August 2, 2026 Esther 4:1-17 A Hidden God

The book of Esther begins with an absence.

We have finished reading Ruth, and we might expect another story overflowing with God's covenant love. Ruth sings with ḥesed (חֶסֶד), that steadfast, life-giving love that binds Ruth to Naomi, Boaz to Ruth, and ultimately reveals God's own heart. Every act of kindness builds up God's, and the community's, language of love.

Instead, we turn to Esther, a book of the Bible that never mentions God. Like Ruth, there are no prophets. No divine speech. No miracles. No covenant repeated. If someone removed God's name from every other book of the Bible, we would notice. In Esther, God's presence is unacknowledged.

It becomes a great Biblical invitation. Can God be recognized when God is hidden? Chapter 1 hardly seems like a promising place to begin. The Persian emperor Ahasuerus throws a lavish banquet that lasts for months. Wealth is displayed. Power is flaunted. Women become ornaments for men's prestige. Queen Vashti is summoned not as a partner but as another possession to exhibit before drunken guests.

When she says no the empire trembles, not because of an invading army, but because one woman refuses to surrender her dignity. The king's advisors panic. If word spreads that women can say no, they fear, the entire social order might begin to crack. It sounds strangely familiar. Power often fears dignity more than rebellion. God is never mentioned in this scene, yet God's values quietly emerge through the courage of someone who refuses to be humiliated.

Perhaps this is how the hidden God works. Not always by speaking from heaven. Rather, sometimes by strengthening someone to simply speak from earth. The absence of God's name does not mean the absence of God's character.

After spending weeks with Ruth, we recognize the pattern. Ḥesed is still present, though disguised. In Ruth, God's steadfast love appears through gleaning fields, shared meals, and risky acts of generosity. In Esther, God's steadfast love begins by honoring the God-given worth of a woman who refuses to be treated as an object.

Before anyone rescues Israel, someone first protects human dignity. That is where ḥesed always begins. God speaking through ḥesed implies a belief that God is present, 

Here, Esther does not even express that faith. Rather than saying, "God will protect me," she says in Chapter 4, "If I perish, I perish." This is an important biblical distinction. Faith is not confidence that everything will turn out well. Biblical faith may sometimes be expressed as obedience and faithful action amid uncertainty.

Like many who watched or plan to watch the new Christopher Nolan film The Odyssey.  I wonder about our cultural assumptions about God's presence. The Greeks believed their gods might disguise themselves and act in the world 

In The Odyssey, Odysseus survives storms, monsters, temptations, and shipwrecks. The film, like the poem, suggests that gods frequently intervene, redirecting Odysseus' path with visible power. Athena appears, and it is suggested that Divine hands are everywhere and can assume any form. However, unlike today, Homer's Greeks would ask what Joan Osborne questions in her cover of the song, "What if God was one of us?' The Nolan film shies away from the ancients' true beliefs.

Unlike now, most people then commonly thought that their gods might disguise themselves as "one of us" and act in the world. In Esther, no deities ever appear. Instead, ordinary people must navigate political danger without certainty, without visions, and without miraculous rescue. God's guidance is hidden within ordinary choices, quiet courage, and unlikely coincidences.

Our present lives and beliefs probably resemble Esther more than Homer. Most of us do not receive unmistakable signs from gods or heaven. We simply awaken each day wondering how to live faithfully amid complicated circumstances. And perhaps that is enough.

Another journey that I am examining through Greek myth is the Broadway musical Hadestown. In this Orpheus descends into the underworld believing that love is stronger than despair. Around him, workers endlessly build walls for a king who promises security while exploiting their labor. Fear becomes the currency of empire. Hope becomes an act of resistance.

King Hades and King Ahasuerus are not so different. Both build worlds where power demands obedience. Both surround themselves with displays of wealth. Both confuse domination with greatness. Yet Hadestown insists that its story "is a sad song, but we sing it anyway." 

Why? Because telling stories of hope keeps hope alive. 

Esther begins the same way. The first chapter appears to belong entirely to its empire. God is silent. Justice seems absent. Power dominates the stage, but readers already know something the emperor does not. Empires never have the final word.

