Christ the King (Year C)
Luke 23:33-43
St. John’s, West Seneca
November 23, 2025
Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and the LORD Jesus Christ. Amen.
Before we end this church year and celebrate Thanksgiving, before we turn the cradle, as it were, to Advent, we have one more glance at the cross to consider its meaning. But we Christians know the end of the story, and of course, the cross is only the apparent end. “Still, when we adore the Christ child, the tapestry on the wall beyond is dark with the shadows of the cross. We know this child’s destiny, and we know that our own destiny is wrapped up in his.”
“Crucifixion was a common and shameful form of execution in the first century. It was an agonizing and extended death, compounded by the sneering, mocking and scoffing of onlookers.
"There are three distinct groups of mockers: the public rabble including the leaders, the Roman soldiers and one of the criminals.
"Each one challenges Jesus to do for himself what he has said he could do all along. These provocateurs probably had no faith that Jesus could indeed save himself; rather, “their comments are gratuitous barbs tossed at Jesus in the form of mockery, sneers, and insults. The ironic truth of these taunts is that those who mock him declare his messianic identity and the saving significance of his death — “King of the Jews,” “the Messiah,” “Save yourself and us!” — but they do not grasp the truth they speak.”
In Luke’s narrative, he makes these unique contributions to our understanding of the crucifixion story. “This gospel is the only one to record the words of the men crucified with Jesus, or to report a conversation among the three dying men. Here, one criminal takes a different tack from the other — the ‘penitent thief’ delivers what is arguably Christianity’s first sermon, a speech from the cross in which this outcast understands things the disciples could not yet comprehend.”
Crucifixion was such a shameful thing that the disciples never understood how the Messiah could be rejected and executed. But this criminal, this outcast, gets it. He understands that precisely because Jesus is on the cross, he is the Messiah. The disciples do not, nor does Jesus's family. Rather, this criminal, this outsider, who “gets it” and gives witness to whom Jesus was when everyone else had deserted, double-crossed and derided him and then gone into hiding. And because he believes this, he asks: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
The beauty and joy of this moment is that just as Jesus is saving the whole world, he takes the time to save one person. Jesus never sacrificed the one for the many, or the many for the one. He kept the one and the many together at all times in his life ... and death.
This Sunday – Christ the King - is the Johnny-come-lately of church festivals. Pope Pius XI, in a 1925 papal encyclical, was the one who set this day apart, saying that the kingship of Christ is a wall, a protection against the “manifold evils in the world.” Pius reminded Christians reeling from the aftermath of World War I that the central theme of Jesus’s teaching was the kingdom of God. And what a different king and kingdom. Unlike earthly kings, there is no coronation ritual, rich with symbolism: the robes, the scepter, the orb, Saint Edward’s chair.
These days, when religious identity is often “spiritual, but not religious,” or a lifestyle choice based on convenience, Christ the King challenges all of us. In a fallen world corrupted by sin and lust for power, Christ proclaims a kingdom based on love and mercy. Grace and truth are to flow freely, beyond the goodness of what any earthly kingdom or human ruler can provide.
Situated at the end of the liturgical year, one writer described Christ the King Sunday as a joyful exclamation point. It reminds us of the joys of our Christian life, just as we prepare to begin the cycle again with Advent, anticipating the newborn King.
But the cross is always at the center of our faith as we begin a new year.
Martin Luther has a great deal to say about this, in his theology of the Cross. He believed God revealed His power and love most fully through Jesus's suffering and death, not through human reason or works. This perspective emphasizes that God is with believers in their suffering and that salvation is entirely a gift from God through Christ, not something earned through human merit. That contrasts with a theology of glory that looks for God in our accomplishments and reason.
The good news is that when we learn to recognize this God, then we can also learn to “recognize God in his glory and majesty” in a way that actually does feed our faith and life. If we start with glory, the cross will, in one form or another, take on secondary importance in our thinking and feeling about God. If we start with the cross, then our understanding of who God is will grow deeper, richer, more complex, and, in the end, more glorious.
So, on Christ the King Sunday, perhaps this is as good a time to be reminded that the King we serve – Jesus Christ – is not a king in the usual or even expected way. This king – as we see in the Gospel text – is a crucified one, between two criminals.
It is the last Sunday of the Church year, and we begin again, always taking the crucifixion and resurrection with us. After giving “Thanks” later this week, we will jump into Advent, with Matthew’s Gospel, and start over yet again with the same story told by a different author. The story is of the same loving God who comes to us and walks with us, and yes, suffers with us.
