Author Archives: James

Everyone, Everywhere

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

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2025

Pentecost Sunday • June 8, 2025

John 14:8-17, (25-27)

“Use your words.” That’s a phrase we’ve said to our grandchildren when they were at that between pointing at what they wanted and asking for it by name. Isn’t language amazing? Think how language can change us, lift us up, cast us down. The Biblical story imagines God creating with language, creation by the Word. “Let there be light—and there was light.” Now today, in this story where language and words are so important, it’s clear that what God means to say is this: ‘ahabak [Arabic}, Wǒ ài nǐ [Chinese], te amo [Spanish] or in English: I love you.

The story we read in Acts invites us into a gathering of the first Christians after Jesus has left. It’s Shavuot, a Jewish festival fifty days after Passover that celebrated the giving of the Torah as well as the wheat harvest in Israel. In the Christian story, it’s also some time after the Ascension; we talked about that last week. Jesus had gathered his followers, told them to stay put until they received the Holy Spirit, and then was enfolded by a cloud and left them. So his followers have been doing what we do when we grieve: retreating, I imagine, but also gathering together at times, praying, healing. Now they are gathered together. Nothing in the text prepares us or them for what happens next.

What happens next, of course is amazing, incredible: tongues of fire! the sound of a rushing wind!—remember that Spirit and Wind are the same word in Greek and Hebrew—it all must have been amazing and stunning. Sometimes I’ve been in worship when we’ve tried to illustrate this. I remember one Sunday morning when we’d brought in three big fans; some people who had hairdos blown around were not amused. And of course there are various things you can do with fire; and no, we’re not going to do them here. This building is old, and I am not going to be the pastor who burned it down. But you get the idea.

When was the last time you were amazed? Think of that moment, hold on to it for just a second. Here are these people still grieving, they’ve come together, told stories of Jesus, probably sung some songs, and suddenly it’s all blowing up. God has spoken. Like Genesis, the Spirit of the Lord is moving and making, and it is amazing.

Creation by the Word is always amazing and mysterious. I know this because I’ve done it and so have many of you. You stand before your friends in a dress that cost more than anything in your closet and that you will probably never wear again; you put on a tux for the first time since prom. Someone speaks and asks if you will marry, if you promise to be married, and you say, “I do!”—and just like that you’ve created a new family, a married couple. You stand before a congregation you’ve been attending for a while, a place that’s helped you feel God’s nearness and presence, and we speak the words of the church covenant together—and just like that, you’re a member of the church, we’ve created a new moment in the church’s history, no matter how old or young that church is.

So here is the Spirit, here is God, doing the same thing: creating something new. That something is us: the church. Pentecost is the moment Jesus’ followers become the church, become his body in the world, caring for the world, as he cared. And of course they are so excited they can’t keep it in the house, they go out in the street. There are things that have to be told and this is one of them. So we have this incredible scene of the first church members in the streets, speaking to people in a way they understand. This isn’t “speaking in tongues”, they way it’s practiced in Pentecostal churches; they is speaking to people in a language they understand.

Now the Bible takes language seriously, and it tells the story of the Temple of Babel to explain why there are so many languages. Long ago, the story says, human beings were so full of pride they built a temple, imagining they could build it high enough to enter heaven through their own efforts. Taller than tall it reached until God saw their pride, saw the tower and cast it down and at the same time, created the variety of languages so that never again would humans cooperate in such a thing. At Pentecost, the speaking is a way of saying that ancient curse has been reversed: God is now speaking to all people in ways they understand. One writer said,

Pentecost is a unification of the separated families of humanity. This unification isn’t accomplished through the will and power of empires and their rulers, but through the sending of the Spirit of Christ, poured out like life-giving rain on the drought-ridden earth. In place of only one holy—Hebrew—tongue, the wonderful works of God are spoken in the languages and dialects of many peoples. The multitude of languages is preserved—a sign of the goodness of human diversity—and human unity is achieved, not in the dominance of a single human empire, or in the collapsing of cultural difference, but in the joyful worship of God.- 

[Alistair Roberts , http://www.politicaltheology.com/blog/the-politics-of-pentecost-acts-11-21]

You can do this. Use your Words. We sometimes have  folks here who came to church even though they couldn’t speak English. If someone smiles at them, speaks to them, they understood this: you’re welcome here. This is how God speaks: in whatever language is needed to say, “I love you.” When you welcome someone, you create this welcome, you create this presence.

That’s what happens at Pentecost. The special effects, the tongues of fire, the rushing wind, the enthusiasm of the Jesus followers are all just prelude. The real event is what happens when they get out there in the world. 

Amen.

Seeing Is Believing

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

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2025

Ascension Sunday • June 1, 2025

Acts 1:1-11

“Will you take us back to the good old days, Lord?”, the disciples ask. But Jesus is all about the future. Don’t worry about the past, just wait for the Spirit and then go be my witnesses.

This is the 11th time I’ve started as the pastor of a church and there are some things I’ve learned about starting up. One is that the first thing I need to know: where is the light switch?
It sounds simple, doesn’t it?—until as a new pastor you come in on Saturday night to practice and start stumbling. Switches are pretty simple: one way is on, one way is off, on, off, no in between. But when we move on from the lights, things get more complicated; not everything is off and on. Do you know about Schrödinger’s Cat? It’s a thought experiment from the early 20th century. A scientist suggested imagining a cat placed in a sealed box which is then bombarded with enough radiation to give it a 50/50 chance of dying or surviving. He asked, “Is the cat dead or alive?” —and suggested that actually the cat is in a sort of in between state where we don’t know. Now we are in between pastors at Salem and in that sense, in between one time here and another, between our past and future. That’s also where the disciples are in the story we read from Acts today. A few weeks ago, on Easter Sunday, we celebrated Jesus’ return from the dead. “He is Risen”, we proclaimed: “He is risen indeed.” I don’t know about you, but where I was, we sang “Christ the Lord is Risen today”, we decorated a cross with flowers, we proclaimed his resurrection and return to us. Today is Ascension Sunday and we celebrate his leaving. What does Jesus leaving the scene mean for us?

This text has three parts. The first part makes it clear that the author’s intention is to provide a witness to the life of Jesus Christ. He addresses ‘Theophilus’, a Greek word that translates as “God’s Friend”. The Gospel of Luke is, we believe, the first book to which he refers. Scholars believe both Luke and Acts were written near the end of the first century after Christ, and already the author can simply summarize Jesus’ ministry—“all Jesus began to do and teach” and what we know as the passion story: “his suffering”. 

But the main point of this story comes in two conversations: one between Jesus and the disciples, one between the disciples and two angelic figures. In the first conversation, Jesus tells the disciples to do one thing: wait. Wow! When was the last time someone told you “just wait”? Not one word about going out to heal, not one word about casting out demons, not one word about the next steps in the ministry. Wait, wait for the Spirit to direct you. “While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem but to wait there…you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” 

The disciples have a different idea. “What’s the plan, Jesus?”, they ask. What they have in mind is a glorious victory that restarts David’s kingdom. I imagine they’re frustrated; they ask, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” They want Jesus to get busy, they want to get back to the old kingdom, the glory days of Israel. How about it, Lord? Can we just get on with things?

Isn’t this like us? We all have memories of how things used to be in churches; we have a memory of how things used to be in general. I remember when I was first driving, picking up friends in my mother’s car, being able to get enough gas to ride around by scrounging change out of the folds in the seats. I remember when eggs were a cheap food. What about it, Lord? Are you going to get us back there? Some of you remember when the pews here were full, I imagine, and when the church was a more visible part of the community. What about it, Lord? Are you going to get us back there? This is a transition time for this church. Just like the disciples, for many the first instinct is to pull up some picture from the past and ask, can we go back there?  

So it’s especially important that we hear the rest of this passage. When the disciples ask, Jesus simply says: 

It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

This is a transition moment for the disciples. They knew how to be with Jesus, but now he’s gone. They know how to hope he will make things great again. But that’s not their job; their job now, he says, is to wait in the faith that God has a future in mind, that God is moving, and the Spirit will come to them, and their task right now is to be his witnesses. A witness is someone who has seen something and tells others about it. They’ve seen Jesus. They’ve seen him change lives. They’ve seen him change them. Now it’s time to tell others.

