October 4, 2026 Exodus 14:5-7, 10-14, 21-29 & Matthew 2:13-15 - One Possible Past Closing + the Future Not Yet Visible

God Makes A Way

There is something remarkably fitting about reading Exodus 14 in a week when the end of more-or-less my daily radiation treatments is coming into sight, and when loved ones, like my wife and son, who are driving patients and who have been collaborating with other loved ones, found themselves completing a jigsaw puzzle they pieced together with one another.

At its heart, the Exodus story is about being caught between what has been and what will come next. The Israelites look behind them and see Pharaoh's army. Ahead of them is the sea. They are caught in a place where no obvious way forward seems possible. Moses tells them, “Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance of the LORD.” Then comes that extraordinary command: 

“Go forward.”

I find that is as interesting as the spectacular parting of the sea. The miracle is not simply that the waters divide. It is that a people who cannot yet see the road are invited to take the next step anyway. 

That seems especially resonant at the end of my series of radiation treatments. For weeks, the family's calendar has been filled with appointments, drives, waiting rooms, machines, treatments, trips home, and the accumulating effects of one treatment following another. 

The routine becomes almost like a landscape of its own. I talked to the doctor today to confirm what will happen next. The hormone treatments will continue, and I have ten more sessions (two sessions to the originally scheduled that were missed). So, I'm more than 2/3rds of the way through. A handful of treatments remain. There is an end to a tiresome fatigue in sight.

But the end isn't quite the same thing as arriving. The Israelites didn't cross the sea and find everything finished. They enter a wilderness. Uncertainty, hunger, fear, wandering, manna, arguments, discoveries, and unexpected gifts will follow. The crossing marks a transition, not the end of the journey.

It makes the jigsaw puzzle feel like more than a charming coincidence. You complete a puzzle one piece at a time. No single piece tells you what the finished picture will be. Some pieces seem useless until you discover where they belong. Some pieces are almost indistinguishable from one another. Sometimes you try a piece and discover that it doesn't fit, so you set it aside and try again.

Eventually, you look down and realize something has emerged that wasn't visible when you began. Perhaps that is one way to think about these weeks of treatment.

There have been pieces that seemed ordinary: a ride to an appointment, someone opening a door, a conversation in a waiting room, a card, a gifted quilt from the community, someone making homemade muffins or providing materials to construct a paper chain where each link represents a treatment, sharing mysteries and musicals with the Radiation Therapists Sarah & Jackie, the doctors overseeing, encountering companions like Sarai and Marcia who are on journeys of their own, a person remembering your name, someone sitting with you quietly, or your family driving you to appointments and back home.

None of those things, by itself, looks like a miracle. Yet together they become a picture.

This is a quieter meaning of Exodus 14 for me today. God's work isn't necessarily confined to the spectacular moment when the sea opens. That work can also be found in the people who stand beside us as we wait for a way through.

There is even something beautiful about the fact that the people driving patients completed the puzzle pieces. Their job might be transportation: getting someone from here to there. But the Exodus story reminds us that getting people across difficult places is never merely transportation. It is companionship.

They aren't simply moving bodies along a route. They help people make a crossing.

That's what has been happening throughout these treatments. People have helped make the crossing possible, not by removing the sea, but by helping get to the edge of it, through it, and eventually toward whatever comes next.

I'm struck by the contrast between Moses' words and the Israelites' fear. Moses says:

“Do not be afraid.”

The people are afraid anyway. That matters. Faith isn't necessarily the absence of fear. The Israelites don't become courageous because someone gives them a convincing explanation. They are frightened people who nevertheless discover that they can move forward.

Perhaps faith sometimes looks less like “I know everything will be fine” and more like: “I don't know exactly what comes next, but I'll take the next step.”

And now, as the weekly treatments approach their anticipated end, another kind of crossing lies ahead.

The familiar rhythm will disappear. There may be relief. There is a vague uncertainty. Fatigue may not disappear just because the appointments stop. A strange emptiness may set in when something that has occupied so much of life suddenly isn't on the calendar anymore.

So perhaps the invitation of Exodus isn't to rush toward the other shore. It is simply:

Go forward. 

One piece. One day. One step. People are there beside you. Small acts of kindness. Ordinary moments in which the picture becomes a little clearer. When you finally look back, you discover that the story wasn't only about getting through treatments. It was also about discovering who was there with you while you crossed.

The puzzle is finished. The sea is opening. The road is appearing. And there is still a road ahead; not because we can see its whole shape, but because seeing the whole path isn't necessary to take the next step.