We know the story. Jesus will come to us as a child. Another king will be threatened by him and he and his family will be refugees. He will be baptized by the strangest man around and will travel and teach with a motley group of followers. He will eat with no distinction between sinners and saints. His popularity will grow and He will be welcomed as the next David, then betrayed and crucified. This is Christ the King, God’s Son, Jesus, and through this coming year, we will learn again that God will stop at nothing for us, his people. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria.
26 Pentecost (Year C)
Luke 21:5-19
St. John’s West Seneca
November 16, 2025
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
We have just come from Reformation Sunday and All Saints’, and are soon to reach the end of the church year. For me, once we come to Reformation, it is just a slide into Christmas. And yes, next week we will celebrate Christ the King Sunday and another church year will be in the books. And then we start the cycle all over again.
And yet, I find myself at odds with trying to finish off one church year before Thanksgiving, and when there are Christmas decorations and lights. An article from TIME magazine comes to mind, one in which the author is on the same page that I am. The name of the essay was “Merry Hallowmas.”
“’A perpetual Holiday,’ George Bernard Shaw said, ‘is a good working definition of hell.’ It's as though we've supersized our holidays, so that they start sooner, last longer and cost more, until the calendar pages pull and tear, and we don't know which one we are meant to be celebrating.
"Seasons once had a rhythm to them, tuned to the harvest or the hunt, with rituals spaced through the year to bring the rain, praise the sun, mark the time between solstice and equinox, celebrate birth and honor death. Our holidays answer our needs to feast and mourn and manage risk, our customs customized to the point that the Roman pagans had a holiday specifically designed to prevent a certain kind of mold from destroying the wheat by offering animal sacrifices to the god of mildew. We remember those we love on Valentine's Day, those we revere on Easter or Passover or Ramadan, those we fear on Halloween. Thanksgiving was a celebration of harvest, the stuffing of oneself a natural response to all the work that once went into managing one's crops and now goes into managing one's relatives. Just as meals and sleep and work and recess pace the days, so do holidays pace the year. Clump them together, and they lose their fizz and juice, the useful little monthly boosts turned into a pileup of duties and lists. When every day is a holiday--or more precisely, part of the holiday season--none really are.
"It's true that our forebears could never agree when the cycle should begin. The ancient Egyptians celebrated the new year as the Nile rose at the end of August. The Incans picked the year's shortest day (June 21 in the southern hemisphere), while Chinese New Year usually falls on the day of the second new moon after the winter solstice. It was Pope Gregory in 1582 who finally settled on Jan. 1 for Europeans. But wherever it lands, it serves its purpose: the past falling away…
"Since winter can be long and dreary, when days are short and the sunlight thin, we rely on the revelry of carnival and Mardi Gras to carry us over until spring and rebirth. Then come the patriotic plumes, of Memorial Day and Flag Day and July 4 (not to mention Cinco de Mayo, Bastille Day and Samoan Independence Day) before a long spell when the holidays themselves go on holiday. August is the rare month with no shared celebration in it, when we gasp along for weeks on end without collective permission to overspend, overeat and overindulge…”
Wow. There is more to that article, of course, and if that is not the truth succinctly written, I don’t know what is.
Just as holidays mark time, so does the church year. The rhythm of the church year begs us to consider – as holidays do – just who we are and who we are becoming as children of God.
The church year has six seasons: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter and Pentecost. Advent always has four Sundays. Christmas is always twelve days long, and the first day of Christmas is Christmas Day. Lent is 40 days, not counting Sundays, and has five Sundays, then Palm Sunday. Easter is fifty days long, with seven Sundays. The seasons of Epiphany and Pentecost vary in length, depending on the date of Easter, although the date for the Day of Epiphany is always January 6. This coming Epiphany will have five Sundays, then Transfiguration, marking the end of the Epiphany season. Ash Wednesday comes February 18, with Easter on April 5.
Besides those statistics, which may or may not get you a place on Jeopardy, the intention behind the church year is always to examine where you are in your faith life by focusing on what Christ has done, and what we should be doing in each season. Just like the holidays, if you clump them together, they lose their fizzle and their meaning. As we come to the end of the year, it’s time to take stock. It is time to revisit where we’ve been.
The church has set aside these last Sundays to remind us that Jesus will come again. With Malachi and Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, and Jesus’s own words, all of it can sound dire.
