Understanding the Jesus of the Gospels

Sermons from the Gospels

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  • 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.

  • Who Will listen if Someone Is Raised from the Dead?

    Luke 16: 19-31

    Offered by Elder Mel Prestamo PCUSA to the congregation of the Wharton United Community Congregation

    Today’s lectionary begins with another of Jesus’ many parables which in one way or another deal with affluence and wealth.

    This series of parables begins in Luke 12 with a person calling out to Jesus from the crowd that was following him – to order his brother to share the inheritance from their father’s estate. Jesus doesn’t give the man the answers he is demanding but rather answers him by telling the people the parable of the rich fool who built barns in which he could store up his surplus wealth. In that parable, on the day he completes his buildings God calls him to his death. The rich man is called a fool for having wasted his life storing up wealth in this world but not storing up riches in the next.

    Next, we see Jesus as a guest at a wedding feast. There he observes how the people arriving at the celebration – jockey for position to be seated at places of honor closest to the host. He teaches the parable of the wedding guest who enters a banquet and immediately sits at a place of high honor only to be delegated to a lower seat when the host sees a more important guest arrive. The host goes to the first guest and tells him to give up his place to the newly arriving guest. The first guest is now disgraced at being demoted and removed from a place of honor at the table to be relegated to one farther away from the host. Here, Jesus admonishes the people at the feast for allowing their haughty egos to get the better of themselves. They arrive expecting that they should be honored to the high level in which they view themselves.

    In Luke 15, we have the parable of the Prodigal Father. Here we have a young man who is situated in the lap of luxury living within the wealth and comfort of his father’s house. Desiring more – what – wealth, prominence, a higher degree of importance in life, whatever it was – he desired more. He makes a decision to leave the father’s household taking with him as much of his inheritance as he can amass and then goes off to squander it making poor life decisions that eventually separate him from the love of God and father.

    In a twist, this young man repents and returns to his father desiring to be forgiven. And in Jesus’ story the young man is received back into the father’s household and is lavishly showered with gifts from the father in the form of rings, and robes, and sandals. A happy ending? Not yet. Jesus introduces us to the older brother who is now called upon to share in the father’s celebration and greet his wayward brother back into the joy of the father’s household. He refuses. He chooses not to share the inheritance that he was blessed with. He chooses rather to keep his brother at arm’s length, apart from the graces and forgiving love of the father. This is another example of a lesson when Jesus uses characters who refuse to share the earthly wealth that they have been blessed with.

    Next in Luke 16, we have the story of the steward who is a scoundrel and a rascal and who defrauds his master by embezzling from the business dealings which he had been entrusted. Jesus weaves this story to show to his disciples just how devious and evil people can become when dealing with great wealth. Now part of Jesus’ message here is to say to his disciples that he would like them to work as hard at procuring wealth in the kingdom of heaven as these rascals are at achieving earthly wealth. Ultimately in Luke’s text he remarks that the Pharisees, who were lovers of money were ridiculed and embarrassed by Jesus telling this parable. Again, Jesus takes his followers to task warning them not to place a love of earthly things above building a righteous relationship with God. In all of these stories, Jesus is admonishing his followers to keep God first.

    Now, we come upon today’s lectionary, and it is a famous one. It is the parable of Lazarus and the rich man who always dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day.

    Before we go any further, it is important to understand what these descriptive words of Jesus meant in the culture of his day. First, only royalty dressed in purple robes. This rich man is not described as being a prince or a king so to find him dressed in purple robes and fine linen raises an eyebrow that perhaps he was purposefully flaunting his wealth so as to impress.

    He feasted sumptuously every day. This is another highly unusual way to describe a Palestinian since regular folk didn’t engage in feasting every day– not even the rich did that. People in Palestine only feasted at important galas or events like weddings. Eating sumptuously – again was something that didn’t happen every day. Preparing fatted calves and eating meats were reserved for special occasions – not every day. But as we note in this parable, this rich man did this every day. In the culture of the day, this would have been considered an abhorrent display of gross self-indulgence. But that is how Jesus describes the rich man.

    As an aside, I might suggest to you that Jesus may have been making reference to King Herod. Who was not a legitimate king of Israel but rather a Roman appointee. And as we have seen in the other Gospels, Herod was prone to lavishly outlandish parties and celebrations. But that would be a message for another time. Let’s return to Jesus’ parable of the rich man and Lazarus.

    Now we have this poor man, Lazarus. First note, Lazarus is the ONLY person ever named in any of Jesus’ parables. We’ll have more on that later.

    Lazarus is pictured as living at the entrance of the rich man’s gate. What do we know about Lazarus? He is covered with sores. Dogs licking his wounds are his only comfort. He looked to satisfy his hunger with scraps that fell from the rich man’s table. But he was not even given that. It doesn’t seem that even the rich man’s scraps were shared.

    And now here’s another item to be aware of. By Jewish law, the rich were not supposed to consume all of their resources. For instance, at harvest time, they were obliged to leave a portion – 10% – of the harvest behind to allow the poor to come after the workers and glean from the harvest something that they could subsist on. You remember the Old Testament story of Ruth gleaning wheat from the fields after Obed’s workers had completed their work at the harvest.

    But the rich man in Jesus’ story consumed everything and what may have been scraps left over from his sumptuous feasts were not shared. Now, understand the people hearing this story would not have been in any way sympathetic to the rich man. He is by all telling an obnoxious blob that consumed everything around him.

    Something to consider here. First, the poor man Lazarus lived at the rich man’s doorstep. Coming and going, the rich man would have to step over this poor man. There was no way that the rich man could not have known about his plight. So it wasn’t that this man’s poverty was far off, unseen and that the rich man was unaware of its existence. No. It lived on his doorstep, and he ignored it. This, to the listening ears of the people would have been as I said before – abhorrent – a total breakdown of Jewish law.

    So now, what happens? The poor man, Lazarus, dies and is carried away by angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also dies. But he is buried. Notice the difference between the two. The rich man is buried in the ground – his body to rot away back into dust. Lazarus, on the other hand, is carried up by angels to be with Abraham. The only other Biblical character that is treated in this manner was the prophet, Elijah.

    Back to the story. In Hades, [Hell] the rich man is tormented with thirst by the fires of hell. He looks up and sees Abraham far off across a chasm with Lazarus standing by his side – presumably enjoying the comforts of the afterlife.

    The rich man calls out for mercy. Send Lazarus to dip a finger into cool water and touch his tongue to relieve his thirst. Abraham responds, “No can do, brother.” There’s this chasm between us so that none can cross over. Besides, you enjoyed your luxury in your former life now its Lazarus’ turn.

    Another thought – there is a chasm between us, Abraham says. This is more than a description of what separates Hades from the heavenly Kingdom of God. It also describes how the rich man lived his life of luxury totally separated and apart from the needs of the poor and this poor man that he crossed over without giving him a moment’s thought in his former life.

    Then the rich man asks that Abraham send Lazarus to warn his brothers so that they won’t suffer the same fate. Abraham replies in the negative, again. “They have Moses and the prophets. They should listen to them.” But wait. The rich man says, “If someone goes to them from the dead, they will listen and repent.” Yeah – No, Abraham answers again. “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets neither will they be convinced it someone rises from the dead.”

