Pentecost and the Sin of Christian Nationalism

On May 24, 2026May 24, 2026 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.

The Lies We Tell About Suffering: Why This Matters Now

On April 26, 2026April 26, 2026 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 March 22, 2026March 22, 2026 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 March 15, 2026March 15, 2026 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 March 15, 2026March 15, 2026 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 March 15, 2026 By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Lent, Sermons Year ALeave a comment

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.

Refusing to Bow Down

On February 22, 2026February 22, 2026 By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Lent, Sermons Year A1 Comment

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7; Matthew 4:1-11

For the past few weeks, we’ve been listening to Jesus preach his first sermon on a hillside. But on this First Sunday in Lent, the lectionary takes us back to the beginning of his ministry.

After his baptism in the Jordan, Matthew tells us that Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. Not by accident. Not by happenstance. Not by taking a wrong turn. But by the Spirit.

The word Matthew uses suggests Jesus was “launched” into the wilderness, like a ship pushed out into deep water. Because before Jesus could teach God’s reign of love and justice, he had to first confront the seduction of power.

And here’s something we overlook when we read or hear this text. This story is not just about Jesus confronting the seduction of power long ago. But it is about the church, the Body of Christ, confronting that same seduction today.

Every time we come to this table, consuming the Body of Christ, we affirm that we are the Body of Christ. This means the temptations Jesus faces in the wilderness are not his alone. They are ours.

This text in Matthew is about the soul of the church. And it is about the soul of our nation.

Now, before we move too quickly into the temptations, we need to pause and ask: Who is this “devil” in the story? The Greek word is, diabolos, meaning “the accuser,” “the divider,” “the one who slanders and distorts.” In Jewish imagination, this figure is not a rival god equal to God, or the ruler of the underworld, but a voice in the world that tests, twists, and tempts. It’s a force that magnifies fear and manipulates truth. The “devil” is not some scary red creature with horns and pitchfork. It’s the embodiment of every lie seducing humanity to grasp for power and supremacy.

It’s the ancient whisper from Genesis that Eve heard in the garden: “Did God reallysay…?” It’s the voice that promises security through exclusion, glory through domination, and comfort through control. Jesus is not arguing with some cartoon villain in the desert. He’s confronting the deepest distortions of power and faith that still haunt the world.

The tempter doesn’t come when Jesus is strong. The tempter comes when he is depleted, having fasted in the wilderness for forty days, saying “Turn these stones into bread.”

On the surface, it makes perfect sense. It sounds rational, justifiable. You’re starving, physically and spiritually. You need to be fed. So, feed yourself.

But as we are reminded every Sunday when we share Holy Communion together, Jesus understands that bread is much more than calories. Bread is covenant. Bread is relationship. Bread is community around a shared table.

Bread is a holy gift. It’s a process that takes time. There are no shortcuts to baking bread. Bread is not made from stones, but from seed in the ground. From rain and sun. From soil and sweat. From farmers and millers and bakers. From kneading hands and patient waiting.

Plant. Wait. Harvest. Grind. Knead. Bake. Serve. Eat together. Save the seed. Repeat. Shortcutting hunger may satisfy the body in a moment, but it will not nourish the soul, build a community, or strengthen a faith. This is why Jesus answers, “We do not live by bread alone.”

The temptation to turn stones into bread is the temptation to control. But as Master Baker and Christian Educator extraordinaire Maria Niechwiadowicz writes: “The true beauty of bread baking is learning to let go of control, to become attentive to the process instead.” This is why she leads Bake and Pray workshops. She writes: “When we approach baking as liturgy, as a rhythm of prayer, our focus shifts. We begin to notice how the dough has a life of its own, and how God is tending to our own spirits in the same quiet, steady way. Baking bread becomes a practice of noticing. It calls us to slow down, pay attention, and rest.”

And this where this temptation becomes political today.

Religious nationalism promises quick fixes and easy solutions to our fears. It says we can solve our complex problems with control, force, and exclusion. It offers the stone-bread of hatred—hard, fast, satisfying in the mouth for a moment, but incapable of sustaining life.

Because cannot build a peaceful and just world with stone-bread. A nation’s soul cannot nourished with anger. The problem of human hunger, physical or spiritual, cannot be solved by shortcutting the slow, relational, justice-centered work that real, holy, God-bread requires.

