Pentecost and the Sin of Christian Nationalism

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Sermons Year ALeave a comment

Acts 2:1-21

There are Sundays when the church calendar feels almost divinely timed. And today is one those days.

Here we gather one week after thousands gathered on the National Mall in Washington for a massive Christian nationalist rally, wrapped in flags, political slogans, and declarations about reclaiming America for God, all the while courts across the South continue chipping away at voting rights protections, enabling racial gerrymandering, and turning back hard-won civil rights gains that generations marched, bled, and died to secure. It also so happens to be Memorial Day weekend— a holiday that too often becomes more about glorifying war than grieving its terrible human cost.

And for many of us, especially here in Lynchburg, Virginia, none of this feels abstract, for we know the history all too well.

We know what happens when Christianity becomes entangled with nationalism, militarism, white supremacy, and political power.

We have seen crosses used to bless segregation. We have heard scripture quoted to defend exclusion, to subjugate women, and to oppress queer people— by those who had the audacity to call themselves “a moral majority.”

We have watched churches drape sanctuaries in patriotic symbols while remaining silent about poverty, systemic racism, and state violence. We have seen war baptized as holy, while the Prince of Peace is pushed to the margins.

And now, the courts continue to turn back the clock on civil rights protections while the language of a “Christian America” grows louder.

The good news is: Here comes Pentecost! Arriving right on time, to disrupt it all!

While many Christians proclaim a faith wrapped in control, borders, and cultural supremacy, the Spirit arrives in Acts 2 like uncontrollable wind and untamed fire.

While loud voices today insist God speaks only one language, blesses only one nation, and favors only one color and one kind of believer, Pentecost erupts as a miracle of radical diversity where everybody hears the inclusive good news in their own language.

Outsiders suddenly become insiders. Women prophesy. Young people dream, and ordinary people become preachers.

The Holy Spirit of God does not arrive carrying a flag, but carrying fire, a fire that falls on everybody. And once the wind starts blowing, there’s no power on earth that can contain it or control where it goes.

This whole Pentecost scene is the exact opposite of how you will hear those with power today talk about God. Instead of building walls between people, the Spirit comes and tears them all down. Instead of creating a smaller table, the Spirit sweeps down and makes the table bigger, creating belonging that is bigger than borders, flags, parties, and nations.

And so today, as we gather on this Pentecost Sunday in Lynchburg, Virginia, we are confronted with a question that is as urgent now as it was in the first century: Will Christianity be a movement of uncontrollable, unconstrained, Spirit-filled, inclusive, universal love, or will Christianity be a weapon for cultural and political control?

Will we have the courage to demonstrate that the Spirit of God is indeed still in this world? Not in a political rally, not with flags waving beside crosses—but with wind, wild disruptive wind, the kind of wind you cannot own, predict, domesticate or weaponize.

And then as fire! Not fire descending on one chosen nation. Not fire resting on one kind of faith, affirming one color of skin or one gender or sexual orientation. But fire dancing over every nation, every accent, every gender, every age, every body—

Dark-skinned bodies and light-skinned bodies. Bodies considered clean and bodies considered unclean. Bodies welcomed by religion and bodies pushed outside the gates. Bodies the empire celebrated and bodies the empire overlooked. The Spirit touches the ones with power and the ones those in power try to erase: widows and laborers; immigrants and refugees; people with trembling faith; people with no faith; people carrying shame. The Spirit of God rests every story, every wound, every trauma, everybody.

The Spirit lands in all the places religion has learned to avoid. The Spirit speaks through people empire has learned to silence. The Spirit widens the circle the privileged and the powerful try to close.

And suddenly, through the people, the Spirit begins speaking in languages the empire never taught them. And the miracle is that each heard “in their own native language.”

Rather than forcing the crowd to learn a single, dominant language or forcing them to assimilate erasing their unique backgrounds, Pentecost is the miracle of God honoring the diversity of every culture. Hearing the gospel in their “own native language” is a divine demonstration that every culture, every background, and distinct voice is valued, validated, and worthy to carry God’s message of radical inclusion and revolutionary love.

The Spirit does not come and erase diversity. The Spirit comes and blesses diversity and speaks through it. And that matters deeply today.

It was surreal last Sunday, plugging back into the world from vacation to read about thousands gathering on the National Mall in Washington for a massive Christian nationalist prayer rally. It was described as a recommitment of America as “One Nation Under God.” The event blended patriotic symbolism, political power, and conservative Christianity in ways that set off alarm bells among many faith leaders and advocates for religious and pluralism. There were crosses beside nationalist imagery, political speeches wrapped in revival language, and declarations that America is somehow uniquely chosen by God.

Consequently, on Monday, as if right on cue, two White Christian Nationalists opened fire at an Islamic Center killing two people who sacrificed their lives to save the lives of countless school children.

But the good news is, also right on cue, Pentecost arrives today to dismantle it all.

Christian nationalism wants uniformity. And Pentecost creates plurality.

Christian nationalism says: “One language, one culture, and one kind of Christian.” And Pentecost says: “Every tribe. Every tongue. Every nation.”

Christian nationalism wraps the gospel in the flag. And Pentecost tears down every border.

Christian nationalism confuses political power with divine blessing. Pentecost arrives among the powerless.

And perhaps most importantly: Christian nationalism thrives on certainty and control. But the Holy Spirit is mysterious and uncontrollable.

Richard Rohr often reminds us that God is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be encountered. The Spirit cannot be confined to any doctrine or creed. The Spirit is breath, movement, surprise, and transformation. Jesus himself says in John’s gospel: “The wind blows where it chooses.”

You cannot legislate wind. You cannot control fire. You cannot trap the Spirit inside a statement of faith or a party platform.

But Christian nationalism tries. Oh, how it tries. Because Christian nationalism is terrified of ambiguity, terrified of questions, terrified of difference, and terrified of change. It has black-and-white answers for every mystery.

Pentecost is gloriously wild and free. So much so, people think the disciples are drunk. Nobody fully understands what’s going on. Maybe that is because real encounters with God often dismantle our certainty before they rebuild our compassion.

Rachel Held Evans once wrote that faith is not about having all the answers but about learning to live inside the questions with God while loving everybody. That is Pentecost.

Pentecost is not certainty descending from heaven. It is courage descending from heaven: courage to love people who are different, even when it is unpopular; courage to cross boundaries, even when it is dangerous; courage to reject white supremacy, even when it benefits you; and the courage to stop pretending God belongs to our tribe.

This is what makes Pentecost such a threat to Christian Nationalism. Because once the Spirit starts moving, the insiders lose control of the gates. Suddenly, Gentiles are welcomed. Women prophesy. Young people speak truth. Old men dream dreams. The poor are lifted. The margins become the center.

As the prophet Joel declares in the passage Peter quotes: “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.”

All flesh. Not just American flesh. Not just Christian flesh. Not just white, straight, cisgendered, conservative flesh. All flesh.

That little word “all” may be the most challenging word in the entire Pentecost story. Because exclusion is always easier than inclusion.

It’s easier to build a movement around fear. It’s easier to define ourselves against our enemies. It’s easier to believe God loves our nation more than others. It’s easier to imagine we alone possess truth.

Church, we must hear this truth today: the opposite of Pentecost is not atheism. The opposite of Pentecost is fearful religion that cannot imagine God speaking through people who are different from us. The opposite of Pentecost is the belief that God endorses our tribe over all others. The opposite of Pentecost is any Christianity more obsessed with control than compassion.

And so, on this Pentecost Sunday, the question for us is: Are we willing to be disrupted and filled by the Holy Spirit?

Because the Spirit is in this world today. And the Spirit is blowing: into sanctuaries and into protests; into immigrants’ prayers and queer children’s tears; into Black churches crying for justice; into young people exhausted by hypocrisy; into weary souls who were told they did not belong.

And the Spirit still burns today. Not to destroy people, but to burn away fear, to burn away supremacy, to burn away the illusion that God can be monopolized by nation, race, ideology, or religion.

And if that fire truly lives in us, then we cannot remain silent while people are pushed to the margins. We cannot worship on Sunday while ignoring voter suppression on Monday.

We cannot sing about justice while children go hungry, while the poor are abandoned, while immigrants are demonized, while truth is traded for power.

Because Pentecost is not just an emotional experience. Pentecost is a public movement. The same Spirit that filled the disciples sent them back into the streets. Back into the world. Back into the struggle for human dignity.

So church, if the Spirit has touched us, then we must become people who resist every form of hatred dressed up as holiness. We must tell the truth when history is being erased. We must protect democracy when voices are being silenced. We must stand with the poor, the excluded, the vulnerable, and the forgotten. We must build communities where every person can breathe, belong, and flourish.

We cannon not be silent, because the fire of Pentecost makes neutrality impossible. The Spirit calls us beyond comfortable religion into courageous love: into a faith that feeds the hungry, welcomes the stranger, confronts racism, rejects nationalism, laments war, seeks peace, tells the truth, and keeps widening the circle of belonging.

Because the world does not need another church obsessed with power. Lord, we know here in Lynchburg, we have too many of those. The world needs a church alive with the Holy Spirit, a church brave enough to love across every border, a church humble enough to listen across every difference, a church courageous enough to believe that another world is still possible.

And maybe that’s the real miracle of Pentecost: That ordinary people like me and you, filled with the breath of God, can still change the world.

Amen.

Pastoral Prayer

Spirit of Wind and Fire,

On this Pentecost Sunday, we gather longing for your presence.

Blow through this sanctuary and through our weary hearts.
Burn away our fear, our prejudice, our need for control.
Teach us again how to become people of compassion, courage, and peace.

Today, we remember the story of your Spirit falling upon all flesh —
upon people of every language and nation —
and we confess how often humanity still chooses division over understanding, violence over reconciliation, domination over love.

As this nation approaches Memorial Day, we pause to remember all those who have died in war.

We remember sons and daughters who never came home.
We remember bodies broken by battle and minds forever scarred by violence.
We remember civilians caught in the crossfire of empire, families displaced by conflict, and children who learned the sound of bombs before they learned the sound of birds singing.

God of mercy, receive the grief of this world.

And while we honor sacrifice, do not let us glorify war.

Do not let flags or patriotic rituals numb us to the human cost of violence.
Do not let nationalism become more sacred to us than the commandment to love our neighbors and our enemies alike.

Instead, make us peacemakers.

Give wisdom to leaders intoxicated by power.
Give courage to prophets who dare speak against violence.
Give comfort to veterans carrying wounds both visible and invisible.
Give strength to all who labor for diplomacy, justice, reconciliation, and nonviolence.

Holy Spirit, disturb every version of religion that blesses hatred, exclusion, supremacy, or cruelty.

When fear tells us to build walls, teach us to build tables.
When certainty tempts us to stop listening, teach us humility.
When bitterness hardens our hearts, breathe through us again.

Pour out your Spirit upon all flesh:
upon the grieving,
the exhausted,
the oppressed,
the marginalized,
the forgotten,
and the hopeful.

Let your fire become light instead of destruction.
Let your wind carry healing instead of meanness.
Let your church become a people known not for power, but for love.

And where this world knows only violence,
teach us the difficult, holy work of peace.

We pray all this in the way of Jesus,
who came not to destroy lives, but to save them. Amen.

Invitation to Communion

You don’t see a flag in this sanctuary because this table does not belong to a nation. It does not belong to any political party, any denomination, or an any ideology. This table belongs to Christ. And at this table, the walls we build around one another begin to fall.

On the day of Pentecost, the Spirit spoke in many languages so that everyone could hear the good news of God’s love. In the same way, this table stretches wider than our divisions, wider than our fears, wider than our certainty.

Here, there is no insider or outsider. No first-class or second-class children of God. Only hungry people longing for grace.

