Woe to Selfish Religion

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

Amos 6:1, 4–7; Luke 16:19–31

If you missed it, some Christians spent the first part of last week preparing for “the Rapture” which was supposed to have happened on Tuesday. Videos were posted of excited believers talking about getting their affairs in order, sharing their plans for their property and pets, in the event that they get swept up in the sky to meet Jesus, leaving all non-believers on earth to suffer tribulation.

This wild belief we call “the rapture” didn’t come from any responsible interpretation of scripture, but from a vision of a young Scottish woman named Margaret McDonald who, in 1830, dreamed about people flying away to heaven to escape hell on earth. Her dream was shaped by preachers who taught that the world’s problems were just too great, too hard, too much for human beings to solve.

That dream later made its way into the Scofield Study Bible, then into movies and novels like The Late Great Planet Earth and the Left Behind series, and of course, into pulpits across America. Though based on a gross misreading of scripture, it is often preached as gospel truth, terrifying folks into “getting saved.”

Before I was baptized when I was eleven, I remember lying awake worried I’d wake up to find that my parents had been raptured away, leaving me behind to raise my little brother and sister. However, I did take some comfort thinking that since Nana and Granddaddy didn’t go to church, and granddaddy drank beer, maybe they’d still be around to take care of us.

Another teaching that haunted me as a child came from Jesus’ parable of “the Rich Man and Lazarus.” I can still see myself on those hard wooden pews as preachers painted vivid pictures of the flames of hell. If I didn’t “get saved,” they said I would one day gaze into heaven from my eternal home in hell, begging for a sip of water.

The message was clear: unless I walked down that aisle, I would either die and suffer forever in hell, or be left behind after the rapture to suffer the tribulation.

Notice what both teachings did. By telling us that faith was about escaping suffering, they took all the focus off addressing the suffering and pain of this world. They made us forget that Jesus actually taught us to live a way of love that relieves suffering here and now. They drained away any responsibility we might have to work in our broken world for justice, peace, and mercy.

And maybe that was the point, the whole scheme all along. Because following Jesus is not easy. Following Jesus means helping people like Lazarus. Following Jesus means always standing in solidarity with the poor and marginalized. Following Jesus means challenging systems of greed and injustice that keep some people feasting while others starve. And that is much harder than saying a quick prayer to escape hell.

But the gospel was never intended to be an easy way out. The gospel has never been about escaping suffering. On the contrary, the gospel has always been about suffering with and for the poor, because it is good news for the poor. It is liberation for the oppressed. It is God’s vision of justice, mercy, and peace on earth. It is repenting from fear, selfishness, and greed to embrace love, selflessness, and generosity.

Let’s return to the parable. An unnamed rich man dressed in purple feasted every day. At his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, longing for crumbs. Even the dogs showed him more compassion than the rich man.

When both die, Lazarus is carried into Abraham’s bosom while the rich man suffers torment. But notice that, even then, the rich man doesn’t repent. He still treats Lazarus as a servant: “Send him to me with some water.” “Send him to warn my brothers.” He never once says, “I am sorry for ignoring Lazarus. I am sorry for building a gate to shut him out. I am sorry I closed my eyes to his suffering.”

There is no repentance. Only entitlement.

And Abraham’s reply is devastating: “They have Moses and the prophets. If they will not listen to them, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”

That’s the tragedy of this parable. It’s not simply about torment after death. It’s about the refusal to listen and to change. People can hear the prophets, even witness resurrection, yet still cling to greed and selfishness. People can be easily brainwashed into thinking that faith is about saving themselves, not about transforming the world.

And so today, many have been brainwashed by preachers, politicians, and propaganda machines into believing the gospel has nothing to do with loving Lazarus at the gate, nothing to do with compassion for immigrants, nothing to do with healthcare, housing, or hunger, nothing to do with injustice. “Just say the ‘sinners’ prayer,’ secure your ticket, and let your neighbor take care of himself.”

But Jesus says otherwise.

Through this parable, Jesus is giving the same warning Amos gave centuries before:

“Woe to those at ease in Zion. Woe to those who lounge on ivory couches, who eat lambs from the flock, who drink wine by the bowlful, and anoint themselves with the finest oils, but are not grieved over the ruin of the nation.”

Amos saw people living in luxury while their neighbors suffered. Jesus saw it too: a rich man feasting while Lazarus starved at his gate. Both are indictments of those who refuse to listen and change.

And this is not just ancient history. This is us.

Today, we live in a society where billionaires launch rockets into space while children go to bed hungry. Wine is consumed by the bowlful while communities like Flint and Jackson are poisoned by contaminated water. People recline on ivory couches while their neighbors suffer.

And today, we see friends, neighbors, even family so brainwashed by lies that nothing can change their minds. Someone could shoot a man on Fifth Avenue, and they still wouldn’t change.

Behind the gates of fascism today is Lazarus. Lazarus is our LGBTQ neighbor under attack by lawmakers and preachers who twist scripture into a weapon.

Lazarus is the immigrant locked in detention centers, or drowned at sea, while politicians build careers on cruelty.

Lazarus is the scientist and teacher defunded and mocked so that ignorance can rule.

Lazarus is the journalist, librarian, or truth-teller threatened for speaking up.

Lazarus is the Black and brown neighbor targeted by violence and mass incarceration.

Lazarus is the Palestinian neighbor starving in the rubble of Gaza.

Lazarus is always the poor—always—while the rich anoint themselves with oil.

And churches are complicit by clinging to a false gospel of escape-from-it-all.

Preach healthcare as a human right and you’ll be told, “That’s socialism.”

Preach feeding the hungry and you’ll hear, “That’s enabling laziness.”

Preach racial justice and they’ll say, “That’s too political.”

They’ll say anything to avoid listening and changing. “Just focus on getting people ready for eternity!” they’ll say.

But Jesus says: that’s not the gospel. The gospel is about loving Lazarus at the gate. The gospel is not about escaping hell. The gospel is about making life less hellish now. The gospel is about God’s kingdom coming on earth as it is in heaven.

And let’s be honest: being told you are wrong is tough to hear. It’s hard to confront our comfort, our privilege, and our complicity. It’s hard to admit, “I was wrong. I shut my gate. I ignored Lazarus.”

But that’s the hard and narrow way of the gospel. The good news is not escape from this world. The good news is that God is redeeming this world, and invites us to hear that news, to repent and to join. The good news is that Jesus has already crossed the great chasm to bring heaven’s love into earth’s suffering. The good news is that resurrection is real, that life can triumph over death, love over hate, justice over greed.

The gospel is more demanding than the sermons that once terrified us, but it’s also more beautiful. For it’s not about fear. It’s about love. It’s not about escape. It is about engagement.

It is about getting up from our couches of comfort and walking out to the gate where Lazarus is lying. It is about opening the gate wide and saying, “You are not left behind. You are not forgotten. You are my neighbor, and I am called to liberate you, to love you.”

The gospel calls us to open the gates of our churches, not just for Sunday worship but for Monday mercy and Tuesday justice, everyday peace-making. The gospel calls us to open the gates of our politics, our budgets, our neighborhoods, so that the poor are lifted, the hungry are fed, the sick are cared for, the oppressed are liberated.