September 27, 2026 Genesis 39:1-23 Matthew 5:11-12 The Outsider Who Survives

There is something haunting about the fact that Joseph gets a name while she remains “Potiphar’s wife.”  Joseph will eventually receive a new identity in Egypt, but she remains attached to someone else's name.

That makes her an intriguing counterpoint to Joseph and perhaps even to Sarai, whose identity eventually changes to Sarah.  She shows how we, as humans, struggle to see each other as beloved children of God.

Genesis repeatedly asks who gets to name us, who gets to tell our story, and whether the identity imposed on us is the identity we finally inhabit. Zuleika is the traditional name given her in later Islamic and Persian literature, but she is also unnamed in the Qur'an.

We can ask about perspective: who is telling her story? Before we reduce someone to the role they were told they played in a particular tale, perhaps we should remember that they were living a story of their own.

Joseph is carried away from his family and becomes a stranger in Egypt. He does not choose his displacement. Yet Genesis repeatedly tells us that “the LORD was with Joseph.” That phrase becomes almost startling when Joseph is falsely accused and imprisoned. Given the importance of names, the capitalization means God's proper name Yahweh is being used in this passage. 

If God's presence is measured by comfort or success, Joseph's circumstances would seem to suggest that God has disappeared. But Genesis tells us precisely the opposite. God is with Joseph in the prison as surely as God was with Joseph in Potiphar's house.

Matthew's Jesus takes this even further: “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.” Jesus does not promise that faithfulness will protect us from rejection or misunderstanding. He seems to know that sometimes the consequence of remaining faithful is becoming an outsider.

Ishmaelites are referenced. The biblical Ishmael is an outsider: Abraham's son, but not Sarah's; part of the family, yet eventually sent away. His story is about survival, wilderness, and displacement. Yet Genesis does not portray God as indifferent. God hears the boy crying in the wilderness. Hagar discovers a God who sees. The outsider is not invisible to God. Once again the question comes: who finally tells his particular story and its details?

That makes Melville's choice of the name Ishmael for the narrator of Moby-Dick especially poignant. Ishmael begins as a wanderer who goes to sea because he feels alienated from ordinary life. He becomes an observer among outsiders, Queequeg, Pip, Tashtego, Daggoo, Fedallah, and others occupy different places at the edges of conventional society. And when the Pequod is destroyed, Ishmael survives.

He becomes the one who remains to tell the story. That gives us another way of hearing the Joseph and Zuleika story. Joseph does not know, while sitting in prison, how this story will end. He cannot see the larger pattern. He only knows the circumstances immediately around him. He has been faithful, yet he has been misunderstood. He has done what is right, yet he has suffered for it.

Ishmael likewise does not know that he will survive the Pequod's destruction. He cannot know, as the ship goes down, that he will someday be the voice telling us what happened.

Perhaps this is one of the great spiritual lessons hidden in these stories: We do not have to know the ending in order to live faithfully in the middle. That is particularly difficult when we feel displaced, misunderstood, or separated from the life we once knew. We naturally want an explanation. We want to know why this happened, where it is going, and when it will end.

But Joseph's story doesn't give Joseph that knowledge in the prison. Jesus doesn't promise his disciples that persecution will make sense immediately.Ishmael doesn't know he is the survivor while he is fighting to stay alive. They simply keep going.

And perhaps that is where the word “blessed' in Matthew becomes more mysterious. Blessed does not necessarily mean comfortable. It doesn't mean everything is going well. It may mean that even when circumstances tell us we are abandoned,  

Joseph's gift is real. His faithfulness is real. But notice that his extraordinary ability to serve those in power is itself part of the story. He doesn't merely survive Egypt; he becomes remarkably effective within its structures of power. So when we read: “The LORD was with Joseph” we shouldn't reduce that to Joseph was morally perfect and therefore God rewarded him.

The biblical story is stranger than that. We are not abandoned. The outsider can still be held. The falsely accused can still possess integrity. The person in the wilderness can still be seen. The survivor can still tell the story.

Ishmael's identity is also liberating. He doesn't begin the novel by explaining himself. He says simply, “Call me Ishmael.” He gives us a name without fully explaining who he is.

Perhaps we can learn something from that, too. There are seasons when we cannot explain ourselves completely. We may be changing. We may be discovering something about ourselves that we didn't understand before. We may be walking through circumstances that have disrupted the story we thought we were living.

We don't have to have the whole explanation. We can simply say: This is where I am. This is who I am becoming. This is the road I am walking. And perhaps God meets us there.

Joseph's prison, Ishmael's wilderness, and Jesus' persecuted disciples all remind us that the margins are not places where God ceases to work. Sometimes they become the very places where we discover God's presence most profoundly. Joseph remains faithful in the prison and Ishmael survives the wreck.