It’s not an easy thing to speak of the end times. Either we don’t want to hear it, or we have heard that the end is near far too often, and time after time, the calculating has been off. You see, rumors of this world's demise have been greatly exaggerated. Consider the example of William Miller, a Baptist farmer from New York who was convinced that Christ would return to Earth in the early 1840s. With the assistance of Boston preacher Joshua Himes, Miller persuaded tens of thousands of Christians that the "day of the Lord" was at hand. Some followers even quit jobs and sold property in anticipation of the Second Coming. What came instead was the so-called Great Disappointment, and with it the discrediting of William Miller. Within a short time, however, Miller's shoes were filled by others who reinterpreted the texts, reworked the math, and issued new predictions. And it happens over and over. Remember just a few short weeks ago, the Rapture was supposed to happen.
All three lessons are looking ahead to that day. Paul is especially concerned with those believers who were fervently believed in the imminent return of Jesus. “Since his ETA was unknown, but could be at any moment, some of the Thessalonian Christians had given notice to their employers, left their professions, and were arranging for their imminent and final flight to parts unknown…Paul tells the church to get back to work. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop. Yes, Jesus is coming again, but until he does, we must make our own way and not expect others to finance our idleness.” As Paul put it: “Do not be weary in doing what is right.”
Jesus assures us as well, by stating that that despite all the terrors and calamities that may befall us, we will be safe. Jesus's approach is more about dealing with your heart and mind than building a bomb shelter and retreating from the world.
We are to live with readiness and awareness. Denial is a common coping mechanism in us humans. It's common to scan the headlines as you check the news on your phone each morning and think, "Nope -- that's not going to happen here." What Jesus stresses is that we are to realize that can happen here, where we are. Again, Jesus is not calling us into a state of paranoia or fear. He's simply asking his people to be honest; to realize that this world is struggling with sin and despair, until that day when he returns.
The readings today do not give us permission to spend our time wringing our hands and wondering when. If anything, it is the opposite. Instead, live with your eyes wide open but your heart at peace, confident that God will give you what you need when the time comes.
The function of eschatology – a fancy word for the end times - is nothing more than a reckoning to remind us that while the words are alarming, for us, it is just another day of service to God. We live under grace and hope, not doom and gloom. Jesus gets the message out, loud and clear: "I'll be back." He just doesn't mention when.
And so we don’t give up. We don’t have to give up and we should not give up. Because God has sent us the One who will always keep us alive, both here and eternally. The signs all around us may point to the end, but God wants us to keep working wherever He has placed us. There's a lot of life yet to live, and work to be done. May we always be ready and aware, but not obsessed and afraid. Amen.
Soli Gloria Dei
22 Pentecost (Year C)
Luke 20 27-38
St. John’s, West Seneca
November 9, 2025
Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and the LORD Jesus Christ. Amen.
This is one of those narratives that could begin with “in today’s episode we have the Sadducees trying to trick our hero Jesus with a ridiculous scenario." Remember that from days of old television? It’s ridiculous because the Sadducees ask a question about the resurrection and they didn’t believe in the resurrection.
And that is how Luke begins this encounter. First a bit of terminology. Now, during the time of Jesus, there were four sects within Judaism: Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, and Essenes.
The Zealots need no further definition, fervent, sometimes violent. Among Jesus’s disciples, there wss a Simon the Zealot. The Essenes were an ascetic group living in the desert and it is believed John the Baptist may have been an Essene.
The Pharisees and Sadducees were similar in their views and how they kept the religious law. But there were two key differences. The Pharisees upheld the oral Torah along with the written Torah, believing that the oral traditions had been revealed to Moses, along with the written. At the time of Jesus, these traditions were oral, but many have since been written and preserved in the Mishnah. The Sadducees did not believe in the authority of the oral tradition and instead upheld only the written Torah. (This emphasis in their teaching may be hinted at in Luke 20:28 where they state "Moses wrote ..." rather than "Moses taught ..." or "Moses commanded ....")
As for their name, “Sadducee" is the Greek rendering of the English term "Zadokite," or the descendants of Zadok, David's high priest. “In the competition between the priestly houses in ancient Israel, the Zadokites were the decided winners. It is believed that they are responsible for the codification and preservation of most of the Old Testament legal material; so it is not surprising that it is this group which approaches Jesus with what they believe is a flaw in his logic about resurrection.”
