SERMONS

Ivory Casten 6/28/26 Ivory Casten 6/28/26

Proper 8: The Relational Cost to Real Transformation

Readings for June 28

Introduction

Good morning dear friends. It is wonderful to be with you this morning and continue together in the Gospel of Matthew. As we look at Matthew 10, I want to invite the kids down.

Kids’ Sermon

I was thinking about an analogy in a book I was reading and it reminded me of our passage today.[1] Cars have these great dashboards. Anyone want to guess what any of these lights might mean? Now I want you all to take a pen cover up things one by one. Ah.... now that it is all covered we can drive in peace, right? We don’t have to be scared or anxious anymore do we? No way! Those lights are meant to tell me to go get something fixed. I know it is hard to stop what I’m doing one day and get the car fixed, I know I have to risk spending a lot of money and potentially putting myself into debt. But the reality is, if I don’t fix the car and I ignore its signals, there will be a moment where everything just gives out and there will be no hope of getting to my destination...or worse — We might get into an accident.

Our bodies have indicators just like a car’s dashboard. When we start to get angry, we might start to feel our shoulders tense up, our neck might feel warm. When we get sad, we might feel something like a lump in our throat. I got into a disagreement the other day; I had this feeling down in my left side, something despair and guilt. We should pay attention to these things: anger can give us energy to push back against something wrong, sadness can point us to what is important to us, and guilt may illuminate something we need to apologize for. They are all indicator lights that something is happening inside us.

If we cover the dashboard and keep driving it will be hard to follow Jesus with our whole selves. Someone may make us really angry and we want to lash out and hold a grudge, someone hurts us and we want to hurt them back. Perhaps we feel ashamed and we go off by ourselves and don’t let anyone else into our life. We keep everyone at arms length can’t figure out why things feel off. Will we pay attention and let Jesus bring peace and healing so that we can share the goodness of Jesus with others?

Sometimes when we are honest about who Jesus is, what we need from Jesus, and what others need from Jesus, it can make them upset. Is it worth the risk? This is what Jesus is talking about today with his followers. It can feel really risky to respectfully tell our parents that we feel hurt by what they did. It can be risky to ask a friend if we can pray for them. When we do this, we’re not being disrespectful, we’re giving a gift. It’s up to the other person to accept it as such. That risk is the only way to real peace and healing. When we do the hard work of following Jesus and being honest, it might be hard, and there might be pain, but you know what we discover? We discover life as it ought to be because Jesus is in charge and we will know his loving friendship even when it is hard. Can you please pray with me?

“Dear God...thank you...for loving us...you died for us...and rose from the dead....and you are with us...even when....doing the right thing...is really hard....thank you...Amen.” Thank you all, go ahead and head back to your seats.

34-39Though costly, prioritize God’s kingdom

In St. Matthew’s Gospel, we have just read a really challenging passage. In the overall picture, Jesus has just commissioned the twelve disciples to carry out his ministry. Then he tells them that as they are following him they will encounter persecutions and trials. This is to be expected. Today’s passage is intentionally provocative. Jesus, what do you mean you came to bring a sword and cause family members to hate each other?!?!

He’s not saying that we ought to hate each other. There are plenty of other places in Scripture where the reign of the Messiah is associated with peace and where we are called to love our family members and our neighbors. There is nothing virtuous about loving violence or hatred, but when Jesus and his kingdom are our first priority —which is virtuous— the result might be violence and the breaking of relationship. This is the risk of following Jesus as Lord. It is about priorities: Following Jesus more than pleasing other people.

Jesus is quoting from the Bible and putting us in the line of the prophets when we follow him.[2] Another prophet told the religious leaders, “They have treated the wound of my people carelessly, saying “peace, peace,” when there is no peace.”[3] Jesus’ disciples, including you and I, enter into the prophetic burden of his messengers where we do what is good and right, following Jesus in the midst of chaos, waiting for God’s vindication. Rather than sweeping things under the rug in the name of niceness, we seek for real transformation.

Real peace is hard-fought and costly. Here is a composite scenario; this isn’t anyone’s story in particular, but feels like several scenarios I’ve heard. Darryl comes to me and says that his supervisor at work is often rude and condescending to him. In the break room one day the supervisor comes in and tells Darryl, “Your coworker Alice told me that I talk down to people, what does she know? She doesn’t know anything.” Darryl follows Jesus, and has endured a long history of condescension from his supervisor, but has done the internal work to know that he is competent and a hard worker. More than that, he knows how beloved he is by God and now has the capacity to hold space for his supervisor’s condescension. He has a choice, he can tell his supervisor “You’re right, what does she know?” This is uncaring, but it is easy, and it does not take his supervisor’s wound seriously. He is preaching peace, peace when there is no peace. Or, he can risk. Depending on the amount of risk, he might say “I can appreciate Alice’s experience. I have experienced you that way too.” Or he might be more subtle and say “Huh, tell me more about what you think made her feel that way. Have others told you that before? What might it feel like to apologize for that and what keeps you from it?” Darryl would be giving his supervisor a gracious gift: an opportunity to see Jesus at work. The risk is that Darryl’s supervisor is provoked to anger, resentment, and a grudge. This could set up Darryl for real trouble at work, but this is the risk in naming the grace of God to help free people from disordered attachments to sin and evil. We have to do the inner work with Jesus on our places of disordered love, fear, and attachment, looking to Jesus for help, so that we can offer true peace to our relatives, friends, and even those in our church family. Triangulation and indirect communication, slander and gossip, dehumanization, resentments, and coping behaviors are all indicator lights that show us something is broken, but carefully helping others name their own brokenness is costly.... and the only way to peace.

Some people think that prioritizing the kingdom just means doing a lot of stuff for the church to the neglect of other duties. This is to have good desire and good intentions, but the wrong execution. The world is not split up into secular tasks and sacred tasks. Instead, and I get this from C.S. Lewis, the daily tasks are all invitations to the will and kingdom of God and it is up to us to participate in them religiously or irreligiously. It does take healthy rhythms of prayer, Scripture reading, and community to frame the day this way, but it also sanctifies and makes holy all the parts of our day: Those conversations you’re not looking forward to with a family member, coworker or friend, making lunches in the morning, correcting a child or apologizing to a child, going to doctor appointments, the inconveniences when things don’t work out the way we’d hoped. Doing the hard work of rightly ordering our interior world with Jesus creates the capacity we need to help others discover the kingdom of God. In other words, the hard conversations aren’t derailments from the work of the kingdom, they are the soil in which the seeds of the kingdom begin to grow.

What keeps us from the work of the kingdom? This gets us back to the warning lights on our body’s dashboard? What story does our body tell? Perhaps there is a fear of rejection (Which ironically is Jesus’ point). It could be the voice of self-condemnation: we have come to believe the voice of someone who told us that we are a trouble-maker, an outsider, unlovable, ugly, overemotional, just too much, clingy, etc. And as we hold to those scripts we begin to act out of self-defense and self-preservation, incapable of vulnerability because we’ve vowed never to let ourselves get hurt again. We need time in Scripture to know the God who longs to be at home among his people, especially when they do things that are evil and turn towards him in repentance. We need time in prayer to know the nearness of God or to be fully ourselves in the presence of the one who might seem distant sometimes, but who always holds space for our full selves. It is hard work to carve out time to pay attention to our good loves and desires have become distorted such that we now notice our overreactions, our sinful proclivities, our disordered loves, and our wayward desires. It is so much work. And it is precisely that work that Jesus uses to make all things new. And when he does this in us, we have capacity for that hard work with others — even in the face of rejection.

Conclusion

When it comes to discipleship, being nice and not making waves is like a ceasefire. It doesn’t move things forward in the work of God’s kingdom. It is just the path of least resistance. Kingdom work involves honest curiosity and wonder in the face of brokenness — and that starts with ourselves. Of course we must have wisdom about when to stay silent and when to speak, but the reality is that it is risky to be courageous, kind, and curious about what is true of someone and the world they’ve constructed because it involves us constantly reorienting our interior world toward Jesus and his kingdom. This is the hard work of following Jesus; this is true peace-making.

Let us pray:

Almighty God, from whom all thoughts of truth and peace proceed: Kindle, we pray, in the hearts of all people the true love of peace, and guide with your pure and peaceable wisdom those who take counsel for the nations of the earth; that in tranquility your kingdom may go forward, till the earth is filled with the knowledge of your love; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

[1] Chuck Degroat, Healing What’s Within.

[2] Micah 7:6

[3] Jeremiah 6:14.

Ivory Casten 6/14/26 Ivory Casten 6/14/26

Proper 6: Sowing Grace, Harvesting Joy

Readings for June 14

Introduction

Good morning friends. It is so good to be with you this morning. Last week we looked at the calling of St. Matthew and today we are in the same chapter of his gospel. People have been questioning Jesus’ authority to heal people, even wondering if he is something like a spy who works for the devil, or Beelzebub. But he is showing them the power that is coming in the kingdom of God and our Gospel passage summarizes that ministry and shows us how it is going to be passed on down through Jesus’ disciples.

Kids Sermon

As is our new custom over the summer, I want to invite the kids down for our kids’ sermon. [bring a flower not yet in seed and one that is seeding]. How many of you have been growing things at home? What kinds of things are you growing?

This is from our meadow that we have been working on at our house Anyone know what kind of flower this is? That’s right: [whatever the flower is]. What are the differences between these? One’s job is to produce pollen for bees, moths, butterflies, etc. The other one has moved into a different stage where it has gone to seed to spread and make more flowers. [Pull one seed]. How many seeds do you think I’ll get from one flower? Who knows...perhaps 20 or so. Trick question: How many flowers are in one seed? There is no way to answer that question! A seed will fall into the ground and produce another flower, which will produce more seeds, which will produce more flowers, and on and on it goes. It would be possible over a long period of time to fill a field by starting with one flower!

Today’s passage is all about the good news of God’s kingdom being proclaimed to individuals who were looking for God’s king to come. Jesus says this really interesting phrase about “The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few, therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers” What he means is that God is doing amazing things. He is healing people, their lives are being restored, just like Matthew the Tax Collector. When they are encountering Jesus they are seeing God’s kingdom breaking into their world. People are ready! And he tells them to pray for more people to help with the harvest. The funny thing is....they are an answer to their prayers! They will be ones helping sow the seed and do the harvesting. This is how we follow Jesus. We ask God for help, we look for what Jesus is doing, we give him thanks for it, we share it with others. And then they do the same. And in the church then we start to see the harvest where God’s new creation is coming about and you can look at the church like a field of flowers blooming with the beauties of the kingdom of God. From our lives there goes seed which spreads this goodness to our friends and neighbors that are also longing for Jesus to be king. You and I are part of that story. Before you head back, can you pray with me?

