Category: Sermons Year C

Sermons based on the Revised Common Lectionary.

This Ain’t No Cruise

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Sermons Year C, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Isaiah 1:1, 10-20

At this hour last Sunday, Lori and I had just been forced off the “Fun Ship” called “the Carnival Sunshine” which had returned to Norfolk from an 8-day Caribbean cruise.

Now, I only say “forced off” in jest, but there was a part of us that really didn’t want to get off that boat. For we had just experienced a week of extravagant leisure, a week where our biggest decisions were: The buffet or the dining room? The baked Alaska or the crème brûlée? The pool deck or the beach excursion? How many naps do I take today? Will I snooze in my cabin or out under a cabana?

And behind all this pleasure was our charming, enthusiastic cruise director, who just happened to be from just down the road in Danville.

He had the type of haircut, personality and southern accent that made me think: “You know, I can see myself in this line of work.”

Seriously, I believe I have what it takes to be a great cruise director. Smile big, talk fast, and make sure no one thinks too hard about what’s going on behind the scenes. Just keep the show going and the mood light, even if the ship is headed straight into a storm! Use my gifts of schmooze to keep everybody on board entertained, distracted, and happy.

And I can’t help but to think how many pastors out there, like me, are also well-suited for this type of work; and unfortunately, how many of them function more like cruise directors than pastors in their churches.

For how many sanctuaries have been turned into cruise lounges? How many chancels have been transformed into theatrical stages? How many sermons are just spiritual entertainment? How many worship services are designed to make people feel good but not do good?

A cruise director never challenges you. Cruise directors don’t convict you. They never ask you to change your life, to give up something, to sacrifice anything, to take any risk. On the contrary, they want you to avoid risk. A good cruise director is there to make sure the activities are safe, the music is right, the lights are warm, the drinks are flowing, and your conscience is quiet.

All while injustice rages on the shore.

The truth is that too many churches today have become floating sanctuaries of self-centered peace, enjoying smooth sailing while the poor are drowning in debt, depression, and despair.

The good news is, while I am convinced that I could be an excellent cruise director, and I’m still a little tempted to google their annual salary, the prophet Isaiah comes today to remind me that God did not call me to be a cruise director. God didn’t call me to keep the church comfortable, safe, and happy. God called me to speak truth that is often uncomfortable and even dangerous, as God calls us to live justice, to be the people of God in a dark world flooded with cruelty, corruption, greed and spiritual compromise.

Isaiah tells it like it is in today’s Hebrew lesson: God has absolutely no interest in our religious performances if it does not inspire justice. God isn’t impressed by our singing, our prayers, our preaching, or even our communion. God says, “I’m tired of your offerings. I’m sick of your noise. I am fed up with it all. All I want is to see how you treat the most vulnerable among you.”

And Isaiah’s not playing around:

Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom! Listen to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah!

Now, Isaiah’s not talking to pagans. He’s not talking to outsiders. He’s talking to the religious people, to the faithful folks: the worshippers; the tithers; the choir members; the Bible study attenders. And he calls them “Sodom and Gomorrah” because of how far they’ve drifted from whom they have been called to be.

They were faithful doing all the religious stuff: showing up for worship; observing the liturgical calendar and all the rituals; making sacrifices; offering prayers; singing hymns. But God…God wasn’t impressed.

I have had enough of your burnt offerings!
I do not delight in the blood of bulls…
Your new moons and your appointed festivals, my soul hates.
Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen.

God says:

You’re making a lot of noise, but you’re not being a movement.
You’re throwing parties for yourselves while the poor are languishing.
You’ve built a sanctuary, but not a shelter.
You’re singing and dancing all while the blood of the oppressed cry out from the streets.

You’ve made church a place of escape rather than engagement.
Your worship is more like a cruise rather than a call to action!

In other words, “You’ve turned my house into a Carnival Fun Ship!”

Jeremy, Mark, Judy, choir, hear me when I say there’s nothing wrong with beautiful music offered to God. Just as there is nothing wrong with well-prepared sermons or joyful gatherings. Verna, there’s nothing wrong with well-organized communion. And of course, there’s nothing at all wrong with having a big offering! But if all this beauty ever becomes a substitute for doing justice, it’s not worship, says Isaiah, it’s idolatry.

Pastors who succumb to the temptation to use their cruise-director gifts in the church want their congregants to enjoy the journey but do nothing to challenge the systems. They want their parishioners to put their hands in the air for Jesus, but never encourage them to lift a finger for the poor. They want their members to memorize the creeds, but forget about Medicaid, minimum wage, and mass incarceration.

A cruise director doesn’t ask you to sacrifice or leave your comfort zone. But a real pastor, a prophet, most certainly will.

Because that’s what God has called us to do.

God has called pastors to stand up with Isaiah and prophetically proclaim to our congregations:

“Cease to do evil and learn to do good; seek justice and rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan and plead for the widow.”

God has called us to constantly remind our congregations that that’s the kind of worship that God wants. Not empty rituals in the sanctuary, but radical righteousness in the streets. Not polished performance, but public accountability to the least of these.

Have you ever felt like God is not listening to your prayers?

Isaiah suggests that the reason we sometimes feel like God isn’t listening to our prayers is because God isn’t listening to our prayers!

Isaiah says that if we truly want to know that God is listening to us, if we truly want to feel God’s presence, if we want our worship to me meaningful, then we must do some things.

And if we don’t do those things, according to Isaiah, God might respond to our worship this way: “Stop tramping into my courts. And I have had enough of your preacher. His sermons, his prayers, your hymns, everything about your church, they have become a burden to me. And I have stopped listening!”

If we want our prayers to be received by God, Isaiah says that we better be doing what we can help the most vulnerable members of our community.

Frederick Douglass once said, “I prayed for freedom for 20 years, but God didn’t hear my prayer until I moved my feet.”

After marching in Selma for civil rights, Rabbi Abraham Heschel said, “I felt my legs praying.”

This sanctuary can be full of people who have gathered for God on Sunday morning, but if nobody’s using their legs to stand up for the marginalized come Monday, God says: “it means nothing.”

We can shout down the walls of Jericho, but if we never speak out against building a wall with the bricks of racism, God says: “Our hands are full of blood.”

We can post Bible verses all day on social media, but if we stay silent while fascism is in power, while Gaza is being ethnically cleansed, while LGBTQ youth are targeted, while immigrants are scapegoated, while healthcare is gutted, while workers are exploited, the planet is polluted, and while the single mother, the disabled neighbor and the black child are caught in the crosshairs of systemic sin, then our faith is just a lie.

True faith moves us out to the front lines, moving us from ceremony to solidarity, from pews to picket lines, from pulpits to protests.

So, let me take you back to that cruise.

Folks lounging on the deck. Others wading in the pool. Music playing. Bob Marley singing, “don’t worry about a thing ‘cause every little thing gonna be alright.” Food and drinks being served. Laughter in the air. The cruise director’s doing his job: keeping us all smiling, dancing, relaxed, full, and distracted.

Now, on vacation? That’s fine. But in church? That’s deadly.

And today, too many churches have gotten comfortable relaxing on the deck. Sunning themselves under the glow of cheap grace. Floating along on the sea of privilege. Sipping sweet spiritual drinks while the world is drowning just off the side of the ship.

I’m glad to see all of you here this morning, but if you’re looking for some comfort, this ain’t the place.

If you’re looking for some entertainment, you’re in the wrong room.

If you’re looking for somebody to tell you everything is fine, while the world is on fire, this ain’t that church, and I pray I ain’t ever gonna be that preacher!

Because although I believe I could be a good cruise director, I believe God has called me to be a pastor.

After a summer break, Java with Jarrett returns this week at a new location. And I can’t think of a better place to meet with the pastor. Located in the Givens bookstore, it’s called “the Troublemaker’s Café.”

Because as a pastor I have been called to keep reminding you: It’s time to get off the boat and into the deep, into the struggle, into the messy, risky, beautiful, troublemaking work of real worship. God has called us to be prophets of another way, to be builders of a better world, to be troublemakers for truth.

Listen again to these words:

Seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.

That’s not vacation talk. That’s vocation talk. That’s God calling us to jump off the deck and into the deep waters of justice!

The good news for our world today is that God is still calling, still pleading, still inviting:

“Come now, let us argue it out. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow.”

This is what the grace of God looks like. It’s not just to save us. It’s to change us. It’s not just to comfort us. It’s to call us forward, to remind us that the time for playing church is over, and the time for becoming the church is now!

So, here’s our challenge today:

If you’re looking for a cruise, this ain’t it!
If you’re looking to be entertained, you’re in the wrong place!
But if you’re ready to live your faith out loud…
If you’re ready to lift your voice against injustice…
If you’re ready to love your neighbor as yourself, not just in word but in deed, not just with your prayers, but with your legs, then this is the church for you!

Yes, the water’s deep. The waves can be scary. But Isaiah assures us that God will be with us! Because we’re not playing church here. We’re becoming the church!

And the world is waiting.

Amen.

The Lane Is a Lie

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Sermons Year C6 Comments

Luke 10:38-42

I recently received some advice from a concerned friend, and I quote: “Jarrett, as a pastor you’d be better off to just preach the gospel and stay out of politics. Just stay in your lane.”

And as you are probably aware, I am not the only preacher who has been told this.

Following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, when preachers spoke the names of Breonna Taylor, Tyre Nichols, or Sandra Bland from their pulpits, or when they dared to say out loud, “Black Lives Matter,” many congregants responded with discomfort or outright anger, telling pastors they were being “too divisive,” and yes, “too political.”

Translation: Stay in your lane.

Churches that have offered physical sanctuary to undocumented immigrants have been surveilled, threatened with fines, and reported to ICE. The pastor of a Colorado church that sheltered a mother facing deportation was investigated for “harboring a fugitive.”

Translation: Stay in your lane.

When churches in Georgia, Florida, and North Carolina organized voter registration drives, especially in Black and poor communities, they were accused of violating the Johnson Amendment by “engaging in politics.” In 2022, a church in Georgia was investigated for “election interference” after encouraging people to vote for candidates who support Medicaid expansion without endorsing a particular candidate.

Translation: Stay in your lane.

And now, pastors, rabbis, and imams who dare to speak out against the ethnic cleansing in Gaza, who mourn the loss of innocent life and demand a ceasefire and humanitarian aid, are accused of being antisemitic, unpatriotic, or “on the wrong side of history.” All because they had the audacity to declare that every life is sacred.

Translation: Stay in your lane.

In all these cases, the message is clear:

“You can pray for peace in the Middle East, but don’t protest the genocide of Palestinians by Israel and the United States.”

“You can preach salvation, but not liberation.”
“You can feed the hungry, but you can’t ask why they’re hungry in the first place.”

“You can convict souls, but you can’t challenge systems.”

“You can bury the dead, but you shouldn’t question what’s killing them.”

Preacher, your lane is in the sanctuary, not in the public square. And you need to stay in your lane.