The hidden God is already writing another story beneath the story. This may be the deepest gift that Esther offers for our own time. We also live in an age of dazzling displays of power. Wealth is celebrated. Fear is marketed. Some voices are amplified while others are silenced. It can feel as though God has withdrawn from the public square.  Yet Esther invites us to read history with different eyes.

We seek the people who quietly refuse to cooperate with injustice, for the community that protects the vulnerable. We seek the strangers who choose compassion over comfort and for those speaking a courageous "no" that makes a thousand faithful "yeses" possible.

That is where the hidden God can often be found. Like Ruth, God still speaks the language of ḥesed. Like Odysseus, we continue our uncertain journey toward home. Like Orpheus, we keep singing against despair because hope itself becomes an act of resistance.

And like Esther, we discover that God's greatest work often begins long before anyone notices. The first chapter ends without mentioning God. Perhaps that is precisely the point. Faith is learning to recognize God's fingerprints even when God's name is missing.

Esther 4:1–17 and today's Gospel Lesson, Luke 9:23–24, speak to one another across centuries. Although Esther never mentions "taking up a cross," her response to Mordecai's challenge embodies the same pattern of discipleship that Jesus later describes. Both passages ask the same fundamental question: What is demanded when faithfulness requires risking our own security? 

For the hidden God is never absent. The hidden God is already preparing courage. Already awakening dignity. Already weaving ḥesed through ordinary lives. Already composing a song that no empire can silence. And if we listen carefully, even in the silence, we can discover that God's quiet melody has been accompanying us all along.

Ruth, Esther, The Odyssey, and the Hadestown musical are all part of a deep contemplation regarding essence, human dignity, empire, and hope. Many either provide metaphors or examples of ḥesed as God's language, or ask us for consideration of a hidden God who writes another story beneath what may be seen as an everyday story or coincidence. 

Esther and Ruth function as companion books. Ruth teaches us how God speaks, through ḥesed, steadfast love. Esther teaches us how God remains present, even when silent. Together they offer a profound theology for our own age: God is revealed not only in miracles, but in ordinary people who practice courageous love in the face of systems that deny human dignity.

 Sermon 

July 26, 2026 Ruth Chapter 4 Hesed Evokes Hesed: God's Love Is Completed through Relationships

The way the story of Ruth both foreshadows what will happen and remains quietly astonishing as it ends. The story doesn't offer some dramatic miracle, thunder from heaven, a burning bush, or the parting of another sea. Instead, the climax comes in its final follow-through. It occurs in an ordinary village, at an ordinary gate, where ordinary people choose extraordinary faithfulness.

Limiting the end to a happy-ever-after, Boaz-marries-Ruth love song distracts from why Christ's genealogy is included. This is about ḥesed (חֶסֶד) finally completing its circle. Throughout Ruth, every act of ḥesed has invited another. Naomi receives Ruth's unwavering loyalty. Ruth receives Boaz's generous protection. Boaz receives the blessing of becoming a redeemer.

The women of Bethlehem receive hope as they watch despair transformed into joy. Finally, Naomi receives the child Obed into her arms, not as a possession, but as grace she never imagined she would hold again. 

What is remarkable is that none of these gifts could exist if someone refused to receive them. We often think that generosity is the difficult part. Yet receiving can be even harder. Receiving requires vulnerability. Receiving means admitting we cannot save ourselves. Receiving means allowing another person's love to change our story.

Where did the story start? Naomi begins the book insisting she has returned "empty." She cannot yet imagine that God's language is still being spoken around her. Yet Ruth is speaking it. Then Boaz is speaking it. The women of Bethlehem are speaking it. Little by little, Naomi learns not only to witness ḥesed but to trust it enough to receive it. Only then does the story become whole.

Perhaps this is why the genealogy recorded in Ruth matters so much. It is not merely a list of ancestors leading to King David. It is testimony that one act of faithful love never ends with itself. Every act of ḥesed becomes the beginning of another story. Love given creates love received. Love received creates love shared. Grace multiplies across generations. 

This is how God chooses to reveal God's own heart: not primarily through displays of power, but through relationships. The Hebrew Scriptures repeatedly describe God as "abounding in steadfast love", abounding in ḥesed. God's character is not revealed simply in commandments or miracles but in a way of relating to creation. God continually gives faithful love, invites trust, restores dignity, and creates communities where no one stands alone.