Jesus tells his disciples to “rejoice and be glad.” Not because suffering is good. Not because rejection doesn't hurt. Not because the future is guaranteed to unfold as we wish. Rather, suffering, exclusion, misunderstanding, and even apparent defeat do not necessarily have the final word.

We may not get to choose whether we become outsiders. We may not get to choose the wilderness. We may not get to choose the storm. But we can choose how we inhabit those places.

We can remain open, keep listening for the voice of God, and we can keep walking even when we cannot yet see where the road leads. Sometimes faith is not knowing that we will survive. Sometimes faith is simply continuing to live faithfully enough that, if we do survive, we will still have a story worth telling.

September 20, 2026 Genesis 12:1-9 Sarai: The Hope of Becoming

 “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” 

God does not tell Abram where he is going, which may be one of the most honest things the Bible says about faith. 

Abram is given a command, but not a map. A promise, but not an itinerary. He is asked to leave what he knows and begin moving toward something he cannot yet see. And he goes.

I have been thinking about Abram since last week because of someone I have encountered during my radiation treatments for cancer. Her name is Sarai. Something about that name has stayed with me.

In Genesis, Sarai is the woman who sets out with Abram. She is already on the journey before her name is changed to Sarah. Her story reminds me that sometimes we encounter people not at the end of their story, but in the middle of their becoming.

That seems especially significant to me during my cancer treatment. Radiation has a peculiar way of making life feel measured. One treatment. Then another. Then another. Each day becomes a small movement toward something that cannot yet be seen. There is a schedule, but there is also uncertainty. There is treatment, but there is no immediate visible proof of what the treatment is accomplishing.

You simply keep going. One day. One appointment. One step. One more morning. And perhaps that is part of what Abram teaches us. We don't have to know exactly where the journey will end to take the next faithful step.

Sarai's name has come to represent something to me: transformation that is still unfolding. Becoming. Not arriving. Not having everything resolved.

Becoming. There is tremendous hope in that word. We sometimes imagine hope as certainty about the future: I know everything will turn out exactly as I want. But Biblical hope can be something quieter. Hope can mean: I don't know what comes next, but I will take the next step. Or I cannot see the destination, but I will keep walking.

 Or I cannot control the outcome, but I can remain open to what is becoming. That is Abram's faith. He goes. And when he arrives at Shechem, God says, “To your offspring I will give this land.” Abram responds by building an altar. He has barely begun the journey, and yet he stops to acknowledge God's presence. Altars - there to mark the way for future sojourners. Perhaps we need those altars along our own journeys. Not necessarily monuments of stone. Sometimes an altar is a person whose name we remember.

Or a conversation that unexpectedly gives us courage. A hand held at the right moment. A card tucked away and reread. A friend who calls. A nurse or receptionist who speaks kindly. A stranger encountered in a treatment center whose name suddenly becomes meaningful. These moments tell us that even when we are traveling through uncertainty, we are not traveling through it alone, although sometimes the worship is solitary. We are all potential altars or builders of them,

And then Abram moves again, which is important. He does not build the altar and stay there forever. He worships, and then he goes. The invitation of Genesis 12 for us may be: notice the holy moments, receive the promise, and keep moving. Even through the beauty of that moment,

I don't know what my Sarai's journey looks like beyond the moments in which our paths have crossed each morning. Her name, however, has given me a way of thinking that I am still becoming. We all are.

The diagnosis isn't the final word on who we are, nor is uncertainty or any diminished abilities. There is still a road. There are still people to meet, conversations to have, and things to notice. There is still beauty to encounter and love to give and receive.

There is still becoming. And so perhaps the question God asks is not, “Do you know where this is going? Perhaps the question is the simpler: “Will you go?” Will you take the next step while remaining open? Will you look for the places where grace appears unexpectedly? Will you recognize that even in a season of treatment, waiting, limitation, and change, you are still being formed?

Following Abram's call has implications. Pastor Emillie mentioned its implications for immigration. Blessing and curse are bound up with this call. Blessing being open to life flourishing and cursed as diminishing life's future.

Sarai. A name that calls to mind a person in the midst of becoming. A person encountered on a road I never expected to travel. A reminder that none of us knows the whole story while we are living it.

Abram goes because God calls. Sarai goes with him. And somewhere along the way, a promise begins to take shape. A covenant. Isn't that what hope really is? Not knowing exactly what we are becoming, but trusting that becoming is still possible.