Our broken nation cannot heal by consuming stone-bread of fear. But we can heal with the God-bread of empathy, repair and reconciliation.

The beloved community cannot be created with the stone-bread of alienation, separation, or domination. But it can and it will with the God-bread of acceptance, equity, and inclusion.

Lent is not a season for quick fixes. It’s a season for planting. It’s a holy time to ask: How are we satisfying our hunger? How are we healing the world? How are we making our bread? Are we grasping at stones because they are quick and easy to throw? Or are we willing to do the slow, sometimes exhausting, long work that nurtures body and soul: the work of planting justice, kneading mercy, baking reconciliation, and setting a table wide enough for all of God’s children?^[i]

It is then the tempter takes Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple, to the architecture of faith, the center of religious life. And there, you could say, “in church,” the devil quotes scripture. That’s right, the devil is in the church and the devil has memorized some Bible verses! “Throw yourself down. God will catch you. The angels will bear you up.”

On the surface, it sounds faithful. It even sounds biblical. But this temptation is about performing faith instead of living it. It’s hanging the ten commandments on a wall of classrooms, or mandating Bible teaching in the classrooms, while refusing to fund the classrooms, to feed the children, and to pay the teachers a living wage. It’s a mouth full of scripture and a heart full of hate. It’s about manufacturing a religious spectacle to prove to others that you are on the side of God.

And Jesus refuses: “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”

In other words: Authentic faith does not need a stunt. Later, Jesus will say, if you want people to know you are on the side of God, that you are my disciples, love one another as you have seen me love you.

Jesus understands that faith, like bread, takes time, patience, and love—in quiet obedience, in daily prayer, in healing the sick one body at a time, in touching the untouchable, in eating with sinners, in welcoming children, in doing the difficult work of liberation and reconciliation, in walking dusty, lonesome roads to meet people wherever they are.

You don’t build faith in God by jumping off buildings. You build it by walking steadily in love, loving your neighbors as you love yourselves, standing up for and with, the least of these.

Religious nationalism thrives on religious stunts and theatrics. It believes that if we can just show strength (visible, loud, triumphant) then that must mean God is with us.

But Jesus understands when faith becomes performance, it stops being faith. And when the church becomes obsessed with visibility and influence, it forgets the slow, steady work of justice.

The kin-dom of God grows more like yeast than fireworks. It’s quiet, persistent, transformative from the inside out. The season of Lent invites us to step down from the pinnacle to practice the long obedience of mercy, truth-telling, and solidarity. No stunts. No spectacles. Just faithfulness.

Finally, the tempter says the quiet part out loud. No more talking about hunger. No more scripture games. Just a mountain. A wide view. And a deal.

“All the kingdoms of the world and all their splendor I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” There it is. The devil just comes out and says it with breathtaking honesty. Worship power, and you can have power. Bow down, bend the knee, and you can rule.

No shortcuts disguised as feeding oneself. No spectacle disguised as faith. Just the ancient bargain from the Garden of Eden spoken out loud: “You can be like God.” You can take control, secure dominance, and make it all yours.

And here’s what makes this temptation so dangerous: it would have worked.

Jesus could have enforced God’s reign of love and justice from the top down. He could have imposed righteousness. He could have seized the machinery of empire and steered it toward good. But that’s not the kingdom of God. Because the moment you bow to power to get power, power becomes your god.

Thus, Jesus refuses to negotiate. “Away with you, Satan, you tempter and deceiver! For it is written: Worship the Lord your God, and serve God only.” Jesus refuses to confuse the reign of God with the rule of empire.

Religious nationalism makes this exact offer to the church. It says: “Align yourself with political control.” “Trade your prophetic voice for proximity to the throne.” “Overlook hate and greed, even sexual assault and pedophilia, if you can getyour way.” “Secure cultural dominance, and then you can shape the future.”

But we cannot build beloved community by bowing to power or create justice by surrendering to supremacy.

We cannot proclaim good news to the poor and liberation to the oppressed while kneeling before systems that require the poor to remain poor and the oppressed to remain bound.

The kingdom of God does not arrive through coercion but grows the way bread grows: through seed in soil; through slow, tedious, patient work; through trust; through shared tables and a cross-shaped love.