This point is made in the last part of the text as well. The disciples are standing there, “gazing into heaven”. Can you imagine this? There’s a cloud, there’s Jesus lifted and leaving. Let go of “how did this happen?” For a moment, just think about those 11 disciples, seeing their leader, their rabbi leave. Salvador Dalí has a great painting of this: all you see are his massive feet. And there’s the moment he disappears from view. My daughter May is kind enough when she works from home to go to Lil Amps and bring me back a croissant. Now, our dog Ellie loves croissants; if I’m still asleep, she will come wake me up, pawing at me to say, “There’s a croissant! There’s a croissant!” I give her bits as I have morning coffee. When it’s gone, I have to hold my hands up to say, “That’s it, all gone!” The cloud is God holding up hands to say, “He’s gone.” And just to make the point, two men in white, messengers, appear. They say, “Why are you standing around, looking up to heaven?” 

Now we are in a transition moment too, so this text ought to speak especially powerfully to us. Just like the disciples, I suspect some are worried about the future, some are wondering how we are going to get along without Pastor Sue. I imagine there are questions being asked, and we need to make sure we’re asking the right questions. The disciples asked about making the past happen again; are we wondering how to do that? Remember that Jesus was all about their future. So while we need to understand our past, our focus should be on, “What’s next?” And “What’s now?” What’s next will take time to figure out; we have a search committee and a Consistory working on making suggestions about that and I encourage everyone to talk to those folks about how you see the future of this church. “What’s now?” Is simpler: we faithfully wait and in the meantime practicing being witnesses. Just wait: wait for the Spirit to make the future clear and in the meantime, be witnesses.

Being a witness means sharing, demonstrating, what Christ looks like. C. S. Lewis was a British scholar and writer who said, “Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else.” [Mere Christianity] Our task now is to share what we’ve seen of Christ, be his witnesses in this place in this time. Seeing is believing: to invite others to share the family of Christ means showing them what that looks like. In his book “Living Buddha, Living Christ,” Thich Nhat Hanh remarks to a visiting Christian: “You say you are people of the Resurrection. Show me your resurrection.”

This is a time pregnant with possibility. But like all pregnancies, the end isn’t clear. In this time, we have two tasks. One is to wait faithfully, the other is to witness. To wait faithfully is to believe God has a purpose unfolded in this congregation if we listen for it, if we follow it. To witness is to share your experience of Christ, to be the image of Christ, all week long, all day long, every day. Seeing is believing. Those who followed Jesus saw him and believed. Now let people see us, following his way, inviting them to come along.

Amen.

Still I Rise

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A Sermon for the Locust Grove United Church of Christ

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor • © 2025

Easter Sunday Year C • April 20, 2025

Luke 24:1-12

Christmas begins with lights. On Christmas Eve, we gather here to look for the Lord, to celebrate his coming. The last thing we do is to light the candles. It’s a wonderful moment: celebrating the one who came as the light of the world, we pass the light, candle to handle, one to another until the whole room sparkles and we sing. But Easter begins in darkness. The last thing we do on Maundy Thursday is to extinguish the candles, remembering the darkness to come on Good Friday. So we come to Easter from the darkness.

Like a stage cleared in the final act of a play, John tells us the crowds have cleared out, first shouting, “Hosanna” for Jesus come as king, later demanding, “Crucify him!” when the Romans and the city authorities arrest him and put him on trial as a terrorist. Peter denies him in the courtyard of the jail. Killed on a cross in the gathering shadows of sunset that marks the beginning of the sabbath, his followers fade away. Finally, it’s left to a sympathetic rich man to provide for his burial and the body is stashed in a cave tomb, too late for preparation before shabbat, which starts as darkness begins and night takes over. Only now, in the darkness of the dawn, does anyone, a few women, venture to the tomb. They buy spices to prepare the body, to make the final arrangements and give some dignity to the dead. They are going to the grave and they’re worried that the stone closing it off will be too much to roll away; they’re worried they won’t be able to get in to where Jesus lies dead in the darkness. It’s early: John says, “while it was still dark” [John 20:1b]

The burial caves of Jerusalem are on a cliff wall. Imagine walking along the a cliff, as the darkness turns into dawn, slowly, carefully negotiating the turns in the path, watching just the steps ahead, not the whole path, unable to see around the next turn. Carefully, quietly, the women walk the path, stumbling here or there, clutching each other to keep from falling, arms full of the precious spices. They know a large stone blocks the entrance to the tomb and they are already trying to think of a way to move it. You see how like us they are? They have a problem: they’ve brought the things they will need to do their job and they are discussing how to deal with the biggest obstacle of all. Isn’t that what we do?

Now they come around the last curve. Are they still talking about the stone or has the nearness of the grave silenced them? Now they look toward the grave, discovering the problem they worried so much about isn’t there: the stone is moved. Who moved it? How did they do it? The women don’t know or seem to care. The grave is open; they walk slowly toward it, silent now I’m sure, they come to the entrance and, they enter the cave and suddenly the darkness lightens and in the light there is a person sitting, dressed in white, shining with it. They’re afraid: who wouldn’t be, they came to deal with a dead man, not a live angel. 

He says what angels always say: “Don’t be afraid.” He shows them where Jesus had lain, they see the grave clothes they had intended to anoint with their spices which won’t be needed after all. And he tells them what to do. The women run. Of course they run: wouldn’t you? “They went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”, one account says. What about you? What about me? What are we to make of this story? 

Most importantly, that Easter is not only for Easter Sunday. The gospel of Mark starts, “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God.” All that follows, all the stories of Jesus’ ministry and teaching, the story of the cross, this story of Easter is prelude, just a beginning. The good news is that it’s not the end. In the failure of the worldly events, there is a space made by faith. In the vulnerability of the cross and the tomb, there is an empty place and God works in that wilderness, God is present in that wilderness, raising Jesus. The Pharisees cannot understand him, the Romans cannot kill him, his own followers cannot follow him but God’s grace is so powerful it can overcome all of them. Go home, the angel says: go back to Galilee. He’s not gone, he’s still here: “there you will see him.” Easter is a summons to see.

Maya Angelou is a poet who has seen in the long history of oppression of black people a reason for hope, an image of resurrection. She says, in part, 

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don’t you take it awful hard

‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines

Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise. [Maya Angelou, Still I Rise]

There he is: rising in the sweep of history, bending history to the love of God, the justice of God a little bit every day. See him there: see his power there. See his resurrection there. To the violence of the Empire, of all empires, he says: “Still I rise.” 

But it’s not only in the big things that Jesus can be seen. Terry Marquardt wrote about grieving for her grandmother and remembered,

My aunt was with my grandmother during the last nights of her life, when the pain in her spine was so horrible that she hadn’t slept for two days, and the medication had stopped working, and she was beginning to lose hope. It was too much to lay down, so the two of them were sitting in the living room at 2:00 in the morning when my aunt had an idea.

“Mom, let’s have a party.”

“How could I possibly do that,” my grandmother said, motioning to her stiff body, kept awake by the sensation that it was being ground into dust.

“Let’s try,” my aunt said.

And she started to sing.

My aunt sang the Mennonite hymns my grandmother had taught her, songs from my grandmother’s childhood in a Mennonite farming community in northeastern Canada, songs that were sung in the fields, at their dinner tables, to greet the dawn, to end their day, on the way to church. My aunt and my grandmother sang all night long, until there was no pain, until my grandmother’s nurse woke up and tiptoed into the room. “I’ve never heard such beautiful music,” she cried.

View at Medium.com

In that moment, in those songs, her grandmother was rising, and they were rising with her.

We thought the problem was how to give Jesus a decent burial, how to roll the stone away. But it turns out that the stone we worried about is already rolled away; Jesus is gone ahead. The empty tomb is God’s message to the Emperor, to the soldiers, to the world, to the followers who have scattered that in the midst of death, still I rise. This is God saying, in the midst of betrayal, whether Judas and his double crossing kiss or Peter in his fearful denial, still I rise. This is God saying to the torturers and the prison guards and the judges and the crucifiers just following orders, still I rise. This is God saying that even when I feel abandoned on a cross and cry out asking why I’m forsaken, still I rise. This is God saying, even from a tomb closed up tight, still I rise.

This is the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God. It starts with fearful followers running away. In the days that followed, every one of them had to decide what to do about the news that he had risen; every one had to decide how to live when the tomb was empty and despite the plain sense of his death, there was this amazing experience where it was clear that he was saying, “Still I rise”.  Every one of them had to decide whether to keep running or to rise with him, to look for him, follow him, to Galilee.

Where is Galilee? It’s where they came from, where they started. Jesus is going back to the beginning and starting over: that’s where they will see him. Their lives are about to start over because these lives are lived beyond the fear of death. The great question about the Christian movement of the first century is what powered it, what allowed it to change history. The answer is the people Jesus changed; the answer is the people who saw him rise and took his resurrection as the pattern for their own lives. Jesus was risen and they said with him, still I rise.