This is not charity. This is not pity. This is gospel. This is resurrection life breaking into a world addicted to death and people addicted to an easy way out.

Our scripture lessons present us with a choice. Will we sit behind our gates, pretending nothing can change? Or will we rise to the call of Amos, of Jesus, of the resurrection itself?

The world is aching today for a church that will live the gospel. The world is waiting for Christians who will trade their rapture charts for justice marches, their escape plans for solidarity plans, and their fear of hell for the hard work of making life less hellish for Lazarus at the gate.

The Spirit of God is calling us right now to repent of selfish religion and embrace liberating love. To turn from the false gospel of escape and to embrace the true gospel of engagement.

The Spirit is pleading with us to listen. Listen to Moses and the prophets. Listen to Amos crying out from the marketplace. Listen to Jesus telling of Lazarus at the gate. Listen to resurrection itself”

“Don’t harden your hearts! Don’t cling to selfish religion! Don’t mistake fear for faith!”

For there’s no problem in the world too great, too hard, or too much for the disciples of the Christ!

Because here’s the promise: if we choose love, if we listen, if we take Lazarus’ hand at the gate, we will find God already there, already at work, already making all things new.

So, disciples of Christ:

Let’s open the gate!

Let’s step through the fear!

Let’s take Lazarus’ hand!

And let’s walk together into God’s new creation!

For the good news is this:

God is making all things new.

And God is calling us, here and now, to join in that work.

Amen.

Pastoral Prayer

God of all nations and peoples,

we gather today with hearts full of both gratitude and grief.

We give thanks for life, for breath, for the gift of community.

We give thanks for beauty—in the turning of the seasons,

in the laughter of children, in the resilience of your people.

Yet, we also bring to you our burdens.

We pray for those who are sick and struggling,

for those who carry heavy grief,

for those living with fear, with hunger, with loneliness.

We pray for communities torn apart by violence and war,

for families separated by borders,

for the earth groaning under fire, flood, and storm.

God, we confess how easy it is to turn away from pain,

to shield our eyes from suffering,

to harden our hearts to injustice.

But you have called us to love our neighbors as ourselves.

You have called us to seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with you.

So today, O Lord, give us the courage to see as you see,

to love as you love, to live as your children, bound together in one human family.

Where there is despair, make us bearers of hope.

Where there is hatred, make us instruments of peace.

Where there is apathy, stir us to act with compassion.

We offer all our prayers—spoken and unspoken—in the name of the One who came that we might have life, and have it abundantly,

Amen.

Pastoral Prayer

God of all nations and peoples,

we gather today with hearts full of both gratitude and grief.

We give thanks for life, for breath, for the gift of community.

We give thanks for beauty—in the turning of the seasons,

in the laughter of children, in the resilience of your people.

Yet, we also bring to you our burdens.

We pray for those who are sick and struggling,

for those who carry heavy grief,

for those living with fear, with hunger, with loneliness.

We pray for communities torn apart by violence and war,

for families separated by borders,

for the earth groaning under fire, flood, and storm.

God, we confess how easy it is to turn away from pain,

to shield our eyes from suffering,

to harden our hearts to injustice.

But you have called us to love our neighbors as ourselves.

You have called us to seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with you.

So today, O Lord, give us the courage to see as you see,

to love as you love, to live as your children, bound together in one human family.

Where there is despair, make us bearers of hope.

Where there is hatred, make us instruments of peace.

Where there is apathy, stir us to act with compassion.

We offer all our prayers—spoken and unspoken—in the name of the One who came that we might have life, and have it abundantly, Amen. 

Invitation to Communion

Beloved, this table is not a table of ivory and luxury—it is the table of Christ.
Here, there is no rich man and poor man, no gate to divide us, no crumbs and banquets—only bread broken for all, only a cup poured out for all.

At this table, Lazarus is lifted up, the hungry are filled, and the comfortable are called to share.

Here we taste a different kind of feast—the feast of God’s justice, the feast of Christ’s love, the feast that anticipates the kingdom where none are excluded.

Come, not because you want to be fed, but because God calls you to be transformed.

Come, for all are welcome.

Invitation to the Offering

In the parable, the rich man ignored Lazarus at his gate. At this moment, Lazarus is still at our gate—in our neighborhoods, in our city, in our world.

Our offering is not a transaction. It is an act of resistance. It says we will not be numb. We will not pass by. We will not close our eyes to suffering.
Through our gifts, we choose to see Lazarus, to love Lazarus, to stand with Lazarus.

Let us give, then, not from ease or obligation, but from compassion, solidarity, and joy in God’s vision of justice.

Benediction

Go forth, people of God,
not with a gospel of escape,
but with the good news of engagement.
Go forth, to open the gates,
to love Lazarus at the threshold,
to stand with the poor, the silenced, and the oppressed.
Go forth, to listen to Moses and the prophets,
to follow Jesus in the way of love,
to live resurrection life in a world addicted to death.
And as you go,
may the God who makes all things new
strengthen you,
the Christ who crossed the great chasm walk beside you,
and the Spirit who will not be silenced empower you—
today, tomorrow, and forevermore. Amen.

Is There a Balm in Gilead? A Cry for Peace in an Age of Fascism

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

Jeremiah 8:18-9:1

My joy is gone. Grief is upon me. My heart is sick. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? O that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I might weep day and night for the slain of my poor people.

How many of you can feel the enormous grief of the prophet? It’s heavy. It’s exhausting. And I confess that there was a time this week I felt like just giving up.

Jeremiah’s gut-wrenching lament comes from the suffering of a broken city—amid a people demoralized by a corrupt government, betrayed by those in power, and abandoned by the religious establishment.

The prophet’s voice trembles with profound sadness. He sees a nation that has lost its way: a people who claim to believe in God but who fail to practice kindness, justice, and mercy; leaders who have consolidated power by telling lies, scapegoating the weak, silencing dissent, and threatening violence.

Sound familiar?

In Jeremiah’s time, the Babylonian war machine bore down on Judah.

Instead of defending the vulnerable, the powerful protected their own wealth and position, leaving ordinary people exposed to invasion and suffering. The poor were crushed, widows abandoned, orphans ignored, and migrants exploited. The powerful told the people what they wanted to hear, proclaiming “peace,” when there was no peace, because there was no justice.

And Jeremiah wept.

Jeremiah wept because people fell for the lies. He wept because the cries of the vulnerable went unheard. He wept because leaders in the nation had hardened their hearts. And he wept because those leaders were blessed by religious leaders.

Sound familiar?

It was not only a political crisis. It was a moral crisis, a spiritual crisis.

And on this International Day of Peace in 2025, we find ourselves in a strikingly similar crisis, as fascism tightens its grip on our nation.

Power has been consolidated by dividing the nation, scapegoating immigrants, and silencing dissent. The playbook of the powerful demonizes the most vulnerable among us. It criminalizes protest, censors history, dismantles education, denies science, and spreads lies, all to protect their power.

