Tag Archives: Inclusion

Hello?

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

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2026

Second Sunday After Pentecost • June 7, 2026

Genesis 12:1-9 * Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

I want to begin today with something that won’t make sense to some younger folks and I apologize for that. I want to take you back to a time when all phones were connected by wires to the wall. Do you remember that? Some were black things with a dial that had numbers and letters; in 1959 AT&T shocked us with the introduction of the Princess Phone, a curving bit of plastic that had a base but held the dialing wheel right on the phone. Back then, when the phone rang you generally picked it up and you had no idea who it was on the other end. It could be a friend, it could be a family member; it could be good news, it could be bad news, it could be someone who just wanted to chat. You let the call interrupt your day. There was no signal that said “likely spam” so you knew not to answer; there was no special ring tone for your best friend. Just the same ring for everyone, and you picked up the phone and said, “Hello?” All calls began the same way: picking up the phone, saying “Hello?” and then hearing the other voice telling you who it was and why they called.

Today, of course, calls are very different. Almost all of the calls I get are from people who want to make money off me; I get a lot of calls every single day from loan companies that want to give me money—so I will pay it back with interest. Some of the calls want me to give to good causes or campaigns for various candidates. All these have in common that they aren’t in my phone book so they first flash a message that says, “Likely spam” and generally I don’t answer, I hit a cancel button. I try not to cancel calls from any of you; those are what I call the “Hello?” calls, people I’m happy to hear from. Calls interrupt us; they ask for attention when we are paying attention to something else, they ask us to respond. That’s what’s happening in two of the stories we read today.

Matthew invites us to imagine Jesus walking along. Where is he going? We aren’t told. He’s not alone; he has some disciples with him, perhaps others, maybe some of the Pharisees who show up later. He sees a tax collector booth, the way we see toll booths on the highway. No one likes paying taxes and in this time, tax payers were especially hated because they were a symbol of Roman oppression. Everything had a tax on it, what you did, what you earned, and every time you crossed a bridge. Tax collectors paid a fee upfront for the right to collect the tax on something so there was a built in incentive to get as much as possible. They were people shunned in their community. Yet here is Jesus, walking by, and simply saying, apparently out of the blue, “Follow me.” 

It’s an interruption, a phone call out of the blue. We aren’t told what happens next but it must have been positive because in the next sentence, Jesus is at Matthew’s house, having dinner with him and other tax collectors and people who are described with the catchall term, “sinners”. Sinners means people who for whatever reason are thought of as not worthy to come before God. It’s shocking and some good church folk ask his disciples about it: Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” [Matt 9:12] Eating tougher is surrounded by customs in this time; no one just sits down with strangers. Yet here Jesus is, with a bunch of the unworthy, sinners, tax collectors, people no one wants. This is his answer: “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’  For I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.” [Matt 9:13] It’s a 700 year old quote from the prophet Hosea. Jesus is looking back into the Biblical tradition to remind these Bible teachers of what the tradition truly teaches: God’s mercy for all, no distinction, no one left out, no one left behind.

Before they can say anything, there’s another interruption, another “Hello?” moment. A local leader—Mark calls him a leader of the synagogue—begs Jesus to come resurrect his daughter who has died. So they all leave the dinner and go off to deal with this crisis and on the way yet a third “Hello?” moment occurs. A woman with a woman who has been bleeding for years touches Jesus; in another version of the story, she grabs the fringe of his cloak. Women who are bleeding are definitely among those who are seen as unworthy, in Biblical terms ‘unclean’. No good and righteous man has contact with them but Jesus stops stock still and turns and says, “Take heart daughter, your faith has made you well”. He takes the time to heal her even though he’s apparently in a hurry.

Notice that he doesn’t examine Matthew’s fitness before he calls him; he doesn’t ask that the dinner guests be vetted before he eats with them, he doesn’t tell the woman to prove her goodness, he just heals her. These are all stories of interruption; these are all “Hello?” moments that show Jesus flinging God’s grace into the world as casually as a homeowner watering the lawn. No one waters just one section, or one bit of grass; you water the whole lawn. Jesus comes to save the whole world. He does it one table, one dinner at a time, because eating together is a way we have of connecting to each other. One writer said, 

I have many food-related memories from childhood. Food bank lines stacked with government-issued blocks of processed cheese my scrawny arms could barely carry. Mean lunch ladies who told me that free lunch kids like me could only have the white milk, not the chocolate milk. I learned early that food could divide people or make someone feel excluded. I learned the economic difference between white milk and chocolate.

I have other memories of food, such as my mother’s fried chicken. I remember those rare Sundays when she wasn’t working as a nurse’s aide, when she would invite folks from her church to Sunday dinner. It didn’t really matter who you were—you would lose your sense of etiquette trying to negotiate your favorite piece of that golden brown bird. I learned that food could make one feel welcome. I learned that hospitality—and, symbolically, food—could not only mediate social relationships but even break boundaries. Whom we ate with could be inclusive and recalibrate relationships. It was always powerful to see my mother as host and pastors and parishioners as grateful guests. God’s hello’s interrupt but they also break boundaries; God’s hello’s come out of the blue but lead us to God’s path.