    Woo! There’s a lot going on here. First, consider this. There has already been a Lazarus raised from the dead. We get the accounts of it in the Gospel of John not Luke, but the timeline is very close to the same – at the close of Jesus’ ministry on the road to Jerusalem. Jesus is called to the home of Mary and Martha because their brother Lazarus is dying. When Jesus arrive, Lazarus is already dead. Jesus calls Lazarus and raises him from the dead. But do the Pharisees and Elders of the people believe in Jesus as the Christ, as the Messiah. No. They don’t believe even when someone is raised from the dead. In fact the opposite is true. They immediately plot to murder both Jesus and Lazarus.

    Not only that, but Jesus is also referring to his own resurrection and that the Jewish elite – Herod and his ilk and those leaders collaborating with the Romans –  will not believe in his truthful message either even though he validates it with his rising from the dead.

    But at the heart of the parable that Jesus is teaching is that the rich have ignored their responsibility to the rest of society – to those less fortunate, to the poor. The King [Herod] who lived to enjoy lavish feasts, the Pharisees, the Scribes who took advantage of the weak by using the law against them – who Jesus had accused of feeding on widows and children – these were all the prominent and wealthy people of Palestine who had lost their connection with the people and with God. They were building up their own barns to store up their earthy wealth forgetting and ignoring their need to build up their treasures in heaven.

    There was a Rabbinical teaching at the time. It was, “The rich help the poor in this life and the poor help the rich in the next life.” The rich, Jesus was saying, had forgotten what the blessings that God had bestowed upon them were to be used for.

    The religious leaders of the people had stopped building up their store houses for the next life. They were concerned with how to survive and take advantage of their rank, position and privilege so that they could prosper in this life. They had forgotten the One who had blessed them with their positions of authority and were abusing the trust of the people and not responding to God’s expectation that they be good stewards of God’s Garden – of God’s creation.

    They were not being good stewards of the Creation entrusted to them by God and they were ignoring their responsibilities by abusing the weak and broken people who God desired they care for.

    So, what does this lectionary passage teach us – or more importantly, ask of us?

    First, I think, it is that the needy are not far from our sight but very close to our front door. We are not to ignore them, stepping over them and creating a chasm between them and us holding them off at a distance. This would be a break down of our role as good stewards of God’s Garden.

    Next, the people were told you have Moses and the prophets, and they should heed their messages. But more importantly for us, we have the Christ Jesus. If the lessons of the Old Scriptures are not clear enough for us, Jesus is wielding a blunt hammer, and his message is clear. What we have been given in this life is a gift from God. We are to be good stewards of it and make those gifts grow by nurturing and caring for them. However, we are not to forget that the source of those gifts is the Holy One and all of it [and us] belongs to God, exclusively. We cannot hide it away, hoarding it up in barns for ourselves. It must be shared with those who are the least among us. Remember, when we do it for the least of these, we are doing it for him.

  • The Dishonest Steward or To Whom Do You Belong?

    Luke 16: 1-13

    Offered to the Rockport Presbyterian Church on Sunday, September 21, 2025

    by Mel Prestamo, Elder PCUSA

    This parable in Luke is a difficult one to understand – especially if we run Luke’s text all together as the lectionary does. If we look at this reading today as one single unit it is most difficult to get a grip on what Jesus is saying in this one parable. So, let’s break this down.

    First, let’s take a look at what precedes today’s lectionary. It is the very famous parable of the Prodigal Father. I often refer to Luke fifteen as a Bible within the Bible. You can look at Luke fifteen as a microcosm of the Bible itself. Consider this, you have an idyllic circumstance of the younger son living at home with the Father in a lap of luxury and comfort. Somewhat akin to the circumstances of Adam and Eve in the Garden. Then the younger son opts to leave the loving embrace of the Father to go it on his own. Sound familiar? Once out in the world – without the protection of the Father, he sinks into debt and a malaise which finds that he has sunk so low in the muck of his life that he can no longer look up to see the grace of the Father. Then after a long time of squandering his life and resources, he finally does looks up to see that the love of God and the love he had experienced in his Father’s house are the only true goals in his life. Then, he realizes that his salvation from the depth and degradation that he has created in this life is in returning to the loving embrace of his Father. It parallels Israel’s journey as we understand it through our Scriptures, does it not? And perhaps, it is beginning to sound like some of our own personal life journeys? I know it does mine.

    Then in the prodigal parable, the Father lavishly showers love and forgiveness over the penitent son and welcomes him back into the Father’s house. But – and this is a very big BUT – there is still a debt to be paid. That is where the happy ending of the parable collides with the reality of what our sin costs. The older brother in Luke fifteen refuses to welcome back his wayward younger sibling. He refuses to forgive. He refuses to share his inheritance.

    That is where the parable of the Prodigal Father ends.

    Now remember who it is Jesus is telling this parable to. It is the Scribes, Pharisees, Elders of the Temple and the Chief Priests who disapproved of Jesus sitting with and teaching the tax collectors and sinners who had been drawn to him. So, it is on the heels of this teaching and the lesson that his audience of religious and political leaders were rejecting that Jesus turns to his own disciples and begins today’s lesson.

    In essence, Jesus is turning to his disciples and saying look at these scoundrels. Look at how successful they are in what they do and how they go about their business in this life. Look at how dedicated they are in procuring their earthly wealth and building up their positions in this life and how they succeed in accumulating wealth and friends in this world. Oh, if only you all were as proficient in storing up riches in the next life as they are in accumulating wealth in this life. Let’s see how Jesus goes about teaching this lesson.

    The first thing to understand is that Jesus is using a grouping of characters who are the choicest set of rouges you will ever see in a Gospel story. It is clear that Jesus is comparing these rouges in this parable to the leaders who had rejected and refused his teachings. They were clearly represented by the older brother in Jesus’ parable. They, too, refuse to celebrate in the Father’s joy at the return of his lost children. I think Jesus may be accusing them of refusing to enter the Father’s house, as well.

    So now in today’s lectionary, Jesus begins by taking at this unusual set of rogues and weaving them into a new parable. But first, who are they?

    First there is the steward. This steward was a slave who had been put in charge of his master’s estate. The master in this case may have been an absentee landlord. The slave was appointed to manage and oversee the various parts of the estate that were rented out to other small farmers and the like who used and developed the resources on the estate. We can assume this by way of the reports that the master received that the steward had been dishonest and made a career of embezzlement.

    Then we have the actual debtors who owed the rents that needed to be paid to the steward on behalf of the master. How are they rogues? Well, when the steward realizes that he has been ratted out and caught in his duplicity that he must come up with a plan to ensure his future comforts. So, he reaches out to the various debtors to his master, and he concocts a scheme to defraud the master of the true amounts owed to him. He, along with the debtors adjust the books so to speak as to the true amounts and weights due as payments for their rents so that they would only pay a portion of their true debt.

    Why does the steward to this. First, it is to cause the debtors to be grateful to him so that if and when he is turned out of his master’s house, he would have people indebted to him and willing to welcome him into their homes. Second, and an even more devious part of his scheme, it would mean involving them in his crime so that if it came to it, he would be able to blackmail them into providing the future comforts he would be looking for.