So I keep walking. And building little altars of gratitude along the way. While I cannot see very far ahead, I remember Abram and Sarai, who have the simple courage of taking the next step.

"Go" God says. Not because the road is certain, but because I am with you on the road. For today, that is enough. Perhaps it is more than enough.

Perhaps it is a hope to hold onto.

September 13, 2026 Genesis 6:5-22; 8:6-12; 9:8-17 and Matthew 28:19-20 When the Waters Rise: Noah, Jesus, and Hope in Troubled Times

We are studying Genesis again and, like before, this is another moment when Scripture seems to look directly into our own moment.

Genesis describes a world in which violence and corruption have become so pervasive that God grieves over the creation God has made.

That connection is important. Jesus is not simply telling his disciples to watch for dramatic signs. He is reminding them of what happened in Noah's generation. People went about their ordinary lives, making everyday plans while Noah faithfully prepared for something they could not yet see.

The problem was not simply that people were living ordinary lives. It was that they were living without consequence to that way of living. Genesis tells us that the earth had become filled with violence. Matthew reminds us that people did not recognize what was happening until the flood came.

And perhaps that is one of the most sobering connections for our own time. We live in a country experiencing deep political division, fear, anger and uncertainty. We hear constant arguments about immigration, democracy and the future of our nation. Every day brings another headline capable of making us angry or afraid.

Yet it is possible to become so accustomed to crisis that we stop asking what it is doing to our souls. We can become accustomed to hostility and cruelty. We hear dehumanizing language and see people who disagree with us as enemies rather than neighbors.

The story of Noah asks us to stop and notice what happens when a society becomes saturated with violence. And Jesus asks us to notice something else: Do not be deceived.

Jesus calls us toward. Faithfulness rather than prediction. The days of Noah were not characterized by everyone sitting around waiting for the flood. Life continued. People made plans. People ate and drank. People married. The ordinary rhythms of life continued right up until the moment when the waters came.

Jesus' warning, therefore, is not simply, “Look for signs that the end is near.” It is almost the opposite: Do not become so absorbed in ordinary life, fear, politics, or competing voices that you fail to recognize what faithfulness requires of you now. Noah's calling was not to predict the flood; it was to build the ark.

Our calling is not to predict exactly when or how God will act. It is to build lives and communities that are faithful to God in the middle of uncertainty. And then Genesis gives us a beautiful picture of what happens after judgment.

The waters begin to recede. Noah sends out the dove and the first time, the dove comes back. There is nowhere yet for it to rest. Noah waits. He sends it out again, and this time the dove returns carrying a freshly plucked olive leaf. That tiny leaf becomes a sign that the world is beginning to heal. This is where Genesis gives us something that Matthew's warning might otherwise leave us without: hope.

Jesus speaks about the suddenness of God's intervention, but Genesis reminds us that God's purposes do not end with judgment, and the flood is not the end of the story. The dove is still coming. The earth becomes habitable and life returns.

And then God places the rainbow in the sky. The God who judged the violence of the old creation now makes a covenant with Noah, his descendants, and every living creature. The rainbow is God's declaration that creation will not be abandoned and is why the connection between Genesis and Matthew matters so deeply.

Jesus invokes Noah not simply to frighten us about the future, but to call us to faithful watchfulness. Genesis shows us what faithful watchfulness looks like: Noah listens when others do not and prepares when others continue as usual. Noah waits when he cannot see the outcome and sends out the dove again when the first attempt produces no answer.

And Noah recognizes hope when it arrives in the form of something as small as an olive leaf. That may be exactly what our country needs from people of faith today. Not more people claiming to know precisely what God is about to do. or turning political leaders into messiahs. Not more fear disguised as prophecy, but people who are willing to create communities of mercy, hospitality, courage, and peace.

People who refuse to participate in the violence of the culture around them. People who can disagree without dehumanizing and can defend what they believe without hating those who believe differently. People who remember that no president, political party, movement, or nation is the Messiah.

Jesus tells us that his coming will be like lightning, visible, and impossible to control or contain. Genesis tells us what faithfulness looks like when the waters rise:

Listen. Wait. Watch. Trust. Send out the dove. And when the dove returns with an olive leaf, don't overlook it because it seems too small. A nation healing one relationship at a time may be an olive leaf. A church becoming a place where people with different political convictions can still worship together may be an olive leaf.

These things may not make the headlines, but they matter because the story of Noah teaches us that God's work of renewal often begins quietly.

And then comes the rainbow.

God's promise is still larger than our fear.  God's covenant is still wider than our divisions and God's future is still greater than anything we can see from where we stand today.

