April 26, 2026 True Fruitfulness Matthew 21:18-27

The gospel reading started off with Jesus “cursing” a fig tree because he was hungry and it did not have any figs on it.  This is a puzzling and troublesome story.  Why should Jesus take out his frustration at being hungry on a fig tree that had no figs?!?   And how is the owner of the tree going to feel when he sees that his tree is dead?  If his insurance policy doesn’t cover “acts of God” he’s out of luck!

We have to remember the context of this story.  And for me, I also have to remember that Jesus didn’t actually curse the tree.  Biblical scholars point out that Jesus just said, “May no fruit ever come from you again!”  That not technically a curse, although it doesn’t bode well for the tree no matter what you call it!

When we remember the context of this scene we remember that Jesus is in Jerusalem and it is Monday of Holy Week.  Palm Sunday, the day before, Jesus had entered Jerusalem while being greeted by the crowds.  He rode in on a donkey as a prophetic act fulfilling what was predicted in Zechariah 9:9.  There the king comes riding into Jerusalem humbly after God has won battles against the nation’s enemies.

Then Jesus entered the temple complex.  He drove out those who were selling and buying in the outer courtyards of the temple.  He then cited the prophet Jeremiah when he said, “My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers.”  In the same way we are technically wrong to say that Jesus cursed the fig tree, so we are also technically wrong to think that Jesus is upset by corruption or by buying and selling in God’s house.  This is another prophetic act.  It brings to life what Jeremiah criticized.  Jeremiah’s criticism as was that the people in political and religious power at the time misunderstood the intention of the temple.  They were exploiting it.

So, keep in mind the king riding humbly in on a donkey.  Add to it the rejection of the authorities in the temple.  Then take the next step of the fig tree being fruitless.  No the stage is set for another prophetic action.

The prophets often used objects in their teachings and sometimes performed strange acts.  For example, Jeremiah wore and ox yoke to make a point.  At another Jeremiah used rotten underwear as an example.  The fig tree is full of leaves.  It looks lush and healthy.  All would say it is doing great.  But Jesus uses it to represent the religious authorities and the temple system.  It may look impressive, but it is fruitless.  And since it is fruitless it has no real value.  So the tree becomes a prophetic example.  When Jesus says, “May no fruit ever come from you again,” he is really saying: may no fruit ever come from the temple again.  It’s time is finished.  It will forever be fruitless.

To reinforce the point, remember the setting.  He is on his way to Jerusalem from the village of Bethany.  That’s about two miles away across the Mount of Olives.  So, as our scene today happened, Jesus is likely on the Mount of Olives overlooking the Temple Mount.  I picture Jesus and his disciples walking along a road.  Their descending from the Mount of Olives and the Temple Mount is across the narrow valley ahead of them.  A fig tree is growing along the side of the road.  It withers at Jesus command.  As the disciples remark about this, Jesus says, with the Temple Mount right in front of them, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only will you do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain,” [and pointing at the temple mount]  “‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ it will be done.  Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive.”

If you say to the fruitless Temple Mount ‘be lifted up and thrown into the sea’ he does not mean it to literally fly up into the air and land in the nearest body of water.  It’s an illustration.  From a faith perspective the temple is finished.  It is done.  Its time is over.

The operation of the temple was based on blood sacrifice from animals as the key to a right relationship with God.  But Jesus is bringing about something different.  Now the center of right relationship would be faith.  But of course all the actions were not yet fulfilled.  For Jesus to really replace the temple we must see the rest of Holy Week play out.  That, of course, ends with Jesus being crucified.

We’ll come back to faith and fruitfulness in a moment, but first we need to look at the rest of the gospel reading.

Jesus enters the temple and begins teaching.  Remember, it is the Passover holiday and there are likely large crowds around.  Certainly not everyone there was listening to Jesus.  But enough were that it came to the notice of the religious leaders.  They confront him as to why he has taken it upon himself to set up in the temple and teach.  What are his credentials?  Who does he think he is to give himself such authority?

We may think Jesus’ response about the baptismal ministry of John the Baptist is uncooperative and a bit gruff.  Just like making the fig tree wither was a bit gruff.  But keep in mind the fruitlessness of the temple that Jesus has just rejected.  Are the fruitless religious leaders really in a position to respond to what Jesus has to say?  No.  They’re more worried about the appearances of green leafiness than they are about the actual fruits of the religion.

Next week we read the next scene in Matthew’s gospel.  There Jesus gives four parables that illustrate the rejection of the religious leaders, and give warning against self-righteous arrogance.  From the trajectory that we see there we know what to ask of ourselves as we consider the fig tree.

            We live in a time when all sorts of things people took for granted are falling apart.  Politics is perhaps the easiest example.  The priorities, civility, and critical thinking that existed for decades are gone.  Civic pride, community organizations (churches included), and family priorities are all collapsing.  Youth sports seem to rule our culture.  They dictate family’s schedules – all the way from school to church to work to family vacations and everything else.

Financial realities are little better.  Not too long ago one income could buy a house and support a family.  Now many young adults cannot afford a household even with two incomes.

Manufacturing jobs are nearly gone.  Family farms are effectively extinct.  Many people have college educations but no real job prospects for those educations.  And artificial intelligence poses all sorts of threats.

In these times it is very easy to be like a fig tree: full of leaves but bearing no fruit.  Life becomes about appearances but has no substance. 

Older people condemn younger people for having wrong priorities.  Young people condemn older people for not understanding and for consuming too many resources.  Republicans build their ivory towers and condemn Democrats.  Democrats build their ivory towers and condemn Republicans.  People with college educations consider those who don’t to be ignorant simpletons who have nothing of value to contribute.  Those laborers who don’t have college degrees call those who do elitist snobs who don’t actually know reality.

