Understanding the Jesus of the Gospels

Sermons from the Gospels

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  • He Had Compassion for Them

    Matthew 14: 1-14

    Mel Prestamo, Elder PCUSA

    There is a technique some people use in studying Bible text. They will look at a story repeated times. They will read it to hear if a specific verse or line might jump out at them. Then they will think upon it to allow God’s word to reveal something to them. Then at a later time, they will come back to it and allow another verse in the text to reveal itself to them and then they will ponder it. They will do this multiple times over and over again until they have heard God’s truth revealed to them in as many different ways as they can hear. The technique is called: Dwelling in the Word.

    When I read this text in preparation for this message, I was struck this time by the last verse. “…he had compassion for them.” Why? I asked myself. What was so special about this line, this time. Why did it catch my eye? So, I looked more closely at the story of Herod’s beheading of John the Baptist once again.

    John, Matthew tells us, had been arrested by Herod because of John’s constant harassment of Herod because He had taken his brother’s wife as his own. John was constantly telling the crowds that what Herod was doing was “unlawful.” Herod’s wife, Herodias, was embarrassed by the barrage of insults John hurled at her and Herod. So, Herod had John arrested and put in prison to silence him. Now Herod had to be careful. He was walking a tight line as John had grown very popular with the people.

    What is next described in verses six through 11 is the grotesque beheading of John. It is Herod’s birthday and as a gift Herodias’ daughter performs a sultry and suggestive dance for Herod. In appreciation, he promises her any gift she might desire. Shockingly, she requests John’s head on a platter to bring to her mother as a gift. The gospel writer tells us that Herod hesitantly at first but ultimately yields to the request and orders it to be done. So cheap was human life. The daughter presents John’s head to her mother as if to say, “Here, he will bother you no longer with his sanctimonious insults.”

    Verse 13 tells us that when Jesus heard of the news of John’s death and of how he had died, “…he withdrew.”

    Was Jesus horrified by the news of how John was executed? He was beheaded and his head served up on a platter. It was a gruesome was to do away with one’s political adversary – even for Herod. As a member of the same religious sect and family, was Jesus next?

    Was Jesus thinking that if Herod was bold enough to execute John who had a large following of disciples would Herod seek him out next? Did Jesus go into hiding as a means of self-preservation? This was not yet the time of Jesus’ path to the Cross. That was God’s plan. Did Jesus withdraw in order to uphold the integrity of God’s plan? Perhaps.

    But maybe instead, Jesus withdrew out of personal anguish. After all, John was his cousin. You will remember that Mary and John’s mother Elizabeth were related family members, possibly cousins. At the beginning of Luke’s gospel, the writer tells us that the Angel Gabriel goes to Mary and tells her that Elizabeth, your relative, was also pregnant. The word in Greek that Luke uses to describe the relationship is suggenēs. It can mean relative or kinswoman, possibly cousin.

    In Luke’s gospel, Mary visits Elizabeth while both are pregnant. Elizabeth’s yet unborn son leaps in her womb at the close proximity of the expected Messiah in Mary’s womb. Growing up as children, they no doubt had many opportunities for family interactions. Later in his life, John becomes the voice crying out in the wilderness announcing the coming of the Messiah telling the people to make straight the way of the Lord.

    Now, this terrible death of his cousin had struck Jesus in a very personal way. He needed to withdraw. He needed to be alone to experience his anguish. He needed to be alone with his Father, with his God. He needed to share with God his pain and his grief, the loss of his close family member.

    We don’t often, if ever, think of Jesus in this way. But he was human, too, and he experienced the same human emotions we do. Jesus went through all the experiences of life that we all do. He needed to go to God in prayer asking the same questions that we ask when confronted with such sudden violence and violent loss.

    Jesus may have gone to God to ask, Why? Why, John? Why so young? Why so violently? Why now? Why?

    He needed to take all of his pain and anguish to the Father. He needed to lay all this at God’s feet. It was under God’s wings that he would find refuge and comfort.

    So, Jesus withdrew from the crowds that had been following him. He set out on the lake to be alone. Alone in the solitude on the water, he took his grief to God.

    But what of the crowds? Many of them were followers of John. What of their grief and sorrow? They, too, were now experiencing loss.

    The news of John’s execution must have struck John’s disciples and the people of Palestine in much the same way public tragedy strikes us. If you are old enough, as I am, to remember the assassinations of John F Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert F Kennedy, you will recall how those events stopped a nation to bring us together of communal morning.

    We asked ourselves, why? And in our anguish, we sought out a leader who would console us in our pain and reassure us of God’s continued presence in a time of upheaval. That is what the crowds did.

    They were lost and wandering, weeping from the loss of John. What did they seek out? They did not turn to the King or to the chief priests. They sought out Jesus. And since they could not find him on YouTube or via a televised address with him sitting aside a comforting and warming fire in a hearth. They set out on foot traveling around Lake Galilee until they found him when he came ashore.

    Matthew tells us that when Jesus saw the crowds, “he was moved with compassion for them.” The verse jumped out at me.

    The people in their pain reached out for Jesus and he without hesitation reached out to console them. That is what stuck me in this text today. Jesus was grieving as they were grieving and he reached out with compassion to share their sorrows with them. He didn’t look down from on high as an omnipotent and all-powerful God. Instead, with compassion he offered them an opportunity to express that grief with their God and their God whose knows their grief bowed down to walk beside them and carry it for them through their darkest valleys. He weeps with us the same tears of anguish, knowing the same pain and loss, asking the same questions.

    Jesus does that for us every day, if we seek him out and go to him.

    Jesus knows our pain not only because he is an all-knowing God but because our God is one of us. He shares because he knows what pain feels like. He knows it because he experienced it. He knows our pain, and it moved with compassion.

    He has compassion not only because his love for us is a perfect love but because he knows the anguish the pain causes in human hearts and he aches to comfort it.

    How fortunate we are to have Jesus as Lord. This is a Lord who can save us from the grief of our brokenness. Thanks be to God. Amen.

  • More Like The Father

    Luke 15 / offered to the First Presbyterian Church of Succasunna, NJ

    Mel Prestamo, Elder, PCUSA

    Recently, I have been reading a book by Thomas Cahill [I apologize at this posting, I have lost the title of the book – but the credit for the thought belongs to Cahill]. In it he makes a comment about the Gospel writer Luke’s style of writing. He said that Luke wrote like a Greek stoic. By that he meant that Luke minimized extra emotion and descriptive adjectives in his text. For instance, in Luke’s telling of Jesus’ tirade in the temple we don’t hear about how Jesus loses his temper whipping the vendors and overturning their tables. Luke tells us only that Jesus clears the Temple. According to Cahill, Luke as a writer describes only the facts of the story.

    Now this was a surprise to me because as I read Luke’s account of Jesus’ parables of the Lost, I was struck by the enormous outpouring of compassion by the Father as Jesus and then the Gospel writer Luke describes him. Then I thought [now think this through with me], if Luke is downplaying the emotions and the descriptive adjectives in order to present an even keeled, stoic presentation of the ministry of Jesus and still this enormous outpouring of compassion comes through to us, then imagine how deep the compassion and love of the Father must have been when Jesus described it. I mean if Luke was trying to downplay the emotional side of the story, he couldn’t do it.

    Now, remember with me that this parable of the Prodigal Father [Luke 15: 11-32] is a part of a trilogy of parables concerning the ways that we can become lost.

    In verses 1 through 10, we have the stories of the lost sheep and the lost coin. In first parable, we hear of how we can become lost by wandering off. The with the lost coin, we learn that we can become lost through no fault of our own. Sometimes, we just fall through the cracks. But in both cases, Jesus tells us that we can be found – either through the diligent searching of the shepherd or the persistence of the woman who on her knees is determined to find the coin that had become lost.

    Finally in the last parable, we can become lost just by turning our backs on the Father and walking away. And still even as we are determined to remain lost, Jesus tells us that the Father is searching for us. Jesus describes how the Father remains vigilant keeping his eyes on the horizon waiting for a sign that the lost Son might be on his road back to the Father’s house.

    Jesus tells us that when the Father sees the wayward Son stumbling his way back home, he rushes out to meet him. And when the Father reaches his Son, he embraces him and welcomes him back. What comes next is forgiveness, restoration and celebration.

    And that is enough of a lesson for us on its own. But in today’s message, I would like to focus more on the parable of the Prodigal Father and the Lost Son.

    Jesus begins the parable by telling us that there was a man who had two sons. The Younger Son goes to the Father and asks that his portion of the estate be given to him. Now, you must make note that this son’s request is tantamount to wishing that the Father was dead.

    Biblical scholars who study the cultures of the people of Jesus’ time have commented that such a real-life request would have been greeted with a beating. It would have been the gravest of insults to the father and it would have been expected that a father in real-life would have disowned and expelled this upstart son from the household.

    However, the Father in Jesus’ story does not react in the expected manner. In the parable, the Father yields to the request and divides his estate between the two sons. You can image that the Pharisees and Temple Elders to whom Jesus is telling this story would be shaking their heads in disapproval and disbelief.

    We know the story. The younger son gathers up his newfound wealth and blows town. He leaves his Father’s house and travels to a foreign country in search of a different life from what he knew. He goes where he can experience the tantalizing temptations that this broken world presents us.

    We also know from the story that he squanders his wealth and is in short order broke and when a feminine hits the country, everyone is left to fend for themselves, and he is left without friends or resources. Ultimately, in order to survive, he takes employment sloping for some pigs. Image the depths to which this son has sunk that a Jew would resort to having to feed pigs.

    After a time of this deplorable lifestyle, he comes to his senses. He looks up from his depths to see that his only chance for survival is to return to God and his Father. So finally, he picks himself up and starts out on the road to return back to his Father’s house.

    We know what follows. The Father has been keeping a watchful eye on the road to know when his son has decided to return. When he sees him, he rushes out to meet him. The Father forgives. He restores the son to his former position of honor in his house and then calls for all to come and celebrate.

    Now that is a great part of the story for us to focus on because it gives us the reassurance that no matter how stupidly we behave, no matter how sinfully we act, and no matter where we may wander, God [the Father] will welcome us back into his embrace.