We live in a time when comedic satire aimed at the rich and powerful is silenced, while hate aimed at the poor and powerless is protected. A comedian was pulled off the airwaves after mocking the President. Yet, a Fox news host openly called for the killing of the homeless and the mentally ill—those whom Jesus would say that “if you do it to them, you do it to me”—and not only did he keep his job, he was defended by many who claim to be Christian.

This is much deeper than politics. It’s about the soul of the nation. When truth is silenced, when the poor are demonized, and when those in the church bless it, it is more than democracy at stake. It is our very humanity and witness to God.

This is the sin-sick world Jeremiah saw.

Judah was collapsing under its own corruption. The prophets who should have spoken truth to power bowed down to power. Babylon loomed large, an empire built on conquest, intimidation, and fear. And Judah’s leaders tried to imitate the empire, believing violence would secure peace. Peace through strength, as they like to say. Prophets like Jeremiah were threatened, beaten, and even imprisoned for speaking truth (Jer. 20:1–2; 26:7–11).

But Jeremiah rose up and spoke out anyway. Listen to his words from the previous chapter:

Don’t for a minute believe the lies being spoken here: ‘This is God’s Temple, God’s Temple, God’s Temple!’ [It’s] total nonsense! Clean up your act, the way you live and treat your neighbors…[quit oppressing the alien NRSVUE], exploiting street people and orphans and widows. Quit taking advantage of innocent people, [and stop going after other gods to your own hurt …NRSVUE] Get smart! Your leaders are handing you a pack of lies, and you’re swallowing them! Use your heads! (Jeremiah 7, The Message).

Jeremiah wept because the people had been conned, falling for the lies of the powerful, even against their own interests, choosing violence over love, a false peace over justice. And Jeremiah wept because people were being hurt in the name of God.

His nation was sick with sin and Jeremiah lamented: “Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician here?”

It’s difficult not to see the parallels to 2025.

Today, politicians quote scripture while cutting food program and taking away healthcare. Governors sign laws to censor history, erasing the stories of Black, Brown, and queer lives. Politicians want to control the media and criminalize protest, making dissent itself illegal. They attack education, deny the reality of climate change, and sneer at science.

And they bless it all in the name of God. They silence the prophets in the name of peace. They embrace fascism in the name of patriotism.

The nation is sin-sick when comedians who poke fun at power are silenced, while broadcasters who fantasize about killing the poor are protected. The nation is sin-sick when protest is criminalized and violence is excused, when truth is silenced and lies are amplified, when bigots are honored and those who speak out against bigotry are villainized.

Thus, Jeremiah’s cry becomes our own: “Is there no balm in Gilead?”

So today, we join Jeremiah’s weeping.

We weep for all who are still swallowing lies at their own peril.

We weep for immigrants locked away without due process, terrorized and scapegoated for problems they did not cause.

We weep for our unhoused neighbors, those whom many wish would just disappear.

And we weep for the silenced voices—journalists, teachers, artists, prophets—punished for telling the truth.

However, here’s the good news. We weep with the prophet today, but we weep with hope. If not, I don’t think we would be in this sanctuary this morning. We weep before God as those who know the tears of the faithful are sacred, that the laments of those who believe in love are holy, that weeping itself is an act of resistance in a culture that tells us that everything is fine.

Jeremiah asked: “Is there no balm in Gilead?”

Two thousand years later, the African-American church of the 19th century answered the prophet. Although the powerful what us to forget it, while African Americans were considered chattel property with no rights, subjected to forced labor from sunrise to sunset, while they were bought, sold, and separated from their families, their lives defined by brutal coercion, including whippings and the threat of death, while they were denied legal rights and autonomy, they were somehow still able to sing out loud, words that we will sing in a few moments: “There is a balm in Gilead!”

Not the balm that came from bowing down to their masters. Neither was it the balm of hating them or responding to their violence with more violence. It was the balm of God’s justice, the balm of Christ’s love, and the balm of Spirit’s fire. The balm with the power to make the wounded whole, to heal the sin-sick soul. The balm that is found wherever people choose love over hate, truth over lies, and justice over fear.

The balm of Gilead is in the streets where the people march. It’s in the pulpits where prophets preach and in the pews where worshippers pray. It’s in the classrooms where teachers defy censorship, and it’s in the laments of all who believe in love.

The balm of Gilead is found in our tears, our laughter, our songs, and our courage.

Jeremiah cried, “O that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears.”

In 2025 America, we know our tears can become rivers of justice. Our lament fuels our resistance, and our weeping gives birth to action.

When protest is criminalized, our tears compel us to march anyway.

When immigrants are demonized, our tears move us to stand with them in solidarity and proclaim that no human being is illegal.

When history is censored, our honest tears become words telling the truth in our classrooms, in our pulpits, and in our homes, because we know it is only the truth that sets us free.

When science is denied, our weeping stirs us to honor the creation, because we believe in our hearts God has entrusted this world to our care.

When God’s name is used to do harm to our neighbors, our grief send us out of the sanctuary into the streets to protect them in the name of God.

When satire is silenced, even in mourning, we will laugh louder, for we believe humor is holy and joy is a weapon.

When hate is excused, we will raise our trembling voices for love, because we know love will ultimately win.

On this International Day of Peace, we cry with Jeremiah, we weep with Jesus, and we rise with the Spirit. We stand to reject the fake peace of empire and the immoral peace of silence, while we embrace the true and costly peace of justice, the risky peace of love, and the revolutionary peace of the gospel.

Because while fascism may grip the nation, it cannot crush the Spirit. Those in power may silence prophets, but they cannot silence God. Hate may roar for a season, but love is eternal.

“Is there no balm in Gilead?”

Yes, there is a balm! And we are called to be it!

Today, we weep. But the good news is that our tears are not the end of the story. Because there does come a time when our tears turn into hope. There comes a time when lament gives birth to testimony, when weeping rises up into a witness that shakes the foundations of empire.

And now is that time!

We see that people in our nation are already paying the price for being a moral witness. Workers are being fired from their jobs, teachers dismissed from classrooms, journalists silenced—all because they dared to post on social media what Jeremiah would have shouted from the streets—”Those with power are lying. Fascism is here. And anyone who does harm to the poor, to the immigrant, to the most vulnerable among us, is no friend of God!”

And when prophets are silenced like this, when truth is censored, when jobs are lost for speaking conscience, the church must rise with even greater courage to say: “Yes, these days are heavy, but we will not bow down. We are exhausted, but we will not give up! We will not allow fascism to have the last word! We will not allow love to be silenced while hate is amplified! And we will not allow truth to be buried beneath lies! Even if there is a price to pay!”

So, let’s rise together as balm in a broken land.
Let’s rise as physicians for a sin-sick nation.
Let’s rise as a river of justice, a mighty movement of revolutionary love, because we are the balm. We are the healers.

This week, we have wept for the nation. Collectively, in the words of the 119th Psalm, our tears have cried a river. But let’s remember that rivers have power. Rivers carve valleys. Rivers reshape the land. And they move history itself.

Now is the time to let our tears carve a new way forward.