This path looks weak from the mountaintop. It doesn’t glitter. It doesn’t dominate. It doesn’t trend or immediately go viral. And it leads, eventually, to another hill, not a throne, but a cross.

And that is the decisive rejection of this temptation.

Jesus ultimately chooses suffering love over controlling power. He chooses grace over domination. He chooses faithfulness over force, nonviolence over violence. And because he does, angels come to him in the wilderness and minister to him.

Not because he won. But because he refused to bow.

Lent asks the church the same question the wilderness asked Jesus:

Whom will you worship?

Will we bow to the splendor of control?
Will we trade love of neighbor for political power?
Will we accept injustice if it keeps “our side” in charge?

Or will we worship the Lord our God, and serve God only?

This Lent, may we refuse to bow and resist the bargain. And choose the slow, holy work of love, mercy, and justice.

May we plant gardens instead of building empires.

May we always choose to worship God alone.

Amen.

From Dust You Came. For Justice You Are Called.

On February 18, 2026February 18, 2026 By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Lent, Sermons Year ALeave a comment

Isaiah 58

I often encounter people who tell me that they would attend our church—if they were religious.

Some say to me, “If I believed in organized religion, I would go to your church.”

And I usually respond, “I wish you would come, because I think you’ll find we’re not that religious, and we’re really not that organized.”

And I wish they were here tonight. Because they would be surprised to learn that this day, often assumed to be reserved for the most devout, is actually God’s demand that we be done with religion.

Tonight, the church hears the prophet Isaiah asking a question that challenges religion. He looks at organized religion, the traditions and the the rituals, and he doesn’t hold back. In the words that are traditionally read by the church on this day, he shouts a question that should shake us to the core: “Is this the fast that I choose?”

In other words: Is being religious what you think repentance looks like? Do you think this is what faith is all about? Is it sitting quietly inside a sanctuary, while outside, injustice, hate, and cruelty are loud? Is it bowed heads while policies crush the poor? Is it words sung or spoken that soothes souls but never unsettles systems?

Isaiah says no! Because the truth is: God is not interested in religion that ignores justice. God is interested in a faith that transforms the world.

Isaiah is speaking to people who are deeply religious. They fast. They pray. They gather for worship. They present their offerings and sing their praises to God. And yet, workers are still exploited, the poor are still hungry, Eunuchs are still subjugated. Foreigners are still mistreated. And the vulnerable are still scapegoated.

And Isaiah tells it like it is: You seek God in the sanctuary, but you serve the systems of death. You humble yourselves in worship, but you harden your hearts in public life. You follow the laws of the Sabbath, but you don’t follow politics. You read the Bible, but you refuse to let it interpret the world you live in. You look after your own, but you neglect your neighbor. In divisive times, you call yourself apolitical, when you are actually being amoral.

Oh, how the church needs to hear Isaiah tonight!

Because the crisis we are living through in this nation is not merely a crisis of policy. It’s a crisis of values.

A nation that can afford abundance but tolerates poverty.

A nation that claims liberty while restricting dignity.

A nation that invokes God while rejecting the commands of justice, mercy, and love.

As we begin the season of Lent, Isaiah refuses to let us spiritualize repentance, contrition, and worship by saying the fast God chooses looks like this:

Loosening the bonds of injustice.
Undoing the yoke of oppression.
Sharing bread with the hungry.
Housing the unhoused.
Clothing the naked.
Refusing to hide from your own kin.

And who is our kin? Who is our neighbor? In other words, Isaiah is saying, that we should be available to do the work of justice for the entire human family.

Jesus stands firmly in this prophetic tradition.

In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus exposes performative religion—faith that wants spiritual credit without social responsibility. He warns against prayer and fasting that seeks approval instead of transformation, against a righteousness that hides from justice.

Ash Wednesday names what many would rather avoid:

We are shaped by systems that privilege some and punish others.
We are beneficiaries of structures that reward greed and normalize inequality. And silence in the face of that reality is not neutrality.
It is consent.

Ashes tell the truth about who we are. We are dust.

In Genesis, God forms humanity from the dust of the ground — from the same soil that grows our food, from the same earth that holds every other body. We are not dropped into the creation from above. We rise up from within it. We belong to the earth and to each other.