    That is the whole story arc of the Bible, isn’t it? We bolt away from God’s house [the Garden]. God searches for us, patiently waiting for us to find our way. He sends the Son to find us, to carry us home, to sweep out a room to find us lost in the dust and flooring and then waits for us to hear the voice of the Son calling us to return home. Now that’s a great story but that’s not all there is.

    I want to unravel some other things going on in Jesus’ parable of the Lost Son. First there is the younger son, and our natural inclination is to identify with him. Fine. But what about the older son? What is there of us in him?

    Here is a devoted and dedicated son who righteously submits respectfully to the Father. No matter what the request or expectation, the older son remains at home to faithfully do the Father’s work in the Father’s house. The older son represents those among us who show up to clear snow from the church walkways so that members can safely enter on bad weather days. He represents those of us who endure Session committee meetings so that the work of the church can go on. He represents those of us who faithfully pledge our dollars to fund the mission and ministry of the church. He represents those among us who without notoriety prepare the church newsletter for distribution. The older son completes the mundane tasks that keep the church going. He is the pillar of the community. He is the one who stays at home and toils in the vineyard to make sure that all the Father’s work gets done.

    In other words, he represents the faithful, good church people who everyday toil at church work.

    However, when Jesus describes the older son’s reaction to what the Father has done – forgiving, welcoming back and then celebrating the return of the younger son, we get a different picture.

    The older son tells the Father, “Lo, these many years I have served you. I have never disobeyed your commands.” How many of us can boast of such commitment to the Father to always have served him, to have never disobeyed. That’s a tall order. You would really have to step up your game to be able to use the words “always and never”. Now remember this is Jesus describing the older son. I don’t sense that Jesus is being sarcastic here. Jesus is genuinely describing how the Pharisees and Elders of the Temple see themselves and he isn’t saying that any of it is bad or wrong.

    But what I think Jesus is saying is that the Pharisees and Elders represented by the older son don’t understand the extent and scope of the father’s love, his dedication to the lost son and how important it is to the Father that he has found his way home, and the Father’s overwhelming desire to celebrate. They are not being bad or evil. It is only that they don’t understand.

    At a family picnic years ago, I had a discussion with someone who quite flatly said that she understood that Jesus was out to save everyone that he could. But the idea that someone who had wasted their life in sin, never giving a second thought to Jesus or his Word could be accept by Jesus on a death bed conversion and that they would have a place in heaven alongside her after she had spent her whole life in service to the Lord. [Reference the parable of the workers in the Vineyard]. That stuck in her craw. It just bothered her. She couldn’t get beyond the blindness of the older son.

    How many of us have allowed such a thought to slip into our minds? How many times have we allowed ourselves to think that a newcomer or visitor just isn’t our kind of church person? How many times have we thought in our minds very judgmentally that someone doesn’t live up to the same level of being a Christian that we do? How many times have we acted like the older son?

    The fact of the matter is that it happens all the time. It happened two thousand years ago. It happens today. That is why Jesus told the parable in the first place. That is why we study it today.

    So, you see, we can both be the younger son and the older son. We may even grow through our faith journey from being the younger son into being the older son. We can wither from being new and exuberant in our Christian life to being old and stodgy.

    It is at this point when we become aware that we are both the younger and the older sons, that Jesus gives a new vision of who need to become. At the point when as the older son we stand in judgment of the younger son that Jesus calls us to grow beyond being the older son to become more like the Father.

    Through all that goes on in this parable story, the Father remains devoted to both his sons. He patiently waits for the lost son to return home. And when he does, he grabs hold of him, forgives him, welcomes him into his house dressing him in the raiment that is accorded the Father’s son.

    However, he also goes lovingly to the older son and acknowledges his dedication and service. Verse 31 “…son, you are always with me and all that is mine is yours.” He patiently explains why it is important that the entire family [congregation] celebrate with him upon the lost son’s return. The Father goes out to the lost older son to invite him into the celebration. There is no harsh judgment in the father’s words.

    We do not know what the older son finally does. Does he go in or stay out – separating himself from the Father’s joyous celebration? We don’t know the answer to that question. Jesus doesn’t answer it for us. In truth, we still have to write the ending to that story. It has been left blank for us to complete.

    But the final theme for us to focus on here is the love of the Father. The next step for us to take in writing the ending to this story is to grow from being the older son into becoming more like the Father. Jesus calls us to be more loving, to be more devoted, to risk our lives and to give all that we have trusting that The Father’s love will be poured out on us, and that love will find its way home. Jesus calls us to be more forgiving and to enter into the Father’s house in celebration with the Father. Jesus calls us to be more like the Father.

    Thanks be to God our loving Parent.

  • “Where Do We Go From Here?”

    Offered by Mel Prestamo, Elder PCUSA

    The year 2020 will no doubt be recorded as one of the most trying, exasperating and difficult tests of survival in our country’s history. But more than that, it is as equally trying a test for American Christians.

    The cornerstone of our country’s foundation – the one our nation was built upon –  that is the notion of “liberty and justice for all”, is being shaken and tested; no less is our Christian faith and its Cornerstone – Love the Lord your God with your whole heart, your whole soul, and your whole mind, and your neighbor as yourself – these are equally under stress.

    We are a nation divided. We are Red States. We are Blue States. We are us. They are them. We are Second Amendment advocates, or we are thieves in the night trying to steal away guaranteed rights. We are White churches. We are Black churches. We are strong loving Americans protecting our neighbors by wearing masks; and, we are a people asserting our personal liberties not to wear them and not to care. Some Christian religious leaders have taken sides – applauding Bible thumping stunts  – while other pastors are tear-gassed and pushed away from their own houses of worship. We have been divided into a country struggling to return to greatness and a country hoping to still become that great Light shining on the hilltop.

    Quoting the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, I ask you the question, “Where Do We Go From Here?”

    I apologize for the political over tones of the beginning of this message; however, I must confess to you that I am consumed by the events that have rocked and are rocking our nation as I sit to compose this message to you. So, I beg your forgiveness if my words are off putting. And to answer Rev. King’s question, I have chosen to turn to Scripture.

    In Matthew 22, an expert in the Law asked of Jesus the question, “What commandment in the Law is the greatest?”, Jesus replied to him, “ You must love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and your whole soul, and your whole mind. This is the great and chief commandment; and the second is like it, “You must love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments the whole Law and the prophets depend.”

    For the first half of his answer Jesus is quoting from Deuteronomy 6:5 It is the basic and essential creed of Judaism. Theologian William Barclay says of it, “It means that to God we must give total love, a love which dominates our emotions, a love which directs our thoughts, and a love which is the dynamic of our actions.” And I would add, when we rise in the morning, our Love of God should be the single driving force that enriches and motivates our lives.

    The second commandment that Jesus refers to is from Leviticus 19:18. “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your countrymen. Love your fellow as yourself.” I would suggest to you that our love of God MUST be displayed and evidenced as a love of and for others.

    How does this commandment guide and influence us as Christians in America? We might want to say, it is how we meet and treat the people around us – with Love. We might go as far to say, it is the basis in Law upon which we have built this nation. It is what the notion of justice for all is built upon. If I love my God, then I love my neighbor and I treat my neighbor fairly and equally and with respect.

    But, yet I wonder.

    I am a Face Book user and I follow a number of my church friends. A couple of them have been reposting a statement and perhaps you’ve seen it. It reads:

    “I don’t care if you’re Black, White, Straight, Bisexual, gay, lesbian, short, tall, fat, skinny, rich or poor. If you’re nice to me, I’ll be nice to you. Simple as that!

    Now this sounds “simple” enough. It sounds “nice” enough. But do you see, do you understand -how perversive it is to the teachings of the Jesus? He taught us that if you love your God then love your neighbor – first. Not after your neighbor is nice to you. Your neighbor does not have to prove their worthiness to you, first. We are called to love our neighbor period. I scream at my Christian friends, Stop posting this! This is NOT how we Christians are supposed to treat people.

    But it begs the question, if that is how we approach people – If you are nice to me – are we being Christian? Jesus taught his disciples that any parent can be loving to his child [if your child asked for a fish, would you give him a snake?] NO! Of course not. Any parent is capable of loving their own child. But it is not enough. We, Christians, have to go further. We have to do more.

    What is happening in America is an indication that we need to go further. We need to look within ourselves and be critical about the way we treat our fellows.

    America is a great and wonderful country; but not for all.

    The Federal Reserve has said that the top 1% of Americans control 35% of the nation’s wealth. That means $34 trillion dollars in wealth is in the hands of only 3 million people. The top 20% of households control more wealth than the entire middle class. On average, Black families possess only 9% of the wealth of White families. At the median, Black families have an average wealth of $13,500 in wealth [total wealth] versus the average wealth for White families 10x greater – that is $142,000.

    How has that happened?

    Our own history tells the story. In the 1800’s our government enacted laws to create a transfer of wealth from the government to the citizens via the Land Rushes. What does that mean? It means that White Americans were given the opportunity to create wealth through the acquisition of land at a time when Black Americans were still in Slavery. Black Americans were not given the opportunity to gain wealth through the acquisition of property until the 1960’s through the Equal Right Act; however, that right is curtailed through the bank lending tactic of Redlining Black neighborhoods – a practice that is still going on today.

    What does all this mean within the scope of our message today? It means when people of color say to us that racism in America is “systemic” [that is built into the structures of our banking, economic, educational and the legal systems], they are speaking a truth to us.

    Now, that is not to say that we are racists – you and I. I do not believe that. But what it reveals is that privilege in America is decidedly biased toward Whites. Regardless of how hard I have worked to gain the wealth that I possess, I have had the advantage of a White bias. Now believe me I have worked hard for what I possess in wealth. I am a commission salesman and I have not worked a day in the last forty years when I was paid a base salary. Every dollar that I have earned has been hard earned. There were days of no sales that I came home with nothing – no sales, no pay. But still, I enjoyed the privilege of the bias that benefits me as a White. I know there were doors on sales calls that were opened to me because I look the way I do  – that would have been shut to people of color. As hard as I have worked, I know that it is true.

    Again, what does that mean for us as Christians? How do we step out against the tide of systemic injustice “to love our fellow”? There may be one, but I think I am safe in guessing that no one listening to me today controls the banking and economic system in America; nor is there one that can change the legal & educational systems. So, without that power and authority to make change, what are we American Christians to do?

    Again, let’s turn to Scripture.