Amen.

Pastoral Prayer

God of weeping prophets and wounded people, we come before You with broken hearts and open hands.

We weep for children taken too soon by gun violence,

for immigrants cast out and scapegoated,

for unhoused neighbors treated as disposable,

for truth-tellers silenced while lies are protected.

You, O Lord, hear the cry of the poor.

You see the fear that grips our nation, the cruelty that masquerades as strength, the empire that blesses weapons more than it blesses life.

Yet, you also see the power of love rising,

voices refusing to be silenced,

hands building communities of care,

feet marching for peace with justice.

Heal us, O God. Make us bold enough to speak truth in love,

to resist every system that thrives on fear and division,

and to live as balm in this wounded land.

We pray not only for peace but for the courage to embody it—

in our homes, in our streets, in this church, in our nation.

Through Christ, who wept with us and yet rose with power, we pray.

Amen.

Invitation to Communion

This table is not the empire’s table.
It is not gated, policed, or censored.
It does not silence the hungry or privilege the powerful.
This is Christ’s table—where the broken find healing,
where the weary find rest,
where the silenced find a voice,
where the despised find welcome.

On this International Day of Peace,
we come to taste a peace rooted in justice,
a love that breaks chains,
a hope that refuses to die.

Come, not because you are worthy,
but because Christ makes you whole.
Come, because there is a balm in Gilead,
and it is poured out here in bread and cup.

Invitation to Give

Our offerings are not hush money to quiet our conscience.
They are seeds of resistance, investments in justice,
fuel for the Spirit’s movement in this place and beyond.

When the world blesses weapons,
we bless children.
When the empire silences prophets,
we empower truth-tellers.
When systems sow fear,
we plant love.

Let us give, not reluctantly but boldly,
trusting that God will multiply these gifts
into balm for a wounded world.

Commissioning and Benediction

Go now as people of lament and of action.
Let your tears water the seeds of justice.
Let your weeping fuel your courage.
Let your prayers become protest,
your songs become strength,
your love become revolution.

The world asks, “Is there no balm in Gilead?”
We leave this place answering:
Yes, there is a balm—and we will be it.

Go in peace, go in power, go in love.

And let the church say: Amen.

The Most Hopeful Word in Scripture

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

Luke 15:1-10

This morning, I’ve got a simple sermon. Now, don’t get too excited. I didn’t say short! I said simple. It’s about one word. Just one word. And I believe it may be the most hopeful word in scripture.

Jesus is confronted by grumbling Scribes and Pharisees: “Jesus, why do you insist on hanging out with people everyone knows are sinners? Rumors are flying all over town about you eating, drinking, and having parties with those people!”

And Jesus responds as he usually does by telling a story. Here, he tells three stories: one about a lost sheep, another about a lost coin, and another about a lost boy.

It is in these wonderful stories that we find what I believe is the most hopeful word in the entire Bible.

What about the word “found?” Now there’s a hopeful word. In each of these stories, there is something or someone who is found. The shepherd finds the lost sheep. “And when he found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices!” The woman finds the lost coin. “Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.” And the father finds his lost son. “Let us celebrate for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost but now he is found!”

Found: It’s a wonderful word. For being found is the polar opposite of being lost. Being found means being recognized and accepted, welcomed, and affirmed where we are and for who we are. Being found means coming home. Coming home to a place where you are loved unconditionally and appreciated and understood. Being found means belonging. Being found means salvation.

Found: What a hopeful word! For how many of us yearn to be known fully, understood completely, accepted entirely, and loved unconditionally? How many of us yearn for a place that we can call home? Where we can be our authentic selves and be welcomed and affirmed. Found: it’s a wonderful, hopeful word. It is who we are called to be as a church, and it is what makes this Open and Affirming congregation in Lynchburg so special.

“Found” is good. “Found” is hopeful. But it’s not quite the word I’m after. What about “rejoice?” Now, that’s a hopeful word…

In each of these stories, there is an awful lot of rejoicing. You gotta love the way Jesus responds to criticism about all the parties he was attending by telling three stories about having a party?

When the shepherd finds his lost sheep, he lays it on his shoulders and “rejoices.” He comes home, calls together his friends and neighbors and invites them to a party, saying, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.”

After the woman found her lost coin, she called together her friends and her neighbors, saying, “Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.”

And who can forget the party in the final story of the lost boy. When the boy is found, the father says to his servants: “Quickly, bring out a robe, the very best one, and put it on my boy. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let’s eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” And they began to rejoice together with food, music, dancing, and belonging.

Rejoice: it’s an incredibly hopeful word, but it is not the word I am thinking of. There is another word, a smaller word, a stronger word, a word that will preach hope in every age!

Jesus says that the shepherd searches until he finds the lost sheep. The woman searches until she finds the lost coin, and the father waits until the lost boy is found.

It’s important to remember that each time Jesus tells a parable, he is implying that God is like that. God is like a shepherd who searches, not for an hour, not for 24, 36, or 48 hours, not for a week or a month or even a year, but searches until he finds his sheep. God is like a woman who turns on all the lights in the house, sweeps every square inch and feverishly searches until she finds it. And God is like a parent who patiently and graciously waits untiltheir child comes home.

The most hopeful word in the Bible may be the simple word until.

I have always prided myself on being open-minded. I have preached sermons about the importance of being open-minded. I’ll never forget that after one such sermon, a worshipper came up to me and asked, “Pastor, don’t you think that sometimes it is good to be close-minded? Don’t you think that there are some things that even God is hard-headed about?”

Although the worshipper was notorious for being closed-minded, he did have a pretty good point. For the good news is that the God Jesus describes is a close-minded, hard-headed, stubborn God. God is obstinate and unrelenting in God’s desire to draw all people unto God’s self. It was a very stubborn, immovable, and inflexible love which propelled to the cross. Perhaps the most close-minded statement that was ever made was made from the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

So, you say: “I know I am not the person I need to be. How much longer will God keep molding me, shaping me, enveloping me with grace? The good news is, until.

You say, “I keep failing, I keep falling. How long will God continue to pick me up and put me back on my feet?” The good news is, until.

You say, “I don’t think I am ever going to get over the loss of my loved one. How much longer can I keep calling on God to help me?” The good news is until.

How long will God keep fighting for me in this battle? How long will God keep protecting me in this storm? The good news is, until.

How much longer is God going to believe in me and stand by me and make a place for me at God’s banquet where there is going to be endless rejoicing?

The answer is in the simple, yet most hopeful word in the entire Bible: until.

And we’re not the first to discover this hope. In a dream, Jacob wrestled with God all night long by the river, refusing to let go. His stubborn cry was: “I will not let you go until you bless me.” And God stayed with him, held onto him, and gave him a new name and a new future.

Hannah prayed in the temple year after year, pouring out her soul, long after others had given up on her. She prayed until her tears turned into songs of joy, and Samuel was born.

Moses went back again and again to Pharaoh, each time with the same demand: “Let my people go.” Pharaoh hardened his heart, but Moses kept coming back until God’s people were set free.