    Now the master. He himself was a rogue of sorts, as well. Instead of being outraged at the steward’s actions to defraud him yet again; instead, he applauds him showing admiration for his shrewdness. For someone to appreciate such blackness of heart, one’s own heart must be equally as black.

    So in this parable of rogues, thievery, and the blackness of hearts, what positive lesson is Jesus trying to impart to his disciples.

    It’s difficult to discern because of the way that Luke retells this parable especially when you consider Jesus is directing the lesson directly to his disciples. Why is Jesus using a story with such a set of rogues to teach his disciples some positive life lesson. The difficulty arises in part because there are four different lessons in this parable. Let’s look at them.

    First in verse eight there is the lesson that the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of the light. What is Jesus saying?

    In holding up these rogues as examples, Jesus is saying that they are shrewder and more adept in taking advantage of the riches available to them in this world than his followers are in building up riches in heaven. I will paraphrase Bible scholar William Barclay’s comments this way, “…if Christians were as eager and ingenious in their attempts to attain a righteous relationship with God as those with more worldly concerns are in their attempts to build up earthly wealth then we all would be much better persons. If only we would give as much attention to the things concerning our souls as we do the things of business, we would be much better human beings.”

    Barclay’s comments help to open this parable up a bit for us to see where Jesus is going.

    Next in verse nine, we learn that material possessions should be used to cement the friendships where the real and permanent value of life lies. This happens all the time in real life, does it not? We make contracts and agreements with people around us that build relationships that become strong bonds that help us as we navigate this world and its perils. Jesus is extending this principal into the eternal world that is to come.

    This can be done in two ways.

    First, it could be done in such a way as it affects our eternal lives and souls. The Rabbis of Jesus’ time had a saying, “The rich help the poor in this world, but the poor help the rich in the world to come.” It was a Jewish belief that charity given to the poor would stand to a person’s credit in the world to come. The ancient Jews believed in a Book kept by God that detailed the good and evil things we do in our lives, and they believed that when the rich helped the poor it added credits to their ledger. Now, we as Christians know this not to be the case. We know that we cannot by our own actions earn our way into the Kingdom. We believe that only the sacrificial blood of the Christ is able to wash us clean of our inequities. But nonetheless that was the thinking at the time.

    Second and more to the point, our wealth can be used to affect and change the things in this world. In other words, our wealth can be used to make the lives of the less fortunate in this world easier. Barclay puts it this way, “Possessions are not in themselves a sin, but they are a great responsibility, and those who use them to help friends and neighbors in need have gone a great distance to discharge that responsibility.” The point being, it is not evil to be wealthy if we understand what the purpose of our wealth is and how we should use that wealth.

    Now to verses ten and eleven. These lessons are – that how we fulfill small tasks in this world is the best proof of our fitness or unfitness in fulfilling bigger tasks. That is true in how we promote people in jobs in this world – that is, we promote someone to a more difficult job position once they have proven they are capable of success at easier tasks. But Jesus extends this principle to life eternal. Let’s paraphrase Jesus’ words.

    Upon this earth we are charged with caring for things over which we are only stewards – God’s garden, God’s creation. When we die, we cannot take any of this with us. They are only on loan to us. We are only stewards. However, if we are good stewards over God’s creation in this life then we will be given what is really important – a life eternal with the Father in the Father’s house. In other words, what we are given in heaven depends on how we use and care for – how we steward – the things of this world.

    The final lesson comes to us in verse thirteen. It is the one we are probably most familiar with. No slave can serve two masters. How does the King James version  put it? “You cannot serve God and mammon.”

    Now understanding this is helped when we realize that back in the day a slave was the possession of their master, exclusively. A slave had no spare time of their own. Every moment of their lives belonged to the master. They had no time that was their own. Every moment of every day belonged to the master. Now that is different from today where many of us have secondary part-time jobs. We try to find ways to augment our incomes using our off hours filling them with outside work. Not so with the slaves of Jesus’ time and more importantly it is not true of our relationship with God. Once we choose to serve God every moment of our time and every atom of our energy belongs to God. We are God’s, exclusively. We belong totally to God or not at all.

    So, let’s start drawing some conclusions from today’s lessons.

    First, if you come into this place and profess a faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Master, you belong to God, exclusively. And if you belong to God exclusively you cannot put the things of this world – its wealth and resources – above God. You cannot exclusively belong to God while dedicating yourself first to accumulating riches in this world. You must first dedicate your life to building up a righteous relationship with God so that you will have a place in eternity in God’s house.

    You are called to be good stewards of the gifts and talents that God has bestowed upon you, yes. But you must realize that you cannot take the things of this world with you into the next. Also, you are called to be a Good Steward of the tasks appointed to you in this life so that you can prove you are worthy of greater things in the next. You are called to be as shrewd in using the resources gifted to you by God to build up a righteous relationship with God as non-believers are in using the wealth they accumulate in this world to build up their comforts here. What does that mean? Simply this, we must use our gifts and talents to make this world a better, softer, and easier existence for those in need around us. That would be the work of a good steward who belongs exclusively to his master, God. That is how we go about completing the tasks in this life that will build a righteous relationship with God that assures us a place in God’s house for all of eternity.

    This is how you can know to whom you belong.

  • Sir Give Us This Bread

    Offered to the congregation of the Long Valley Presbyterian Church on July 25, 2021

    by Mel Prestamo, Elder PCUSA

    As we prepare to look at this passage in John this morning, I think it is important to take a step back to understand what John is trying to accomplish in his Gospel. I am sure, that you all already know that the way John’s Gospel tells of the ministry of Jesus is very much different from what are known as the Synoptic Gospels. One of my favorite ways of describing the differences between the four Gospels is to say that Matthew, Mark and Luke tell us what happened; John tells us why it happened. This telling of the Feeding of the five thousand is a perfect example. In Matthew, he devotes 9 versus to the event; [that is Matt 14: 13-21]. He simply tells us it happened. John devotes 14 verses in chapter 6: 1-13 but follows it up with 38 additional verses [22-59] to provide meaning and understanding. After 70 or so years of mulling and thinking about Jesus’ ministry, John has much deeper insight that he meanss to share; and if we are going to benefit and grow in our knowledge of Jesus, then we have to follow John down his very rich and rewarding rabbit hole.

    In the first three Gospels, the writers tell us with a great degree of compassion the story of the life and ministry of Jesus. Mark says that Jesus is moved with compassion for the Leper. Mark also tells us that Jesus had sympathy for Jairus regarding the impending death of his daughter. When Jesus raises the son of the widow, Luke tells us with tenderness how Jesus gave him to his mother. We are told that Jesus wept at the death of his friend Lazarus. But in John, the telling of the miracles that Jesus preformed have a different purpose. For John their purpose was not so much to show Jesus’ compassion as it was to demonstrate the glory of Christ and through Christ the glory of God.