It’s the same with us. We are prepared to go to the grave; we are good at raising the money to buy spices, we can discuss how to move the stone. But are we ready to leave the grave and go to Galilee? Can we take Easter home, can we take it wherever we go? Still I rise, he says: despite what we thought, he calls us, invites us, forgives us, commands us. Come see me: come follow me. 

He’s gone ahead and when we see that, we’re ready to take the next step, to let go of our fears, accept his forgiveness and follow him. Easter isn’t a day, it’s an invitation: come see me. The gospels tell us how he appeared over and over to people, and his message is always the same: love one another, see me, follow me, because still, I rise: even when you don’t believe it, even when you don’t understand it, still I rise. Peter denied him but it’s Peter he calls back to tend his sheep. Mary ran in fear but it’s Mary who first meets him on the way. Thomas won’t believe him but it’s Thomas who feels his wounds. To the powerful who prey on the poor, his presence says: still I rise. To the hopeless who cannot find the way out of darkness, he says, “I am the light of the world”—still I rise. To us, to all of us, who come here, wondering, he says: still I rise. Come follow me. Come: because on your way, on your journey, you will see me: for still I rise. 

Amen

The Lord Has Need of It

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A Sermon for the Locust Grove United Church of Christ, York, PA

by Rev. James Eaton, Pastor © 2025

Palm Sunday/C • April 13, 2025

Luke 19:28-40

Notice the breath. Buddhist teaching begins with this simple suggestion: notice the breath. A yoga instructor says it over and over: notice the breath. It’s repeated because one of the hardest things is to see what’s really there. We get used to a room, and don’t see it’s color; we get used to a person and forget why they interested us. We hear a story and when it’s repeated, assume we know the details already and fill them in. Maybe you grew up like I did, in a church where Palm Sunday was one of the most fun times in the year. It didn’t have presents like Christmas but it did have palms and it was one Sunday when children were not only invited into the sanctuary but allowed to be a little rowdy. Who would have thought our Sunday School class would have to be told to be louder when we shouted Hosanna? 

So we come to Palm Sunday, perhaps with that vision in mind;. We’ve heard this story. We know how it goes: Jesus, palms, crowds, yay yay, hosanna, done;  moving on. But to truly hear Luke’s version of this story, the one we read today, begin by noticing what isn’t there: no palms, no children, no hosanna. Perhaps if we notice what isn’t there and clear it away, we will be ready to see what is there. Notice the breath. That’s our job today: see what Luke shows us, understand what God means, consider what to do about it.

Jesus has been on the way to Jerusalem for a long time. Along the way, he told his friends that it would mean a cross, death, suffering, but that they should believe as he did in God’s power to give life, in God’s love beyond life and death. Everything in the gospels says they didn’t believe him. When he first tells them, Peter himself didn’t believe it and argued with Jesus. James and John are arguing about the power structure of the new administration of King Jesus right up to the very end, to the point where he has to tell them to stop. 

Now they approach Jerusalem itself,. Herod—remember Herod? He was the king when Jesus was born, he was the king who killed John the Baptist, he’s the king that threatened Jesus. Herod had rebuilt the Temple and parts of the city. The temple had so much white marble and gold trim it was said a person could hardly look at it in the harsh mid-day sun. It lasted less than 50 years. 

Jerusalem is on top of a small mountain, Mount Zion The road up to it is windy and switches back and forth. At Passover, people came from all over to the city, so it would have been crowded; imagine driving to Harrisburg for the Thanksgiving parade  Jesus and his disciples and followers are peasants and so are most of the people around them. They don’t have special clothes for this special time; peasants wore a sort of undergarment and a cloak. The cloak was valuable enough to pawn for a day’s food, important enough that there was a law that the pawnbroker couldn’t keep the cloak overnight. They’re often pictured marching like a military unit, lined up behind Jesus with crowds on either side but that’s a mistake. Jesus and his friends are part of a larger procession of pilgrims to the city. Surely they would have spread out as much as possible; think of a crowd moving along Among them may have been a Roman military unit, sent to reinforce the garrison at a time when trouble was expected. That would have meant soldiers in metal breastplates with swords and a commander mounted on a horse leading them. 

Now they come to the Mount of Olives. It’s where Jesus will go after the last supper, where he will pray, where he will be arrested. There are really two processions going on here. One is Jesus, who is walking toward the cross, marching toward heavenly glory; the other is everyone else, walking toward victory, marching toward worldly success. 

As they move along, Jesus sends some disciples off to acquire a colt. And he gives them a coded phrase: “The Lord has need of it.” Now the word ‘Lord’ has a double meaning. It could mean the owner of the donkey but it’s also the word most often used to describe Jesus. The way he instructs them is strange: “If someone asks why you are untying it…” It’s as if you saw a stranger in front of your house getting into a neighbor’s car.. “Just say, ‘the Lord has need of it’” In the event, when they untie the colt, it’s the owner himself who confronts them. Sometimes when this is preached, explanations are created about how Jesus had prearranged for the colt. We don’t really know, but if he had done so, why are the owners asking what they’re doing? “The Lord has need of it,” they say. This time ‘Lord’ clearly means Jesus. The owner must have faced a difficult choice. A colt is valuable, like a car. We’re all used to the church asking for funds but then we decide what to give. Here, he’s confronted with a choice; what would you do? “The Lord has need of it.” 

What we call the Palm Procession really begins with this colt. When they bring it back, they throw their cloaks, their valuable cloaks, on it to make a saddle and it says “…they put Jesus on it.” Notice the breath: notice the detail. He doesn’t climb on, he doesn’t mount up. Like the Spirit whooshing him off to the wilderness at the beginning of his ministry, his friends put him up on that colt and suddenly people must have looked and suddenly he’s become a symbol and suddenly he’s mocking all the panoply and pageantry of the marching Romans and soldiers, coming to Jerusalem, as they are, coming mounted, as they are, but on a colt. People must have noticed and remembered that the prophet Zechariah had said,

9Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. [Zechariah 9:9]

There are two processions here. One is Jesus, who is walking toward the cross, marching toward heavenly glory; the other is everyone else, walking toward victory, marching toward worldly success. One is led by people proud of their power; one by a man rocking humbly on a colt. One is led by people determined to deal death to make power; one is led by someone who believes life can overcome death. 

The crowd notices; people are inspired. Inspired—meaning filled with Spirit: notice the breath, the Spirit. They take off their cloaks and throw them down. We call it Palm Sunday but there are no cheap palms, no branches cut from trees someone else owns here. The cloaks they are throwing down are for some their most valuable possession. Like the owners of the colt, they have heard, “The Lord has need of it”, and give more than what they have—they give what they are. It’s dangerous to celebrate this prophet. This is exactly the kind of demonstration those soldiers are meant to stop. Just as some Pharisees had warned Jesus that Herod was trying to kill him, now they warn him to make his followers be quiet, to stop this dangerous demonstration. Jesus simply says it can’t be stopped: if they stop, creation itself will take up the cry. 

What is it they are shouting? We all grew up shouting hosanna, which means “Save us”. I’ve led countless services over the years where we had people shout, where we waved palms, I’ve done it here. But notice the details in this account, because each account has something to say. And in this one, it’s not Hosanna they shout, it’s “Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” Now we’ve heard that, or something very much like that before, haven’t we? It’s like the lines to an old song, the kind that can drive you crazy trying to remember. Where did we hear it? What’s the title? Who’s the singer? We heard it on Christmas Eve. Its title is the Advent, the birth, of Christ. It’s the song of the angels. We have circled back to Christmas; we have circled back to Jesus.

This is Palm Sunday and it’s about a procession but there are really two processions. One is Jesus, who is on his way to the cross, marching toward heavily glory; the other is everyone else, walking toward victory, marching toward worldly success. Jesus doesn’t live alone. He consciously builds a community. In Luke we hear not only about the 12 disciples but about 70 people he sends out. In this story, it’s the people around him who move the story forward: the owner of the colt, who gives it when the Lord has need of it, the friends who make a saddle of their cloaks, because the Lord has need of them, the people who don’t even know Jesus yet lay down their cloaks because somehow they too sense the Lord has need of them. 