    In John 2:14-16 we can gain an example from Jesus. “14In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!”

    Here we see an example of our Lord that is total out of character to the extreme. It is one that befuddles us. It is hard to balance his actions in the Temple with his teachings; especially those in what we call the Beatitudes. In Matthew 5:5 Jesus teaches us, “Blessed are the “meek”, for they shall inherit the earth.” Or with the Jesus who teaches us in Matthew 5: 39, “I tell you not to resist evil; but if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other to him also.”

    How are we, “meek, turn the other cheek” Christians, supposed to step out against the systemic injustice that imperils and causes pain to our “fellow” who we are commanded to love as an expression of our love of God?

    Well the first step might be to better understand what Jesus meant by blessing the meek. What does it mean to be meek? In our lexicon today, meek has a meaning of being spineless and submissive. But it was not so in the Greek language in which this text was written. In the Greek language, meekness was a virtue that exhibited a balance between excessive anger and excessive angerlessness. It was the balance between knowing when to be angry and when not to be. As a general rule for Christians, it is never right to be angry for ourselves but it often right to be angry about injuries done to other people. William Barclay frames it this way, “Selfish anger is always a sin. Selfless anger can be one of the great moral dynamics of the world.”

    That is the anger that Jesus exhibited in the Temple. It was not a rage to avenge an insult to himself. It was a rage to avenge an insult against his Father and his Father’s house. He overturned the tables in order to overturn the abomination that had been sanctioned by the religious authorities who had used the Law to oppress the poorer, disenfranchised “fellows” that Jesus had come to love.

    In Matthew 5:9, Jesus tells us, “Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called sons of God.”

    How do we peacemakers fit in? Do we wave a white flag as call for a truce? Is it enough to simply call for a violence or injustice to stop?

    Here we need to understand what the word “Peace” means in this text as Jesus is using it. The word in Hebrew is “Shalom”. Shalom is never simply the absence of trouble. In Hebrew, peace always means everything which provides for a person’s highest good. In the Bible, peace is not only a freedom from trouble but the enjoyment of all that is good.

    So, what does that mean? It means peace-making is not simply peace-loving. We are not making peace if we are avoiding reality and piling up more trouble for the future for the sake of a quiet today. This Bible blessing does not come to those who avoid thorny issues; but to those who actively face them and make peace – that is a peace that creates the greater good for our “fellows”. Shalom-making is God’s active role in the cosmos; bringing it together into a oneness with God. We can’t do that with patch work peace – peace for some but not all – a peace that leaves our “fellow” in distress. Shalom calls us to act to bring about a oneness of all God’s creation.

    In Matthew 5:39, Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek. But how does he do it? If you can picture in your mind’s eye how someone would slap your face to insult you. It was traditionally done [in Rome] with the right back hand against the right cheek. Turning the other cheek [the left] to another back-handed slap makes another strike impossible. You can’t slap the left cheek with the back-handed right. So, while Jesus is telling us not to meet violence with violence, he was also telling us how to stand against unjust authority.

    So perhaps, this is how Jesus tells us to step out against the injustices that are systemic within our nation. By knowing when it is right to be angry and by making a Shalom that brings everything good thing to everyone. That in being a properly balanced meek Christian, we can be angry against the wrongs done to our fellow and move to make peace – true peace – not just the absence of protests and killings – but true Shalom.

    A popular protest phrase of the day is, “Silence is Violence.” When Christians misunderstand how it means that they are called to be meek and to be peace-makers and they don’t take action while witnessing the violence against their fellow – whom we are called to love – then they don’t understand Jesus. Theirs’ is a silence which begets violence.

    Remember Jesus’ story of the fellow who was beaten by thieves and left on the side of the road to die. Two believers passed him by and refused to help him because of what the Law demanded of them. The Law demanded that they be clean and undefiled because they were leaders in the Temple. Then came one who without question or qualification went to the injured man got down on his knees to lift him up and care for him. He didn’t ask the man “Have you been nice to me?” He simply saw need and went to help. With meekness, he stepped into a dangerous situation and worked to make peace.

    Jesus has shown us how to act when our fellow, our neighbor, is being injured and abused. He has shown us that as his followers and as lovers of God, we need to go out and be meek. We need to actively and proactively engage the issues of the day when we see our fellows being treated unfairly seeking the justice that God requires of us. We need to be peacemakers.

  • THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS LIKE THIS…

    Matthew 22: 1-14

    Offered to the First Presbyterian Church of Succasunna, NJ, 2012

    Mel Prestamo, Elder, PCUSA

    “The kingdom of God is like this..” This is the second time I have gotten an opportunity to speak about this passage from Matthew. The first time must have been four years ago, the last time that it came up in the lectionary. It is one of what are called Kingdom Parables. And when we hear Jesus say, “The kingdom of heaven is like this”, we should really perk up and listen closely because Jesus is alerting us that this is really important.

    The problem is that this text really gets ugly. The actions of the king when he reacts to what the invited guests have done are difficult to imagine being compared to or giving us insight to how our loving God would treat us. He sends an army to destroy their villages and then again at the end when he casts out the one guest that he dragged in from the highway to the wedding for not dressing appropriately. He had him bound and thrown into the dark where people will cry and grit their teeth in pain. This describes a rather mean spirited and not so benevolent or loving God. It is not quite what we expect Jesus to be teaching us about our God.

    This is not an easy teaching for us to accept about the kingdom of heaven and our God.

    The problem is that this recorded in Matthew’s Gospel probably was not one whole teaching of Jesus as it is presented by Matthew. In fact there are two parables here that were typical teaching stores of the rabbis of Jesus’ time.

    The first is the story of the king, the wedding, the invitation, and the refusal. The second at the end is the story of the guest who arrives ill-clad for the wedding. And then sandwiched in between is the story of the vengeful and punishing actions of the king when he send the army to destroy the people’s cities and kill the murderers themselves. This is a part of the gospel story that scholars suggest might be added material by Matthew. But we come back to that.

    Let’s look at the first part of the parable. The portion when the king sends out his save-the-date announcement. So what is Jesus telling us the kingdom of heaven is like?

    Well first, we are told that there is a king that gave a wedding banquet for his son. The king sent some of his servants to tell the “invited guests” to come to the banquet. But they refused. Later the king sent the servants to tell the “invited guests” that the banquet was prepared and that they should come NOW. “My prized cattle and calves have all been prepared. Everything is ready. Come to the banquet.”

    But they did not come. Some left for their farms or businesses. Others grabbed the servants and treated them badly, beat them, and killed them. This seems to have been a well know rabbinical teaching of the time. It was not unusual for rabbis and prophets to be telling Israel that God has invited them to a great feast and that they are refusing to partake. Jesus wasn’t the first prophet to tell Israel they were missing out on the banquet. But he does put his own twist at the end.

    What do the people do when they receive the announcement? They go to work their farms. They go to their businesses. We think that 21st century people and their crazy work and recreation schedules are a new thing. But look here. 2000 years ago they were doing the same thing. They were working their farms or going to their business. Why? Probably, just to survive. People are working multiple jobs today just to survive and it is really no different than it was in Jesus’ time. We all look at our responsibilities and the needs of the people who rely on us for sustenance and we make what appear to be very reasonable decisions about our relationship with God. It begins with just the one time; then it becomes a couple of missed worship services. Then after a time, we miss more than we participate in. And it may not be because we are sluggards. But it is because we have arranged our priorities to place our relationship with God second.

    Now people will argue to justify their actions that they have to survive and make a living. And they do. They have made a decision not to rely on God’s choices for their lives. They are making choices that in effect say “I will handle this on my own. I will work harder. I will rely on myself.” The sad, sad truth of people who ignore the invitation and refuse to go the banquet is that they will miss such a wonderful, joyous celebration with God. You see, the king has prepared all the best for us and invited us to the banquet. How sad it would be if we refused to go and missed all of the King’s wonderful gifts.

    The next portion of the text is about the king’s reactions to how his invitation is refused and how his servants are treated. Indeed they are beaten and killed.  Beaten and killed as was the Christ on Calvary. In this text, the king sends an army to destroy the cities and kill the murderers. If this was part of Jesus’ teaching, it would place us all in a very precarious circumstance. How many times have we refused the invitation? Do we think that our God would send an army after us to destroy our homes and kill us? This would be a very difficult teaching to reconcile with the God of love that Jesus tells us the Father is all about.

    I suggested to you that this may be some added text by writer of Matthew. Scholars point out that Matthew was writing his gospel about 80 CE. There was a very significant event in the history of Israel that occurred about 70 CE. That was the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Romans. The Romans had grown weary of the pesky Jewish uprisings and their murdering of Roman soldiers so in 70 CE they sent an army and destroyed the city of Jerusalem and executed the people responsible for the uprisings. So maybe, about 10 years later, Matthew writes his gospel and with a tinge of vengeance, he sticks it a little bit to the Jewish authorities who had murdered the servant and messenger from God whom he had loved and dedicated his life to. Matthew might be forgiven if he had succumbed to the temptation to embellish the story with a little zing. He was only human.

    So if we can take this portion of the text and pull it away from the other two parables, we now will have a positive teaching about the kingdom of heaven and one foreboding warning. So now let’s look at the second parable.

    In this parable, the king sends his servants out to drag anyone that they can find on the highways and bring them to the wedding. Now to be clear, people that are out on the street are not your wholesome citizens. The servants drag in the good and the bad alike. They filled the banquet room. Now let’s consider this. These are people who by no stretch of their imagining would ever dream that they would be invited to the king’s wedding celebration. They are not the “Invited Guests”. They are not the chosen ones. They are outsiders. They are not considered clean by Jewish law. They have no business being at the king’s banquet. Yet, there they are.

    This parable teaches us that the “Invited Guests” who had refused the king’s invitation will miss out on the joyous celebration and that the invitation will now pass to those who had previously been considered as unworthy. That’s you and me.

    So what happens when the king comes down to meet the guests? He encountered one who is ill-clad. In other words, he was given proper wedding clothes to wear but he has refused. He has come to the banquet but his motives are impure. He shows up wearing the clothes of a sinner. He has been given a great gift but he has shown up with a closed heart. He remains resolute in his sin, unrepentant. In other words, you can’t fool God. God can see through you if you come with dishonest intent with a heart not open to God but closed and unwilling to truly participate in God’s joyous celebration. What does the King do? He throws the bum out. That is Jesus’ warning to us. God will go out and find you and bring you in. But if you heart is not reconciled to God; if you hold back; you will be found out and thrown out into the darkness. What is the darkness? It is the absence of the Light. It is being without God.