Dust means we are made of what everyone else is made of. The same earth runs through all of us. The same breath sustains all of us.

Which means we are not autonomous individuals competing for survival. We are interdependent lives sharing one fragile existence. Dust cannot declare independence from other dust. What happens to one part of the soil affects the whole field.

Dust reminds us of something the powerful try to make us forget: No one is disposable. You cannot discard part of the earth without damaging the whole. You cannot throw away people without wounding yourself.

So, when you come forward tonight, and the ashes are placed on your forehead, you will hear these words: “From dust you came; for justice you are called.”

These words are not a blessing. They are a summons declaring that repentance is not complete until justice is pursued. That worship is not faithful until it confronts what dehumanizes. That Lent is not about what makes us feel holy, but about what makes the world more humane.

Lent is a season of moral clarity. It’s a season to break with greed in a culture of hoarding. It’s a season to confront racism in a society built on racial hierarchy. It’s a season to resist bigotry when fear is marketed as righteousness.

If our observance of Lent does not make us more honest, more generous, more courageous, Isaiah would say we have missed the point.

Ash Wednesday does not mark us for shame or for death. It marks us for responsibility. For truth-telling. For solidarity. For resistance grounded in love and for a life committed to justice.

Ash Wednesday tells the truth: we are dust. And God has always done revolutionary work with dust.

In the beginning, God bent down to the earth, gathered soil in divine hands, and breathed into it— and humanity stood up. The first declaration of dignity was spoken over dirt.

When empire tightened its grip and Pharaoh seemed untouchable, God did not raise up another emperor. God raised up a shepherd from the wilderness, dust from the margins, and said, “Go.” And the empire trembled.

When a giant towered over Israel in bronze and steel, God did not choose armor. God chose a boy and five stones from the ground. And dust struck down domination.

When a valley lay scattered with dry bones (history’s casualties, abandoned and forgotten), God did not turn away. God spoke. God breathed. And dust became a living, moving people again.

When a woman was dragged into the center of accusation and shame, Jesus did not stand above her. He knelt in the dirt. He wrote in the dust. He reminded the powerful that they, too, were earth.

And when violence did its worst, when love was crucified and laid in the ground, they thought the story was over. They returned him to the dust.

But the earth could not hold what God had breathed into it. And on the third day, dust rose.

So, when you hear the words tonight that you are dust, it does not mean you are powerless. For dust is where God begins. Dust is where God breathes. Dust is where God builds movements, topples idols, and raises what the world declared dead.

And tonight, ashes will mark your forehead. Not as a sign of shame. Not as a symbol of defeat. But as a reminder: You are dust. Dust shaped by God. Dust filled with breath. Dust capable of courage. And don’t ever underestimate what God can do with dust, especially dust that has decided to seek justice.

Amen.

Benediction

Beloved, as you go into this season of Lent,

Go remembering that you are dust
formed from the earth,
held together by breath,
bound to every living thing in sacred belonging.

Go not in shame, but in courage.
Go not in fear, but in hope.
Go not to perform religion, but to practice love.

May the God who breathes life into dust
breathe holy restlessness into you
a hunger for justice,
a tenderness for the vulnerable,
and a stubborn refusal to accept a world as it is
when it could be more humane.

May your fasting loosen injustice.
May your prayers soften hardened systems.
May your repentance bear the fruit of repair.
May your worship spill over into mercy.

And when you grow weary,
remember: dust is where God begins.
Dust is where God breathes.
Dust is where resurrection rises.

Go in peace
to love boldly,
to serve humbly,
and to do justice with joy.

Amen.

One Human Family

On February 15, 2026February 14, 2026 By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Sermons Year ALeave a comment

Matthew 5:21-24

Almost every day, I read or hear someone say that much of the church today looks nothing like the movement of love and justice that Jesus started.

Many agree it is due to a wide-spread rejection of Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount. Folks in church have dismissed the beatitudes where Jesus proclaims that God is on the side of the poor, the meek, the grieving, the compassionate, and those who hunger for justice and peace. Because they prefer to live in a world where God is on the side of the privileged and powerful, those who have never had to ask for their lives to matter, even on the side of those who are merciless and violent—to the people who look, speak and worship differently.