As they approach Jesus with this question, we realize that the law is straightforward, but the Sadducees propose a scenario in which the consequences are confusing: A woman is passed through the hands of seven brothers without having children with any of them. The Sadducees ask Jesus, then, whose wife the woman will be in the resurrection. The question, of course, is a setup The Sadducees do not believe in a resurrection, and their question is put so as to trap Jesus into giving an answer to show that the belief in the resurrection is inconsistent with the law of Moses.
Jesus speaks and shows that the scenario that they suggest is the wrong question. Jesus points out that "those who belong to this age" differ from "those who are considered worthy of a place in that age,” with regards to marriage. Jesus brings in the divine, God as the divine parent, not a human parent.
And he goes on. The Sadducees had been hoping to trap him into admitting that the idea of a resurrection was incompatible with this. But Jesus trips that up by invoking Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God’s power is life-giving, so even the ancestors live as children of God. God continues in relationship, and resurrection life will be quite different from this one. What makes someone alive is not biological, but a relationship with the living God.
Turning to what we think about heaven, in our limited capacity, we tend to imagine it as a simply more glorified version of what we have here and what we have experienced here. Hence the question about marriage in the first place. In a more contemporary take on this question : Whose wife will this 7-time widow be in heaven? Maybe Jesus responded: What makes you think women will be treated like men’s property in the next age?” What makes us think that all will be the same?
It will not be the same. In other words, in Technicolor and no mistakes, no rain on a newly washed car, no bad hair days. But you see, everything will be different. Everything will be made new. The love we have here will continue but with a completely different focus and understanding. That’s what Jesus is saying: it will be beyond whatever scenario we can cook up, beyond what we can imagine.
Enough of the scholarly stuff. Let’s look at the Sadducees. A colleague wrote on FACEBOOK: “They did not believe in an afterlife – just this life – in which they were privileged so they were keepers of the status quo. Jesus was not a status quo kind of guy so he scared the Sadducees – a lot. The temple was their power base, until it was torn down 50 years after Jesus died and they disappeared from history.”
If the Sadducees were asking the wrong question, maybe we are as well. For example, in certain areas, we have seen smaller and smaller and smaller churches our entire lives. Are we going the same way as the Sadducees? Is this our “spot” where nothing can change? Are we the status quo when the God we worship is not a status quo God? Is church still a place to find meaning for our life or not?
Those are the questions that we should be asking. Because…
If we believe this is the place where God meets us, a place where God lifts up all people, offering his very presence, forgiveness and grace, why do so few come? Is our witness for Christ, our enthusiasm, our joy not being seen by others who may be curious about our joy? How are you a “little Christ” in your daily life?
Why do you come? Is it listening to the Word in the liturgy, in the readings, or the prayers? Is it because of confession and forgiveness, the hope of a better life? Is it knowing we need to pass the peace with those we really don’t know? Is it because together, in this place, our soul feels its worth?
Way back in 1989, an executive vice-president of the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptists, argued that our institutions need to be changed into the likeness of Christ.
"The names of the actors have changed, but the first century drama is still playing. Sadducees versus Pharisees are present in interchurch, intrachurch, and parachurch rivalries. From bases of tradition or doctrine or praxis, the competition has escalated until today there are more than 22,000 denominations… The validity of one is questioned by the other, resulting in competition and conflict. Clergy-laity battles rage which siphon spiritual energy. They fail to capitalize on the availability of gifts and commitment that could become the salt penetrating a lost world. Modern Zadoks are grasping 'my church, my tradition, my movement.'"
--Alan Nichols, ed.,The Whole Gospel or the Whole World (Ventura, Calif.: Regal Books, 1989), 107.
It rings true for me. We need to get to the real thing. We, like the Sadducees, may be missing the point. The promise is waiting. We need to be salt and light in and to a world that needs both. We need to bring the kingdom here, where all people are accepted, regardless of job, or education, or marital status, where those on the margins are welcome. That is how the first disciples did it, with no permission from the Sadducees. Not with clever scenarios, but with a true witness based on the love of God and the promises they had experienced and wanted to share. We must do the same. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria.
Reformation Sunday (Year C)
St. John’s, West Seneca
October 26, 2025
Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and the LORD Jesus Christ. Amen.
I’ve been preaching Reformation Sunday since 2001. While I began at Holy Trinity in 1996, I did not preach on this Lutheran high holiday as that was the duty of the senior Pastor to preach Reformation, as well as Christmas Eve.
