June 7, 2026 Romans 4: Matthew 9: Learning the Hebrew word ḥesed (חֶסֶד)

The great theme that links Romans 4, Matthew 9, and the Hebrew word ḥesed (חֶסֶד) is this:

God remains faithful when circumstances suggest otherwise.

In Romans 4, Paul points to Abraham, who "hoped against hope." Abraham looked at his aging body and Sarah's barrenness and saw every reason to conclude that God's promise was impossible. Yet he trusted not in the evidence before him but in the character of the One who made the promise.

In Matthew 9, we encounter the same pattern. Matthew the tax collector receives a call he does not deserve. A woman suffering for twelve years reaches for healing when all conventional hope has failed. A grieving father comes to Jesus after his daughter has died. In every case, Jesus acts where others see impossibility, impurity, failure, or finality.

I learned the thread connecting these stories is ḥesed, one of the richest words in Scripture.

There is no single English equivalent. It means steadfast love, covenant faithfulness, lovingkindness, mercy, loyalty, and enduring commitment all at once. It is God's refusal to abandon the relationship God has established. It is love that keeps showing up through action.

When Jesus tells the Pharisees, "Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice,'" he is echoing the prophet Hosea's use of ḥesed. God is not primarily looking for religious performance. God seeks hearts shaped by covenant love. It is like the Hebrew word for hear, shema (שְׁמַע), which incorporates what is being heard by the listener into what the listener does. There, again, is no English-language equivalent.

That word has particular relevance as Americans watch the ongoing tensions involving Iran. News reports this week describe a fragile and uncertain situation marked by military exchanges, cease-fire negotiations, diplomatic efforts, and fears of wider escalation throughout the region. At the same time, there are signs that diplomatic channels remain active and that leaders continue searching for a path away from prolonged conflict.

In moments like this, the public conversation often swings between fear and certainty. Some voices predict disaster; others promise easy solutions. Scripture offers neither. Instead, Abraham teaches faith. Matthew teaches mercy. Ḥesed teaches faithfulness.

Faith does not require pretending dangers are unreal. Abraham acknowledged reality. The woman with the hemorrhage knew her suffering. The ruler knew his daughter had died. Yet none of them believed that present circumstances had the final word.

Likewise, Christians are called neither to panic nor complacency. We are called to hope responsibly, pray earnestly, and remember that every Iranian civilian, every American service member, every Israeli family, and every innocent person caught in the shadow of conflict bears the image of God.

Romans 4 reminds us that God's future is often born in situations that appear hopeless. Matthew 9 reminds us that mercy is stronger than exclusion. Ḥesed reminds us that God's covenant love does not fail when human wisdom reaches its limits. Perhaps the question before the church today is not simply, "What will happen with Iran?" but "What kind of people will we become while facing uncertainty?"

Will we become people of fear, suspicion, and vengeance, or will we become people formed by ḥesed, people who pray for peace, seek truth rather than propaganda, refuse to dehumanize enemies, care for those who suffer, and trust that God is still at work even when the future is unclear?

Abraham's story says that hope can survive impossible circumstances. Matthew's Gospel says that mercy can cross every boundary. Ḥesed says that God's faithfulness endures even through war, anxiety, political division, and international crises.

And that may be the deepest promise of all: not that history will unfold exactly as we wish, but that the God who called Abraham, healed the woman, raised the girl, and welcomed Matthew still accompanies humanity through every uncertain chapter. In a season of geopolitical tension, the church's vocation is to bear witness to that steadfast love and to embody it.

 

May 31, 2026 Trinity Sunday

Pastor Emillie included a Children's sermon on this Holy Trinity Sunday. 

One of the enduring challenges of Christian formation is recognizing that people learn in different ways and at different stages of life. A child encountering the doctrine of the Trinity for the first time may need a concrete image, while an adult may be ready to wrestle with mystery and paradox.

For generations, Christian teachers have used the familiar illustration of water existing as ice, liquid, and steam to help young people begin thinking about the Trinity. The image has obvious strengths. It starts with something tangible and familiar. Children can hold ice, pour water, and watch steam rise from a kettle. The analogy communicates that there is a unity beneath apparent differences and helps young Christians take their first steps into a doctrine that can otherwise seem impossibly abstract.