Because frankly, if you are one of the privileged, it’s just better that way. It’s more comfortable. It’s safer and just easier.

However, I want to suggest that the main reason many churches look nothing like Jesus is because some of us have refused to obey the first command Jesus gives about worship. We’ve ignored Jesus’ command to stop worshipping, stop singing, stop praying, get up in the middle of the sermon, and go home. And don’t come back, until we’ve reconciled with our brothers and sisters.

Or maybe it’s because, we’ve grossly misinterpreted this command.

As a child, I remember being warned very seriously by my mother: “Jarrett, you must never, ever call your brother, Jason, ‘a fool.’ Because you could go to hell for that!”

And I believed her. I think I called my brother every name in the book. But I never called him a “fool.”

It’s strange when I think about it, as I grew up in a world where I heard the “n-word”spoken casually. I’ll never forget hearing racist jokes told around the dinner table, right after church, hearing laughter at the expense of others.

No one warned me about that.

My family was deeply religious, in church every time the doors were open. And yet, we seemed to miss what Jesus was actually saying in his first recorded sermon.

Referring to verse 22, and the danger of calling a brother or sister “a fool” or else “be liable to the hell of fire,” I’ve heard people boast, “Well, I’ve never called my brother or sister a fool!”

The problem is that whenever Jesus speaks of family, he always broadens its definition.

Later in Matthew, we read about a time Jesus is teaching in the synagogue when someone interrupts him saying, members of your family are here to see you. Jesus turns and points to everyone in the room and says, “All of these are part of my family.” In every word and action of Jesus, he continually enlarges the circle. Family is not defined by bloodline, nor ethnicity, nor tribe, nor nation.

In Matthew’s Gospel, the word translated brother or sister, adelphos, stretches beyond biology. Family is not bloodline or tribe. It is anyone who belongs to God.

So, when Jesus says, “if you say to your adelphos, ‘you fool,’” he’s talking about the person sitting in front of you and behind you, the one across the aisle, across the border, across the political divide.

He’s saying: The ones you despise are your siblings, and that should change everything. Because it’s one thing to insult a stranger. It’s quite another to degrade members of your own family. It’s one thing to caricature “them.” And it’s another to realize there is no “them” in the kingdom of God.

Jesus then names two insults. The first is raka, an Aramaic word which means something like “empty-headed,” “stupid,” “washed up,” “good for nothing,” “worthless.” It’s a dismissal of someone’s value. It’s saying someone is disposable and can be discarded.

The second word is translated “fool.” In Greek, it is moros. It’s the root of “moron.” But in that culture, calling someone moros was not about intelligence. It meant morally worthless, godless, demonic, beyond redemption. It was a way of saying: You do not matter, you do not belong, and you never will.

With these two words, Jesus was warning people of the harm of dehumanization and demonization.

When we hear Erika Kirk call the protesters in Minneapolis “demonic,” when we see images depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes, when Congresswoman IIlan Omar is called “garbage,” when immigrants are described as “infestations” or “invasions,” and when a Puerto Rican singer is told “he doesn’t belong,” we are witnessing a centuries-old strategy of dehumanization and demonization.

Enslaved Africans were called “property” and “animals,” because you cannot enslave someone you fully recognize as part of your family.

Indigenous peoples were called “savages,” so land could be stolen without moral consequence.

Black men were labeled “brutes” and “bucks”, so lynching could be framed as protection.

Jewish people were depicted as “vermin,” so genocide could be justified and rationalized.

Japanese Americans were called enemies, so detention centers could be normalized.

The pattern is always the same: First, a label, then a caricature, then a policy, and then a grave.

What we are continuing to learn about the Epstein files should not surprise us as we are bombarded with language that objectifies women: jokes that reduce women to body parts; comments that treat women as trophies or temptations; speech that minimizes harassment or blames the victims of assault.

Before assault becomes physical, language makes it conceivable. When the bodies of women are described as things to be grabbed, owned, and evaluated, then empathy is lowered and permission to harm is created.

Jesus is saying here that once someone is no longer adelphos, once they become “less than,” harm becomes easier to justify.

But if she is your sister, if she is adelphos, then her dignity is not negotiable.

If Barack and Michelle Obama are adelphos, then ape imagery is not just offensive. It’s family betrayal.