Have a bake sale for the underprivileged but keep quiet about the greed of the privileged. Pray for the sick, but don’t talk about a deadly bill that takes away Medicaid from millions. Stock a food pantry, but don’t talk about the government taking away SNAP benefits. Give to charities but don’t ever mention the need to raise the minimum wage. Talk about loving your neighbor, but don’t use the words like “racism” or “white supremacy.” Have programs to support teenagers, but don’t defend trans youth. Just stay in your lane pastor and preach Jesus.

But here’s the thing they don’t seem to understand; the Jesus we preach never stayed in his lane. Yes, he set tables that fed hungry people, but he also flipped tables that fed greedy people. He healed sick bodies, but he also called out sick systems. Jesus worshipped on the sabbath, but he also broke the laws of the sabbath. He continually switched lanes to be on the side of the forgotten, the suffering and the lost.

And today, our gospel lesson invites us to not only leave the lane they want us to stay in, but to reject that lane as a lie. It encourages us not to shrink our witness today, but to expand it. To sit like Mary, in those places they said we are not allowed.

Now, to 21st century ears, this story may sound like a simple story of sibling rivalry, of two sisters in a little family feud about who’s working hard and who’s hardly working.

 But when we put this story in the context of first-century Palestine, we understand that it’s really a story about what happens when one refuses to be confined to the lane they have been assigned by the culture.

Martha was doing exactly what society expected of her. She was in her lane, in the kitchen, preparing to serve her male guest, a young Rabbi named Jesus.

And Mary?

Mary was in the living room audaciously sitting down at the feet of this Rabbi to listen to what he had to say. I say “audaciously” because only disciples were permitted to sit at the feet of a Jewish Rabbi. And disciples were always, without exception, male.

Thus, in sitting down at the feet of Jesus, Mary demonstrated a refusal to stay in the lane society had given her. She made it her business where they said she had no business. She challenged the status quo in a society that wanted her quiet and invisible, or busy and distracted in the kitchen.

And Jesus?

He doesn’t correct her. He doesn’t scold her. And he doesn’t just defend her. Jesus applauds her. Jesus not only allows it, he affirms it, saying: “Mary has chosen the better part, and it will not be taken from her.”

Jesus saw the system. He knew the expectations. He understood that Mary was way out of line. And still, he said: “This is what discipleship looks like.” Mary found God’s holy purpose not by staying in line, but by stepping out of line.

And so does the church. Throughout history, the Church has always been at its best when it refuses to be silent, when it organizes, protests, speaks truth, and shows up, when the Church understands that it is not called to a civic club to just manage injustice with thoughts, prayers, and charity. But called to be a holy movement interrupting injustice by getting into some good trouble.

The Church has always been more aligned with who God has called it to be when we get out of line and, yes, are criticized for being too political.

Such criticism only affirms we’re aligned with a gospel that is inherently political, because it’s good news for the poor, it’s freedom for the oppressed, and it’s justice for the left out and left behind.

There’s nothing partisan about the gospel we proclaim. It’s not owned by any political party. It belongs to the poor. It belongs to the marginalized. It belongs to the sick, to the disabled, to the oppressed, to the most vulnerable among us.

I know things are bad in the world right now. But think of how much worse things would be if the peace-makers and the justice-seekers of our history stayed in their lane— if Frederick Douglas and Sojourner Truth obeyed their slave masters, if Harriet Tubman didn’t go underground, if Fannie Lou Hamer never publicly proclaimed she was “sick and tired of being sick and tired!” Where would this country be today if Martin Luther King Jr. only preached about Jesus inside the four walls of his church, or if Rosa Parks got up and moved to the back of that bus, or if Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair Jr., and David Richmond never sat down at a Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, or if Rev. David and Kaye Edwards, pastors of the First Christian Church in the Lynchburg, Virginia stopped talking about the church’s to be Open and Affirming in the 1990’s when some of the members told them they were out of line?

But thank God they each understood that being disciples of Jesus in a world misaligned with will of God, meant they were called step out of line.  And when they were criticized for stepping into the wrong lane, they rose up and they said: “No, I’m in my lane, for my lane is unconditional love, my lane is mercy, my lane is justice, my lane is emancipation and liberation, my lane is equality and solidarity, because my lane is Jesus, the one who never stayed in any of the lanes the empire gave him!”

Thank God they each understood that Mary chose the better part by sitting down in a place the religious culture did not want her to sit, choosing truth over tradition, choosing the lane Jesus called her into over the one the patriarchy assigned her to. And Jesus says, “It will not be taken from her.”

So church, we’ve got a choice today.

Do we stand in the lane that will make the privileged more comfortable? Or do we sit down in holy protest and say: “We’re choosing the better part and nobody’s going to take that away from us!”

We’re boldly choosing to preach God’s Truth when the world tells us to be quiet. We’re audaciously choosing to leave the sanctuary to show up in in city halls, on protest lines, at silent vigils, detention centers, homeless shelters, and school board meetings. We’re courageously choosing the gospel of Jesus over the comfort of religious respectability. We’re fearlessly choosing to get in some “good, necessary trouble.”

We’re choosing to follow Jesus—not the version wrapped in stars and stripes—but the one who broke bread with the outcasts and flipped the tables of those who were part of an unholy alliance of greed, religion, and nationalism.

So, let them say we need to stay in our lane.
Let them say we’re too political.
Let them say we’re too bold, too loud, too much.

Because I’d rather be too much for fascism than too little for Jesus!

Mary chose the better part. And so must we. And Jesus says: It will not be taken from us.

It’s sad to me that the ones who want to take it from us also claim to follow Jesus. So, when they tell us to stay in our lane, we need to remind them that Jesus never stayed in his lane.

Jesus left heaven to walk with the poor.
He healed on the Sabbath.
He touched the untouchable.

He offered belonging to outcasts.
He fed the hungry without a permit.

He provided healthcare without a copay.
He overturned tables in the temple of injustice.

And if Jesus didn’t stay in his lane, as followers of Jesus, neither can we.

So, when they tell you that politics isn’t any of the church’s business—
You remind them that the prophets spoke truth to the kings.
That Moses stood in Pharaoh’s face.
That Esther interrupted the empire.
That Mary sang a song so radical, it brought down the mighty from their thrones.

When they try to tame your gospel, shrink your God, or soften your truth,
You lift your voice like a trumpet!
You say, “We were not baptized in front of all those people just to keep our faith in the closet!”
We were not called by Jesus to conform to the culture.
And we were not filled with the Holy Spirit so we could keep privileged folks comfortable.

So, Church let’s go and cross a line for love!
Run out of bounds into some good trouble for justice!

Refuse the script. Interrupt business as usual!
Feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, and tear up the blueprint of empire!

Walk, stand, and sit with the audacity of Mary!

Because when we’re out of line, when they’re begging us to stay in our lane, we are most aligned with our Holy purpose!

 Amen.

When Freedom Is Fatigued

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

Galatians 6:1-16

As our country’s freedom is celebrated this weekend, I believe we’re called as people of faith to remember the painful truth of our history and to acknowledge that freedom has never been free. It has been and must continually be fought for.

Our remembering is especially important as history itself is under attack with a dangerous push to whitewash the truth.

Books are being banned, libraries are being closed, and words like “slavery,” “racism,” and “reconstruction” are being scrubbed from school curriculums like they never happened. And just last month, we saw the Juneteenth holiday denigrated by those in power complaining about Americans getting “too many days off.”

They want us to forget the truth and just move on, because if we forget the wounds, we might lose the urgency to heal them. And if we forget the cruelty, the brutality, and the inhumanity, they can more easily repeat it.

So today, we gather to remember the truth, and we do so in the name of Jesus, who proclaimed that it is the truth that sets us free (John 8:32).

Long before 1776, sovereign nations like the Monacans who lived on this land in harmony with the earth, had their lands stolen, and treaties were broken by the same men who would declare liberty and justice for all.

In 1776, while white men signed the Declaration of Independence,
Black people remained in chains, counted as property, not people.
And the pen that wrote “all men are created equal” didn’t write for women, the poor, and the indigenous.

Since then, the story of America has been a story of contradiction:
of beautiful promises and brutal practices; of high ideals and hard-hearted policies. And true liberty and justice for all has always been a struggle.

· It was a struggle when Harriet Tubman followed the North Star through the night leading herself and others out of slavery.

· It was a struggle when Frederick Douglass stood in pulpits and pointed out the hypocrisy of a slaveholding church.

· It was a struggle when Sojourner Truth asked, “Ain’t I a woman?”

· It was a struggle when immigrants crossed deserts and oceans to chase a dream—only to be met with discrimination, quotas, and cruelty.

· It was a struggle when laborers organized for a living wage.

· A struggle when LGBTQIA siblings stood at Stonewall and said, “No more.”

· A struggle when King, Lewis, Williams and others marched across Edmund Pettus Bridge on the day remembered as Bloody Sunday.

· A struggle when Cesar Chavez and farmworkers fasted for dignity in fields that fed the nation.

The truth is that freedom has never rolled in on the wheels of inevitability. As Dr. King said, it comes by struggle and sweat, by movement and by sacrifice.

And that’s why Paul’s words to the Galatians are so prophetically powerful today:

“Let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up.”

How appropriate are these words today, as those committed to the freedom of all people are, quite frankly, worn out.

We’re tired of begging for justice for the poor and the marginalized.

-Tired of the lies, the hate, the cruelty.

-Tired explaining why it is unfair to call poor people “lazy” and just plain mean to call them “parasites.”
-Tired of explaining why the dignity of LGBTQ persons is not up for debate.

-Tired of explaining why science is real, women’s rights are human rights and Black lives matter.
-Tired of sowing seeds of peace in a land still addicted to violence.

And this weekend Paul has a message for us:

Keep going. Keep working. Keep struggling. Keep sowing those seeds. Don’t grow weary. Because the harvest is coming.

So today, on this weekend of noise and nationalism, injustice and immorality, we gather to tell the truth:

-We’re tired of marching for justice while lawmakers pass bills to steal it.
-We’re tired of praying for peace in a nation that budgets more money for bombs than any nation on earth.
-We’re tired of hoping for change in a country that celebrates independence while restricting who gets to be free.

Today, freedom is fatigued, but the good news is, the struggle is not over. Because our faith is calling us to keep sowing, believing the harvest is coming.

And being exhausted today only affirms our faithfulness to the gospel, because gospel work is heavy work.

Jesus talked about the heaviness of the gospel when he criticized the Pharisees’ hypocrisy for playing lightweight religious games, tithing spices like mint, dill and cumin, while ignoring the weightier matters, the heavy matters of mercy and justice (Matthew 23).

For the gospel is not just about personal salvation. It’s heavier than that. It’s about communal transformation. We are called to confront sin, not just in the soul, but in systems. Because we are called to not just look after ourselves, but to carry each other’s burdens.

Verse 2 of our verse needs to be repeated today as many Americans who call themselves Christians and talk about bootstraps and personal responsibility seem to have forgotten it: “Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way, we fulfill the law of Christ.” Bearing another’s burden, having empathy for others, says Paul, is the essence of what it means to be Christian.

And Christians today, not the Christians in name only, but Christians who fulfill this law of Christ, haven’t been this burdened in years.

And Paul’s message for us is to keep going, keep bearing those burdens, keep sowing those seeds, reminding us that we will one day reap what we sow.

Of course, we in America know all about reaping what we sow.