“Dear God...thank you....for loving us...and for Jesus...Who died for us...and rose again...to make all things new. Amen.”

1) 9:35-38 Compassion motivated his kingdom ministry (in the face of evil shepherds who accused him of working as an agent of Satan).

Where are we in Jesus’ story? Last week, Jesus had invited Matthew, the tax collector to follow him. He would go on to heal people of their diseases and the demons that afflicted them. All of these are tangible signs that God’s kingdom was breaking into the present evil age. These were the signs prophesied about what the Messiah would do from the Old Testament.

In his summary of Jesus’ ministry, St. Matthew takes time to note that Jesus saw the crowds, and had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. There are passages of the Old Testament that condemn Judah’s leadership for being bad shepherds. I’m thinking specifically of Ezekiel 34 where the leaders are compared to shepherds who completely neglect their flock and as a result, the sheep are scattered and injured and no one is there to care for them. God promised to remove those shepherds and then to personally be a shepherd to his people, seeking out the sheep, bringing them back, binding their wounds, and leading them to pasture.[1] In this Gospel passage, I think St. Matthew means for this to be a veiled critique of Judah’s spiritual leaders, and I think he means to underscore the ways that Jesus is doing what God promised He would do.

Jesus’ ministry begins with God’s compassion, and the best ministry happens when that continues to be the lens through which we see others. A long time ago I’d been a supervisor in a coffee shop and remember being so annoyed that one of the employees would come in late for her shift every time. There was never an explanation; it was just normal for her. After months of this she revealed some things about her mom that demonstrated that she was essentially dealing with an incredibly dysfunctional household and then as a result, she had to shuttle her little sister to various places. I had to repent of my misrepresentation of her and my lack of compassion. It’s these little moments that remind us that the people around us, no matter how put together they might look, are still wandering and helpless like sheep with no shepherd. There are people who annoy us, perhaps even anger us, but can we be moved to a place of compassion for them? Having compassion is the first step in joining the harvest that Jesus talks about.

2) 10:1-4 Jesus invites the disciples/apostles into the ministry of compassionate healing

Jesus tells the disciples to pray to the Lord of the harvest and that the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.[2] The way this is followed by the next chapter suggests that the disciples themselves become the answer to this prayer...and of course anyone after them. Jesus summons the 12 and gives them authority to carry on this ministry. St. Matthew then lists out the twelves disciples. This authority, through the apostles, is also given to the church to carry on this mission.

This is the first time in this gospel that the disciples are also called apostles. We use that word and we don’t often know what it means. It means, “Sent ones”. The good news of the kingdom of heaven was a message to be announced. It was being announced by Jesus with preaching and miracles and now Jesus is sending out the twelve in the continuation of this work.

Bishops continue the apostolic office and remind us all of our own part of the apostolic call. They carry on in the tradition that is passed down from the 12 sent ones through those they sent, down today to the bishops of the church. When a Bishop is consecrated, one of the things we pray over him is this: “Grant to this your servant such grace that he may ever be ready to spread abroad your Gospel, the glad tidings of reconciliation with you, and to use the authority given to him, not for destruction, but for salvation; not to hurt, but to help; so that, as a wise and faithful steward, he may give to your family their portion in due season, and at the last may be received into everlasting joy, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” This feels very similar to what Jesus is asking of his disciples. While we don’t all hold the apostolic office, we do all carry on the apostolic mission of being bearers of the kingdom work and message. Like I mentioned to the kids earlier: We ask God for help, we look for what Jesus is doing, we give him thanks for it, we share it with others.

This has been lived out in different ways in different times. One of my favorite examples from our Anglican heritage is in the Celtic spiritual heritage. Between the 4th and 7th centuries, the common way of doing ministry is that a Bishop would go to a place and evangelize, bring some monks and nuns with him, set up a monastery and churches for a robust life of prayer, leave the administration of it all under the care of an abbot or abbess and then move on. The landscape was dotted with monasteries and churches that engaged in a robust prayer and monastic life even as the Bishop created front porches of entry through hospitality and care for people to encounter Jesus in new cities and towns. Then the process repeats. Bishops were trailblazers and the abbots and abbesses functioned like our bishops do today.

This is why I love church planting so much. It feels apostolic. We started a church to create a thin place where heaven meets earth, where new creation is coming about through a robust communal and sacramental life of prayer, to then engage in mission as we create front porches of hospitality for people to discover Jesus. Our various ministries give us spaces to build rhythms of hospitality, prayer, relationship-building, and service. Our community events cultivate an imagination for hospitality and welcome as we have cookouts, go to baseball games, have coffee, do stories in the park, have fun at the skatepark, and however else we think to gather and make space for friendship. Every person here has people they know who long for Jesus’ compassion, even if they couldn’t articulate it yet. We should hold them in prayer with compassion, look for ways to invite them into life with Jesus, and let the church’s rhythms of prayer and community shape our lives for what kingdom-minded harvest looks like where live, work, and play.

Conclusion

We have seen Jesus’ compassion as the motivation for his kingdom proclamation. He shares this ministry with his disciples who are sent as messengers of this kingdom. They aren’t in it for wealth, ease, or fame. They are ambassadors of renewal who keep their eyes open for those ready to hear this message. We share in this apostolic ministry, looking for the Spirit’s work of new creation, practicing it in the church, for the good of the world. As we say goodbye to some dear friends today, I’m so grateful for the ways they’ve made this church what it is. One of my prayers is that as a church, for as long as we have an individual or a household, that this would be a resting-place of grace for their journey, where people experience the goodness of the kingdom to be sent out more healed by Jesus than when they arrived. As long as we are here together, there is always more work to do. We are looking for the Spirit’s work, harvesting where He has sown seeds that have matured, finding those ready to receive the message and power of God’s kingdom and the reign of Christ. As we walk faithfully with the Lord, and name his work for others along the way, we do not know the lives we’ll impact along the way.

Let us pray:

O God, our heavenly Father, you manifested your love by sending your only-begotten Son into the world, that all might live through him: Pour out your Spirit on your Church, that we may fulfill his command to preach the Gospel to all people. Send forth laborers into your harvest; defend them in all dangers and temptations; and hasten the time when the fullness of the Gentiles shall be gathered in, and faithful Israel shall be saved; through your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

[1] Ezekiel 34:1-16.

[2] Matthew 9:37-38.

Ivory Casten 6/7/26 Ivory Casten 6/7/26

Proper 5: Substantive Discipleship Involves Risk

Readings for June 7

Introduction

Good morning dear friends. It is so wonderful to see you this morning. Today’s Gospel passage and the passages in Hosea and the Psalms have a lot to do with getting our priorities straight as we follow the Lord. As we think about this text and what God is teaching us through it, I want to begin by inviting the kids down.

Kids sermon

How many of you like cookies? What are your favorite kinds? There was one night where Ashley and I really wanted to have cookies for dessert, but we had to use the few ingredients we had in the cupboard. I looked online for help with recipes and I discovered a peanut butter cookie that only uses 4 ingredients. Because there are only four ingredients, each one is super important. Cole, do you remember what we call them? ...Dad’s super fast peanut butter cookies. It takes one cup of peanut butter, one cup of sugar, one egg, and a bit of vanilla extract. Then you stir it all together, ball it up on some baking sheets, use a fork to flatten them out, and bake them at 350 for about 9 or 10 minutes.

They are not healthy by any means, but they are delicious. There are certainly more complex cookies with a lot of additional ingredients that are not necessary, but in this cookie, three of the four ingredients are absolutely necessary. If you forget the vanilla extract, they’ll taste fine, but they’ll taste like something is missing. if you forget the peanut butter then you’re just eating sugar and eggs. If you forget the egg, the cookie won’t bind together. If you forget the sugar, it won’t taste good at all. When we are cooking or baking, there are some necessary ingredients we really cannot skip out on without doing irreparable harm to what we’re trying to make.

Today in our passages, we are hearing some different ingredients of Old Testament discipleship being put together: sacrificing animals, keeping the law, rules about keeping someone clean, and who to avoid. Some of them are more important than others. Jesus meets some people who were worried more about the less-important ingredients than about the main ingredients that are involved in following the Lord. Jesus wants to help them put their priorities straight. These texts were recorded for us so that we learn how to love God, love our neighbors, and invite them into his love. Jesus is helping us prioritize what is most important. As we look at our text together, will you pray with me? “Dear God...thank you...for teaching us...how to follow you...and for giving us...the Holy Spirit...to become more like you...Amen.” Thank you. Head on back to your seats.

I. Jesus sees need rather than failure and offers healing rather than quarantining himself.

In St. Matthew’s Gospel reading today, Jesus is walking along in Capernaum and sees a man sitting at the tax booth named Matthew. Matthew would have been one of those who was hired out to collect various taxes that were levied by Herod Antipas on goods carried through the town and goods that were traded. He would have been working with a group in this booth. The fact that “tax collectors” is paired with sinners shows you how these folks are seen. A foreign oppressor was taxing the Jewish people on their goods, serving as a reminder that they were not free, but under the subjugation of an enemy. Tax collectors were seen as part of the system of oppression and a Jewish tax collector is then seen as a traitor to his people. And this is where Matthew ends up in his life. I doubt he is proud of it, but this is how he has made his living. His home, its furnishings, even down to the utensils he would use to host Jesus, were funded by the taxation of God’s people.

This was someone the religious culture saw as undesirable and someone to keep at arm’s length. And yet where the Pharisees saw a failure, Jesus saw someone in need. This is the one Jesus saw, one whom God loves, and in whom God’s glory would be made known as his life became transformed and he was put into communion with other followers of Jesus—like Simon the Zealot, who was part of a group that militantly opposed paying Roman taxes.

Jesus risks his reputation to heal people and bring them into the kingdom of God. We would do well to remind ourselves that we are people in need. We are in need of friendship, of salvation from our disordered attachments, healing from our coping strategies, healing from the ways we react out of our own hurt, healing from the ways that we walk away from God’s will for what is best for us. We are needy people whom Jesus longs to heal.