If Black and Brown immigrants are adelphos, if the Puerto Rican artist is adelphos, then slurs are not just words. They are deep wounds within the household of God.

If women exploited and molested by rich and powerful men are adelphos, then the demand for justice will be relentless and a suggestion that the acceptance of injustice is worth a $50,000 Dow Jones will not be tolerated.

Now, it’s easy to hear a sermon like this and think of someone else. It’s easy to nod our heads because we would never post the meme, never chant the slur, never laugh at the joke. But Jesus does not say, “If your enemy has something against someone else.” He says, “If your sibling has something against you.” Which means this is not only about the loud cruelty out there. It is about the quiet ways we withdraw from people who frustrate us. The way we roll our eyes and dismiss others. The way we avoid hard conversations. The way we decide someone is not worth the effort. Dehumanization does not begin with a microphone. It begins in the heart. And even good, justice-seeking people are not immune.

Jesus says dehumanization endangers us with hell. But like a misinterpretation of the word adelphos, raka, and moros, the way we have interpreted “hell” has actually made this world more hellish.

The word Jesus uses here is Gehenna. It’s a valley outside Jerusalem associated with burning refuse and with Israel’s history of violence. It symbolized what happens when a society becomes a dumping ground for human dignity.

Jesus is saying that Gehenna is what we create on earth when we treat others as garbage, worthless, washed-up, disposable.

And then, to underscore how important it is to treat all people with dignity, to love others like family, to love all people as we love our own, as our very selves, Jesus says this: “If you are offering your gift at the altar and remember that your sibling has something against you, leave your gift at the altar.”

Leave the worship service before the peace is passed and the benediction pronounced. And go. Be reconciled. Jesus refuses to separate love of God from the love of people and suggests that God does not receive praise from lips that practice dehumanization of others.

Reconciliation is not politeness, or kindness, although we certainly need more of that in the world. It’s not pretending harm did not happen or moving on, letting bygones be bygones, nor is it “agreeing to disagree.”

Reconciliation is truth-telling. It is repairing and restoring. And it is a refusal to continue dehumanizing and being silent in the face of dehumanization.

After learning that our sibling Christopher Lilley, passed away suddenly this week, many have asked me if Chris had family. I do not know of any biological family, but I do know he had family. He had church family, members of this church and members from the former Court Street United Methodist Church, who enveloped Chris in love and grace. He also had his recovery family, a community that helped him stay sober for the last 11 ½ years.

I cannot put into words what it meant to Chris that he had people who treated him as adelphos.

Two months after Chris was born in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland, his mother literally discarded him, threw him out with the trash, leaving him outside of a garbage dumpster. Chris was found and placed in the custody of the state for months before he bounced around between several different foster parents. Years later he was finally adopted, but his childhood was one of trauma.

Chris struggled with mental illness and alcoholism. He often heard dehumanizing and demonizing voices in his head. Most wrote him off. However, the good news is there were people in this city who loved Chris, who treated him like family, who let him know that he was not trash. He was a beloved child of God, a sibling of immeasurable worth.

And not only did Chris overcome his addiction to alcohol, he became a sweet, caring, empathetic, soul. The little way he giggled at his own jokes revealed a spirit that was far from broken.

Chris had an incredible passion for social justice. Chris often told me how he had no tolerance for white supremacists, Nazis, and bigots, for anyone who made anyone else feel like trash. Chris called me often, many times just to ask me how I was doing, or how people on our church’s prayer list were doing.

Having been treated as garbage, Chris experienced his share of Gehenna in this world. But because he found a community of grace, reconciliation, and restoration, I believe he also experienced a little bit of heaven.

So, before we come to this table, before we say the prayers, before we receive the bread and drink from the cup, we must ask:

Where have we dismissed someone as less than?
Where have we laughed along at jokes that harm?
Where have we stayed silent?

This table is not for the perfect. It is for the honest. It is for those who are willing to love as Jesus loved, to resist dehumanization and demonization in all its forms.

Invitation to Communion

Here we remember a body that was mocked.
A man publicly shamed. A Savior treated as disposable.

And we remember that he refused to return contempt with contempt.

This meal does not erase our responsibility. It forms us for reconciliation.

So, come.