What are we to do about all this? Every one of us eventually faces a moment when we sense the Lord has need of something. We’ve been talking throughout Lent about moving from fear to faith. Perhaps the greatest need of all is for us simply to believe Jesus, listen to him, and build our life together around what he says instead of what we think. Who we are is God’s children; who we are is people meant to sing songs of praise like the ones around Jesus. What the Lord needs isn’t just what we have: it’s who we are. If we don’t sing the song of salvation, it’s left to the stones. God will make a way, God is making a way, and we are meant to be that way.

Notice the breath. Breath is a basic Bible play on words. Breath: in Greek, pneuma, in Hebrew, reach: both are the words we translate ‘spirit’. Notice the breath: notice the Spirit. This is Palm Sunday and it’s about a procession but there are really two processions. One is Jesus, who is walking toward the cross, marching toward heavenly glory; the other is everyone else, walking toward victory, marching toward worldly success. Which one are you marching in? The answer is the one you give when the moment comes and the Spirit says: “The Lord has need of it.”

Amen.

Are You Going to the Party?

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A Sermon for the Locust Grove United Church of Christ of York, PA

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2025

Fourth Sunday in Lent/C • March 30, 2025

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

“A man had two sons…” I know you are all Biblically literate so I know that just this simple phrase has already set your teeth on edge. I’m sure you are already bracing for the rest of the story. Because we know what happens in the Bible with stories that begin this way. Adam had two sons: Abel and Cain, and Cain killed his brother. Abraham had two sons, Isaac and Ishmael, and the rivalry between them is used to explain the millennia long conflict that in our time is represented by Israelis and Palestinians. Isaac had two sons, Esau and Jacob and Jacob stole his brother’s birthright. King David had two sons who were rivals, Amnon and Absalom, and the result was a civil war that almost destroyed the kingdom. 

“A man had two sons.” Think how Jesus’ listeners, who knew all these stories, for whom these were family stories, must have heard these words. Think how they must have cringed. “A man had two sons.” I know you’ve heard this story before; today I want to ask you to set aside everything you know about it, everything you’ve heard, and try, like someone who has just cleaned their glasses, to see it in a new light.

“A man had two sons.” The older one is a lot like his father, must have learned from his father, as farm kids do, all the skills and patience of sowing, caring, reaping, up at dawn to feed the animals, working by lamp light when the harvest has to be gotten in. He’s grown into a sold man by the time of this story, I’m sure his father is proud, I’m sure he’s beginning to take his place in the community. He never disobeyed his father, he never asked for anything, he just worked like a slave on the farm day in and day out.

“A man had two sons.” The younger one; what shall we say about him? He isn’t any of those things I just mentioned. I think of him never quite getting farm work, never wanting to do it, avoiding it whenever he can, growing up with the farm asi a burden threatened to press the life out of him. I think of him always wanting to go to the city, eagerly listening to stories from travelers, imagining a day when he himself would see the sights.

You know what happened. As soon as he was old enough, he went to his father and asked for his share of the inheritance. You may have heard that this was treating his father like he was dead but the father doesn’t object; he sells some property and gives his son the money and the younger son takes off for the city, where he squanders all of it in dissolute living. I’m going to pause just a moment for you to imagine that. Ok, that’s enough, a little dissolute living goes a long way. Once the money’s gone, of course, he has to find work and he works for a Gentile on a pig farm. Have you ever been to a pig farm? Have you ever driven by a pig farm? A pig farm can make your eyes water. Of course, pigs are forbidden to Jews, but there’s no suggestion he’s eating pork, just helping raise it, and he’s so poor and so hungry that he wishes he could eat the feed he’s giving to the pigs. Ironically, he’s back doing farm work, and he’s doing the worst kind. Now it doesn’t take much thinking in this situation to realize that if he’s going to do farm work, he’d be better off back home.

This is all prelude, isn’t it? This is the set up for what comes. This isn’t the only son who’s ever taken part of the family fortune and squandered it. Families are full of guys like this. You probably know a family that’s dealt with something similar. What if it was your family? What if it was your kid? We all want our kids to find their way but this one has already spent his father’s trust and money. How would you handle him?

What happens is a party. Amazingly, his father goes to his son, rushes out to the son, before he even gets all the way home, greets him, gives him a festal coat, puts a ring on his finger and tells the servants to cook up some barbecue. They have a huge party, with brisket and I’m sure beer and wine and every good thing. You’d think this kid had just graduated and gotten a plum job; you’d never know he was a refugee from his own reckless, selfish squandering. 

It’s the father’s joy in finding him alive and home that demands celebrating. The family can never be complete without him. At the end of the story, the father says, “We had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’” Wow: it’s hard to resist singing Amazing Grace, isn’t it? Well, it’s a good song and this is a good story and it might just as well end there but—it doesn’t, does it? No, this isn’t just a man and his son: remember where we started? “A man had two sons.”

The noise of the party is wafting out over the hills, the music, the loud voices, everyone is there except: the other son, the older son. Where is he?—out in the fields, working away, getting jobs done just like he’s always done. Something is growing there and it isn’t just the crop, it’s his resentment, his anger. He’s pouting. Surely he knows about the party, surely someone has told him that his brother’s back, his brother who forced his dad to sell that lovely olive grove, his brother he never really shared the work, even when they were kids, his brother who always got away with everything. Now his brother’s back and he’s not about to pretend he’s happy about it. 

So he stays in the field, works away, until finally his father finds him. His father finds him because it’s dawned on the father that he has two lost sons: one has just returned, one needs to be called back. One is at the party; one is pouting in the field, using work to express anger, his absence from the party speaking his disapproval. Absence doesn’t always make the hart grow fonder; sometimes, it just makes everyone sad.

The father goes out to find him. Because the older brother is so often treated as an after thought, we miss this detail. If you just read the beginning of the story, it seems the action is controlled by the younger brother: he leaves, he squanders, he returns. But it’s the father who is the main agent. He gives the two sons a home, he gives the younger brother what he asks, he goes out to find him when he is on the way home, he makes a party, he goes out to the field to find the other lost son. It’s the father who moves this story forward at every stage and now he does it by talking to his older son. The older son has a grievance and its foundation is the disruption of the family.

For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ [Luke 15:31f]

The younger son came back because in his heart he re-discovered a relationship. Remember his inner dialogue? 

I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.” [Luke 15:17-19]

He expects to be treated like a worker at the farm; the older son speaks of working like a slave. The father always has one relationship in mind: they are his sons, they are family. When the younger son realizes this,  it is the invocation of ‘father’ that causes his return. The older son has also lost his relationship.“I worked like a slave,” he says—not like a son. He’s lost the right relationship with his brother, too; he calls him, “This son of yours.”

The father’s response is simple. When the family is complete, when everyone is together, he feels joy and the party is the result. It’s the restoration of relationships that makes the joy. In each encounter, he addresses them as “son” and the party is unstoppable because it comes from the joy of completing the family. “We had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’” Notice the imperative: “We had to celebrate”.

This story is often told as an allegory of forgiveness but that’s a mistake. He says he’s sinned against his father and heaven but it’s not his confession that causes the joy; his father has already run out to find him He is not embraced because he is forgiven but because his his father’s child, because of the father’s joy at his return. He was lost; now he’s found. That’s all that matters to the father. It’s all that matters with both sons: that they be found, that they know they are beloved children. The older brother doesn’t say he’s sorry about pouting, about his resentment. The father embraces him where he is, out there in the field, as he is, for who he is, because he, too, is a son. He embraced the younger one before he even got all the way home; he embraces the older one to bring him home.

This isn’t forgiveness, it’s grace. It isn’t about how we get to where God can love us—it’s knowing that this is what God is like. It’s part of a set in Luke. We don’t have time to explore them all this morning but here is the short version. A man has a hundred sheep, one gets lost and he goes and finds it and when he does, he’s so happy he throws a party to celebrate. A woman has a necklace with ten silver coins; one gets lost and she sweeps the whole house looking for it and when she finds it, she throws a party to celebrate. Are you seeing the pattern?

A man has two sons. One gets lost squandering his life; when he is found, his father is so happy, he throws a party. It’s imperative: he says, “We had to celebrate.” Another son is lost too, lost in resentment and rules. What happens when he is found? The surrounding context of these parables is a group of people who are just like the older brother, angry that Jesus eats with sinners, unhappy about the company he keeps. Those new people don’t know the rules, they don’t know how to behave. So they miss the party God is giving.

