

Long after this service is over, long after the hot dogs and hamburgers are gone and everything is cleaned up, sometime this week, you’re going to encounter someone who has been beaten up. Maybe not by robbers, maybe just by life; maybe by some incident, maybe by a long cascade of incidents. The river reminds us that we are all connected; Jesus reminds us that our neighbor is the person to whom we show compassion. So perhaps you, too, will see that beaten up person and say, simply, “I see it’s hard to be you…how can I help?” And then indeed, you will have fulfilled the law Jesus preached, for you will have lit a candle of love.

Amen.

Prophetic Patriotism

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

by The Rev. James E. Eaton, Pastor

Fourth Sunday After Pentecost/C • July 6, 2025

Matthew 5:13-16

Most of know the story of the Mayflower Pilgrims. Less well known is the story of the Arbella and its cargo of 200 Puritans, who landed in Massachusetts Bay nine years later. Yet it was their colony that shaped Massachusetts, eventually incorporating the settlement at Plymouth.  Imagine for a moment that you were the leader of this group. What would you want to say? How would you inspire them? What would you tell them about the purpose of this great and dangerous voyage? John Winthrop was the leader and Winthrop chose to speak to them about charity. More than anything else, Winthrop today is remembered for a sermon in which he said the founding of the new colony had as its purpose to be a city set on a hill, giving light to all and that the method would be to show by their lives the true meaning and fulfillment of Christian love. Winthrop’s ideal wasn’t just spiritual; he is explicit about the need to give to the poor and to make sure each had what was needed. Infused in his sermon is a principle that would come to underlay the  foundation of Reformed churches like this one and, ultimately, the American Way: that there is a fundamental dignity, a fundamental promise, and a fundamental right inherent to each person; that each person represents a gift of God and it is the responsibility of the whole community and especially the church to allow that gift to unfold and serve God’s purpose.

More than a century later, this philosophy—this theology—was firmly planted in New England and flourished throughout the 13 colonies. When Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, two sons of that very Massachusetts colony Winthrop had founded, set out with Thomas Jefferson to define the principles of the new nation in the Declaration of Independence, they went back to this founding principle, that all are created equal, all have a human dignity under God, a purpose and a claim on the freedom needed to live out their purpose. This weekend, we celebrate that moment when our fathers and mothers looked out and said such things and we must ask, as the historic source of this faith, how can we renew it, how can we live it, how can we make it again a light for all. We talk about patriotism, especially at this time of year. But real patriotism is prophetic: it isn’t blue, or red, it’s the vision God gave at the beginning.

Christians often miss the fact that Jesus did not invent a new ethic or preach a different way of life. Instead, he summoned those he met, those who heard him, to remember and renew the living light of God’s word that they had heard from scripture all their lives. He himself said that he didn’t come to destroy the law but to fulfill it. In this, he was doing what prophets do: seeking the vibrant core of God’s Spirit and making it live again. Of course, many of his contemporaries couldn’t see this. We heard his frustration in the story from Matthew today. Jewish children, like our own, made the rituals of their parents into games. We do weddings; children play with Wedding Barbie. We cook; children work in imaginary kitchens. We dress for success; children love to dress up. But what to do with someone who won’t play? 

“But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.’…

Jesus has summoned all who hear him but they refuse to play. They cannot remember the original vision; they cannot see the original hope. The “wise and intelligent” are the worst of all; they are too busy compromising to see the goodness of God. Only those who can come as children receive his gift: the peace that makes it possible to lay down burdens and find rest for the soul, the rest that will allow them to fulfill their purpose in God.

It’s a cautionary tale for us. This weekend we celebrated Independence Day. But in the midst of our red, white and blue feeling, have we reached back to touch the bright vision with which our nation began? It is a vision that believes all have gifts and its genius was always that we offered a place to express those gifts, to make a life by doing the work of expressing those gifts. Where other societies chose to make right birth a qualification, we made hard work the important factor. Where other societies were built like a pyramid with some kind of aristocracy at the top, we said from the beginning, from Winthrop on, that everyone, rich or poor, had a responsibility for everyone. Where other societies glorified a gifted few, we claimed a fundamental dignity for all. This is not simply a political issue; it was, it is, always, a religious, spiritual issue. For the real task of churches is first to lift up a prophetic patriotism. That is, a patriotism that remembers we are founded on a vision of God’s purpose in our community. We do that most effectively when we demonstrate what such a community looks like.