I remember being excited when I first preached in the fall of 2001, but after all these years, I think I’ve used my best material and repeated myself. I’ve spoken of history most often, putting the Reformation into perspective. But time and time again, I have returned to Martin Luther’s words on just how the Reformation happened:
“While I have been sleeping, or drinking Wittenberg beer with my friend Philip and with Amsdorf, it is the word that has done great things…I have done nothing, I have let the Word act. It is all powerful, it takes hearts prisoner.”
Not only do we see that Luther enjoyed a beer with friends and a good night’s sleep, we also see that he had faith that God would do what God would do.
It is the Word that has always held my attention. Luther brought the Word of God to the people, no longer hidden, protected and doled out only by clergy. One of Luther’s many accomplishments was translating the Bible into German, and offering the Mass in German as well, so that all could understand.
And so today, I invite you to look into this gift called the Bible. While the words remain the same, our circumstances do not, and many is the time that I, looking over a text, see something that I hadn’t noticed before, but for some reason, piques my interest.
We are not as familiar with Scripture as our older relatives and ancestors, something that frustrates me…and most pastors. There is such a wealth there: great epics, history, poetry, wisdom, parables, life, death, and resurrection, and God’s eternal promise of salvation. It’s a banquet for the soul.
Many of us quote Scripture, even if we don’t realize that it is Scripture.
- "Do not fear" or "fear not": Or some variation, appears dozens of times
- "Be strong and courageous": Found in Joshua 1:9 and Deuteronomy 31:6.
- "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want": From Psalm 23. Phrases about morality and ethics
- "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you": The "Golden Rule" from Matthew 7:12.
- "Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.": From Micah 6:8, it's a concise summary of righteous action.
- "Let all that you do be done in love": From 1 Corinthians 16:14, a guiding principle for behavior.
Beyond that, many of the sayings and idioms that we have today come either directly from the Bible (depending on the version), or speak to a theme. Which ones do you use?
- "A drop in the bucket": Meaning something insignificant.
- "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth": A principle of retribution found in Exodus and quoted by Jesus in Matthew 5:38.
- "Apple of my eye":
- "Faith will move mountains": from Matthew and Mark, a testament to the power of faith.
- The skin of my teeth: from Job
- "The handwriting on the wall": comes from Daniel 5 and is sign of impending disaster.
- "The truth will set you free": A well-known saying from the Gospel of John.
- “Rise and shine: My mother’s morning greeting telling someone to wake up and be cheerful. It is from Isaiah 60:1, which calls for believers to "Arise, shine; for your light has come".
- A wolf in sheep's clothing: A person who appears friendly but is actually deceitful or harmful. This image comes from Jesus's Sermon on the Mount, warning against false prophets.
- Go the extra mile: To make a special effort or to go beyond what is required. This saying comes from the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus tells his followers to go two miles if forced to carry a Roman soldier's pack one mile.
- Wash your hands of it: To disclaim responsibility for something. The phrase comes from the book of Matthew, where Pontius Pilate washes his hands to declare himself innocent of Jesus's condemnation.
- The blind leading the blind: When a foolish or uninformed leader guides others who are equally clueless. This image is from a warning by Jesus in Matthew 15:14.
- Nothing new under the sun: A saying for when something seems unoriginal or has been done before. It originates from the book of Ecclesiastes, which reflects on the cyclical nature of human experience.
- Eat, drink, and be merry: An exhortation to enjoy life and indulge in simple pleasures. It is a line from Ecclesiastes 8:15 and is also repeated in the Gospel of Luke.”
We use the word “genesis” when we speak of the beginning, and “exodus” when a group of people who leave. We speak of the “gospel” truth, how we’ve had an epiphany, or a revelation. Again, how many of us have been a “doubting Thomas,” or had the “patience of Job?”
On this day, this comes as a reminder that when Luther translated the Bible into his native German, he was onto something. And scholar that he was, he used the original texts, the Greek and the Hebrew, rather than relying on the Latin only.
Let the Word take you captive. For our Confirmands, I hope that you will continue to have a curiosity about the book that has so shaped our lives. For all of us, I ask that you brush up on your knowledge. In his song THE MAN IN BLACK, Johnny Cash sings that he “wears the black for those who’ve never read, or listened to the words that Jesus said, about the road to happiness through love and charity, why you’d think he was talking straight to you and me.” He is. So let’s brush up a bit with a few assignments.
- Read Genesis 1, then compare it with Genesis 2.
- Read that entire Leviticus holiness code – all of it – then ask yourself how much you follow.
- Read the book of Judges – as violent as it is – then see what the situation is like when men choose whom they believe should lead instead of God.