    So the question becomes, which of the three examples of people are we, are you? Well, since you are here, I think that we can rule out the first group that refuses to come to the wedding. But let me admonish you not to allow yourself to fall into the trap of thinking some outside activity is more important than your relationship to your God. We would like to think that we are in the group of outsiders who are dragged to the wedding when we had no expectation of being invited. We can be. But there is a caveat.

    Years ago, I did a children’s sermon. I invited the children up to the front of the chancel area and had them sit in the front pew. Then I went out into the hallway to get my props. I have five or so empty suitcases. I picked them all up and carried them in at one time. I came back into the sanctuary carrying all of the bags and staggered around for a while. I stumbled on the stairs and then dropped the cases all over the floor. Then I turned to the children and the congregation and said, “Sometimes, Christians carry a lot of baggage.” It got a laugh. But it also made the point that sometimes, we come to God with a lot of old baggage that we don’t want to let go of. That’s what this third guy is doing. He is dressed in his old clothes. He comes to God, but not on God’s terms. He comes on his own terms. He knows that God is where the salvation is. But he doesn’t want to listen to God’s voice and come to God in a way to that leaves behind all his old stuff, his old baggage. He comes to God on his own terms and God sees it immediately and dismisses him. He casts him out.

    This is the group that we can be perilously close to being a part of. You see God invites us in and we have responded. God welcomes us. But have we come to God on God’s terms, dressed in new clothes for the wedding of the Son.

  • Many Are Called, But Few Choose

    Matthew 22: 1-14

    Offered to the First Presbyterian Church of Succasunna, NJ, 2008

    Mel Prestamo, Elder, PCUSA

    Well, we’ve got a lot on our plate here. We have a Kingdom Parable. It is one in which Jesus begins by saying, “The kingdom of God is like…” A couple of weeks ago, Pastor gave us some insight into kingdom parables. He told us that when Jesus starts teaching with the phrase “…the kingdom of God is like…” that we must carefully consider the whole of the lesson and not rush to extract out elements like how many rooms are there in my Father’s house or where will I be seated … on your right or left hand? You don’t want to be too specific or narrow in your interpretation.

    More than that, we have a parable that is in a word – UNCOMFORTABLE – to listen to. Here we see a king angered concerning the treatment of his servants, raising an army, burning homes and destroying cities and killing those who had offended him. It is a very Old Testament, Sodom & Gomorrah like story. Who is this king? Who is this guy and what have you done with my God of love and mercy?

    I read one commentary resource that said that most preachers will opt out of using this version of the parable and choose to use a similar text in Luke’s Gospel. That one is a more listener-friendly version with no armies, destruction of homes or wars.

    Well, let’s deal with this difficult question right away. Where is Jesus going with this parable? Why is he using all this war like military imagery? Well, the answer may be that Jesus may not have taught this story as one continuous parable. What we have here may actually be two parables. We have one parable in verses 1-6 & 8-10 and a second one in verses 11-14.

    How do we know that? Well, when the two are separated, they are very similar to two very well know rabbinical stories of Jesus time. What Jesus does is to change them a bit to suit his own purposes.

    The first story is completely in accordance with Jewish custom at the time. When there was a wedding, invitations went out to the invited guests similar to our “Save-The Date” invitations. They were an advanced notification. Except, they didn’t specify the date or the time. All they really said was that you are invited. As an invited guest, you were expected to prepare for the wedding feast and then wait. When everything was finally prepared by the host, then a final summons would go out, and you were expected to be ready and to show up at the feast. So then as this story goes, the original invitation to this wedding had long since gone out and the invited guests knew well in advance that they were invited.

    So, what happens in our story when all is prepared, and the final summons goes out? The invited guests make excuses. One had to go to manage his estate. Another went to oversee his business. They make a choice to forgo the “joy” of the wedding feast. Their reasons seemed to them [and perhaps to many of us] to be very earnest and worthwhile reasons. But still their refusal is an insult to the host.

    So, what does the king do? He sends his servants out to bring in people from the highways – passers by [if you will] – people who had no expectation whatsoever of receiving an invitation. These are people who perhaps know nothing of this wedding feast or even of who this king is. This is an important distinction. The invited guests expected an invitation. The passers-by had no expectation of receiving an invitation from the king.

    But understand this, one way or another, the king will fill the wedding hall with guests and the celebration – this joyous celebration will go on.

    Let’s stop for a moment and assess what we have thus far. Now this is the thing, it would be simplistic and shallow of us if we just skimmed the surface meanings of this parable and said, the king represents God, the son at the wedding feast represents the Son, the invited guests who refuse to go to the feast represent the Jews and the people who are brought in from the outside into the wedding feast are – well that would be us – the good Christian faithful.

    Yeah, but that would be too easy, and you wouldn’t need me up here to tell you something that obvious.

    When Pastor and I discussed this parable, one of the things that he mentioned was that in Kingdom Parables whenever you think Jews draw an arrow directly to Christians and when ever you think Israel draw another arrow directly to the Church. That is because these parables should be just as convicting of us listening today as they may have been for the Scribes and Pharisees who were listening the first time Jesus spoke these stories. Stop for a moment and consider what we are doing here in this sanctuary. Haven’t we been invited to a great feast in this worship of God’s holy name? Take a look around. Why aren’t the seats filled? Why are so many of them empty? How many of our friends – how many of this congregation are making excuses as to why they can’t be here?

    Now here is something to think about. In the parable, the invited guests who refuse the invitation have very fair and reasonable excuses for not going into the wedding feast. None of them was going off to do anything immoral or wrong. One needed to tend to his business. Don’t many of us work on the Sabbath? Another had business at his estate. Isn’t it reasonable if someone has an important issue to resolve and that they go to see to it? Then if we look at the parallel story in Luke, we find one person had to take delivery of a team of oxen and another had just recently gotten married himself and felt that he had a better offer.

    These are all fair and reasonable excuses. But look how seductively the idolatry of business and daily life has replaced worship of God. Picture this if you will in terms of the first commandment, “Thou shall have no other gods before me. And then the second, You shall not make for yourselves a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, … you shall not bow down to serve them;” What have these guests done that is so terrible. They have replaced the opportunity to be in joyous celebration with the king for the mundane responsibilities of every day life. 

    What Jesus is trying to explain to us is that whether you are prepared to answer the invitation or not the feast will go on – with or without you. The king will still celebrate his joy with those who answer the call. Those who refuse – be they Jew or Christian will be left standing at the outside of the door watching the joyful feast within but not participating. The tragedy of life is that so often second bests shut out the things which are supreme. Missing the feast is not so much a punishment as it is a tragedy of lost joy.

    Does that make sense? Christian theologian William Barclay commented, “If we refuse the invitation of the Christ, some day our greatest pain will lie not in the things we suffer, but in the realization of the precious things we have missed.” [Wm Barclay]

    Now if you have been attentive, you are aware that I have skipped over verse 7. It has to do with the king raising an army and destroying the people who refused the invitation and then murdered the king’s servants. The reason for that is because Jesus probably didn’t teach this as part of his parables. Modern scholars look at the text and point out that a Jewish rabbi probably wouldn’t have gone there. They point out that the writer of Matthew was recording these stories somewhere between 80-90 CE. If you look at the history, there is a cataclysmic event that took place in Palestine around 70 CE. It was the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Roman army. What we may have here may be an editorial comment by the author sticking it to the Jews saying, “You see. If you had followed Jesus when you had the chance, none of that would have happened.” It would have been out of character to the stories for Jesus to have said that. So, there is at least the possibility that verse 7 might have been added text.

    Now let’s consider the second parable in verses 11-14. This is the part of the story where the king spots a guest who is improperly dressed without wedding attire. The king goes to him and challenges the guest and asks why he is not in wedding clothes. The guest has no good response. So, the king has him bound up and thrown into the darkness where Jesus says, “…there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called and few are chosen.”

    Now on the heals of the first parable and the inserted text about the king destroying the insulting guests, you have to be taken aback. You might scratch your head and ask, “Jesus, what are you saying here? You go out and drag people in from off the highways and then because they are not dressed rightly you throw them into a pit of darkness. What gives?

    But when we break apart the two stories, we find a separate parable again based on another rabbinical story of the day. But Jesus changes it a bit for his own purposes by tacking on to the first parable.

    What is Jesus saying here? He is still talking about the guests who are called from the highway. These people have no expectation of being invited to the king’s feast or to put it more directly – of being included in the promise of salvation from the Jewish God. This one god – no idols allowed, Sabbath is holy – Shalom God is just some anomaly that those annoying Jews invented. It has nothing to do with us Gentiles as they call us. But yet this Jesus, their Messiah, is specifically calling and inviting us in.

    And that is true. Jesus is restating that the promise of salvation is universal and open to all. All are invited into the Feast. But there is one proviso. You can’t live a life of sin and show up at the king’s feast still dressed in the clothes of a sinner. You can only enter in if you have let go of and shed your sinfulness and have re-clothed yourself in the proper wedding garments and are prepared to sit with the king at the wedding feast.

    You may have been called but if you stubbornly come clothed as a sinner, the king will scrutinize you. The king will see you for what you are and have you cast out into the darkness. We are all called but we have to make the choice to be among the few are chosen.

  • “When You Pray…”

    Luke 18: 9-14 with references to Matthew & John

    Offered to the Kitchell Memorial Presbyterian Church, October 26, 2025

    Mel Prestamo, Elder PCUSA

    Now it would be easy in today’s message to do some Pharisee bashing. But instead, I want to begin my message today by sharing with you something that happened to me just a week or so ago. I was in the waiting room of the cardiac testing unit in Dover. Sitting close by was a woman who was there because she was experiencing palpitations and required testing for diagnosis. We chatted and she shared with me this story. For twenty years she had been diagnosed with lupus. She told me that on a day after returning home from a checkup where it was confirmed that she still had the disease, she went into a quiet room by herself and prayed. And she continued to pray for many of the days and months after for remission of the disease.