    At the Cana, John says to us, “This was the first of his signs … to manifest his glory. [John 2:11] Of the raising of Lazarus, he says it was for the glory of God. [John11:4] For John, it was not that there was no love or compassion in Jesus’ miracle acts but that in every one of them we see the glory of God manifested through Jesus into our human time and space. These miracles were signs that revealed to us a glimpse of who God is. And this is vitally important if we are to understand John. Every one of the miracles that Jesus preforms opens up for us a glimpse into who God is. And the critically most important element of these signs, is that these glimpses of God are ONLY opened to us through the Christ.

    So, with that as our backdrop, let’s take a look at the miracle of the Feeding of the Five Thousand.

    Right at the top, I am going to suggest to you that there are three ways in which we can look at this miracle. The first would be very plainly that it was an outright miracle where sparse and meager gifts were turned into a magnificent meal. And certainly, the text stands on its own in substantiating that view. The second is that it might have been a sacramental meal; that is like our communion the elements are tiny parcels of the bread and wine and that is what everyone received. That is just an OK explanation for me. But the third is a much more compelling explanation for me.

    We are told in the story that the “Passover Feast was near.” What does that tell us? Well, it means that thousands of Jews were on the road on their way to Jerusalem for the celebration of the Passover. Remember it was a requirement of the Law that anyone within one day’s journey must make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. A census taken by Roman historians revealed that the population of Jerusalem would swell to over 2 million people during the time of Passover. Now, what is important to understand, is that these people didn’t have fast food restaurants or convenience stores along the road where they could stop off to get food for their journey. No, if they were making this trek, they would have to plan to bring enough food for themselves when they needed to stop and eat. And that’s what we see when Andrew finds the young boy who had five loaves of Barley bread and two fishes. This meager meal is what the lad had brought along for the journey for his own nourishment. It is reasonable to assume that many of the people in the crowd that day had done the same to one extent or another. Perhaps, Andrew went through the crowd and was turned away by vast numbers who indeed had something to share but refused, and it was only this boy who was willing to give of what he had.

    Andrew brings this boy and his offering to Jesus. Jesus tells his disciples to tell the crowd to sit on the grass. Jesus begins by giving thanks to God with a traditional Jewish prayer of thanks. “Blessed are thou, O Lord, our God, who causes to come forth bread from the earth.” Now one of two things happens at this point. We can either imagine the loaves and fish regenerating themselves over and over and pilling up before Jesus so that there suddenly appeared enough food to feed all; OR, we can envision Jesus solemnly praying to God and that prayer was as much praise as it was a request that the hearts of those in the crowd who had food to eat would be moved to come forward and share. Then we see a similar miracle. This one is not simply that Jesus replicated and reproduced vast amounts of food but that his prayer has silently moved the hearts of the thousands of people and they came forward to share. This version exposes for us an even greater glimpse into the majesty of Jesus and God. That Jesus, the Father and the Holy Spirit can reach into the hearts of people and move them to preform great works of sacrifice and sharing. Either way, we see a miracle of Jesus’ doing.

    What we see is a meager gift offering that a believer brings to the Christ and how in Jesus’ hands miracles happen. For John, this is an opportunity for us to see the glory of God. This is a chance for us to see how Jesus uses our gifts and offerings, the personal offerings that each of us place in the basket each week. On the surface, our own individual gifts may seem small and inadequate. But in his hands – in God’s hands, miracles can and do happen.

    It is to the glory of God that Jesus provides food to feed the people. Either way that you view how the miracle happened, it is to the glory of God. In this instance we see a glimpse of the God that feeds the people. We see the God that nourishes and sustains us.

    How?

    OK. Answering this question is when we get down to the nitty gritty. And to understand what’s going on we need to go further on in the text to verses 22 and beyond.

    In the following verses, we learn that Jesus had snuck away to avoid the crowds because they were moving to assert him as king after he had fed them. So, the next day the crowd searches and finds him in Capernaum. They ask him when did arrive and how. Jesus’ response is to plainly say to them that they are searching for him not because of the signs that he had performed, the glimpses of God’s glory that he gave them, but because he fed them. Jesus says to them, “Do not search for food that perishes, but for food which lasts and gives eternal life, that food which the Son of Man will give you; for the Father, God, has set his seal upon him.”

    What is Jesus saying here? He reads the crowd plainly and he calls them out for their shortsightedness. He knows they are nothing more than groupies following the latest pop star. And he says it directly. I’ll paraphrase it here, “the only reason you are here is because I fed you. I have shown you Signs of God, but you have not preceived them. You have come for bread to eat; but the bread that you search for will perish and leave you hungry tomorrow. I can give you so much more. The bread that I can give you will feed you forever and give you eternal life.”

    And what is their response? In verse 30 we read, “What signs are you going to perform that we may see and believe in you?”

    Are you kidding me? Are you blind? Well, yes. Many of them were. Jesus fed 5,000 people the day before and you come asking, “What signs will you perform?” He has raised people from death. He has cured the blind and the leper. And you ask, what sign will you perform?

    They go on to speak of bread feeding miracles in Jewish history that is when Moses fed them manna in the desert. In other words, “we have seen this trick before”. But Jesus counters saying, Moses did not feed you the manna, God did. Further, “The bread of God is HE who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” Now, it appears that they are beginning to get it. They respond, “Sir, give us that bread.” But their response is as if to say, “Where is it? Where can we buy it?”

    Jesus responds by saying to them it’s right here in front of you, “I am the bread from heaven.”

    Now this creates up a fire storm of questions in the crowd. Who is this guy? Isn’t he not the son of Joseph who we have known as a boy? How can he say, I come down from heaven?

    But Jesus persists. “I am the bread of life. He who believes will have eternal life. Your fathers ate manna in the desert, and they died. This is the bread of life come down from heaven that you may eat of it and not die… Anyone who eats of this bread will live forever.”

    Now we have to pause a moment and understand what Jesus means by “Bread”. It is not any earthly type of food manna or otherwise. What Jesus is speaking of is the “WORD” of God. Jesus is the Word made flesh. From John 1, “The Word was in the beginning. The Word was with God. The Word was God.” Jesus has come to reveal to us the sustaining and lifegiving love of God. Hearing the “Word” of God spoken by Jesus is feeding on the Bread that will give us eternal life.

    So, when we look back at the feeding of the 5,000, we need to realize how temporary that earthly food was. And Jesus points that out to them. They were fed yesterday and here you are today looking to be fed again. He tells them, you need to be looking for something more substantial. You need to be looking for the bread that brings you closer to knowing who God is, closer to having an intimate relationship with God, closer to knowing the Name of God.

  • All Are Welcome In my Father’s House

    Gospel Lesson: John: 14-1-14

    Offered to the Highlands Presbyterian Church on November 7, 2021 by Mel Prestamo, Elder PCUSA

    This morning is Reformation Sunday and perhaps a preacher with a stronger background in the Reformation and Martin Luther would be speaking to you today about the great history and theological meaning of the Reformation. Or perhaps, because of the secular calendar and today being Halloween, a more clever preacher might have developed an entertaining Ghost and Goblins message. I tried; it didn’t work for me.

    This past Monday in our church calendar was All Saint’s Day. So, I have decided today to focus on it and its meaning to our collective church. On our church calendar, tomorrow is All Saint’s Day. Being raised Roman Catholic, our parish always made a big deal about it. It was a special day set aside to remember all the Saints that have gone before us. But after years of the RC experience oddly enough, it was a Presbyterian pastor that brought out some real meaning of the day for me and I hope that you all will enjoy what we have planned a bit later as we remember the Saints in our lives that have gone before us.