But where is the fruit in all of this?  Is not every position looking at their own lush greenness of their position and thinking, “Look how good I am!”?

Faith in Jesus Christ produces fruit.  It is not interested in putting forth all sorts of pretty green leaves to be admired.  Jesus said that whatever you ask for in prayer with faith you will receive.  That’s not to be understood with greed.  For a greed-based prayer is not a prayer of faith.

Authentic prayer done in faith goes a long way to seeing through the fruitless lies many people live by.  I do not mean that in a condemning way; for prayer does not condemn.  A faith-based prayer is based on the crucifixion.  That is a set of priorities wholly different from the priorities of society.  It isn’t easy, but it does weed through all the false promises of lushness.  It puts relationship with God first and foremost.  It asks, “Since I am a child of God, how do I respond constructively?  Where do I need to work more?  Where do I need to forgive?  Where do I need to be forgiven?”

I promise you the answers will not be easy, comfortable, and convenient to live out.  Ease, comfort, and convenience are all the stuff of lush green leaves.  Bearing fruit takes work.  It often hurts.  It’s seldom easy. 

Look at the apple trees on the church property.  If they are not pruned annually they grow many lush green leaves.  But the apples are few and puny.  The trees do not like being pruned.  Many of their finest stems that would create leaves have to go.  But with pruning comes apples.  Live to be fruitful.  Do not live for appearances, for appearances are fleeting.  The fruit of faith is enduring.

Let me conclude with these words from C.S. Lewis which, I think help us to understand this better.  He writes, “There are no ordinary people.  You have never met a mere mortal.  Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat.  But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”  (The Weight of Glory (1942) para 15, pp 18-19)

April 19, 2026 Faith and Teaching Matthew 28:16-20

             “See one, do one, teach one,” is an old adage that has been passed down through generations of medical professionals.  I believe it originally referred to surgery, but it applies to manufacturing, construction, machining and all sorts of physical tasks.  You watch someone do it, perhaps for a while.  Then you try it on your own, and hopefully become proficient.  Eventually you teach others, and the pattern repeats. 

            It is always fascinating to me that the best way to truly know something is to have to teach it.  There’s something about planning what you are going to present, and thinking through what you are teaching as you are doing it, that instills things deeply in our brains.  There have been many things I thought I knew, but found that I really didn’t know until I had to teach it.  Only then did real mastery of a task or subject start to happen.

We hope that those who are teachers do truly have mastery of what they are doing.  They should be proficient at their field before they try to teach others.  Sadly, there is another old adage, “Those who can’t, teach.”  I don’t like that one at all.  And yet, when I consider the various teachers I have in schooling throughout life, it’s been a mix.  It is incredible to be taught by someone who is a master of the craft and leader in the field!  You can also tell when a person has become a teacher because they’ve failed at something in the real world, and only because they can’t do anything else, do they teach.  They’re usually terrible teachers.

Last Sunday I brought up an interesting thing in Matthew’s gospel about teaching.  I mentioned that Jesus had sent his disciples on missionary journeys and equipped them to do many things.  They were sent out to proclaim that the Kingdom of God had come near; and they could cure the sick, raise the dead, and cleanse leprosy.  It is an astonishing list of things to do.  Whether the disciple were actually capable of all that isn’t known.  It seems historically doubtful to me.  Regardless, what is not on that list is teaching.  Jesus does not commission his disciples to go out and teach at that point.  Proclaiming that the Kingdom of God has come near is not the same as teaching.

Then today, we read in the very last two verses of Matthew’s gospel that Jesus sends them out to all nations to baptize and, “teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.”

It seems that only after they have seen Jesus’ ministry, and his death, and his resurrected body are they now equipped enough to be given the role of teaching.

It is not an accidental irony that last week Matthew’s gospel told us that the guards who were assigned to Jesus’ tomb, when they saw what happened, went to the religious leaders and reported it.  The religious leaders conspire, pay off the guards, and send them out to teach lies.  So ultimately we have the religious leaders scheming to teach lies and Jesus’ disciples commissioned to go out and teach the truth.

We’ll turn to what the disciples are supposed to teach in just a moment.  But before that, we need to recognize something about the competence of these disciples to teach.  Was it the competence of, “See one, do one, teach one”?  Or was it more along the lines of, “Those who can’t, teach”?  You see, there’s a little detail that I skipped over.  Our English translators add one small word when they translated from Greek to English.  We read, “When [the disciples] saw [Jesus] they worshipped him; but some doubted.”  The added word is “some”.  A stricter translation would be, “When they saw him they worshipped him; but doubted.”  In other words, it wasn’t that some of them doubted.  They all had some measure of doubt.

How could these disciples have the resurrected Jesus standing right in front of them but still have doubts?!?  What level of proof for the resurrection could they possibly want?  If I’m using old quotes I want to bring up, “Seeing is believing.”

There’s something else going on here.  If I’m honest, no one knows exactly what Matthew means by this as he tells us.  But it is suggested, and it seems to me to be a good suggestion, is for Matthew, doubt and worship can work together.  For Matthew faith and doubt are not opposites.  They often get mixed together.  For Matthew, the opposite of faith is not doubt.  It is fear.

Remember, what happened to the guards at the tomb when the angel descended?  …these guards who are later paid off to go and teach lies about Jesus?  They have no faith in Jesus.  Mattew told us, “For fear of [the angel] the guards shook and became like dead men.

Doubt is not the opposite of faith.  Again, true faith and true worship often incorporate doubts.  But fear is the opposite of faith.  The angel said to the women, who were people of faith, “Do not be afraid.”

So let’s put teaching, faith, and doubts all together as we consider this commission from Jesus to go out into all nations to baptize, and to teach everything that he has commanded.