Obviously, many see that the analogy is imperfect. Water changes from one state to another, while Christians confess that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are simultaneously and eternally distinct persons. Yet in the context of faith formation, the goal is often not to provide a flawless explanation but to create a doorway into wonder. A child who learns that God is somehow both one and three is already beginning to stretch beyond ordinary categories of thought.

As believers mature, however, they often discover that the Trinity cannot be reduced to any single illustration. Adults may benefit from more nuanced approaches that emphasize the relationship rather than the substance. They may explore how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit exist in eternal communion and mutual love. They may encounter the writings of figures such as Augustine of Hippo, who searched for traces of the Trinity within the human mind, or Gregory of Nazianzus, who spoke of the Trinity with profound reverence for divine mystery.

Some are drawn to philosophical arguments about unity and diversity. Others find meaning in the relational language of the New Testament, where the Father sends the Son and the Spirit empowers the church. Still others encounter the Trinity through worship, discovering that theology is not merely an intellectual puzzle but an invitation into the life of God.

Good Christian formation recognizes the value of both approaches. The water analogy may not be the final word, but it can be an important first word. The mistake is not in using simple illustrations; the mistake is treating them as complete explanations. Just as children eventually move from picture books to literature, Christians often move from concrete analogies to deeper theological reflection.

The goal is not simply to master a doctrine but to grow in faith. Whether through ice, water, and steam, through careful theological reasoning, or through the experience of prayer and worship, believers are being led toward the same reality: the mystery of the Triune God who is beyond complete comprehension yet continually invites us into relationship. In that sense, the child's simple illustration and the theologian's subtle argument are not competitors. They are different steps along the same journey of faith.

May 31, 2026 Philippians 2:1-13 "Be Of The Same Mind"

Our scripture reading once again is timed appropriately, coinciding with what our congregation's vote this Sunday on a mission statement. In Philippians 2:1–13, Paul calls the church to “be of the same mind,”

 

On their face, those words may sound like a demand for conformity or the erasure of individuality. For those of us who have carved out identities that didn’t always fit cultural norms of past generations, our first reaction is to disagree with what Paul's words imply, 

Yes, they may seem to suggest an unsettling nod to conformity at first glance. Yet the deeper we enter the passage, the clearer it becomes that Paul is not asking people to become identical. He is asking them to become loving.

I loved my parents, and my wife, Mary, loves her family. Yet our generation lived different lives from theirs, following our own norms and values. We mapped a different script for honoring marriage, family, and showing our love. We sought our own freedom and authenticity. We honored our Lutheran heritage and pursued God both passionately and differently from our parents. I imagine the same will be true for our son. 

There is something holy in that passion that all of us have fully tried to explore. Human beings are not mass-produced souls. God delights in particularity. I always believed the body of Christ was never meant to be monochrome.

Paul points toward something even more radical than self-expression. He points toward self-emptying love with the astonishing center of this passage, which is the Christ: $\text{Though he was in the form of God, he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.}$

Jesus does not cling to status. Christ moves downward into vulnerability, humility, suffering, and service. In a world obsessed with protecting the self, Jesus chooses surrender. Jesus makes this a truly counterintuitive act.

And maybe that is what Paul means by “the one mind.” Not identical personalities.
Not uniform opinions. Not flattened individuality, but a shared willingness to love beyond instinct.

"The mind of Christ” often appears in the smallest, quietest rebellions against the norms of our culture. The world teaches anger; Christ invites empathy. The world trains us to criticize; Christ teaches us to understand. The world nurtures resentment; Christ opens the possibility of gratitude even amid suffering.

Paul’s words become especially powerful when we realize that Christ’s humility was not weakness. It was courage. Jesus did not empty himself because he lacked worth. He emptied himself because love mattered more than protecting status. The cross was not in conformity to the world; it was a defiance of the world’s entire value system.

Defying norms may be more than a valued personality trait. Rather, it may be better labeled a calling. This is defiance of tradition on behalf of compassion. It is choosing connection over contempt and mercy over superiority. 

And perhaps that is where Philippians 2 meets us most personally. This means that following Christ may indeed require becoming “a fool for Christ.”

