I found today’s daily devotional from The Upper Room to be very good, and I think it addresses something that affects a lot of us, so I wanted to share it with you. You can find it at the link below.
Doing Great Harm to their Souls
Rob Price, the Episcopal Bishop of Dallas, Texas, issued the following statement about ICE well before yesterday’s shooting:
“I urge any who are involved in the administration of the current immigration enforcement regime at any level to seek the counsel of their clergy, given my urgent pastoral concern for the moral and spiritual injury that their participation is causing them.”
I have tried to be as careful and open-minded as possible, but, watching video after video, most recently the video of the shooting death of Renee Nicolle Good, I have come to the conclusion that ICE officers are doing great harm to their souls. I pray that the Holy Spirit will transform their hearts and reform this country.
For those of you who see this matter differently: I write this not because I believe my doing so will alter ongoing events, but because I do not want ongoing events to alter me. I feel that to say nothing would do harm to my own soul.
Source: https://edod.org/resources/articles/prayers-for-diocesan-parishioners-held-in-immigration-detention/
None of You Are My Enemies
Last Sunday, after the worship service, I was approached by someone who noticed that I was looking in their direction as I spoke about how hard it can be to love our enemies. I assured them this was a coincidence. It’s important to me that all of you know that I don’t consider any of you my enemies. You are my siblings in Christ; we will sometimes disagree, but we are not enemies. And even if we were, I would do my best to love you.
Everlasting Life in Resurrected Bodies
For a long, long time, I’ve been trying to make the point that the promise of everlasting life is a gift from God in the form of resurrected bodies, not a natural result of our having immortal souls. The first has firms foundations in the biblical faith, the second was imported into Christian thought from pagan philosophers. Theologian Frederick Buechner has made the same point. I encourage you to follow the link below and see what he has to say.
Link: https://www.frederickbuechner.com/quote-of-the-day/2025/9/2/immortality-nbsp-nbsp
Eternal Life, Here And Now
The folks over at bibleproject.org have another video that helps better explain things I’ve been trying to say for years. This video is about eternal life here and now and resurrected life in the new creation that is to come. I would invite you to watch, but know that you may get to rewatch it in a future sermon.
Voices: What Worship Is
N. T. Wright has this excellent summary of what worship is:
” ‘Worship’ was and is a matter of gazing with delight, gratitude, and love at the creator God and expressing his praise in wise, articulate speech. Those who do this are formed by this activity to become the generous, humble stewards through whom God’s creative and sustaining love is let loose into the world.” [1]
I like this summary. It not only address what worship is, but why we do it. I’ve had skeptics ask me why God wants us to worship. Does God really need our praise? I would make the argument that God doesn’t need it, but we do.
[1] N. T. Wright, The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus’s Crucifixion (New York, NY: Harper One, 2016), 100.
Omnipotence Defined
I’m currently reading The Will of God by Leslie Weatherhead. (Sidebar: Weatherhead has to be one of the best last names ever.) Theologians often talk about God as omnipotent, meaning God is all-powerful. Weatherhead succinctly explains what that means and what it does not mean in one sentence.
“God cannot be finally defeated, and that is what I mean by his omnipotence—not that everything that happens is his will, but that nothing can happen which finally defeats his will.” [1]
God will have God’s way in the end. Evil, sin, and death will be defeated in the end, and God’s will shall be done on earth as in heaven. But in the meantime, we dare not attribute everything that happens to God. There is a great deal going on which God does not condone.
[1] Leslie D. Weatherhead, The Will of God (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1944), 11. Kindle Edition.
A Warning About the New Bonhoeffer Movie
Before you head out to the New Bonhoeffer Movie, I would urge you to read this review. I would encourage you to skip the movie, stay home, and read Bonhoeffer’s book, Life Together, instead.
Link: https://bit.ly/4ibpbvK
Finding the Holiness in the Ordinary
Below is a bit of insight into my motivation for doing what I do. It comes from former president of Princeton Theological Seminary and retired Presbyterian pastor, Craig Barnes. He always seems to be able to put into words what I feel.
“God seems to prefer the ordinary and routine. Most of creation was designed to be held together by repetition, the same things happening again and again, whether it’s little things like electrons spinning around in circles, or huge things like planets slowly revolving around the sun every year.”
” . . . My devotions this morning came from Philippians 4, where the apostle Paul says, ‘Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable . . . keep on doing those things.’ Apparently, he learned that God is mostly impressed by routine acts of faithfulness.”
” . . . The challenge is not to rise above the ordinary routines but to find the holiness in them. This has always been one of the reasons people need pastors—to help them behold the quiet miracle of having the God of peace with us.” [1]
I am an ordinary pastor serving an extraordinary local church. I hope I have helped you all behold the quiet miracle of God’s presence. I know that you have helped me catch sight of it.
[1] 1. M. Craig Barnes, Diary of a Pastor’s Soul: The Holy Moments in a Life of Ministry (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2020), 30.
The Earth Shook
In the book Surprised by Scripture, published in 2014, N. T. Wright addresses the problem of evil embodied in the tsunami of December 26, 2004. What he had to say then is still applicable to the hurricanes we have recently experienced.
“Remember that when Jesus died, the earth shook and the rocks were torn in pieces, while the sky darkened at noon. God the creator will not always save us from these dark forces, but he will save us in them, being with us in the darkness and promising us, always promising us, that the new creation begun at Easter will one day be complete, and then there will be full healing, full understanding, full reconciliation, full consolation.”
We are not promised that everything will be fine and dandy here and now, but we are promised that all will be well in the end. Or in the words of Revelation 21:3-4 (NRSVue):
“See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and be their God; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.”
Amen.
What Makes Us the People of God
Last night, I was doing some reading for my sermon when I came across this quote from Dawn Ottoni Wilhelm. I don’t think it’s going to make it into the sermon, but I wanted to share it with you. It reminds me a lot of the church we all share.
This is the first time in the Gospel of John that Jesus’ closest disciples are named “the twelve” (v. 67). Their decision not to turn away but to walk forward with Christ draws them together as a community of faith. It is not any particular creed, mission statement, style of worship, or service program that unites them as the body of Christ. It is their professed willingness to follow Jesus Christ that renders them a community of faith. What a blessed word to remember as we agonize over mission statements, budget priorities, worship attendance, or other preoccupations of churchly life. It is our commitment to follow Christ alongside others that makes us the people of God. [1]
[1] Dawn Ottoni Wilhelm in David Lyon Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary — Year B, Volume 3 (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 385.
Beauty Points to God
N. T. Wright argues for the existence of God (whom we cannot see or hear) from beauty (which we can see and hear).
“We are all of us hardwired for beauty, searching for a deeper and richer meaning in a world that sometimes seems to overflow with delight but at other times feels dreadful and cold. Beauty—the haunting sense of loveliness, the transient yet utterly powerful stabs of something like love but something more and different as well—is not after all a mere evolutionary twist, an echo of [a primitive] urge to hunt prey, to find a mate, or to escape danger. It is a pointer to the strange, gently demanding presence of the living God in the midst of his world.” [1]
Ultimately, I think this is one of the best indications of God’s existence in the world around us. One can rationally argue the existence of God both ways, but the existence of beauty is undeniable.
[1] N. T. Wright. Broken Signposts: How Christianity Makes Sense of the World (HarperOne, 2020), Kindle, 92-93.