We elect leaders who sow division, declaring that they hate over half the people in the country, and then ask why we’re so polarized.

We sow billion-dollar weapons, and billion-dollar detention centers, and billion-dollar border walls, and then wonder why there’s no money for education and healthcare.

We sow exclusion and meanness, and do so in the name of God, and are shocked when young people leave the church.

So, we ask today:

What kind of country are we sowing?
What kind of church are we planting?
What kind of future are we tending?

If we sow silence when immigrants are deported, we will reap a nation with no conscience. If we sow tolerance for white supremacy, we will reap a church with no soul.

But if we sow solidarity, if we sow compassion, if we sow truth with love and justice, then we might just see the harvest.

In speaking of the harvest to come, how appropriate is Paul’s warning: “Do not be deceived. God is not mocked.”

Because another truth we must tell today, especially here in Lynchburg, Virginia, is naming the seed that’s continually mocking God and choking the harvest: the seed of White Christian Nationalism.

So many have been deceived into believing that this the Gospel of Jesus. When in fact, it’s the exact opposite. It’s the idolatry of race, the weaponizing of scripture, and the spiritual disguise of liberty that’s only for the privileged. It’s the heresy that says God loves America more than other nations, that straight whiteness is holiness, guns are sacred, and power matters more than people.

It wraps the cross with the flag, prays over injustice, and oppresses all the people Jesus would invite to a party. It anoints hate with holy water. It baptizes voter suppression, xenophobia, patriarchy, and LBGTQ bigotry and dares to call it “religious freedom.” But it’s far from freedom. It’s spiritual fascism dressed in red, white, and blue.

And Paul has a strong warning for those who have been deceived by such fascism: “God is not mocked.”

I believe that means that God is not fooled by the praise songs sung in a sanctuary of a church that turns its back on the oppressed.

God is not honored by churches that preach salvation but vote against food programs, health care, housing, and human dignity.

It’s not just bad theology—it’s deadly theology. And if we don’t name it and speak out against it, it will keep reaping violence, apathy, and war against the image of God in every non-white, non-straight, non-male, non-citizen body.

So, on this Fourth of July weekend Christians must say it clearly: We renounce the false gospel of white Christian nationalism. We will not grow weary naming it, resisting it, and working to plant something more beautiful in its place.

And Paul tells us exactly what we need to plant. Look at verse 15.

“For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything!”

Paul is talking about more pointless, lightweight religious stuff, saying it means absolutely nothing.

Worrying about how much foreskin one has is pointless when you couldn’t care less about the deeper wounds of others. Hanging the Ten Commandments on the Wall of a classroom is ridiculous when you refuse to feed the hungry children who sit in those classrooms.

America doesn’t need more lightweight, God-mocking religiosity. America needs something heavier. America needs a new creation.

A new creation where human dignity isn’t decided by documentation.
A new creation where education and health care are not luxuries.
A new creation where Black and Brown lives matter and queer kids live and thrive.

A new creation where people live like our ancient ancestors— in harmony with the earth, air, and sea.
A new creation where the church never bows to empire but always stands in solidarity with the least, the last, and the left out.

And Paul reminds us: We don’t get there by accident. And we don’t get there mocking God with religious hypocrisy. We get there by sowing it in faith and never giving up.

So, here’s the good news:

If you are exhausted today, it means you’ve been bearing a heavy burden fulfilling the law of Christ.
If you are tired today, it means you’ve been in the struggle sowing a new creation.
If you feel like giving up today, it only means you still care.

If your patriotism feels today more like fatigue than fireworks, you are on the right path.

And today, God has three words for you: Don’t. Give. Up.

Don’t give up on the child who needs your voice.
Don’t give up on the system that looks too broken to fix.
Don’t give up on the Church, even when it’s lost its moral compass.
Don’t give up on the movement. Don’t give up on the struggle.
Don’t give up on your calling, and never give up on love.

And know you don’t have to carry it all alone. Because we’re going to bear the burden together.

So, this weekend, while the nation celebrates its imperfect, incomplete freedom, we’ll keep sowing for the freedom that still hasn’t fully come.

And we will not give up. Because we know the harvest is coming.
And God will not let our labor be in vain.

So go, worn out but willing. March on, wounded but not defeated, stunned but not silent. Sow seeds of justice with trembling hands and tired feet.
And trust that the God who began a good work in us will one day bring home the harvest.

Amen.

Pastoral Prayer

O God of the long road and the tired feet,

You have seen every protest march, every underground meeting,

every whispered prayer beneath the weight of oppression.

You were with Harriet Tubman in the woods,

with the veterans of Selma on the bridge,

with the mothers crying at detention centers today.

This weekend, as a nation sings of liberty,

We are grieving, for we know the truth that not all are free.

We know freedom is more than fireworks and parades—

it is housing, it is healing, it is dignity, it is truth.

We grieve the cruelty of a nation that passes a bill soaked in injustice: that takes healthcare from the sick, food from the hungry, and dignity from the poor to fund tax breaks for the rich and concentration camps for immigrants.

We grieve, O God, for Texas Hill Country—where catastrophic floods struck on July 4 killing at least 51 people including many children, sweeping away cabins at a summer camp with 27 girls still missing.

May the families waiting in anguish feel your presence.

Give rescue workers strength, bring swift comfort,

and awaken in us a fierce call to care for our neighbors in every disaster.

We confess, God, that we sometimes grow tired of it all.

Tired of the suffering of this world. Tired of fighting the same battles.

Tired of speaking truth in ears that won’t hear.

Tired of watching laws be written that wound your people.

So, pour your Spirit upon us like a second wind.

Give us the courage to keep showing up—

to sow goodness, to bear burdens, to carry one another.

And give us joy that this labor is never in vain.

Make us co-creators of your new creation,

until the tired are lifted, the wounded are healed,

and the world becomes your Beloved Community. In the name of Jesus, our justice, and our rest. Amen.

 

Invitation to Communion

Jesus never promised an easy road, but he did promise a shared table.

At this table, the tired are welcomed, the wounded are fed, and no one carries the Gospel alone.

Here we remember that Christ’s body was broken not just for individuals,

but for communities—for the collective healing of the world.

If you are weary, if you are burdened,

if you are longing for a taste of real freedom—

come. All are welcome.

This table is for you.

 

Invitation to Give

Giving to this offering is not about guilt or obligation. It is about sowing.

And we reap what we sow.

When we sow into justice, we reap a more beloved world.

When we give with compassion, we build up the Body of Christ.

On this weekend when so much is spent on fireworks and celebration,

we invite you to invest in something eternal:

a love that serves, a truth that speaks, and a justice that marches.

Let us give, not out of surplus, but out of hope.

Not to keep the lights on, but to light the way.

Commissioning and Benediction

Go now, tired but unbroken.

Go now, weary but still willing.

Go now, and do not grow weary in doing what is right—

for the harvest is coming.

May the Spirit strengthen your hands.

May the Christ who bore our burdens walk beside you.

And may the God who is not mocked guide you into new creation.

Go in peace, go in power,

go in love—

and never give up.

Amen.

Grumpy Jesus: The Fierce Face of Love

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

Luke 9:51-62

Jesus seems a little stressed in our gospel lesson this morning. And who could blame him?

Luke tells us his face is set toward Jerusalem, not toward comfort or safety, not toward respectability or popularity, but toward the seats of power that believe the love he proclaims is weak, the empathy he demonstrates is a sin, the mercy he shows should get him deported, and his grace—His radical inclusion and acceptance of the marginalized? His free handouts of fish and bread and healthcare? His solidarity with foreigners? —Why, all of that lunacy oughta get him crucified!

And at this point in his ministry, he seems exasperated by the lack of support around him, by the religious culture, including his disciples, so much so, the obvious title for this sermon is “Grumpy Jesus.”

Jesus’ journey toward Jerusalem doesn’t get off on the right foot, as he receives word that there no hospitality awaiting him in a village of the Samaritans. No room in the inn, or this time, even in a barn! This is not surprising considering the Samaritans and Jews mutual animosity; yet knowing Jesus’ love that has no borders, he’s obviously frustrated. But perhaps he is more frustrated by his disciples’ response.

James and John, bless their lil’ hearts, ask Jesus if he wants them to reenact a scene from 2 Kings by asking God to rain down fire from heaven and wipe out the entire Samaritan village!

Episcopal priest Rick Morley says this is like “one of those moments at Thanksgiving when your crazy uncle says something so ridiculously inappropriate that everyone just turns and stares with their mouths agape.”

After James and John’s outrageous suggestion, he imagines Jesus doing a face palm.

Of course, grumpy Jesus immediately rebukes them.

Then, Jesus has a series of three encounters with some pretty good disciple prospects. And after James and John’s hell, fire, and brimstone comment, wouldn’t it be nice to have some fresh blood?

The first would-be disciple comes, and without Jesus asking him, presents himself as the perfect candidate: “Jesus, I will follow you wherever you go!”

Now, what’s not to like about that? It’s exactly the kind of people this world needs more of!

But, Jesus, perhaps still exasperated because no one in Samaria left the light on for him, responds: “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

“Okaaaay, Jesus. I’ll check back with you when you have had your coffee.”

Jesus then encounters another prospect and invites him to join the movement. He agrees but asks permission to go and bury his father first. It’s a very reasonable, loving, and faithful request. It was his part of fulfilling God’s law to “honor father and mother.”

But then, if you thought the “foxes have holes and birds have nests” comment was a bit snarky, Jesus responds: “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the Kingdom of God.”

Now, he’s really sounding grumpy.

C’mon Jesus. I know you are upset that you have nowhere to lay your head, and I know your disciples are idiots, or at least can be very frustrating, but the poor man just wants to bury his father! What can be wrong with that? Isn’t honoring our parents part of discipleship? Isn’t taking some time to grieve over the loss of a loved one something God would want us to do?

Then, Jesus encounters the third would-be follower, who like the first one, also volunteers for discipleship without being asked. But first, he wants to go and say good-bye to his family, perhaps to let their children know why Daddy wouldn’t be home for a while. Again, sounds like a reasonable request. Even Elijah allowed Elisha, who was plowing a field, to first say good-bye to his parents before leaving to join Elijah’s ministry (1 Kings 19:19-21).

But grumpy Jesus isn’t having it. Echoing the calling of Elisha, he says, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God.”

This is when I wanna say: “Look Jesus. I know you’re upset. I know you’re tired. I know you’ve nowhere to lay your head. I know you’re frustrated. I know the disciples that you have been training to be compassionate, loving, forgiving, merciful and peaceful want to fire bomb an entire village. I know you have your face set on Jerusalem and all the opposition that is to come. But come on, Jesus, take it easy. Let this man say good-bye to his family. And for God’s sake, let this one bury his father!”

But this is Jesus. Thus, my faith tells me that there must be something more going on here—something more than a little fatigue, frustration, and fear.

His face is set toward Jerusalem. This could infer that he knows the that his time on earth is short. And he knows that if he is going to usher in the Kingdom of God before he dies, there’s no time to waste.

The same is true for us. The reality is that our time here is also short. And if we want to make a difference for the Kingdom of God while we’re here, there’s not a moment to lose.