Let us keep looking toward the horizon for somewhere beyond the waters, the dove is flying and in its beak may already be the first small sign that God makes and is making all things new.

September 6, 2926 Exodus 20:17; Psalm 119:33-40 & Luke 12:14-21 When Is Enough Enough?

Luke 12:14–21 and Exodus 20:17 meet at a surprisingly deep place: understanding when possessions possess us. 

Exodus says:

“You shall not covet…”

In Luke, Jesus tells the story of a man who has so much that he no longer knows what to do with it. His barns are too small, so he builds bigger ones. And then comes the haunting line: “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you.”

The two texts ask essentially the same question: When is enough enough? Coveting is often misunderstood as simply wanting what belongs to someone else. But the final commandments expose the restless human imagination that says: If only I had a little more…

And the remarkable thing about “more” is that it never tells us when to stop. The rich man in Jesus' parable never says, “I have enough.” Instead, his prosperity creates a new problem: How can I store everything I have? His barns become monuments not to gratitude but to anxiety, which has become a burden.

The man's question moves from farming. It is about the future. What will I do with all this? How can I make certain that I will be secure?  This is where coveting and anxiety touch one another. Sometimes we covet not because we are greedy, but because we are afraid.

We imagine that if we possess enough, save enough, accomplish enough, control enough, or prepare enough, we can finally make ourselves safe. Jesus' parable reveals the illusion. There is no barn big enough to contain our fear of tomorrow.

Luther's explanation of the Ninth and Tenth Commandments is especially helpful here. For Luther, “You shall not covet” is not merely a prohibition against wanting something that belongs to another person. It is a call to resist the schemes of the heart that seek to acquire what is not ours.

And positively, the commandments teach us to act with generosity rather than manipulation, and to be content with what God has entrusted to us.

That gives Jesus' parable another dimension. The rich man's failure is not simply that he has wealth. It is that his wealth has narrowed his imagination to the point that he can see only himself.

There is no neighbor in what he says. There is no community, gratitude or God. There is only I, me, and mine.

Jesus ends with an extraordinary contrast:

“So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

Jesus doesn't condemn having treasure. He questions where our treasure is directed. We can accumulate things, or we can accumulate relationships. We can build bigger barns or wider tables.

We can spend our lives protecting what we have, or we can spend them giving thanks for what we have been given. Being “rich toward God” means recognizing that everything ultimately comes to us as a gift.

And gifts are meant to be received with gratitude and shared with joy.

At the end, the man says:

“Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”

But he has confused having enough to live with having enough to guarantee life. He cannot possess eternity. That is why the Tenth Commandment is ultimately spiritual. It asks us to examine the appetite beneath our appetites.

What do we believe will finally make us enough? And what if the gospel answer is: Nothing you acquire will make you enough, because, in Christ, you already are enough.

Perhaps the opposite of coveting is not simply contentment but trust. Trust that there will be enough, that we are more than what we own, and that God's abundance is greater than our scarcity. We can trust that the life God desires for us is not a life spent building ever-larger barns, but a life in which what we have becomes a blessing for someone else.

So Exodus whispers: Do not covet. Jesus asks: What are you storing up? And instead of answering this question tallying how we have, we are free to ask “What am I doing with what I have been given?”

August 30, 2026 Exodus 20:12-16; Psalm 15 & Luke 10:25-37 My Neighbor’s Best Life: Commandments as a Calling to Love

There is a deep wisdom tradition that Pastor Emillie centered her last Sunday's sermon around. The Old Testament offers a beautiful way of understanding the Ten Words given by God: they are not meant to be merely rules that restrain us; they are gifts that teach us how to seek out our neighbor’s well-being. They are a vocabulary of love.

Jesus summarized the law in two great commandments: love God and love your neighbor. The commandments in Exodus 20 show us what that love looks like in everyday life.

To honor father and mother is to build communities where generations care for one another, where wisdom is shared, and where no one is forgotten because of age or frailty.

To refrain from murder is not only to avoid violence but to actively protect life, to feed the hungry, comfort the lonely, welcome the stranger, and work for peace.

To avoid adultery is to cherish trust, fidelity, and relationships that help families and communities remain strong. To refrain from stealing is to ensure that others have what they need for a dignified life and to resist systems that deprive people of opportunity, justice, or hope.

To refuse false witness is to defend truth, speak honestly, and stand beside those whose voices are ignored or distorted. To resist coveting is perhaps one of the most difficult callings of all: learning to rejoice in our neighbor’s blessings rather than seeing another person’s life as something we deserve for ourselves.

We encounter this profound question to ponder: “What would it mean for my neighbor to have their best life now?” A question that transforms commandments from restrictions into a vocation. And perhaps it also transforms our evangelism.