We see the same patten in Genesis. The very word means beginnings and from Chapter 1, which we read last Sunday, until just before today’s reading, we have a series of stories that move from creation through humanity’s fall from grace to Noah and the flood and the rainbow covenant, God’s promise to never again wipe out all life. Then we’re given an explanation in the Tower of Babel of how languages are invented because of human pride followed by a long genealogy that takes us from Noah’s sons to Terah, the father of Abram. Suddenly the progression of legends and myths is interrupted. God speaks to Abram, a man just like any other man, and says, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land I will show you.” [Gen 12:1] Wow—in a time when your clan was all, when most people lived and died in the same area, this is a tremendous “Hello!”, an interruption of all life.

The section before this contains a long genealogy in which Abram’s wife, Sarai, is noted and we’re given this note: Sarai was unable to have children. Certainly this is significant in the culture where the primary job of a woman was to have children. What makes it even more stunning is that when God promises blessing, part of the blessing is, “I will make you a great nation.” How will this promise be realized with a woman who is barren? What did Sarai think about this call; what does she think about leaving everything? Surely she’s leaving her family and home too. No more visits to see them; no more going home for holidays, just a husband and his calling and his journey. Her life is being interrupted also: she doesn’t object, but it’s not clear she agrees.

Still, they go forward. God’s promises this: 

I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” [Genesis 12:2-3]

Go forth: become a blessing to everyone who will ever be. 

So they go, first to Canaan, which is now Israel, through Shechem. Now the interesting thing about Shechem is that it’s up in the hill country of what will later be Northern Israel and still later Samaria, a part of Israel conquered by the Assyrians and in Jesus’ time, a land of people who are rejected by the Jews themselves. That’s where Abraham builds the first altar to our God. There is where Abraham responds to God with his own hello. 

This is the beginning of our whole faith story. This is how God comes, interrupting lives, sending people to new places and new directions. What happens to Matthew when he follows Jesus? He stays with the disciples after Jesus’ crucifixion; he’s there after the resurrection, he becomes an evangelist. Early church leaders believed he wrote down stories of Jesus that became the Gospel of Matthew. Some legends say he was an preacher in what’s present day Iran where he angered a local king and was killed for his faith, becoming a martyr. The interruption became his life.

What happens to Abram and Sarai is that they continue to journey beyond Canaan. We’re going to hear more of their story this summer. The interruption becomes the foundation of their lives and the fountain that produces three great religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. All revere Abram and claim this story of the great interruption of his life as the beginning of their history with God.

These stories invite us to ask where God intends to interrupt our lives. Where is God saying hello to you today? Our church life is like our personal lives: it tends to float along day to day without much change. Where is God trying to interrupt our church? How would accepting that Hello change us?

Making God Smile

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

by The Rev. James E. Eaton, Interim Pastor • © 2025

14th Sunday After Pentecost/Year C • September 14, 2025

Luke 15:1-10 

One of the most astonishing things I’ve ever seen is a just born baby learning to make mom smile. Have you seen this? A few years ago, I went to visit a mom with a new baby, a friend and church member. I expected her to be glad to see me; I expected her to be proud to introduce me to her child. What I remember is standing by the bed, ignored, irrelevant, as her new daughter tried out expressions, clasped tiny fingers and stared endlessly into her mother’s eyes, eyes that never left her. The sounds were happy; mom’s smile was quick and constant. After a few moments, she looked up at me, just a little embarrassed, as if caught at something and said, “I’m sorry, I’m totally entranced.” Calmly, enthusiastically, that new baby learned to make each of us smile at her and we did. So when we read in this text: “…there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”, it’s not hard to imagine the experience: we are meant to learn to make God smile like a baby teaching mom, and Jesus is giving lessons.

That’s a nice, feel good message for a Sunday morning. But does it have anything to do with our real lives? How do we make God smile; do we have to smile ourselves? How often we’ve settled for a bland, smiling Christianity that never hears, never sees, the fear and trembling of those around. How often we’ve gone home, scripture read, songs sung, sermon preached, as if the word, the songs, the preaching existed only in a world of endless smiles, while we ourselves live in a frowny face place where things hurt, and we constantly fear the next wave of grief or disaster will overwhelm us. Can we hold on to the smile of God in such moments?

Perhaps we begin to understand how when we see that Jesus teaches God’s smile comes out of being lost, the experience that so terrifies us that we will do almost anything to avoid it. The Bible has two images of being lost. One is wandering in the wilderness, a place full of life-threatening danger, where the things we need—food, drink—are unavailable. God’s people are formed in the experience of wandering the wilderness and Jesus himself is forced there after his baptism. Lost in the wilderness, Jesus meets a tempter who offers easy answers; he hangs on to being lost, until God finds him—the story concludes, “Angels waited on him”. Another experience of being lost is grieving. Over and over again in the prophets, in the Psalms, we hear the anguished voice of God grieving for lost Israel, which has broken its covenant and left its Lord.