    Six months later when she returned for a follow-up visit with her doctor, he looked at her in amazement and asked, “what have you been doing.” She asked, “what do you mean?” “What have you been doing about your lupus?” She shrugged her shoulders and answered, “Nothing. Why?” The doctor told her that her disease was gone. That there were no traces of it in her blood work. She was in remission.

    Later in our conversation as she told me about her prayers and her faith, she told me when people ask me where I am from, I tell them that I was born a citizen of Columbia but that now she is a citizen of San Savior. When they ask her, “What do you mean?” She tells them that she now belongs to San Savior, her Savior, Jesus Christ.

    It gave and still gives me chills. I smiled at her and told her, “You just gave me my sermon for this Sunday.”

    So today, instead of beating up on the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable, I thought that I would talk to you about what Jesus teaches us about prayer and what prayer should look like when we pray.

    First, I want to look at what the ancient Jews thought about prayer. It is important to do this because Judaism is the faith tradition that Jesus came out of and it is important to understand what prayer meant to Jesus.

    Jewish prayer tradition would tell you that God encourages prayer and that its purpose is to build a deeper, more dependent relationship with God. Prayer strengthens faith, prayer provides guidance, and prayer allows time for personal reflection and an opportunity to express our gratitude. I got that from Google Ai.

    It went on to say, “While God already knows our needs, God uses prayer to develop us, to make us more receptive to God’s blessings and to help us align our wills with God’s Will.”

    That’s the backdrop, the tradition of prayer from which Jesus came. And we need to understand that so that we can dive deeper into what Jesus tells us about prayer.

    So, let’s look at what Jesus teaches us about prayer beginning with Matthew 6. In Matthew 6, Jesus is warning his disciples about being pious in public – which was a tactic of the proudful Pharisees who often paid trumpeters to announce to crowds that they were praying or fasting so as to call attention to themselves and their piety. This very much characterizes the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable praying out loud about how good and righteous he is. The purpose of his prayers were not about developing a deeper relationship with God but on putting his piety on public display.

    In verse six, Jesus tells his disciples “…when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

    In other words, prayers to God are not to be a public showcase. Prayers to God are not meant for self-aggrandizement. The Pharisee got the reward he sought – adulation from people in this life. He might have succeeded in impressing the people surrounding them with his piety, but God was not impressed. Note the Pharisee asked for nothing of God – and that is what he received. Nothing.

    Jesus points to the humble tax collector who confessed that he was a sinner. The tax collector asked for mercy and he received it. He is the one that Jesus tells us went home justified.

    What Jesus is saying is that our prayers should be about praising God and not about ourselves. We should approach God in humility looking to build a stronger faith relationship with God and not seeking to present ourselves as being pious.

    In answer to our prayers, God will reward us with God’s Spirit to provide us with guidance, wisdom, mercy and well-being.

    The point of all of this is to deepen our relationship with God. Prayer offered in quiet reflection can make us more receptive to God’s blessings, better able to see and understand God’s blessings and what God’s plan for us is – why it is God pours out God’s blessings upon us. As we quietly sit with God, it allows us to align our wills with God’s Will.

    Jesus also speaks of persistence. Jesus tells us in Matthew to search and we will find. Knock and the door will be opened for you. The righteous relationship that we seek with God is available to us if we are persistent in our search for it.

    In Luke 11, Jesus tells a parable about a man in need of some bread for a late arriving guest, and he goes knocking on a neighbor door, but the neighbor’s family is asleep, and he doesn’t want to answer the man’s call for help. But the man persistently knocks at the door until the neighbor relents and opens it.

    In Luke 18, in the verses just before today’s lectionary, Jesus tells a parable about a woman who persistently petitions an uncaring judge for justice against an accuser. She persistently petitions him until he relents at gives her the justice she was seeking.

    Now, the obvious meaning is that Jesus is telling us to be persistent in going to God with our prayers. But as always is with Jesus’ parables, there is more. Perhaps, what Jesus also means to tell us is that it is God who is persistently knocking at our doors asking to be let in; that it is God who is persistently demanding justice of us so that the brokenness of creation can be healed. So, yes be persistent in going to God in prayer because in that quiet time we can open the doors to our hearts and let in the God who is persistently knocking to be allowed in. Then maybe we can respond to God’s persistence and do the justice God desires.

    In Matthew 6:7, Jesus tells us, “When you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them for your Father knows what you need before you ask.”

    Now this is a dicey verse. Because what follows is Jesus giving us what we call the Lord’s Prayer. Many faith traditions have turned Jesus’ prayer into a stand-alone icon of prayer – one (though it has not so many words) is prattled off in rote without conscience thought. That is something we cannot do when we pray.

    Now, I am NOT saying that you should stop using the Lord’s Prayer as a personal prayer. If you are one that struggles in finding the words to speak with God, then by all means use Jesus’ words. But I think that Jesus gave us much more in the verses that follow: 9-13. What I think Jesus is giving us is a model for how to pray. Let’s take a look at how Jesus is teaching us to pray.

    “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.” First, the tone of this prayer is total humility and sincerity. There is no self-righteous piety; there are no trumpets announcing to God that we are here to pray. No. In humbleness, Jesus tells us to go to God and pray. And to begin by first praising God’s holy name. In Jesus’ model for prayer, the first thing we should do in our prayers is to praise God and God’s holy Name.

    And notice, too, Jesus is telling us that we can go DIRECTLY to God in prayer. There is no need for intermediaries or go-betweens. No. God desires that we go directly to God.

    Next, “…your kingdom come. Your will be done.” Here Jesus tells us to submit to God’s Will. Here is where we pray that our wills align with God’s Will. In Luke’s account of Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane, where Jesus is struggling with the path that is set before him. He asks that God remove it. Jesus’ human self senses the agony that is to come, and he is not anxious to endure it. But still, Jesus closes his prayer by submitting his will when he prays “…yet not my will but your Will be done.” Submitting to God’s Will is how God’s Kingdom comes onto the Earth.

    “Give us this day our daily bread.” Many people pick out this phrase and criticize Christians for having the audacity to ask God to stoop to feed our hungry bellies. But that is not what is happening here. We believe that Jesus is the Word of God. And Jesus tells us the Word of God is the bread of life that feeds and sustains us spiritually. This is what Jesus is telling us to ask for each day as we go in prayer before our God. Ask for God’s Spirit to guide us by increasing and building up our faith. The Spirit feeds us the Word which is the bread that sustains our spiritual lives.

    “And forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.” This is key. We cannot come before God while harboring ill will, prejudice, or hatred of any kind for any other. We must approach God with a forgiving heart. Note how Jesus describes the Pharisee who prayed, …I am better than this tax-collector. This kind of ill-will and prejudice raises a barrier between God and us. That kind of haughty attitude prevents us from being able to walk humbly with our God.

    I might almost suggest to you that the phrase might be reversed. It might read, …we forgive our debtors as we ask to be forgiven by God. Either way, Jesus makes it clear to us that his disciples should having forgiving hearts. Then we become examples of God’s steadfast love and mercy. Another way that our wills can align with God’s Will.

    “And do not bring us to the time of trial but rescue us from the evil one.”

    When I looked for some meanings for this verse, I found there to be many different interpretations. But, for our purposes today it would suffice to say, in times of trial, testing or temptation, we should be asking God to use those times to purify us; to help us to shed from our hearts those things that cause us to keep the doors to our hearts locked. When we ask that God purge these distractions from us, God’s Spirit builds us up and makes us stronger in our faith. Locking God out is the same as leaving an open door for evil to enter in.

    These fives verses in Matthew’s account of the prayer that Jesus gave us can be a stand-alone prayer or it can be a model for how to pray. Use them however you feel you need to as you are drawn to go before God in prayer in your quiet place.

    In closing, I want to say one more thing about prayer. I have repeatedly used the phrasing, as you come before God in your quiet place. I don’t want to give you the impression that personal, solitary prayer is the only prayer that God requires of us. Certainly, Jesus is placing a high value on desiring that we go to God in quiet without spectacle or showcasing. But Jesus also calls us to join in prayer in community.

    Make note of the pronouns that Jesus uses:

    • Give us this day our daily bread
    • Forgive us as we forgive
    • Do not bring us to the time of trial
    • Rescue us from evil

    Certainly, the underlying tone here is that we are also to be praying together in community. Remember, “…whenever two or more are gathered in my name…

    Jesus is not saying that God only hears solitary prayers. He is most certainly telling us that communities also need to come and bow before and confess to God, as well. So, our corporate prayers as praying communities are equally important ways in which we can build our faith relationships with God.

    So as you reflect this week on the examples in today’s lectionary of prattled showcased prayer born out of ego and self-aggrandizement versus quiet reflective prayer born out of humble hearts thirsting for the God that loves you, take a moment while in your quiet space to hear the wee small voice of God speak to you and when you hear it praise and honor it, submit your will to it, ask for the Word of God that will sustain and give you new life each day, promise to forgive, and pray that God will use the trials of this life to purify you and make you stronger – stronger in your faith and stronger in your relationship with God.

    May it be so.

    Here are three Ai generated quotes on prayer not used as a part of this message.

    “It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without heart.”

    “Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God’s thirst to love us with our thirst for God.”

    “Prayer enlarges the heart until it is capable of containing God’s gift of God’s self.”

  • A CHRISTMAS STORY

    Offered in Praise on Sunday, December 27, 2020

    Mel Prestamo, Elder, PCUSA

    Read: Isaiah 9, John 1, and Matthew 25

    So, I have a question for you. In Isaiah 9 the writer tells us that the people walked in Darkness. Think about what darkness might mean. What image does walking in darkness conger up in your mind?

    In the Bible, Darkness refers to both Ignorance and Evil. What might ignorance and evil look like to us?

    • In darkness there is Violence. There is war, people dying while their homes are bombed out. There is terrorism, people being massacred while celebrating at festivals. There are mass shootings, people looking to hurt, maim, or murder out of their grief and anger. or even gun boat diplomacy.
    • In darkness there is Injustice. There is insensitivity to the needs of others. There is hunger. There is homelessness. There is wealth and there is poverty.
    • In darkness there is the Abuse of Power. There are the powerful taking advantage of the weak. There are nations oppressing nations. There are Refugees fleeing oppression. There are Families ripped apart.
    • In darkness there is spousal abuse and abuse, child abuse and abuse of the elderly. There is bullying.
    • In a word in the darkness of the human condition, there is pain.