How are we to teach if we have doubts about what we are teaching?  Shouldn’t we know the stories of Jesus down cold and be absolutely certain of the truth of our faith before we go out and teach?

It would certainly be nice!  But consider this, the situation of the disciples of Jesus that day was no different than our own.  They had their doubts.  They were imperfect; in fact they had just recently all just abandoned Jesus and fled! 

Here’s something interesting.  Matthew tells us that the disciples all deserted Jesus and fled when he was arrested.  Peter denies Jesus three times and then goes out and weeps bitterly.  But Matthew never tells us they were afraid.  Surely they were!  But only the guards are actually described by Matthew as being paralyzed by fear.

We may feel woefully unequipped to spread the gospel.  We may have our questions and our doubts.  But that doesn’t seem to matter to God.  Perhaps we are all the more effective in our evangelism because of our questions and doubts.  That’s counter-intuitive, but I think it is correct.  If God wanted the disciples to be perfect in their faith, and if God wanted us to be perfect in our faith before we go out and teach, God would have made us so.  But God has not.  We have from God what God wants us to have.  The thing we should not be is afraid.  It is fear, not doubt, that paralyzes faith.

We do not live in a land that legally punishes us for being Christians or for proclaiming the faith.  But we are apt to be afraid.  We fear that others will think us to be nut cases, or that we are religious fanatics.  We do not want to annoy people the way door-to-door evangelists do.  We have convinced ourselves that faith is a private thing and that we are being respectful by not sharing it.  But is that not actually a position that is being driven by fear?

Okay, we need to be honest with ourselves.  Maybe we are so much afraid that we should question the depth of our faith.  Do we really believe that God is salvation for the world?  If yes, then why are we afraid of it?

Perhaps as Matthew’s gospel ends it even meets us in the fears that we wish we didn’t have – fears, mixed with doubts, mixed with limitations, mixed with tiredness, mixed with failures, mixed with a whole host of conditions that come from our human brokenness.

Jesus gives his disciples a profound task:  Make disciples.  Baptize them under the name and the authority of the triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  We should get a sense of grandeur here.  We should realize the enormity of the honor Jesus has bestowed upon us.  The disciples, and us too, are to be the vehicles for the salvation of the world.

No honor is greater than God telling you, “I choose you to bear my name to the world.” 

And finally, when our fears do threaten to get the best of us, we remember Jesus very final words in Matthew’s gospel, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.”  The resurrected Jesus, who proved to be more powerful than death, is with us as we go about teaching and making disciples, and taking on the honor of bearing God’s name.

April 12, 2026 Truth Stranger than Lies Matthew 28:11-15

Before we turn to the few verses in our gospel reading about the guards going to the chief priests and becoming part of a conspiracy to cover up the truth, I think we should look at the disciples at the Last Supper. That scene gives us a good backdrop to understand the contrast that is happening.

You know the stories of the Last Supper well. Jesus meets with his twelve disciples to celebrate the Passover holiday. They share a bread and wine meal which becomes the root of holy communion. Among the things Jesus says is that the disciples will all become scandalized by what will happen to him. Peter says, “Though all become scandalized by because of you, I will never be scandalized by you.” To which Jesus replies, “Truly I tell you, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.” Peter then replies, “Even though I must die with you, I will not deny you.” And so say the other disciples.

I don’t know what was going on in Peter’s head at that moment, but I think he was imagining some great and valiant scene where he lays down his life for Jesus. Perhaps he pictures a pitched battle where he is standing beside Jesus, both of them with swords and shields fighting their enemies. And then, Peter notices that someone has thrown a spear that will certainly penetrate Jesus’ body and kill him. But Peter throws himself in the path of the spear and takes it instead. In his dying moments he locks eyes with Jesus. Jesus sees Peter’s love and commitment as he falls to his death. Peter’s death in this way would be a mark of devotion, integrity, and valor.

This is likely along the lines of what all the disciples are picturing as they too promise they will stay faithful to Jesus to the end, no matter what horrors lie ahead.

Of course none of them were ready for what actually happened. After the meal Jesus would go out to Gethsemane; a location somewhere on the Mount of Olives, which overlooks Jerusalem. It is dark. Jesus is troubled and prays. Then Judas, one of their very own, arrives with a crowd carrying swords and clubs. One of the disciples draws his sword and makes a sloppy attack. He cuts off the ear of the high priest’s slave. Jesus rebukes the attack and all defensive maneuvers He allows himself to be led away without resistance.

All too quickly Jesus is put on trial, he is found guilty, and he is sentenced to be immediately executed by crucifixion. All through it Jesus offers no defense. It is as if he accepts guilt without question.

We have to remember that crucifixion was more than just a horrifically painful way to die. It was shameful to be tortured, and then have your body hung up for public display as you die. It was also considered by Jews to be a cursed way to die. To be crucified meant that not only did God reject you, but it was a sign that you had been cursed by God.

So, even though Peter and the disciples had promised they would stick by Jesus no matter what; even to death, they were not prepared to lay down their lives for someone cursed by God and dying in shame. Where’s the valor in that? Where’s the glory, the dignity, the honor? There is none.

Before we turn to the soldiers who guarded Jesus’ tomb, let’s remind ourselves of a great irony in our faith. Though many religions are portrayed as ultimately being about kindness and charity to the least in society, Christianity is different at its core. No other religion or belief system has at its core the shame and rejection that Christianity does. I believe that Christianity is the best religion in the world. I believe it is the only religion that is actually true and the only one that gives this world even a faint glimmer of hope. But there is no room in Christianity to boast of that. Even as authentic Christianity can make such claims, it must always do so with absolute humility. We can’t say that Jesus died for us without also accepting that Jesus’ shameful crucifixion is the price of our own sins. (We recognize that perhaps we would be willing to die with valor. But we would not dare to die for Jesus, the condemned and rejected criminal.) To be an authentic Christian one must accept that one is so fundamentally failed and needy that you need to turn to God begging for a love you can never deserve.