But maybe Jesus’ grumpiness has nothing to do with himself. Afterall, Jesus is always demonstrating the importance denying and losing one’s self. So, perhaps Jesus is not thinking about his own circumstance at all.

Perhaps he had in mind other circumstances and people who needed the good news he was proclaiming. Perhaps Jesus knew that, not for him, but for others, for many, there wasn’t a moment to lose.

So, his grumpiness is really a holy urgency, a sacred stress fueled by a divine love with a height, a depth, a width, and a breadth that we can only begin to understand. Perhaps Jesus knew that for God’s kingdom to come to those who need it the most, there’s not a moment to lose.

There’s not a moment to lose –

For those who are poor, for those who hunger, for those who weep, for those who are hated, insulted, excluded, and rejected (Luke 6:20-22).

There’s not a moment to lose –

For those Samaritans who believe they have lost favor with God (Luke 10:25-29);

For a woman who had been crippled for eighteen years (Luke 13:10-17);

For a man who had been suffering with dropsy. Remember that Jesus healed him on the Sabbath in the presence of the Pharisees (he didn’t wait until the next day when it was lawful), proving, there is not a moment to lose (Luke 14:1-4).

There’s not a moment to lose –

For the rich man who thought he was blessed because he was rich. For the poor man who thought he was cursed because he was poor (Luke 16:19-31);

For the ten lepers who approached Jesus in a region between Galilee and Samaria (Luke 17:11-19);

For the blind beggar sitting beside the roadside near Jericho (Luke 18:35-43).

There’s not a moment to lose –

For a man named Zacchaeus who defrauded the poor;

For all of the poor people he defrauded (Luke 19:1-10).

Jesus is frustrated, because there’s not a moment to lose—

For an entire world that feels rejected, cursed and lost;

For LGBTQ people whose lives are not worth the cost to fund a suicide hotline.

For millions of Americans who are one step closer today to losing their health insurance because of a big, brutal, not beautiful, bill in congress.

For immigrants snatched from their homes, their gardens, their schools and workplaces without cause and due process and cruelly imprisoned separated from their families.

Jesus is exasperated, because there’s not a moment to lose—

For all children who suffer from neglect and abuse;

For girls who are raped and then denied healthcare;

For boys who are taught that it is okay to objectify girls;

For the person with a disability who feels like the whole world, even God, is against them.

Jesus is stressed, because there’s not a moment to lose –

For the one dying of loneliness in a nursing home;

For those who have to make the choice every week to either buy their medication or to buy groceries;

For those unjustly locked away in our prisons because of their economic status or skin color;

Jesus is grumpy, because there’s not a moment to lose –

To respond to climate change that threatens God’s good earth;

To end the destructive pollution of the planet with plastics and carbon.

And Jesus has his palm planted on his face today, because many of his disciples still don’t have a clue. Some still want God to rain down fire and brimstone on those who believe and live differently. And many would-be-followers still have no sense of urgency to be public witnesses of love, peace, mercy and justice.

And the clock is ticking. The Kingdom is at hand. The time is now. We don’t have the luxury of comfort. We don’t have the privilege of delay. We can’t afford to wait until the children are grown, until the house is paid off, until we’ve buried all our grief or kissed everyone goodbye. For there’s not a moment to lose.

This world is on fire, not with holy fire, but with the flames of greed, racism, heteroism, white Christian nationalism, militarism, and climate catastrophe. And while some are lighting matches, too many are just watching it all burn. Too many are saying: “Let me finish what I was doing first” or “let me look after my own first,” while the Samaritan is bleeding in the ditch, while the trans teenager is hanging on by a thread, while hungry people with brown skin are afraid to go to the grocery store for fear of being deported to a country where they’ve never been and have no connection.

Jesus has set his face toward Jerusalem, and he is calling us to set ours—not toward comfort or safety, not toward respectability or popularity, but toward the place where justice is born.

We are not called to admire Jesus from a safe distance in some comfortable sanctuary. We are not called to study him or sing praise songs to him. We are called to walk with him, to move with him, to carry his gospel like it’s a matter of life and death. Because it is.

So, let the church rise up, not with stones in hand, but with bread and wine, with towels and basins, and bullhorns and ballots. Let’s sound the alarm, flood the phones, take to the streets, and send so many emails to our representatives we crash the servers.

Let the church understand that there’s not a moment to lose to tell the truth—
Not a moment to lose to dismantle hate.
Not a moment to lose to march with the poor.
Not a moment to lose to shout that Black and Brown Lives Matter.
Not a moment to lose to say queer and trans people are sacred.
Not a moment to lose to break the chains of every modern-day Pharaoh.

In our text Jesus may be tired. Jesus may be exasperated. Jesus may even be grumpy. But Jesus isn’t giving up, and neither can we.

So, let’s stop looking back.
Let’s stop making excuses.
Let’s put our hand to the plow and move forward…
with power, with grace, with courage, with compassion, with mercy and with the fierce, unrelenting urgency of love!

Because the Kingdom is not coming later.

The Kingdom is coming now.

And there’s not a moment to lose!

Amen.

Rise Up and Live!

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

Luke 7:11-17

Our scripture lesson this morning takes us back in time with Jesus to the gates of Nain, a small town in Galilee. As soon as Jesus enters the city gates, he encounters a funeral procession for the young son of a widow being carried to his grave.

But I believe Jesus sees more than a funeral. I believe Jesus sees it all. He walks into Nain and sees an unjust system carrying its latest victim to the grave. He sees the only son of a widow, which means, the only source of security for a woman living in a patriarchal world. When her son died, the widow’s future died with him. Jesus sees what happens when poverty and patriarchy crush a family. Thus, this is not just personal tragedy. It’s cruelty. And it’s a social indictment.

And I believe this is what Jesus wants us to see.

But we don’t need a time machine to see this funeral procession in Nain with Jesus, do we? For here in America, we can see it every day.

When billionaires profit from privatized healthcare, while the working poor die from preventable diseases, it’s like we are back in Nain.

When a bill they call “big and beautiful” takes health insurance away from millions of poor people and eliminates grants for medical research so the rich can enjoy tax cuts, it’s like we’re standing at the city gates of Nain.

When food programs for the poor are slashed in the name of “fiscal responsibility” while millions are spent on masked men in unmarked vans kidnapping brown-skinned people who are on the way to school or work, we are watching a very cruel spectacle march by.

When the supreme court denies the right to gender-affirming healthcare, greatly increasing the suicide rate among trans youth, when women are denied abortions, when programs like Job Corps are suspended, when missiles are being launched and bombs are being dropped, when we stand today on the threshold of war, indeed, we are not far from that funeral procession in Nain.

And the actions of Jesus in response to this procession reveal another tragic truth. The tragedy of the funeral procession in Nain is what happens when the powers of injustice, violence and death are normalized. A dead child going to their grave before their time is what it looks like when no one stands up to say: “Enough is enough!”

When a U.S. Senator from Iowa stands at the gates of power and shrugs her shoulders at the suffering of the elderly, veterans, children, and disabled folks if Medicare is cut, saying, “well, we are all going to die,” we know are living at the gates of Nain.

The good news is that when Jesus sees the funeral procession, he sees all of it. He sees the normalization of cruelty. He sees the pain of the widow. He sees her poverty. He sees her isolation. He sees the way she is seen or not seen by the political and religious culture. And Luke says, “He had compassion on her.”

As I have pointed out before, that word “compassion” in the Greek is visceral. Jesus felt it in his gut. The word literally means that he was filled with so much compassion, his stomach was in knots. And notice what happens next.

Jesus crashes the funeral. Jesus steps in and stops the procession. He reaches out and touches the bier.

By touching the bier, he touches what others refuse to touch. He breaks cultural, ritual, and religious protocol interrupting death with divine compassion. And then, with the authority of heaven, he speaks directly to the dead: “Young man, I say to you, rise!”

Notice that Jesus doesn’t offer thoughts and prayers. He doesn’t say “Rest in peace” or “God needed another angel in heaven” or, “bless his heart, he’s in a better place.” And he sure in heaven doesn’t say, “Well, we are all going to die.”

Jesus speaks in the face of injustice and death saying: “Rise!”

“Rise!”— That’s the gospel we are called to preach and to live.

“Rise!” is a gospel of protest; not passivity.

It’s a gospel of resurrection; not resignation.
It’s not a gospel that comforts the powerful, but a gospel that confronts the powerful and disrupts the unjust systems of death.

The question that this story begs of us today is: what kind of people will we be?

Will we be the indifferent crowd accepting injustice by following death to the grave, or will we be the disciples who walk with Jesus and interrupt it?

Will we shrug our shoulders accepting that “everybody dies,” or will we embrace a gospel that never shrugs, a gospel that always dares to stop the march of injustice?

These questions are most important today as many Christians have chosen death over life.

Oh, of course they would never confess that. They claim to follow the way of Jesus by being pro-life, but they act in ways that are the exact opposite.

They want to force children to be born into the world while they cut Head Start, undermine vaccines, refuse to fund public schools, stand against raising the minimum wage, deny healthcare, and cut food assistance. They hold press conferences about embryos but pass budgets that kill the most vulnerable among us. They preach “sanctity of life” but value their right to own an assault weapon more than they value the safety of school children. They cry “life is sacred,” but when asked about Medicare, they shrug and say: “Well, we are all going to die.”

That’s not pro-life. That’s pro-power, pro-patriarchy, and pro-political points. It’s s a theology of control, not compassion, and it has nothing to do with Jesus of Nazareth. I believe the church needs to be pro-life the way Jesus was pro-life.

That means pro-human dignity, pro-healthcare, pro-feeding the hungry, pro-housing, pro-living wages, pro-education, pro-immigrant, pro-refugee, pro-disabled persons, pro-LGBTQIA persons, pro-justice, pro-mercy, pro-nonviolence, and pro-peace.

Otherwise, it’s not life. It’s hypocrisy. Otherwise, what is the church good for?

I will never forget sharing with one of my former churches during a board meeting that unless some changes were made, unless we left the comfort and safety of the sanctuary to take the gospel from the pulpit into the public square, I believed the church was going to die.

Do you want to know what their response was?

“Well, we’re ok with that. The truth is, pastor, we would rather die than change anything.” I kid you not.

But I do not believe Christian pastors are called by God to be hospice chaplains for dying congregations. We are not called by God to manage the procession of death. And we are not called to be chaplains of empire or funeral directors for failed, unjust systems.

And we weren’t called to gather here in this place just to sing and sip coffee. We are called to go out and crash the funeral! We are called to disrupt the lie that poverty and cruelty is normal. We are called to touch the bier, to raise our voices, to say to a fragmented and unjust world: “This procession ends here! Rise up and live!”

Because Jesus didn’t come to help us die quietly and peacefully.
Jesus came so that we might have life and have it abundantly!

So, when they say, “well, we are all going to die,” we say:
Yes, that is true, but not all don’t need to die this way.
-Not for lack of access to healthcare.

-Not for a lack of opportunity to get an education.

-Not for a lack of food.

-Not for lack of insulin.

-Not for the lack of a living wage.

-Not because gender-affirming care upsets your privileged, ignorant, black and white, binary religious worldview.