This is what prophets do. Over and over, from Elijah defeating the prophets of Baal, to Amos describing God measuring Israel like a builder with a plumb line, to Isaiah and Jeremiah down through the centuries, all the prophets call God’s people back to the vision with which they began. Reformed churches began by rejecting the pyramid of privilege that was the accepted way in all of Europe when they began. They got rid of bishops; they began the system of voting we still use. Why do we vote in our church? Our congregational meeting is a testimony that every person has a voice, and God speaks through our united voices. One day, we will have a new pastor suggested. The suggestion will come from a Search Committee elected, not a bishop. One day a new pastor will be elected in the same way: by your voice, sharing what you believe the Spirit is saying, not by someone from another place, another church.

Perhaps we could learn a lesson from our history and make it our vision for the future. In the fifth or sixth century, a monk named Dubhan led a group to Hooks Head, a remote corner of Ireland, and built a monastery. Soon the monks noticed that the bodies of sailors were washing up on their pristine beach: they had perished when their ships hit the rocky coastline. The monks decided to set up a beacon and operated it for the next thousand years. No one knows how many ships were guided by that light. No one knows how many captains, lost in fog, anxiously searching  saw that light and avoided the rocks. God knows, and thank God for the work of those monks. Thank God for all those who give us light to see our way in all of life.

This is just another concrete expression of Winthrop’s summons to be a city set on a hill, a light to all. So the question we ought to be asking is what lighthouses do we need to be building on the corners of our property? We know there are dark and dangerous currents in our culture; how can we provide guidance to those caught in them? We know there are rocks on which lives shatter; how can we be ready to rescue the endangered? 

This place is a fine and peaceful place, a meetinghouse with a tradition, an oasis of worship. But if we huddle here within its walls, we can never fulfill its purpose. Jesus has come dancing; we are summoned and if we don’t know the steps, it’s time to learn. We must look to his example and learn his steps. When we do, we will certainly see that he did not stay inside but spent his life on the way, seeking the lost, healing the hurt, restoring the ability of those who had thought they were dead to live again. To dance this way, to live this way, we will inevitably have to leave this place and go out, as a light goes out, into the darkness, to show the way, to offer the love of God.

Amen.

Are You Ready?

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

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2025

Third Sunday After Pentecost/Year C • June 29, 2025

Luke 9:51-62

The last couple of weeks have seen a lot of packing at our house. May went to Texas to see friends and family; that required planning outfits for going out to dinner, hanging out, visiting in a nursing home and riding on the airplane. This week, Jacquelyn went to work. She takes one suitcase for three days. It has to hold a spare uniform, some clothes for overnights, a battery of electrical hair implements and a bunch of charging cables. She takes a second bag that’s filled with food; airport food isn’t healthy, and it’s expensive. So, three days of breakfast and dinner and snacks along the way. May was gone for five days; Jacquelyn for three. The packing took as long as the trips. I mention all this because today’s reading from Luke is all about travel. It’s a turning point in the gospel. Jesus is going to Jerusalem, and I wonder what he packed. Did he pack anything? Did the disciples carry his baggage? Was there baggage? Surely they had water; another story pictures the disciples eating along the way when they walked through a field of grain, so I’m guessing someone forgot the snacks. Whether they packed or not, this section marks a new moment in the gospel: Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem, to the cross, to glory.

Some important things have happened just before this. Jesus has been healing and teaching and exorcizing up in Galilee. Now Luke tells us that Herod Antipas, the Roman appointed ruler of Galilee, had begun to notice Jesus. He’s wondering if Jesus is actually John the Baptist come back; John, whom he had executed, resurrected. He’s wondering if Jesus might be Elijah returned or yet again, a prophet like Elijah. The whole question of who is Jesus forms the basis for this section. 

Two other events lie close in the background. One is Jesus feeding a crowd of 5,000 men and many women and children.. The other is Jesus asking his disciples who they think he is. Like Herod, they also suggest Elijah or a prophet, but Peter acclaims him: “You are God’s Messiah”. Christ is the Greek word that translates Messiah. “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God”, is what Mark tells us he said. Now, the text tells us, Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem. It’s not an idle choice; Luke says it is “when the days drew near for him to be taken up.”; the ascension we marked a month ago is clearly on the horizon. Before that, we’ll have the passion, the cross, and the resurrection. Jesus is on the way.