When those guards took their posts at Jesus tomb they knew full well that nothing would happen. The whole idea was absurd. Jesus’ followers were not going to suddenly become courageous and come and steal the body; and then cook up some story about Jesus being raised from the dead by God. Do you realize how absurd that idea is? If a crucified man is cursed by God then why would God resurrect such a person? And if Jesus’ followers fled without a fight when he was captured, they certainly aren’t going to show their sniveling cowardly faces at this point.

Last week at the sunrise service I joked about how the guards must have felt about this assignment. Perhaps they thought it was a cake job. Nothing could possibly happen and they’d enjoy one of their easiest assignments ever. Or perhaps it was an insult to be given a task of no importance that required no skill. Oh, but how wrong they were!

It turns out that Jesus’ obedience to the will of God - all the way to innocently being arrested, beaten, and shamefully executed – meant that death could not hold him; at least not for long. A power greater than death had been unleashed. No tomb or stone or guard was going to be able to stop it.

The guards failed miserably. You may remember from last week that there was an earthquake and an angel descended. Matthew says that for fear of the angel the guards shook and became like dead men. Isn’t it forever funny that the executed guy in the tomb isn’t there anymore because he’d been resurrected, while the very much alive guards outside the tomb have become like dead men?

Last week we read that the women followed the instructions of the angel. They went and told the disciples that Jesus had been raised and they would see him in Galilee. Then this week we started off with, “While [the women] were going, some of the guard went into the city…” So the women are going one way bearing an unbelievable truth. The guards are going another way to create plausible lie to everything that happened.

Here we see the way evil is undaunted by its failure with Jesus. The guards head off to conspire to spread lies. They are paid well for it too. Remember that Judas was paid to betray Jesus? Such is the way of the world. If you don’t have the actual truth on your side then use money to buy the truth that you want to have. That’s still the way of the world today.

There’s one more thing that we’ll see developed in next week’s gospel reading. Next week we’ll read the Great Commission where Jesus sends his disciples into the whole world to make disciples. Jesus tells them they should “teach everything I have commanded you.”

That word “teach” is important. Earlier in Matthew’s gospel when Jesus sent his disciples out on missionary trips he told them to: proclaim the good news, cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, and cast out demons. And though they were told to proclaim the good news, they were not empowered to teach. That may seem like a trivial thing, but it is not. Only with their knowledge of the truth of the crucifixion and the resurrection are the disciples now equipped enough to actually teach the truth.

That word teach also shows up in our gospel reading for today, but it gets mistranslated. The final verse would be better translated, “So [the guards] too the money and did as they were taught.”

Ultimately then, Jesus disciples, who failed him when they saw the shame and curse that was coming onto Jesus, are now equipped to go into the world to teach the truth. Meanwhile the religious leaders, who kept their positions of honor and integrity, are now sending out their own people to teach lies.

What a twisted world we live in! I would always encourage honor, integrity, and even valor. Yet do not confuse them with the truth. And tangled shame-filled failure may well convey truth so profound that death cannot keep it down. Therefore, through all things we live in awe of God’s love. We recognize our need for it, and all others need for it as well. Let me end with this quote by C.S. Lewis in his children’s book, Prince Caspian, “You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve. And that is both honor enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth. Be content.”

April 5, 2026 Easter 10:30 Worship Matthew 28:1-10

At the beginning of the service I asked the question, “People of God, why are you here?” And you responded, “We have come to give thanks to God. We do not go to church. We are the church.” I picked that up from the Master of Sacred Theology thesis by my colleague, the Rev. Johanna Rehbaum. She, in turn, got it from someone else. It may seem like a cute little question, but it gets at a deeper point. Why are you here? There are probably as many answers as there are people here. But it is worth asking.

It has become a common belief in our culture that all religions are just different branches of the same tree. Additionally, it is a common belief that you can be a moral person without Christianity; in fact, without any religion at all. Atheists can quite easily be highly moral people.

There’s also a widespread belief that when you die you pretty much automatically go to heaven. The qualifications for going to heaven are that you were a good person and lived a good life.

So, if all of those things are effectively true, then we need truly ask ourselves, why are we here? What’s the point of it all? Indeed, the majority of people in this nation today will not think one thought about the resurrection of Jesus or Christianity at all. It’s just a secular holiday of baskets filled with candy, egg hunts, and a brunch with your family.

It is not my place to judge who goes to heaven or how you get there. That is God’s work and God’s business. I won’t pretend to know. But what I do know is that our society’s understanding of all of these things are simply wrong.

Why are you here? Because you know that there is much more going on than morality or every good person being rewarded for their good behavior by God and given eternal life.

It is Easter Sunday. We are celebrating the resurrection. You can’t get to the resurrection of Jesus without him first dying. If you can simply be a moral person on your own, and if good morality gets you to heaven, then what was the whole point of the crucifixion? I’ve never actually seen it, but I understand that in the 1960s a newspaper comic was created depicting Jesus on the cross. The caption read, “If I’m okay and you’re okay then what am I doing hanging up here?”

That’s an important realization. It also gets at why you are here today.

There is something much deeper than morality at work here. For indeed, an atheist can easily be a highly moral person. The deeper thing is the nature of evil.

Evil is not something that polite people talk about. The idea of evil is not a socially acceptable one. That is one of evil’s greatest tricks – to convince people that it doesn’t even exist. We prefer saying things like someone is acting out of ignorance, or someone is being motivated by fear. We would not call it evil. Or we define evil as some deeply and profoundly insanely immoral act. But all of this is wrong.