Are you going to the party? Paul says, “In Christ there is a new creation.” And he goes on to say that we are God making an appeal through us. This is what God is like, this is what Jesus is teaching. God is like this father who wants to embrace us. Are you going to the party?  We live in a world of boundaries and expectations, rules for what’s polite, what’s right.  All those rules keep us safe; all those walls are made because of our fears. The tough thing, the annoying thing, about Jesus is that he won’t have anything to do with our walls and he wants us to live from faith in God’s joyful embrace instead of our fearful wall building. Jesus lives in a society that is divided up, you heard it at the beginning: there’s Pharisees, teachers of the law, sinners, all these different kinds of people. And he just makes a party for all of them. 

Are you going to the party? This is an enormously loving and wonderful congregation. This is an enormously welcoming and appreciative congregation. That is what God wants and God blesses that. Maybe one more thing: realize that out there in the surrounding community there are people who don’t know that’s what God’s like and lots of people who assume that if they came here, they would be treated like people who lived dissolutely; like the older brother wants his younger brother treated instead of as beloved children. So, Paul says, “We are God making the appeal, ambassadors…” It’s up to us, each of us. If you want to see the love of God flourish here, go be an ambassador. Make this place a party where the love of God is celebrated. Are you going to that party? It’s not easy. Sometimes they play different music, sometimes they hang different banners. God just loves them all. He wants us to live like we are beloved children and his whole life is an example of what that looks like. 

I hear this story, I hear the sound of that party and I want to go. Are you going? Are you coming to the party? I want to get there; I want us all to get there. But more than what I want—God wants us, God wants you, God wants me, God wants all of us. Two Sundays ago we heard Isaiah say for God,

Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.[Isaiah 55:1ff]

That’s God’s hope: that we will all, every single one, come to the party. 

Are you coming to the party? Can you let go of everything and just come celebrate? Sing different songs some Sundays, tear up the bulletin and make it confetti, throw it, celebrate, make it the party of the reconciliation of God. When we do, the angels sing and the joy of God overflows like a wine glass poured too full. Jesus is the wine: “poured out for many,” he says. Among them are you; among them are me. Are you coming to the party?

Amen.

The Covenant

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The Covenant

A Sermon for the Locust Grove United Church of Christ of York, PA

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2025

Second Sunday in Lent/C • March 16, 2025

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18

“After these things…” That’s how our reading from Genesis began this morning. It flew by, so I want to lift it up to make sure we don’t miss it. “After these things…” In a sense, all these readings occur “after these things”. Paul’s letter to the Philippians comes after he’s been their pastor and friend; now he’s under arrest in another city, sitting in jail. The gospel reading comes after Jesus has been teaching and healing and most of it occurs after some Pharisees warn him the Herod wants to have him killed; it’s startling when you get a death threat. The story we read in Genesis occurs after a war. Abram’s nephew, Lot, had been captured; Abram successfully led his version of Seal Team 6 to rescue him. It’s also long after Abram has felt God’s call, left his home, spent some time in Egypt and now is prospering as a leader of a tribe of herders. It’s also after Abram has felt God failed him.

“After these things…” describes our gathering as well. We’ve all lived years and years before we got here, and we’ve all had a week of doing whatever we did. Yet here we are gathered again. What did you hope when you came today? What I hope every Sunday when we gather is that we will encounter God here; that God’s Spirit will move in your hearts and mine, so that after these things, we are ready for another week, another month, another time. So today, come with me as we listen to the story of the covenant God made with Abram, the foundation of all God’s promises.

“After these things…” let’s go back and remember some of these things. Genesis starts out in what scholars call mythic time. Myth doesn’t mean it isn’t true; it means that our regular world rules don’t apply. So we have stories of creation, we have stories of how everything began, people live incredibly long lives, there’s a flood that wipes out everything except Noah and his family and God promises never to wipe out the world again. After all these things, God begins to work in history and the person God begins with is Abram. Abram is called, just like we are called, and Abram’s call is to go forth. When he does, God says, he will have unlimited generation and land and God’s presence. 

So Abram does go forth, along with his wife, Sarai, and his family. They start out in Ur, a real city, once located on the Euphrates river, in what is now southern Iraq. They end up in Egypt and later leave. Now they’re in the Kidron valley, near where Jerusalem sits today. He’s fought a battle and won; the king of the area has come offering peace. It’s been years since that original call and Abram has done well, but there is no child, no baby representing God’s fulfillment of the original promise. “After these things” is where we pick up the story.

Personally, I can’t escape the feeling that at the beginning of this section, God is gloating: “Don’t be afraid, Abram, I’m your shield…”, God says. Maybe Abram is still recovering from the shock of battle, the surprise and relief of victory. But he’s sharp enough to ask difficult questions. So he asks God, “What about the promise of a child?” He points out that God promised this and Sarai isn’t getting younger; if there’s no child, someone in his household is going to inherit everything. God’s answer is: “Come outside!—Look at creation, look at the stars!—that’s how many descendants you’ll have!” Psalm 19 says, “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.” [Psalm 19:1f] Abram’s been given a glimpse of the glory of God.

Abram believes God. “The Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness”, the text says. It’s such a short, simple sentence. Righteousness means right relationship, having the right heart in the moment, having the right relationship. Abram doesn’t do anything: it’s all free gift, all God’s initiative. There’s no transaction here, no pay for service. Abram doesn’t give God anything; he simply believes God. All of our reformed theology is built on this moment, this example. We believe that our relationship with God depends not on what we do, but on whom we believe. Abram believes God—God calls him righteous. What’s true for Abram is true for us, as well.  God doesn’t 

Abram also questions God about the promise of land and that’s where we learn about the covenant. Covenants are intentional promises. It’s confusing in the text: all this stuff about animals cut in half is foreign to us. When we make contracts, we often go to a lawyer’s office or a conference room, someone sits and hands us a bunch of papers to sign. But when kings in the ancient world were making treaties or promises, the question in the background was always, “Who’s going to enforce it?” So we know that ceremonies similar to this one were held at times. The point is to call down on the person making the covenant a curse if it’s not performed. What we see is that Abram prepares the covenant and guards it, but at the moment, he’s asleep. God freely makes a covenant, sealing the promise given years before. 

This is the beginning of God’s work with people that leads to us. It’s a foundation for everything that comes later. Later, Abram’s descendants will multiply. They will go into slavery in Egypt, but God will hear their cries and save them, send them on an exodus out of there and into the land promised here. Later, Abram’s descendants will demand a king and the king will do what kings do: oppress them and involve them in wars. Later, prophets will come reminding them of this covenant and still later Jesus will come. And when he’s told Herod wants to kill him, he will smile because he knows this covenant; he knows that he’s acting after these things. And he will weep over Jerusalem instead, and its history of violence and refusal to listen to God. Why is he weeping? Because of the failure to fulfill the third part of God’s promise to Abram, the part not mentioned here: to make Abram a means of spreading blessing through the whole world. What did God want? Jesus says, “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” [Luke 13:34b]

This covenant is what is renewed in Jesus Christ. Every time we share communion, we remember his words, how he took a cup, gave thanks, and said, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” The covenant includes us and invites us. It is God’s promos of presence and care throughout all times, throughout our lives and the lives of our children and grandchildren. But a covenant is two-sided: God is one, we are the other. Every day asks whether we are living from this covenant or from the world’s seductive promise that we can be enough in ourselves, that we can earn righteousness and safety. Every day asks which road we will choose, whether to believe God’s care for all or to choose to divide people into categories and see some as less and ourselves as more. 

There is a famous Native American story that depicts this choice. This is the story.

An old Cherokee Indian chief was teaching his grandson about life.

He said, “A fight is going on inside me,” he told the young boy, “a fight between two wolves.

The Dark one is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The Light Wolf is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you grandson…and inside of every other person on the face of this earth.”

The grandson ponders this for a moment and then asked, “Grandfather, which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee smiled and simply said, “The one you feed”.
[https://www.michelleweimer.com/blog/two-wolves]

Every day asks: which wolf are you feeding? Every day asks: are you living in God’s covenant? Every day, every one of us, answers. 

The story of the covenant began, “After these things…” Isn’t that where we all live?—after many, many things. But we also live before things and these ask: what will you choose? Which wolf will you feed? What road will you walk? This season of Lent is meant to remind us of our call and our covenant so that wherever we have been, wherever we go, we may walk the way of Christ, following him, believing God, seeking God’s reign in our lives and our world.

Amen

Remember Who You Are

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A Sermon for the Locust Grove United Church of Christ of York, PA

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2025

First Sunday in Lent – Year C • March 9, 2025

Deuteronomy 26:1-11 • Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16 • Luke 4:1-13

I’m Nobody

I’m Nobody! Who are you?

Are you – Nobody – too? 

Then there’s a pair of us! 

Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know!