- Consider one of the minor prophets – Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, so called because of the brevity of the book. Their words are powerful, and they indict us for our foolish behavior.
- Think of the great heroes – Jacob, Joseph, Saul, and David – and find out why they are heroes when their behavior is often so sinful, so conniving, so…like ours. As I said last week, it is “life in the making.”
- Take each resurrection account and note who is there, who speaks, and everything else that sets each apart.
Or read about the early church as presented in Acts. Saul – who will become Paul – is the “coatcheck” boy for those who stone Stephen. And further in, what is this? Discord in the early church? Nooo.
Let the Word of God take you prisoner. Let all its inconsistencies, wildly sinful behavior, and fear simply be. Because through all of Scripture, God is gracious and merciful. God never stops forgiving us, loving us, even to the sending of his own Son, to give us light where before there was only darkness. For “it is the word that has done great things…It is all powerful, it takes hearts prisoner.” Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria.
19 Pentecost (Year C)
Genesis 32
St. John’s, West Seneca
October 19, 2025
Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and the LORD Jesus Christ. Amen.
“The stories of Genesis are about life in the making. They tell us that we can change our lives. Even a scoundrel like Jacob, wandering the desert with fear and trembling, becomes a new man. His dreams make the difference – the first recorded dreams in the Bible. We are told that ‘dreaming men are haunted men.’ This son of Isaac was haunted right to the ‘gateways of heaven.’ He awoke, no longer Jacob.”
Jacob is a character, so audacious, such a scoundrel that the stories about him must be true. He is the twin of Esau, and their parents are Isaac and Rebekah, Isaac being the son of Abraham. And in a theme that is as old as time itself, this family is dysfunctional. Isaac favors Esau; Rebekah favors Jacob.
We know from earlier in Genesis that Jacob manages to steal Esau’s birthright by taking advantage of his hunger. And then of course, the more famous story where Jacob – with his mother Rebekah’s assistance – tricks his father into giving his blessing, a blessing that is given to the oldest son, once. As you can imagine, Esau is livid and in a rage, so Jacob is forced to run for his life. He goes to the home of his uncle Laban, where he immediately falls for Rachel. He arranges to marry her, only to be deceived by his uncle and wed to Leah, her older sister. Although he eventually gains Rachel’s hand in marriage, he remains with his father-in-law, becoming wealthy in the process.
Finally, at long last, he arranges to leave his father-in-law’s household, taking with him his family and possessions, only to learn that his brother Esau is heading his way with four hundred men. Twenty years may have passed, but apparently Esau still remembers his brother…and not fondly.
Having learned a bit from his past, he sends messengers to Esau, instructing them to refer to him as “your servant Jacob.” He gets no reply, so he divides his family and possessions into two camps, reasoning that if one is attacked, the other may escape.
And then he turns to God in prayer. “Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau.” And Jacob waits. He believes that what is across the river will be life-changing. That night before their meeting was probably one of the longest of his life, filled with questions. Will God keep his promise? Will Esau forgive? Or will tomorrow be his last day?
But then, before he can face Esau, Jacob is confronted not with something across the river, but with something else, more frightening and life-changing than his brother. Jacob wrestles with a “man” through the night. The story says it is a man, but when the night is over, Jacob said that he had seen God “face to face.” And he’s alive to talk about it, painful hip and all.
Turning to Luke, we find the story of an unjust judge and a widow who will not stop badgering him until he is just. Not content with a simple “no,” she comes to this judge time and time again, asking for justice. Finally, he gives in to her, and not necessarily because he has finally seen the light, or because he is fair, but because he is just worn out.
If you have noticed, not only is the Bible filled with flawed and audacious people. Jesus adds to these by using almost comic images to speak of being persistent. Today, God is that crooked judge who refuses to hear the case of a certain poor widow, probably because he knows there's nothing much in it for him. But she keeps on hounding him until finally he hears her case just to get her out of his hair. Or like Jacob, who just keeps wrestling and struggling all night until he gets that blessing.
Now, despite all the supernatural overtones, the drama, the injury of this story of Jacob, what this story is about is that which is unexpected and unearned, in other words, grace.
It is said that: “Grace is something you can never get but can only be given. There is no way to earn it, or deserve it or bring it about…”
Jacob certainly didn’t earn it. He is a scoundrel, not afraid to bend a few rules, and ambitious. So driven is he that he wrestles all night, demanding a blessing, probably not even sure that he will receive it. Receive it he does, a blessing along with a new name to take forward.