    For the Israelites in the time of Isaiah, there was misery; there was lamenting; there was pain and suffering.

    How do these things, these woes and these calamities compare to our own times?

    • We have Violence in the streets, in malls, in schools, in classrooms.
    • We have Injustice in how we accumulate wealth. Some live lavishly. They have more than they could ever store up and others depend upon what falls from the tables of the wealthy for their subsistence.
    • We have Homelessness – people living in tents, in boxes, in doorways.
    • We have hunger – people who line up at food pantries for the food they themselves cannot afford.
    • We have Refugees and Families being separated and pulled apart by oppressive policies.
    • We might say that we have all experienced the grief and pain of the darkness or that we are least witnesses of it whether we respond to it or not.

    What I am suggesting is that our times today are not all that different from the time in the world preceding Jesus’ coming. Now, I don’t mean to be a downer delivering a gloomy Christmas message. But what I mean to suggest is that Christmas still has a meaning for us to discover; and perhaps we have some more work to do to discover it.

    Christmas must be more for us today than just simply the reading of ancient texts and the remembrance of a child’s birth; it must be more for us today than simply the singing of carols; the lighting of candles, celebrations with families or even these quite Worship services on a Sunday morning.

    John told us, “The one who is the true light – that gives light to everyone was coming into the world” [John 1:9] John was talking about Jesus. We know that. Jesus is the Light. But more than the Light, Jesus was and is the Word. “In the beginning”, John tells us, “the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

    What is John trying to tell us?

    It is one thing to be an inspiration to people, as Jesus certainly is, and move them as Jesus can move people. Great orators have done that. John Kennedy’s “Ask not…” Martin Luther King’s, “I have a Dream.” Then there is the example of Mother Teresa’s selfless missionary work in India. But it is quite another to be God doing it. Jesus is the Word of God that spoke creation. Jesus is the Word of God that brought Light out of the darkness. That light, that Word came into the world. It is what we call the Incarnation. It is God stepping into humanity. It is not only that God became human; but that God stopped creation, stopped the universe, and stopped time and stepped in to it – to become part of it. The Incarnation is the moment that changed everything.

    If you believe that God stepped into our world. How does that change things for us? What is it that the Light does for us?

    • Jesus, the Light can inspire us. The Light can burn away the cobwebs that paralyze us and stir us to action.
    • Jesus, the Light fills us with Hope. The hope that the Word of God brings gives meaning to the entire arc of human history. It provides us with the end goal to which we can aspire. Without that Hope, the whole of human existence is meaningless.
    • Jesus, the Light helps us to Love. The light dispels darkness from our hearts, allowing them to be opened to those around us that need our kindness.
    • Jesus, the Light leads us. It provides guidance. It shines upon the path that God desires for us.
    • Jesus, the Light can heal us. The light is the soothing balm that binds up our brokenness.
    • Jesus, the Light fills us with courage. The light obliterates the darkness that causes fear, helping us to see clearly the work that needs to be done.
    • Jesus, the Light is transforming – it takes us from being onlookers to being actors.

    With this Light that is given to us; with this Light that is born to us to lead us out of the darkness, what are we to do with it?

    Jesus tells what we are not to do with it. We are not to cover it with a basket, hiding it out of sight. Jesus tells us not to be onlookers or passersby. The Samaritan got down into the muck of life and got involved in helping and healing.

    We are to reflect it, to shine it out. How do we do that?

    If you have been listening, Jesus has told us.

    If we look at Matthew 25: 31-46, we will hear how it is that Jesus wants us to act.

    “But when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit upon his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered in his presence, and he will separate the people as a shepherd separates sheep from goats. He will place the sheep at his right hand and the goats at his left.

    Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked and you gave me clothing. I was sick and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.’

    Then the righteous ones will reply, ‘Lord when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or, thirsty and give you something to drink? Or, a stranger and show you hospitality? Or, naked and give you clothing? When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?’

    And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it for me!’

    Then the King will turn to those on the left and say, ‘Away with you, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his demons. For I was hungry, and you didn’t feed me. I was thirsty and you didn’t give me drink. I was a stranger, and you didn’t invite me into your home. I was naked and you didn’t give me clothing. I was sick and in prison and you didn’t visit me.’

    Then they will reply, ‘Lord when did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and not help you?’

    And he will answer, ‘I tell you the truth, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me.’

    “And they will go away into eternal punishment; but the righteous will go into eternal life.”

    As we come to the end of what has been a very difficult year, it is easy to fall into the trap that as we close this old year, we convince ourselves that somehow it is over; that we have reached an end, and we can sit back and relax. That, it is finished. The sparkling lights, white snow and the good cheer of merry gentleman will somehow make all things better.

    But the story of Christmas is not an ending. It is the beginning. It is incomplete if it ends with the story of the Babe’s birth. It is incomplete if the Light that came into the world is hidden under a basket and not brought out to shine. It is incomplete if the challenge of Matthew 25 goes unheeded. The Babe’s birth, the Incarnation, the Light that came into this world and challenge of Matthew 25 are all interconnected. They are a beginning. How we respond to those who are hungry, thirsty, naked, to strangers and those forgotten in prisons is what completes the story of Christmas.

    The Light that has come into the world will shine to show us the way. It can never be extinguished. The darkness cannot overcome it. So, be joyful this Christmas Season and praise the God that has done, is doing and will continue to do great things through us. The least of the Lord’s brothers and sisters are in need of our compassion, of our kindness, and the justice that is required to heal this broken world.

    May it be so.

  • At What Cost?

    Mine Hill PC / Chester Community Church, June 27, 2021,

    Mark 5, 21-43

    Mel Prestamo, Elder PCUSA

    This reading from Mark has details packed in all kinds of nooks and crannies and I think that it is fascinating to unravel it and take a close look at what was going on.

    At the very outset Mark tells us that when Jesus crossed the lake from one side to the other, there was already a great crowd waiting there for him. So right here in the first line, Mark tells us when this event was taking place. It was not at the beginning of Jesus’ Ministry but it was after Jesus had been preaching for a while and his notoriety and reputation had grown. This tells us two things. First, in his ministry, Jesus had a reputation as a healer and miracle worker and the crowds were already following him to see what would happen next. Second, the Temple and local Synagogue authorities were also well aware of him. At this point already, Jesus was being barred from teaching in the houses of worship and the word was out to the leaders of the Synagogues to be careful and don’t associate with him. That is why Jesus was on this road show, so to speak. The penalty for recognizing and endorsing Jesus was excommunication from the Jewish faith and along with that the privilege of worshipping in the Synagogue.

    So, with this backdrop, we see one of the rulers of the Synagogue, Jairus, come to Jesus to beg for the healing of his daughter. As “Ruler of the Synagogue”, Jairus was an extremely important individual in the community. He was in charge of all of the scheduling and management of the Synagogue; and as such he would have been keenly aware of the warnings about Jesus and the perils of dealing with him face to face. Nonetheless, here he is with his face in the dust of the roadway in front of all to see begging Jesus to save his daughter from death. He has thrown himself down on his knees at Jesus’ feet in full view of this immense crowd. This is not insignificant and we should not gloss over it.

     Jairus was risking it all; risking his reputation, his standing in the community, his position of authority in the Synagogue all for the life of his daughter. You may say, “well yes, of course, any parent would do that.” But for Jairus, it was not that simple. He had the responsibility of upholding the orthodoxy of the faith in his community. What he was doing was putting all of that in peril. The reaction of the other leaders of the Synagogue could be sever. By kneeling at Jesus’ feet, he was not only sacrificing his dignity; but visibly elevating Jesus to a position of authority. Also, I want you to be aware of something else. Jairus was there on his own. As a prestigious leader, he could have sent anyone and not had made himself so visible. We will look at more about that later.

    Jesus sees Jairus at his feet and is sympathetic for his plight and agrees to go his house to see the daughter. They start off but something sidetracks Jesus.

    “There was a woman who was suffering from hemorrhaging which had lasted 12 years.” The story tells us that she had spent everything she had on doctors and to no avail. Indeed, the matter had gotten worse. Now, initially, she acts differently from Jairus. She is so fearful of approaching Jesus from the front that she reasons that all she would need to do is touch a tassel hanging from his robe. If she could manage just that then she would be cured. So, that’s what she does. As Jesus is passing through the midst of this huge crowd with people pushing and shoving all around Him, she reaches out and touches a tassel hanging from his robe and feels instantly that she is cured. And she is. Just as she had believed in the power of this extraordinary healer, she is healed. This amazing faith that she has results in her immediate healing. But wait, something happens.

    Jesus feels something has been drained out of him. He stops and immediately asks, “Who touched my clothes?” His disciples, who at this point are totally overwhelmed with what is happening, respond by saying something to the effect, “You’ve got to be kidding. There are a thousand people all around us. How is it possible to know who touched you?” But Jesus persists. “Who touched me”, he asks again? Now the woman knew what she had done and comes forward throwing herself at his feet and confesses all. This confession is a long and painful story for her to share. You need to understand that according to Jewish law after a woman experiences her cycle, she needed to remain isolated for seven days before she could once again participate in the life of the community. For seven days women were considered “unclean”. This poor woman had been hemorrhaging for 12 years. She had been totally pushed aside and shunned by her community for 12 years. Image for a moment her pain and torment. Jesus does. He recognizes her faith and her pain and acknowledges that her faith has cured her.

    Now Jesus returns to the task at hand, Jairus’ daughter. It is at this moment in the story that messengers from Jairus’ household come to say the daughter has died. And then they say to Jairus, “Why trouble the teacher anymore?”

    At first glance this may seem to be reasonable. But as we will learn later in the story, their tone is not sympathetic of Jesus’ time. It is another hint of the backstory that Jairus is dealing within his household. We can gather from what follows that they were being sarcastic and demeaning of Jesus and Jairus’ appeal for healing. There is no hint of cordiality here. They are telling Jairus’, “Look, your daughter is dead. Send this guy away before you do more damage to our household.”

    But Jesus intercedes. He tells Jairus not to be afraid and to have faith. Jesus proceeds to Jairus’ house taking only Peter, John and James with him.

    When they arrive at Jairus’ house, there is a full-blown wake going on. There is weeping and wailing. Jesus sees this and asks, “Why are you so distressed? Why are you weeping? The little girl has not died. She is sleeping.”