Too often, evangelism has been understood primarily as persuading others to accept a set of beliefs. Yet the gospel spreads most powerfully when people experience communities that seek their flourishing. The early church grew when people saw lives marked by generosity, truthfulness, hospitality, and care for the vulnerable.

What if evangelism first asks: Who is not yet experiencing abundant life? Who is lonely, overlooked, burdened, or excluded? Who needs friendship, encouragement, practical help, or a listening ear?

Creator often shows this. When we seek our neighbor’s best life, our understanding of “neighbor” expands. It includes family members and longtime friends, but also newcomers, refugees, people of different backgrounds, those struggling financially, those carrying grief, young people searching for purpose, and older adults who long to remain connected. It includes people who agree with us and people who do not.

The church becomes a witness to Christ not only through what it proclaims, but through the lives it nurtures and the relationships it builds. In a world shaped by competition and comparison, Christians are called to become people who quietly ask, every day:

What does my neighbor need to flourish?

For in seeking the good of our neighbor, we discover the heart of God, a God who desires life, abundance, and hope for all people.

And perhaps this is one of the deepest forms of evangelism: living in such a way that others can glimpse, through us, the love of Christ and begin to imagine that God desires their best life too.

August 23, 2026 Exodus 20:3–11, Psalm 18:7-14 & Matthew 22:34-40: Daily Bread, Good Government, and the Neighbor

 

The first commandments begin not with politics, economics, or even our relationships with one another, but with God: “You shall have no other gods before me.” Then, almost immediately, the commandments move into the very ordinary structures of human life—our use of God’s name, our keeping of Sabbath, our families, our communities, our work, and our rest.

Martin Luther understood this movement deeply. In the Large Catechism, he reminds us that the commandments are not merely a list of prohibitions. They reveal what happens when God’s gifts become disordered, when we begin to trust something other than God, when we use God’s name to serve our own purposes, or when our lives become so consumed by work and productivity that we forget that life itself is a gift.

This is where Luther’s understanding of daily bread becomes surprisingly political.

In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus teaches us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Luther expands that simple request until it encompasses almost everything necessary for human flourishing. Daily bread is food, certainly, but it is also shelter, health, peace, trustworthy relationships, honest work, a functioning economy, justice, and a society in which people can live without constant fear.

And Luther includes good government among those gifts.

He writes in the Large Catechism that “the greatest need of all is to pray for the civil authorities and government,” because through them God provides daily bread and the comforts of life. That is a remarkable theological claim. Government is not merely an unfortunate necessity. At its best, government becomes one of the ordinary instruments through which God cares for creation.

A loaf of bread, Luther suggested, would be an appropriate symbol for political authority. Imagine that. Not a sword. Not a crown. Not a flag. A loaf of bread.

The image is almost disarming in its simplicity. The purpose of political life, in this vision, is ultimately not power for power’s sake. It is the preservation of life. It is the creation of conditions in which people can eat, work, raise children, worship, rest, disagree without violence, and live with some measure of security and dignity.

This gives us an important way of hearing the First Commandment. “You shall have no other gods.”

The commandment warns us against turning political power into an idol. Government can be a gift of God, but government is not God. A nation can serve the neighbor, but a nation cannot save us. Political leaders can exercise legitimate authority, but they cannot claim ultimate authority over our conscience.

Whenever we expect a political party, a president, a nation, an ideology, an economic system, or even our own political convictions, to provide the salvation that belongs to God alone, we have crossed the line from civic responsibility into idolatry.

The First Commandment therefore frees Christians to participate in politics without worshiping politics. We can care deeply about public life precisely because we do not have to make it our god.

The Fourth Commandment in Exodus 20,“Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy,” offers another profound connection with Luther’s understanding of daily bread. Sabbath declares that human beings are more than workers and consumers. We are not machines whose value can be measured by productivity.

Rest is part of daily bread. So are healthy communities. So are clean water and safe neighborhoods. So are schools, hospitals, roads, fair courts, honest commerce, environmental stewardship, and public institutions that protect the vulnerable. These things may seem far removed from prayer and worship, but Luther would have us see them differently.

They are part of the answer to “Give us this day our daily bread.”

And that means that the prayer is not simply something we ask God to answer for us. It is also something God invites us to answer with one another.

The farmer grows the food. The truck driver transports it. The grocery worker stocks the shelves. The teacher educates a child. The nurse cares for the sick. The public servant maintains the infrastructure. The judge seeks justice. The business owner pays fair wages. The neighbor brings dinner to someone who is struggling. The citizen votes, listens, serves, speaks, questions, and participates.