But this passage is also about our own encounters with God, and how we are transformed by them. In fact, that is what our faith should do, because the truth is, after an encounter with a gracious God, we are not the same. Something will change. In the case of Jacob, it is a new name and a limp. For us, it is the realization that we may not walk the same way again, maybe not physically, but spiritually, in that we will see the world differently.
This is life in the making. And that is what God is always doing. God is in the business of transformation, us, our lives, His world. What Jacob finds himself wrestling with is the truth that God will not let him go until he has become what God wants him to become. God is like that, often an in-your-face opponent who challenges us through our conscience, through other people, through Scripture, through worship, through difficult decisions, or any means to pressure us to deal with him. And just like Jacob that night, we can’t get him off our back.
When people tell me that they cannot change because they are too old, or too busy, or too shy, or…whatever, I tell them: that is nonsense. Nonsense because none of our excuses hold up when it comes to having God transform our lives. This Jacob who wrestles all night is not the same brash young man who once stole his father’s blessing. This is an older – albeit not much wiser – Jacob, a man with four wives, eleven children, with another on the way, and a whole lot of property. He was probably counting on settling down once this thing with his brother is solved, living out his years in peace and comfort. But God intervenes and transforms.
Tony Campolo tells the story of being in the South at a restaurant, ordering bacon and eggs. When his plate arrives, there is this white food stuff that he doesn’t recognize and didn’t order. When he calls the waitress over and mentions that whatever it is, he didn’t order it, she just replies: “Son, that’s grits. They just come.” Grace is like that, just coming at whatever moment, in the blink of an eye, after a long night of wrestling, or at the cool dawn when all is quiet. It just comes. And with it transformation. You just can’t remain the same after experiencing it.
Now, granted, Jacob still has one messed-up family. Grace may just come, but some things never change. The stories of his children still await us in Genesis, and those stories are not pretty. But as Bill Moyers states: they are life in the making.
God is making our lives, by transforming them with boundless opportunities, by refusing to let us alone. And we are changed by each and every encounter.
Today we encounter God in the story of a flawed patriarch wrestling with the divine, and a crooked judge being worn down by a widow. In each case, they persist, and are granted what they desire: a blessing for Jacob and justice for the widow. Both are changed and transformed. And so are we. Encounters with God come at odd places at odder times, or come from just being persistent in whatever we do. And like those grits on Tony Campolo’s plate, we can’t order them, they just come. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria.
18 Pentecost (Year C)
2 Kings 5
St. John’s, West Seneca
October 5, 2025
Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and the LORD Jesus Christ. Amen.
Before us is one of the most “human” passages in all Scripture as we meet Namaan, a man who seeks healing in a foreign land. As the First Reading opens, we learn of Naaman, a military man, who is sent by his king, the king of Aram to the king of Israel, with a letter of introduction, if you will. Interestingly, both kings are unnamed. It asks that this illustrious man, Namaan, be healed of his leprosy. The Israelite king has a suspicion that the Aramean king is just looking for a pretext to start another war by demanding something that could well be impossible. However, as the story goes, Namaan is sent to Elisha to heal him so that Naaman may see that "there is a prophet in Israel."
What makes this story so memorable is the reaction of Namaan. Namaan may have a skin disease, but he is a proud man with some stature. He enjoyed the grand gesture, as we see by his arrival. No wonder he is annoyed and “put out” that Elisha will not come out to greet him, and then, there is that cure relayed to him by a messenger. Namaan is a snob, assuming that the rivers of his land are far superior.
Here’s a more modern take.
“Imagine one of those well-heeled medical tourists, a billionaire prince of Saudi Arabia or Bahrain. His private jet has just landed in Rochester, Minn., home of the Mayo Clinic. The jet is still on the runway when the cell phone of the prince’s personal assistant lights up. ‘It’s a text message from your new doctor,” the man informs him. “He doesn’t have time to see you. But he’s telling you to take a couple Tylenols and fly back home. You’ll be just fine.’
"Imagine the prince’s reaction to that news, and you may have an idea how Naaman responded. He’s a mover and a shaker. He’s not used to being brushed off. One word sums up his reaction: rage.
"But then his assistant saves the day. (In this story, it is the servants who are wise; their masters are less than brilliant.) ‘You’ve come all this way, my Lord,’ says the assistant. ‘Is taking a couple pills such a hard thing?’
"The prophet’s prescription — delivered without so much as a telehealth consultation — sure sounds like medical quackery. But the amazing thing is that it works!”