And Jesus told us of a widow who kept knocking on the door of an unjust judge, demanding justice. She would not be silenced, and nevertheless, she persisted. She kept knocking until the judge gave in.

Even in Gethsemane, Jesus prayed not once, but over and over, staying with God until his spirit was strengthened to bear the cross.

The whole story of scripture testifies to this hope: God will not quit. God will not give up. God will not turn away. No matter our mistakes, no matter our trouble, no matter our obstacles, God will love us, chase us, hold us, and transform us—until.

And church, if God is stubborn like that, if God loves us until, then the people of God must be stubborn too. That means we cannot quit on our neighbors. We cannot give up on this nation. We cannot give in to violence, even when those who call us their enemies declare war. We can never answer hate with more hate, but with a stubborn love that never grows weary in this nonviolent struggle for justice and peace.

As the late Henri Nouwen once said: “Those who choose, even on a small scale, to love in the midst of hatred and fear are the people who offer true hope to the world.”

We must stand, we must work, we must love (Somebody say it) “UNTIL!”

Until our streets and our schools are free from gun violence, and political violence no longer poisons our common life.

Until our presidents stop dividing the nation, and our leaders speak words that heal instead of harm.

Until every child in America can walk into a fully funded school,
with books that tell the truth about our past, not with shelves stripped bare by censorship.

Until Black and Brown lives are safe, voter suppression is dismantled, and police violence is no more.

Until immigrants are welcomed as neighbors, not treated as criminals.

Until every worker earns a living wage, and nobody has to choose between medicine and rent.

(Somebody say it) “UNTIL!”

Until women’s bodies are honored, and reproductive freedom is protected.

Until our queer and trans siblings are celebrated as God’s beloved.

Until every person is granted equal protection and due process under the law.

Until Christian nationalism is unmasked as idolatry.

Until this planet is a more sustainably just and harmoniously peaceful home for every creature.

Until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream!

That’s the stubborn love of God! And now, the same stubborn love that propelled Jesus to the cross now propels us into the streets!

And when we get tired, when we feel like giving up, asking ourselves, “How long will God sustain us in this struggle?” The gospel answers: Until.

Thus, when the powers and principalities ask us:

So, how long are you going to keep showing up?”

“How long are you going to keep organizing?”

“How long are you going to keep protesting?”

“How long are you going to keep flying that flag?”*

“How long will you fight for healthcare, housing, and hope?”

“How long will you keep praying and prophesying and bearing witness against greed, violence, division and hate?”

We will rise up with one voice and declare:

“We will not stop.

We will not bow down.

We will not turn back.

And we will not be silent. Not for a season.

Not until the news cycle moves on.

Not even until the next election.

We will love.

We will struggle.

We will stand.

And we will march

until every person is free,

until every child is safe,

until every body is honored,

until justice is done,

and the kingdom comes on earth as it is in heaven!”

Amen.

 

*Referring to the pride flag that flies outside on our church sign.

Flipping the Tables of Injustice: A Labor Day Call to the Church

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

Luke 14:1, 7-14

Year after year, churches in our country love to plan their worship services around certain secular holidays. Every Mother’s Day churches pass out roses and honor the youngest or oldest mother in the congregation. When Father’s Day arrives, churches give the dads mini screwdrivers or flashlights. When Veteran’s Day, Memorial Day, and the Fourth of July roll around, worshipers wave flags, sing patriotic hymns, and sermons are preached about love of God and country.

But here’s the problem: although those holidays may be meaningful for families, for communities, and for the country, none of those holidays are rooted in the gospel. None are commanded by Scripture, and none are inspired by the words and actions of Jesus.

And yet, when Labor Day comes around, the one secular holiday that echoes the heartbeat of the gospel, that testifies to God’s concern for workers, for Sabbath rest, for fair wages, for dignity at the table, most pulpits in our country are silent. And I am ashamed to confess to you today that I have also been guilty. I have acquiesced to the culture, as this is what you could call my first Labor Day sermon.

To acknowledge Labor Day, I am aware of some churches will host a cookout, but very few will pause on this Sunday to remember that the scriptures declare: “the laborer deserves their wages” (Luke 10:7); and “Woe to those who oppress the hired worker in their wages” (Malachi 3:5); and “Do not withhold wages from the poor and needy” (Deuteronomy 24:14).

It’s a strange contradiction. Churches will drape sanctuaries in red, white, and blue for national pride, but not lift up the struggles of those who built this nation with their hands, their backs, and their sweat. Churches will honor soldiers on Veteran’s Day but ignore teachers, nurses, farmworkers, janitors, and factory workers on Labor Day.

In today’s scripture, Jesus walks into the house of a Pharisee, a religious leader with some clout, and he watches how people are elbowing each other to grab the best seats at the table. He notices how people are playing the game of upward mobility, doing what they can do to sit close to power.

Jesus immediately calls them out, telling them that the kingdom of God, in the words of the late Henri Nouwen, is about “downward mobility,” blessing those at the bottom. So, Jesus flips the script: “Don’t sit with the powerful. Take the lowest seat with the powerless, for the last shall be first, and the first shall be last.” Jesus flips the guest list, saying: “And when you host a banquet, don’t invite the ones at the top who can return the favor. Invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. Invite the ones who never get an invitation.”

Now, this has nothing to do with polite table manners. This is a revolutionary reordering of society. Jesus is calling out the systems that uplift a few, while crushing the rest. He turns the values of status, power, and privilege upside down. I believe you could call today’s gospel another “table-flipping moment” by the same Jesus who stormed into the Temple, flipping the tables of the moneychangers, saying, “My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.”

I believe Jesus is saying: “If the table is built to exclude, if the table is set so that some may feast while others starve, then that table must be flipped.”

Labor Day presents an opportunity for the church to point out that we have too many tables in this nation built on the exploitation of workers.

Wages have been stagnant for decades, while the salaries of CEOs have soared more than a thousand percent.

Workers are told there’s no money for healthcare, no money for paid leave, and no money for fair retirement, but somehow there’s always money for those in the corporate office.

Migrant workers pick our food, service workers keep our cities running, childcare workers and certified nurse’s assistants serve our most vulnerable family members, yet they are often paid poverty wages and denied dignity.

And these injustices are not accidents. They are tables intentionally built by greed. And Jesus wants these tables flipped.

But it’s not easy to flip these tables. For these are old tables, and they are heavy tables. These tables were never designed to be moved.

It reminds us that Labor Day was not freely handed down to us by the wealthy or by the government, but was won by struggle, solidarity, and sacrifice, by workers who dared to organize, who marched, who were jailed, and some who even bled and died for the right to a fair wage, safe conditions, and humane hours.

In 1894, the Pullman Company that manufactured railroad cars cut wages but didn’t cut rent for their employees who lived in their company-owned housing. Workers finally cried out, “Enough!” They walked off the job, demanding dignity. The strike spread nationwide shutting down much of the nation’s railroads west of Detroit.

President Grover Cleveland sent federal troops into Chicago without the permission of local or state authorities. Can you imagine such a thing? Bullets rained down. The blood of workers stained the streets. Thirty workers were killed. Fifty-seven were wounded.