How dreary – to be – Somebody!

How public – like a Frog – 

To tell one’s name – the livelong June

To an admiring bog

–Emily Dickinson

Who are you? For most of us, the first attempt to answer that comes shortly after we’re born, when our mothers gave us a name. My first name was for my parents’ best friend at the time, a trumpet player. We haven’t seen him since about 1959. I got my last name from my dad, as most of us do. Later on I got other names: Pastor, Reverend, Parent, Husband, and so on. Who are you? It’s an important question because who we are can determine who we become.

It’s so important that all cultures have a set of signs and signals to tell people about our identity. When we are married, most of us exchange rings.We have bumper stickers that shout political and social messages. We have hats, we have clothing, we have endless ways of saying to the whole world, “This is who I am.”

That’s the point of the section we read in Deuteronomy this morning. God’s people have been welded together by the difficulty of the Exodus, of years in the wilderness. But what happens when that’s over and things ease up? What happens in the promised land? So we have this message: when you get there, when you are living in the land of milk and honey, when things are going right, remember who you are. Go take the first fruits of your success, and give it away and say this. 

A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous. When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, we cried to the LORD, the God of our ancestors; the LORD heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. The LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. [Deuteronomy 26:5-9]

It’s stunning, isn’t it? “Ok, great, you had a good year in the fields and the olives came in just like you hoped but don’t get proud: remember who you are, you’re just an Aramean, an undocumented alien, and everything you’ve made is the God’s gift. Remember who you are.”

This is what scripture is meant to do: remind us of who we are because we have a tendency to forget. We get busy with what we’re doing, step back and see that we’ve done a good job and think, “Wow! I did that!” There’s nothing wrong with a sense of accomplishment, but we can forget in the midst of it, how we got there. A. J. Jacobs set out to thank everyone involved in providing his morning coffee.

Consider this: The coffee beans are driven to my local café in a van (I had to thank the driver). But he couldn’t do his job without the road (thanks to the pavers). And the road would be dangerous without the yellow lines (thanks to the folks who made the paint). We’re talking a boatload of people (which reminds me, the ship designers too). [https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/i-thanked-thousand-people-cup-coffee-here-what-learned-a-j-jacobs/]

My dad became a production engineer and later a lawyer; he held patents, he bought the first automated production system for cars for General Motors. He seldom talked about his life but when he did, he always began, “I came from a dirt farm”. That’s me: whatever I become, I come from dirt farmers in Michigan, it just happens that now I’m a pastor in Pennsylvania. Thanks be to God!

Scripture reminds us we are God’s and whatever we do, we do with the gifts of God. That’s the core of the story of Jesus’ temptation that we read today. Matthew, Mark and Luke all tell a story of Jesus in the wilderness before he began his ministry. They tell us about his baptism, which we read in January. There, the tradition is that God spoke to him directly, saying “You are my beloved Son.” All suggest that immediately after this, he was in the wilderness, hungry, perhaps scared, and there he was tempted. 

Whenever this part is told in movies, all the focus is on the special effects: the scary wilderness, the details of the temptations. But the real point is that there, in the wilderness, Jesus is doing what we can all do: using scripture to remember who he is. He’s hungry and anyone who’s ever been starving can tell you that just the first whiff of food is almost overpowering. So the devil offers that, according to Luke. Jesus replies with a quotation from Deuteronomy: “It is written, “’One does not live by bread alone.’” The devil offers him enormous power and influence; he replies, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” And finally, the devil offers absolute assurance of God’s presence and power: step off a pinnacle, and see if God really protects you. He simply says, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’’”. He’s being tested—he replies, don’t do exactly what you’re doing, devil! These answers are all scripture; these are all from our Bible.

Aren’t these the same temptations we all face?  We think we can take care of ourselves; Jesus could have fed himself. We strive for power and influence; Jesus could have ruled. We want to be certain of God instead of having faith. These temptations run through all of life, in our lives, as they did at this moment for Jesus. They come for us, as they did for him, in the wilderness places, in the places with no signs, in the places where we aren’t sure of our direction. Using our gifts only for ourselves, power and pride, tempting God: haven’t we all felt these temptations, faced them in our own wildernesses?

So it’s important to listen to this story because Jesus is showing us how to respond to temptation and the way he responds is by going back to God’s Word. There’s a reason we read scripture every Sunday, and the reason is that in that Word, we are reminded of who we are: children of God. This is God’s Word over and over. To Moses, God says, “I have heard the cry of my people.” To the prophets, God says, “How can I give you up, O Israel?” And now in Jesus Christ, God says, “You are my beloved children.” Jesus is in the wilderness but he remembers who he is because he remembers his call, he remembers God’s Word.

Who are you? Emily Dickinson was a very quiet poet and perhaps she felt she was nobody. You are not nobody: you are God’s child. Remember who you are! In this season of Lent, throughout these weeks, I want to think about that with you and what it can mean for us. I”m going to suggest a Lenten discipline: take your bulletin home, look up the scriptures we read today, read them over again, and then take a moment to ask God to show you how these words can come alive in your life. You are not nobody: you are a child of God. We are not nobodies: we are children of God. Let’s act like it. 

Amen.

The Facts of Life

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A Sermon for the Locust Grove United Church of Christ of York, PA

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2025

Sixth Sunday After Epiphany/C • February 16, 2025

Jeremiah 17:5-10 * Luke 6:17-26

We shall not, We shall not be moved,
We shall not, We shall not be moved.
Just like a tree that’s planted by the water,
we shall not be moved.

This song is so resonant for me. Mavis Staples is a gospel and R&B singer who sings a version of this song and tells a story with it. When she was young, she was one of those brave young people who marched with Martin Luther King, Jr., in Birmingham. She talks about going with a group to a café in the still segregated city, sitting down, hungry, waiting for the server. The server told them to leave and called the police. Can you imagine being a black kid in Birmingham, hearing police sirens, knowing the long history of violence against black people there by police? Can you imagine how scared they were? What do you do when you’re scared? What these people did was to sing this song: “We shall not, we shall not, we shall not be moved. Just like a tree, that’s planted by the water, we shall not be moved.” What they did was simple: they turned at that moment of fear to faith in God. They trusted God and their faith and the faith of others moved an entire nation that summer. The song was a prayer, and they ran to God in that prayer. Where do you run when you’re afraid? 

Jeremiah was a prophet in a troubled time. God’s people were being led by kings who ignored God’s way. They believed God would always rescue them from powerful foreign armies. Jeremiah said no: that their faithlessness would lead to disaster. Just like the kids in Birmingham, he goes to a familiar form to make his point. In his time, a kind of preaching called Wisdom was well known. Wisdom preaching often sets out two different ways, one is faithless, one is faithful. That’s what Jeremiah is doing in the portion we read this morning. Those who trust in mortals, he says, are trusting the wrong thing. He compares them to a familiar scene: shrubs in the desert who get blown away because they aren’t rooted deeply. It must have been a common sight; it is today out west in Montana, in some parts of Texas and New Mexico. Whole bushes can be seen tumbling.

But those who put their faith in God, Jeremiah says, are like tough trees who put down deep roots. Anyone who’s ever tried to remove a tree knows what he means. Cut down the trunk, and you’re not even halfway done. You’re left with a stump and under it perhaps a dozen big, thick taproots that lead to hundreds of smaller roots. Some of them go deep; some go horizontally. Removing them is a long, tough job. Trees planted by water are sustained by underground streams and stand up even in drought. They are sure, they are certain. They are something to cling to when the wind blows, when fear comes. Jeremiah announces this choice not as a set of options, not as possibilities but simply as facts, the facts of spiritual life. Put your faith in human things, and you’ll become like a tumbleweed; put your faith in God and you have something sure to hold on to even in tough times. It’s the meaning in the song: “We shall not be moved, just like a tree that’s planted by the water.”

Jesus is also announcing facts of spiritual life. Matthew also has a version of this story; some scholars believe this version in Luke is the oldest, the closest to Jesus’ original words. He’s in a level place and Luke tells us that people from all over have come to him. Tyre and Sidon are up north, outside the country; it’s like saying, “People from Toronto”. People from all over Judea are there; those are locals. And there are the urban folks from Jerusalem. They press close and try to touch him. Today, they’d be trying to get selfies with him. But here in this place what they want is healing and exorcism. This is the three-fold ministry we read about over and over in Jesus’ life: teaching, healing, freeing people from demons. Just before this reading, he has named a group of 12 disciples; now he gathers them close, and he teaches them the facts of spiritual life. 