Evil has no problem with morality. In fact, evil loves highly moral people. Evil also loves people who are good. They fall into evil’s hands very easily. Evil loves it when people think, “I can be good and moral without Christianity, and without any religion at all.” Evil says, “Why waste your time going to worship on Easter? Wouldn’t it be time better spent relaxing, or doing something entertaining, or spending the whole day with your family. Or even better yet, why not spend Easter doing a community service project? That would be truly good indeed!”

Yes, evil loves good morals. Evil easily convinces people that morals are an end unto themselves. Evil easily convinces people that goodness is an end unto itself, and that it is the fundamental quality God is looking for in humanity.

You see, evil’s real intention is to convince you that you can live a good, virtuous, perfectly fulfilled life all on your own. That was the basic trick that we find in the Garden of Eden stories when the serpent says, “God knows that when you eat of the [forbidden fruit] your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

It is a very clever promise of fulfillment.

The truth is that we are not okay. The truth is that we all fall into evil’s traps. We are quite ready to believe that we can be our own selves apart from God. We let possessions, and earthly security, and social status become the places where we turn for fulfillment. Ironically, as we think we are free to do to as we choose and be our own selves (as long as that self doesn’t appear to hurt anybody) we actually become slaves to evil. That slavery might take the form of greed and destruction and death. There evil is obvious. Evil doesn’t care about that. But what is far more often, and what evil really likes, is a life of good morals; but brokenness from God the creator. I am certain that far more death, hurting, and destruction happens in this world in the name of good morals than by overt evil.

Easter is a grand holiday celebrating Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. But you cannot get to Easter without going through Good Friday. Evil leads to death. On Good Friday God conquers the power of evil by innocently accepting a horrific death. In so doing, God breaks evil’s grip. Evil is caught a bind of its own creating. And only God can do it. For we are too sinful, too apt to turn somewhere other than God for trust.

Today we read the Easter scene from Matthew’s gospel. It is almost comic in several regards. How strange is it to have soldiers guarding the tomb of a dead man so that the dead man’s followers, all of whom fled at his arrest, do not somehow find courage and come back and steal the corpse? And how strange is it that when the angel descends these guards – fully alive – Matthew tells us they are so afraid they become like dead men. Isn’t it funny that the men outside are dead and the man inside is not dead? Meanwhile the two women who have come to the tomb to mourn are indeed afraid, but not that afraid.

But the women are also in for a surprise. Isn’t it surprising that Matthew depicts the angel rolling back the stone and the women see that that tomb is empty? Is Jesus a ghost? But then where is the body?

The women follow the angel’s instructions and they go and tell the disciples that Jesus will meet them in Galilee. Along the way they encounter the resurrected Jesus. His first word to them is “Greetings!” It’s not a grand pronouncement or profound. It’s like a playful “Good morning!”

But then there’s Galilee itself? Why would Jesus meet the disciples in Galilee? Well, that’s where Jesus’ ministry began, so it makes sense to wrap things up there. But why would God choose to work in an uneducated, unimportant, unsophisticated place like Galilee in the first place?

These are all fun twists and turns. But in the midst of them there is a subtle thing. Unfortunately, it usually gets lost in translation. The angel’s words to the women are, “I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified. He is not here, for he was raised.” Do you note the subtle difference? In Greek the crucifixion is in the perfect tense. The resurrection is the simple past tense. What that means is that while the resurrection is an event in the past, the ongoing reality, even on Easter, is that Jesus is the crucified one.

Why are you here? Because, whether you’re conscious of it or not, you know that you are a sinner. You know the power and subtlety of evil, which tells you that you can be a good and moral person without faith; and that all good people go to heaven.

It is our recognition of the power of evil that we see defeated by God in the crucifixion that then draws us authentically to God. We desire God’s love. We want God’s acceptance. We want the wholeness of being that only comes from God. We know that everything else is a lie.

Then resurrection becomes a miracle. Only when we recognize that God made us whole right from the beginning, and that God always holds us securely in that wholeness even when we wander off or fail, that we can truly love God.

Could eternal life really be all that good if you’ve spent your whole earthly life trying to discover yourself apart from God? Could eternal life really be any good at all if it is just perpetual self-determination? Can you really enjoy a resurrected life and not crave being loved by the one who created you in the first place? For if you exist and are not loved securely and absolutely then it sounds more like hell than heaven.

People of God, why are you here? Because we are sinners who easily fall into evil’s traps. But we know that our all-powerful and all-loving God has suffered death so as to defeat evil at its own game. And in so doing show us love. It is anticipation of that eternal love that we can truly rejoice and live in freedom.

April 5, 2026 Easter 6:00 Worship Matthew 28:1-10

It is early in the morning and we are probably still more asleep than awake. For the 10:30 service I have created, what I hope, is a deeply profound and inspiring sermon. But even if it does turn out to be that, at this point in the morning we are not ready for deeply profound. Let’s have a bit of fun instead. The resurrection story that Matthew tells us in his gospel is both deeply profound and also light hearted, if not even a bit silly.

Imagine yourself in the role of one of the soldiers tasked with guarding Jesus’ tomb. Would you consider it to be a cake job? After all, what could possibly happen? This man Jesus came from Galilee (of all places), along with a rag tag bunch of uncultured uneducated hicks, in order to celebrate the Passover holiday. Apparently Jesus got a bit miffed when he arrived and caused a stir in the temple. He continued to stir the pot until the authorities felt that he had to go in order to keep the peace. But Jesus kept slipping out of their hands. That is, he kept slipping out of their hands until one of his closest disciples decided to sell him out. From there Jesus was arrested, and could have been left go. However, Jesus stuck to some delusions about being the Son of God and so he was put on trial and executed. When his closest and most devoted followers saw that they all fled. This idea that they might somehow suddenly find some courage and come back and steal the body is silly.