– Not because compassion is considered too expensive and mercy too extravagant.

And not while the Church is still breathing and still following the way and voice of Jesus who says: “Open your eyes and see the suffering. See the injustice. And then step in— and touch the bier. Stand where the pain is. Interrupt the systems of death. Speak to the young people laid in caskets before their time and dare to declare: ‘You were meant for so much more than this!’”

Because healthcare is not luxury. It’s a human right. Compassion is not weakness, and empathy is not sin. It’s divine strength. The church is not called to manage the funeral. We’re called to proclaim resurrection.

So let us go from this place not in silence but in power.

Let us walk to the gates of our cities, our states, and this nation,
and speak like Jesus.

Let us say to our trans siblings: “We see you.”

Say to the poor, the and the disabled: “We are on your side.”

Say to the immigrant: “We stand with you.”
Say to the widow: “You are not alone.”
And say to the unjust systems of death: “Your time is up!”
And to all those who have been cast down: “Rise up and live!”

Because the final word is not cruelty. The final word is not indifference.
The final word is not: “well, everybody dies.” The final word is Jesus, and Jesus says: “Rise!”

So, let the Church rise! Let the people of God cry out at the gates of every system that shrugs at suffering:

To say to politicians obsessed with power and profit: We will not fooled by your pro-life bumper stickers.

To say to the politicians who offer thoughts and prayers but pass budgets of brutality: “We will not be silent!”

Because our Lord is the one who stops the funeral.

Our Lord is the one who touches the bier.
Our Lord is the one who weeps with the widow.
Our Lord is the one who speaks life into the grave and says: “Rise!”

And if we are going to follow that Lord, then we too must rise up, speak up, and lift up every child of God who’s been cast down. Because “everybody dies” may be a fact of biology, but “rise up and live!” is the truth of theology!
So, let’s rise!

Trinity in the Trenches

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Sermons Year C3 Comments

Romans 5:1-5

Ok, here it is! The sermon that you’ve been waiting for! I wouldn’t call it a sugar-stick sermon, but it’s certainly a hopeful sermon. And oh, how we need some hope today! Because, in today’s world, we wonder how we’re still standing.

Our epistle lectionary lesson Romans 5:1-5 enters our turbulent time like a divine disruption, a flame refusing to be swallowed by the night. It doesn’t offer quick fixes or shallow answers, but it offers deep, lasting, transforming, Trinitarian hope.

I know, I know. Some of you have never been big fans of the Trinity. That’s because you’re not fans of any doctrine or creed, especially if it was decreed by the empire centuries ago, with other edicts and declarations that have caused more harm in the world than good. You don’t get it, and I get that. The Trinity is a strange concept. Three in one? Why three? Why not 7 or 12 or 17 or 153? Actually, I kinda like 153!

The good news for us on this day we call “Trinity Sunday” is that the Trinity doesn’t have to be a dusty old imperial doctrine. The Trinity can be divine, living reality.

I know, I know. Some of you didn’t like the sound of that. A preacher telling you what reality is. We have too much gaslighting these days from the power-that-be, and you’ve come to church this morning to hear the truth!

But hear me out. I am saying that maybe the Trinity, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, or the Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer if you prefer, is not an ancient puzzle to solve. It’s a real, living, transforming, presence in which to dwell. The Holy Trinity is something to be lived more than learned, experienced more than explained, something or someone with whom to relate more than to understand. It’s not abstract; it’s active. It’s moving. It’s breathing. It’s calling, prodding, pushing, pulling us toward who we have been and are still being created to be.

Listen again to how the Apostle Paul describes the Trinity in his letter to the Romans:

“Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ… and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

Let’s walk together in this text and let the Trinity meet us in our grief, our protests, our healing, and our rising.

“Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God…”

To say, we are “justified by faith” is to say that God, the source of all that is, made a decision about us before the world could.

Before society tagged you as expendable, God named you “beloved”. Before empires wrote policies and made decrees to discount or disappear you, God wrote your name in glory.

  • Before redlining maps were drawn, God marked your entire neighborhood and called it blessed.
  • Before school districts were zoned to maintain inequality, God declared your mind worthy of wisdom.
  • Before they looked at your skin, your gender, your sexuality, and your zip code, and said “unworthy” God looked at you and said “very good!”
  • Before they erased you from textbooks, God had written your story in the Lamb’s Book of Life!

And it is God, the creator of everything, the energy of, in, and behind the universe, Love Love’s self, who is the one who declares peace over us— a cosmic, reconciling, justice-making peace.

It’s not the peace of silence. It’s not the peace of the status quo.

It’s not the peace one enjoys when they decide to play it safe.

It’s not the peace that comes with caution, following the rules or staying out of trouble.

It’s the peace that always lifts up the lowly, the least and the left out, even if it means flipping a table or two to do it!

It’s the peace that comes with the freedom of being justified. It’s not passive peace. It’s a prophetic peace. It’s the peace that tears down what divides and oppresses and builds what unifies and liberates in its place.

  • It’s the kind of peace that marched with Dr. King and bled with John Lewis on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
  • It’s the kind of peace that says “Black Lives Matter” not to exclude anyone, but to expose what peace really demands.
  • It’s not the kind of peace that settles, but the kind of peace that agitates until justice rolls down like waters.

Let’s look at the next line:

“…through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand…” (v.2)

Jesus is our access point to grace. Jesus didn’t just die because of our sins; He lived to show us what love looks like under empire, under oppression, under the shadow of the cross by living a life of grace.

Grace is not a loophole. It’s a lifestyle. Grace is what empowers us to stand tall in the rubble, to stand in front of an army deployed by a corrupt authoritarian and still speak truth. Grace is opportunity. Grace is an opening, a door, a window, even a crack. Grace is how Jesus reached out to the woman at the well, touched the leper, and restored the outcast.

And Paul says, Jesus is the access to this grace.

Sadly, this is where the church has really messed up its theology. Grace is not a ticket to heaven to escape the world. Grace is the opportunity to bring heaven to the world.

This is the grace Jesus came to give.

So let me say this prophetically: If your theology makes room for grace but not justice, you haven’t met Jesus yet.

If your gospel preaches forgiveness but ignores the systems that crucify, it’s not good news. It’s a performance.

Christ gives us grace to stand. Not to retreat. Not to hide. But to stand—

· To stand in the courtroom when the system is tilted, and still speak truth to power, with trembling hands but with a steady soul.

· To stand in the streets, in the pouring rain or the scorching heat and still lift up signs and prayers for a justice that won’t wait.

· To stand in your weary body—chronically ill, over-policed, underpaid—and say, “My presence is still a miracle!”

· To stand in grief when you’ve buried too many dreams, too many loved ones, and somehow still hope again.

· To stand when depression tells you to stay in bed, when anxiety says you’re not enough, and say: “Grace brought me here, and grace will keep me, and grace is enough.”

The good news is that there is more, much more! Look at verse 5.

“…and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit…” (v.5)

Ah, the Spirit. The One too many of us try to explain instead of experience.

This is the Spirit who whispers to us when all hell is breaking loose.

This is the Spirit who moves us in protest chants and in silent prayers.

This is the Spirit who pours—not sprinkles, drizzles, or cautiously trickles, but liberally pours the love of God deep into us until we can breathe again, smile again, even laugh again.

And this is why we don’t give up or stand down or ever bow down. Because love has roots that run deep. Love has a heartbeat in us. And even when suffering surrounds us, the darkness envelops us, even when the trauma returns, the Spirit keeps saying, “Hold on. The good old days may be gone but good new days are coming!”

The Spirit does not eliminate suffering. The Spirit takes suffering and makes suffering meaningful. The Spirit resurrects and transforms suffering. The Spirit assures us that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces a hope that never disappoints us!

So, what do we do when the world is on fire?

When empires write decrees and send in the troops?

When systems still crucify the innocent?

When liberty and justice feels like a luxury only for the privileged?

When the whole world seems to be upside down, and we’re barely hanging on?

That’s when we remember the One, or the Three, who are holding on to us. The Father speaks peace. Christ gives grace. And the Spirit pours out love!

This is our Triune hope in the trenches, our Trinitarian anchor in a turbulent world. This is why we preach. This is why we worship in a pew, sing a hymn, and give an offering. This is why we pray and why we protest. This is why we forgive and feed, cry and console, resist and rise!

The Trinity is not an idea. It’s not just a concept. The Trinity is our inheritance, our identity, and our liberation. It’s how we can still stand when all is falling around us.

Still stand when policies crush the poor.

Still stand when truth is unfashionable.

Still stand when they gaslight and try to divide us.

Still stand when they deploy the military against us and threaten to kill us.

Still stand when love looks like resistance and hope costs everything.

The Trinity is not theoretical. It’s revolutionary!

The Father says, “Stand in this love.” The Son says, “Stand in this grace.” The Spirit says, “I’ve poured this love in you like wildfire—now go and light up your city, your state, your nation, and my world with my love. Go and stand and love until the torch of liberty and justice burns for all!”

So, let’s go and stand. Stand in courtrooms and stand in classrooms.

Stand in pulpits and in stand in peace vigils.

Stand in mourning and stand in movement.

Stand with our scars and with our sacred calling.

And when the world asks: Who gave you permission to stand like this? Who told you that you could be this courageous? How are you this strong, this confident? And why are you smiling like that?

That’s when you say, “I’ve been justified by faith!” “I’ve got peace from the Father!” “I’ve been given grace from the Son!” “And have been anointed with fire from the Holy Ghost!”

Now stand, and let your life be a sermon the world has been waiting for and cannot ignore.

If We Loved Like Jesus

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Easter, Sermons Year CLeave a comment

John 13:31-35

In the words of Stevie Wonder, I have “some serious news to pass on to everybody (which is really news to no one): “Love is in need of love today.”

Although some of Jesus’ last words, which are usually understood as one’s most important words, came in a commandment to love one another as he loved, many Christians have rejected those words, and today, love seems to have fallen out of favor.

One excuse I hear is: “Well, love might have worked back in Jesus’ time, but the world’s a much different place today. Love, especially loving like Jesus loved, well, that just doesn’t cut it anymore.”

Preaching love these days gets one called “a left-wing lunatic,” while stirring up hate gets one elected President. Being empathetic toward another gets one called “a sinner,” while being a bully gets one called “faithful,” or “councilman.” Deporting and separating families gets cheers, while asking for some common decency and humanity, gets one called “soft.”

If we truly love like Jesus loved—if we feed the hungry, if we care for the sick, if we give to the poor, if we stand up for the marginalized, if we speak out on behalf of the oppressed, if we welcome the stranger, and accept those who are cast away, we’re considered: “enemies of the state.”

These days, the peace and love crowd who lead with mercy, are out of date. And the mean and tough crowd, those who can make the hard decisions are trending. They can take away SNAP benefits without any apprehension, have people arrested without any due process and disappeared without any second thought. They say the country can afford to show our strength with a military parade, but not to show our compassion with healthcare for the elderly.

But love? Love is weak, they say. And these days, in these times, they say love is for losers. It may have worked back in the first century, when Jesus commanded it, but not here in the twenty-first, not anymore.