A hidden takeaway from this story is how the potential guardian-redeemer, who does not step up to the role, is presented in the story. That guardian-redeemer is not judged; he just remains unnamed, no longer part of this particular story.    

Ruth teaches us that this divine language is meant to become our language. Every act of kindness asks a quiet question: Will you receive what is being offered? Every gift of forgiveness asks: Will you let yourself be reconciled? Every welcome asks: Will you risk belonging?

The miracle of ḥesed is incomplete when it leaves one heart. It is completed when another heart says yes. Perhaps that is why Jesus so often placed receiving alongside giving. "Freely you have received; freely give." The order matters. We cannot offer what we refuse to accept. People who know they are loved become capable of loving. People who have received mercy learn to extend mercy. People who have been welcomed begin opening doors for others.

This is the beautiful rhythm of God's kingdom: ḥesed given, ḥesed received. ḥesed shared again and again. 

That rhythm echoes through Ruth until the child Obed is given, the grandfather of David. Christians hear another echo still farther ahead, to Jesus, whose life embodies God's steadfast love without limit. In him we discover that God's greatest act of ḥesed is not merely spoken but lived among us, inviting us not only to admire divine love but to receive it. And once received, to become its living voice.

Perhaps the greatest question Ruth leaves with us is not, "Whom should I love today?" It is also, "Whose love am I refusing to receive?" For the language of God is only fully spoken when ḥesed travels both directions, from one soul to another, and back again, until an entire community becomes fluent in grace.

That is how God changes the world, one relationship at a time.

Sermon 

July 19, 2026 Ruth 3:1–13: Hesed (חֶסֶד) -Learning to Hear the Language of God through Relationships

There are moments in the Bible when God seems to split the heavens with unmistakable power, a sea parts, a bush burns without being consumed, a voice shakes a mountain. The next discussion, however, remains on our continuing Ruth examination, where God is presumably silent. We have discovered otherwise in our detailed readings over the last few weeks in our gleanings for meaning.

True, no miracles interrupt the story. No prophet appears with a divine oracle. No angel descends into the barley fields. Instead, the narrator invites us into kitchens and harvests, shared meals and whispered conversations, tears and laughter, risk and tenderness. The extraordinary continues to hide within the ordinary.

Phyllis Trible, an author included to our group's commentaries, reminds us that this silence is not the absence of God but another way of speaking. In Ruth, relationships become the language of God.

Perhaps the boldest act of hesed is Ruth's journey to the threshing floor. She walks into uncertainty carrying no guarantee of acceptance. She risks misunderstanding, rejection, and humiliation for the sake of securing life for both herself and Naomi.

Hesed is willing to become vulnerable. Every meaningful relationship eventually arrives at a threshing floor, a place the outcomes can't be controlled. It is the spouse saying, "We need to talk." It is the friend admitting, "I need help." It is the addict walking into the first recovery meeting. It is the church apologizing for wounds it has inflicted. Hesed prefers honest vulnerability over safe distance.

When Boaz awakens in the middle of the night and asks, "Who are you?" Ruth answers simply, "I am Ruth." Hesed begins here with truthful presence. She offers neither disguise nor manipulation. She comes as herself. This is the courage of introducing oneself without pretending to be stronger or more certain than one really is. Relationships deepen wherever masks become unnecessary. Ruth then asks Boaz to "spread your cloak over your servant."

This request is remarkable because Ruth becomes an active participant in redemption rather than a passive recipient. Hesed gives another person the dignity of saying yes.

Rather than manipulating Boaz, Ruth invites him into covenant. It resembles the tough courage of asking someone, "Would you walk with me through this illness?" or "Would you be my sponsor?" or "Would you mentor me?" Love respects another person's freedom. 

Boaz immediately recognizes Ruth's action as hesed. "You have shown greater kindness now than before."

Hesed evokes hesed. No miracle has occurred, yet everything has changed.

Here, hesed becomes God's vocabulary. Naomi's hope, Ruth's courage, and Boaz's integrity weave together into a tapestry of grace. None of them acts because a heavenly voice commands them. They choose compassion freely. They become living witnesses to the character of God.