As we follow Jesus and experience healing, we become, like Henri Nouwen talks about, wounded healers. We should err on the side of wanting to see others changed by Jesus and not err on the side of what others might think of us. This doesn’t mean we capitulate to someone’s sin, or even accept it as good, but neither do we need to hold every person at arms length who doesn’t align with our faith. It is incumbent on us to remember that no one is outside the reach of the grace of God. As we think of those we rub shoulders with, whose sin makes us tense up and avoidant — why? Of course be wise and safe, but begin to pray about how this person might be in need of the love of God as we ourselves are. Rather than asking “what will people think of me if I associate with this person?” begin to ask, “what does this person need from the Lord and how can I care for them in that need?” We are still confident, pursuing holiness, differentiated, but also compassionately pursuing what is good for another image-bearer.

II. Jesus allows the guiding principles of the law to govern its application rather than being hung up on external false flags of piety.

Jesus sees a need where others see failure. In the latter part of our Gospel passage, he gets to a guiding principle. Being transformed by God’s love to then share it with others is the key ingredient of discipleship; if we miss this, discipleship becomes obscured — and potentially legalistic. C.S. Lewis talks about priorities in discipleship. He says, “I read in a religious paper, “Nothing is more important than to teach children to use the sign of the cross.” Nothing? Not compassion, nor veracity, nor justice? Voilà l’ennemi.”[1]

There are certainly times to stand at arms length from people we disagree with because they are potentially harmful, or we’re not differentiated enough not to get sucked into their sin, or because we need to put up a boundary to keep ourselves physically or emotionally safe. Some of those exceptions aside, a defensive posture that makes people less human and keeps them at an arm’s distance should not be a guiding principle in the pursuit of holiness. If someone disagrees with us, it is an opportunity for us — and for our kids—to have great, age-appropriate conversations. It is an opportunity to come with curiosity an notice someone’s need.

Kids, when you go to the doctor with a horrible cough, and you’re still contagious, the doctor will mask up and get in the room with you to run tests, help figure out what is going on, and help you get better. There is some risk in being a physician, but to risk is the only way to heal. Rather than asking “What will happen if that sinner gets near me” Jesus says “What might happen if their life of brokenness is given back to them as a story of redemption?”

Jesus uses a rabbinic phrase with the Pharisees when he says “Go and learn what this means...” Then he quotes Hosea 6:6. In Hosea, the prophet is warning the Northern Kingdom of Israel of the ways they have strayed from the Lord to then call out the southern kingdom for the same. The quote says “I desire mercy, not sacrifice”. The quotation as its recorded matches perfectly the Greek version of the Old Testament. The word “mercy” is one you’re probably familiar with ἔλεος as in when we say “Kyrie eleison...” We usually mean something like compassion. But this word is translating Hebrew word חֶ֥סֶד, which has less to do with compassion and more to do with covenant love and faithfulness. We often translate it lovingkindness, which is true if by that we mean the lovingkindness connected with faithfulness to God’s covenant with his people. God’s desire is that Israel and Judah would love obedience to Him and when they make a wrong turn, to turn back in repentance, to throw themselves onto the grace of God which he longs to meet them with. God desires a deep relationship of love and trust, not merely some sacrifices. He is not some Pagan god that needs to be fed by human beings through their offerings.

So with St. Matthew, God’s desire is for those who have strayed to come and find life in him. One can obey the Sabbath religiously, hold all the feast days, sacrifice the best offerings; and for us— have all the kids in Sunday school remember to bring their bibles, hold the most church programs, do all the family prayer times, do all the daily bible readings, memorize all the Scriptures we can, but if the result is a defensive faith that culminates in tokens of piety without the substance of real life change that produces a desire for the love of God for ourselves and others, then we have missed the guiding principle of Jesus. We don’t want a faith that only keeps us safe, we want a faith that makes us holy.

Conclusion

The faith that makes us holy risks something because it enters the messiness of life with God with others. Worshiping together forms us to go into the world to love and serve the Lord; it doesn’t form us to perform the liturgy better. To love the Lord our God and our neighbor as ourselves, as we say each week, becomes the guiding principle in following Jesus. Without this key ingredient, we miss the result of discipleship, which is Christ being formed in us. A good and right faith prioritizes what is most important in a life of discipleship and produces what is ultimately good in us and others — whether we call this the virtues or the fruit of the spirit. This is where God’s kingdom comes. If we miss this, the external badges of piety won’t mean much. Let’s join Jesus in noticing others’ needs rather than their failures, inviting them into God’s transformative love, and to make Jesus’ transformative love become our guiding principle in living out a life of discipleship.

Let us pray:

Gracious God and most merciful Father, you have granted us the rich and precious jewel of your holy Word: Assist us with your Spirit, that the same Word may be written in our hearts to our everlasting comfort, to reform us, to renew us according to your own image, to build us up and edify us into the perfect dwelling place of your Christ, sanctifying and increasing in us all heavenly virtues; grant this, O heavenly Father, for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.

[1] C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm, Letter 6.

Ivory Casten 5/31/26 Ivory Casten 5/31/26

Trinity Sunday: The Commencement of the Great Commission

Matthew 28:16-20

Introduction

Good morning dear friends. Welcome to Trinity Sunday, the Sunday that follows Pentecost, where we focus on life with our Triune God, and the Sunday that leads us into ordinary time. As I mentioned last Sunday, while the kids aren’t in CGS, I want to have a specific time for them during the sermon, so kids, please come and sit down front near me...

Kids sermon

How many of you have been to a graduation? Have you had your own? What were these graduations like? What do you remember? I wonder why we do them. What do you think?

Anyone know what another name is for a graduation?...A commencement ceremony. I remember our high school graduation a few decades ago. It was a sunny day in northern California, we wore green robes and funny hats. Music played and we walked around the track of our football field to get to where we were supposed to sit. Then they called each name individually. I cannot remember how many hundreds of kids were in my senior class, but it did feel like an eternity under the sun. Eventually, hearing my name, I walked across the stage, got my diploma, and went back to my seat. Eventually they had us all move the tassels on our hat from one side to the other to signify that we’ve made it across the finish line.

Commencement is really a better word for what happened that day. We ought to celebrate accomplishments, and making it through high school was certainly an accomplishment! But it really was a beginning, not an end; Monday morning rolled around and everything was new again. I wouldn’t see my high school friends much anymore unless we saw each other at community college. I had to start making money to pay for gas and classes. Graduation really isn’t the end. It’s actually the beginning, the commencement of what is next.

May and June always feel like big seasons of change. Maybe some of you are feeling nervous or scared about that. That is okay to feel that way. God is with you even when life changes and God brings us into new places and circumstances; into new schools and new friendships. Can I tell you something surprising? Adults still get nervous about that too. A little bit of that fear about new things is what the disciples feel in our Gospel passage today too. I want to look at that passage together with everyone. Before I head back to the lectern, can you all pray with me: “Dear Father... thank you...for Jesus...coming to be with us... thank you... for the Holy Spirit.... living in us. Amen.” Okay, head on back to your seats.

I. Our Commission with a Promise (I will be with you)

Today’s passage is very grounding for the seasons of change we find ourselves in. Several of you have visited friends or relatives who are graduating. Lots of you are graduating high school or junior high, or entering elementary school. In a season of change, excitement, and potentially anxiety, I’m so grateful that Trinity Sunday occurs this time of year. It is very grounding to focus on who God is and what he calls us to become.

In Matthew 28, Jesus had risen from the dead and showed himself to his disciples in Jerusalem. They are told to meet Jesus in Galilee, so they make the trek north. They arrive in Galilee at the mountain Jesus told them to go to. Jesus says to them “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”[1] All of creation, visible and invisible, is now under the rule and reign of Christ. This was part one of his kingship, part two involves the disciples. The disciples’ commencement began with walking into the unfamiliar with trust in Jesus’ ongoing presence.

Jesus commissions them and tells them that as they go along they are to make disciples. How are they to do this? By baptizing people in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And by teaching them all that Jesus has commanded them. The command is not “to go”. We aren’t called to make special trips and then make disciples. In other words, this is not a commission for missions trips or becoming itinerate preachers. Those are good things — and they aren’t the totality of making disciples. This is a commission to live a certain way. As you go, wherever you go, make followers of Jesus. You might be a kid figuring out how to follow Jesus in the context of your friend group at school and helping your friends see what Jesus is doing in your life. Who are you praying for among your friends? Adults, what does it mean in our vocation to follow Jesus and help our coworkers learn what Jesus is doing in our lives? How do we do our jobs according to the ethical demands of the Gospel with compassion? Who are we praying for among our coworkers? If you’re raising little ones, how are we forming disciples in the household? This starts with our own work on ourselves and our own stories. You might be retired, but actually you’re only retired from one vocational calling because there is no such thing as retirement in the kingdom of God. How are you becoming like Christ and sharing his love with your new calling in retirement? Who are the people you responsible to now that one vocation has gone?

The great commission is for all of us. We are all commissioned to help people become more like Jesus. Help people discover the life and work of the Triune God. Help others follow Jesus, to be baptized, and to live life in the Holy Spirit. Walk with others in instructing and helping them live out the commandments of Jesus.

There are a five steps to consider in living out the great commission: 1) prayer, 2) our own growth, 3) knowing Christ’s commands, 4) seeing the needs of others, 5) invitation. This begins with praying for friends, relatives, acquaintances, neighbors, and coworkers who need Jesus and don’t know him yet. Get to know the people who live near you, both their name, and if possible, know something about them you can be praying for. Where are our spaces that we know others and are known by others?

Second, we have to prioritize our own growth in Jesus. Jesus wants to deliver us from this present evil age into the age to come, which has broken in through his death and resurrection. Are we aware of the places we need to grow in holiness? Our inner critic and our besetting sins are often intimately related. We all have a strong inner critic who likes to lob bombs of self-contempt our way. Mine likes to attack me when I risk something and it doesn’t go well. I move very quickly from “I wish that turned out differently...” to “you failed,” then to “you are a failure”. I wonder what your inner critic says and whose voice it is? Prayerful journaling is such a helpful practice for me. I’d encourage you to do it too to learn how to bless the goodness of the longings we have, name the voices of the inner-critic, and come back to God and to ourselves as God sees us. Perhaps use questions like “what happened?”, “What did I feel? And where did I feel it?”, “When did I feel that before?”, “What was I longing for?”, “How does this point me to my image-bearing self?”, “What is true of God in this situation?”, and “How do I now see this knowing what I know of God and myself?”.

Third, in becoming more like Christ, we have to know the Triune God and what Christ commands of us. We take in God’s truth in Scripture and in the Church, making space for prayer in the offices of the church, or in finding short and rhythmic prayers to reframe the day in the presence of Jesus. This grounds us for the turbulence of the world around us.