    What is their response? OK. Now is when we see the true colors of Jairus’ household. “They laughed at him with scorn.” Now we see more of the risk that Jairus was dealing with. His household was mocking and ridiculing the teacher that Jairus’ had begged for help. In effect, Jairus’, too, was a target of their scorn.

    Jesus puts them all out. He takes only Jairus, the mother and his friends in the girl’s room. Jesus takes her by the hand and tells her to “Arise.” And immediately, she does. What happens? All are amazed and there are “great sounds of astonishment.” Those sounds may have come from the mother. Jairus was probably crying tears of joy.

    Give her something to eat, Jesus orders. Why? Because this is no aberration or ghost. The girl that has risen is real and alive and hungry. We see this also when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead and indeed when Jesus appeared to his disciples after his resurrection. Feeding the body was proof of resurrection. Feed her. There can be no mistake here. Her lifeless body has been raised. Feed the body.

    This is a great passage. So much happens. But what struck me as I was preparing my message is the cost to each of the characters in the story. Jairus risks his position in the community and his reputation. His household, family and associates have allowed him to go out on a limb alone in going to Jesus for healing. They were quite willing to allow the girl to die rather than associate with this healer. When Jesus and Jairus arrive at his home, the people there were scornful of Jesus and by association, Jairus as well. Jairus has a lot to lose if this doesn’t work out and all he has to go on is Jesus’ insistence that he have faith.

    The woman who touched Jesus had to risk her own humiliation when she comes forward to tell her story. She knells at Jesus’ feet [as did Jairus] and bears her life of indignation to Jesus and the crowd. There were probably many who had stepped back from this “unclean” person so as not to be soiled by her. Take note that at that time, the people would have reasoned that for the woman to have been afflicted like she was, she must have [at sometime in her life] sinned and was being punished by God. So, they would want to have nothing to do with her. And here she is, telling Jesus her very personal and embarrassing life’s story before all.

    For each of them there is a cost. There is embarrassment. There is a loss of position and prestige.

    But the cost for them is minor as compared to what each of them receives back from Jesus. Here their risk is far outweighed by the rewards they receive. Jairus gets his daughter. The woman gets healing and an opportunity to rejoin the community she has been ostracized from. Their faith has made this happen. Jesus tells Jairus to have faith. He tells the woman that because of her faith, she was healed.

    In this passage, there is a very strong theme as to what our faith in Jesus can do in our lives. Now, I want to be carefully and not going to suggest to you that physical healing is going to happen as a result of our faith as we are all far removed from physical interaction with the person of Jesus. We can not reach out and touch his robe or have Him take the hand of an ill family member and raise them up from death’s doorstep. But what our Faith can provide for us is comfort of knowing that Jesus is with us and that the Holy Spirit that he sent to us is beside us to encourage us on our way whenever its help is needed. Even though Jesus is not physically present, He still touches our lives and Faith in Him still heals our aching and searching souls. His act of selfless love on the Cross still washes us clean and opens the door to our salvation and an everlasting eternal presence with God.

    But wait. There is one other in the story for whom there is a cost. We learn when the woman touches Jesus, he feels something drain from him. It’s momentary. It may only be minute; but it is nonetheless real. For Jesus there is a cost, too. Something goes out of Him. He feels it. The Gospel writer Mark believed it was important enough to mention it in the story. He probably heard it from Peter who was there. Peter probably learned about it from Jesus. Perhaps, Mark uses it in the story as a foreshadowing of what was to come and the ultimate price that God and Jesus pay.

    What comes to Jairus and the Woman and us from Jesus is freely given. Ultimately, what comes to us as God’s mercy and love is freely given. But like what was drained from the Jesus at the woman’s touch, there is a cost. The freely given Grace and salvation that we receive at Jesus’ resurrection and conquering of death was paid for dearly with his blood. And that is something we always need to remember. That the cost and the price paid for our salvation was extremely high and we should not forget that or treat it lightly.

    Amen.

  • Say Thank You

    Luke 17: 11-19

    Offered to the First Presbyterian Church of Franklin NJ – October 12, 2025

    by Mel Prestamo, Elder, PCUSA

    In Psalm 103, which I read the beginning verses to you earlier, the Psalmist is telling God’s faithful to be thankful for all the blessings that God has bestowed upon them.

    He tells them and us to bless the Lord’s holy name with all that is within us – with every part of our entire being – “with all – all – that is within us.” Holding nothing back.

    He tells us to bless the Lord from the depths of our souls – do not forget all his benefits, – the good things that God has showered upon us.

    The Psalmist asks, “…who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems you from the Pit?”

    Think of what the Psalmist is saying here. Who is it that can and does forgive all of your sinfulness? The Lord. Who is it that can heal your brokenness – the disease and the hurting – that is in this world? The Lord. Who is it that will finally resurrect you from the Pit when you have separated yourself from the love of God? The Lord.

    The Pit – think with me for a moment on the parable of the Prodigal Father. The Younger son demanded all of his inheritance – benefits the Psalmist would call them – the benefits that this young boy was blessed with – and then he runs off and squanders it – his elder brother would later say he devoured those blessings and benefits with prostitutes. He didn’t just spend or waste it. He devoured it voraciously with the type of women that Proverbs tells us will lead us away from the wisdoms of the Lord.

    And in so doing, he separated himself from the love of his Father and his God and sunk into the depths of depravity – into a Pit of squalor that is characterized in Jesus’ parable as feeding pigs.

    Who was it whose love was steadfast? Who was it who kept watchful eyes on the horizon praying for and hoping for the wayward son’s return? The Father. Who was it who showed mercy and forgiveness towards this son who had caused so much pain and anguish? The Father. Who was it who restored the son to his inheritance in his household – lavishly showering him with good things and benefits – with robes, and rings, and sandals? The Father. Who was it who vindicated and redeemed him? The Father.

    Although the Psalmist probably never anticipated how Jesus would weave his parable of a younger son, a begrudging elder son and a forgiving father who was willing to pour out his love lavishly upon his wayward younger son – that day in the Temple where he himself was sitting with the tax collectors and sinners, but in anticipation perhaps for how Israel would forget the Lord and all his benefits, the Psalmist admonished all of Israel never to forget and to be ever thankful for the steadfast love, mercy, forgiveness and healing of the Lord – of God, our Father. The Psalmist reminded Israel to be ever mindful of who it was who redeems them.

    The Psalmist tells Israel – and us – to say Thank You to the Lord by blessing the Lord and the Lord’s holy name. He tells us today to just do something simple that perhaps we too forget to do, to just say Thank You.

    With that as a backdrop, let’s take a look at our reading today. Today, Luke tells us that Jesus is walking along the border area between Galilee and Samaria – between the Jews of Judah who believed they were God’s chosen, faithful to God in every way and those Samaritans who they considered to be mongrels who had lost their way by meshing foreign religions into their practice of the Jewish religion what was and should be – the true faith of Israel.

    When the Samaritans were invaded by the Assyrians, the Jews in Judah believed that the Samaritans were infected with outside cultures and religious practices that had reduced them to little better than Gentiles – unclean, unbelievers.

    So, we find Jesus in this story in Luke walking through an area where there were mixed cultural influences. Jesus was walking across the line where devout Jews would feel uncomfortable. They would have considered it unclean to mix with and associate with Samaritans. Yet that is where Jesus was.

    So, Jesus and his devout Jewish followers are walking the road, and we see that Jesus is called upon by a mixed group of Jewish and Samaritan lepers. While standing far off from the crowd that was following Jesus, they call out to him to have pity upon them. In other words, they are beseeching Jesus to heal their leprosy. They are standing off to the side away from the crowd because they are considered unclean. Not even the Samaritans would have anything to do with them. No one would allow them to come close. Further, by and large, good Jews would ignore their plight believing that their leprosy was caused by their sins.

    Now I want you to be mindful of something here in Luke’s Gospel. This story follows on the heels of Jesus’s parable of Lazarus and the rich man. Lazarus was the poor diseased man living in poverty in the doorstep of the rich man. The rich man ignored his poverty and his plight. You know the story. The rich man lives a life of lavish excess in both how he dresses in purple robes and how he devours and feasts.

    Lazarus, the poor man with no means of surviving on his own lives in the rich man’s doorstep hoping for any scraps that might be tossed from the rich man’s table. They both die. When the rich man dies, he is buried in the ground where his body rots into dust. He is consigned to Hades to an afterlife of torment. Lazarus on the other hand is lifted up by angels to spend eternity at the side of Abraham in heaven.

    Like Lazarus in the rich man’s doorstep, these lepers are relegated to living outside of community shunned by good God-fearing Jews. Because their leprosy is believed to be caused by sin, good Jews would cast them out of society and refuse to have anything to do with them for fear of themselves becoming infected bby their sin, and then too, becoming unclean.

    What stands in contrast between these two stories here is while the rich man ignores the poor man in his doorstep, Jesus hears the leper’s plea for pity and mercy and heals them. That is the stark difference between how humankind loves – with conditions and how God loves – unconditionally. You need to be mindful of what Luke is trying to tell us here.

    Humankind’s love is conditional. It is limited. For the most part, it is unwilling to risk getting down into the muck of life – into the Pit of human brokenness – to help heal the brokenness of the human condition.

    God’s love, in contrast and as exemplified by Jesus, is unconditional. It is steadfast. God’s love is merciful and forgiving. God’s love is redeeming and restorative. And it comes like a flood that showers down upon us God’s benefits and blessings.

    So, Jesus reacts to the plea of these broken souls and shows them his love. Jesus is merciful and forgiving. If their plight is because of sin, they are forgiven. Jesus heals their infirmity and restores them. He redeems them so that they can go to the priests to prove that they have been cleansed and so that they can return to their own communities.

    Jesus does all these things for them. He does all the things that the Psalmist attributes to God.

    What happens next? The ten begin to walk off to show themselves to the priests as instructed by Jesus. As they begin to walk off, one of them – a Samaritan – notices that he has been cured, healed, and made clean. This Samaritan, who the Jews considered a mongrel in his faith, returns to Jesus to give him praise and thanks. He falls at Jesus’ feet to praise him and give thanks. The other nine who we are told later were Jews, do not.