Not because you have never spoken harm. But because you are willing to stop.

Come, ready to see every person as adelphos.
Come, ready to reject the language of Gehenna.
Come, ready to build a community where dignity is not negotiable.

Because Jesus is not just trying to keep us from committing murder. He is trying to form a community where murder becomes unthinkable.

Preserving Truth, Exposing Lies

On February 8, 2026February 8, 2026 By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Sermons Year A1 Comment

Matthew 5:13-20

As I said last week, many of us were raised hearing a very skewed version of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, as we sat in the comfort and shelter of a flag-adorned sanctuary among the beneficiaries of white supremacy. It’s fair to say that some of us heard from an alternative Jesus who blesses the rich and the powerful, instead of the Jesus who blesses the poor and confronts power.

So today, I invite you to clear your minds and open your hearts to hear from the brown-skinned Jewish Palestinian who experienced life as an immigrant on the run, who was, from day one, a target of the state. Listen to the Jesus who identified with the vulnerable, the marginalized, and the criminalized, as he delivers a word from God to people who are exhausted from life under a corrupt, tyrannical government, to people who know what it is like to hear their leaders use scripture to support exclusion, exploitation, and oppression.

And it is to them (not to the powerful; not to those called “patriots” by King Herod and his minions; not to the priests aligned with Rome or to the loudest voices claiming divine authority) that Jesus says: “you are the salt of the earth,” and “you are the light of the world.”

And what may be even more shocking is that Jesus does not say, “you will be salt”—when Herod dies, or “you will be light”—when the pendulum swings.

But to those who are exhausted by a system that favors the rich, to the poor in spirit, the mourners, the powerless, to those who hunger for justice and yearn for peace, Jesus says: “you are,” today, right now, in this very moment, “the salt of the earth” and “the light of the world.”

Salt in the ancient world was not merely something that was sprinkled on food to enhance its flavor. Its main purpose was to preserve food that would otherwise rot. And due to its antibacterial properties, salt was used as a therapeutic agent to treat wounds. Salt was essential for healing—disruptive, uncomfortable, and necessary to stop infection and decay.

That’s why we should pay attention when we hear people say we shouldn’t “open the old wounds of our past,” that talking honestly about our nation’s racist history through works like the 1619 Project is somehow divisive, unnecessary, or unfaithful. Because anyone who has ever had a wound knows this: wounds that are never cleaned don’t heal; they fester. And salt, when applied to an open wound is never comfortable. It stings. It burns. It makes us wince. But it also kills infection. It interrupts decay. It makes healing possible.

If Jesus calls us to be salt, then he is not calling us to comfort the wound, to cover it, or to pretend it never happened. He is calling us to tell the truth about where the injury is, how deep it goes, and what it has cost, because it is only then that healing can begin. Refusing to name injustice is not simply moving on. It is choosing rot over restoration.

That’s why Jesus gives the warning if salt loses its saltiness, if salt stops doing what it was made to do, it becomes useless and gets trampled underfoot. In other words, if you don’t want those in power to tread on you, you must start being who you were created to be!

Like salt, light can also sting and be uncomfortable. Light is dangerous, as it is a threat to darkness, exposing what the darkness covers up. And Jesus says, you don’t light a lamp and then hide it for the sake of safety. You don’t dim it, to keep you out of trouble. But you put it on a stand, and you share it with as many people as you can.

Jesus is talking about being a public witness. He’s talking about possessing a faith that shows up in the world where people are hungry, oppressed, and crushed by unjust systems.

When Jesus talks about light and salt, I can’t help but think about the way people are bearing public witness to the truth today with nothing more than a cell phone in their hands, recording what others hope will go unnoticed, preserving the truth that would have decayed otherwise.

In a world where lies travel fast and violence is quickly denied, these witnesses are letting their light shine, exposing what the darkness wants hidden, preserving the truth before it can be erased. With moral courage they are refusing to let darkness control the story. Every time cell phone cameras come out in Minneapolis, you could almost hear the people singing, “This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine!”

That simple song that most of us learned as a child might not have been written as a protest anthem, but it was never neutral. It emerged from Black communities of faith where light was already a language of survival. To sing about light in a world shaped by slavery and Jim Crow was already to make a claim: that God’s presence and love could not be extinguished by racism and violence.