So come: you who are weary, you who are questioning, you who are hopeful, you who are grieving, you who are longing for peace.

Come not because you have all the answers, but because God’s love has already made room for you.

For this is the table where strangers become neighbors, where enemies become beloved, and where the Spirit keeps teaching us how to become one body through love.

Invitation to the Offering

Pentecost reminds us that the Spirit does not move only inside sanctuaries.

The Spirit moves through communities of compassion, justice, hospitality, and courage. The Spirit moves whenever people feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, speak truth to power, and create spaces where every person knows they belong. Our offerings become part of that holy work.

When we give, we participate in building a world shaped less by fear and scarcity and more by generosity and hope. We help keep tables open, ministries alive, and communities connected.

So let us give today not out of obligation, but out of gratitude for the wild and generous Spirit still moving among us.

Commissioning and Benediction

Go now into the world,
not carrying fear, but fire.

Go carrying the breath of the Holy Spirit,
a Spirit too wild to be controlled,
too loving to exclude,
and too powerful to be confined by borders, flags, or walls.

May the wind of God disturb your complacency.
May the fire of God burn away your prejudice.
May the love of God widen your heart.

And may you leave this place speaking peace in every language you know:
through acts of justice,
through courage and compassion,
through mercy and welcome.

For the Spirit has been poured out on all flesh.

So go and live like that is true.

In the name of the Creator,
the Christ,
and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Rebuilding from the Ruins

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn EasterLeave a comment

1 Peter 2:2-10

Some of you may have heard about the scripture passage that was read recently from the Oval Office:

 

 

 

“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14).

Spoken in the highest office in the land! Well, glory, hallelujah!

That means we’re going to be okay… right? Our country is finally heading in the right direction! Because that’s how God builds. Always from the top down… right?

Well, that’s what Christian Nationalists would have us believe. But it is actually the opposite of what scripture declares.

The promise for healing in this verse is clear. But so is the condition. “If my people…” first do what?

“Humble themselves.”

And what does scripture mean when it calls people to humble themselves?

Now, many Christians have been taught that humility simply means bowing your head and professing Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior.

But when the actions of so many who profess faith are the very things causing the most harm in the world, when that profession coexists with injustice, exclusion, and even cruelty, we know that scripture is calling us to something deeper.

Biblical humility is not just about a faithful profession. It is about a faithful position. It is about where we place ourselves in relation to power suffering and injustice.

To humble ourselves is not simply to bow our heads. It is to bend our lives: to step down from systems that elevate some while diminishing others; to move intentionally toward those who have been pushed aside; to identify with the poor; to stand with the marginalized; to draw near to the stones the builders have rejected.

And that kind of humility is much more than reciting a scripture or saying a prayer, especially from a high, gold-plated place of power and privilege. It calls us to look down— to the margins, to the overlooked, to the places where people have been left out and left behind.

This is where I believe this morning’s epistle lesson offers us some good guidance.

1 Peter is calling us to identify with, to stand beside, to join and to gather the stones that have been “rejected by mortals, yet chosen and precious in God’s sight.” And then to become, “like living stones… letting ourselves be built into a spiritual house.”

Get together, organize with those who have been excluded and become “living stones.” No longer dead stones. No longer hopeless stones. No longer discounted, discarded, dismissed, disposable, or forgotten stones. No longer the stones left on the margins of the construction site.

But chosen, gathered, living stones building something together. And not only that, “the stone the builders have rejected have become the cornerstone”— which is a quote from the 118th Psalm declaring that those who are despised and rejected in this world are actually the most vital and foundational part of what God intends to build in this world.

Literally, a cornerstone is the first stone set in the construction of a masonry foundation, crucial for aligning and balancing the entire structure.

Figuratively, a cornerstone represents a fundamental, indispensable part of something, such as core beliefs, principles, or policies. It is the foundational reference point for an entire structure’s orientation, with all other stones measured against it.

Which means the very ones this world has rejected are the most essential to what God is building.

For those of us who have paid just a little attention in church, it’s not surprising that this Psalm is quoted not only here in 1 Peter, but also by Luke in Acts 4, and by Jesus in all four gospels, as this cornerstone principle conveys a divine pattern that runs all the way through scripture. When God builds in this world, God always builds from the bottom up.

When God wanted to call a people, God didn’t go to the center of power. God went to Abraham and Sarah—wandering, aging, convinced they had nothing more to offer.

When famine threatened survival, God worked not through the Pharoah, but through Joseph—the brother who was betrayed, imprisoned, and cast aside.

And when God heard suffering, it wasn’t the cries of Pharoah, but the cries of an enslaved people. “I have seen their misery… I have heard their cry” (Exodus 3:7). God chose the side of the oppressed, not just to comfort them, but to liberate them.

And when those liberated people obtained power and began shaping a society, God gave them a command: Don’t forget where you came from. Don’t forget the poor. Care for the widow. Defend the orphan. Don’t oppress the stranger. Don’t mistreat foreigners residing in your land, but rather treat them as native-born citizens and love them as you love yourself. Build a world that does not recreate the harm you escaped.

But as soon as they got a little bit of power, they forgot. And to remind them, God sent prophets who truth to power: “Woe to those who trample on the needy.” “Woe to those who build their houses on injustice.”

Because God is never neutral when people are suffering. God is always on the side of the oppressed and the rejected. Not only consoling them but calling them to organize to build something better.

Over and over, scripture reveals a God who calls the unlikeliest of people:

Moses—a fugitive, slow of speech—but called to confront the empire.

Deborah—a woman chosen by God in a world that discounted her.

Gideon—fearful, from the weakest clan.

Ruth—a foreign widow, gleaning scraps, woven into the story of kings.

Hannah—barren and dismissed, who sang of a God who lifts the lowly from the dust.

David—a shepherd boy, overlooked and left in the fields.

Again, and again, God chose the stones rejected by the powers-that-be. Whenever the world was most broken, most in need of a reconstruction, when people were exiled, displaced, stripped of identity, God spoke into their displacement, promising not just a return, but a rebuilding from the ruins, not from the top down, but from the bottom up.

The story of Jesus is but a continuation of this divine pattern. When God became flesh, God didn’t come through a palace. But through a young, poor, unmarried woman living under empire, named Mary.

And she sang: “God has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly.”

In Jesus’ first sermon, this divine pattern is unmistakable: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” he says, “because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.

And look at who Jesus gathers around him: The poor, the sick, the excluded. And to them, Jesus says: “Blessed are you.” And he doesn’t stop there. He gathers them and builds a movement. He takes the rejected stones and begins constructing a new kind of community: a community where the last are first, dignity is restored, and love becomes the structure.

So, when Peter says: “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people,” we know who he’s talking about. He is talking about a scattered, struggling, rejected people. And Peter says: “You are the ones God is building with.”

Now, let’s bring that word into our moment. Because people are still being rejected.

The poor are dismissed. Workers underpaid. Immigrants dehumanized. The trans community demonized. The unhoused pushed out of sight.

The message to them is: “You don’t belong.” “You don’t count.” “You will not be accepted.” “You will not have any part constructing our society, building this nation.”

Yet, scripture says: “You are chosen.” And not only are you chosen, you are the cornerstone of the building, the most fundamental, most indispensable part of it.

This is where the language of Reconstruction in America begins to sound less like history and more like prophecy.

The First Reconstruction took place when poor Black and white people came together after the Civil War to expand democracy, to build an interracial government, to build new schools, to reimagine what this country could be.

And then the backlash came. Jim Crow was born. The stones were rejected again.

The Second Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Movement, took place when ordinary people, many poor and dismissed, stood up and declared their dignity in the face of violence and oppression. And again, progress came. But resistance followed. Resistance that we are still witnessing today as many of the gains made during the Civil Rights movement have been reversed. Jim Crow didn’t die, it just rebranded itself as “Make America Great Again.”

And now we find ourselves asking: Is there a Third Reconstruction on the horizon? And if so, who will build it?

If scripture is any guide, it will not begin in places of wealth and power. It will begin with people who have been pushed out: the poor; the marginalized; the rejected. Because they are the ones who know something about both suffering and hope.

And here’s the word that comes back to us 2 Chronicles: “Humble yourselves.”

Not just in a profession of faith. But in a proximity of faith. Not just in words. But in solidarity, in action. Because Peter doesn’t just say, “You are living stones, period.” He says, “let yourselves be built.”

The fundamental question for people of faith is this: Are we are willing to be aligned alongside those the world has rejected? Will follow the leadership of those who are suffering today? Will we join what God is building?

Because that’s humility. And that’s how a new house gets built. That’s how healing happens.

And yes, that kind of building will cost something. Because when you make the rejected the cornerstone, the most important part of the building, you challenge systems that depend on their rejection. That’s why this kind of gospel makes people stumble (verse 8).

But here’s the hope. It’s not easy hope. But it’s real hope: “You once were not a people, but now you are God’s people.” Which means: What has been scattered can be gathered, and what has been rejected can become the foundation.

So, hear this:

Maybe the Third Reconstruction is not something far off. Maybe it is already beginning: in movements for living wages; in communities organizing for healthcare; in silent vigils for peace; in pop-up protests on the side of the highways against the mistreatment of immigrants; in people with whistles protecting their immigrant neighbors; in people refusing to give up on one another; in the quiet but courageous work of solidarity.

Church, this is where we are called to step it. To humble ourselves, to build with those the world has rejected.

And if we dare to do that, if we dare to live that, the nation can heal and a new house will rise.

Built not on exclusion, but on belonging.

Built not on supremacy, but on equality.

Built not on scarcity, but on justice.

Built on compassion instead of cruelty, and on love instead of fear.

A house will rise where the stones that have been rejected are valued, important, the foundational reference point for the entire house’s orientation.

A house that will stand.

Because it is built the way God has always built in this world: with people who humble themselves and build, not from the top down, but from the bottom up.

Amen.

Pastoral Prayer

Holy and Living God,

You are the One who hears what the world ignores.

You are the One who sees what others pass by.

You are the One who gathers what has been scattered

and builds what has been broken.

We come before you today bringing all that we are.

We bring our gratitude:

for signs of hope we have witnessed this week;

for neighbors caring for neighbors;

for courage rising in unexpected places;

for love that refuses to give up.

We bring our grief:

for a world that still wounds so many;

for those living without enough food, enough care, enough rest;

for communities burdened by injustice;

for those who feel invisible, expendable, forgotten.

We bring our own hearts:

tired in some place; guarded in others, and still longing to be part of something more.

God of mercy,

You call us to humility, not just in word, but in life. So we ask:

Bend our lives toward your justice.

Draw us closer to those we have kept at a distance.

Open our eyes to where you are building

and give us courage to join you there.

We pray for those who are suffering today:

for the sick, the grieving; the anxious; the overwhelmed.

For all who are on our hearts and on our prayer list.

Be near to them, O God.

We pray for those organizing, resisting, and rebuilding

often without recognition, often at great cost.

Strengthen them. Sustain them. Surround them with hope.

And we pray for ourselves

that we would not settle for a faith that is comfortable,

but would seek a faith that is faithful.

A faith that follows you

into the places where healing is still needed.

Into the communities where dignity is still denied.

Into the work of building a more just and loving world.

Gather us, O God, as living stones. Shape us. Place us. Use us.

We pray all of this in the spirit of Jesus, Amen.

Invitation to Communion

This table is not built by human hands alone.

It is set by a God who gathers the rejected and calls them beloved.

This is not a table for the perfect. This is not a table for the powerful.

This is a table for those who hunger—for bread, for justice, for belonging.

Here, the last are welcomed first. Here, the overlooked are seen. Here, the broken are made whole.

So come—not because you have it all together, but because God is still putting us together.

Come as living stones, ready to be shaped into something new.