This is a profound insight Trible uncovered for me this week. The narrator in Ruth never insists, "God caused this." Instead, Ruth happens to glean in Boaz's field. Boaz happens to arrive. Naomi happens to conceive a daring plan. Boaz happens to respond with generosity. The storyteller quietly invites us to discover providence not in divine interruption but in faithful human response. God is hidden, but never absent. God is woven into every act of courage that answers another's vulnerability.

Perhaps that is why Ruth contains so little religion as we often define it. There are no sacrifices upon altars, no elaborate rituals, no priests directing the action. Instead, holiness emerges in ordinary acts of hospitality, protection, and mutual care. The threshing floor becomes as sacred as any sanctuary because there people choose faithfulness over fear.

The story also reminds us that redemption is never a solitary achievement. Naomi cannot restore her future alone. Ruth cannot secure her own safety by herself. Boaz cannot fulfill his role apart from the customs and responsibilities of the wider community. Each person's healing depends upon another's willingness to practice hesed.

Redemption, before it is personal, is relational. Our culture often imagines spirituality as a private journey between the individual and God. Ruth offers another vision. Grace flows through networks of belonging. God's love takes flesh whenever people accompany one another through uncertainty with generosity and courage.

The New Testament echoes this same truth. Jesus tells his followers that whoever welcomes the least welcomes him. 1 John 4:12 declares, "No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us." Long before those words were written, Ruth had already begun unveiling that story.

No one in Ruth sees God directly. They see hesed. They encounter God in the steadfast love of a daughter-in-law who refuses to abandon family. In the renewed hope of an aging widow who dares to dream again. In the integrity of a man who uses his power to protect rather than possess.

Perhaps this is how God most often speaks still. Not through spectacles that overwhelm our senses, but through relationships that quietly transform our lives. Someone stays beside us in grief. An oncology receptionist who will ask each patient she greets, "Where do you find joy?". A stranger is welcomed as family. As Alison commented in our discussion last week, when another person's dignity is guarded and treated with honor.

If we listen only for thunder, we may miss the still, persistent voice of God spoken in the language of hesed. These Ruth readings invite us to become fluent in that language, to discover that every act of compassion is a sentence in God's ongoing conversation with the world.

Ruth chapter 3 teaches that God's language is not spoken primarily through thunder or miracles but through countless relational verbs: to notice, to prepare, to trust, to risk to speak truthfully, to invite, to protect dignity, to bless, to provide, and to wait.

These are not merely human virtues. They are the vocabulary of God. Whenever people speak this language to one another, heaven quietly becomes audible on earth. The God who seems almost silent in Ruth is, in fact, speaking all the time, in every act of faithful relationship. Hesed is God's native tongue, and every gesture of steadfast love becomes another sentence in the ongoing conversation between God and humanity.

As I said, this comes from the perspective of biblical scholar Phyllis Trible and contemporary theologian Emma Nash, both of them cited in our additional commentary that Pastor Emillie provided last week Both, in different ways, draw our attention away from spectacular divine interventions and toward the ordinary, courageous, relational acts through which God's presence is made known. 

Perhaps the question we might ask is not, "Where is God?" The better question is, "Who, today, is speaking God's language?" And perhaps the answer begins with us.

July 5, 2026 - Ruth 1:1-22: Love and Loyalty Effect Change

Today's Gathering Hymn was "God, We Gather as Your People (For All the Children)," which appears in All Creation Sings, the 2020 worship supplement to Evangelical Lutheran Worship by David Lohman. Lohman wrote both the text and the tune, WELCOME BE OUR SONG, making it one of the relatively few hymns in the collection created entirely by a single author-composer.

David Lohman is an American composer, hymn writer, and church musician whose work has become increasingly influential in mainline Protestant worship, particularly in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. He is especially known for writing music that is highly singable by congregations while expressing themes of hospitality, inclusion, justice, and community.

This was both an open and welcoming song for Bree Theilacker as Creator Lutheran Church's new Music Minister. The setting was what Creator calls the African American setting. Bree accompanied the congregation confidently and robustly, today portending a great future of collaborative worship through Creator.