    In the Gospel passage from John that we read today, Jesus discusses with his disciples where he is going and that they can’t go with him, but they will follow him there. It’s a bit confusing. Well, take a moment and put yourself in the shoes of Andrew, Thomas, Peter and John. They were more than confused. At the prospect of being separated from Jesus they were terrified.

    In this passage, Jesus is talking with his disciples at a time of great uncertainty. Jesus has spent a great deal of time trying to explain to his core group what will be happening to him. He would be betrayed and handed over to the authorities, beaten and ultimately put to death. Their reaction was a stunned silence. A fear of abandonment struck them deep within their hearts. After all, they have invested three years of their lives in following the person they believed to be the Messiah. Now whether they thought he would reconquer Jerusalem and take it back from the Romans or in some other way, establish a kingdom, didn’t matter. They had invested time, heart and soul into him. But now, instead of riding on to great victory, they are being told that he will be leaving them; and not because he’s found a more worthy group; but because he is going to be put to death. Imagine their shock, their utter feeling of despair. Instead of being part of a glorious kingdom that would be established on the earth, they are being told that he would be leaving them. It must have caused a great feeling of anxiety and fear in them and left them looking out over an abyss of uncertainty.

    Have we experienced this type of circumstance? Have we sat talking to a loved one; one who was not long for this world? Where we faced the abyss of uncertainty that death causes, of being left behind, alone? It is hard to have a rejoicing heart, celebrating with God that a child is joining God in heaven. For us who are left behind in this world, it is hard to have comfort in their glorious resurrection.

    It is at times such as these that we need to know that we are safe and secure; that we are cared for. Who is it that holds us in his hands and guides us through the pain of loss? It is the Christ. It is our faith in him that gives us the assurance that he has gone to the Father and that he prepares a place for us and is waiting to receive us.

    So, Jesus said to the disciples as he says to us, “Don’t be worried! Have faith in God and have faith in me.” At times of great uncertainty, there is only one thing that we can do; that is, to stubbornly hold on to our trust in God. There are times when we have to believe what we cannot prove and we have to accept what we cannot understand. If in the darkest hour, we believe that somehow there is a purpose in life and that purpose is LOVE, then even the unbearable becomes bearable and even in the darkest hour there is a glimmer of light.

    Here is where we find the disciples. They are being told that they are about to face their darkest hour. And what’s more, they will be facing it without Him. He is leaving them. And their response is to ask that he would take them with him. Jesus tells them, “No. Where I am going, you can not follow.” What Jesus means here is that on his path to reconciliation with God through his pain and death on the cross, there can be no surrogates. He has to walk that road alone. So, he tells them, he will be leaving them; but…But, … “do not be afraid. Believe in God and believe in me.” At the time when we do not understand what is happening, believe in God and believe in Jesus. When the hour is darkest, believe in God and believe in Jesus. When life is unbearable, believe in God and believe in Jesus.

    In Psalm 141, the psalmist writes hundreds of years before the time of the Christ, “O Lord, God; in thee I seek refuge.” If the Psalmist could believe that, how much easier is it for us because we have Jesus. Jesus is proof that God is willing to give us everything that God has to give. Paul writes in Romans, the “God that did not spare his own Son … [God] gave him up for us all. If God did this, will not God give us all things in the Christ?” With that amazing Love to bolster us up, it may not be easy, but at least it is possible to accept what we may not understand and bear the storms of life.

    So, the disciples are facing an abyss of uncertainty. Jesus is telling them that the Son of Man must be raised up on the Cross and that he will be going to the Father and they are stunned with the idea that they will be left behind and alone. Jesus speaks these words of assurance to them and us.

    “There are many abiding places in my Father’s house. If it were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I am coming again, and I will welcome you to myself, that where I am, there you may be, too.”

    Now the words “abiding places” have differing theological meanings. The Jews believed in gradations of blessedness. The Greeks held that there were stages along the way and we could progress form one level of blessedness to the next. Early Church thinkers spoke of degrees of glory in heaven. There is something attractive about the notion that our souls do not stop growing in closeness to Jesus and in revelation in God but that after death we continue to grow, ever onward growing closer to God.

    But, I would like to stay with the more simple explanation and that is in heaven, there is room for all. Jesus is telling his disciples that we are all living in a world where people close doors on us. Sometimes, those closings can be arbitrary with very little reason. But God’s love is from everlasting to everlasting. Heaven is as wide as the heart of God and there is room for us all. They [we] need not be worried and concerned about the uncertainties; for he will come again and take us all to himself as He has the Saints that have gone before. This is the ultimate triumph of Jesus. He will come again and take us to himself. He has prepared the way. He has blazoned the trail so that we may follow.

    That is the way it would be for the disciples and so it is for the Saints that have gone before us; the ones whose memories we will celebrate today. Jesus has blazoned the trail and prepared a way for them to follow. And they are now growing closer to the Christ and to God in every moment of their everlasting. It is their resurrection to a closeness to God that we will be celebrating today.

    Now for those of us who have doubts, there is Thomas. Thomas was never one to fear of having doubts or asking for explanations. Thomas says, “Lord, we do not know where you are going.” Then he asks, “How do we know the way?” We should thank God for Thomas as much as for any Saint in history. For Thomas asks the questions for us and his questions give Jesus the opportunity to respond.

    Jesus says to them, “I am the Way, [I am] the Truth and [I am] the Life.

    What better answer do we have for any of our doubts. But for a Jew of the time, it had an even greater meaning.

    Jews talked about the “way” in which we must walk and the “ways” of God. God said to Moses, “You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. You shall walk in all the ways which the Lord, your God, has commanded you.” Isaiah speaks to us, “Your ears shall hear a word behind you saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it.’” The psalmist says, “Teach me your ways.”

    You know when we are trying to get around in an unfamiliar town and get lost, we may stop someone to ask for directions. And they might say to us, “Well, you go down to your third left and make a right and proceed to the office building and then make two lefts to the next right.” That would not be very helpful. But if they were to say, “I’m going that way. Let me take your there.” That would be the more comforting response. So, it is with Jesus. He does not simply give us advice. He takes us by the hand to show us the way.

    About Truth, the Psalmist says, “Teach me your ways, O Lord, that I may walk in Truth.” Truth today has become very subjective. We are bombarded by media, social and otherwise, telling us that we can determine facts for ourselves and decide what is true or not. That we can be our own diviners, that truth is relative, and we can pick and choose what is true. But the Psalmist tells us otherwise. The Psalmist tells us the Truth comes in walking in the “Way” of the Lord. And Jesus tells us that He is the “Way,” so it follows that Truth is in Jesus. You know many a person can say to you, “I am speaking the truth to you.” I could say that I am teaching truth to you here today. But I can never say, no other person can ever say, “I am the Truth.” Jesus is not only the best teacher of truth; Jesus is the realization of Truth. In following Jesus in His Way, we learn Truth.