A fool who forgives when revenge would feel better. A fool who listens instead of winning arguments.A fool who risks tenderness in cynical times.  A fool who keeps creating beauty in a world addicted to despair. A fool who keeps loving when love seems inefficient, impractical, or naïve.

Most of us aren't called to dramatic acts of heroism today. We may, however, be called to small, counterintuitive acts: to soften instead of harden, to understand instead of dismiss, to encourage instead of compete, to notice the lonely person, to apologize first, to remain gentle in a harsh moment. Two weeks ago, Pastor Emillie encouraged us to notice and lean into these smaller moments, and she prayed that faithfully in her sermon that Sunday.

These small acts may seem foolish in a culture built on self-protection. Paul insists they are actually the shape of divine life itself.

The final words of the passage hold both challenge and promise: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you.” The burden does not rest entirely on us. God is already at work within us, loosening our grip on ego, certainty, resentment, and fear. God is quietly forming in us the mind of Christ.

And so perhaps the goal is not becoming less ourselves, but becoming more fully ourselves through love without losing individuality, but rather surrendering the need to place ourselves at the center.

Maybe that is just holy foolishness. Daring to believe that tenderness is stronger than power and that love stronger than fear. And maybe following that foolishness is a true paths to heaven.

May 24, 2026 Acts 2:1-13 Lost in the Spirit of Pentecost

Reflection

Service

Sermon

What also struck me today was how naturally Pastor Emillie embodies the spirit of Pentecost itself. Pentecost is often remembered for the miracle of many languages being understood at once, but beneath that miracle is something deeper: the breaking down of fear and separation so people can recognize themselves in one another. 

There was something quietly beautiful about our congregation stumbling together through Spanish, Swahili, and Swedish. None of us sang perfectly, but perfection was beside the point. The act of trying mattered. It became a small expression of hospitality, humility, and shared joy.

And in many ways, that seems characteristic of Pastor Emillie’s ministry. She chose music the congregation had sung before in Spanish, Swahili, and even Swedish. Debi, Suzi, Craig, and I helped lead the singing, with Debi prompting us in Spanish and Pastor Emillie in Swahili. 

Emillie creates spaces where people do not feel tested or excluded, but welcomed into participation. Her opening story about not knowing to wear red on Pentecost may have seemed small, but moments like that carry pastoral wisdom. She instinctively senses the anxieties people carry into church, whether they are visitors, newcomers, or longtime members who feel out of step  , and she gently dissolves those anxieties with humor and warmth. Her laughter does not draw attention to herself; it invites others to relax and belong.

What continues to deepen week by week is the sense that her relationship with scripture is not academic alone, nor performative, but deeply lived. She speaks about the Bible with both reverence and accessibility, as though she genuinely trusts that these ancient stories still breathe and move among us. That trust becomes contagious. In her Wednesday Bible discussions, especially, people are not simply being taught information; they are being invited into a relationship with the text, with one another, and perhaps even with parts of themselves they had forgotten.

Different pastors meet us at different moments in our spiritual lives. That feels profoundly true. A healthy church community is not built on one personality or one style of leadership, but on a tapestry of gifts. Pastor Dayle offered intellectual expansiveness and theological reassurance. Pastor Ray inspired discipline, curiosity, and deeper immersion in scripture itself. Pastor Emillie seems to minister through presence as much as preaching through kindness and attentiveness, with an ability to make faith feel joyous and inhabitable rather than intimidating.

There is something healing about encountering a pastor whose love for scripture is matched by an equally visible love for the people sitting in front of her. Too often those qualities become separated. But when they come together, as they seem to in Pastor Emillie, the church begins to feel less like an institution and more like a genuine community gathered in grace.

May 24, 2026 Pentecost Reflections on Acts 2

In Acts 2:1–13, the church is born not through a strategic plan, a building campaign, or a carefully polished institution, but through disruption. 

The disciples are gathered together in uncertainty and waiting when suddenly the Spirit arrives like wind and fire. The room shakes. Language barriers collapse. Ordinary people begin speaking in ways they never could before. And the crowd, bewildered, asks the same question the church still asks today: What does this mean?