Now if you want to get to Ohio or Michigan, you have to go through Pittsburgh; or take a long detour; we all know that. If you want to get from Galilee to Jerusalem, you have to go through Samaria unless you go on a roundabout route to avoid it. Honestly? That roundabout route is how most Jews like Jesus would go. It’s how other gospels imagine Jesus making this journey. But Luke imagine his as a direct walk, about 90 miles, right through the heart of Samaria. Why is this important? Because Samaria is a taboo place to Jews. Almost 900 years before, King Omri had separated this area from Judah. About 600 years before Jesus, the Assyrians conquered this area, deported most of the people, and replaced them with people from other places. An alternate temple was built in Samaria; they had their own version of Torah, the books of Moses, and their own liturgy for worship. It was all foreign to Jews. Think how different other Christian churches are from us. I remember years ago at an interfaith service, meeting in what was for Congregationalists a fairly ornate meeting house like this one, with stained glass, dark wood. The comment of some Roman Catholics: “Wow, they don’t have any statues at all.”

Jesus is on the way and his way is going to take him through Samaria. Just as Jews didn’t think much of Samaritans, Samaritans didn’t think much of Jews. So t isn’t surprising that when Jesus sends ahead to find a place to stay, the villages along the way tell him “Not here!” Maybe you’ve been in this situation. You’re tired, it’s the end of a day of travel, but what you didn’t know is that there’s a convention in town; all the hotels are full. You try one, then another, only to be told no. You drive by “No Vacancy” signs. It’s frustrating. In this case, there’s a reason no one will receive them: just as Jews hated Samaritans, Samaritans hate Jews. They know Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem, and they’re not about to help him. The disciples are offended. ”Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” Jesus rebukes them; it’s the same language used for getting rid of demons.

Then as they go along, perhaps out of Samaritan territory, they have these three encounters on the road. The first one is a guy who is so enthused he offers to follow Jesus wherever he goes. The second one, Jesus calls: “Follow me”. And the third one also offers to follow him—after taking care of his family. Now, I don’t know about you. But these three encounters have always bothered me. They seem so extreme. The first guy is told that Jesus has no home. Maybe Jesus is still thinking about the experience in Samaria; maybe he’s heard Herod’s police are looking for him back in Galilee. “The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head,” he says. Apparently, it’s enough to stop the guy; his surface enthusiasm doesn’t include having nowhere to lay your head. 

But it’s the second one that really makes me squirm. I’ve spent a lot of time with members of families where someone was recently lost. I’ve seen the way that grief and preparations for a funeral absorb people. So when I hear, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father,” I hear it in that context. Where’s the problem, Jesus? It seems reasonable; it seems kind, after all, this guy is just doing what the culture tells him is his duty. I had two brothers. One was in sales, one is a lawyer, I’m a minister; all of us talk for a living. Yet when my mother died, no one had to tell me that I was the one who would organize her funeral, I was the one who would speak for the family. It was my job, and I flew to Florida and did it. I took a Sunday off from my job as a pastor to do it. Am I any different from this guy Jesus rejects? The last one is perhaps the most surprising of the three. He says he will follow Jesus, but he wants a moment to tell his family. Jesus says no thanks.

How should we understand these encounters? What should they mean to us? To understand them, we have to go back to the context and the beginning. This whole section revolves around Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem and to the cross. As one writer said, 

This passage in Luke is not simply Jesus strolling through the countryside looking to create disciples. This is Jesus marching toward the center of Roman civic and Jewish religious authority where he knows that his proclamation of the Kingdom will lead him to execution. [https://modernmetanoia.org/2019/06/17/proper-8c-what-would-jesus-do/]

So this is not a normal trip; this is not a vacation. He’s on his way to lay down his life for everyone. What these three encounters have in common is that the people in them are behaving normally, as if the regular rules of life apply. In Jesus, the kingdom of God is present, and the kingdom is not normal, it is not every day, it is a challenge to all the rules that govern our daily lives.

That’s what these people don’t understand. One is worried about the past: his father waiting for a funeral. One is worried about the future: he wants to let his family know where he’s going and when he’ll be home. The first one is worried about his present: where will they stay tonight? Just like us, they’re getting through the day the way they always do. What they don’t understand is that this is not a normal day, this is not a normal time. They want to follow Jesus without leaving their regular lives. They want to follow Jesus without changing anything.