All of these people can become instruments through which daily bread reaches another human being. This is why Lutheran theology can speak of vocation so expansively. God works through ordinary people doing ordinary things for the sake of their neighbors.

Good government, then, is not simply about politicians. It is about all of us.

And Luther's understanding contains an important corrective to both political cynicism and political idolatry. We should neither imagine that government can save the world nor conclude that government is therefore irrelevant. We should neither blindly obey authority nor dismiss every form of authority as oppressive.

The Augsburg Confession expresses the balance clearly: Christians owe obedience to civil authorities and laws except when those authorities command what is contrary to God. There is room here for both civic responsibility and moral resistance.

Luther himself understood this tension. He could challenge the highest authorities of his age while still affirming the importance of legitimate government. His famous declaration that his conscience was captive to the Word of God was not an invitation to chaos or personal sovereignty. It was a reminder that human authority has limits.

That distinction is especially important today. Christians are called to be citizens, but we are not called to turn citizenship into religion. We can disagree passionately without declaring our opponents evil. We can challenge unjust policies without despising the people who hold different opinions. We can seek truth without assuming that we possess it completely. We can defend convictions while remaining open to reason, dialogue, correction, and the possibility that our neighbor may teach us something.

That may be one of the most important contributions Lutheran theology can make to civic life. The commandments begin with God because God is the center. Everything else finds its proper place when we remember that.

The Sabbath reminds us that our lives are gifts rather than possessions The Lord’s Prayer reminds us that bread is a gift.

Luther reminds us that government can be one of the means through which that gift is distributed. And the commandments remind us that our neighbor is never merely an abstraction. The person who needs food, housing, safety, justice, companionship, forgiveness, or rest is precisely the person whom God places before us.

Perhaps Luther was onto something when he imagined a loaf of bread stamped on our coins.

Imagine seeing a loaf of bread every time we handled money. Imagine seeing it on a courthouse. Imagine seeing it on a government document. Imagine every elected official remembering that behind every policy are actual human beings who need daily bread. And imagine every citizen remembering the same thing.

The symbol would ask a simple question:

Does what we are doing help our neighbor receive the bread of life?

Not merely bread in the literal sense, but everything necessary for human beings to flourish in God's creation.

Exodus 20 begins with “You shall have no other gods.” Perhaps that is precisely what allows us to enter public life with humility. We do not have to make government our god because we already know who God is.

Our task is smaller, and perhaps more beautiful. We are called to love God and to love our neighbor. We are called to seek justice, practice mercy, speak truth, protect life, receive Sabbath, and share the gifts we have been given.

And when we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” we are praying not only for ourselves but for everyone.

For the hungry person. For the lonely person, the refugee, the child, and the worker. For the elderly, the stranger, and for the person with whom we disagree.

For the whole community and the whole creation. Good government, at its best, becomes one way that prayer is answered. And good citizenship becomes one way that we participate in the answer.

The loaf of bread, then, becomes more than a symbol of food. It becomes a symbol of vocation, justice, community, and grace. It reminds us that God's gifts are meant to be shared. And perhaps that is the deepest connection between Exodus 20 and Luther's vision of daily bread:

The commandments teach us how to live in right relationship with God, so that we might become people through whom God's gifts reach our neighbors.

That is what it means to pray for daily bread, and then to become part of the answer.

Sermon 

August 16, 2026 Exodus 19:1-6; 20:1-2 Ten Words: Guideposts For How to Live Together as Commmunity

Colloquially they are called Ten Commandments, but the biblical text itself describes them as ten words or ten sayings.

In Exodus 34:28, the Hebrew says:

“He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten words.”

The Hebrew expression is עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים aseret ha-devarim, literally “the ten words” or “the ten sayings.”

The English phrase comes through the ancient Greek and Latin traditions. The Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible calls them the “ten words” (deka logoi), while the Latin tradition uses Decem Mandata, “ten commands.” From that Latin phrase comes the familiar English “Ten Commandments.”

God tells the people:

“ I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. ”

This is not conditional.  God does not say, "Keep these rules and, if you do, you may become my people. Instead, these become the ten foundational words as to how God's newly liberated family can "walk" and live together.

God doesn't give Israel ten rules to make them religious; God gives them ten words to teach them what freedom looks like. God provides an instruction manual at Sinai for a way of life.

Then God tells them:

“If you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples.”
—Exodus 19:5

The Exodus begins as a journey out of Egypt, but at Sinai it becomes a journey toward one another. They are no longer simply a collection of former slaves. They are becoming a covenant community.