As we come to know the commands of Christ, we need to enter with curiosity into the needs of others. Having created a capacity to hear well, we listen. As you’re listening to your coworker, what are the questions behind their questions? As you’re out with other parents on the playground, what kinds of fears do other parents have? Whose grass is really overgrown in your neighborhood and what is the reason for that? Is someone elderly, sick, or do they have a newborn? This world, for all its online connectivity, is more disconnected than ever. Just sit in a crowded coffee shop and note the percentage of people on a screen vs. in conversation. Enter into that reality with curiosity. Big societal problems and trends are too large for us to solve, so start with those close to you, one individual at a time. For example, I saw a woman cross the busy road outside our complex with a baby in arms and a car raced behind her. This is the only place to cross the street to get to the bus stop. It has a cross walk, but no flashing lights. I wonder what it would look like to gather my neighbors and petition the county for a flashing crosswalk signal. The ultimate end is that my neighborhood knows our deep concern for our neighbors of all walks of life and my hope is that through an effort like that we might build the relational capital needed to earn the right to be heard.

Finally, we invite people into conversation and there is trust and shared vulnerability. We earn the right to hear someone share their story with all of its goodness and brokenness and they are better able to hear about Jesus’ work in our lives and about the goodness that Jesus is inviting us and them into. This takes a long time, but it also aims at a life transformed by the love of Jesus and not just mental assent to a body of knowledge. The Great Commission involves all of who we are interacting with all of who someone else is and that process is slow; it moves at the pace of relationship.

Conclusion

The life of someone becoming more like Jesus and helping others do the same is accompanied by, and empowered by the presence of God. The Gospel of Matthew began with the declaration that Jesus would be Immanuel, God with us.[2] Here, at the end of the Gospel, Jesus fulfills this and says “I am with you always, to the end of the age.”[3] The promise is that the Great Commission is not done alone. Our commission is to continue the work of Jesus’ 12 disciples. We are bringing people into the life of our triune God; growing the kingdom through the lives of individuals, neighborhoods, workplaces, and our other spheres of influence — Wherever we go.

The commencement ceremony that took place on a mountain in Galilee continues in 21st century Northern Virginia and as we look to the youngest in this church, continues in and through them. We need to become a church where this great commission is lived out and passed on. 1) pray, 2) work on your own growth in holiness, 3) know Christ’s commands, 4) notice the needs of others, 5) and invite others into life with Jesus. We cannot give what we ourselves have not received, so let’s do the hard work together of noticing and taking up God’s grace for ourselves so that we might share it with others, knowing that Jesus is with us and is bringing us all back into communion with our Triune God.

Let us pray:

Almighty God our Savior, you desire that none should perish, and you have taught us through your Son that there is great joy in heaven over every sinner who repents: Grant that our hearts may ache for a lost and broken world. May your Holy Spirit work through our words, deeds, and prayers, that the lost may be found and the dead made alive, and that all your redeemed may rejoice around your throne; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

[1] Matt 28:18.

[2] Matthew 1:23.

[3] Matthew 28:20.

Ivory Casten 5/24/26 Ivory Casten 5/24/26

Pentecost Sunday: A Commission to Join in New Creation

Genesis 11:1-9

Acts 2:1-21

Introduction

Good morning friends. Welcome to Pentecost Sunday. Jesus has ascended and on this day we commemorate His sending the Holy Spirit to the church to continue his work. While the kids aren’t in CGS, I want to start doing something new. I want to invite the kids down for a children’s sermon. Kids, come on down.

Kids’ Sermon

How many of you enjoy playing in the sand? Me too! What do you like doing in sandboxes? If we were to try to build a sandbox together, what kinds of things would we need? [Let the kids answer]. If we just had a pile of wood and pile of bags of sand, could we do it? What would happen if I poured the sand on the ground with nothing to hold it in? What would happen if I put boards up with out nailing them together and put sand in it? What happens if I just put a bunch of bags of sand on top of each other? Would that make a sandbox? NO! That’s right, we need a plan and the right tools to get things done. It’s not enough to think hard about it, or to just get the supplies. We need someone with a plan and the right tools to help us build it. We’ll have to cut the boards with a saw, hammer or screw together those boards with drills and screws or hammers and nails. We need a sharp knife to open the sandbags and someone who is really strong to dump all the sand into the sandbox. What happens after we build it? We can finally play! We fill it with toys, we spend time in it. We enjoy it.

In today’s passages we heard about how people made a mess of things in the world. But the thing is, even when we make a mess of things, God still loves us. He made us and he wants us to ask him for help and to enjoy his goodness in this world. I would even say that the joy of play is learning the reality of heaven, but when people want to do things their own way and not listen to God, they start to break things and make everything more chaotic and complicated. In our Genesis reading today, people became separated from one another, and they separated themselves from God. They forgot how to play in the goodness of God’s presence.

Pentecost is where the Holy Spirit, God himself, comes to make things new for all people. He will reorder the chaos they’ve made and reconstruct the things we have broken so we can play in His presence and have a full life with God once again. He is the one who has all the supplies, the knowledge, the wisdom, the tools and the power to bring us back to himself through Jesus. Today, remember that God loves you and has given his Holy Spirit to help rebuild what is broken. Thanks for listening kids. You can head back.

As I look at our texts with all of us, let me pray for us:

“In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. O God, you have made of one blood all the peoples of the earth, and sent your blessed Son to preach peace to those who are far off and to those who are near: Grant that people everywhere may seek after you and find you; bring the nations into your fold; pour out your Spirit upon all flesh; and hasten the coming of your kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

1. Hubris, destruction, and the need for a new history — Genesis 11

We read today from Genesis chapter 11. It’s a strange story which shows humanity’s recapitulation of the ancestral sin: refusing God’s goodness to opt for our own autonomy and authority. The peoples who were born from the descendants of Noah migrated east and wanted to build a city. As Alexei pointed out in his sermon last week, there weren’t the abundance of rocks that there had been where they came from, so they innovated and figured out how to make bricks and mortar with what they had. They say “Let’s build ourselves a city, have a tower with its height in the sky, and make a name for ourselves.”[1]

God comes down to visit the city. In contrast to the book of Acts today where God comes down to indwell a people, God here comes down to look at it. In his mercy, so that they did not create a scenario which they could not come back from, he scatters the people and creates confusion by dividing their languages. This whole narrative is a critique of Babylonian culture and human pride. Babylon viewed themselves as the height and pinnacle of human civilization. It also served as a warning to Israel in the future that the divisions, wars, and animosity towards strangers and foreign nations were a result of a choice to reject the good life with God in creation. In this narrative there is no small token of hope. There is no fig leaf, no mark to keep one safe, no rainbow. This is the first judgment narrative in Genesis with no hope of blessing. History has to be rewritten. And this is why the narrative begins in chapter 12 with introducing us to God’s calling of Abraham.

The whole narrative hinges on a wordplay. The people say “Let us make bricks” (נִלְבְּנָה) in verse 7. Despite their ingenuity and hubris, God says “let us confuse” (וְנָבְלָה) their languages. The group in Babel saw themselves as “the whole earth” and now they’d be scattered through the whole earth. God’s purposes will be accomplished despite the arrogance and defiance of proud people. Abraham begins a new history which gives humanity hope that all things will be put right again. Since the time of Abraham, the descendants of Abraham have been looking for that servant who would come and restore these cracked icons and destroy the dividing wall between heaven and earth and between our many earthly divisions caused by fear and pride.

2. God comes to dwell and put the two parts of creation (Heaven and earth), back together again. Shalom— Acts 2

Jesus is the hope humanity was looking for and his work is continuing through the Holy Spirit in the church in Acts 2 and beyond. God indwells a people in the Holy Spirit and begins reversing not just the curse of Babel, but the effects of the ancestral sin of humanity. I was reading a book this week on the counter-world that we long for in the Psalms, and the author points out some of the brokenness that seems so commonly a part of the human story.

Living with the mindset of scarcity, there is not enough out there for all of us, we have not done enough, we are not enough, and all of this heightens our anxiety. And once we are anxious and fearful, we are met with messages that keep us in this state of alert and people can sell us narratives and products we think we need to keep ourselves safer, healthier, more loved. Our anxieties then push us to control more of our lives, control our situations, control the people around us. In a world of scarcity and anxiety it is not hard to discover that greed becomes the means to keep us safe. We need more and more to keep up appearances, to make us feel important, to help us feel safe. The author says, “Thus the ideology of anxious scarcity generates artificial needs, so that unthinkable luxuries are quickly redefined as necessities...”[2]

Our greed gives us the illusion that we are self-sufficient. In our self-deluded self-sufficiency we think we can make it on our own or we fear rivals and competitors and say “I have to be self-sufficient”. God told Israel that once they got into the land and had eaten their fill and built fine houses, they should not exalt themselves and think that their wealth came by their own hand.[3] God makes no sense and has no relevance to those bound to a high-control, greedy, self-sufficient, and a frenetically-paced world. This leads us to denial. Buying that advertised razor and having a better shave won’t give me the perfect life that commercial promises any more than re-posting that one thing on social media will satisfy my rage and longing for safety and prosperity. But we do it anyways. And then the denial finally begins to give way to despair where our world feels like the bottom has dropped out of it and we are incapable of care and hospitality, unable to keep thoughtful attention and an even temper, and without hope. We cope with the hopelessness with a cultivated amnesia, addiction or other coping strategies to forget the hurt we have experienced. This produces only disconnection: disconnection from God, others, and even ourselves. Ultimately the disconnected world becomes a world without norms “because without God and without tradition and without common good, everything is possible.”[4]

Whereas God visited Babel to look at it and then thwart their plans, Jesus is God’s visitation of the world to inhabit it, re-create it, and bring unity to heaven and earth — the two realms of creation. The book of Acts continues the narrative of the things Jesus did. The work of Jesus was continuing in a people who were filled with God’s very presence as the new temple for the Holy Spirit to fill. The point of Pentecost is not the injection of energy into a people, it is God’s coming to dwell with his new covenant people — a new Sinai. It is a fulfillment of promises long ago. What started with Abraham in Genesis 12 has found its fulfillment in God’s homecoming.

Pentecost launches a worldwide mission to put the world right again. You and I are filled with the Holy Spirit and part of this mission. Pentecost Sunday always feels like a re-missioning. What brokenness have you encountered this week? What disappointments? In any given week there are a number of reminders that the world is not as it should be. And in the midst of these places, the Spirit is working. Have we asked him what he wants to do in us? Have we sat with others in community to discern the work of the Spirit?