Doesn’t that pretty much describe all of us? There’s even a hymn, a church song, one of my favorites honestly, that says, “I want Jesus to walk with me.” Think about the message of that: I want Jesus to go my way. But the call of Christ is not that he will walk with us; it is that we will walk with him. Does that mean we can’t do things like bury family members or let them know where we’re going? That’s not the point here: the point is that we hear and respond to the call of Christ when it comes to us. And in Christ, Paul says, as we’ll hear next week, there is a new creation. We are made new and called to act in new ways. 

It’s easy to measure those ways. We heard Paul’s explanation of what that new life looks like.

…the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.
[Galatians 5:22-25]

This is the measure for our church; this is the measure for us. These are the things that show the Spirit present when we demonstrate them.

Are you ready to live this way? Are we ready as a church? Today, Christians are often known for what they are against. What are we for? What light are we shining to help people find their way in the world’s darkness? How can we demonstrate the gifts of the Spirit God has given us? The time is now and the need for these gifts is urgent. When Jesus comes, there is no excuse; there is no delay. The call of Christ is now. Over and over again in parables, he urges on those who follow him the importance of being ready. Are you ready? May we be ready when he comes to us. Amen.

Get Up and Go!

by

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

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2025

Second Sunday After Pentecost/C • June 22, 2025

Kings 19:1-4, (5-7), 8-15 • Luke 8:26-39

This is a three point sermon. Let’s start by asking you to remember your greatest victory, your greatest moment. When did you spectacularly win? When did you feel like punching the air and shouting “Yes!”? I want to start there because before we get to Elijah in today’s scripture, we need to understand he is coming from the greatest victory of his life, something beyond anything I suspect he believed possible. Unless we start there, we’ll never understand where he ends up. So let’s go back before the beginning of this reading. David’s kingdom is 200 years in the past and it’s broken in two parts: Israel, up in the north, Judah in the south. After a series of military coups and civil wars, Ahab has become king up in Israel. Now Israel has strong neighbors, in particular the port cities of Tyre and Sidon just outside its borders. Today we call these people the Phoenicians, and they were amazing seafarers, founding colonies in North Africa, Sicily and all the way west in Spain.

Now, one way royals build power is through marriage alliances. King Ahab married a woman named Jezebel, the daughter of the king of Tyre and Sidon. You know, when a young woman gets married, she brings with her some familiar things. Jezebel brought the worship of her people’s gods with her: Baal and Asherah. The worship of Baal and Asherah is fun: there’s a big wine festival in the fall, when everyone is encouraged to get drunk and, well, act the way drunk people do. It’s a prosperity religion, much like some of the TV preachers today. It doesn’t come with difficult commandments like the worship of the Lord does. There’s no rules about what you can and cannot eat, there’s no rule about taking care of immigrants and orphans and widows like  the Lord demands. It’s a good time. Now, with support from Jezebel, the worship of these other gods is spreading in Israel. Ahab meanwhile is busy building palaces; we have a whole story about how he more or less steals a vineyard from a man named Naboth; Jezebel conveniently arranges to have Naboth murdered. 

As you might imagine, the Lord isn’t happy about all this. The Lord sees the unfaithfulness of these people and responds the way the Lord always does, by sending a prophet, a man named Elijah, to tell people to knock it off and behave. That’s just what Elijah does and like any ruler, it makes Ahab and Jezebel mad. Jezebel in particular is furious. The Lord decrees a drought in the land; people begin to wonder who is really in charge, if Baal is as powerful as Jezebel has said. So there is a great show down where the prophets of Baal and Elijah show up to light a sacrificial fire. In the event, Baal doesn’t show up, the Lord lights the fire, Elijah leads the Lord’s people in killing the prophets of Baal. It’s a total victory for the Lord, it’s a huge win for Elijah. That’s the background to what we read today. That’s the victory But our reading starts with a curse: Jezebel sends a message to Elijah promising to kill him: “”So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.” She means to have him killed. Elijah is scared and he runs. 

That’s where this reading picks up. He’s run all the way south to Judah, out of Ahab’s kingdom but murderers don’t always respect borders. I imagine he’s exhausted, fear is tiring, and he’s been on the run. He sits under a tree and asks God to take his life. Have you been to that place? Where you feel like things will never get better? Elijah is there and he falls asleep and when he wakes up, there’s a carafe of water and fresh bread. And an angel says, “Get up and eat.” He eats but lays down again, and the angel prompts him again: “Get up and eat or the journey will be too much for you.” This is God providing in the wilderness; this is God saying, “You’re not done!” So he eats, he gets up, he goes, ends up at a cave where he spends the night and God asks him, “What are you doing?” I’m going to leave him there for the moment; that’s the end of part one. This is a three part sermon.