I imagine they were surprised, don’t you? Blessing isn’t something anyone thinks of for the poor, the hungry, those weeping in grief. Blessing isn’t something anyone thinks of for those who are ostracized, who are excluded, who are hated. Matthew took this teaching and softens it by adding “in spirit” to poor; He makes the hunger about righteousness. But I wonder if the scholars aren’t right; nothing is soft in the teaching of Jesus. That’s why people get mad. So let’s take him on his own terms, how is it possible to see blessing in these conditions?

Annie Dillard is a writer who has a wonderful thought about what she calls, “a healthy poverty”. She says,

When I was six or seven years old, growing up in Pittsburgh, I used to take a precious penny of my own and hide it for someone else to find. It was a curious compulsion; sadly, I’ve never been seized by it since. For some reason, I always “hid” the penny along the same stretch of sidewalk up the street. I would cradle it at the roots of a sycamore, say, or in a hole left by a chipped-off piece of sidewalk. Then I would take a piece of chalk, and, starting at either end of the block, draw huge arrows leading up to the penny from both directions.

After I learned to write I labeled the arrows: SURPRISE AHEAD or MONEY THIS WAY. I was greatly excited, during all this arrow-drawing, at the thought of the first lucky passer-by who would receive in this way, regardless of merit, a free gift from the universe. But I never lurked about. I would go straight home and not give the matter another thought, until, some months later, I would be gripped again by the impulse to hide another penny.

The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand. But — and this is the point — who gets excited by a mere penny?

It is dire poverty indeed when a man is so malnourished and fatigued that he won’t stoop to pick up a penny. But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days. [https://www.awakin.org/v2/read/view.php?tid=2312]

Just like Jesus, we live in a culture that has put enormous stress on wealth and connected it to power. But where does faith in wealth lead? We’ve seen so many times from the Great Depression in the 1930s to the Housing Bust of the 2000s to know that faith in wealth makes us tumbleweeds. A healthy poverty is to focus on what we need, not what we want; on what is enough, not always more.

There is a blessing sometimes found in hunger, too. When I was young and in seminary, I managed for the one and only time in my life to buy a new car, a Ford Pinto in that weird, fluorescent blue. I had the car two days and then, pulling away from a curb, someone plowed into it and crushed the driver side. The car operated, but the door didn’t, so I had to crawl into the driver seat from the right. I had insurance, but I didn’t have the money for the deductible. So I stopped having lunch for a summer to save that up. It was hard, but eventually I got there and fixed the car. Some years later, my dad and I were talking about hard times; he was a depression kid who had lots of stories. I told him my story. Now, my dad had a rule he had announced for years when I was young: once you get married, and you’re on your own, don’t come back looking for help. I’d taken him at his word. When I told the story, he was upset. “I would never have had you go hungry,” he said; “Why didn’t you tell me?” I reminded him about his rule and I saw something I recognize now, as a father myself, and mumbled, “I never meant you to go hungry.” That moment changed our relationship. My father was one of those guys whose first adult experience was as a soldier in World War II; he was focused on work, he frequently told us the family was like the army, mom was the sergeant, he was the officer. But after that moment, he began to be more interested in my life, less directive; less about rules, more about caring. That summer of hunger turned out to be a blessing because it drew us together.

No one seeks poverty, no one seeks hunger, no one seeks grief, yet there are moments that can come from these occasions that do bless our lives. A penny isn’t much. It’s so little that they are going away, but as Annie Dillard says, if finding a penny will make your day, you are in for a lot of good days because the world is strewn with pennies. There’s a depression era song, “Pennies from heaven”. The song says,

Every time it rains, it rains pennies from heaven
Don’t you know each cloud contains pennies from heaven?
You’ll find your fortune’s fallin’ all over the town
Be sure that your umbrella is upside down

The facts of spiritual life are that God has sprinkled life with blessings—if we are looking for them. Looking for them means trusting God, not human institutions and persons. Looking for blessings means being alive to God in every occasion. If we live this way, the light of God’s presence becomes clearer and clearer. And we become indeed, like trees planted by the water, strong and secure, growing in God’s way. Amen.

Here I Am

by

A Sermon for the Locust Grove United Church of Christ of York, PA

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2025

Fifth Sunday After Epiphany/Year C • February 9, 2025

Isaiah 6:1-8 * 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 * Luke 5:1-11

My favorite place in Spain is a little fishing village named Cambrils. Now, all fishing villages have a common layout, so imagine this scene being like that. There are the houses and churches and plazas to gather and then closer to the water various shops and cafés. In a working village, there would be the smell of seaweed and rotting fish from the bits and pieces that fall off. You know what the shore smells like. Then there is a road, an open area, just in from the sea itself. Then there are the docks and the boats. There are gulls wheeling in the air over it the road and the docks, diving occasionally to find some speck of food. And then, of course, endlessly moving, always changing, there is the water. Jesus has gone to a fishing village to teach and heal and exorcize demons. Just like the story we read last week, people gather to hear him and marvel at his teaching. What they don’t know is that something incredible is about to happen. Did you see it? 

Today we’ve read three stories of how people just like us came to be called by God. There’s Isaiah, one of the greatest prophets of Israel. We think he was a priest in the temple, and he tells this fearful story of monstrous looking seraphim and a brazier from which a coal is plucked to touch his lips and purify his speaking. Wow: at my ordination a bunch of ministers, some of them so old they could barely get up after they knelt, laid their hands on me while a prayer was offered—I’m glad I didn’t have Isaiah’s initiation. Yet there is the same interplay, the same Lord asking, “Who will go?” And one person, Isaiah in this story, me at that ordination, saying “Here am I, send me.”

The portion of First Corinthians is also a call story, although it may not seem so at first glance. Paul has been dealing with the divisions in that congregation, divisions caused in part by others coming and perhaps teaching them something different from what they’d heard from Paul. So he quotes to them the bedrock of Christian faith. Scholars tell us that this looks like something already familiar, like the lords’ prayer. If that’s true, clearly it settled down early, because this letter was probably written about 20 years after Jesus. 

For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures and that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. [1 Corinthians 15:3-8]

The striking thing about this is that it mixes things we hear other places, like the appearance of the resurrected Christ to Cephas, another name for Peter and then to the twelve. But it also mentions 500 brothers and sisters and James; we don’t hear about those appearances anywhere else. At the same time, he doesn’t seem to know about the appearance to Mary Magdalene that John mentions. He says at the end, “Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe.” [1 Cor 15:11] So he’s reminding them of their call in Christ.

That brings us back to Luke and the fishing village. Can you see it? Can you smell it? There’s a crowd and frankly? Not all of them showered this morning. There are fishing guys working on nets. Most of a fisherman’s time is actually spent cleaning and mending nets, not fishing. In Spain, that work was often done by women but here it seems to be Peter and Andrew and James and John and presumably others doing it. And there’s Jesus. He’s not new in town. The gospels tell this story a bit differently but in Luke’s version, he’s been there long enough to have gone to Peter’s house, where he miraculously heals Peter’s mother-in-law. Her response to this miracle is to get up and serve dinner. It’s an interesting side note that the Greek word used for this—diakonis—gives us the word ‘Deacon’. Peter’s mother-in-law was the first Deacon. The crowd is doing what crowds do, pressing in to hear and get closer. There’s no sound system, just voice, and the thing about a fishing village is that it has an edge: step back too far, and you’re in the water. I imagine Peter’s boat being side tied to the dock, and Jesus asks to use that as a pulpit; Peter shrugs and says sure, so they get in, Jesus sits down, which is the position rabbi’s used for teaching, and he talks to the crowd. None of the gospels tell us what he said.

Then there is this remarkable moment. He turns to Peter and says, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” Peter replies the way churches always reply when Jesus tells us to do something: “We already tried that, and it didn’t work.” It makes sense, doesn’t it? After all, Peter and the others have been fishing these waters for a long time and most recently all night. I bet Peter grew up fishing; some people just take to it when they are small. My son did. And this is corporate fishing, it’s not a rod and reel and a worm; you have to get ready, load bait, arrange the nets, get set. Peter and his crew are exhausted, they’re ready to finish fixing the nets and go home and get some sleep. But here’s this guy who may know a lot about the Torah but knows nothing about fishing calmly telling them to go fish. They know better; there just aren’t any fish right there, right then. 