Come, for all is ready.

 

Invitation to the Offering

What we offer today is more than money. It is a declaration.

A declaration that we believe in a different kind of world. A declaration that we trust God is still building—and that we want to be part of that work.

So, we give—not out of obligation, but out of hope.

We give to support ministries of compassion and justice, to stand alongside those too often pushed aside, to help build a community where all can flourish. So, as you give, consider this:

Where is God building in our world? And how might what I offer today help strengthen that work?

Let us give generously, as people who are being built into something beautiful together.

 

Commissioning and Benediction

Go now, not just with heads bowed, but with lives bent toward justice.

Go as living stones, shaped by grace, placed with purpose, and joined together in love.

Go to where God is building: among the poor; alongside the marginalized;

in the very places the world has overlooked.

And as you go, remember: The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

Which means:

what has been cast aside can rise, what has been broken can be rebuilt,

and what has been dismissed can become the foundation of something new.

So, go with courage to stand where God stands,

with humility to walk alongside others,

and with hope that will not let you go.

And may the God who builds from the bottom up

hold you, guide you, and use you, now and always.

Amen.

We Had Hoped

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn EasterLeave a comment

Luke 24:13-35

There is a particular kind of sentence that only comes from heartbreak. We find it in verse 21 of our gospel lesson, and it starts like this: “We had hoped…”

It’s the kind of sentence you hear when dreams collapse under the weight of reality. It’s whispered in hospital rooms, at funeral homes, often in conversations that trail off into silence. It’s the language of people who believed something good was possible, but then watched it all fall apart.

“We had hoped…” Things would be different. The diagnosis and the prognosis, the outcome and outlook for the future was better.

Two disciples are walking away from Jerusalem, walking away from the place where everything unraveled, walking away from the cross, from the chaos, from the confusion.

And as they walk away from it all, they talk: about what happened; about what went wrong; about how it all fell apart; about how mercy was beaten down, and love was crucified.

“We had hoped he was the one to redeem Israel.” We had hoped to be liberated from King Herod and from the systems that bless the elites while the poor suffer.

“We had hoped…” Past tense. Because hope had been buried.

And if we’re honest, that sentence doesn’t belong only to them. It belongs to us too.

For we know what it is to say, “We had hoped…”

We had hoped things would not be this bad.

We had hoped we would not go to war.

We had hoped that truth would matter.

We had hoped that the teachings of Jesus to love one another, to bless the poor, to defend the marginalized, to welcome the stranger, would have been followed by more people.

We had hoped that our friends were not betrayers.

We had hoped justice would come a little quicker and peace a little closer.

We had hoped that what we believed about love—that it is stronger than hate, deeper than fear, and more powerful than violence—would be easier to see in our world. And we had hoped that selfishness, greed, hatred, and just pure meanness, would not be so prevalent…and so powerful.

But here we are, walking our own roads to Emmaus, grieving that every time we look at the news, we read something crazy: something mean; something evil. We are also carrying grief we can’t always name, questions for which we don’t have answers, and anxiety that keeps us awake at night.

And like those disciples, we don’t always realize who is walking beside us, who has been walking with us all along.

The good news of our gospel lesson is that somewhere between Jerusalem and Emmaus, Jesus is present. Not in spectacle. Not in certainty. Not in the kind of power the world recognizes. But in quiet companionship.

He draws near to them. So near, they can reach out and touch him. And the strange thing is—they don’t recognize him. Which might be the most honest part of the whole story.

Some people tell me that they have trouble believing in this mystery we call resurrection. They read about it in the gospels, but they have trouble trusting it in the real world.

I believe that is because resurrection rarely looks like what we expect. It doesn’t always arrive in a blinding light or with a clap of thunder. Sometimes, it comes disguised as a conversation; It shows up as empathy, as a presence that won’t let us go, as a voice meeting us where we are, asking questions:

“What are you discussing as you walk along?”

Jesus is not interrupting their grief, as much as he’s joining it. He lets them tell the story. He listens to their disappointment. He holds space for their “we had hoped…” And then, and only then, he begins to reframe it.

Not by denying their pain or rushing them past it. But by reminding them that the story isn’t over yet.

He opens the scriptures. He re-tells the story they thought they knew.

He shows them that what looked like an ending…was never meant to be the end.

And still, they don’t recognize him. Not yet.

Because sometimes our hearts need to change before our eyes can see it. They ask: “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road?”

That’s resurrection, too. Resurrection is not just empty tombs. It’s burning hearts. It’s not just life after death. It’s hope rekindled in the middle of a dark journey. It’s the realization sung by Raye in the Click Clack Symphony with Hans Zimmer that although we’ve “slipped back into a darkness we had hoped by now to overcome…the cold never lasts. It just teaches the heart how to burn.”

Finally, the disciples reach Emmaus, the place they thought they were going to stay, the place they had finally arrived to get away from it all.

But something has now shifted. “Stay with us,” they say. Because when resurrection gets close, even if you don’t fully understand it, you don’t want it to leave.

So, he stays. They sit at the table. He takes bread. He blesses it, breaks it, gives it. And suddenly, their eyes are opened, and they finally recognize him.

Not on the road. Not in the explanation. Not even in the opening of the scriptures. But in the breaking of bread. In a most ordinary act, made holy. In a moment so simple it could have been overlooked. Resurrection was experienced in fellowship, in community, around a table in an empathetic moment of grace and love.

And look at verse 31 again. Just as quickly as they recognize him, he vanishes. It all happens in one verse.

Which might seem cruel, until we realize: The Risen Christ doesn’t vanish as soon as he is recognized because he is no longer in the world. He vanishes because he is no longer limited to one place, to one moment, to one form. Now, the disciples will see him everywhere! In every broken piece of bread given. In every act of grace. In every moment where love refuses to stay buried and is shared freely.

And here’s the real miracle: They turn around. These same disciples who were walking away from it all, who were done, who were finished, who were at closing time—they get up that very hour and go right back to all. Back to Jerusalem. Back to the place of disappointment. Back to the place of pain. Back to the place where hope seemed to die.

But they go back differently. Not because everything has suddenly been fixed. Not because Herod is no longer on the throne. Not because the world has stopped being that crazy. They go back differently because resurrection has found them on a dark road. And once resurrection finds you, you can’t keep walking in the same direction.

That’s the hope of Easter.

Not that the world has suddenly become easier. Not that suffering has disappeared, or injustice has ceased. Not that every “we had hoped” is instantly resolved.

But that Christ is still walking with us, even when we don’t recognize him. That the story is still being told, even when it feels like it has ended. That hearts can still burn, even when hope feels cold. And that around a table, in the breaking of bread, in the sharing of life together, in the stubborn persistence of love, eyes can still be opened.

So, if you find yourself today on the road to Emmaus, if you are carrying disappointment, or confusion, or quiet grief…if your faith feels more like past tense than present reality…listen closely. Look around this room. Feel the love around you, the empathy that surrounds you.

There is a presence walking beside you this morning. Asking questions. Telling stories. Refusing to let the darkness have the last word. And maybe, just maybe, before this day is over, at some table, in some ordinary moment, your eyes will be opened too. And you will discover what the disciples did:

That resurrection meets us on the road. It sits with us in the tension. It breaks bread in the middle of our unfinished stories. And then it sends us back—

Not as people who have all the answers, but as people whose hearts are burning, carrying a hope that refuses to stay in the past tense. Because in Christ, “We had hoped” becomes “We have seen.” And that is enough to turn us around.

Not because we are strong enough, but because resurrection is. Easter is God’s declaration that even when empire does its worst, even when violence seems to have the final say, even when hope is sealed in a tomb, that is not the end of the story.

And if that is true, then we are not called to survive this moment quietly. We are called to face it. To resist it. To fight it.

But not with the weapons of the world. Not with hatred. Not with fear. Not with the same kind of power that crucified Jesus. We fight it the way the risen Christ teaches us: with truth that refuses to bend; with love that refuses to give up; with courage that refuses to be silent; with a community that refuses to let anyone walk the road alone.

We fight it every time we tell the truth when people prefer to hear the lie, every time we choose generosity in a culture of greed, every time we protect the vulnerable in a world that exploits them, every time we refuse to let religion be used as a tool of exclusion instead of liberation.

That’s what it means to be Easter people. Not people who escape the world, but people who are sent back into it.

Back to Jerusalem. Back to the places where things are broken. Back to the systems that need disrupting. Back to the communities that need healing. Back into a country that needs redeeming.

Because resurrection doesn’t remove us from the struggle. It prepares us for it. It steadies our hearts. It sharpens our vision. It reminds us who we are: we are people who have seen something.

Maybe not perfectly. Maybe not with absolute certainty.

But enough to know this: Love is still alive! Truth is still worth telling! Justice is still worth pursuing. And no empire, no ideology, no distortion of faith gets the final word.

War rages, but this is not the end of peace. This is where peacemakers rise.

Religious nationalism is in power. But this is not the end of democracy. This is where courage finds its voice.

Hate is loud. But it is not the end of love. This is where love becomes unrelenting.

The road to justice is long, and it is not easy, but Easter means we do not walk this road alone. It means our hearts can still burn. It means our eyes can still be opened. It means we can still turn around.

And it means that even now, in a world that feels like it is unraveling, God is still at work, Christ is still present, and resurrection is still breaking in.

So go back. Back to the places that need hope the most.

Go back. Not as people who are afraid of this moment, but as people who were made for it. Because we are Easter people. And the story is not over yet! Amen.

Pastoral Prayer

God of the road and the table,

we come to you as we are.

Some of us weary from the journey,

some of us carrying grief we cannot name,

some of us holding hope with trembling hands.

You know the roads we have walked this week—

the conversations that have stayed with us,

the headlines that have unsettled us,

the quiet fears we have not yet spoken aloud.

And still, you draw near.

You do not wait for us to have clarity or certainty.

You meet us in our questions,

you walk with us in the chaos,

you listen as we share our heartache and heartbreak.

So today, O God, rekindle in us a living hope.

Where there is despair, breathe your life.

Where there is fear, steady our hearts.

Where there is cynicism, awaken in us a deeper trust.

We pray for a world that feels fractured—

for places where war rages and peace feels distant,

for communities burdened by injustice,

for leaders and systems that have failed the lives of so many.

Give us courage to be people of truth and justice.

Give us strength to resist what diminishes your image in others.

Give us grace to love all people, as we love ourselves.

We lift before you those in need of healing—

in body, in spirit, in relationships that feel beyond repair.

Be present, O Christ,

in hospital rooms and living rooms,

in moments of waiting and in moments of fear.

And remind us, again and again, that we do not walk alone.

That even now, you are with us.

We pray all of this in the name of the risen Christ,

who meets us on the road and is known in the breaking of bread. Amen.

Invitation to Communion

This is not a table for the certain, for those who have everything figured out.

This is the table where Christ meets us—

on the road, in our questions, in our unfinished faith.

It was in the breaking of bread that their eyes were opened.

Not because they understood everything, but because Christ was present.

So, all are invited to partake.

Partake if your hope feels strong or if your hope feels fragile.

Partake if you are still searching, still wondering, still walking.

Because this is the table where Christ is made known.

Invitation to Give

The disciples did not recognize Christ at first, but their hearts were already changing.

That’s how it is with grace. It meets us, it stirs us, and it begins to turn us outward.

So, we give, not out of obligation, but as a response to the One who has walked with us, who has opened our eyes, who sends us back into the world with purpose.

In a world shaped by scarcity and fear, our giving becomes an act of trust.

In a culture of taking, our generosity becomes a witness.

So let us offer our gifts, as signs of hope, as acts of resistance, as participation in God’s ongoing work of love.

Commissioning and Benediction

Go now—

not as those who have all the answers,

but as those whose hearts have been set ablaze.