But the truth is, first century Palestine was not much different from today. Beneath the rule of the Roman Empire, ordinary people bore the weight of crushing taxes, land seizures, violent crackdowns, and the threat of crucifixion designed to silence dissent and maintain control. The elites—

local, imperial and religious— colluded to rob people of their wealth and dignity, leaving entire communities displaced and impoverished. It was a time when the underprivileged dare not imagine a world where justice was right for the oppressed and not a privilege of the powerful.

And it was into the thickness of that unrelenting, darkness, Jesus commanded his followers: “Love one another.”

Because Jesus knew that love is the light the darkness cannot overcome, and love is only power in the world strong enough to tear down empires and build God’s kin-dom.

So, when Jesus said, “Love one another as I have loved you,” he wasn’t being soft, and he sure as heaven wasn’t being weak.

He was talking about using the most powerful force in the world to change the world! He was talking about a love that was so threatening to the powers-that-be it would get you arrested and could easily get you nailed to a cross.

Jesus was talking about a love that confronts the empire, a love that calls out injustice, a love that always, insistently, and unapologetically, favors the oppressed and welcomes the people society tries to cast out. It’s a love that moves mountains, flips tables, and shakes up the status quo. It’s a love that demands justice for the poor, healthcare for the sick, and freedom for the oppressed.

Jesus said, “Love one another, as I have loved you,” because Jesus knew that love, the love he taught, the love he modeled and embodied, is the only power in the universe that can turn this world around.

Earlier this spring, Father John Dear reminded us that although the term “nonviolence” may sound passive and weak, there’s really nothing passive or weak about it. Nonviolence is “active love. It’s active resistance to evil.”

It’s important to remember that Jesus was anything but passive. He didn’t just sit back in his thoughts and prayers and wait for the world to change. He marched right into the temple and flipped over the tables of those who were hurting the poor saying: “This is not the kingdom of God! This is not how God’s people do things!”

He challenged the hypocrisy of the religious culture, those who claimed to love God but failed miserably in the things God requires, kindness, justice, and mercy, especially to those who were the most thirsty and hungry for it.

That’s how Jesus loved. And that’s how the world today needs us to love.

Dorothy Day, who devoted her entire life to loving like Jesus, once said: “Love, and ever more love, is the only solution to every problem that comes up in the world.” Love keeps coming. It keeps showing up. It keeps resisting and pushing back the darkness.

Dr. King described love’s power this way: “Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.” Love stands up to racism, to sexism, to greed, to exploitation, to marginalization, and says: “Not on my watch!”

Gandhi once said: “Nonviolence is not a weapon of the weak. It is the weapon of the strong.” The strength of love is not how hard we hit or how loud we shout. It’s in how firmly we stand for love when hatred thunders and violence strikes. That’s true strength. And the good news is that the church that commits to loving like Jesus has that strength in abundance!

The problem is that an alternative Jesus devoid of love is now being used to fuel injustice. When I heard in seminary that when fascism comes to America, it’ll be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross, I really didn’t think I’d ever see it.

Ten commandments hang on the walls, but there’s no compassion in the halls. They call it freedom, but it only works for some. Prayers and crosses are everywhere, but mercy? It’s nowhere to be found. They may say it is about God, but it’s all about control.

As Rev. Dr. William Barber likes to say, you can’t say God Bless America and think you’re being holy when you’re terrorizing immigrants, taking away food from the poor, and denying healthcare. That’s not holiness, says Barber, — “that’s pure hypocrisy dressed up in Sunday clothes!” It is sin. And if we stay silent while God’s name gets stamped on policies that crush the poor, deport the stranger, and hoard wealth for the few, then we are complicit in that sin. Jesus didn’t die for a faith that props up empires — he died for a love that tears them down.

And Barber reminds us that none of what we are seeing today is new. In the 1930s, fascists in Europe had a way of wrapping cruelty in religious national pride. They spread lies about minorities and built concentration camps and called it security. They locked up dissenters and called it patriotism. They cut off aid to the vulnerable and called it government efficiency. They blamed the Jews for the crucifixion of Jesus and called it eradiating anti-Christian bias.

And today’s mass deportations, voter suppression, and attacks on the press, free speech and universities — they are all echoes of those same dark chapters.

The good news is that love didn’t fail back then — because love does as love always does— Love showed up.

Love resists. It never quits. Love stays. It never retreats. Love fights. And love always wins.

Harriet Tubman went back, again and again. Because love doesn’t leave people behind. Chains broke. A system cracked. The lie of slavery collapsed. And love won.

In Selma, they beat ‘em with batons on that bridge. But they marched anyway. Love crossed into history. The Voting Rights Act was signed. And love won.

At Stonewall, they said love was illegal. They raided bars and broke lives. But the people rose. Years later, the Supreme Court saw the truth that love is love is love, and love got a seat at the altar. Love won.

In 2020 when everything shut down, love opened up. Mutual aid was demonstrated. Grocery runs happened. Meals on porches were shared. Text chains were created. Check-ins occurred. Love filled the gaps.

Not soft love. Not timid love. Resilient, rooted, revolutionary love—this is the love Jesus commanded when he said: “as I have loved you, love one another.”

It’s a love that doesn’t flinch. A love that never folds. A love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. A love that doesn’t give up. Not then. And not now.

If only the church had followed the simple commandment to love Jesus as he loved, it would’ve never been seduced by any politician shouting, “Make America Great Again!” Because the only greatness Jesus is interested in is the greatness of love—Love that welcomes the stranger, feeds the hungry, and protects the vulnerable—A love that would never chant “Send them back.”  But always says: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

So, no — love is not weak, and it is not soft— love is power. Love is resisting. Love is marching. Love is standing up and speaking out.

Love is nonviolence in action, and as Father Dear says, love is a “force more powerful than all the weapons of war.”

The good news is—we can see love is rising today!

We can see love standing unshakably during a silent peace vigil on Monument Square in the pouring rain. It can be seen getting pastors arrested for praying in public in the Rotunda to protect Medicaid. And when the Boss sits down at concert and speaks like the prophet Isaiah.

And we can see love persisting as a new Pope chooses to be named Leo, after the Pope who laid the foundations in 1891 for Catholic social teaching advocating for: the rights of workers, especially the poor; the divine dignity of all persons, the government’s role in social justice; and role of the church in protecting the most vulnerable.

A small act of kindness extended to a stranger, a church sheltering an asylum-seeker, federal judges pushing back to defend the Constitution—This is not weakness. This is the power that can change the world!

If we loved like Jesus, our immigration policies would be built on hospitality, not hostility.

If we loved like Jesus, we would welcome the stranger, not criminalize them.

If we loved like Jesus, unchristian Nationalism would bow to the kingdom of God, and white supremacy wrapped up in Christian language would never be tolerated.

And the church wouldn’t be known for judgment, but for joy. We’d be too busy setting extra places at the table to worry about who belongs and who doesn’t.

If we loved like Jesus, our love would be bigger than our borders. Our love would be stronger than our fears. And our love would be louder than all voices put together conning us to divide, exclude, and hoard.

So, let’s love like Jesus! Let’s make the kingdom of God visible, one act of radical love at a time!

As Rev. Barber says — “it’s not about left or right, it’s about right and wrong.” And love is always right!

So, let’s be known for love. Let love do the talking. Let love do the walking. Let love be the proof. Let love be the revolution! Amen.

Reviving the Heart of a Lady

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Easter, Sermons Year CLeave a comment

Acts 9:36-43

This morning’s epistle lesson is one of a handful of biblical stories where someone, other than Jesus, dies and is raised back to life.

In 1 Kings 17, we read the story of the prophet Elijah raising to life the dead son of a widow. Luke tells a similar story of Jesus also raising to life the dead son of a widow. Mark tells a story about Jesus raising the dead daughter of a synagogue official (Mark 5). And it is John who tells the infamous story of Lazarus (John 11).

In Acts 20, we read Luke’s fascinating story of Eutychus, the only person in the Bible who can blame his passing on a Sunday sermon that went too long!

Bless his heart, as Eutychus sat in a windowsill listening to Paul preach on and on and on and on, the poor fella nodded off to sleep and toppled out the window, falling three stories to his death!

To Paul’s credit, he stopped preaching and immediately ran downstairs. I suppose feeling somewhat responsible for his congregant’s tragic and untimely demise, Paul knelt down, propped the dead body up in his arms and said to the shocked eyewitnesses who were standing nearby: “He’s ok. He’s fine. Nothing to see here! Go on about your business.” Luke tells us Paul then went back upstairs and had communion, while Eutychus, having had his fill of preaching for the day, and maybe for the rest of his life, skipped the rest of the service and went away alive and well (Acts 20).

Now, who here today can believe that you could literally be bored to death by a sermon?

I know. All of you can.

But who here believes that if I so happened to bore one of you to death with one of my sermons, that I possess the power run down the aisle, prop up your lifeless body in my arms and bring you back to life?

No one believes that.

But we do have the new defibrillator now hanging up right outside the narthex ready to go. So, I guess you never know!

However, believing that one has the power to literally raise the dead back to life is no laughing matter. For example, no one would be laughing if someone’s heart did stop during the service, and I called off the one rushing the defibrillator down the aisle, exclaiming: “There’s no need here for science! Stand back! I got this!”

A few years ago, the nation watched in horror as members of a Pentecostal Church in Redding, California, inspired by the raising-the-dead stories in the Bible, prayed over the body of a 2-year-old little girl for five days, attempting to bring her back to life.

So, how should these stories be interpreted? Are they to be taken literally, or should we look for some deeper meaning, some symbolic meaning that is more true, more real, and more prophetic, than any possible literal understanding.

What are we to make of the story of Tabitha, the only woman referred to as a disciple in the in the New Testament, who died but was raised back to life by Peter?

We are told that she lived a life devoted to good works and acts of charity, but then, one day, she became ill and died. Those who had been caring for her washed her body and laid her in a room upstairs. She must have been an important figure in the life of the early church as the apostle Peter was immediately summoned to come to the home to pay his respects. As soon as Peter arrived, he was taken upstairs to the room where the body of Tabitha was lying in wake.

Among those at the visitation were (and I quote) “all the widows” of Joppa. They stood beside Peter weeping, showing off the items of clothing that Tabitha had made for them.

Think about that. “All the widows.” What an impact Tabitha had made to those who were among the most marginalized and disadvantaged in society, those who had been discounted— victims of injustice by being excluded from inheritance laws. They all stood around the body grieving, as their ally, their advocate, and their champion, was no more.

It’s then that Peter clears the room. He prays, and turns to the body and says, “Tabitha, get up.” Tabitha opens her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sits straight up.

What in the world can this mean?

The most obvious meaning to me is that this world needs more Tabathas. The world needs more Tabithas who are committed to good works, to acts of charity, and to defending and caring for the marginalized and the most vulnerable among us.

Heaven doesn’t need another angel, as people like to say at funeral visitations. We need more angels here on earth, specifically angels like Tabitha.

Earlier this week, I overheard a conversation between a local pastor and another man that went like this:

“I hope to retire at the end of the year,” said the pastor, “but I am worried that it may take a long time to find my successor, as there’s not many men studying for the ministry these days.”