During the Civil Rights Movement, that song was carried out of the sanctuary and into the streets. It was sung in marches, in jail cells, in the face of clubs and dogs and fire hoses. Freedom singers didn’t softly hum “This Little Light of Mine.” They shouted it and marched with it in the streets. In the darkness of Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama, they turned it into a bold declaration of justice.

And at the same time, those of us who grew up in predominantly white churches, learned how to sing the same song without ever stepping into that darkness. The words and the tune were the same. But the power of the words was diluted. The light was kept safely inside, deep in our hearts, something personal, something polite, something that asked nothing of power.

What we did to that song illustrates how the gospel of Jesus gets whitewashed, prompting the Rev. Dr. Raphael Warnock to recently say: “I have to say, as a pastor, I think Jesus is the biggest victim of identity theft in the country.”

We’ve learned how to keep the language of Jesus while emptying it of its demands. The light Jesus talks about becomes personal comfort and salvation instead of public confrontation and social transformation. And Jesus becomes someone to believe in rather than someone to follow.

Which is exactly what Jesus is addressing in verse 20 where we read: “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

It’s important to remember that the scribes and Pharisees were not secular villains. They believed in God. They were morally serious and deeply religious. They quoted scripture fluently. They claimed divine authority. They believed they were defending God’s order in the world. And yet, they had learned how to practice religion without practicing love. How to keep the law while neglecting the least of these. How to be righteous without being just.

And Jesus is saying: “That kind of righteousness is just not going to cut it!”

Not that it might prevent us from experiencing heaven when we die, but that it will certainly prevent anything close to God’s reign of love from being experienced here on earth.

Jesus is saying: You can know and even obey all the rules and still miss the reign of God. You can quote scripture and still block the kingdom at the door. You can be loud about God at a prayer breakfast and silent about injustice.

Jesus is saying the righteousness of the kingdom exceeds right religion, because it is all about right relationship, with God and with our neighbors, especially with our neighbors who are suffering: the poor; the foreigner; the crushed and the cast aside.

The righteousness of the kingdom looks like love showing up to heal suffering. It looks like justice showing up to disrupt the darkness. It looks like the refusal to stay safely inside the Pharisee’s religious walls of belief.

It’s the kind of righteousness that is never private but always practiced publicly. It shows up in real places, with real bodies and real risk. It looks like telling the truth in the face of lies. It looks like standing with our brown and black neighbors who are being targeted, even when it costs us comfort or reputation. It is showing up where silence would be complicity.

Salt preserves what would otherwise decay and exposes what the powerful want to hide. And every time we choose courage over comfort, solidarity over safety, truth over security, we are practicing the righteousness Jesus is talking about.

So, when Jesus says, “you are the salt of the earth,” he is saying:
don’t lose your edge; don’t soften the gospel until it no longer confronts injustice.

When he says, “you are the light of the world,” he is saying: don’t hide the truth to stay safe; don’t dim your witness to stay comfortable.

And when he says our righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, he is saying:

The kingdom of heaven is experienced through love that refuses to look away, through justice that costs something and through faith that stands with the vulnerable even when it makes us enemies of the powerful.

Jesus is saying: The world today does not need any more salt that has gone bland. And it does not need a light hidden behind patriotism or religious certainty.

It needs a church brave enough to live a righteousness that exceeds belief, rejects the false religion of nationalism, and dares to trust that God’s reign is still breaking in. The world does not need more certainty. It needs more courage.

And Jesus does not say this to shame us. He says it to name us. “You are the salt of the earth.” “You are the light of the world.” Not someday. Not when it’s safer. Not when the cost is lower. But right now. Which means courage isn’t something we wait for. It’s something God has already placed in us—

The courage to tell the truth when power is lying.

The courage to show up when silence would be easier.

The courage to follow Jesus not just in what we confess, but in how we live.

The darkness is real today. But so is the light.

And the darkness does not get to decide if the light shines.

So, at the end of the service when we sing, “This little light of mine,” we’re not singing a sweet little children’s song like you used to in Vacation Bible School.

We are making a public vow,

a declaration that in the darkest night, the light still shines.

That truth will be told.

That wounds will be healed, even when it stings.

And love will not stay silent.

Amen.

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