Go back to the places you came from,

back to your homes, your work, your communities,

knowing that Christ goes with you.

When the road feels long, when hope feels distant, when you struggle to see, remember:

Christ is still drawing near.

Christ is still being made known.

Christ is still turning us around.

So go in courage. Go in compassion. Go in the unrelenting hope of Easter.

And may the love of God, the presence of Christ, and the power of the Spirit go with you, now and always.

Amen.

Love Gets the Last Word

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn EasterLeave a comment

John 20:1-20

Before the sun had the decency to rise, before hope had any real evidence to stand on, Mary Magdalene ran. Not casually walked. Not carelessly wandered. Not cautiously approached. Mary ran.

Because when love has been crucified, when dreams have been buried, when the world as you knew it has collapsed in on itself—grief does not move slowly or carefully. It rushes. It assumes. It fills in the blanks with the worst possible story: “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”

That’s what grief says.

Not, “He is risen.”

Not, “God is doing a new thing.”

Not even, “Let’s wait and see.”

No. Often in a downward spiral, grief concludes: “They have taken him.”

Things are bad, and it’s only going to get worse. When it rains, it pours. And we better get out the buckets cause the roof is going to leak.

It is the most human response in this broken world: to assume that what we love the most has been stolen, taken away, destroyed, and erased. And it is not coming back.

And if we’re honest on Easter Sunday 2026, we know that feeling.

Because we are living in a moment where it is easy, almost natural, to assume the worst. It is what we assume every time we check the headlines.

No one expects to turn on the news these days and hear: Good news! Things are not as bad as they seem! Good news! Better days are coming.

No, these days, we expect only news of despair. The secretary of defense calls himself the secretary of war and calls the hell that is war, “holy,” and uses religious language to bless overwhelming violence. Here at home, gas prices are still rising. Grocery bills continue to climb. Families sit at kitchen tables doing math that does not add up. All the while White Christian Nationalism is suffocating democracy. History is being whitewashed. And we wonder about the next election, if there will even be a next election. And we ask: Has the country we love been taken from us. And in the quiet spaces of our hearts, a question forms:

Has hope been taken from us too? Has something sacred been stolen from our lives?

And like Mary, we rush to conclusions. “They have taken…” They have taken our peace. They have taken our security. They have taken our freedom. They have taken our future.

The good news today is that Easter interrupts our assumptions. Because what Mary thinks has happened is not what God is actually doing. She comes to the tomb expecting death to have the final word. Instead, she finds confusion. She finds what seems like absence.

But what she really finds is mystery. And if we’re not careful, we will mistake the mystery of God for the absence of God too.

Early in my ministry, I remember sitting at a hospital bedside, the kind of room where the machines speak more than the people. A family gathered, holding hands, passing a tissue box to wipe tears, praying prayers that felt like they were bouncing off the ceiling. One of them finally said what everyone else was thinking but didn’t want to say it out loud: “Where is God in this?”

Not in anger. Not even in disbelief. Just…exhaustion, just grief. Because sometimes the silence of God feels like abandonment. Sometimes the unanswered prayer feels like absence. Sometimes the delay feels like denial.

And in that moment, there was no lightning bolt. There was no sudden turnaround. No miracle that tied everything up neatly. Just breath. Just presence. Just people refusing to let one another be alone.

And I remember realizing—almost against my will—that maybe God had not stepped out of the room.

Maybe God had simply refused to show up on our terms. Maybe the mystery of God is not that God is absent, but that God is present in ways we do not yet recognize. Present in the quiet grip of a hand. Present in the tears that fall without shame. Present in the stubborn love that keeps showing up even when hope feels thin.

We want a God who explains everything. But more often, we encounter a God who accompanies us through anything.

And that kind of presence—it doesn’t always feel like power. Sometimes it feels like weakness. Sometimes it feels like waiting. Sometimes it feels like an empty tomb before you understand what empty really means.

The good news of Easter is: just because we cannot see God clearly does not mean God is not working deeply. The mystery is not God’s absence. The mystery is that God is already at work—in the dark, in the silence, in the in-between—bringing life out of places we had already declared dead.

Let’s get back to our gospel lesson, for the story is getting ready to take to turn.

Peter and the beloved disciple run to the tomb. They see the linen cloths. They don’t fully understand—but something in them shifts. The story is not over.

And then Mary, still weeping, encounters a gardener…or so she thinks. “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” She is still operating out of her assumption: “They have taken him.”

Until he speaks her name: “Mary.” And everything changes.

This is the Easter truth we are invited into today: We are often wrong about how the story ends.

We assume God is not present when God is standing in front of us.

We assume loss when God is working resurrection.

We assume absence when God is preparing revelation.

We assume death has won when love is already rising.

As Rev. Dr. William Barber reminds us in his prophetic witness, “We must learn to see not just the pain of the present, but the possibility of redemption breaking through it.”

Easter is not naïve optimism. It does not ignore the cross. It does not pretend that violence, injustice, and suffering are not real.

No. Easter stares the powers of death in the face and declares: You do not get the last word!

Not war. Not “overwhelming violence.” Not religious nationalism.

Not greed. Not lies. Not systems that crush the poor, while protecting the powerful. Not even the grave itself. The good news of Easter is that love gets the last word.

But here’s the thing—we don’t always recognize resurrection right away. Mary doesn’t. She mistakes Jesus for the gardener. Which, if you think about it, is not entirely wrong.

Because resurrection is a kind of gardening. It is God tending to what has been buried. It is life pushing up through the soil of despair. It is beauty growing in places we had already written off as dead.

And maybe that’s what we need to hear this Easter: That even now—especially now—God is at work beneath the surface.

In communities organizing for justice.

In neighbors caring for one another when systems fail.

In courage rising up in unexpected places.

In love refusing to give up.

In people who have gathered on a rainy Sunday morning with the audacity to believe that something happened on that day Mary ran to the tomb, something mysterious happened that we call resurrection.

We may not understand it. We may never wrap our minds around it. But I don’t believe that is important. What is important is that we live it. It’s even more important than believing it.

Jesus says to Mary, “Do not hold on to me… but go.”

Go tell the others. Go bear witness. Go live as if love actually has the final word in this world.

And that’s the invitation of Easter for all of us.

In a world quick to assume the worst, we become people who dare to hope anyway. In a culture shaped by fear, we become practitioners of love. In a nation that chooses violence to get its way, we choose a life of nonviolence while praying, not my will, but God’s will be done. In the face of systems that profit from despair, we become witnesses to resurrection.

Not because things are not as bad as they seem.

Not because better days are right around the corner.

Not because life in this world is suddenly going to become easy.

But because Christ is somehow, some mysterious way, risen.

And that changes everything.

So, the next time you feel that familiar rush of fear, the next time your heart wants to say, “They have taken…”—

Pause. Breathe. And listen.

Because resurrection often begins with a voice calling your name.

Reminding us:

What you thought was gone is not gone.

What you thought was over is not over.

What you thought was lost is only being redeemed.

Hate does not get the final word. Violence does not get the final word. Despair does not get the final word.

Love does. It always has. It always will.

Alleluia. Alleluia.

Amen.

Pastoral Prayer

Risen Christ,

we come to you this morning carrying everything—

the joy we can name

and the weight we cannot quite put into words.

We come like Mary,

early in the morning,

still holding our assumptions,

still wondering if something sacred has been taken from us.

And yet, you meet us here.

So we pray—

not as people who have it all figured out,

but as people who are learning to trust you in the mystery.

God of life,

we lift before you a world that feels fragile.

We pray for places torn by war,

for lives caught in the crossfire of decisions made far from their homes.

We pray for wisdom where there is power,

for restraint where there is anger,

for courage where there is fear.

Let your peace rise where violence threatens to have the final word.

We pray for those feeling the pressure of rising costs—

for families stretching every dollar,

for workers carrying quiet anxiety,

for those who must choose between what they need and what they can afford.

Be bread in empty places.

Be provision where there is not enough.

Be hope where worry has taken root.

We pray for those gathered here and those we carry in our hearts—

for the sick and the recovering,

for the grieving and the lonely,

for those facing decisions, diagnoses, and uncertain futures.

Risen Christ,

meet them as only you can—

not always with easy answers,

but with your unmistakable presence.

Call their names in the darkness.

Remind them they are not alone.

Hold them in a love that does not let go.

God, teach us to be people of resurrection—

not just in what we believe,

but in how we live.

Where there is despair, make us bearers of hope.

Where there is division, make us builders of community.

Where there is injustice, make us seekers of your righteousness.

And when we are tempted to assume the worst—

to believe that love has been taken,

that hope has been buried,

that the story is over—

call our names again.

Turn us around.

Open our eyes.

Send us out.

We pray all of this in the name of the risen Christ,

who taught us to pray, saying:

Our Father…

Amen.

Invitation to Communion

This table is not for those who have it all figured out.

This is not a table for those who never doubted, never feared, never assumed the worst.

This is a table for Marys who come weeping. For disciples who run but do not yet understand. For people who have whispered, “They have taken…”

and are still learning how to say, “He is risen.”

Because at this table, we do not receive certainty—we receive presence. Bread that tells us God is still with us. Cup that reminds us love has already been poured out—and it has not run dry.

In a world where so much feels taken—peace, stability, freedom—this table declares: what God gives cannot be stolen.

Here, Christ meets us—not always where we expect, but always where we need.

So, come.

Come with your questions. Come with your grief. Come with your fragile hope.

Because the risen Christ is still calling our names, still breaking bread,

still reminding us:

Love does not lose. Love does not end. Love gets the last word.

 

Invitation to the Offering

In a world shaped by scarcity, we are taught to hold tight—

to protect what we have, to fear there won’t be enough.

But Easter tells a different story.

A story where life comes out of what was given away.

A story where love multiplies when it is shared.

A story where even what seemed lost is gathered up and redeemed.

So, we give—not because the world is secure,

but because God is faithful.

We give as an act of resistance

against fear, against greed, against the lie that death has the final word.

We give as a testimony:

that we believe in a God who is still bringing life out of empty places.

So let us offer our gifts, our lives, and our trust—

knowing that in God’s hands, nothing given in love is ever wasted.

 

Commissioning and Benediction

Go now into a world that will tempt you to assume the worst.

Go into places where fear speaks loudly,

where uncertainty lingers,

where it feels like something sacred has been taken.

But do not go as people of despair.

Go as those who have heard their name spoken by the risen Christ.

Go as those who know the tomb is empty—

not because nothing happened,

but because God happened.

And when you cannot see clearly,

when the mystery feels like absence,

remember:

God is still at work. Love is still rising. Hope is still alive.

So go—

to love boldly, to serve courageously, to live as witnesses to resurrection.

And may the God who brings life out of death,

the Christ who calls you by name,

and the Spirit who sustains you in every mystery

go with you, now and always.

Amen.

Holy Surprises at Sunrise

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn EasterLeave a comment

Invocation

Risen Christ,

you who meet us in the in-between,

on roads marked by uncertainty,

in moments we did not plan,

in places we did not expect,

draw near to us now.

As the light breaks over this new day,

break into our hearts again

with a hope we cannot control

and a joy we cannot contain.

Where we have given in to despair,

speak your living word.

Where fear has taken hold,

breathe your peace.

Where grief has settled deep within us,

call us again by name.

Meet us here—

not when we have it all together,

not when we have finally arrived,

but here, on the way—

and remind us

that we are not alone.

Open our eyes to your presence,

our ears to your voice,

and our hearts to your love,

that we might rise with you

to walk in newness of life.

For the dawn has come,

and still you come to us—

alive, unexpected,

and full of grace.

Amen.

Sermon

Matthew 28:1-10

Before the sun has fully risen…before certainty has returned…before the world has made sense again…two women are walking a road between grief and hope.