Conclusion

God has come, the Spirit is here. The church has what she needs to become the mature body of Christ and to continue the works and teachings of Jesus in a world bound to anxiety, greed, self-sufficiency, denial, amnesia, and disconnection. The fractures of humanity are being healed in the church as the place of new creation. In our own strength, innovation, and pride, we will only sow chaos into creation, but God’s Spirit has been poured out into the church to bring about new creation. As God rebuilds, we come to know the profound joy of the work of the Spirit in the church and as we know this joy, we come to learn the stuff of heaven where we learn to play again where God dwells.

Let us pray:

Lord Jesus, Master Carpenter of Nazareth, on the Cross through wood and nails you wrought our full salvation: Wield well your tools in this, your workshop, that we who come to you rough-hewn may be fashioned into a truer beauty by your hand; who with the Father and the Holy Spirit live and reign, one God, world without end. Amen.

[1] Genesis 11:4.

[2] Walter Brueggemann, From Whom No Secrets are Hid: Introducing the Psalms, 10-11.

[3] Deut. 8:12-17.

[4] Walter Brueggemann, From Whom No Secrets are Hid: Introducing the Psalms, 12-14.

Ivory Casten 5/14/26 Ivory Casten 5/14/26

Ascension Day: Earth and Heaven Shall Be One

Acts 1:1-11

Introduction

‍ ‍Good evening friends. Thank you for coming tonight to the Feast of the Ascension of our Lord. The book of Acts is bookended by references to the kingdom of God. In Acts 1:3, Luke summarizes Jesus’ resurrection ministry of presenting himself alive, appearing to the disciples over the course of 40 days and speaking about the kingdom of God. Then at the end of the Book of Acts, Paul preaches in Rome and lived there two years. In verses 30-31, it says that he welcomed all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God...” Everything that happens in the book of Acts then is bound up in this theme of God’s kingdom.

Everything in the world looked the same, but now was imbued with new creation significance. When Jesus ascends on high, he brings his humanity — what is earthly — into the abode of God. And he does this to bring the presence of God — what is heavenly — back into the abode of man by the Spirit so that heaven and earth are one. As we look at the Ascension in the book of Acts, let me pray for us.

In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord, may the words of my mouth, and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our redeemer. Amen.

The Kingdom is being restored (cf. Dan 7), but not as you’d think

St. Luke opens the book of Acts with an address to a person, or at least a symbolic person, named Theophilus, meaning “Lover of God.” This is part two of the story of Jesus which really begins at the ascension. Jesus had told them to wait in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit. Up to this point everyone had been baptized by John the Baptist’s baptism. They had joined in this movement of repentance and joined Jesus as Messiah to see God’s kingdom on earth. Jesus had made these mysterious promises about the promised Holy Spirit. This is the one who would indwell them and empower to live out God’s kingdom as this new covenant Israel under the Kingship of Jesus as the Lord’s Messiah.

In verse 6 we get to the heart of a very important question. The disciples ask “Is this now the time you will restore the kingdom?” They are thinking back to the prophecies in the Scripture about God riding in victoriously through the desert as in Isaiah 40 or the spirit of God rushing back into a restored temple in Jerusalem as in the book of Ezekiel. Or famously, the passage in Daniel 7 where a human, a Son of Man, rides in on the clouds and sits next to the Ancient of Days and reigns from God’s throne over the pagan nations who are symbolized by 4 beasts. They want an earthly king to destroy all the oppressors and usher in a reign of justice and peace where God and His Messiah reign from heaven’s throne.

Jesus doesn’t say “no, that will happen later.” His answer is more nuanced. He tells them essentially not to worry about the when because it is the wrong question. Also, they shouldn’t worry about the contours of how the kingdom will look. That is God’s business. It will eventually envelop everything, but it starts small — Remember the whole mustard seed parable. His answer to them is that they will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon them. Then after this happens they will be witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth. What this means is that the kingdom is here, and it is going to look different than they thought; it will start smaller than expected, but also more cosmic than they understood. The Spirit will fill them as the new temple and not a building. From that temple, the work of God will be made known as the nations encounter the place where heaven meets earth, which is the body of Christ, the Church!

Heaven is not just a place far off; it is the unseen realm of God, the “age to come” that overlaps and interlocks with this present evil age. Jesus, being fully God, enters into the present evil age, taking on the fullness of humanity to defeat sin and death. Then as he ascends to heaven in a resurrected body, he assumes, takes up, creation into the abode of God. This is the good news of the kingdom! The image of Daniel 7 is prominent in the ascension as Jesus’ ascension proclaims to the world that Jesus reigns over all earthly authorities. And from his reign on high he gives the Spirit to the Church. Now, God’s abode comes to bear on creation’s abode. Earth had been taken up into heaven and heaven is brought to earth; yes, the kingdom is here, but not as we would expect.

The disciples are called to be Spirit-filled witnesses to this kingdom. Their transformed lives, and those of their households and neighbors are the testimony that Jesus is King and his kingdom has come. This reminds me of a quote from C.S. Lewis in his Letters to Malcolm, “When the wind roars I don't just hear the roar; I "hear the wind." ...The distinction ought to become, and sometimes is, impossible; to receive it and to recognise its divine source are a single experience. This heavenly fruit is instantly redolent of the orchard where it grew. This sweet air whispers of the country from whence it blows. It is a message. We know we are being touched by a finger of that right hand at which there are pleasures for evermore. There need be no question of thanks or praise as a separate event, something done afterwards. To experience the tiny theophany is itself to adore. Gratitude exclaims, very properly: "How good of God to give me this." Adoration says: "What must be the quality of that Being whose far-off and momentary coruscations are like this!"”[1] It is because of this quote that the word coruscation entered my vocabulary, some instantiation of something that points me back to a cause or source. I will often joke about coffee being a coruscation of divine love.

And while I’m partially kidding, coffee actually serves as an excellent example. Coffee is a cherry, with two halves that make up its pit. It’s grown slowly at high elevation and once it is harvested, it goes through a process of stripping the fruit from the green pit. The easy way is to soak it in water, loosen the fruit, and then wash the fruit off. This is called wet-washing. It is cheap and fast, but you lose flavor. The other way is to dry it out in the sun then rake the fruits so that the fruit loosens and falls off the pits as its raked. This is the sun-dried method. It tastes much better, but is more labor intensive. Some beans have a natural deformity, called a peaberry, where instead of two halves of the pit, all the mass is concentrated into one little pit. This is about 5% of the beans. These are collected separately and roasted for sale as “peaberry” coffee. It is much more expensive. All that to say, I was with my old manager years ago and he got this special sun-dried, peaberry coffee from the mountains of costa rica. He brewed us a french press of it and I could smell strong floral notes and when I tasted it, the finish tasted like eating blueberries. What I was tasting wasn’t just coffee, I was sitting in the shade of a mountain jungle of Costa Rica. My senses were experiencing the land this beautiful bean came from. Gratitude says “Thank you Lord for the cup of coffee”. Adoration would say, “What is the nature of the soil, weather, surrounding plants, and countryside to produce this delicious cup of satisfaction and olfactory euphoria?” Gratitude for the kingdom is good, but adoration for the Spirit’s work is even better.

When the Holy Spirit is at work in the church we are not just experiencing a moment of divine power, we being reoriented to heaven breaking into our realm. Jesus reigns from on high and the Holy Spirit is the same one who makes us to reign with him and who brings that heavenly reign to bear on this broken earth. In the sweet moments of forgiveness and grace, of healing and restoration, of peace and joy, of the serenity of God’s presence in trial, the Spirit is reorienting us to the kingship of Jesus on earth where death is defeated and sin is no more.

Conclusion

As we celebrate our Lord’s ascension, we are called to be witnesses of the kingdom. This doesn’t mean we are taking up worldly weapons to bring about an earthly empire. Christ will ultimately be all in all and through all, but we shouldn’t concern ourselves with when that will happen. Jesus has ascended and the kingdom is here in ways we don’t often anticipate and that if we’d pay attention to, would point us to how his presence will ultimately fill this earth. Our call now is to be witnesses of the kingdom who name brokenness and grace. We need to be truth-tellers who can accurately and carefully diagnose brokenness and who can simultaneously point out the grace of God and how the kingdom of God is coming to bear upon our present reality by the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus has ascended; he has brought creation into the abode of God and has brought the divine realm into creation’s abode. The good news of the Ascension is that Jesus reigns, the kingdom is here, and earth and heaven are being made one.

Let us pray:

O heavenly Father, you have filled the world with beauty: Open our eyes to behold your gracious hand in all your works; that, rejoicing in your whole creation, we may learn to serve you with gladness; for the sake of him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

[1] Letter 17.

Ivory Casten 5/10/26 Ivory Casten 5/10/26

Easter 6: A Healthy Community for Sharing Jesus

*“Compassion” by Joy Gonzales — © Made Seen. Used with permission.* *https://www.madeseen.com/*

I Peter 3:8-18

Introduction

Good morning friends. I’m Fr. Morgan Reed, the Vicar here at Corpus Christi Anglican Church. This week I heard a podcast interview about the history of the church growth movement.[1] The father of the church growth movement was a gentleman named Donald McGavran who had worked out church growing strategies on the mission field in India. He wanted to help churches grow mature disciples and multiply so that an area would be saturated with the gospel. He brought these principles back to the US to instruct missionaries, but the principles made their way into American protestantism which had an unintended consequence. Before 1970 there were less than 20 mega churches with a Sunday attendance of 2000 or more. By 2010, there were nearly 1600 megachurches with at least 2000 in attendance in the US. McGavran’s principles had been taken over and used to grow large churches rather than multiplying church. As churches have grown larger, have they made more disciples? The proof of effective discipleship for him would not have been in attendance, buildings, and cash, but in holiness and a church’s ability to multiply itself. How are the members of a church loving one another, how are they becoming more faithful men and women, moms and dads, neighbors, colleagues? How is their testimony of Christ’s work evident in the community of faith and in their individual witness in their lives? The proof of health is in the community, and that is precisely what St. Peter is driving at in our passage this morning.

The church is to proclaim the goodness of Christ in its communal life and in the individual testimonies of each of its members. It is not something new, but it is something to be reminded of. As we look at 1 Peter, let me pray for us:

“In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer, Amen.”

8-12 Love well — A rule of life to practice witness to Christ

As a reminder, St. Peter is writing this letter to Christians scattered throughout Asia Minor. These Christians have changed how they live because they now follow Jesus as Lord and King. They have put their pagan ways behind them and now do not look like their neighbors anymore. Because of their difference from the broader culture , they have become a persecuted minority. Peter is addresses the church and their conduct.