The word synod comes from the Greek synodos: meaning syn “together, with” and hodos “way, road, journey.” So synodos literally means “a journey together” or “people traveling the same road.”

I am learning lessons about the syndos being on this congregation's prayer list. There is a tension I am currently uncomfortably navigating. I want to be open and reveal vulnerability without reporting details of my progressive treatment statuses as some poor-poor-pitiful-me updates to garner sympathy. Maybe using the actions of others on the list can help guide this path I am on.

When we walk together generally our perspective may broaden to encompass God's larger vision. When God says "Be fruitful and multiply" in Genesis this blessing goes beyond eating fruit from  the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden. It is to invite us to be Trees of Life to others. 

August 9, 2026 Esther 7:1-10 & 9:20-22 Inspiring Acts of Faithful Courage

An insight was shared last Wednesday as Pastor Emillie related that it was important for someone to learn she was a pastor at the Pride Parade booth when she was not wearing her collar.

We were discussing not only the ways individual faithfulness can inspire others to act but who those individuals were and their identities. During that exchange, I was reminded of a film I saw years ago called Amazing Grace and Chuck. (Plot summary)   

There is more than a superficial connection between Amazing Grace and Chuck and the Book of Esther, even though one is a Cold War film and the other is an ancient biblical story. Both ask the question: Can one ordinary person's act of faithful courage alter cultural assumptions and behaviors?

The answer in both stories is yes, not because of an individual's power but, rather, one person's conscience can become a catalyst that awakens others'. Both Chuck and Esther begin as ordinary people. Chuck Murdock is not a politician or a celebrity. He is a twelve-year-old Little League pitcher.

Esther is not initially a queen in the sense of having true political authority. She is a young Jewish woman living in exile who is swept into the Persian king's harem through what is essentially a beauty contest. Even after becoming queen, she has little real power. She cannot simply command the king or overturn Haman's decree. Esther seems insignificant compared to the political systems in Susa. Chuck faces the military-industrial complex.

Neither appears capable of changing history. Both refuse to participate in death.  Chuck's defining act is remarkably simple: "I won't pitch." He doesn't attack anyone. He doesn't organize a revolution. He simply refuses to lend his gifts to a world preparing for nuclear destruction.

Esther's defining act is also a refusal. At first she refuses Mordecai's request because entering the king's presence uninvited could mean death. But eventually she refuses something deeper: she refuses to let fear determine her actions. Her famous words, "If I perish, I perish" (Esther 4:16), are not a cry of despair but a declaration that preserving the community's life is more important than preserving her own.

Both characters withdraw their cooperation from a system that accepts death as inevitable. And courage is contagious.

This is perhaps the strongest connection. In Amazing Grace and Chuck, Chuck's refusal inspires Amazing Grace Smith. Grace inspires other athletes. Athletes inspire millions. A private act becomes a public movement.

The same pattern unfolds in Esther. Mordecai first challenges Esther. Esther then calls all the Jews in Susa to fast, and the community joins her. The king's attitude changes. The empire itself is transformed. Neither story depends on a superhero. Both show courage spreading from person to person. God is hidden, and yet present. There is no miraculous intervention in either tale. History changes through seemingly ordinary choices.

For readers of Esther, this is precisely how divine providence often works. God's presence is discerned not through spectacular miracles but through faithful people acting with courage at the right moment. Chuck becomes, in a sense, an unwitting instrument of grace. Esther becomes a willing instrument of God's hidden providence. 

A theology of refusal. One fascinating way to take in these stories together is through the idea that sometimes faithfulness means saying "no" to compliance. Chuck says,    "I will not pitch." Esther says, "I will go to the king." These seem opposite actions, yet they are actually the same spiritual movement. Chuck refuses to participate in a culture of death. Esther refuses to remain silent in the face of death.

Faithfulness is not always doing more. Sometimes it is refusing to cooperate with evil. "For such a time as this", Mordecai's words to Esther propose something that may haunt us in today's world: "Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this," could almost be spoken to Chuck or us. in our time.

Chuck did not choose to become famous. Esther did not choose to become queen. Both discovered that the ordinary circumstances of their lives have become moments of extraordinary responsibility.

The question should not be, "Am I important enough?" The question is, "What is my faithfulness asking of me right now? Culture is often not changed not by the powerful, but by ordinary people who refuse to surrender their conscience. Esther teaches that one courageous "yes" can save a people. Amazing Grace and Chuck imagines that one courageous "no" can awaken a nation.

Sermon 

Purim Celebration Cookies     Haman's Ears (shared with others at Purim)

  

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.