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary have come to a tomb carrying all the weight that comes with loving something the world has taken from you. They are not expecting resurrection. They are expecting silence. Finality. An ending.

And yet—the earth shakes, the stone rolls, and an angel speaks:

“Do not be afraid… He is not here… He has been raised… Go and tell… He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him… This is my message for you.”

It is a word meant to steady them. A word meant to give direction. A word meant to move them forward. Go to Galilee. That’s where resurrection will be.

And so, they go—afraid, yes, but also filled with great joy. Because even a trembling hope is still hope. But here is where the story surprises us. Because they don’t make it to Galilee. Somewhere on the road—before they arrive, before they figure it all out, before they get where they thought they needed to go—the Risen Christ meets them.

Not in Galilee. Not at the destination. But in the in-between. “Greetings,” he says. And suddenly the promise is no longer distant.

The hope is no longer deferred. The risen Christ is standing right in front of them. Which raises a holy, unsettling question for us this morning: What do we do with the fact that the angel said one thing…and yet, Jesus showed up somewhere else?

“You will see him in Galilee. This is my message for you,” the angel declared.

And yet, the risen Christ had his own way of arriving.

Maybe the angel wasn’t wrong. Maybe Galilee still matters. But if what this moment reveals is something deeper?

That even the messengers of God cannot map out all the places resurrection will break in. Even angels don’t get to control where new life appears. And if angels don’t know…then we certainly don’t.

Which means…hear this clearly this Easter morning: We cannot predict where Christ will show up. We cannot confine resurrection to a location. We cannot limit hope to what seems likely or reasonable.

And because of that, we can never give in to despair. Not now.

Not ever. Because despair depends on certainty.

Despair says:

“This situation is too far gone.”

“This violence will never end.”

“This division is permanent.”

“This grief will define the rest of my life.”

“This world is too broken to be redeemed.”

Despair pretends it knows the final chapter. But Easter interrupts that illusion. Because if the risen Christ can show up anywhere—on any road, in any moment, in any life—then despair loses its authority.

If the risen Christ does not even follow the directions given by angels…then there is no place left where hope cannot break in.

Not in a world at war.

Not in economies that strain and stretch families thin.

Not in communities fractured by fear and suspicion.

Not in the quiet, private griefs we carry that no one else sees.

Not even there. Especially there.

The women set out for Galilee thinking that hope was waiting for them down the road.

But they discovered that resurrection was already on the road with them. And maybe that is the word we need this morning.

We are always being told where hope is supposed to be.

“Things will get better when…”

“Peace will come if…”

“Joy will return once…”

We keep placing resurrection somewhere out ahead of us—

in Galilee.

But Easter says: Lift your eyes. Because Christ is not only waiting at the destination. Christ is meeting you in the middle.

On the road of uncertainty. On the road of grief. On the road between what has been and what will be.

“Greetings,” he says. And notice what the women do. They don’t analyze. They don’t debate. They don’t question whether this fits their expectations.

They fall at his feet. They take hold of him. They worship.

Because when resurrection meets you on the road, the only appropriate response is to cling to it. To trust it. To let it reorder what you thought you knew about what is possible.

And then Jesus says something that echoes the angel, but deepens it: “Do not be afraid… Go and tell my brothers…” Do not be afraid. Because fear and despair are close cousins.

Fear says: “We don’t know what’s coming.”

Despair says: “And whatever it is, it won’t be good.”

But resurrection says: You don’t know what’s coming—and that is precisely why you can hope. Because God is not limited to the outcomes you can imagine.

If Christ can appear where he was not expected, then new life can emerge where we have already given up looking.

If Christ can meet them on the road, then Christ can meet us here.

Here, in this fragile morning light, in this aching and beautiful world, in this moment that feels both heavy and holy.

And so, we go on. Like those women—with a strange mixture of fear and great joy.

We go on without having all the answers.

We go on without knowing exactly where resurrection will appear next.

We go on without the certainty we often crave.

But we also go on with this unshakable truth: Christ is risen. And because he is risen, hope is no longer confined.

It is loose in the world. Unpredictable. Uncontainable. Showing up where it shouldn’t, breaking in where it wasn’t planned, meeting us on roads we never expected to be holy.

So, we can never give in to despair. Not because everything is already fixed—but because resurrection refuses to stay where we put it.

Not because the world is easy—but because Christ is alive within it.

Not because we know what comes next—but because we don’t.

And somewhere—on some road you are walking even now—

the risen Christ is already drawing near. “Greetings,” he says.

Do not be afraid. Christ is risen. And he is already on the way.

 

Invitation to Communion

This is not a table for those who have it all figured out.

This is not a meal for those who know exactly where Christ will appear.

This is a table for travelers:

for those on the road between fear and hope,

for those who are still making their way to Galilee,

for those who have known grief, and yet dare to move forward.

Because the good news of Easter is this:

Christ does not wait only at the destination.

Christ meets us along the way.

So, partake.

Not because you are certain,

but because you are hungry.

Not because you have arrived,

but because Christ is already here.

Communion Prayer

Risen Christ,

we give you thanks this morning

for meeting us where we are—

not where we thought we needed to be.

You met the women on the road,

in their fear and their joy,

in their uncertainty and their hope.

And you meet us here.

In bread and cup,

in simple elements,

you come close again—

not distant, not delayed,

but present.

Pour out your Spirit upon us

and upon these gifts of bread and cup,

that they may be for us your life,

your love,

your resurrection.

And make us your body in the world—

a people who do not give in to despair,

a people who look for you

not only in the expected places,

but in every road we walk.

When we leave this table,

send us out with courage—

to trust that you are already ahead of us,

and already beside us,

and somehow, always still surprising us.

We pray in the name of the risen Christ,

who meets us and calls us forward.

Amen.

Easter Proclamation

One: When fear tells us the story is over—

Many: Resurrection is already on the move.

One: When grief convinces us all is lost—

Many: Christ meets us on the road.

One: When we do not know where hope will come from—

Many: We trust the God who surprises us.

One: When despair claims the final word—

Many: We proclaim life stronger than death.

One: Christ is not confined to where we expect—

Many: Christ is alive and already among us!

One: Christ is risen!

Many: Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Benediction

Go now into this Easter morning—

not with all the answers,

but with a living hope.

Go knowing that Christ is not confined

to where you expect to find him.

Go trusting that on every road you walk,

in every place you fear hope cannot reach,

the risen Christ is already drawing near.

So do not be afraid.

And do not give in to despair.

For Christ is risen—

not only at the destination,

but all along the way.

And wherever you go,

he will meet you there.

Amen.

The Lies We Tell About Suffering: Why This Matters Now

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Easter, Sermons Year A2 Comments

1 Peter 2:19-25

As you know, my mother has been living with excruciating pain, pain from spinal stenosis that grew so severe, that just a couple of weeks ago, it overwhelmed her body to the point that she had to be intubated.

Whenever you stand close to suffering like that, you hear things differently. For one, you start to notice how quickly people reach for explanations for the suffering.

And one of the ways good-intentioned people of faith do that, often without even realizing it, is by spiritualizing the suffering.

We say, “God must have a plan” or “everything happens for a reason” or “This is just a cross she has to bear.”

So today, I want to say this as personally and as plainly and as faithfully as I know how:

This pain my mother has been enduring is not God’s will. Her suffering is not something God has ordained. There is nothing holy about the agony that takes her breath away. There is nothing sacred about a body pushed to its limits by disease.

God is not the author of this pain. But also hear me say this: neither do I believe God is detached from it. My faith tells me that God suffers and grieves with my mother and with her family. As much as I love my mother, I believe God loves her more. That means that God longs for her healing and comfort, even more than I do.

One of the reasons people spiritualize pain is because they also spiritualize relief from pain.

When they narrowly avoid an accident, they say, “God was with me.” When the test results come back clear, they say, “God protected me.” Anytime things go their way, they are quick to assume divine favor.

And while their words may come from a deep place of gratitude, they carry a dangerous implication. Because if God gets the credit for our protection, then what do we say about those who were not protected?

If God is the reason one person survives, what does that say about God for the one who does not? Without meaning to, we begin to build a theology where God is selectively or arbitrarily present: showing up for some, absent for others; protecting some, abandoning others; healing some, afflicting others.

And that is not the God revealed in Jesus. The God of Jesus does not stand at a distance, pulling strings or pushing buttons, deciding who suffers and who doesn’t. The God we meet in Jesus enters into suffering, weeps at the bedside, stands alongside the broken, and refuses to let pain have the final word. The God of Jesus is always a healer.

Another reason we spiritualize suffering comes from misinterpreting scripture, like this morning’s epistle lesson.

The letter we call “First Peter” was written to people who knew what it meant to suffer, to people navigating systems that did not value their lives, to people learning how to hold onto hope when the world around them felt hostile, uncertain, and unjust.

And into that reality comes this word: “if you endure when you do good and suffer for it, this is a commendable thing before God.”

Here the text is talking about a completely different type of suffering than what my mother and some of us are enduring.

Jesus was talking about this kind of suffering when he called people “to deny themselves and take up their cross” (Matthew 16:24).

This is where a dangerous confusion has crept into the life of the church. People have started calling burdens that Jesus never asked anyone to carry, “the cross.”  Diabetes: “it’s the cross I bear.” Arthritis: “it’s the cross I carry.”

But hear this: heart disease, cancer, auto-immune disease, spinal stenosis, COPD: they are not crosses. They are not divine assignments. They are part of a broken world, a world that God so loves that God is always moving toward its healing.

And when we call sickness “the cross we bear,” we do more harm than we realize. We justify pain that needs care, treatment, and compassion. And we excuse systems that deny people the resources they need to live.

So, hear me again: God does not desire disease. God does not will sickness. God is not glorified when bodies break down. And it is not commendable to God when people are denied healthcare in the richest nation on earth.

So, if sickness is not the cross Jesus asks us to carry, then what is?

The cross is the suffering that comes from a faithful life. The cross is what happens when we stand up in a world organized around injustice and violence and say: “This is not right!” The cross is what happens when we refuse to go along with systems that harm, exploit, and destroy. The cross is what happens when love refuses to stay quiet.

This is the kind of suffering 1 Peter is talking about: “Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps” (verse 21).

And what were those steps?

Jesus didn’t suffer because he was passing out free tickets for people go to heaven when they die.

Jesus suffered because: He told the truth in a world built on lies; He stood with the poor in a system that depended on their exploitation; He practiced nonviolence in a culture addicted to domination; He challenged both religious and political leaders when they used their power to harm rather than to heal.

And then the text says: “When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten” (verse 23).

That sounds like weakness, but it’s far from it. It’s disciplined, courageous, unyielding love. It’s moral defiance. It’s the refusal to become what you oppose.

And church, that is the way we are called to live right now. Because we are living in a moment where we are being lied to about human suffering.

There are voices right now telling us to accept rising costs as a necessary burden, to see it as patriotic sacrifice during a time of war. But we must clear: that’s not the cost of following Christ. That’s the cost of poor, corrupt, immoral, egotistical decisions made by dishonest people in power who rarely bear the consequences themselves.

The call of Jesus is to reject the lies and to tell truth—

To say that war, no matter how it is justified, is a failure to obey the greatest commandment love one another as we love ourselves and a direct contradiction of God’s will for the world

 To say that peace is not naïve, but it’s the only path that reflects the heart of God.

And to say that we will not stay silent when violence is blessed with religious language or injustice is wrapped in patriotic rhetoric.

         The call of Jesus is to reject all the lies we are told about suffering.

Today, we are told that some lives are expendable in the pursuit of security or power. We are told that environmental destruction is simply the cost of doing business. We are told the lie that poverty is inevitable. And if we are not careful, we will begin to accept these things as truth, as normal, maybe even necessary.