In Billings, Montana, an important rail center, a local Methodist minister named J. W. Jennings, with other preachers across the country, supported the workers. In one sermon, Jennings called out the President and local government for betraying the principles of democracy and failing to defend “the rights of the people against aggression and oppressive corporations.” He prophetically called the President and his party (and you gotta love this): “the pliant tools of the codfish monied aristocracy who seek to dominate this country.”

It was out of this struggle that Labor Day was born, not because President Cleveland loved the workers and respected the people, but because he feared the response of the people who were standing with the workers. Labor Day literally born from the blood of workers and because clergy rose up and spoke out. Thus, the church, especially here in 2025, cannot treat Labor Day as an opportunity to have a cookout. It is a day of holy remembrance, rededication, and resistance.

One could call some Amazon warehouses “modern-day storehouses of Pharaoh,” as it has been reported that workers are collapsing from the heat, tracked like cattle, urinating in bottles because they aren’t given time for a bathroom break. Some have stood up and said, “Enough!” They formed the first union in Amazon’s history. And what did the richest man in the world do? He tried to crush them, just like Pharaoh, just like President Cleveland.

So, here’s a question for us today: Will the church remain silent while Pharaoh builds bigger warehouses? Will we sing about heaven while ignoring the cries of workers in hellish conditions? Will call out state government regarding Virginia’s right-to-work law, which really means: “the right to be poor” or “the right to be fired without cause” or “the right to work without protections?”

Or will we stand up like Rev. Jennings in Montana and stand with Jesus who flips the script, flips the table, and flips the guest list setting the banquet for those corporations control and exploit?

Will the church finally wake up and understand that Labor Day is a holy day? That when we fight for fair living wages, for unions, for healthcare, for rest, we’re flipping the tables of Pharaoh’s economy while demanding the justice of God’s kingdom! And when we stand in solidarity with those who have been pushed away from the table of dignity in the workplace, we are being faithful to our decision to follow Jesus.

When we stand with our immigrant siblings, who clean our hotels and harvest our crops—

When we stand with our queer and trans siblings, who still face workplace discrimination—

When we stand with our Black and brown siblings, who are often last hired and first fired, and who make less for the same work as white people—

When we stand with our women siblings who are still paid less than men—

When we stand with the differently-abled who seldom get a chance—

And when we rise up declaring that diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace is what the kingdom of God looks like—

Then we are doing our part to not just make room for them at the table, but we are joining Jesus in flipping the table until the lowly are lifted up, and the mighty are brought low!

On this Sunday before Labor Day, through our gospel lesson in Luke 14, I hear the Spirit saying: “Church, it’s time to flip the tables!”—standing with teachers demanding smaller class sizes; with auto workers demanding a just contract; with fast-food workers demanding $15 an hour and a union; with underpaid service workers who rely on tips; with all who are told they are disposable, until they rise up and declare: “We are children of God, and we deserve dignity, justice, and a seat at the table.”

And yes, this might mean uncomfortable conversations at work, in our neighborhoods, even at our family cookouts. But when we signed up to follow Jesus, we were not promised comfort, but we were told there would be a cross involved.

So today, we are not passing by Labor Day as though it has nothing to do with our faith. We are claiming it as a holy day, a sacred day to remember that God’s kingdom comes whenever dignity is defended, whenever workers rise up, and whenever the poor are lifted and the lowly are honored.

Because we believe the Jesus we have decided to follow is still flipping tables. He’s still inviting the poor and the workers and the weary to the feast. He’s still telling us that the kingdom of God is not built on greed but on grace, not on hoarding but on sharing, not on exploitation but on liberation, not on lies but on love.

And if Jesus is flipping tables, we know the church must flip tables too. Flip the tables of silence that keep us comfortable while others suffer. Flip the tables of nationalism that honor the flag more than the worker. Flip the tables of greed that deny fair wages, dignity, and Sabbath rest.

For we know, when we flip the tables, we tell the world that God’s table is wide, and there is room for everyone: teachers and janitors, farmworkers and nurses, factory workers and baristas, Amazon drivers and home health aides.

And when we flip those tables of greed and exclusion, we will discover that Jesus himself is already seated there, breaking bread with us, saying: “This is the kingdom of God, the banquet of heaven, the table of life.”

Amen.

When the Bent-Over Stand Tall

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

Luke 13:10-17

There she was. Bent over for eighteen long years. Eighteen agonizing years of looking at the ground instead of the sky. Eighteen heartbreaking years of staring at her feet when she longed to see the stars. Eighteen years of neighbors passing by, some whispering, some staring, some mocking, and some pretending not to notice.

This one who was “bent over and not able to straighten up at all,” says Luke, had come to the synagogue to hear the teaching of a young rabbi named Jesus.

Listen again to verse 12, “When Jesus saw her…”

Let’s not miss that.

Before anyone else noticed her, Jesus saw her.

When the world looks away, Jesus sees. When society grows accustomed to suffering, Jesus stops.  When the culture calls suffering “normal,” Jesus calls it “wrong.”  When the world says, “nothing can change,” Jesus says, “oh, yes it can!”

This woman lived eighteen years under the weight of her condition.
But how many of us know people bent over for far longer than that?

Notice that Luke tells us that “a spirit” had crippled this woman. This was not some cartoon ghost floating around. Luke is naming the same thing John calls “the spirit of the antichrist,” the same thing Paul calls, “the spirit of slavery.” It’s the same spirit Mark called “Legion” pointing directly to Roman military occupation. It’s the same thing our ancestors called the spirit of Jim Crow. It’s the spirit of greed, the spirit of sexism, the spirit of pride and self-righteousness.

These spirits don’t float around in the air. They take root in systems and in structures. They show up in unjust laws, in hateful rhetoric, and in economic exploitation. When Jesus lays his hands on the bent-over, he is confronting not just sickness but the very spirit that says some people should stay bent over.

This is the spirit of oppression, the kind of spirit that settles in when the world tells you that bent down is all you will ever be. It’s the spirit that whispers, “Stay in your place.” It’s the spirit that says, “You don’t deserve healing. You don’t deserve dignity. You don’t deserve to stand tall.”

It’s the spirit that tells workers scraping by on minimum wage that they don’t deserve a living wage. It’s the spirit that tells people without health insurance that their lives are expendable. It’s the spirit that tells young Black men they are more likely to fill a jail cell than a college classroom. It’s the spirit that tells women, immigrants, trans and queer folk: “You don’t belong. You are less than. You should stay bent.”

The truth is that we are surrounded by the bent-over. And the tragedy is not just that people are bent. The real tragedy is that, like the synagogue leader in our story, the religious and political establishment today would rather preserve the systems that bend people over, than bring healing and transformation that makes the bent over stand tall.

That’s the ugly spirit that cripples this woman in the synagogue. And that’s the spirit that Jesus confronted in that synagogue. And that’s what really angers the religious leaders. Because when Jesus lays his hands on this woman, it’s not just a personal miracle. It’s a public exorcism. It is the casting out of a spirit that says bondage is normal. It is the overthrow of every lie that says any of God’s children should stay bent and broken.