But maybe you would have been offended to be asked to guard the tomb of Jesus. If I were a ranking soldier in charge of security assignments you can bet I wouldn’t put my best men in charge of Jesus’ tomb. What could possibly happen? As I just described, the threat is insignificant. I’d put my lowest and least soldiers on the job. So perhaps the guards felt insulted by the assignment.

So you guard the tomb knowing full well nothing would happen. Then just as the day is dawning two women who were followers of Jesus came to mourn at the tomb. Of course who cares about these women? They are no threat. They cannot overpower an armed guard! They only dare to be there because they know there is no threat to them for doing so. Whereas a man might be called a co-criminal and also arrested, women were of such low status that they didn’t matter. The two women come and you scoff at them for their sentimentality and mistaken devotion.

Then things take an unexpected turn. There is an earthquake as an bright shining angel descends from the sky and rolls back the stone. You’ve probably heard me say many times that it is not accurate to depict angels as sweet little cherubs with wings and harps. As the Bible describes them angels are fearsome warriors. They cause absolute terror in all who encounter them.

You’re so scared by the presence of the angel that you start shaking uncontrollably. Our gospel reading makes the funny observation, “for fear of [the angel] the guards shook and became like dead men.” Ha, so much for your bravery!

How conscious the guards are isn’t clear, but the story takes a bizarre twist. The angel rolls the stone back and the tomb is empty. How could that be? One dead corpse was placed in the tomb. The tomb was sealed with a massive stone. Now, the stone is rolled back and there is no body! Where did it go? What happened to it?

You as a guard are probably more afraid than ever. It was common in those days for jailers to be held so responsible for keeping their prisoners contained that if a prisoner escaped the jailor would be executed. It was a sure way to prevent corruption in prison guards.

Now what about this case? What is going to happen to you when you let the prisoner escape on your watch? Or even more embarrassing, you were charged with guarding a dead guy… and despite being dead he managed to escape! What’s your commanding officer going to think?

Even if somehow you are not punished for your failure, how are you ever going to live it down that you were so inept at guard duty that you couldn’t keep a dead guy from getting out of his tomb?

Next week in worship we’re going to learn what happens to those guards so we’ll leave them in that predicament for the moment. We’ll turn to the other playful twists in the story.

These simply lowly women followers of Jesus are certainly terrified by the angel but they don’t shake uncontrollably. Let’s be clear, this is not about women being braver than men. It’s subtle, but Matthew’s Greek text makes it clear that it is God who caused the uncontrollable fear in the guards. Meanwhile God does not cause such fear in the women. They will be the witnesses of the empty tomb who will carry the message of the resurrection to the disciples.

There is an odd thing in the angel’s instructions. He tells the women to tell the disciples that Jesus has left and that they will meet him in Galilee. Why Galilee of all places? The obvious answer is that Galilee is where Jesus began his public ministry and where they all came from. But why would God choose to do any work in Galilee at all? Galilee was no place. Nothing significant ever happened there. No one important came from there. Perhaps we could say that the Town of Victor is an important place. Oh, to be sure it does not play a major role in national history and it isn’t on the news, but it does have a high end shopping mall, a great school district, nice neighborhoods, many fine homes, some excellent golf courses, and many things to offer. Whether Victor gets national attention or not, it is still a place of significance. How about the Town of Galen, New York? Is that anywhere? Do you even know where Galen is? The heart of Galen is the Village of Clyde. But who cares about it? So what? There’s no shopping, no culture. The schools are probably adequate but nothing special. If the Town of Victor is ‘somewhere’ then the Town of Galen is ‘nowhere.’ It would be as if Jesus decided to begin his ministry in Galen. And now after the resurrection he’s going to meet his disciples there again.

God works in mysterious and unpredictable ways. Burly soldiers outside a tomb are scared to the point of being like dead men. A stone is rolled back and instead of a corpse we find the tomb empty. Women are tasked with heading to the middle of nowhere to begin the world-changing ministry of Christianity.

And with one more playful twist, the women meet the resurrected Jesus on their way to meet the disciples. They are able to touch him. They take hold of his feet. He is no ghost. Exactly how he, a solid body, got out of that stone-sealed tomb is a mystery.

Even Jesus greeting to these women is playful. He does not start off with some grand theological proclamation. He simply says, “Greetings!” Or it could be translated as, “Hi!” Or, “Good morning!” It’s playful. It’s familiar. It’s the way friends would causally greet each other. Jesus repeats to the women what the angel said – tell the disciples to meet him in Galilee.

The resurrection of Jesus turns many things on its head. It’s playful, warm, and perhaps even a little silly. I imagine Matthew smiling as he wrote it.

We too are reminded that the task of following the resurrected Jesus will involve playfulness, warmth, and even some silliness. Oh sure, there are plenty of hardships. Many things will not go well. Many things will have to be endured. But it is not all serious somber work. It is God’s delight to invite us to be his messengers. Though we may not be told to travel to Galilee to meet the resurrected Jesus, we are sent out to let others know of God’s resurrection triumph. Death is defeated. It is not the end. So the true celebration can now begin.

April 3, 2026 Good Friday Matthew 27

You may or may not be familiar with what is called, “self determination theory.” Whether you’re familiar with it or not, the title is pretty self-explanatory. It is the psychological study of what gives a person’s life a sense of purpose and meaning. There are three main tenants. One, is the idea of autonomy. You have freedom to do and to choose as you wish. Two, is the idea of competence. You develop skills and become good at something. Being good at something gives you a sense of value. And three is relationships. None of us lives as an individual. We all rely upon others and the society at large. If no one likes us, or said differently – if everyone hates us – it impacts our sense of self. We want to fit in. We want to have friends. Having a supportive community around us sends us the message that we are likeable and good.