But the gospel, the gospel will not let us do that: insisting that no child, anywhere, should be sacrificed for the ambitions of empire; insisting that healthcare is not a privilege but a human right; insisting that the earth is not a commodity, but part of our very being; insisting that the poor are not a problem to be managed but beloved members of our human family.

And when we begin to live into that truth, when we speak it, when we organize around it, when we embody it, we will face opposition, and we will inevitably suffer. We will be dismissed. We will be labeled unrealistic. We will be pushed to the margins.

That’s the cross of Jesus. That’s the cross we carry. It’s not the suffering imposed on us by a broken system. It’s the suffering that comes when we refuse to cooperate with it. It’s the pain we endure understanding that Jesus did not go to the cross because he was sick. He went to the cross because he confronted everything that makes us sick.

He exposed the lies of empire. He disrupted systems of exploitation.
He proclaimed good news to the poor and release to the captives. And the powers could not tolerate that kind of love. So, they crucified him.

And 1 Peter reminds us: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sin, we might live for righteousness” (verse 24). Do you hear that? Not just believe in righteousness. But to live for it, to embody it.

It’s the kind of righteousness that looks like communities organizing for accessible healthcare. It looks like neighbors showing up for one another when systems fail. It looks like people of faith standing in the public square, refusing to let policies that harm the vulnerable go unchallenged. It looks like protecting the earth, not just in word, but in action. It looks like building a world where nobody is disposable.

 And that kind of life will always come with a cost. But here’s the good news:

The suffering that comes from love, from justice, from truth, is never wasted. Because “by his wounds we have been healed.”

The good news of Easter is that the cross was not the end of the story. It was the exposure of everything that is wrong with the world and the beginning of God making it right. It was God taking the very worst of humanity and transforming it.

And if we are to live as Easter people, then we must answer the call to be people who refuse to waste the wounds of this world, to be people who take what is meant for harm and turn it into healing:

rejecting disease as God’s will and fighting for healing;

rejecting poverty as inevitable and working for justice;

 rejecting environmental destruction as the cost of progress, and protecting the creation as sacred;

and rejecting war as necessary and laboring for peace.

And when the cost comes, and it will, we carry it not as a burden of despair, but as a witness:

a witness that another world is possible;

a witness that love is stronger than violence;

a witness that truth is stronger than lies.

Our text ends with this promise: “You were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls” verse 25).

Which means we do not belong to the systems that harm us. We do not belong to empire.

We belong to a Shepherd who walks with us, who guides us, who sustains us, even in the face of suffering. And more than that, we belong to a God who is already bringing resurrection out of crucifixion.

So, let’s not be afraid of the cost and boldly carry the cross that love requires.

Let’s speak the truth that justice demands.

Let’s live the life that reflects the heart of God.

And let’s trust that the wounds of this world will not be wasted.

Because in the hands of God, even suffering becomes a seed. And resurrection is already breaking through. Amen.

Is It Too Late?

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Lent, Sermons Year ALeave a comment

John 11:1-44

For the past several weeks we have been returning to a simple but transforming truth: God loves us. Not with a distant love. Not with a conditional love. But a with love that knows our names. A love that sees us and sees all of us. A love that seeks us out even when we feel lost. A love that bends down to the ground and touches the places where we are the most wounded. A love that heals, repairs, restores, and resurrects. And we have talked about how the knowledge of that love has the power to change the world.

However, the season of Lent is a season for honesty, and if we are to be honest, there are moments in life when that truth becomes difficult to trust.

Because sometimes, the circumstances of the world force us to ask a troubling question, a question many people are asking right now: Is it too late? Have we passed the point of no return? Has the train left the station?

Have we reached the point when it is too late for love to truly make a difference in this broken world? Is it too late for love to turn it around?

That question hangs quietly beneath the surface of today’s story in the gospel of John. Mary and Martha send word to Jesus saying: “Lord, the one you love is ill.” Notice the words. They don’t just say “Lazarus is sick.” They say: “The one you love is sick.” They are reminding Jesus of the relationship. Of the bond. Of the love.

And the gospel writer confirms the belovedness: “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.”

Yet, the next thing we read feels deeply unsettling. Instead of going immediately to Bethany…Jesus is late.

What in the world? I will never forget my first and my last time being late walking into my 8am college chemistry class. I slowly opened the door and saw the professor at the chalk board with his back to the class. So, thinking I might sneak to my desk unnoticed, I walked as quietly, but as fast as I could. But before I could sit down, with his back still to the class, I heard the professor say with a condescending tone, “Good morning, Banks. Better never than late.”

Since then, I’ve tried my best, to never be late for anything.

Jesus loves Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, but his love shows up late. By the time he arrives, Lazarus has been dead four days. And when Martha meets Jesus out on the road, she says the words many grieving people have whispered across the centuries:

“Lord, if only you had been here…” In other words, “It’s too late now, Jesus.”

Jesus, I am afraid the ship has sailed. The window is closed. Lazarus is dead and buried.

Right now, the world is asking some difficult questions. As violence spreads across the Middle East and bombs fall between nations locked in war, as the strait of Hormuz is on fire, many people are asking: Is it too late for peace?

When retaliation follows retaliation, when anger hardens into hatred, when the machinery of World War III is already moving, is it too late for reconciliation?

Others are asking a different question closer to home.

Is it too late to prevent an economic recession? When the cost of gas and food skyrockets…when programs for the poor are slashed—is it too late to do anything about people dying of poverty in the richest nation in the world?

Is it too late for democracy? When our leaders lie…when fair elections and the free press are constantly attacked…when trust in institutions erodes—is it too late to repair what has been broken?

Is it too late for the planet? When science is denied…when environmental protections are lifted…when our love for money is greater than our live for the earth—is it too late to stop or even slow down the doomsday clock?

Still, others are asking an even older question that has echoed through the American story. Is it too late for the dream, the dream that this nation might yet live into the promise spoken in its founding documents: liberty, justice, dignity for every human being. Is it too late for that dream?

And on a deeply personal level, many people quietly carry their own version of the question. Is it too late for the one who has made terrible mistakes? The one who believes their past defines them. The one who feels buried beneath regret. Is it too late for the person facing illness? For the one sitting beside a hospital bed? For the one staring into the mystery of death? Is it too late?

When Jesus arrives in Bethany, the house is filled with mourners. Mary falls at his feet. The crowd is weeping. And in the middle of all that sorrow the gospel gives us the shortest verse in all of scripture: “Jesus wept.”

Think about that. The one who is about to raise Lazarus from the dead…stops to weep. Because the love of God does not stand outside our suffering offering explanations. The love of God mysteriously enters our suffering. God stands beside the tombs of life with tears in divine eyes.

So, we stand beside the tombs of this world—a graveside, a hospital bed, a broken community, a wounded nation, a world at war, the good news is that God is already there, weeping with us.

Jesus finally arrives at Lazarus’ tomb. A stone seals the entrance. The kind of stone that declares the situation final. But Jesus says: “Remove the stone.”

Martha protests: “Lord… there will be a stench.” In other words: It’s too late now, Jesus. It’s four days too late. Hope is too late. Life is too late. Love is too late.

The mourners know that the story is over. But Jesus interrupts their certainty. And the stone is rolled away, and Jesus calls into the darkness with a voice that echoes across the centuries: “Lazarus, come out!”

And suddenly the question that seemed so certain, “Is it too late?” is answered by the impossible. The man who was dead four days walks out of the tomb alive. Still wrapped in burial cloths. Still bound by the garments of death.

Then, Jesus turns to the community and says something we often overlook in this great story: “Unbind him and let him go.”

Resurrection does not end with the miracle of life. It continues with the work of the community. Lazarus is alive. But someone must step up and help remove the grave cloths. And this, is what may be the heart of this story. It’s not just about Jesus bringing his beloved back to life. It’s about the community, people like you and me, doing the work of unbinding. It’s about doing the liberating work of removing grave cloths.

A community organizer once told a story about a young man in his red-lined neighborhood who had grown up surrounded by poverty. Underfunded schools. Limited opportunity. A justice system that seemed far more interested in punishment than restoration. By the time he was twenty-three he had already spent years cycling in and out of jail.

One day the organizer sat with him and asked a simple question: “What do you think your life could look like if things were different?”

The young man sat quietly for a moment. Then, he said something heartbreaking: “You ask me about my life? Honestly, I feel like I’ve been dead and buried for years.”

He felt buried under expectations. Buried under mistakes. Buried under systems that had already decided who he was supposed to be.

But the organizer and others in the community refused to accept that burial.

They mentored him. Helped him find work. Supported him as he rebuilt his life. And slowly he began to emerge from the tomb others had built around him.

The organizer later said something that echoes today’s gospel story. He said: “He wasn’t dead. He was just wrapped in grave cloths.”

Our world is filled with people wrapped in grave cloths: cloths of poverty; cloths of racism; cloths of bigotry; cloths of violence; cloths of despair.

And every time we challenge injustice…every time we refuse to accept war as inevitable…every time we chip away at a system that oppresses some while rewarding others…every time we restore dignity to those the world has buried, we are helping to unbind Lazarus. We are removing burial cloths and participating in resurrection.

So, when the world asks its heavy question, “Is it too late?” The gospel answers with a resounding: “It’s never too late!”

It’s never too late for peace.

It’s never too late for mercy.

It’s never too late for freedom.

It’s never too late for the democracy and for the dream of liberty and justice for all.

It is never too late for anyone who believes their life is beyond redemption.

Because the love of God does not abandon the world to its tombs. The love of God stands at the entrance of every sealed place and calls out with resurrection power: “Come out.” And the community, that’s you and me, is called by that same voice to participate in the work of reparation and liberation.

And we have heard that voice before.

We heard it when Sarah laughed—laughed because she thought it was too late—too late for joy, too late for promise, too late for life—and still, God said, “Not yet.”

We heard it when Abraham looked at his years and wondered if the promise had passed him by, and God said, “Not yet.”

We heard it when Moses tried to talk his way out of his calling: “Send someone else… I’m not enough… I’m too late…” and God said, “Not yet.”

We heard it in Hannah’s weeping, in Ruth’s wandering, in Elizabeth’s waiting—stories that felt finished, lives that felt settled, hope that felt buried—and still, God said, “Not yet.”

We heard it in Peter, who thought failure was final—and in Mary Magdalene, standing at a tomb, certain that death had won—and even there… especially there…God said, “Not yet.”

And if God has said it before, if God has spoken into barren places, into broken lives, into sealed tombs, then maybe, just maybe, God is still saying it now.

To a world at war, to a people weary of injustice, to a life that feels buried under regret: “Not yet.”

And when that voice speaks, through me and through you, through us collectively as the body of Christ in this world—stones move, grave cloths loosen, and hope breathes again.

Because in the Kin-dom of God…love is never too late.

Amen.

Seeing Clearly in a Violent World

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Lent, Sermons Year A1 Comment

John 9:1-41

Our gospel lesson today speaks about a kind of blindness that has nothing to do with our eyes but has everything to do with how we see God.

Jesus and his disciples encounter a man who has been blind from birth. He sits beside the road like so many people society has learned not to see. He is not asked his name. He is not asked his story. Instead, he becomes a theological puzzle. The disciples look at him and ask a question that has echoed through centuries of religion: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

Do you hear the assumption beneath that question?

If something is wrong, someone must be to blame.
If someone is suffering, God must be punishing them.
If tragedy occurs, it must somehow be deserved.

The disciples are not asking how to help the man, how to love the man. They are asking how to explain him. And that, my friends, is one of the oldest forms of spiritual blindness.