    In Proverbs the writer says, “He who heeds instructions is on the path of life.” The Psalmist tells us, “Thou dost show me the path of life.” In the final analysis, what we are all seeking is life. You can say that we seek knowledge or love; but that is true only if those things make life worth living. And what is it that makes life worth living for a Christian? It is knowing that Jesus is the Way; that Jesus is Truth and from those we receive Life, a new Life in Christ.

    And Jesus tells us, if you see these things in me, then you have seen the Father. “No one comes to the Father except through me.” What does this mean? Does it mean that anyone that does not confess Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior is condemned to eternal damnation? No, I don’t think Jesus is explicitly saying that. What I believe He is saying is, if you want to know God, if you want to see the Father, then Jesus is your best and only way of doing that. Other prophets, mystics and teachers can lead exemplary lives but none of them can be the Way of God. They can tell you the truth but no one of them is the Truth. They can raise your spirits but none of them can give you new Life. That is what Jesus is for us and for anyone seeking to know God.

    Therefore, do not be afraid. Believe in God. Believe in Jesus. Amen.

  • Who are you looking for?

    Offered to the congregation of the First Church of Hanover Easter Morning March 2021

    Text: John 20: 1-18

    Mary was left alone at the tomb. John, who outraced Peter to the entrance and the impetuous Peter who just rushed in had been there, inspected the inside of the Tomb but then returned to their locked room. But, Mary remained and was left alone at the tomb.

    The men had entered the tomb. What did they find there?

    Peter was the first to go into the Tomb. John was hesitant but then followed Peter in. They looked around. John describes what they found. They saw the linen clothes lying there. He tells us that he saw the napkin which had been laid upon Jesus’ head…still in its folds. What does that mean, “…still in its folds”? It means that everything that they found were just lying neatly there – not in a heap or tossed aside. No, they were still in their folds; in other words, just as they had been on Jesus’ body; they remained in the tomb.

    If the grave site had been rustled and the body stolen, then the linens would have been tossed aside or taken with the body. Instead, they remained “in their folds” as Jesus had risen out of them. That is what they saw. But John goes on to say, “they did not realize the meaning of scripture, that Jesus should rise from the dead. In fact, as we will hear in Luke’s account of the Lord’s Supper later, the disciples didn’t recognize him until after he had broken and blessed the bread. So, the two disciples returned to their lodgings.”

    John tells us that they saw; they believed but they did not understand. So, they left. They returned to their locked room.

    The one witness who came again and remained was Mary. She sat outside the tomb and wept. After a time, she looked back into the Tomb and saw two Angels at the place where Jesus had been lying.

    They asked her, “Why are you crying?” As if to ask, why are you not celebrating? Mary answered, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid them.” At this time, Mary was looking “backwards” into the Tomb. It was at this moment, perhaps she was disturbed by something, she turns and sees a man; perhaps because her tears and her grief were blinding her, she could not recognize who it was. The man asks her, “Woman why are you crying? Who are you looking for?”

    Now, there is a lot of supposition as to why Mary doesn’t recognize who the man is. I suggested earlier that her grief and tears blinded her. We can leave it at that. But we will see in later accounts of Jesus greeting the disciples on the road to Emmaus and in the upper room that at first none of them recognized him. There was something else going on.

    Jesus had risen. But he was not simply was resuscitated or awakened, Jesus had risen into his glory. His glory is that he was now joined with the Father. This resurrected Christ was more than a human being. His flesh and bones had been glorified. His personage was somehow changed. It was Jesus but something was different. The God Head was becoming more visible. And that somehow changed his appearance.

    Thinking it was the gardener, Mary asks the man, “Sir, if you are the man who has removed him, tell me where you have laid him; and I will take him away.” Perhaps at this point, Mary turns back to look at the empty tomb and with her back to the man, she hears a voice call her name, “Mary.” And in that instance, she turns again to the man whose voice she recognizes. Do you remember the parable of the Good Shepherd where Jesus teaches, “my sheep will know my voice.” As she turns, she calls the familiar name she had always called the man with that voice, “Rabbouni.”

    So, let’s take a breadth and step back from the narrative and try to understand theology what John is telling us.

    Mary, at first doesn’t recognize the man that for the past three years has been her teacher. Now, I have allowed the assumption that she was in grief and blinded by her tears. That is a very reasonable. But if you, for a moment, let your mind’s eye create for you a scene. Imagine Mary, in her grief turning and looking back into the Tomb. OK? Now remember and make a connection with Jesus’ question, “Who are you looking for?”

    Mary is looking backwards, away from the Christ, and into the empty Tomb. She doesn’t see Jesus because she is looking in the wrong place and in the wrong direction. She is looking backwards into her grief not seeing the glory and resurrection of the Christ.

    That is a very telling point for the Gospel writer, John.

    He is very clear that he and Peter have entered the tomb and have inspected it but have not understood what they were seeing. They, probably fearful, of all the possible conspiracies that the Jewish authorities might have been planning, ran back to their locked room. They did not see the Christ and he might have been standing there. Perhaps, they would have seen the same gardener that Mary had bumped into. They didn’t see him because they were looking in the wrong place. They were looking backwards into the Tomb and not for the resurrection. They were expecting that there would be death in the Tomb. But death was not there. The Tomb was empty. All that was there now was resurrection.

    Mary almost makes the same mistake. She is grief-stricken; her eyes are filled with tears; and, she is looking the wrong way.

    Then, she hears a familiar voice call her name, “Mary.”

    It is at that moment, when she is called, that she turns again and can see the risen Lord.

    Now, it is the same Christ, that she was blinded to, who she can now see clearly because he has called her by name.

    The writer, John, spends a great deal of time throughout his Gospel tells us that Jesus did not come into the world to condemn the world but that it is us by our actions, refusing to see Jesus for who he is, the Christ, the Son of God that condemn ourselves. That is one of the underlying themes throughout John’s Gospel.

    While Mary is looking in the wrong place, in the wrong direction, we can hear John telling us that we need to be looking for God in only one place and that is in the Christ: not in a dead human form but for the risen Lord.

    We will not find Jesus if we are looking in the Tomb. The Tomb represents all that Jesus has triumphed over and all that should be dead to us. If we are looking backwards into the Tomb, we won’t find him there.

    We have to do what Mary does. When she recognizes him, she grabs hold of him.

    Now in the text, it says that Jesus tells Mary not to touch him. But there are suggestions that this could be a mistranslation and that what Jesus might have said was, Don’t hold me. Or stop holding me. It’s all in how you read the Greek. The difference of one letter can change the meaning.

    But again, using your mind’s eye, imagine Mary’s immediate reaction and that it would be one of impulse. And in that impulsive moment, she grabs ahold of the Lord once she realized who he was.

    This is the reaction we should have towards Jesus. We should not have one of intellectual understanding but one of pure joy and exhilaration; a reaction in which our joy explodes, and we reach out to clutch at our Lord attempting to hold him tightly to our bosom.

    Now, you might understand Jesus saying to Mary, “Stop holding onto me.” You have a task to perform. Go and tell my brothers what you have seen.

    So, that is what Mary does. She runs back to the city, to Peter and John and the rest of the disciples who are still in hiding. She announces triumphant exuberance, “I have seen the Lord.” She announces to Peter and John, look at what you missed because you were looking in the wrong place. “I have seen the Lord.” He called me by my name, and I recognized his voice.