Self determination theory can be helpful for human resource departments, and mid-level managers who are interested in making sure employees feel like they are valued and being treated well. You can easily imagine that you’ll work more faithfully and diligently for an employer who helps you to feel good about yourself than you would for an employer who makes you feel like you are a disposable commodity who is to be used up and then discarded.

In the hands of a competent and caring manager self determination theory can help him or her assign tasks based upon what they know will be most meaningful to any given employee or team.

Self determination theory can also be seen as a tool to help youth and young adults plot out a course for their lives that will be fulfilling. It can help them match their innate abilities with society’s needs in a way that everyone benefits.

A problem with self determination theory is that it leaves no place for God. Or perhaps I should say that it would consider God and religion as just one of many factors that should be considered in giving a person a meaningful life. The idea would be that if religious beliefs and practices help to fulfill you then you should be allowed to have them without judgment. But similarly, if you do not find religion helpful for self determination, then you should be free to not do it and feel no social pressure for your self-fulfilling choices.

Self determination theory runs into catastrophic problems if you look at it from the point of view of Christian theology. Consider the Bible’s storyline. In Genesis chapter 1 we find a creation story. God creates the universe in six days and puts it in order. All is well. In Genesis chapter 2 we find a different creation story. God creates a garden and puts a man and woman in it. All is well.

In Genesis chapter 3 we find that the man and woman make history’s first experiment of self determination theory. They decide they can find self fulfillment on their own terms.

Consider this. There are 1189 chapters in the Bible. Things are going well for humanity for the first two chapters. The remaining 1187 chapters are all about what a hopeless mess humans are! Every time we put self determination theory into practice we make a mess of things!

Consider the Good Friday stories about Jesus from the point of view of self determination theory.

Remember that one of the tenants of self determination theory is relationships. Well, Jesus’ twelve closest followers all desert him when he is arrested. One of them, Judas, actually sold him out for cash! The Jewish leaders don’t want him. They determine he should be put to death. They hand him over to Pilate. Pilate, the government authority, questions Jesus but Jesus gives no answer. Pilate decides to let the crowds determine Jesus’ fate. He gives them the choice between Barabbas and Jesus. The crowds choose Barabbas. So Jesus is rejected by them as well. The soldiers mock Jesus and beat him. Jesus is getting no fuzzy relationship feelings there. Certainly the soldiers who nailed him to the cross were against him. And then, according to Matthew’s gospel, even the two criminals crucified with him also taught him. Jesus can’t even find relationship among the criminal element.

Jesus will get nothing in the way of relationships for self determination theory.

How about the competence of Jesus? What was he good at? Shouldn’t you find fulfillment by doing what you are good at? Jesus can preach, he can heal, he can perform miracles, he can bring people back to life. Yet he does none of those things in his own self-interest. Jesus will get nothing by exercising his competence for self determination theory.

Then the third tenant of self determination theory, autonomy. Can Jesus not do what he wants? Does he not have the power to do as he wants, to chart his own destiny according to his own desires for prosperity and longevity? Do you not find self fulfillment by doing what you want in life?

Remember what Jesus says when he is arrested at Gethsemane? One of his disciples takes out a sword and cuts off the ear of the high priest’s slave. Jesus says, “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.” And then he says something very interesting, “Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will send me more than twelve legions of angels?” Twelve legions of angels would be an army of 72,000. At the time of Jesus that would probably have been bigger than the entire Roman army. Rome could have thrown all of its might against Jesus, and if Jesus had wished to exercise his autonomy he could have commanded forces to destroy them all.

Jesus will gets nothing for exercising his autonomy from self determination theory.

What is going on with this? It’s it absolutely ironic that the exact thing our society, our culture, and our psychological experts say is the path to self-fulfillment is entirely opposite what Jesus does and what our faith teaches?

This is one of the deep mysteries of our faith.

Here is the key. I do not want to overtly condemn self determination theory. I do not want to suggest people will find fulfillment by being miserable and friendless. But in and of itself it is a path to death and destruction; not only of the self but of society as a whole. We have too many people running around consuming far too much and accomplishing nothing but being exhausted and wasteful.

And ultimately, self determination theory cannot lead to resurrection.

Jesus did the exact opposite of self determination theory for our sake and out of love for us. Jesus knows how tempting that theory’s tenants are for our lives. He knows that we will fall into its traps. And while he does not condemn it outright, he reminds us that it is not an end unto itself.

Love of God, and knowing that God alone creates us, loves us, and values us is what makes us fully alive.

So let us not be afraid to die to the ways of this world so as to ultimately live the promise of the resurrection.

March 29, 2026 Palm Sunday – God’s Plan Matthew 21:1-17

There is a strange little detail in Matthew’s account of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. I point it out every time we read this part of Matthew’s gospel, but it’s very easy to overlook. It bears repeating.

How many animals does Jesus ride on as he comes into Jerusalem? According to all the other gospels: Mark, Luke, and John, Jesus rides in on one animal. They call it either a colt or a young donkey. But in Matthew we read this:

[Jesus said to them] “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.”

Then we get a quote from Zechariah 9:9 and the story goes on:

“The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them and he sat on them.”

So, how many animals does that add up to? Two. Now how does Jesus possibly ride on two animals at the exact same time? If you try to imagine it you end up with all sorts of strange images of how he could stretch himself across two donkeys. In seminary we used to joke that Jesus must have been incredibly bow legged because he needed to sit astride two donkeys!

Silliness aside, I’m quite sure Matthew does not want us to envision Jesus somehow straddling two animals at once. But he is being careful to get at a serious point.