The miracle of Pentecost is not simply that people spoke in different tongues. The deeper miracle is that people heard the good news in their own language. God did not require the crowd to abandon their identity, culture, or story to belong. The Spirit moved outward toward the people rather than demanding that the people move inward toward religious power. Pentecost undoes spiritual uniformity.

That has something profound to say to our Creator congregation.

The Spirit did not erase differences at Pentecost; the Spirit honored them. Parthians, Medes, Egyptians, Romans all heard in their own voices. The future church may need to recover this truth deeply: unity is not sameness. The body of Christ was never meant to sound like a single culture, generation, political ideology, or worship style. The church becomes most alive when it learns to listen across differences rather than fear them.

Pentecost also challenges the church’s relationship with power. The Spirit falls not upon emperors or religious elites, but upon ordinary disciples, many of whom had failed and hid in fear only weeks earlier. The future church may look less like a fortress of certainty and more like a community of Spirit-filled vulnerability. Its authority comes less from status and more from compassion and authenticity.

And then there is the image of fire. It is interesting how we imagine the tongues of fire, yet only see them as visual manifestations of the linguistic miracle rather than reflecting on fire's destructive nature. Also, fire illuminates and transforms. 

Pentecost reminds the Spirit is uncomfortably disruptive. Every generation of the church must decide whether it wants preservation or transformation. The Spirit moves beyond locked rooms, beyond familiar structures, even beyond boundaries we thought were permanent. Again and again in Acts, the church discovers God is present among the people when least expected.

Perhaps the future church will be smaller in some places, less culturally dominant, and less certain of its past or present privilege. That is not a tragedy. Pentecost indicates a small, frightened community praying together in obscurity may become powerful, not through their power and influence but their openness to the Spirit.

The church of the future may speak through ancient liturgy and new music, through silence and activism, through art and service. Its defining characteristic may not be institutional strength but spiritual attentiveness: the willingness to ask, again and again, “Where is the Spirit moving now?”

Acts 2 ends with amazement and confusion. Some are moved; others mock. That tension has never disappeared. Whenever the Spirit moves, some will call it renewal and others chaos. Yet Peter stands and begins to speak anyway.

That may be the calling of today’s church and tomorrow’s church alike: not to possess all the answers, but to stand in the midst of a bewildered world and witness to the living presence of God, still speaking, gathering, and breathing life into dry bones.

A people capable of hearing one another again is Pentecost's promise.

The Islamic Center of San Diego attack on May 18, 2026: A Statement & Reflection

There is something especially heartbreaking about violence in a house of worship. A sanctuary is meant to be one of the few places where human beings can lay down fear. Whether it is a church, synagogue, mosque, temple, or meetinghouse, sacred space exists because people long for refuge. 

A place is needed where grief can be spoken aloud, where hope can be rekindled, where children can learn peace, and where the soul can breathe in the presence of God.

That is why the attack on the Islamic Center of San Diego feels like more than another tragic headline. It feels like a wound to something shared and holy.

A statement from Mariann Edgar Budde and Susan Shankman (follow the link) refuses to let this violence remain isolated within one faith community. They insist on a deeper truth: when hatred enters any sanctuary, it diminishes us all. The bullets fired into one community’s sacred space echo through every community that gathers in prayer.

Their words also remind us how frighteningly familiar these stories have become. A Catholic church. A Latter-day Saint meetinghouse. A Jewish temple. Now a mosque. Different traditions, different liturgies, different names for God, and yet the same grief, the same shattered silence, the same candles lit afterward in mourning.

What makes the statement so powerful is that it does not stop at sorrow. It calls for presence.

“To show up at one another’s houses of worship.” That may sound simple, but it is profound in an age where suspicion and tribalism are easier than relationships. Fear thrives where people remain strangers. Hatred grows in distance. Friendship and a genuine relationship become a kind of resistance against violence.

There is sacred power in simply being present for one another. Sitting in the back row of a mosque open house. Attending a synagogue’s remembrance service. Standing beside grieving Christians after a church shooting. Listening instead of debating. Learning instead of caricaturing. Such acts may seem small against the scale of violence, yet they quietly undermine the logic of hatred itself.