Because when we cannot see God clearly, we begin to see one others through the lens of judgment. We categorize people. We label. We decide who is worthy and who is not. We divide the world into the righteous and the sinners, the blessed and the cursed, those who matter, and those we can write off.

But Jesus refuses the premise of their question. He says, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned.”

In other words: You’re asking the wrong question!

The blindness in this story is not just in the eyes of the man sitting beside the road. The deeper blindness is in the religious imagination that believes God would punish a child before he was even born.

The truth is: that’s exactly how many of us were taught to see God.

The truth is: that’s exactly how some of us were taught to see God, a God who created a heaven for some and hell for others—a divine sorting system separating the saved from the damned. We were also told God knows all, past, present, and future. That means God created some people, all the while knowing, they would be tortured in hell for all of eternity.

And somewhere along the way, the fear of God instead of the love of God, became the engine of our faith.

Today, we are grateful to have Brian Recker with us, whose work explores how that fear has shaped Christian belief and practice for generations. And how when fear shapes our theology, it inevitably shapes our ethics.

Because if God condemns, we learn to condemn. If God divides humanity into insiders and outsiders, we feel justified doing the same. If God punishes people, then punishment itself begins to look holy. And if God punishes people eternally, then taking the life of another can start to look holy too.

Over time, that vision of God begins to justify things we might otherwise resist.

It rationalized stealing this land we enjoy.

It justified slavery.
It defended segregation.
It condemns LGBTQ people as beyond God’s love.

And it whispers that violence, war, and domination are acceptable tools in the hands of those who believe they are on God’s side.

Fear does not just distort our picture of God. It distorts how we see one other. And it doesn’t save us from hell. It unleashes hell on earth.

The good news is that Jesus reveals a very different vision of God. He doesn’t argue theology with the disciples. He doesn’t stand above them looking down on them, violently lashing out at them.

He bends down to the ground. He kneels in the dirt. He spits in the dust and makes mud that he places on the man’s eyes, telling him to go wash in the Pool of Siloam.

It’s a strange miracle of mud, spit, and dust. But it’s the same dust from which the book of Genesis says humanity was first formed. It’s almost as if Jesus is re-creating this man’s sight from the very soil of creation itself.

And when the man washes, suddenly he can see. But here’s the irony: the man who had been blind can now see clearly; but the religious authorities, those who believe they understand God the best, cannot.

They interrogate the man. They question his parents. They debate whether the miracle could possibly have happened. And finally, when the healed man refuses to abandon the truth of what he has experienced, they throw him out. Because when love disrupts a theology built on fear, the system is threatened.

Sometimes it’s easier to deny a miracle than to change our picture of God.

During my time in New Orleans planting a new expression of church, a movement that we called, “Just Love Your Neighbor,” I also served as an “as needed” or “PRN” hospice chaplain, like I do now.

I had a Jewish patient who had been married to a Christian for over 50 years.

After his death, his wife asked me to preach his funeral service. When I asked why she didn’t want to ask her pastor, she responded: “I am afraid that he might insinuate my husband is in Hell because he is not a Christian, and I know you will not do that.”

After the funeral, she started participating in our new movement, giving her time and her dollars, while remaining a member of her church.

Over time, she opened up about the frustration that was leading her to reject the things that she was being taught in her church.

One day, she said something like: “I was always taught that God loved me. But I was also taught that if I didn’t believe the right things, particularly about Jesus, God would send me to hell forever. But I think I am beginning to realize: that’s not love; that’s a threat.”

She paused for a moment and then said quietly, “I don’t think I’ve ever actually met the God Jesus talked about.”

That widow was not rejecting her church. She was rejecting her church’s distorted image of God. She was rejecting a God who looked suspiciously like our fears.

And she’s not alone.

There are countless people, here in this city, who are walking away from church, not because they’ve rejected the love of God, but because they cannot reconcile that love with the threat of eternal punishment.

Sometimes, the people some say have lost their faith, or doubt their faith, are actually the ones who see God the most clearly.

And the ones who are the most certain, those who say they see clearly, the ones we hear saying “The Bible is clear…,” are actually the ones who are the most blind.

And this blindness doesn’t only affect individual lives. But it shapes the entire world.

Right now, we are witnessing what happens when this blindness goes unchallenged. Missiles continue to cross the skies of the Middle East, and this week we learned that one of them, fired by our own country, struck a school in Iran, killing children as they sat in their classroom. Children at their desks. Children with books open in front of them. Children who woke up that morning expecting an ordinary day at school and instead became casualties of war.

No child should ever have to die because adults could not find another way.

If we can hear that story and not feel something break inside us, then perhaps the blindness Jesus speaks about has reached deeper into our hearts than we realize.

Because no matter which flag flies over the missile launcher, the God Jesus revealed is not the author of bombs that fall on children.

And yet, the language of righteousness still fills the air.

Every nation says God is on their side.
Every government says the violence is necessary.
Every military claims the destruction is justified.

But when we look through the eyes of Jesus, we begin to see something different.

We see children in classrooms who never chose this war.

We see parents praying the same desperate prayer on every side of every border: “O God, let my child live!”

And if we can see that, if we truly allow ourselves to see it, then we must ask an uncomfortable question: How did a faith centered on the Prince of Peace become so comfortable blessing violence?

Part of the answer is in the way we imagine God. For when we believe in a God who punishes, violence begins to look like divine justice.

But when we see the God revealed in Jesus, the God who heals instead of harms, who forgives instead of retaliates, who tells us to love even our enemies, then war begins to look less like righteousness and more like the tragic consequence of humanity still struggling to see clearly.

At the end of the story, Jesus finds the man who has been cast out by the religious authorities. And the man does something remarkable. He believes. Not in a doctrine. Not in a system. But in the love of the one who healed him. He trusts the love he encountered. And that is the heart of this story.

The miracle is not simply that a blind man gains sight. The deeper miracle is that Jesus reveals what God actually looks like.

A God who does not stand far away diagnosing sin. But a God who kneels in the dust beside human suffering. A God who touches our wounded places without hesitation. A God who sees us completely, and loves us anyway, unconditionally, unreservedly, and does all that God can do to recreate, restore, and resurrect.

When we begin to see God that way, something inside us changes. Shame begins to loosen its grip. Hatred begins to lose its power. The walls between “us” and “them” begin to crumble. And the people we once feared begin to look like neighbors again.

Near the end of the story, Jesus says something haunting: “I came into this world so that those who do not see may see, and those who think they see may become blind.”—Reminding us that the greatest spiritual danger is not doubt. It is certainty. Especially certainty about a God who violently condemns anyone before they were born.

But the good news of the gospel is that Jesus is still opening eyes, still kneeling in the dirt of our world, still touching wounded lives, and still inviting us to wash away the old stories that told us God was against us.

And when our eyes finally open, we may discover something astonishing. The God we feared was never really there. And the God who is there has been loving us all along.

Later today, Brian will help us explore what it means to move beyond a faith driven by fear of hell toward a spirituality rooted in love. And that journey, from fear to love, is exactly the journey this gospel story invites us to take.

The man healed by Jesus ends this story with a simple testimony: “One thing I do know: I was blind, but now I see.”

That may be the most honest confession any of us can make. Because faith is not about having every answer. It’s about learning to see. Seeing the love that is God more clearly. Seeing our neighbors more compassionately. Seeing our enemies more humanly. And seeing the world as Jesus sees it: a world filled with beloved people; a world worth healing; a world where love, not fear, has the final word.

And when we finally see that clearly enough, we may find ourselves saying with the man in the story: “One thing I do know, I was blind, but now I see!”

Amen.

Loved People Love

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Lent, Sermons Year ALeave a comment

John 4:5-42

Jesus is tired.

 Now, think about that for a minute.

It’s only chapter four.

He’s just getting started.

He’s got a long way to go.

This one whom John affirms was in the beginning with God and was God, the one through whom all things came into being, is not just tired. Verse 6 reads he is “tired out.”

And it’s not because he lost an hour of sleep setting his clock forward the night before.

This is what happens when you are on a mission to make the world more inclusive, more equitable, more just for all people.

This is what happens to a body and soul when you are working to dismantle the violent systems in place that divide, oppress, and marginalize and when you challenge religious structures that bless those systems.

You get tired out.

So, if you are exhausted today, and you don’t think it’s because you lost an hour of sleep last night: congratulations. It probably means that you are following Jesus.

Jesus does what we may feel like doing today. He sits down. He takes a load off. He catches his breath at a well near Synchar, an historic watering hole the old-timers called “Jacob’s well.” It’s noon. The disciples have gone off to find some lunch. And Jesus, the Word made flesh, needs a drink.

So, if you feel like you need a drink today, again: congratulations! It probably means you are following Jesus.

Then, here she comes. A Samaritan woman, all alone. Because she comes at noon—when most came early in the morning or will come later in the evening when it is cooler—we might imagine she wanted to be alone. She was trying to avoid running into someone she knew.

 She’s carrying a jar. But she is also carrying something else. She may be carrying communal hostility. She’s certainly carrying some emotional baggage, some personal heartbreak, some shame, and maybe some spiritual trauma.

Jesus sees this woman and says, “Give me a drink.”

Wait a minute.

 Everyone knows Jews and Samaritans do not eat or drink together. And every good Rabbi knows they should never ask “those people” for favors.

So, what is really going on here?

Notice, that before Jesus addresses her shame, her complicated relationship history, Jesus asks her for water.

         This is interesting as Lent has a way of making us think that the first thing God asks from us is repentance. We need to try harder, give something up, change something, fix ourselves.

         But look carefully at this story. Jesus knows the order of John 3:16 and leads with love. He doesn’t begin with condemnation. He begins with conversation. He doesn’t say, “Explain yourself!” He says, “I’m thirsty.”

         Jesus makes himself vulnerable in her presence. He asks something of her but it is not judgment. He asks her for a water. And in doing so, he dignifies her. He is essentially saying: “I am willing to receive life—from you.”

This is how divine love works. God does not stand above us at a distance, evaluating us. God sits down at the well, identifies with our thirst, and speaks our language.

And when Jesus eventually names her five husbands and the man she is currently in a relationship with, it is not to shame her. It is to show her: “I see you. I see all of you. And I am still here.”

This is what I believe God wants us hear clearly today: We are fully known. And we are still deeply loved. Not our cleaned-up versions. Not our Sunday-morning version. The real me and the real you. All that we are— is loved.

Lent is not a forty-day wilderness journey to earn that love. Lent is the journey of waking up to that love.

         It is then that Jesus initiates a conversation that will shock his disciples as it crosses three lines at once: gender, religion, and ethnicity: “If you knew the gift of God… you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

         Notice the word “gift.” It’s a big word. Jesus is not talking about something to earn, to work for, or to purify oneself for. He’s talking about a gift, the gift of living water.

Living water in the ancient world meant fresh, flowing, moving water. Not stagnant water. Not trapped water. Jesus is talking about water that renews itself and says that this is what it is like to have the gift of God’s love inside us. It’s not a trickle. It’s not rationed. And it’s not withheld until we get our lives together. God’s love for us is spring welling up to eternal life.

         The truth is: although we may be exhausted today because we are following the way of Jesus in a world that is broken, some of our exhaustion may be a result of trying to earn water that is already flowing. We are trying to prove ourselves worthy of love that has already been given.

And here’s the turning point of the story: the woman leaves her water jar. Think about that. The jar is the whole reason she came!

The very thing she carried to survive… she leaves behind.

Because when you finally know you are loved, you don’t have to hold your jar so tightly anymore.

Once we know we are loved, truly loved, something shifts inside of us. We stop grasping. We stop defending. We stop pretending. And we become free to love others.

She runs back to the city, to the very people who may have whispered about her, to the people she was trying to avoid by going to the well in the heat of the day and says: “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done.”