Indignant that Jesus would not only heal on the Sabbath, but heal a woman, touching her, violating the rules of religious tradition, the religious leader scowls: “How dare you! Come for healing on any other day, but not on the Sabbath!”

But the Sabbath was never about rules. The Sabbath is about restoration. The Sabbath is God’s reminder that human beings are not machines. The Sabbath is the declaration that Pharaoh’s bricks and quotas and endless production do not have the final word.

The Sabbath is freedom. And Jesus, right there in the synagogue, calls out their hypocrisy by saying: “How can you untie your ox or donkey on the Sabbath but refuse to untie this woman from her bondage?”

Two years ago, during the Sunday School hour, to get to know the new pastor, we played this game called “Quiz the Pastor” where you were asked to write questions and place them in a box for me to draw and answer. Most of the questions were easy, like “what is your favorite dessert?” But I will never forget one of the questions: “What is the gospel?” I can’t remember how I answered that important question, but I should have answered by retelling this story in Luke 13.

Because Jesus answers that question in the synagogue that day when he talks about the Sabbath: If the Sabbath is for rest and restoration, then the people most in need of restoration, the ones most bent over, the ones most tied down and bound, are the very first who should taste its freedom.

I believe we must be clear: this story is not just about one woman with a bad back in Galilee. It is about all the places where people are bent over today. And it’s about all the ways our society tolerates suffering, because healing would disrupt business as usual.

We live in a nation where: patriarchy is untied while women are bowed down with fewer rights; corporations and billionaires are untied every tax season while workers stay bound; banks are untied from regulations while the poor stay bent beneath debt; guns are untied while active shooter drills bend school children beneath desks; autocracy is untied while gerrymandering and voter suppression bends down democracy; and much of the church in our country has been untied from any responsibility to make this world more loving, peaceful and just, as pastors preach about Jesus’ role in personal salvation while ignoring his role in social liberation.

The synagogue leader says to Jesus: “No, not today. It’s unacceptable to bring that in here!”

And Jesus responds with the gospel: “Not tomorrow but today is the day of liberation! Here and now is the acceptable place and time for all who are bound to be untied!”

And because of this gospel truth, the good news is we’ve seen bent-over people stand tall throughout history.

In 1968, the Memphis sanitation workers were bent under dangerous conditions and poverty wages, but they stood tall, carrying signs that said, “I Am a Man” until the world had to see their dignity.

A year later, Marsha Johnson and Sylvia Rivera were bent by poverty, police harassment, and transphobia, yet they stood tall at Stonewall and beyond, fighting for the dignity of LGBTQ+ people.

More recently, Greta Thunberg was bent by the loneliness of being a child confronting the climate crisis. She was mocked and dismissed by the powerful, yet she stood tall, sparking a global movement of youth demanding a livable planet.

And there have been countless others who have stood tall after being bent down: the farmworkers led by César Chávez, Desmond Tutu in South Africa, Martin Luther King Jr. in a Birmingham jail, and nameless mothers and grandmothers who kept marching, kept praying, and kept believing.

And every time they stood tall, strong men trembled. Every time they stood tall, chains cracked. Every time they stood tall, the Kingdom of God broke in just a little more.

The question is not whether Jesus can help people stand tall today. The question is whether we will join him. Will we dare to touch the wounds this world says are untouchable? Will we dare to lift up those our society keeps bent over? Will we dare to live like the Sabbath is real, that God’s rest and God’s restorative justice belong to everybody?

This is the vision of the Kingdom. Not just one person healed, but entire communities rising up, standing tall, rejoicing together with all.

Because, as Dr. Barber reminds us with the Poor People’s Campaign, when the bent-over stand tall, when the poor organize, when the oppressed resist, when the weary find their strength in faith, then the powers that profit from their suffering are put to shame.

That’s why the crowd rejoiced, and that’s why the rulers were humiliated. Because nothing frightens empire more than people who refuse to stay bent.

So, the question for us today is: Will we be content with a Sabbath that unties donkeys but leaves people bound? Or will we follow Jesus into the holy work of untying our neighbors, of lifting up the bent-over, of making straight what has been made crooked for too long by an anti-Christ spirit in our world?

The good news is that there’s another spirit in our world. The good news is that the spirit of the same Jesus who made that woman stand up is alive and moving today.

He is moving every time someone stands and demands living wages, every time someone stands and fights for universal health care, every time someone stands and calls for racial justice, and stands to end the scapegoating of and the cruelty to immigrants.

He is moving every time someone stands up and does something to help the bent-over stand tall.

And here’s the reality, because we are the body of Christ in this world, if we leave here today and do nothing, then the woman stays bent.

If we leave here today and stay silent, then Herod, and the religious powers who have forsaken the gospel to follow Herod, still win. If we leave here today and choose comfort over courage, then the powers will keep alive the lie that there is no alternative to the status quo.

But I declare to you today in the name of Jesus that there is an alternative! There is a better way! And it begins when the people of God stand tall, when they refuse to bow to Herod and refuse to look away from the suffering around us.

So, let us rise and stand up straight as that woman did. Let us lift our voices in praise, and let our praise spill into protest, and let our protest grow into policy, and let our policy become a new way of life.

Because when the church rises and stands tall, the world cannot stay bent! When God’s people stand up tall together, Herod trembles. And when the bent-over stand tall, that’s when the Kingdom of God breaks in!

So church, it’s time to rise and stand up!

It’s time to rise and stand up for justice!

To rise and stand tall for mercy!

Stand tall for peace! Stand tall love!

Stand until every child of God can stand tall and sing free!

May we always have the courage to see, the faith to act, and the love to untie any bond that keeps any one of God’s children bent down.

And may we rejoice with the crowd until every last one of us can stand tall and rejoice together. Amen.

When Jesus Starts a Fire

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

Luke 12:49-53

When we first hear Jesus ask in Luke 12, “Do you think I have come to bring peace on the earth?” I think most of us instinctively want to answer, “Yes, of course! That’s exactly why you came and why we are here! We have come into this sanctuary to escape a stressful world so Jesus can bring us some of that peace that the world cannot give.”

For that is the Jesus our supposedly Bible-believing culture has taught us to expect: the good shepherd Jesus who lays us down on green grass beside still waters; the gentle, mild, inoffensive Jesus who smooths over conflicts and calms everybody down.

We were taught about the Jesus who tells you to keep your voice down, to stay in line, to be respectable, to obey the rules, and to keep the peace. The Jesus who pledges allegiance to the flag, prays before the football game, never risks an argument at the dinner table, and keeps his sermons short so we can get home for lunch.

It’s the Jesus of softly lit stained-glass windows, your children’s Sunday School coloring books, and on the expressway billboard. It’s the Jesus our culture has been marketing for generations: the Jesus who prays for political leaders instead of confronting them’ the Jesus who offers his disciples comfort without challenge, personal salvation without public solidarity, and tragically, peace without justice. It’s a Jesus who never gets upset and overturns a table. He never angers the authorities and never divides a household. It’s a Jesus that God sent to earth and had crucified as an atoning sacrifice, not executed by an unholy alliance between an authoritarian government and sick religion. It’s a Jesus who died for human sin, not because of human sin and the evil systems those sins created.