The idea of a Jewish king coming in on a humble donkey is rooted in the prophesy of Zechariah 9 in the Old Testament. Zechariah 9:9 says, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

There’s where Matthew gets the idea of two animals. Though Zechariah means only one animal, and repeats that it’s a ‘colt, the foal of a donkey’ for poetic emphasis, Matthew interprets it to mean both the mother and the colt. He is surely aware that Zechariah is using poetic emphasis. But remember that Matthew was almost certainly a highly trained Jewish scribe. Details matter greatly to him. And so to be emphatic about the fulfillment of prophesy, he describes the disciples as fetching two animals, a donkey and her colt, and Jesus riding on them.

We didn’t choose the Zechariah reading for worship today because it would be quite long if we wanted to have enough of it to get his point. But it boils down to this is Zechariah 9. God is depicted as a divine warrior traveling from the north towards Jerusalem. Along the way he has attacked and conquered every city and territory that has threatened the Jewish people. But then it is not God who enters Jerusalem with power and pomp. It is the Jewish king.

Now when a king returns to his capital city from a victorious battle he usually comes in riding on a massive warhorse. He wears his armor and carries his weapons. All of that is a sign of his victorious power. Behind him would come his army – some on horses, some walking; probably depending on their rank. And also in the procession might be captured prisoners, forced to walk in humiliation. Or perhaps the corpses of the leaders who were conquered. It was all a display of power.

But that’s not what Zechariah describes. Zechariah describes God as the divine warrior who is victorious. It is not the king. It is because God conquers, and not the king, that the king enters Jerusalem on a humble animal; and without his army behind him. Zechariah’s point is clear. It is God and God alone who is powerful. God demilitarizes the region so that the Jewish king comes in meekness and ushers in peace.

These are the themes that Matthew is working with as he describes Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. He wants his readers to notice Jesus’ meekness, not his miraculous power. And he is setting the stage for how God will overcome earthly power. It will not come about by military might, or miraculous power, or fancy theology, or a charismatic presence that sways the multitudes to rise up against the Romans. It will come about by Jesus’ crucifixion. At this point in the story it’s only a few days away.

The gospel of Mark describes Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on a Sunday and then his overturning the tables of the money changers the next morning. But here in Matthew Jesus enters Jerusalem and immediately causes a ruckus in the temple. Which day it actually happens on isn’t important. What is important for Matthew is that the humble and peaceful Jesus, as the Son of God, immediately enacts a prophesy from Jeremiah by driving out the merchants from the temple precinct and ending false teachings. By the actions of Jesus’ God’s promises of salvation are coming about.

All of that is a fine interpretation of Matthew’s words. But what does it all mean for today?

While many things have changed tremendously between then and now, some things are remarkably similar. Remember when we began reading Matthew’s gospel this church year we reminded ourselves of the original readers. They were almost certainly a small community of believers in Jesus who had Jewish roots. They’d probably been thrown out of the synagogues for their beliefs. Families were tense or broken. Being a follower of Jesus could cost you a lot. Plus, Matthew was written sometime after the Roman crack down on the Jewish revolts that occurred in the late 60s. Roman ultimately destroyed Jerusalem and killed many leaders.

It was a chaotic time to be living in Palestine. The whole world seemed to be unstable. The small Christian community was frail and powerless. Lives were uncertain. And where was God in all of it? What about God’s promises? What was God up to? Were they wrong to be putting their trust in Jesus?

It is into that chaotic, fear-filled reality that Matthew wrote. You’ll remember that he starts off the story of Jesus with a genealogy. Matthew shows that it was orderly and structured. Matthew goes on to describe a world that was chaotic where the small and insignificant people were getting bullied by the powerful. But despite it all, God’s plans for salvation were unfolding in an orderly way exactly how God intended them to go.

Jesus faced temptation, ran into opposition, and was hit with problem after problem. But through it all he steadily and calmly stayed faithful knowing that God was in control.

And so when we get to the Palm Sunday text we see the same thing at work. Matthew is clearly showing that Jesus is continuing the path exactly as God intended it to go. Our text started off with Jesus telling the disciples exactly what they would find with the colt and told them what to say when they were questioned about taking it. All of Jesus’ predictions proved to be true. And so God’s plans of salvation continued to unfold in an orderly way down to the last detail; including interpreting Zechariah 9 to mean two animals.

While we live in the United States of America and have lives infinitely more secure than Matthew’s original readers did, it can still feel like life is chaos.

Declines in Christianity lead many parents to wonder what they did wrong in rearing their children. Declines in the church make many wonder what the future will be, or if there’s a future for the church in America at all. The cost of living is becoming impossible. Jobs are not secure. Politics has become a circus of tribalism and nonsense. News outlets are biased. People are impatient, pushy, and rude. Virtues like integrity, decency, patience, and conscientiousness are not valued. Science and logic seem to be corrupted by whatever is the perspective of the biggest financial backer.

Even as we live in a relatively safe and stable country, we still have our fears and anxieties.

So Matthew’s words come down to us too.

What did Zechariah prophesy? That the people would rise up and protect themselves from those who threatened them? No. God took care of them. God did it in God’s own time and would continue to do so. The king would ride in on a donkey, simple and humble. And God would continue to work in ways that are orderly and dependable. Though the world may seem like chaos that is beyond our control, we live securely in God’s kingdom. It is a place of value, of peace, of respect, of dignity; and of purpose and meaning.

These are the values that we keep. And in so doing we also create a space that the world may overlook and even scoff at. The powers of the world certainly scoffed at Jesus. But the church today must continue to be God’s community that invites those haggard by the chaos of the world to find God’s peace and God’s promises.

You know the stories of Holy Week. The week will not end well for Jesus. But Matthew will continue to be at pains to show that even as everything seems to be out of control for Jesus, it is all falling into God’s plans for salvation. And so it is for our lives. Even if things seem out of control, it is all in God’s hands. It is in believing in that and staying true to it that God’s kingdom comes to life on earth.