Notice what she does not say. She what she does not say. “Come see someone who shamed me.” “Come see someone who condemned me.” She essentially says: I was seen, all of me… and I was loved still.

And because she has tasted living water, she suddenly becomes a conduit of it. The woman once isolated becomes an evangelist. The outsider becomes the bridge. The thirsty one becomes the well.

This is what happens when we know we are loved. We become free to love like Jesus. Loved people love people.

Not because we are trying to impress God.
Not because we are afraid of perishing.
But because love has filled our cups until they are running over.

Psychologists sometimes call this “secure attachment.” It’s the idea that when people feel deeply accepted, it creates the emotional safety needed to love others freely.

And long before psychologists ever studied this, the early Christians understood it intuitively.

The writer of 1 John put it simply: “We love because God first loved us.” (1 John 4:19).

Because when people finally know—deep in their bones—that they are loved, something changes. Fear loosens its grip. Defenses soften. The jars we cling to so tightly no longer feel necessary.

And suddenly, we become free to do what Jesus calls us to do:
to love one another, as he loves us.

Lent is a season of returning to the well. Lent invites us to sit down, to rest, to admit that we are tired-out. Lent invites us to bring our thirst—for forgiveness, for purpose, for meaning. Lent invites us to stop hiding, to let ourselves be known, and to be loved, fully, unconditionally, unreservedly. To receive water gushing up to eternal life.

The good news is that we do not need to dig deep for this water. The good news is that Christ is already sitting here.

And here’s the deeper layer: Jesus is also thirsty. Later in John’s Gospel, hanging on the cross, Jesus will say, “I thirst.” The God who offers living water is not detached from human suffering. God shares it.

Which means our thirst does not disqualify us. But it is the very place where grace meets us.

And in a week when bombs are falling in Iran and across the Middle East, when more lives are being lost to the hell of war, when human beings are left to drown in the sea after their ship was torpedoed, as leaders gloat, we are reminded just how thirsty this world really is— thirsty for peace, for mercy, thirsty for some humanity, for the courage to choose love over violence.

         You have heard me surmise that much of the church is broken today, and as a result, our nation is broken, because many in the church have rejected the call to follow the way of love, mercy, and grace Jesus modeled and embodied.

But maybe it is not so much a refusal to follow as it is a refusal to sit down at the well and receive that love, mercy, and grace.

When we are unsure of our own belovedness, we cling to things like status, tribe, fear, and certainty. We avoid Samaritans. We protect our jars.

But when we know, when we deeply know that we are loved—We cross lines. We listen longer. We empathize. We risk vulnerability. We speak truth without judgment. We tell our stories without shame.

Because the simple truth is: loved people love. And a congregation that knows it is loved becomes a well in a thirsty world. A church that knows it is loved does not hoard grace, it shares it freely will all, and all means all.

         And notice what happens.

The townspeople in our story eventually say: “We know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”

Now think about that for a moment. The first group in John’s Gospel to make such a universal confession is not Jewish disciples. It is Samaritans.

The outsiders are the first recognize the wideness of God’s love. Because when you have been thirsty, you recognize living water when you see it.

This Lent, the invitation is simple:

Come and see.
Come thirsty.
Come tired out.
Come complicated.

Because the good news is this: Christ is already sitting at the well, waiting. And when you sit down beside him, you will discover something life-changing:

You are understood. Because he is tired too. He shares your thirst.

You are known. Because he sees all of you.
And you are loved still.
And that love is living water within you.

So, drink deeply.

And then leave your jar behind,

 and go love like Jesus.

Because the world is thirsty.

Amen.

The Verse We Turned Upside Down: Recovering the Promise at the Heart of John 3:16

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Lent, Sermons Year ALeave a comment
John 3:16 Christian T-shirt Design

John 3:1-17

John 3:16 was the very first verse many of us memorized as a child, and it’s a verse that has stuck with us. We can hardly watch a ball game without seeing it on posterboard.  We see it on billboards.  And we see it on tracts lying around in public restrooms.

 For some of us, seeing this simple verse reminds us of God’s universal and unconditional love. We receive peace, affirmation, and hope. And yet, for others, including me, just the words “John-three-sixteen” triggers a little religious trauma.

I have suggested that the reason that things seem so upside down in the world these days is because John 3:16 has been turned upside down. Instead of leading with “For God so loved the world,” churches lead with “you are going to perish.” And God’s love for the world becomes a footnote instead of the title of the story. Consequently, some of us have been conditioned, not to hear John 3:16 as love, but as a divine threat or fateful ultimatum with eternal consequences.

Instead of announcing love, churches announce fear.
Instead of proclaiming grace, churches proclaim judgment.
Instead of good news, churches specialize in spiritual anxiety.

One of my favorite preachers, Rev. Karoline Lewis writes: “John 3:16 is used as an assertion of exclusion rather than one of God’s abundant love. A verse that sends people to hell rather than voices God’s extravagant grace.”

Detached from its context, it’s used to draw hard lines between “us” and “them,” and “the saved” and “the lost.” John 3:16 is used to justify a vision of salvation that is far more invested in sorting souls than in loving the world.

But when we put John 3:16 in its context, we see that there’s a seventeenth verse.

  “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” Not to condemn. Not to threaten. Not to sort out. Not to shame. But to save.

Here’s where we need to take a moment to address this loaded word, “save.”

Because when many of us hear the word “save,” we hear: “rescue from hell after we die” or “spiritual fire insurance.”

But that’s not how John uses the word. Salvation is not primarily about where we go when we die, but about how we live right now.

To be saved means to be made whole.

To be saved means peace, knowing you are loved.

To be saved means to step out of fear and into trust.

To be saved means to move from despair into hope, from darkness into light.

To be saved means to experience life, fully, and abundantly.

And when John speaks of “perishing,” he is not describing God actively destroying people, but the tragic reality of refusing the nonviolent, abundant life God offers. In a world of war and violence, where people are dying in conflicts like the recent military action between our country and Iran, it’s important to understand that John’s word ‘perish’ is not about divine retribution but about the real human cost of turning away from life-giving peace and love.

And it’s important to remember that eternal life in John’s gospel is not some future reward, but it’s a present participation in the life of God. It’s not about God helping us to escape the world, but about us working with God to heal the world, to make the world more peaceful, equitable and just.

And if salvation means wholeness, peace, and liberation from fear and shame, and if eternal life sounds like God’s active participation in the world, then suddenly John 3:16 begins to sound like good news and less like spiritual trauma.

Some of us, including me, were taught that God’s love came with a catch— that one wrong belief, one wrong doubt, one wrong question, one wrong action or thought, combined with one wrong prayer asking for forgiveness, could be damning.

Some of us were told that our sexuality, our identity, our mental health, our honest wrestling with questions, disqualified us from God’s love. We were taught to fear hell after death more than to trust love in life.

After our recent baptismal service, as I was driving Christopher Lilley home, Chris expressed his desire to be baptized. When I asked if he’d ever been baptized, he told me that he had (I believe he said “more than once”), but he had been told so often that he was going to hell because of who he was, he just felt like he needed some more assurance that he was going to be okay.

Parked in front of his apartment, before he got out of my car, I did my best to assure him that God’s love for him was unconditional. I said a little prayer that he would know deep in his bones that there was nothing in heaven or on earth, no person, no power, not even death could ever separate him from the love of God. I prayed that he would somehow know the height, breadth, depth, and length of God’s love for him.

Chris’ response was classic Chris. I would like to say there were tears and a great big hug, a verbal acknowledgment from Chris that he was unconditionally loved, blessed, and affirmed by God. But Chris just smiled, giggled the way Chris did, and said, “Okay then. Do you think you could give me a ride to church this Wednesday?”

The truth is: when “God so loves the world” becomes conditional, it ceases to be about love and becomes all about control. And control masquerading as gospel, doesn’t save anyone. It wounds people, and it wounds people deeply.

So, before we can turn John 3:16 right-side up for the world, we may need to first turn it right-side up for ourselves.

Because we cannot lead with love if we have never accepted it

And this is where the season of Lent meets us.

Lent has often been preached as forty days of intensified guilt, forty days of reflecting on how broken and sinful we are. But what if Lent is not a season of self-loathing, but a season of returning to our true origin? What if, to use the language of Jesus in his conversation with Nicodemus, Lent is a season of being “born from above?”

What if repentance this Lent is not confessing how sinful we are, but it’s confessing how loved we are, and how resistant we are to being loved, fully, unconditionally? What if Lent is a season of accepting that we were born in love, from love, for love?

But hear this clearly in this season of Lent: if trusting in God’s universal, unconditional, and never-ending love feels hard for you right now, that does not mean you are faithless. It may just mean you were hurt, perhaps even in God’s name. And it may take some time for you to accept God’s love. The good news is that the God who meets us in the wilderness does not rush our healing. Love is patient and long suffering. And love will not leave us just because we are struggling to trust it.

Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. He’s curious, but he’s cautious. He’s religious leader fluent in certainty, and he has some questions for Jesus. And how does Jesus answer?

“You must be born again.”

No, Jesus never said that. Jesus said, “you must be born from above.” Sometimes the language of being ‘born again’ sounds as if it’s been shaped more by fear than by love. You could say it sounds more like “being born from below” instead of “being born from above.”

And we know what being “born from below” sounds like, don’t we?
It sounds like this: You are depraved. You are defective. You are suspect. You are one wrong belief away from eternal fire.

But Jesus says we must be “born from above.” And that sounds like this: You are loved well before you loved. You are loved before you believe correctly. You are loved before you get your life together. You are loved because God is love.

Being “born from above” has nothing to do with accepting the right doctrine or saying the right prayer. It’s simply allowing love, not fear, to name us, to identify us, and to call and commission us.

Jesus says we must be born from above, because we cannot share the good news that “God so loved the world” if we secretly believe God barely tolerates us.

We cannot love our neighbor as our self, if we believe our self is despised.

We cannot lead with love if our inner life is still afraid of condemnation.

Some of the most judgmental forms of Christianity today are not rooted in conviction, but are rooted in unhealed shame. People terrified of their own damnation often become the loudest proclaimers of someone else’s. Because when we are afraid for ourselves, it becomes easier to focus on the fear of others. And more difficult to see others as beloved.

To know we are loved is so important that “For God so loved the world” in John’s gospel is not a theory for salvation. It is embodied.

God loves Nicodemus, who comes at night because faith feels risky in the daylight.

God loves a Samaritan woman with a complicated story.

God loves a man born blind.

God loves a paralyzed man waiting by a pool.

God loves a woman nearly stoned by men certain of their righteousness.

God loves Lazarus, four days dead.

God loves disciples who argue about power while he kneels to wash their feet.

God loves friends who fall asleep when he asks them to stay awake.

God loves Peter, who will deny him over and over.

God loves Thomas, who cannot believe without touching the wounds.

God loves people who doubt.

God loves people who fail.

God loves people who hide.

God loves people who are afraid.

God loves the ones the system ignores.

God loves the ones religion shames.

God loves the ones the empire crucifies.

And (and this is a big “and”), “God loves the world” means God loves a fragmented world, a doubting world, even a world that turns the gospel upside down, using faith as a weapon, blessing bombs, mocking mercy, demonizing empathy, and crucifying love.

John 3:16 has been turned upside down, and now it’s past time for us to turn it right-side up again: by leading with love; by reading verse 17 alongside verse 16; by refusing to preach hell more passionately than we preach hope.

And by believing in our hearts, “For God so loved the world.”

Not parts of it. Not the easy parts. Not the familiar parts.

The world.

So, receive that love.

Let it name you. Let it free you. Let it heal you.

And then go love this world, turn the world right-side up!

Not with fear, not with control, but with the same unconditional, universal love of God. Amen.