They should have a unity of spirit. This is the idea of a like-mindedness. We are not working against one another but for the good of one another. We don’t have to agree on every matter, but I think about it as a fundamental coherence in how we approach each other and the various ministries of the church. This is why, when people have good ideas, I have them work through a ministry plan form. I want them to think about how their idea applies to the unique charisms of this church so that we work together rather apart.

He calls them to be sympathetic. When Peter uses sympathy, the picture is of someone entering into someone’s suffering with them in a way that they need for healing. It reminds me of when my son and I went fossil hunting at Calvert Cliffs state park. It was low tide and the swamp was exposed. I looked up and my son had gotten his feet stuck in the swamp and I could see his water shoes floating on top. I responded quickly and jumped in after him only to realize that what looked like solid ground was very silty mud that acted like quicksand and I went in about thigh high. I went flat onto my belly and army crawled over to him to help. It was a good lesson in what to do with quicksand and it took me jumping into the muck with him to show him the way out. The church needs to be a place where people are willing to jump into the muck of life with us and help bring us back to the one who can bring us out of it. Christ is God incarnate who jumped into the mess of humanity to bring us back to God. We continue Christ’s work of suffering with someone, to help someone knows that Jesus sees them, and we continually bring them to the one who can show them the way forward.

The church should have brotherly love. Not every person will be equally safe or even easy to be around. That is the hard reality of being people on a healing process. But, I heard a phrase somewhere that I appreciate called “exhale friends”. These are the few people that when you’re in their presence you feel like you can breathe a deep exhale because your nervous system is calm and you know you can be vulnerable with them because they have space for you. Whether or not you have people like that in the church, aim to be that person for others. Aim to be an exhale friend. Similar to this kind of love, Peter also tells them to be compassionate with one another. The idea of compassion here reflects the ways lovingkindness is used of God’s love for his people in the Old Testament. There is a way in which we become aware of God’s love for us and give this love to others.

Finally, he tells them to be humble-minded. Someone can’t wish or think themselves into humility: “I’m really trying hard to be humble today.” This is a characteristic of our Lord who had an accurate understanding of himself and submitted himself to his father’s will. Humility is a right estimation of oneself in the context of the will of God. It isn’t self-abasement or self-hatred. It is a recognition of who we are, our proclivities, gifts, responsibilities, and our limits as we look for Jesus’ presence in the daily things he calls us to. A humble person doesn’t live out of insecurity, but by being securely rooted in their baptismal identity, with a rightly esteemed self-understanding of their place in God’s kingdom.

The church is to practice living out its witness of the kingdom of Jesus in community. That practice looks like growing in like-minded purpose, jumping into the muck with your brothers and sisters, becoming an exhale friend, loving as God does, and rightly esteeming ourselves and knowing our human limits in the kingdom of God. The reason he spends time on this is because this is what will hold the church together when a culture that is antithetical to the goodness of Jesus turns against the church. This will keep the church from imploding, fighting back with the depraved weapons of the world, or completely assimilating to the culture around it.

13-16 Do what is good and speak hope with gentleness — Ensuring an enduring witness to Christ

The church is called to practice these things well so that they become the presence of Jesus for the world around them. As I mentioned a few weeks back from the early Epistle to Diognetus, Christians were those who got married and had babies like their neighbors. But unlike their neighbors, they did not leave their unwanted babies exposed to the elements to die. They shared their tables in hospitality like their neighbors. But unlike their neighbors, they did not treat their wives as property or a commodity to be traded. Christians practice doing and becoming what is ultimately good in the church so that we can hold out what is ultimately good for the neighbors around us. In this way we follow what St. Peter says “but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence.”

I remember growing up with videos in youth group of a guy who would stand on a platform and ask people if they’d stolen or if they’d lied. And then it was a bit of a “gotcha” moment where he’d say “well see, according to the Bible you’re a liar and a thief, if you’ve broken these commandments, you’ve done them all. You’re a sinner.” Then he’d move them to their need for Jesus to get out of hell, but not until he’s made them think about how bad they are. I’m not saying God cannot use that, but I want to move far away from that kind of 4-spiritual-laws, tract carrying, revivalist type of evangelism. It lacks connection, gentleness and reverence. At the same time, we must speak the truth because Christ is indeed Lord and we do not want to sacrifice the kingdom of God on the altar of insecurity, fearing that we might offend someone by telling them exactly what they need.

As we create rhythms of being with God and being with others, practice the virtues that St. Peter listed out in the beginning of chapter 3, learn to listen well and hold space for others, then listen to the Holy Spirit and point them to Jesus, we gain the tools we need to help others outside the community of the church see Jesus. As we coach sports teams, deepen friendships with coworkers, and meet neighbors, we have the opportunities to listen to peoples’ desires, fears, and hopes. These are gifts to honor and to bless, and we should point out the things others are longing for and show them the goodness of Jesus in those places, just like St. Paul did in our Acts 17 reading today. This kind of evangelism is kind, humanizing, takes a long time, and enters into peoples’ mess with them to show them the one who can deliver them.

Conclusion

To sum up, St. Peter has been helping the churches see how they live out life in Christ in community in the face of a culture that opposes them. They shouldn’t assimilate to it or fight it with the violence and abuse which it has experienced. Instead, they entrust justice to God either in this age or the age to come because, as Peter quoted from Psalm 34, the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are open to their prayer. Because we can entrust ourselves to a good and faithful creator, we are called as a church to grow in like-minded purpose, jump into the muck with our brothers and sisters, become exhale friends, love others as God does, and rightly esteem ourselves while knowing our human limits. We practice in the church what we live out in the world. The goodness of Jesus is presented to others through the testimonies of us who know Christ and who can hold others’ stories with gentleness and curiosity. Let’s bless people’s good desires and simultaneously hold out for them the goodness of what God ultimately wants to bring them into.

Let us pray:

O God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Savior, the Prince of Peace: Give us grace to take to heart the grave dangers we are in through our many divisions. Deliver your Church from all enmity and prejudice, and everything that hinders us from godly union. As there is one Body and one Spirit, one hope of our calling, one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of us all, so make us all to be of one heart and of one mind, united in one holy bond of truth and peace, of faith and love, that with one voice we may give you praise; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God in everlasting glory. Amen.

[1]https://careynieuwhof.com/episode-802/

Ivory Casten 5/3/26 Ivory Casten 5/3/26

Easter 5: Long for Jesus and Live With Integrity

I Peter 2:1-12

CONTENT

Introduction:

Good morning everyone. I’m Fr. Morgan Reed, the Vicar here at Corpus Christi Anglican Church. On this fifth Sunday of Easter we are back in first Peter where we spent some time about 3 weeks ago. As a reminder, these are converts to Christianity. Some think that they are Gentiles who may have converted first to Judaism, and then to Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. They do not fit the surrounding culture they are in. These are small churches spread throughout Asia Minor as a Diaspora community in different cities. Peter writes from Rome, which he calls Babylon, as an exile to fellow exiles who are longing for home with Jesus. As they face trial and persecution, Peter writes to encourage them using two different images to help them keep focused on their life in Christ. One has to do with their longings and desires. The other has to do with their identity. What he wants them to do is to crave Christ like a newborn craves milk, to be built on Christ as the foundation of a new temple, and then to hold out the goodness of Christ by how they live. Like these churches, we are also called to desire Jesus’ presence and work and to rest in, and root ourselves in, our baptismal identity as the people of God in the midst of this chaotic world.

As we look at 1 Peter 2, let me pray for us. “In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.”

I. Crave Christ like a spiritual newborn (1-3) — And don’t get distracted with evil.

The Apostle Peter reminds these Christians of the strange gift of their suffering and persecution, that it has a purifying effect and has a way of making them more keenly aware of the kingdom of God. Desiring Jesus like a newborn desires milk means that we don’t have time for evil and giving in to inordinate desires. In the first few verses of chapter two he tells them to get rid of malice, hatred, insincerity, envy, and all slander. Sit with that for a moment. What if the church really did that!!! I remember when I was a young intern at a church, the first part of every staff meeting would be spent reading the comment cards from the Sunday before. There were comment cards in the pews for people to give feedback...and my how they did. Sometimes it was useful: the music was too loud, or there was a misspelled word on the slide. But sometimes it became someone’s opportunity to unload their grievances: I hate the color of the carpet, someone’s child was distracting, the pastor’s tie was ugly... Aside from being an intern, I was also a referee in the church basketball league. I remember reading one from a guy who was one of the basketball coaches and I thought “who cares what this guy has to say? I have to toss him out of every single game because he has angry fits, swears loudly when he doesn’t get his way, and treats everyone horribly.” I’m not saying I had the right response, but that was my 19-year-old gut reaction. Looking back, I think that man had a lot of undealt with trauma and his family suffered as a result. But the bifurcated nature of his spirituality and actual life revealed the disorder of this man’s internal life. He cared about small details on a Sunday but seemed to neglect his own inner healing.

If this man had a desire for Jesus as his guiding and foundational desire, I would have expected him to care about the impression he made on his team, the referees, the parents because his longing would be for them to know the Jesus he knows. Desire is good, sometimes we act on it the wrong way, or fulfill it in disordered ways. Sometimes our disordered ways keep us from looking at the primary brokenness that needs healing. We are all going to have missteps, but we still need to spend time with Jesus rightly order our desires around the guiding principle of knowing the healing presence of Jesus. Winning at all costs is not a healthy guiding principle, and it was probably a good indicator of something in his story he needed to work on.

There has to be a fundamental integration between the worship we offer and the lives we live. One commentator says, “When a church yearns for spiritual nourishment, that church will not be involved in bitter disputes with hypocritical showings or deceitful communications.”[1] The church isn’t a place to look nice for nice people, say nice things so people think we’re nice and to say things in really nice-sounding ways so that people are placated with hollow promises and empty platitudes. This is a place to be undone together and fully admit how much we need Jesus. This is a family who points us back to recalibrating us toward virtue and blessing what our desires show us of our longing for Jesus. As we pray for one another by name, hold space for each other’s journey of healing with Jesus, speak truth to one another in love, and listen well, we become the kind of authentic and vulnerable community where people long for Jesus together like an infant desires its mother’s milk.