The other man responded: “Well, in the interim, do you have some leaders in your congregation who might step up to help lead the church?”

The pastor replied: “We do have couple of young, godly men in the church who I am currently mentoring.” Then he said, “And I have this woman. She’s incredible, a hard worker, very devout and dependable.”

He then added: “If she were a man, I’d want to have her cloned.”

I should have spoken up.  But instead, I just quietly wondered if this preacher had ever heard the story of the church leader named Tabitha.

And then this wave of sadness came over me, as I was reminded of the role the church currently plays in supporting the subjugation of women in our society and is one of the main reasons I may not live to see a female elected President.

Tell me, when you first heard that “nine-year old baby girls need to be happy with two dolls this Christmas,” did you notice that there was no mention of anything boys would need to sacrifice?

Because sacrificing is for the women—those who should forgo a college education and a career so they can stay home where they belong and raise a family.

Today, we hear those in power mocking and discounting women who do not have biological children. The suggestion has even been made that the votes of women who do not have children should count less than women who have children.

Every day, it seems as if we encounter some form of hyper-masculinity that has historically associated with fascism.

In 1930’s Germany, as incentive to keep women in their place, and to keep immigrants in the minority, Adolf Hitler introduced the “Cross of Honor of the German Mother,” a decorative medal that honored “children-rich” mothers of German heritage, excluding Jewish Germans.

The medals came in three classes: the Bronze Cross for mothers of four or five children; the Silver Cross for mothers with six or seven children; and the Gold Cross for mothers with eight or more children.

Six years after Hitler’s medal program was introduced, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin followed suit with the “Order of Maternal Glory,” also offering three tiers: “Third Class” for mothers of seven children; “Second Class” for mothers of eight children; and “First Class” for mothers of nine children.

Soviet women raising 10 or more children were given the title “Mother Heroine” up until the fall of the USSR in 1991.

In 2022, the Mother Heroine award was revived, adding a payment of 1 million rubles, which is equivalent to more than $12,000.

And now, the White House is considering implementing similar incentives, including payments of $5,000 in cash and a “National Medal of Motherhood” to moms in the U.S. who have six or more children.[i]

I believe it’s important to point out today that Tabitha is never described as a mother. We are only told that she was a faithful disciple, devoted to good works and acts of charity, especially among those who were marginalized and discounted by society.

Perhaps what this country needs is a “National Medal of Justice Doers!” Because what this country needs are more people like Tabitha. It needs more allies, advocates, and champions for the poor, the discounted, and the marginalized.

But what if Tabitha’s story means even more?

What if Tabitha is a larger symbol for our deepest and best moral value of caring for the least of these? And what if Peter in this story, the one who revives this value, the one considered by Catholics to be the first Pope, is a symbol for the church?

What if Tabitha is a symbol of kindness, compassion, mercy, and empathy? A symbol of diversity, equity, and inclusion? A symbol of welcome and belonging? A symbol liberty and justice for all, especially for those discounted and marginalized.

What if Tabitha is a large feminine symbol holding up a light for all those who are left out and left behind: the tired; the poor; the huddled masses yearning to breathe free; the wretched refuse, those considered despicable, regarded as garbage; the homeless; the tempest tossed?

Then, like the Tabitha in Luke’s story, we know today that she has fallen ill, gravely ill. You might say she has a heart problem, is heart sick, or suffering a heart attack.

Her heart has been broken by those who believe character no longer counts.

Her heart has been hardened by sexism, racism, fear, and greed.

Her heart has been jolted out of rhythm by chaos and confusion.

Her arteries have been clogged by the evil forces, the principalities, the powers, and the world rulers of this present darkness.

Hate has put her heart in cardiac arrest.

So, what do we do when the heart of liberty-and-justice-for-all stops beating?

Well, that’s when we summon Peter, we summon the church, we summon all disciples who are committed to the way of love Jesus taught. That’s when we summon all people who have good hearts, to be, in the words of Rev Dr. William Barber, “the moral defibrillators of our time” to shock what is the very heart of our nation! To shock what is the heart of this nation, liberty and justice for all, with the power of love and mercy, especially for the poor, the marginalized and the most vulnerable.[ii]

So, the question that Tabitha’s story beg of us today is this: Do you have a heart? Is there a heart in this congregation?

Do you have a heart for poor people? Do you have a heart for transgendered people? Do you have a heart for immigrants?

Do you have a heart for women? Do you have a heart for mothers who have been deported by ICE and separated from their families? Do you have a heart for the value, the worth, and the dignity of all women, regardless of whether they choose to have children?

Then you have been summoned today. You have been called to be “the moral defibrillators of our time” to shock our city with love, to revive the pulse of our state with mercy, and to raise back to life the very heart of our nation.

[i] https://people.com/trump-team-ponders-incentives-motherhood-birthrate-11719580

[ii] Address to the DNC by Rev. Dr. William Barber, 2016

A Hundred Fifty-Three

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Easter, Sermons Year C2 Comments

John 21:1-11

Happy Star Wars Day! May the fourth be with you!

You may laugh, but there are churches that are observing this day, May the 4th, as Star Wars Sunday, focusing on the spiritual struggle between darkness and light, drawing parallels between “the Force” and the Christian concept of God.

Numbers, like the 4th when it occurs in May, have always been significant in the life of the church, as numbers always seem to be significant in the Holy Scriptures.

The number 40 is symbolic of testing, trials, and periods of preparation, as we remember the story of Noah and the rain that fell for 40 days and 40 nights, and of Moses and the Israelites’ 40-year journey out of slavery into the Promised Land, and of Jesus’ 40-day fast in the wilderness.

The 144,000 protected from judgment we read about in the book of Revelation is based on the number 12, a symbol for wholeness based on the 12 tribes of Israel and the 12 disciples. The number 7 in Revelation symbolizes divinity, whereas the number 6, particularly 666, symbolizes evil.

So, when we read the story of the miraculous catch of fish in this post-Easter story, the number 153 leaps off the page!

Verse 11 reads: “So, Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them, and though there were so many, the net was not torn.”

Such an odd number. Such an exact number. Why not just say 150 fish? Or tell a good fishing story by exaggerating it, rounding it on up to 200?

But John says the net contained exactly a hundred fifty-three fish. There are so many possibilities with and no shortage of interpretations.

Some have interpreted 153 fish to mean: “It’s just a lot of fish.”[i] And that moments of such abundance say something about living in a world where the good news of Easter is a reality, as grief is transformed into action, scarcity is transformed into abundance, and despair becomes hope we discover that what seems like the end is only the beginning!

It means living in a world, that when it comes to the love that Jesus taught, modeled, and embodied, we can never give in, give out, or give up, because we know that such love always wins. Such love never ends. Not even death can stop it. It means never retreating in despair believing that things in the world cannot get better.

But something tells me that the number 153 means even more. If it’s just about “a lot of fish,” why didn’t John simply write, “they caught so many fish the nets started to break, and the boats began to sink,” as we’ve heard in another story (Luke 5)? Why does John specifically record the number 153?

Some scholars believe the number symbolizes the truth  that Jesus did not come to abolish Jewish law or the Torah. They point out that the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, was divided into portions to be read in worship. Like the Lectionary that I use each week to preach, the portions were part of a three year-cycle, and the three-year Torah cycle used in Palestine around the First Century had, you guessed it, 153 portions.

Now, if you think that is interesting, listen to this.

St. Augustine pointed out that the number 153 is the triangular of 17. That means that if you add all the numbers decreasing from 17, you get 153. That is to say: 17 + 16 + 15 + 14 +13 + 12 + 11… all the way down to +1 = 153.

So 153, according to Augustine, is all about the number 17, which Augustine believed was a sign of the union of Judaism and Christianity as we have 10 commandments in the Old Testament and 7 Gifts of the Spirit in the New Testament.

How about that? But wait, there’s more.

In the book of Acts, we read that 17 nations were present for Pentecost. So, Peter’s catch of 153 fish at the end of John’s gospel might mean something like the end of Matthew’s gospel when Jesus calls us to make disciples of all nations.

It was St. Jerome who pointed out that during the time John tells this story that there were only 153 species of fish in all the world. Hence, 153 signifies the universal hope that every person of every class and time would be saved through the Gospel.

St. Gregory the Great believed 10 and 7 are perfect numbers, added together make 17. This, times 3, factoring in the Trinity, makes 51. This, times 3 again, makes 153.

St. Augustine also notes that there were 7 disciples in the boat (Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, James and John, and two other disciples), who had all been filled with the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit. 7 times 7 equals 49. 49 plus 1 (that’s Jesus) makes the perfection of 50. And 50 x 3 for the Trinity gives you 150 plus another 3 for the Trinity gives you 153.

St. Cyril breaks 153 into 100 (the great number of gentiles to be saved), plus 50 (the smaller number of Jews to be saved), plus 3 (the Trinity who saves all).

Others have pointed out that 100 (representing the number of married faithful in the Church), plus 50 (the faithful who commit themselves later in life to celibacy either living as widows or living with their spouse in a brother-sister relationship), plus 3 (the precious few who commit their whole lives to celibacy as virgins) equals 153.[ii]

I hope you are writing all this down.

Now, do you want to know what I believe is the significance of 153?

Allow me to first preface my opinion by reminding you that I have a Doctorate in Ministry and have been a student of scripture for half a century, if you count my Sunday School classes as a child. Plus, I grew up on the Outer Banks of North Carolina; thus, I know a thing or two about fishing.

Here it is. You will really want to write this down. For it is going to blow your mind and probably change your life.

Here it is. Drum roll please. People who go fishing like to count their fish.

That’s it. People who fish count their fish. Now, it may mean a little more than that, but not much more.

I also believe this Easter story has something to do about people, as the story is very similar to other fishing stories when Jesus tells the disciple anglers that they were going to go from catching fish to catching people (Mark 1 and Matthew 4).

Thus, a hundred fifty-three means that people, like fish, are to be counted. Now, compared to the hyper-symbolic, mathematical theories of the saints, that may sound like a hollow interpretation; however, when we consider the number of people who are discounted and marginalized in our world today, this simple interpretation is nothing less than prophetic.

So, what this Easter story says to me is that this movement we call discipleship where we can be confident love will win and justice will prevail, is a movement that prophetically proclaims that every person counts.

A hundred fifty-three is particularly prophetic for Americans as the United States has always had a problem counting certain people, as some in this nation, including those in power today, have always had a problem with equality. There have always been those who want to put a tear in the net, so all will not be counted.

Ever since the Constitution’s original framework, when enslaved people of color were counted as three-fifths of a person, there have been people in this country who have sought to undermine equality, suppress the vote, and discount entire groups of people.

And today, those people are in power, intentionally tearing the net by rolling back all the progress made for equality and civil rights in the 20th century, calling desegregation “a historic wrong,”[iii] and going after any organization, business or university that seeks to count everyone with programs focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion. And now, democracy hangs in the balance.

Perhaps we should have seen the end to democracy coming —when every ten years there’s an argument in our country about who should be counted and who should not be counted in the census, as counting every person is fundamental to democracy, based on the principle that each person counts and deserves representation.