However, for those of us who might not call ourselves “Bible-believing,” but who actually open and read the Bible, it’s obvious this is not the Jesus standing in front of us in Luke 12. Luke teaches us that the Jesus we have been sold is a complete fabrication of a church that has for far too long traded the gospel for a seat at Caesar’s table.

The real Jesus, the one we meet here in the Gospel of Luke, is not here to hand us a sedative, he’s here to hand us a cross. He’s not here to calm the waters, he’s here to stir the waters until the entire ship turns toward love and justice. The Jesus we meet here is aflame with holy anguish. He’s fierce and fired-up, on a furious mission to change the world. He’s not an accessory to the empire as we have been duped to believe; he’s a threat to it. He’s not patting Rome on the head, telling it “to keep up the good work and know we are praying for your success.” He’s announcing a new reign that will outlast every empire’s rise and fall.

In agony, Jesus proclaims, “I came to bring fire to the earth, and oh how I wish it were already kindled!”

Jesus is talking about a revolution!

Eugene Debs, a political activist and trade unionist of the 19th century, called Jesus “the world’s supreme revolutionary leader, the champion of the downtrodden masses.” Lincoln Steffens, a journalist of that same time, called the teachings of Jesus “the most revolutionary propaganda” he ever encountered. I love the way contemporary writer John Eldredge describes the Jesus of culture vs. the Jesus of scripture saying: “We’ve made elevator music of Jesus! We’ve made Him the most boring, bland, blah person [in the world]; when he was the most revolutionary man [in the world].”

And here’s the thing: if we’re going to follow this Jesus, if we are to call ourselves disciples of this Jesus, then we must see ourselves as revolutionists. And we should feel the same agonizing fire burning in our bones when the world blesses war, justifies genocide, hoards wealth, and “liberates” the capital city not for poor people, but from poor people, and calls it “peace.” Because a holy fire has been ignited in us, a fire that refuses to settle for the inevitable woes of a country run by greed and violence with an immoral agenda propped up by a fictitious Jesus, even if it costs us relationships.

This is the fire that Jesus was talking about in Luke 12. It’s not the cozy fireplace kind of fire. It’s the fire of purification. It’s the fire that burns up injustice, lights up the lies we’ve been living under, and exposes the truth.

And here’s the thing about fire. Fire never leaves things the way it found them. Fire changes everything it touches. Jesus didn’t come to add a little moral flavoring to an already comfortable society. He came to set the whole thing ablaze to destroy all that is corrupt so all that is good can shine even brighter.

So, when Jesus asks, “Do you think I have come to bring peace on the earth?” He’s warning us that if we’re serious about following him, we then we will stand up and speak against the status quo, and doing so never happens without disruption and division.

But preacher, c’mon, Jesus talked a lot about peace. Didn’t he say: “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you.” Isn’t that why we pass the peace every Sunday after we sing the doxology? That’s the best of this service!

Yes, but Jesus also said, “But I don’t give you peace as the world gives you peace.” Jesus doesn’t give peace as empire defines it. His peace is not the polite quiet that comes from ignoring injustice. It’s not the family harmony that’s created by never bringing up the truth. No, Jesus brings a peace that the world cannot give. It’s a peace that can only come through the fierce, unrelenting work of justice.

This is not the peace of passivity, as John Dear reminded us in March. It’s the peace of nonviolent resistance. It’s the peace that says, “I will stand in the way of violence, even if it costs me everything.” The peace Jesus gives is the peace of the cross.

It’s not the kind of peace that sends you home from church for a Sunday afternoon nap. It’s the kind of peace that makes attending next Sunday’s ministry fair a priority, a peace that is continually asking, “what is my part in this struggle?” And it’s the peace that never normalizes the violence and injustice of this world

Two weeks ago, after a man, who fell victim to those in power who question science and vaccines, fired 500 shots at the Center for Disease Control across the street from Emory University where my son is employed, I was disheartened to hear a CNN reporter repeat the following assertion: “This is just the world in which we live.”

We live in a culture that says violence is inevitable, that wars will always come, that poverty will always be with us, not as a challenge to be confronted, but as a fact to be accepted. It tells us mass shootings are just “the new normal,” and climate collapse is just “the cost of progress.”

But Jesus comes today with another message. With anguish in his heart and fire in his eyes, Jesus says: “Don’t you fall for it! Don’t consign yourself to the inevitability of the violence of this culture of greed and sick religion! Don’t hand your conscience over to the empire!”

Jesus says: “Come and take up a cross and join another way. Come walk the road where you truly love all people as you love yourself. Come walk the road where you speak truth to power even when power hits back. Come walk the road where you risk the wrath of your own family if they’ve chosen the safety of silence over the risk of love.”

Jesus warns: “Your family will say you’ve gone too far. They’ll say you’re out of line, and some will cut you off for it. But this is what it means to follow me. To be woke when others have chosen to sleep. To be fired up when others have grown cold. To live by the ethic of God’s reign when others have bowed to the culture of violence. To let a fire burn in you so all that remains is love. And let that love, fierce, bold, and unafraid, be the sign that the reign of God has come near.

This is a call to vigilance. To live every day as though the kingdom is breaking in right now—because it is. To act every day as though nonviolence is not just an idea but the only way—because it is.

This is not the hour for lukewarm discipleship. This is the hour to join hands, to take up the cross, and walk straight into the struggle, knowing that on the other side is life: life abundant, life eternal, life together in the reign of God.

So, if you’re tired of watching world leaders stand under a banner which says “pursuing peace” but remain committed to authoritarian violence, let the fire burn.

If you’re tired of politicians who can find trillions of dollars for war but not a dime for poor people, let the fire burn.

If you are tired of people saying they are pro-life while they vote to take away healthcare and food from the poor, let the fire burn.

If you’re tired of wages that will not sustain life while billionaires get richer, if you’re tired of the earth gasping for breath while the oil companies count their profits, if you’re tired of schools closing while prisons keep expanding, if you’re tired of living in a world that is against diversity, equity, inclusion, equality, democracy, and liberty and justice for all, let the fire burn.

If you’re tired of the lie that nothing can change, let the fire burn.

Let it burn until it dissolves the chains off the prisoner and melts guns into garden tools. Let it burn until it scorches every policy that denies food to the hungry, shelter to the homeless, health care to the sick, and dignity to all sexualities, genders, and races.

Let it burn away every lie we’ve ever heard about a fictitious Jesus offering peace without justice and grace without a cross.

Let it burn away all the comfort we have wrapped ourselves in while our neighbors suffer.

Let it burn until we rise up from the ashes of this empire’s false promises and walk together toward the Beloved Community.

So let it burn. Fan it. Feed it. Fuel it. Follow it. Until the world is so ablaze with God’s love that no darkness can remain, no lie can survive, and no one can mistake the peace of empire for the peace of Jesus ever again.

Amen.

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.