II. Ground yourself in what the church is and what it is becoming (4-10) — Jesus is the most important stone in the temple

Our desire for Christ and to put away malice, slander and evil, comes from who we are in Christ. St. Peter now changes his metaphor from desiring milk, to being made into a temple. In verses 4-10 he is using the language of the Old Testament — which was their Bible— to encourage them in trial.[2] When you read Isaiah 43 or Hosea 2, you’re hearing the prophets look forward to a time when God would restore the nation of Israel, be her king, and her temple would be rebuilt. Peter is understanding these passages to say that all these exiles in their little gatherings are part of something much greater. It would have been a discouraging thing to be a persecuted minority because of ethical decisions they made to follow Jesus. They did these things, though, because they are part of something greater. God was rebuilding the temple, but rather than stones, it is made of people. Jesus is the great cornerstone. And not only is God making a new temple of people, it is not just in Israel. This temple is all over the world. These Christians in their little communities belong to God and to one another all over the Empire. The followers of Jesus in Bithynia are meaningfully connected to the believers in Rome and in Antioch. Just as today the Christians of this church are connected to Christians around the world.

Over the last 5-6 years I have loved watching God build us all into part of this temple together. None of us would have known each other except that this church was coming into being. I am more of who I was made to be in Christ because I have sat with you in my office, because I have served with you on a Sunday, shared a meal with you, because I’ve played board games with your kids, hiked with you, etc. We are more ourselves as Christ has made us to be because of our connection one to another. It’s not all happy and positive. Sometimes I’ve made missteps I’ve needed to apologize for and I know you have as well. This is part of being a family in christ together that pushes each other closer to who we are meant to be in Christ.

And this is not limited to our local community. We are actually part of something bigger. Under our Bishop’s care, we are part of a diocese with other congregations in VA, NC, MD, and DC. Our Diocese is part of a Province that has fellowship with other provinces around the world. We have been supporting missionaries who work in the Middle East to translate the Bible and resource church planting. These missionaries work both in our Diocese and in a newly formed Province that serves Christians around the world who come from a Muslim background. This connects our little mission with God’s work amongst a minority ethnic community in the Middle East. I would love at some point to connect us with these believers face to face so that we can pray for them and picture them in our minds. What an encouragement to them as they experience persecution to know that this church is connected to them and what they are doing. God is building a temple that transcends geopolitical boundaries, political alliances, subcultures, and ethnic divisions.

We are constituted into what Israel is meant to be in the Jewish Messiah. Being built into a spiritual temple, we, the people, are the place where the nations encounter the space where heaven and earth meet because we are a people living under the reign of Christ, being newly created and transformed by his acts of love and healing. Stories of all kinds of divine image-bearers, being restored by Jesus, comprise a compelling vision that people need. This is why we are here together. We are figuring out how to live our different vocations out together: Teachers, florists, military personnel, administrators, chiefs-of-staff, philanthropists, entrepeneurs, musicians, artists, household managers, single, married, divorced, widowed, with kids, without kids, young old, from all over the world, with different ethno-linguistic backgrounds.....all of us trying to discover Jesus together in this little enclave of the Kingdom of God. And as we are discovering Jesus we proclaim in word and deed the mighty acts of the one who called us out of darkness and into the kingdom of his beloved son.

Conclusion

St. Peter is encouraging the church to continue in the hard work of holding up the goodness of Jesus in face of being persecuted. To do this well they must long for Jesus like a newborn longs for milk. To do this is to put away the evil and slander that distracts people from knowing Christ. Then he roots the individual church in the larger picture of God’s plan. This picture reminds them that what they are doing matters, even when things get hard. They are being made into a temple across the world on the foundation stone of Jesus for God to inhabit so that people experience the work of heaven in our earthly lives. We are a people constituted for the praises of God’s mighty deeds, which involves the hard work of daily conversion, noticing Jesus, and naming our need for his grace and help. The encouragement for all of us this morning is to be this kind of community who longs for Jesus and lives with integrity, and to be the kind of community who roots one another in our identity as the temple of God, from which stories of God’s mighty acts paint a compelling picture of the goodness of Jesus for the nations and neighborhoods around us.

Let’s pray:

[1] Scot McKnight, NIV Application Commentary; Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1996), 104.

[2] Exod 19:6; Isa 43; Hos 2:23

Ivory Casten 4/26/26 Ivory Casten 4/26/26

4th Sunday of Easter: The Good Shepherd and Abundant Life

John 10:1-10

CONTENT

Introduction

Good morning dear friends. I’m Fr. Morgan Reed, the Vicar here at Corpus Christi Anglican Church. The fourth Sunday of Easter is called Good Shepherd Sunday where we focus on Christ’s good shepherding, listening to his voice, and following him into abundant life.

I was thinking back this week to 2008. Ashley and I had just gotten married, she had finished school, and we packed up a moving truck to drive across the country and move into a new apartment in downtown Chicago. We made it through California, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, and then made it half-way into Iowa. That year the Mississippi river flooded and halfway through Iowa we started seeing more and more towns under water along the highway. We came to a sign that said I-80 closed ahead. About half of Iowa was closed along I-80 and this was before Google Maps existed. We were tired and so close! We pulled off the highway and went to a truck stop to buy another paper map and figure out our way. As we sat down and were figuring it out, a trucker came by and said, “you all can follow me across the Illinois line.” It was so kind, but also risky. We drove through very narrow farm roads through corn fields behind this truck and it felt like it would never end! Finally there was a break in the corn fields and we finally saw a main road again. We crossed into Illinois and were only a few hours from Chicago. I’m so grateful to that kind trucker! He was a reminder that God was watching over us.

Even in getting to Chicago, we had to start over making friends and connections, we had no car, no jobs, and we were processing a lot as a couple who was still in their first year of marriage. We may not know why God’s taking us along certain paths, and we may wonder if we’re ever going to get there, but Jesus is our good shepherd who will lead us and guide us into pleasant places of peace and abundance even when the journey involves dark valleys. Perhaps you can remember times when it felt like a risk to trust Jesus. Maybe you’re on the cusp of a moment like that right now.

We do go through deserts, trackless wastelands, and deep dark valleys — but we do not go it alone. We go through it with the one who knows the way out. There are many voices of false shepherds who will prey on our fears of scarcity. They may even promise shortcuts through the valley of deep darkness, but they do not have what is best for us in mind.

Jesus, our Good Shepherd, calls us into abundant grazing lands, but it takes recognizing his voice and following him into the place of abundance rather than scarcity. As we look at our Gospel passage this morning, let me pray for us. “In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock, and our redeemer. Amen.”

A. 1-5 Hear and recognize the voice of the shepherd

Jesus tells a parable in verses 1-5 about his sheep who are in a sheep pen. Hearing his voice, they follow him. This follows the story of Jesus healing the blind man in chapter 9. The blind man, like Israel, was looking for the tender shepherding of God. But just like Ezekiel 34, the people were encountering religious leaders who only wanted to consume them and exploit them. But Jesus is the Messiah and Good Shepherd.

Our lectionary helps us see Jesus’s shepherding here through the lens of Psalm 23. He is the one who creates the scenario of safety in which his sheep can lie down in the grass beside running water. Hebrew writers in the Old Testament didn’t make the body/soul distinction that we find in later hellenism. Rather than “he restores my soul,” the idea is “he brings me back.” In those times that we are prone to wander, to believe the lies that people have told us, to turn from God in our desire for self-sufficiency, when we wonder where we have gone wrong and if there is ever a way back, Jesus will tenderly bring us back. He suffered and died for us, and has risen to conquer death and sin for us. He has entered the dark valleys with us to show us the way out. By the resurrection, the dark valleys become the places of redemption where we become more acutely aware of our need for the shepherd’s presence.

I would love for this to be a place and community that points people to the good shepherd. As people are formed in worship together, do Formation Groups, enjoy cookouts together, and rest with one another, I would love for this community to be a place of safety where you exhale as you walk in on a Sunday and your nervous system can calm down.

Listen for Jesus’s voice in prayer, scripture, in the testimony of the ancient church, the sacraments, and in the spirit’s work in this fellowship. His voice is heard through others who help us see the goodness of Jesus’s shepherding and what he’s bringing us into. Knowing Christ’s voice means being able to cut through the distractions and distortions of the voices of thieves and robbers: pushing back against theological error and heresy, naming, working through, and rejecting the lies that those close to us have cursed us with, and resisting the temptation to shift the blame when an acute sense of guilt might otherwise produce works of repentance. Jesus wants to bring us back to abundant grazing lands and we need to listen for his voice.

B. 6-10 Follow the shepherd into the pastureland and find abundant life

After hearing his voice, we follow him. In following him, we will come into the green pastures of abundant life.

In verses 6-10 Jesus explains the parable, which his followers don’t seem to understand. Jesus contrasts himself with robbers who exploit and do not do what is best for the sheep. They steal, kill, and destroy. Jesus says “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

As we think about abundant life, we should consider what life looks like when we follow Jesus into good pasturelands. I watched this show once where cattle ranchers had to take their cows on a perilous journey between one of two pastures depending on the time of year and where grass is available. They had to get a herd to go across rivers, through valleys, along beaches, and ward off predators to get the cows to the places of pasture. The journey is far from fun...in fact it is unsettling and sometimes terrifying for the cows. The rancher’s presence is necessary for defense, comfort, and guidance.

We are always in need of Jesus’ defense, comfort, and guidance as he brings us from pastureland to pastureland. Walking with Jesus as a good shepherd means that we will encounter hardships. And those hardships become the opportunities to build a deeper trust in the care of our Lord. The alternation of Jesus’s presence through the dark valleys and into the green pastures is a portrait of a growing follower of Jesus.

Following Jesus as our good shepherd also encourages us to live in the abundance of the pasture rather than the scarcity of our grass patch. There is a word in this for pastors, but I think it is also a word for all of us because it is a disposition for any vocation. There are pastors and leaders who make decisions based on keeping specific people, especially if they give a lot of money. Prayerful vision and discernment aren’t driving the ship— instead they’re worried about staying in their little patch of grass rather than risking to see what pasture might be there for them if they’d just let Jesus lead.

There is another scarcity lie people fall into. When someone says “I’m not going to be like my parent” or “I’m not going to be a manager like my old manager” or something similar. This limits us from the unique ways we are made and the gifts we’ve been given. Instead, we can begin with using some stories of harm experienced under a family member or boss and begin to name what happened accurately. Share those stories with safe people: a therapist, spiritual director, priest, or trusted friend. As you name accurately what happened, and Jesus begins to heal your wounds, you will begin to be more fully yourself to be the parent or manager, baseball coach, or whatever else you are called to be. This is abundance.