I’ve seen this play out in churches. Some new member is all excited about their new faith and new church, they get on a board and start suggesting things. The long time members quietly tell them, “We tried that ten years ago, and it was a failure” or “We can’t afford that” or “That’s not how we do it here.” Thank God that this time, Peter and the others shrug and decide to go along with the new preacher. So they set out, let down the nets and there’s a miracle: the nets fill up. Can you imagine what that would look like? Silvery, slippery fish jumping all over, the nets bulging, weighing down the boat. These are open boats, pull the side down far enough and they’ll sink. The first time we took our sailboat out on our own, I forgot to detach something from the engine shaft. The result was that when I went below as we were starting back, there was water already up over the floor boards. I’ve been sailing since I was 12 and in my whole life, that was one of the scariest moments. So I get what they are feeling. “This is too much!” No wonder Peter says, “Go away from me Lord!” I wanted a big catch, but this is too big; I didn’t want a miracle, I just wanted to get by.

They make it back to shore, apparently. We never hear what happened to all the fish; hopefully someone took care of them cleaned them sold them. Jesus just laughs; he tells them not to worry about it all because they’re going to become fishers of men. Now if you grew up with that line like I did, you probably think this is where this turns into a sermon telling you to out and evangelize, get people to come to church with you. That would be a fine thing to do, but I don’t think that’s the message here. “Fishers of men” has a particular meaning in the Bible. In Jeremiah (16:16) it’s a description of God sending people to find evildoers and idolaters; in Amos 4:2, it’s connected to being conquered and exiled because of the sins of the people and Ezekiel has a similar message. Becoming fishers of men isn’t evangelism; it’s confronting injustice. It’s proclaiming the year of favor for the poor, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom to captives. 

Peter hears this call and responds first with repentance, then with obedience. He’s already called Jesus Lord; now he puts that word into action. He’s gotten a glimpse of the miraculous abundance Jesus reveals. We call it eternal life sometimes; in the gospels it’s a miraculous catch of fish, it’s feeding thousands of people from a few donations. What is it here?

The musical Rent is about a group of Bohemian young people in New York in the plague years of AIDS. It begins with a song about abundance: “525, 600 minutes”, the minutes in a year. Stunning, isn’t it? Isn’t that a miraculous catch, to have 525, 600 minutes laid out this year waiting for us to fill them? Each of these stories offers us a perspective on God’s call to someone, each is a question: who will go? Isaiah says “here am I”; Paul says, remember that Christ is risen. Peter says, go away from me Lord, but he follows Jesus, leaves the boat and the fish and his mother-in-law and presumably his wife and family behind. There are still 482,400 minutes left in this year. How will you fill them with your call? Oh, there’s one other line from Rent I want to share: it’s a refrain at the end: no day but today. When is God calling you? No day but today.

Amen. 

Body Talk

by

A Sermon for the Locust Grove United Church of Christ of York, PA

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2025

Third Sunday After Epiphany – Year C • January 26, 2025

1 Corinthians 12:12-31a * Luke 4:14-21

In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground— then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. [Genesis 2:4b-7]

That’s how the New Revised Version translates the story of our beginning. But it’s a bad translation. The word that’s being translated ‘man’ isn’t gender-specific. It would be better to say, “the Lord God formed a human being” from the dust of the ground. The word that’s being used in Hebrew is ‘Adamah’, and we take it for granted that’s the same as our ‘Adam”, a male name. 

But adamah is also the name of dolls made by children in early times. We’ve always made dolls; Jacquelyn has one that’s well over a hundred years old and one of our Christmas traditions, stretching back over 40 years, is that I give my oldest daughter a Barbie. So we know what Genesis is describing here. Like a child, God goes out, scoops up some dirt, and forms a doll, an adamah. And then God shares some of the ruach, the Hebrew for spirit, also the word for breath, into the doll, and the adamah, the doll, becomes a living being. Right from the start, we are made as a union of Spirit and Body. The other creation story in Genesis 1, adds the detail that in this we are an image of God. 

I mention this because bodies are front and center in the lesson from First Corinthians today. What Paul tells us ultimately is that Christ is doing the same creative thing God did in Genesis except now the body which receives the spirit is us, the church. Paul is ultimately going to say, “ Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” [1 Corinthians 12:27] So we have to talk about bodies to understand who we are meant to be and become. It’s an especially important image for the Corinthian Christians. Last Sunday I introduced Corinth but because of the weather not many were here, so let me take a moment to remind you of what I said then.

Corinth is a relatively new city, founded about a century before Paul’s time, that sits on a narrow isthmus. It’s a seaport and a meeting place for many cultures. It’s a blue collar place; the original settlers were mostly retired soldiers. It’s a place where some get rich and there are slaves and foreigners. Corinth’s main deity is the goddess Aphrodite, in Roman terms, Venus, and her temple is a brothel: the worship of Aphrodite involves temple prostitutes. About ten years before Paul’s time, one of the emperors deported the Jews from Rome and it seems some settled in Corinth. Some of the members of this new church Paul founded in Corinth were among them. The church is only a few years old but it’s become divided because some of the members are speaking in tongues and claiming they are more spiritual than others. Paul is writing to them to help solve their divisions.

He starts with the image of a body, perhaps because bodies are so important in Corinth, perhaps because it’s something we all know. We live in bodies, and we all know some of the things that flow from that. Every culture has its image of beautiful bodies, and we measure how we match or don’t match that standard; it influences how we are in the world. My daughter May is 5’2”; the other day she remarked she was short but it was ok because she’s a girl and that it was harder for a guy to be short. I know that in my heart of hearts, I always wished I was taller and had that deep preacher voice people love, but that’s not the body I got. Our bodies age and I suspect most of us here today remember being stronger; many of us can list aches and pains we have these days. 

From this commonality of bodies, Paul says we have an equality that also extends to the spiritual. 

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body–Jews or Greeks, slaves or free–and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. [1 Corinthians 12:12f]

Jews and Greeks, slave and free: these are the most fundamental social distinctions among the Corinthian Christians. We make the same kind of distinctions, don’t we? We don’t have slaves but we come from different circumstances. We know without being told that some are long time members and some are new. Paul says these distinctions mean nothing compared to the unity of being one body.

We find the same equality in the gospel. Luke invites us to imagine Jesus preaching his first sermon in his home synagogue. I’ve spent my whole life as a preacher and I can tell you that there is nothing more terrifying than preaching to a congregation of people who watched you grow up. After my first sermon in my home church, someone said to my mother, “You must be very proud.” She said: “Well, it’s hard to listen to someone preach when you remember changing his diapers.” I suspect there are people there who remember changing Jesus’ diapers, who remember him as a kid, who maybe remember some dumb thing he did when he was younger. But there he is, getting up at the synagogue, going to the lectern, reading the scripture for the day.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed,to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. [Luke 4:18-20]

The good news is for the poor; the mission of Jesus is to release prisoners, to open the eyes of the blind, to set free the oppressed. In Christ there is no east or west, one of our hymns says: in him n Christ there is no east or west, but one great fellowship of love, throughout the whole wide earth.

Paul goes on to illustrate how this works: all of us are members of one body, he says, and we all have functions. All the talents are needed, just as our body needs all its different functions. Maybe you’re a great accountant: we need that. Maybe you’re a great singer: we need that. Maybe you’re a great listener: we need that. Maybe you’re great at empathy, we need that. Every thing we can do is needed and equally needed. Just like our body needs all its parts functioning, we need all the talents of every single person sharing in the mission of Christ here. 

We know what it means to come to worship, for example. But before we come to worship, there are lots of people involved. Sometime back around the beginning of January, I looked at the scriptures for today and the hymnal and suggested hymns; Cara Beth approved them and made sure there would be music for the pianist. Linda printed the bulletin. Some folks in the past had the goodness and foresight to create this meeting house and we all share in paying for it and paying to make sure there’s heat and light. We take those things for granted, but people just like us worshiped by candlelight without heat for hundreds of years. This morning, someone came and turned on the lights and the sound system. Thanks to the work of scholars over many years, I could share a deeper insight into the texts this morning.

We are not alone in Christ; we are part of a greater body, animated by the Holy Spirit, just as Paul says: “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” [1 Corinthians 12;27] And Christ doesn’t change: Christ’s mission remains the same: releasing captives, helping people see their way, lifting the poor. This past week, we celebrated the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., a man whose life became animated by this cause. He asked simply for us to recognize the dignity of people of color. He reminded us that Christ calls us to a unity that recognizes the fundamental dignity of all people because we are all children of the one God, all united as human beings with bodies, filled with Spirit, made in the image of God. God gives us everything we need, just as the song says: everything we need to do Christ’s work here. When we do that work of unifying people, caring for all, then indeed we are the body of Christ.

Amen.

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