So, I believe 153 is a profoundly prophetic number for America today. A hundred fifty-three affirms democracy and the principle that all people are created equally. A hundred fifty-three means there is no person who does not count.

A hundred fifty-three affirms our annual Holocaust Remembrance Service, as a hundred fifty-three means that six million Jewish people count. And they still count, despite those today who are seeking to re-write history or “move on from past guilt.”[iv]

And a hundred fifty-three also means that 2.3 million people in Gaza count, 2.3 million Palestinians who are starving to death today because of the Israeli and US-backed ban of food and humanitarian aid.[v]

One of the best things about living in New Orleans was when I had the opportunity to officiate a funeral where we marched in the cemetery behind a jazz band singing: “Oh when the saints go marching in, when the saints go marching in, oh Lord, I want to be in thatnumber when the saints go marching in!”

Oh Lord, how people just want to be counted.

People of color who cry for their lives to matter just want to be counted.

Trans men and women asking not to be called by their dead name just want to be counted.

Pregnant women who desire to have a choice in their healthcare, just want to be counted.

Disabled people requesting fairness and equal opportunity, just want to be counted.

Immigrants, refugees, and Asylum-seekers in the pursuit of happiness, just want to be counted.

People who are being snatched off our streets and disappeared, need to be counted.

Books banned; history erased; votes suppressed; due process denied; free speech stifled; basic rights deprived; Medicaid, SNAP, Head Start, low-income energy assistance, and other programs cut—it’s all about people who must be counted!

Think about who you know today—at work or at school, in your neighborhood or in your family—who may feel like they are of no count. And think about what actions you could take, or this week, or next, to let know that they do count—to you, to this church, and to God—and maybe, one day, to the nation.

“Simon Peter…hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them, and though there were so many, the net was not torn.”

The net was not torn. All were counted. Amen.

[i] https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/resurrection-is-abundance

[ii] https://parish.rcdow.org.uk/harefield/wp-content/uploads/sites/148/2022/10/The-mystery-of-the-153-fish-in-the-Gospel-of-John.pdf

[iii] https://wpde.com/news/nation-world/doj-department-of-justice-officially-ends-desegregation-order-at-louisiana-school-plaquemines-parish-after-nearly-50-years-court-system-integrated-racial-segregation-south#

[iv] https://www.npr.org/2025/01/27/nx-s1-5276084/elon-musk-german-far-right-afd-holocaust

[v] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/palestinians-struggle-to-feed-their-families-as-israel-blocks-gaza-aid-for-nearly-60-days

I Have Seen the Lord!

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Easter, Sermons Year CLeave a comment

John 20:1-18 NRSV

It’s Easter, and all over the world preachers are feeling the pressure to preach the better-than-the-average sermon. All week they’ve been burdened to come up with something insightful, something profound, to say about this story of stories, preferably something their congregations have never heard before. Oh, the pressure!

Each week for a sermon, I write, on average, 1,800 words. This is the number of words that I, with my seasoned homiletical and ecclesial acuity, have deemed theologically and linguistically necessary to bequeath the congregation an appropriate word from the Lord. And on the Sundays I need to be better than average, like Easter, I am always tempted to go a little longer, like upward to 2,000 words or more.

Now, my wife Lori believes that I should be able to write a sermon, and she’d prefer I write a sermon, even for Easter, with much fewer words. But Lori hasn’t been to seminary, I tell myself.

That’s why, by the way, every now and again, I throw in seminary words like “ecclesial” and smart-sounding words like “bequeath”—to convince the congregation, and myself, that I know what I’m doing up here. And we preachers especially like to use big words on Easter!

However, as I prepared for today’s sermon, I came to realize that Lori may be right.  In fact, esteemed professor of homiletics Karoline Lewis, points out that the best Easter sermon ever delivered, and the sermon we desperately need to hear again today, was nowhere close to 1,800 words. It contained 5. Lewis says that the best Easter sermon ever delivered was proclaimed by Mary Magdalene on that first Easter morning: “I have seen the Lord!”[i]

That’s it. There’s your Easter sermon. “I have seen the Lord!” Now, let’s sing a hymn, have communion, and pass the peace!

Now, because I don’t want to be accused of being lazy on Easter, I will attempt to say a little more. But I tend agree with Rev. Lewis that, too often, our preaching, especially on Easter, is just “too much –too much explanation, too much justification, too much rationalization.” She says our preaching is too much expository and not enough experiential. It’s too much illustrational and not enough incarnational. She argues preaching needs to be less performance and more personal, more down-to-earth, more authentic.

That struck a chord with me this week, as I recently heard local colleague make the shocking assertion, that on some days, he has this sinking feeling that God is not in Lynchburg.

Now, that’s a dark statement coming from anyone, but coming from a pastor in this town, it’s especially chilling. Almost as chilling as it is ironic with the vast number of churches in our city.

Last year, one of my guilty pleasures in life was binging the dark TV drama series called “Preacher.” Lori didn’t care for it. I loved it. It’s a story based on a comic book hero, a Texas Preacher, who’s on a mission in Louisiana searching for God who’s gone missing. God just got tired of being God one day, vacated the throne, got on motorcycle, and headed to New Orleans to listen to some good jazz and have a good time. It’s a very dark and rather bloody story about the chaos that ensues when God forsakes and abandons the world. All hell literally breaks loose as vampires, fallen angels, demons, and the devil himself wreak havoc upon the earth.

And my colleague says this is what it can sometimes feel like serving as a pastor in Lynchburg, Virginia. He says he sometimes wants to cry out like Jesus from the cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken us?”

Maybe we have had days when we have wanted to do the same.

The lack of affordable housing, the number of people living with food insecurity, the plans to cut spending on public schools and social services, the ugliness on the city council—it can all seem like God has left the city limits.

Just last week, an owner of a new restaurant told me that he recently served dinner to a member of the city council who had the hateful audacity to advise him to refuse service to members of the LGBTQ community.

And then we have the number of people who claim to be Christians or even “Champions for Christ” who support ways that the exact opposite of the way of the inclusive, universal, unconditional love that Jesus taught, modeled, and embodied.

Looking at some parts of our city, we can easily identify with Jesus when he lamented what seemed like the absence of God in Jerusalem, crying: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!”

And you don’t even need to be religious to believe that God may have even fled the country—a nation where people can be snatched from their homes and disappeared to a gulag in El Salvador without any recourse. Bishop William Barber notes: “Like the lynching trees of the South and the crosses of Rome, these public acts of brutality are designed to inspire fear that compels the masses to comply. But we cannot comply.”[ii]

This is why on this Easter Sunday, we need to hear the personal, authentic, first-person, five-word sermon of Mary Magdalene: “I have seen the Lord!” We need a first-hand witness of the resurrection, not a third-person account, confession, or creed.

In these dark, seemingly God-forsaken days, we don’t need to hear the stale and old: “He was crucified, dead, and buried; the third day he rose from the dead…” or “Christ the Lord is risen; he is risen indeed.” That’s nice, that’s good, but these days, we need more.

We need a first-person, eye-witness testimony. We need to hear of a new and fresh encounter. We need somebody to stand up before us today and exclaim: “I have seen the Lord!”

As we demonstrated during our Maundy Thursday service, the good news is that we can easily point out all the places in Lynchburg where we have seen the Lord, where there is resurrection in the midst of ruin; the light of new life in the shadows of death; love, when all that seems visible is hate. There’s much goodness, generosity and compassion in the midst of all the meanness, selfishness and cruelty: Parkview Mission, Interfaith Outreach, Meals on Wheels, The Free Clinic…It would take much more 1,800 words to name all of the non-profits and organizations that are being the hands and feet of the Lord in this town.

 But proclaiming, “I have seen the Lord,” means even more than that.

“I have seen the Lord” means personally bearing witness to the resurrection. It means being a first-person, eyewitness, living testimony of Easter.

In the hateful darkness of a violent world that has rejected the way of Jesus and would crucify him all over again if it got the chance, “I have seen the Lord” means demonstrating that there is another way of being in the world— a loving, justice-seeking, non-violent way that embodies all that is life-giving. It means living and giving and loving and serving in such a way, that when others see you, watch you, listen to you, they say: “Wait one second. Did I just see the Lord?”

“I have seen the Lord” insists that the ways of love will always win over the ways of hate.

“I have seen the Lord” affirms that the way of peace will always overcome the way of violence.

“I have seen the Lord” confirms that the truth of kindness, mercy and decency will always be louder than the con of fear, confusion, and chaos.

“I have seen the Lord” asserts that the voices of compassion will always be heard over the clamor of cruelty and retaliation.”

“I have seen the Lord” is what Gandhi proclaimed when he shared a vision of a world where all of creation and every living creature is revered and respected, thriving in peace and harmony, when all most can see is ecological devastation, violence, war, oppression, injustice, colonialism, and imperialism.

“I have seen the Lord” were the exact words of Martin Luther King Jr. when he preached on the day before his assassination: “I have seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

“I have seen the Lord” is a proclamation that neither death by starvation in India, nor death by a bullet in Memphis, nor death on a cross in Jerusalem, can prevent love from winning and justice from coming.

Mary’s proclamation “I have seen the Lord” proclaims not only that a single stone was rolled away 2,000 years ago, but countless stones are still being rolled away today, all the stones that are used to prevent new life from rising: racist stones blocking paths to citizenship; bigoted stones blocking the doors of closets; corrupt stones blocking the power of free speech and due process; greedy stones blocking care for the environment; deceptive stones blocking the truth of science and history; and violent stones blocking any possibility of new life, justice, and peace.

“I have seen the Lord” is the justice those are demanding on the behalf of Abrego Garcia and every person deported unjustly. It’s the defiance of Harvard University, and the cry of all protesting the rise of fascism.

“I have seen the Lord,” when we speak it into our own lives, become words that have the power to roll back all the stones that confine and constrain the possibility that liberty and justice, dignity and respect can be for all people.

But “I have seen the Lord” is so counter-cultural, so counter-intuitive, often defying what we see with our own eyes, that it can be difficult to speak it. Especially to speak it personally, authentically in the first-person, to speak it with faith and conviction. It’s much easier to walk out of this service this morning and recite a third-person creed, “Christ the Lord is risen. He is risen indeed” than it is to honestly say in the first-person, “I have seen the Lord!”

Perhaps, like anything difficult, we need to practice it, and practice it daily.

So, in what places do you need practice it today? In front of what tomb do you need proclaim resurrection today?

What stone in your life needs to be removed today so you can be free?

What’s preventing you today from experiencing the joy of new life? What is blocking you today from enjoying peace, possessing hope, and knowing love?

On this Easter morning, when we walk out of this church building, where’s the first place we need to go to proclaim: “I have seen the Lord!”

Who do we know that may be unable to say it today, but needs to hear it, because they have been hiding in the tombs too long?

Today, we thank God for Mary Magdalene, the preacher of the best Easter sermon ever proclaimed, the good news we all need to hear today: “I have seen the Lord!”

[i] Sermon inspired by the thoughts of Rev. Dr. Karoline Lewis shared in an article entitled: True Resurrection, March 20, 2016

[ii] From The Power of a Moral Opposition: A Holy Saturday Reflection, April 19, 2025.