    The Jewish lepers walk away without giving a second thought that they should give thanks for their healing. This, in a microcosm, of what Jesus thinks the Hebrew people have done to their God.

    They have a God who is steadfast in his love for them, who has forgiven all their iniquities, who showers them with love and mercy, and who redeems and renews them, but they have forgotten their God.

    They have replaced their love of God with tradition, religious practices, and sacrifices. None of which, we know, are important to God. God has repeatedly told the people through God’s prophets that he does not want their sacrifices of bulls and calves. Instead, all God asks for is a sacrifice of self – that they give to God their love and praise. The prophet Micah phrases it elegantly, …that they should do justice and love kindness and walk humbly with their God.

    The Psalmist tells them and us to be thankful. But these nine cured Jewish men walk off as if all of what has happened was to be expected. You see, they did what some of us to at times. They had put God and Jesus into a box demanding of him the forgiveness and healing that they expected they deserved – what they believed was due them as descendants of Abraham. After all, what could be a simpler concept for the ancient Jew to believe. If Jesus was God’s Messiah, then he should do for them what they believed God should do for them.

    And when they got it, they walked off. No thanks. No gratitude. No praise. That was left to the mongrel, the outsider, the Samaritan. He returned to Jesus to offer praise and thanksgiving. God’s people on the other hand had forgotten what the Psalmist had told them should and must be done. They had forged a God who they demanded do their bidding like a slave. Take pity and heal us. That is what their God was to be used for. And once they got what they wanted, they no longer had need of God. They had no need to be thankful.

    That is a Pit that we all fall into.

    Sometimes, we are no different. Sometimes, we read and pray in our devotions in the morning but then other times we forget – ahh, that alright. God will forgive us.

    Sometimes, we say grace before our meals in thanks for what is placed before us but then other times, we forget. It’s alright. It doesn’t change the taste of the bounty we are consuming. God won’t mind this one time we forget to offer our thanks and praise.

    God should heal our illnesses, our diseases, our brokenness when we ask for it in prayer, even if we forget to offer praise and thanksgiving after we are blessed with that healing. When we receive benefits that heal our brokenness, do we offer thanks or are they something that we rightfully expected because we are baptized followers of the Christ?

    You see, that’s when we put our powerful and awesome God into a puny little box – a box constructed from out of our own expectations of what God should be doing for us and not the other way around. Sometimes, we think that God should be forgiving even when we forget to be thankful. When it should go the other was around. It is we, who should be thankful first when God is blessing us and showering us with God’s benefits.

    We have a God that is steadfast and faithful. In return we should be steadfast in our praise of God’s holy name and do it with all that is within us never forgetting who it is who forgives, who it is who heals, and who it is that redeems.

    May this ever be so with you and all that is within you.

  • On World Communion Sunday

    Offered to the congregation at Mine Hill Presbyterian Church on World Communion Sunday October 5, 2025

    John 17: 20-24 / 1 Corinthians 12 [selected verses]

    World Communion Sunday is meant to be a special day in the life of our denomination and for Christians around the world. It is meant to symbolize a gathering together of all the different and varied parts of the Body of Christ, his Church, into one unified offering of “self” by Christians that universally joins us all at his Table.

    Did you know that the idea of a World Communion Sunday came out of the Presbyterian Church back in 1933? Yeah, at the Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburg, PA, the Rev Dr. Hugh Thompson Kerr came up with the idea as a way to promote unity and cooperation between Christian denominations. It was later adopted by the National Council of Churches in 1936. Just a bit of a history lesson.

    Think of it. During the same era that the Presbyterian Church gave us Prohibition, we also came up with the idea of World Communion Sunday – with juice though, not wine.

    Their intention was [and ours should be, also] that on this day we come to the Table to offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving to God by sharing in this meal that Jesus has provided for us – but not only that we also come to submit ourselves to the notion that this Body of Christ is wide and diverse. And that diversity is unified in one Body. Though its parts may be different and unique in every way possible, we make a conscious effort to reach out and join hands at this Table with those other widely separated members of the Body so that we may join as one church universal.

    In his letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul makes his case regarding the unity of the Body of Christ. Paul speaks of the many varied parts of the Body. Individually, our Bodies are one single unit made up of the most unlikely assortment of parts. If you laid them out on a table without a biology book to guide you, you would be hard pressed to reconstruct them into a functioning whole. The Spleen and the Liver look nothing alike and give no indication of their functions. There are two Bladders each with differing functions. There are Muscles, two kinds of Bowels. And what could the Appendix possible be used for? And, laid out in front of you, it can look like a disgusting mess. How can this all possible fit together as a functioning whole – as one Body? Yet it does.

    Paul compares the church in all the far-flung places it has been established and all the differing ways those churches have learned to worship Jesus as Lord – to a messy functioning human body. Paul tells us that the church in all its varying disjointed parts may look like a mess but that it all should come together and function as our bodies do – as one church of Christ.

    Paul tells us that the Spirit’s has a role to play here. The church, like our bodies, has feet, hands, eyes, ears and a nose; it has internal organs and outer layers of our skin and these all have specific functions. No one part looks anything like the other but yet when assembled by the Spirit they knit together tightly functioning with a single beating heart.

    That is the way Paul sees the Church of Jesus Christ working. He tells us, “whether we be Jews or Greeks”, – meaning whether his listening believers were Jews or anyone else in the world who was not a Jew; “whether we are slaves or free” – meaning anyone who is still held captive to the bondage of sin or those who have answered the Spirit’s call to be drawn to the Christ and have been saved by the grace of God; – however, we are drawn to Jesus through the work of the Spirit – we are all baptized by the same Spirit into one Body in Christ. And Paul tells us that all of this is tightly knit together for the common good of the Body.

    Paul makes the case that if it were not this way, the Body could not function at all. “If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? …If all were a single member, where would the body be?” No, God made it so the differing parts of the body, each one of them with a specific talent and purpose could come together so that the Body can do the work in the Harvest field that God’s needs it to do.

    No. “The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you, nor the head to the feet, I have no need of you.” Paul continues, “On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable.”

    And so, it is with the Church Universal. It may seem that an individual part of the Body may think that it can function on its own to represent the whole, but it cannot. The Roman Catholic Church, the PCUSA, the Southern Baptist Convention, the Church of England, the United Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Pentecostal Church – any denomination that comes to mind, may think it can speak solely on behalf of the Christ; but that would be like the eye claiming it can function as the Body and is not in need of the hand, or the head denying its need of the foot.

    No. Paul asserts that only when all of those seemingly disjointed parts are pulled together and unified can they speak with a voice representative of the whole Body.

    Now perhaps you may say that the sound of all of those voices speaking as one may be like a deafening noise and that it would be counterproductive. You may say with all those different voices saying things that don’t seem to jive is not the way for the church to speak the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the world. But through God’s plan, Paul says that is exactly how it should work.

    I will point you back to the story of the first Pentecost when the Spirit infused the disciples driving them out into the marketplace. Think of those eleven voices speaking out simultaneously that morning. When the Spirit pushed them out of their locked upper room to walk among the diverse crowds gathered in Jerusalem, to speak in the native tongues of those travelers so that all the world could hear and understand, all that noise rang true to each person listening. From out of that symphony of noise, the voice of God could be heard.

    Shouldn’t some voices speak with greater authority than others? No. Not according to Paul. No one part of the Body can function for the whole unless it is joined together with all its supporting parts.

    And so, it is with us. We as Presbyterians have worked out our individual jobs and tasks quite neatly in the Book of Order so that we can function as a church. We have the General Assembly providing its overall leadership. We have the Synods and Presbyteries that assist us in providing structure for our organization. You may think that the Synod can be cast off as a non-essential part of the Body, but it too is necessary for the working of the Body. And so, it flows right down to you at the local church level. You have a Session made up of people of various capabilities and talents. You keep worship going. You keep your mission projects up and running. You have a fellowship that joins you together in worship and in the caring and praying for each other. You are all different but yet you are meant to come together and function as one church. And it works quite well.

    But as successful as we are at our individual tasks, we are incomplete. The PCUSA is incomplete. Any single denomination by itself is incomplete. We need more body parts to help us speak in diverse tongues so that the Good News of Jesus’ Gospels can be heard the world over. That is one reason for the importance of Presbyterian Mission. It takes us out into the world to gather in and join together with Christians of diverse talents to work together to spread the word – and the love of the Word, Jesus.

    The talents that we bring to the world as Presbyterians mesh with other parts of the Body of Christ so that together we can be the hands and feet of God work in the Harvest.

    Parts that look marginalized or that appear weak and of little value are vital to the good health of the Body. You may think that your eyes are beautiful to gaze upon or that your nose is so masterfully constructed that it should be lifted up high onto Mount Rushmore but without hands and feet you cannot step out into the world to serve it. We as a church of Christ need more Body parts.

    We need to reach out to other parts of the Body of Christ and find a way for us all to work together. Our doors and hearts have to be opened to the idea that though other Christians may not look or sound or speak the same languages as we do, or may not worship in much the same manner that we do – that they are still a part of the Body of Christ and we need to join with them  – not to make them the same as us but to bring with them their diverse ways of worshiping and to share their diversity with us and we in turn with them. That diversity makes our Bodies stronger, more healthy, better able to speak and share the Good News.

    This may seem a daunting task. But remember that you have an ace in the hole. Remember that Jesus has prayed over you concerning this. Yes. That’s right. You have none other than the Christ bowing in prayer before the Father and asking for God’s blessings upon you.

    In John’s Gospel today we heard Jesus say to the Father, “I ask not only on behalf of these [meaning his disciples], but also on behalf of those [meaning you] who will believe in me through their word.” That is how you have come to believe isn’t it – through the sharing of the testimony by Jesus’ initial witnesses in the Gospels, the stories in Acts, Paul’s letters along with those of other writers in our New Testament and then again through all those Saints that have come before us since then. Jesus continues “that they [you all] may be all one in me.” Jesus has prayed over you that you and every other believer that has been drawn to him by the Holy Spirit that we will be made part of the whole that is his body at work in the world. Jesus has prayed to the Father that you can make that happen – that we all – the varied members of the Body can be joined together by the Spirit as one universal Body in Christ. And this World Communion Sunday is our opportunity to recognize the beauty of that diversity and take a step on our journey in making it all come together.

    I pray to God that God’s Spirit will guide you to make this happen.