    Like Mary, Jesus calls us by name. We need to listen to hear his voice and when we recognize it, we need to redirect our gaze in a new direction. We need to turn to face Jesus. Not only to know about him intellectually but to grab ahold of him and let him pull us tightly to his bosom and then experience the joy of knowing who he is – the Son of God; the Word of God that spoke Creation into existence and who has died to heal the brokenness of Creation; the Son of the Almighty who has bought our salvation with his blood; conquered death for us; and who has risen out of the Tomb for us.

    The Tomb is empty. He has risen. He is Risen Indeed!

  • Jesus Is the Great I Am

    Offered to the congregation of Long Valley Presbyterian Church on Palm Sunday 2017 by Ruling Elder, Mel Prestamo

    Matthew 21: 1-11

    The prophets of Israel had a distinctive way of getting their message across. It was along the line of: when words fail to move people, do something dramatic. They would say, “If you will not hear, you will be compelled to hear.”

    In a very real way, that is what Jesus did during his last days in Jerusalem leading up to his conquering of death and his Resurrection.

    Like the prophets of old, you could almost hear Jesus saying:

    • You ask, who is this man that feeds thousands. I will show you that “I am”.
    • You ask, who is this man that raises the dead to life. I will show you that “I am”.
    • You ask, if this man is the Messiah. I will show you that “I am!”

    It is in this light that I wanted to trace Jesus’ final days on Earth and how they began with an event that we almost throw off and dismiss in its significance. Sometimes, we become so accustomed to hearing the Passion Week story that the details begin to lose their significance.

    The first event that I was struck by was when Jesus sent two of his disciples to go a take a donkey from the front of someone’s home. He tells them, “Go to the next village and as soon as you enter it, you will see a donkey there… Untie it and bring it here… If anyone asks what you are doing, tell them, “The Lord needs it…”

    Curious, isn’t it that Jesus would instruct his disciples to go and steal a donkey for a joy ride? Of course, that isn’t what is happening. Jesus is instructing two of his followers to go to pick up something for him that he has prearranged. And that is a very important fundamental underpinning of the events that unfold during Jesus’ last days in Jerusalem. The underlying story behind this brief passage is that Jesus leaves nothing to chance. Beginning with the choice of donkeys and the prearrangements to use them is planning down to the minute detail. If you are to understand anything that follows, you must understand this: Jesus has planned it out. Jesus was in charge. That must be the filter through which you see what follows.

    In the same way, don’t miss sight of the symbolism of selecting a foal of an ass that had never been ridden upon. From Numbers and Deuteronomy, we know that the Arc of the Covenant – Israel’s most sacred and prized possession – must be carried in a cart that had never been used for any purpose before. So high was the import of the sacredness of the Arc. The Hebrews would not even allow it to be carried by a cart that was previously used. We can observe the special sacredness of the Jesus’ procession that the ass he rode upon had never been ridden upon before. So, it is not just that the king arrives on an ass in peace, but that the ass that has never been ridden upon. The symbolism is that it is carrying something sacred.

    The construct of the events of Jesus’ last days is meticulous down to minute details like these.

    Let’s talk briefly about day that Jesus chose to make his entry into Jerusalem. He chose the days of the Passover celebration. Now, we have read in our scriptures that there were crowds, HUGE crowds. Just how large were those crowds?

    Earlier this week, I had asked church friend how many people he thought would have been on the road for Jesus’ procession. He thought for a moment and considered Jerusalem wasn’t that big a city and the surrounding towns were just small villages. He suggested: a couple thousand. What do you think? How many?   Here’s an indication. Sometime after Jesus’ resurrection, a Roman official was trying to explain to the Caesar just how important the Passover time was to the Jewish people and how dangerous the time could be. He commissioned a census by the chief priests to count the number of sheep sacrificed in the Temple during the Passover Feast. The count they came up with was 256,000 sheep. Now Jewish law specified that there could be no fewer than 10 people participating in the sacrifice of any one sheep. There could be more. But it could be no less than 10. So, if you do the math and extrapolate for some cases where there were more than 10 people on a sacrifice, the estimate of the census concluded that there was about 3 million people in Jerusalem during the Passover Celebration. This is recorded by the historian Josephus.

    Now when we think of the crowd along the road to Jerusalem on the day that Jesus entered Jerusalem, what number did you imagine? 10,000, 25,000, 50,000, 100,000? Well, it is not an exaggeration to suggest there could have been closer to a half million people on the road. Many of them would have been on the road as Jesus began his entry into the city. Picture the scene now. Now, you can begin to envision the likes of a mammoth procession – a ticker tape parade, if you will.

    So, Jesus begins his entry into the city. The crowds are aware of who he is. They have heard of him – this is the holy man that feeds thousands of people with bread and fish; this is the prophet who raises the dead to life. And perhaps, Lazarus walking alongside him. The crowds began to swell. Is this our Messiah, finally? Are we to be freed of the Romans and every godless gentile that infects our city? They rush to see him. Thinking that Jesus is the great leader that will free and save them from Roman domination, they begin chanting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

    That’s another curious thing. For us the word Hosanna has become a word of praise. For Jews in Palestine, it had a different meaning. It actually meant, “Save us!” It was the greeting the people gave Maccabaeus when he entered the city 150 years before after he had expelled an occupying foreign army from Israel. He, too entered the city on an ass as a conquering hero coming into the city in peace.

    The people were calling to Jesus, “Save us!” They called for him to save them from the Romans. Save us from these gentiles that infect out sacred city. Save us from the yoke they have placed upon us just as Maccabaeus had 150 years before. This was a welcome for the conquering hero that the people wanted Jesus to be.

    Now, to be clear, Jesus was not trying to impress the people that he was the next Maccabaeus. On the contrary, the symbolism that Jesus was using was one of contrasts. He comes as a king riding on an ass in peace. But he was not a conquering military hero. He had no army. That was a distinction the people missed.

    That was the scene, the frenzy of the event of Jesus entering the city of Jerusalem. That is what the Chief Priests looked out at from the city walls. That is what they were now being forced to deal with. The people were receiving a conquering hero while the city of Jerusalem, all of Israel and the chief priests were under the denomination of Roman rule. This was an enormous threat to their position of authority, their control of the Temple, and their ability to continue to rule. This Jesus was going to be a problem. And how they were going to deal with him was going to be a thorny issue.

    Now Jesus’ plan continues to unfold. 150 years prior, Maccabaeus expelled the foreigners and went to the Temple to purify it. What does Jesus do? He goes into the Temple and begins to over turn tables and beat and whip money changers. But these weren’t foreigners who were defiling the Temple. These were licensed vendors doing business with the blessings of the chief priests. You’ve got to wince at the irony here. Jesus is purifying the Temple of the defilement not created by Roman rule but that was created by the chief priests themselves. This, as millions of people are coming to the Temple to make their sacrifice. Now this is no small thing. The chief priests had their fingers in every exchange that took place in the Temple. There have been estimates that the Temple Treasury had amassed millions of dollars in wealth. The enterprise they had going made the Temple Treasury one of the richest of the ancient world. And the Romans didn’t touch it as-long-as the chief priests were able to keep the peace. And now, there is this Jesus fellow who in one day shut has down the entire enterprise and then occupied the Temple by sitting and teaching there. Millions of dollars and control of the city were now in jeopardy.