So now I want to pick up the story we read in the Gospel of Luke, where Jesus crosses the Sea of Galilee to the country of the Gerasenes.. There are some things to know about the background. One is that just before this, Luke tells the story of Jesus calming the sea and the disciples exclaiming, “Who is this that controls even the wind and waves?”. A second is that the easts side of the Sea of Galilee is out of Jewish territory; it’s a Gentile area, it’s the base camp for the Tenth Legion, a group of about 6,000 Roman soldiers whose emblem is the head of a boar. A third is that whenever you read about crossing water in the Bible, it’s a cue that says God is doing something big. Think: there is the Exodus, when God divides the sea to save the people, there is crossing the Jordan into the promised land, fulfilling the promise to Abraham. Now we have another sea crossing. What’s going on?

Jesus steps out on shore and the first thing that greets him is a man possessed by demons meets him. It’s not a friendly little meeting. The man is naked and he’s been forced to live outside the city in the tombs. He’s unhoused, he’s certainly stinky and looks wild and he’s shouting. I hate being shouted at especially by strangers. Are you imagining this encounter? The man is yelling, “What have you to do with me? Don’t torment me!” This is a guy who knows something about torment; the story says that he had been kept under guard and bound with chains but got so wild he broke them. What would you do? What Jesus does is simple: he asks his name. It’s simple; I imagine it being quiet, simple, “What’s your name?” What Jesus seems to be doing is restoring this guy to who he really is, who he was meant to be. He’s already cast the demons out of him; the demons beg to go into a herd of swine, which he lets them do, and the herd promptly runs off a cliff. Now you know that in Jewish culture, pigs are considered unclean. The story says the demons are legion, a term for the Roman oppressors and as I said, the local legion has a boar’s head as its symbol. So certainly we’re meant to hear something in this  quietly suggesting the power of the legion, the power of Rome, is being challenged.

But let’s get back to the guy. People hear a commotion and come out; they always do. They see that the guy has been given some clothes, and he seems to be in his right mind, he’s just sitting there. Isn’t it interesting that the story says, “They were frightened”? Doesn’t change often frighten us? We like what we know. These people might be scared of the guy living in the tombs, I imagine they tell their kids, don’t go out there where that guy is. But now that he’s restored, do they take him in? Do they say, “Hey! Glad you’re back with us!” No, they’re frightened, so frightened they ask Jesus to leave. And the guy? We read today that the man who formerly had a demon asked to be with Jesus, but the Greek text actually says, “He asked to be bound to him”. Here’s a guy who knows what being bound means and somehow he misses it; notice that Jesus refuses this. Instead, he sends him home: I think of him saying, “What are you doing?” Go home. He does, and tells people what God had done for him. 

So, we’ve talked about Elijah; we’ve talked about Jesus and the demoniac. This is part three of a three part sermon. And it’s all about you, and me, and this church. We’re at a transition moment. I’m an interim pastor here, which is a bit like being a babysitter. You know the babysitter doesn’t make the rules and only stays for a little while before the parents come home and things go on. It’s the same here; we’re meant to be in transition. So in that sense, we’re in the same position as Elijah at his cave: God is asking, “What are you doing?” I hope you’re asking that question, I know the search committee is. You’ve heard some announcements about creating a new mission statement and that’s what a mission statement is, an answer to the question what are you doing. 

Now what happens to Elijah is a series of earthshaking, noisy events: a great wind, an earthquake, a fire. God isn’t in any of them, the text says; it’s when things are silent that Elijah hears God asking again, “What are you doing?” Elijah tells him how his victory has turned into a disaster, and God simply says, “Go, return on your way.” Keep going, in other words; just keep keeping on. The demoniac has had his life changed, but he’s still stuck in this city where everyone is frightened of him; Jesus says, “Return to your home,” another way of saying the same thing, keep keeping on. Have a little faith; remember that faith is like a mustard seed, so small it can hardly be seen, but bearing the potential to grow into something huge.

This is a three part sermon. You are the third part. God does nothing by force; God invites, includes, summons. Today God asks as back then of Elijah, “What are you doing?” Today God blesses us on the journey home. Today God hopes our faith will make God’s promise of blessing the whole world real. Amen.