We heard that in the reading from Jeremiah this morning. Jeremiah lived in a time of incredible violence. His home, Judah, went to war with the much more powerful Babylonia and was defeated; Jerusalem itself was destroyed, its leaders and many others exiled to Babylon. 

I looked on the earth, and it was complete chaos, and to the heavens,
and they had no light.

I looked on the mountains, and they were quaking, and all the hills moved to and fro.

I looked, and there was no one at all, and all the birds of the air had fled.

[Jeremiah 4:23-27]

Defeat meant feeling deserted by God. The people were lost.

When have you been lost? When has the darkness descended until you didn’t know if there was a path, much less how to find it? There are griefs, there are losses, that leave us lost, wandering, uncertain, unsure, unable to find our way on our own. These past few weeks have seen two murders for political purposes and children shot at their schools. I know every time I read about this, it makes me feel lost.  

When Jesus speaks about the lost, this is what he means. There is nothing more helpless than a lost lamb. A lost dog will wander around and often return home. A lost cat will find its way back. Pigeons home; even a child may ask the way. Lost horses frequently return. But a lost lamb will not come home, will not return, will not come back. It will simply lie down and bleat its fear and the very sound becomes an invitation to predators: easy kill. What should be done about the lamb? The sensible thing of course is simply to abandon it; it’s gone, and leaving the herd might endanger it. Yet here Jesus lifts up the lost lamb as the occasion that leads not only to a satisfied smile on the part of a shepherd but also: “…when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me…’” The joy of the shepherd overflows into a party that invites his friends and neighbors. 

The same is true in the other image Jesus shares. A woman’s dowry was often worn around her neck in his time; to lose a piece was to lose the chance at marriage. Have you done what this woman does? Lost a wedding ring, an engagement ring, a special paper: searched and searched, moved papers, cleaned the whole house, cleaned out a drain, searching until it was found? Again: her joy overflows and creates a community of joy around her. Her joy, his joy, makes God smile.

We live in a whole nation of the lost today. So many are afraid of losing homes; so many have lost jobs. Sons and daughters have been lost in wars. And there are so many voices of fear, angry voices, little Satans really—for Satan just means ‘tempter’ and what they tempt us to give in to the idea that we can fix ourselves by abandoning others, that we can fix ourselves by hurting others. That’s why we have such a plague of violence. Three hundred fifty years ago, Congregationalists, English reformed church folks just like us were scared too, and they let themselves get whipped up into literal witch hunts because someone said that would fix everything. They took their fear out on the least of their communities. This happens today: same thing in a different day and it has nothing to do with the life of Christ or the mission of Jesus. 

What Jesus does is just the opposite: he welcomes people, sinners, the lost, everyone to his table, to this table right here. The mystery Jesus offers is that the solution to being lost is to find someone; the joy of finding will overflow and create a whole community of joy. So he gathers the lost, sometimes called sinners, and he eats with them. He invites them to his table. Who belongs at this table? Everyone who has ever felt lost. Everyone who has ever wandered—everyone! Gay people and straight people belong at this table; young moms and widows and the unemployed and the rich and middle-aged guys who are wondering why just working harder doesn’t make them happier and women who are trying to figure out what to do after the kids are grown, single people and working people and retired people and people who have never been inside a church in their lives. When we gather them at the table of Jesus, when we find the lost and bring them in, we’re helping Jesus and God smiles: there is joy in heaven.

We know this instinctively and sometimes we practice it. One of the great things we do here is the clothing closet. It’s a simple process: we all have clothing we don’t wear, don’t need. So do others. So we gather it up, size it, make it ready, and give it away. It’s just like what Jesus does with Gods’ grace: gives it away, free to anyone in need. We do other things as well. Christian Churches United helps us work with other churches helping people who are lost get found. It’s the fulfillment of our prayer to walk in Christ’s way.

Timothy states the purpose of Jesus bluntly, clearly: “Jesus came into the world to save sinners”  If we are followers of Jesus, doesn’t it make sense that we would be on the same mission? This is the beginning of a new year of programs here. It’s a time to think about vision. We need to ask: what is Jesus doing? What can we do to help? And when we ask, we’ll hear this call from the deep heart of God’s Word, Jesus came into the world to save sinners. When we ask, we’ll remember what Jesus said: finding someone who needs God and didn’t know it, helping someone who needed us and didn’t know it, is a reason to rejoice, a thing that makes God smile. That’s it, that’s my vision: make God smile. Let God’s smile shine, until we can see where we’re going, until we know we aren’t lost, we’re on the way God had in mind all the time.

Amen.