    So, what is the result of all of this? The Chief Priests came to the conclusion that they have to get rid of this Jesus. So, they begin to plot. But how? They can’t just arrest him while he is teaching in the Temple. We know that is where he is. Mark tells us, he is teaching the people the parable of the Renters of the Vineyard. The Pharisees try to entrap him with their carefully and craftily worded question about paying taxes. You know how Jesus foiled them, Render unto Caesar… What were they to do? They couldn’t find a way.

    That’s where Judas comes in – this man so filled with Zionist dreams and greed. He provides the means for the Chief Priests to arrest Jesus out of the sight of the people while he was praying at night in solitude. It was just the plan the authorities needed. So, they set it up. Once it was done, they had him.

    So now what? They want to execute him. Ah, but not so easy. They have to convict him first by trial by the Sanhedrin. The problem is, like every other part of Jewish law, there is procedure; there is ritual; there is a prescribed way to do things. For a trial to result in a conviction a man to be executed the rules were:

    • The trial must take place within the walls of the Temple in a room referred to the Hall of Hewn Stone. A decision of the Sanhedrin was not valid unless it was reached there.
    • The court could not meet at night, nor could it meet during any great feast time – what time of day was it? Night. What time of year? Passover.
    • Witnesses must be examined separately and agree in every detail
    • The accused could not be asked leading questions in order to convict him.
    • Each member of the Sanhedrin must cast their vote separately from the youngest to the eldest
    • The vote must be unanimous
    • If the verdict was death, one day and night must lapse before it was carried out to allow for any member to change their mind and stay the execution.

    The Sanhedrin broke all its own rules to convict Jesus.

    • The trial took place in the home of the high priest, Ciafus.
    • The trial took place at night during the Passover Feast.
    • The witnesses did not agree on any details [One said, “He cured my blindness”; another said, “He said he would destroy the Temple and build it up in three days”, and so on] But there was no detailed agreement per the Law.
    • Finally, in desperation, the chief priest asked Jesus directly, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of God?” – a leading question.

    But wait, three things can happen. First, Jesus can refuse to answer. Or he could answer, “No”. Either would totally stymy their plot. They would have been stalemated. But Jesus does neither of those two. Instead, he takes total control of the situation and the circumstances and says, Yes, “I am.”

    It was not the plan of the Sanhedrin, the Chief Priests, the Pharisees, or even the Rule of Law that convicted Jesus. Jesus was in total control. He could have backed out and said no, not me. But he didn’t. In order, to fulfill the Gold’s plan, he very authoritatively states, “I am the Messiah, the Son of God.” And so, Jesus sets God’s plan in motion. Do you remember how Jesus planned for the donkey? Nothing was left to chance. He had laid everything out and he pushed it all to its ultimate conclusion.

    To complete the review of the Sanhedrin’s proceedings that night:

    The was no call of the vote – member by member – there was only Ciafus’ call, “Why do we need more witnesses? You have heard him claim to be God.” And, by acclamation, they called for his execution.

    The proceedings were rushed to Pilate, and the execution was sought before sunset of the same day – less than the required day and night period of reconsideration.

    Every rule of law was broken in order to get rid of this Nazarene.

    Before we move to the end, let’s take a look at another detail. I want you to think of Peter and his three denials and the three times he responded to Jesus’ questions, “Peter, do you love me? Lord, you know that I love you. Feed my sheep.” Why? What was so important in Jesus’ plan that he had to humiliate Peter? Because that is what he did. You see Peter was a strong-willed person. He was convinced that no matter the circumstances, he would step forward and strike down any of Jesus’ enemies which he tried to do when he cut off the ear of the Temple Guard. That would not do. That was not the kind of Rock Jesus need as the cornerstone of his church. What Jesus needed was a man willing to be a servant to the people. One who would love them like he loved Jesus. So, Jesus had to take Peter down a notch. That was the final element of Jesus’ plan. That was the final detail of the night of his arrest. Jesus had to exposed to Peter that his bravado was not going to make him the leader Jesus needed. Instead, Jesus needed a servant that would love and feed his sheep. That is where Jesus needed to bring Peter.

    This is a lot; and what does that all mean?

    We all know the story. We know the assumptions, that God is in charge. What does it change to see the pieces come together and really see that Jesus was really in charge every step of the way? From procuring the donkey to ride, the day and time of day and physical site of his procession into Jerusalem – all done to create the greatest amount of stir and maximize his visibility – the symbolism of riding an ass into the city – which every Jew would be able to see and understand [though they misinterpreted it] they understood what it meant.

    How does that all play out for us?

    For me, my understanding now is that Jesus was in full control; that the circumstances didn’t happen to him but that he arranged, and he pushed them forward. That he could orchestrate all the moving pieces is mind blowing:

    • The minute arrangements, the donkey and the symbolism it provided
    • Maximizing the people on the road so as to visually make the most challenging statement possible to the authorities
    • The purifying of the Temple to directly challenge the chief priests
    • The reaction and actions of the Chief Priests played right into Jesus’ plan
    • The actions of Judas facilitated the plan
    • Playing the whole Sanhedrin at the trial. They had nothing until he gave it to them

    So, what does this mean for us; to see that these things didn’t happen to Jesus but that he orchestrated them to happen; to see that Jesus used all of these events to demonstratively show the people [and us] that he is truly “I am”?

    At this point, I am going to play a devil’s advocate and challenge you that everything we have seen to this point does nothing to prove that Jesus was anything more than a master manipulator.

    • He chose to ride in on the foal of a donkey. He knows his history.
    • The procession and the Clearing the Temple of the money changers was a great way to focus attention on himself
    • The chief priests? It was just his way to pushing their buttons
    • Judas? He was just a bad apple.
    • The trial before the Sanhedrin and Pilate getting backed into a corner by the chief priests might have been a miscalculation but it doesn’t of itself prove anything.

    What then do we have to be faithful about? Even when you sit back to appreciate how well Jesus put all the moving parts of the passion week together, you still have nothing that proves anything.

    Except for one thing and that one thing is the empty tomb.

    Proof? There were countless witnesses who testified to have seen the risen Christ in the days that followed his crucifixion. Mary and the women at the Tomb speaking with Angels who told them he had risen. Peter and John at the Tomb who had entered the empty Tomb and handled the linens that he was wrapped in. The disciples on the road to Emmaus who walked and conversed with him and whose hearts burned as he spoke to him. They welcomed him into their home, sat to eat with him and then at the Table their eyes were opened as he blessed the bread, and they recognized him. The disciples in the upper room where he entered through locked doors. Thomas who testified that the man before him was, “My Lord and my God.”. Paul on the road to Damascus who was confronted by the Christ asking why do you persecute me.

    All these were witnesses to the risen Christ and that the Tomb was empty. The One that rode in on the foal of a donkey has now been raised to his true Kingship. Jesus has shown all that he is the great I am.

    Source material: Palm Sunday – Triumphal Entry! By William Barclay