We have all had the experience of being slighted, and it is an uncomfortable feeling. Naaman didn’t like it one bit. After initially rejecting Elisha’s instruction, his wise servants persuade Namaan to at least try this prescription. They reasoned that if the prophet had asked for some great deed, Naaman would have eagerly complied — so why not do the simple thing? After all, he had already made the journey.
After agreeing to further humble himself, Naaman adjusted his attitude and followed the prophet’s order. Naaman dipped himself in the Jordan the prescribed seven times. When he arose after the seventh and final immersion, he was a radically whole person, healed, clean and disease free. “His flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy.”
What I found this past week was that “leprosy was not ‘treated’ per se in ancient Israel. The victim simply shaved and burned his or her clothes and submitted to being quarantined until the priests declared him clean. Once one was declared clean, however, there was a very elaborate ritual to finalize the victim's reentry into the community. The first stage in the ritual involved dipping a live bird, a scarlet string, some cedar wood and some hyssop in a solution made from running water and the blood of a sacrificial bird. The victim of leprosy is sprinkled seven times, and the live bird is released to go free… Following this first ritual, the one to be cleansed submitted to more shaving, burning of clothes, bathing and seven more ritual days of separation before the eighth day, on which a series of very involved sacrifices of both animals and grain began. At one stage, the former leper was anointed, and, eventually, many of the same rituals were performed on the leper's house to cleanse it as well… Given that this was the typical method of dealing with leprosy in Israel, it would be easy to understand why Naaman believed he was being dismissively treated by Elisha. He expected that Elisha would at least "wave his hands" over him. But Elisha does not even come out of his house.”
The healing is miraculous, impressive, but more important is Namaan’s spiritual awakening. He declared, “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel.” The Syrian commander of armies has undergone a conversion, a “Damascus Road” (note the coincidence), and now is a believer in the God of Israel.
This should speak to us today. Maybe not so much the ritual, but the spiritual aspect. You see, spiritual healing — whether from sin, pride or despair — requires humility and obedience. This is never an easy thing to do. Being the “bigger person,” is frustrating, especially when you feel like you do this always. Naaman, somehow, was able to do this. After his initial outrage, he listens to the servant and obeys…and is healed.
It’s helpful to remember that God often works in unexpected ways.
In today’s Gospel, we see ten lepers begging for healing. Jesus gives the prescription, to go and present themselves to the priests. In their joy, they rush off, but one, a despised Samaritan, comes back and praises God. Jesus asks that question: “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”
“Naaman expected his healing to come in a manner befitting his status — perhaps a state dinner with the king, and certainly a private audience with the holy prophet of Israel. This did not happen. Our ways are not God’s ways. God’s power was revealed through a muddy river. Naaman sank in these waters and came out clean. God often works through ordinary means, does he not? Small acts of obedience, everyday relationships and seemingly insignificant moments.” Those lepers crying to Jesus were experiencing another day separated from community. Then they saw Jesus.
God’s kingdom is not limited only to us. It is for all, all who come in faith seeking healing and peace. Not only the righteous, but foreigners as well.
So, ask yourself, as no doubt Namaan asked himself, as those lepers did: what do we want in our lives? To be healthy, yes, but also to be made whole, to be loved, to have that peace that passes all understanding? Like Naaman, if we insist on having it “our way,” on our terms, rather than the terms God offers, we will fly off in a rage and in the end, be no further ahead. What we need to do is listen for God’s voice, be humble, and be open to whatever God planned.
In the movie Bruce Almighty: Bruce tells God ‘I just gave everyone what they wanted.’ And God says, ‘Since when does anyone have a clue about what they want?’ We think we want the house, the car, this certain relationship. We have no idea what we really want. What we really need is freedom, to be loved, and to love. It is often quite a journey getting us to that point.”
That freedom comes only from God.
Naaman’s story invites us to ask, “What is the ‘Jordan River’ in our own lives?” We are not so unlike the lepers who cried out to Jesus: Have mercy on us. So, is there something God is asking you to do that seems too simple, too humbling or too insignificant? Perhaps it’s forgiveness, or service, or even trusting God in a place where you feel vulnerable.
God will do as God will do, healing a foreigner called Namaan. Jesus healed many, and not always the faithful Jews, but lepers, and the blind and the lame. And Jesus did it in many different ways.
So, if you want healing in your life, or peace, embrace obedience and humility. Then trust in the mysterious ways of God, even when they defy our expectations, even if the doctor does not come to meet you and even if the cure seems odd. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria.
Contact