Pastor Emillie preached on Ruth, one of her favorite books of the Old Testament. She loves the story of Ruth because it  upends expectations. Mother and daughter-in-law love each other and are loyal to each other despite the normal stereotype assumption. Pastor Emillie also identified with what Ruth defined as home, which was not  tied to geography but with the people that matter to you.

This was an auspicious beginning in many ways. I'm looking forward to where this summer series and Bree will take Creator as a community in the coming weeks. 

Sermon 

 

July 5, 2026 Ruth 1:1-22: Finding Home by Following Ruth's and Odysseus' Stories

Bearden:  A Black Odyssey

In our first summer series reading, Ruth arrives in Bethlehem with nothing. She is a foreign widow carrying no promise except the one she makes to Naomi. Yet in giving herself away, she receives what she never sought: a family, a community, and a place in the lineage of David and ultimately in the genealogy of Jesus.

She begins her journey not by returning to her homeland but by leaving it. Every practical reason tells her to stay in Moab. Her future would be safer there. Her culture and family are there. Bethlehem holds only poverty and the possibility of rejection.

Unlike Oprah, Naomi's other daughter-in-law, Ruth follows Naomi and promises, "Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people and your God my God. Naomi responds by giving the following blessing:

"May the LORD deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me."

The word translated "kindly" is ḥesed, which we've encountered before and is sometimes translated as lovingkindness. Naomi recognizes that Ruth and Orpah have already shown extraordinary covenant loyalty. Those words are often heard as her declaration of loyalty, but they are also a radical redefinition of home. Ruth understands that home is not first a geography. It is a relationship. Home is found wherever faithful love, hesed, is practiced.

Naomi's name means "Pleasant" or "Delightful,". When she returns to Bethlehem, she says, "Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara." She believes pleasantness has become bitterness. Yet the narrative never adopts "Mara." It continues calling her Naomi, hinting that God is not finished restoring her joy. Ruth is to be part of that restoration.  

For several weeks now, I have been rereading The Odyssey to prepare to watch Christopher Nolan's upcoming film this month. Today I am imagining Odysseus' journey if he had shared Ruth's understanding of hesed throughout his travels in Homer's epic poem.

In The Odyssey, Odysseus measures every place against Ithaca. Even the paradise of Calypso cannot satisfy him because it is not home. The Lotus-Eaters threaten him because they erase the memory of home. Every adventure is judged by whether it delays or advances his return.

Ruth would ask a different question regarding her destination. Not "How do I get back to where I once belonged?" Instead, she would have redirected to: "With whom and where will I practice faithful love?"  Her compass is not nostalgia but covenant. This difference changes everything.

Odysseus spends years trying to recover the life he once had. Greek society sought ἀρετή (aretē) in life to build their reputations. In the end, he is like Ruth walking toward a life that cannot yet be imagined. At the beginning, Odysseus is pulled by memory. Ruth is primarily drawn by faith. Ironically, both stories end in restoration, but by different roads.

Odysseus finally reaches Ithaca only after he has been stripped of pride, certainty, and power. He arrives disguised as a beggar. He discovers that home cannot simply be reclaimed by force; it must be recognized and renewed through relationships with Telemachus, Penelope, and those who remained faithful.

Perhaps the deepest lesson both stories teach is that home is never exactly what we left behind. Time changes us, loss changes us, and the journey changes us. The home to which Odysseus returns must be rebuilt. The home Ruth enters must be created.

This is where Ruth's story speaks most powerfully. Many of us have spent years trying to get back, to a happier season, a healthier body, a thriving church, a beloved relationship, We might be yearning for a friendlier America and maybe a younger version of ourselves. Like Odysseus, we long for our own Ithacas of memory.

Ruth gently invites us to release that impossible task and recognize home is where we choose to love faithfully today.

It is found in keeping promises when the future is uncertain. It is discovered when you walk beside another person, rather than being intimidated or distrustful. It grows wherever strangers become neighbors, enemies become friends, and grief slowly gives way to hope.

The gospel deepens this vision still further. Jesus rarely speaks of home as a destination to be reclaimed. Instead, he creates homes wherever people gather in love, forgiveness, and welcome. He leaves heaven to dwell among strangers, making God's home with humanity. Through Christ, home becomes less about arriving at a place than participating in God's reconciling presence.