The statement also carries a difficult moral challenge: to speak publicly whenever any community is targeted, “without waiting to see whether the attacker’s identity makes the cause convenient.” That line exposes how easily compassion can become conditional. We often mourn selectively, defending only those communities that fit our politics and our level of comfort. But moral integrity demands consistency. If every person bears the image of God, then every attack on human dignity deserves our grief and our outrage.

Perhaps most convicting is the call to examine language itself. Violence rarely begins with weapons. It begins with words that dehumanize, mock, scapegoat, or paint neighbors as threats. The seeds of hatred are often planted long before blood is spilled. Every sermon, every social media post, every casual joke about “those people” either contributes to peace or prepares the ground for cruelty.

And yet, this statement ends not in despair but in resolve.

“We keep writing this statement… knowing that each time we do, we are also building the relationships that will outlast the violence.”

That may be the deepest act of faith of all: believing that compassion can outlive hatred. Believing that friendship between religions is not naïve but necessary. Believing that even after sanctuaries are violated, human beings can still choose to protect one another rather than fear one another.

In many religious traditions, hospitality is sacred. To welcome the stranger is to welcome God. Perhaps in this moment, the holiest response is not merely to defend our own sanctuaries, but to become guardians of one another’s. What can we do?

Let us all seek peace in the presence of the divine.

 

May 17, 2026 Philippians 1:1-18 Embody the Gospel Message and the World Changes Forever; A Sermon on Paul's Sermon

I was surprised this passage was written from prison. There is no elf-pity here. No plea for escape. Paul speaks only with startling clarity about what matters most to him at this moment. The importance of Christ being proclaimed.

That conviction feels almost impossible in a world where we learn to measure our lives by our success and ease. We instinctively interpret hardship as failure. We assume when things are difficult something has gone wrong. Yet Paul sits in chains and says the opposite: the gospel is advancing.

Once again, as it was with Silas and singing, his imprisonment has become a pulpit.

Roman guards hear about Christ because Paul is chained beside them. Other believers become bolder because his suffering has revealed courage. Even rivals who preach from envy and selfish ambition cannot extinguish Paul’s joy, because his life is not centered on protecting his own image. He has surrendered the exhausting need to “win.” The only question left is whether Christ is being made known.

“What does it matter?” Paul asks. “Just this, that Christ is proclaimed.”

Paul’s letter to the Philippians begins not with doctrine, but with relationship. Before he teaches or encourages, he gives thanks. He remembers these people with affection and joy because they have become partners in the gospel together. Even from prison, Paul speaks the language of love. That alone tells us something profound about the Good News in that the gospel is never merely personal. It reshapes living with one another. 

Though equal with God, Jesus does not cling to privilege or glory. Instead, he empties himself, taking the form of a servant, walking willingly toward suffering and death on a cross. This is the scandal and beauty of the gospel: salvation comes not through domination, but through self-giving love. The Son of God kneels to wash feet. The Lord of creation accepts rejection. The Savior enters fully into human pain to redeem humanity from within.

All our human systems dictate to climb higher. Jesus descends lower and somehow, in that humility - in that downward mobility, the world is changed forever. 

That truth presses deeply into Philippians because Paul himself is trying to live in Christ's pattern. Sitting in prison, deprived of comfort and freedom, Paul still rejoices because the gospel is advancing. His life has become less about self-preservation and more about participation in the love of Christ. The humility of Jesus has reshaped Paul’s understanding of success. It reorients suffering and purpose for him.

Pastor Emillie's sermon drew attention to Olivia Mabiala Andre, a 19-year-old asylum seeker from the Democratic Republic of the Congo whose case drew national attention in the United States in 2026. Her case became controversial after U.S. immigration authorities detained her and her family in late 2025 when they attempted to seek asylum in Canada following the denial of their U.S. asylum claim. 

Because of the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement, they were returned to U.S. custody. Andre was then transferred through multiple detention facilities before ending up at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas.

In May 2026, a federal judge ordered ICE to release Andre, ruling that her detention was unlawful because the government had not properly established that she posed a danger or flight risk. She was reunited with her family in Maine while her asylum case continues through the courts.

Understandably, Pastor Emillie drew comparisons between her and Andre's situations. She preached how it easy it is to become self-absorbed and yet we must heed the Good News for us today, and that God is still at work in us. 

Sermon