In that light, Ruth's journey becomes more than the story of one faithful woman. It becomes a parable for every disciple. Faith is not merely finding our way back. Instead, it is discovering that wherever God's steadfast love is lived, we already stand on holy ground. 

When we think of homecomings, let's not dwell on the life we once knew, but rather discover that God has been quietly building a home for us all along, not merely in a place, but in a people. Like Ruth, we may find that home is not behind us waiting to be recovered. It is before us, waiting to be created, one covenant of love at a time.

When we think of homecoming, our imaginations tend to turn to Odysseus. For twenty years, he longed for Ithaca. He survived storms, monsters, temptations, and wars, sustained by a single hope: to return to the place where he belongs. Home is  the fixed point by which he navigates every danger. Home is something lost and must be recovered.

Ruth offers us a profoundly different understanding of home, one that Odysseus ultimately learns through his adventures. We  can all urgently longing for a promised hesed, that northern star that guides each wanderer and then is found.

June 14, 2026 Romans 5:1–8 Matthew 9:35–10:8 - Both Humble and Vulnerable Locked in God's Image

Romans 5:1–8 and Matthew 9:35–10:8 come from different times and authors, yet they remain united by a remarkable theme: God acts first in love toward people who are vulnerable, lost, and unable to save themselves. 

Last week two foundational Hebrew words describing God: ḥesed (חֶסֶד) and shema (שְׁמַע) were introduced in our Wednesday group. This week, I personally started reading Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas. His words offer a different historical and scriptural lens for evaluating headlines. This is particularly valuable in a period when people are tempted to forget that there is more to life than politics and tribes.

Pope Leo's encyclical repeatedly asks humanity to consider what kind of future we are building and whether our technological, economic, and political choices serve human dignity and the common good. The Pope argues that technology must remain at the service of the human person rather than reducing people to data, efficiency, or instruments of power.

In Romans, Paul reminds us that Christ died for us while we were still sinners. Obviously, God's love is not conditional. It is ḥesed, a steadfast and covenant-based love that refuses to abandon humanity.

In Matthew, Jesus looks upon the crowds and sees people who are weary and vulnerable. His first response is compassion. That may be one of the most important spiritual disciplines for our time: learning to see people as Jesus sees them.

Jesus sees human beings, and the Pope's encyclical emphasizes this. As technology grows more powerful, we must not lose sight of the dignity of actual persons. Human beings are not problems to be optimized or obstacles to be managed. They are persons created in the image of God.

How is Shema achieved in what has become an Age of Noise? The Shema begins: "Hear, O Israel..." Today, whose voice, besides Walt Whitman or Allen Ginsberg, would begin by proclaining "Hear, O America..."?

We are surrounded by news, social media feeds, advertising, targeted algorithms, and endless commentary. Yet shema is not achieved by merely hearing sounds. It is listening deeply enough to some content of worth that changes our core lives.

The question for the Church moves best from: "What are we saying?" to "What does God want?" Jesus tells the disciples to notice the harvest and pray for workers. Before they are sent, they must learn to see and hear.

Perhaps one of God's invitations today is for communities to recover practices of listening. Both Romans and Matthew push against fear. Paul writes that suffering can produce character when God's love has been poured into our hearts.

Jesus sees a troubled world but does not despair. Instead, he sends disciples into it. Likewise, Pope Leo's encyclical is not fundamentally anti-technology. Rather, it is a call for responsibility together with moral courage in shaping the future. The question is not whether change will come, but whether change will serve human flourishing and the common good.

If these readings and teachings are heard together, several invitations emerge that I see this congregation involved in. We have practiced tangible acts of mercy and cared for the elderly and marginalized. I've seen members who have built relationships that resist isolation and instead form people who can discern truth amid confusion.  

As Christians I've witnessed those who receive God's love before trying to fix the world and become workers in Christ's harvest. They practice shema by listening for and following God's voice.

Can we pray for God to continue to challenge us to teach and model ḥesed? To help us learn shema, that we may hear God's call amid the noise of our age. To give us eyes to see the crowds as Jesus saw them: not as strangers or adversaries, but as beloved people in need of hope. 

May God continue to form all of us into a beloved community.

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.