Following the good shepherd into abundance will give us the courage to risk doing what is right because our fears are rightly aligned. We risk engaging in productive conflict because we fear someone not knowing the goodness of abundant life in Christ more than we fear losing a relationship. If we are parents, our longing is for our children to experience the goodness of God even if it means getting upset with us. Sometimes we have to put up healthy boundaries “Your hands were made for kindness, not hitting”. Sometimes we have to give consequences “If you break this expensive thing then I’ll be garnishing your allowance for some time.” And while we hold space for our children’s anger, we continue to help them understand that we love them when they’re angry and they’re receiving consequences. They’re anger and our fear of breaking the relationship cannot be the guiding principle of parenting. We won’t do it perfectly, but when we mess up, will we metabolize our guilt and embarrassment and risk apologizing to repair the relationship? We engage in abundance when we give thought and intention to how our children experience the world and us. We have to risk spending time to do our own internal work because what our kids experience of us will inform what they experience of Jesus. There is too much at stake to just coast along unreflectively in our brokenness.

We all need the healing and abundant life that is beyond the borders of our little grass patch, but we often don’t want to leave our dwindling grass patch because we don’t see the pasture and we don’t know how to get there. Trust the Good Shepherd, listen for his voice, and follow him.

Conclusion

On this Good Shepherd Sunday, some of us are in the middle of two pastures: wandering in trackless waste lands or dark and frightening valleys. Some of us might be doing the hard work of healing and we are on the edge of the valley where the sun is starting to rise on the meadows in front of us. Some of us are holding way too tightly to our little patch of grass and afraid to go on the journey with Jesus because we don’t know what challenges await us. Remember that Jesus is the good shepherd who wants to lead us to abundant life. Listen for his call in the scripture, in his saints, in the places of encountering his presence thoughtfully each day, in the sacraments, and in the voices that speak hard truths for our welfare — even if we don’t like the tone of that voice. Don’t be deceived by thieves who want to exploit and consume us — nice voices whispering platitudes that will ultimately distort our loves and ways of understanding the world and the God who made it — and make us less human. And when we hear the voice of Jesus, let’s follow him into the places that are hard because where he is taking us is a place of rest that we long for so deeply.

Let’s pray: “O God, whose Son Jesus Christ is the Good Shepherd of your people: Grant that, when we hear his voice, we may know him who calls us each by name, and follow where he leads; who, with you and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”

Ivory Casten 4/12/26 Ivory Casten 4/12/26

Second Sunday of Easter: How We Build Matters

John 20:19-31

CONTENT

Introduction

Good morning dear friends. Happy second week of Easter.

Just this last week I was working from my office when I heard a knock on the window. One of the preschoolers, who is friends with our son, wanted to tell me something. I opened the window and she said, “Morgan, we are building a track to run on but we need sticks to make the track.” She had only found one, and she knew that my son and I like to hike, so she assumed I would know where to find sticks. I encouraged her to look under the trees. She found some sticks, set up her race track, and she and her friends ran and enjoyed running in the beautiful Springtime sun. Some days I really long for the times where my greatest challenge in a day would be where to find sticks to make an imaginary racetrack. But as time goes on, life gets more complex, we are given more responsibility, and we have to make harder decisions. If that weren’t challenging enough, we live in a world on this side of Eden, where people continue to walk along ancient, broken pathways, apart from God, cloaked in darkness and deception, looking for a way home.

It’s into this brokenness that Jesus enters our humanity to deliver us from sin and death. This deliverance wasn’t just for the wealthy who could buy their way out of trouble, or the intellectually superior who could rationalize their way out or the darkness. This gospel of king Jesus came to every man, woman and child; slave and free; Jew and Gentile. But as people began to follow this resurrected Lord, it began to put them on a collision course with the ways their families, subcultures, neighborhoods, and nations were impacted and influenced by the kingdom of darkness. There is a risk of exclusion for the follower of Jesus as they hold out what is ultimately good in the face of deception. This was the experience of the early Christians to whom the letter of 1 Peter is addressed. What this letter shows us is that God is building a new family in Christ for a new hope where trials become a strange gift that burns away and purifies our distractions, clarifies our mission, and helps us hold out the goodness of Christ for the world. As we look at the beginning of this letter, let me pray for us.

“In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer, Amen.”

1. The resurrected Christ has begun a new family of hope (3-5).

The resurrected Christ has established a new family. Peter had been set up as a leader among the apostles, an ambassador of Jesus for the church. He served for a time in Jerusalem, but this letter is written a few decades later, probably just prior to Nero’s persecutions which would bring Peter to his death in the mid-60s. The church is about 30 years old at this point and Peter commissioned this letter to be written down and circulated by his ministry partner, Silvanus. He writes from Rome, which identifies with Babylon of old. He is in a pagan city, part of a pagan empire and is aware that he is a pilgrim and not at home. He writes as an exile to others who are exiled, whom he calls the Diaspora (1:2) who are in various cities in Asia Minor, which is in Modern-day Turkey.

The Christians he writes to are likely Gentiles that were converts to Judaism, then came to believe in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. They would come to be persecuted by both Jew and Gentile as a result.[1] These were not influential and wealthy people. Peter even mentions slaves and women, who would have been expected to worship the household gods of the father of the family. These Christians, who were following Jesus, though they weren’t highly influential or of high status, were a part of the new Israel, the people of God, those whom God had called and set apart to make his glory known!

It’s these people, of which also are you and me, that have been born anew by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are all looking for the promised land together as exiles in a foreign land. The church is at its best when it becomes a community that provides refuge for the vulnerable rather than those who misuse power. I can appreciate this. It is hard to build the kind of performance that will attract and maintain the presence of high profile individuals in a church. Some churches try; but for me, the most fulfilling moments of ministry have been with individuals or in smaller groups: coming to your homes for a house blessing, or visiting you with communion in the hospital, or sitting with you in the office and hearing your stories and praying with you, or hearing your confession. I love seeing the church enter into this with one another: creating a meal train so that you can bless one another with your cooking and your presence to one another, the ways you open your homes to one another for hospitality — including Formation Groups, watching the BBQ team smoke a brisket for the church, weeping with one another in prayer, encouraging one another, having vulnerable and sometimes hard and honest conversations, and making repair with one another when harm has been done or relational rupture occurs. This is what creates a stable outpost of the kingdom when the culture continues to shift and change. It is a gift to see this church become such an outpost of the kingdom of heaven, a divine family which provides comfort for the vulnerable and that provides an appropriate amount of discomfort for those who are far too at-home in this world.

How one builds the household of God matters. We can say the right words to articulate a great goal, but if the means to getting there are not the way of Jesus then we have missed it. The goal of the church is not to do something, but to become something. “Success”, then, is measured by how one experiences Christ when they meet us rather than average Sunday attendance. If the pastor or leaders are abusing power, or if the church’s activism is divorced from the theology of the church, or if a church focuses all its efforts on issues of secondary or tertiary theological importance while being divorced from seeing the kingdom come in the neighborhood, or neighborhoods, around her, then how is she a community of hope where the resurrected Jesus is made known as a comfort for the vulnerable? 1 Peter reminds us to slow down and consider how we build.

2. Trials are a strange gift of purification and opportunity (6-9).

We have seen first that the resurrected Christ has begun a new family. This is the family we need to feel “at home” in our pilgrimage in this world. Second, trials are inevitable, but they are also a strange gift. St. Peter helps the church avoid two extremes: attempting to overthrow the Pagan culture through political violence, and viewing the ethical demands of the Gospel as inconsequential and capitulating to culture. Because the church seeks to engage the world with the transforming love of Christ, they will experience some amount of persecution and trial as they hold out the goodness of the Gospel of Christ in a world content with its self-deception.

This reminds me of a quote from one of the apostolic fathers, the Epistle of Diognetus, which says, “...They live in their own countries, but only as nonresidents; they participate in everything as citizens, and endure everything as foreigners. Every foreign country is their fatherland, and every fatherland is foreign...”[2] The text also describes the ways that Christians safeguard their allegiance to Jesus by refusing to use their bodies and creation for disordered purposes. It says “They marry, like everyone else, and have children, but they do not expose their offspring. They share their food, but not their wives.”[3] In other words, Christians bless what is good and walk with others as far as they can without doing harm to themselves or others as image-bearers of God. Jesus ate with sinners, but did not join their sin. He held out the goodness of the kingdom and invited them in. Those who follow Jesus will walk with their neighbors as far as they can, but will have to draw the line of shared culture somewhere. And when a follower of Jesus puts up a boundary, they risk exclusion and persecution.

Peter’s audience became scapegoats for the ills of the area. In their day, the refusal to worship the local gods may have been seen as the reason for a lack of prosperity in a village, so it would be easy to lay any misfortune on the shoulders of the Christians in the village. But this suffering, Peter says, is hopeful. Suffering brings clarity to our mission as followers of Jesus and purifies us from what distracts us. This doesn’t mean we delight in the suffering itself, but it does mean that entering trial well reminds us that redemption is coming. It also invites the community of Jesus to come and support us in trial as family.

It means ultimately that we live with integrity as people whose guiding principle is the life, death, resurrection, ascension, and return of Jesus. Nothing else deserves our ultimate allegiance other than king Jesus. We have responsibilities to our church, our country, our earthly family, and our neighbors, but everything is rightly ordered by the guiding principle of Jesus’ life, death resurrection, ascension, and his coming again — The Gospel.

I don’t want to cheapen the persecution of these Christians by comparing religious persecution to the stripping of privilege or inconvenience. I remember a discussion once of America taking away tax benefits from clergy and churches. Would that strip away of some of our privileges as Christians? Yes. Inconvenient? Yes. Is it persecution? No. Babylon is going to Babylon and Rome is going to Rome.

There will be times where allegiance to Jesus puts us at odds with our community and leads us to exclusion. Be mindful that exclusion does not occur because of an indignant or combative spirit. Come with curiosity about someone’s story. Ask good questions, present gospel convictions with clarity, but in a way that allows others to experience the discomfort of contractions in a disordered world. Spirit-led, compassionate questions hold out the goodness of the kingdom and they don’t merely win an argument. Go slow, be patient, and be compassionately un-anxious like Jesus if they refuse to change. There may come a time when one has to risk losing a job, face legal challenges, or upset someone close to them because of their ultimate allegiance to Jesus. The hope in 1 Peter is that in the church you are part of a privileged community because it is a saved community. As we fulfill the god-given task of announcing the good news of Christ, the church becomes the ark of salvation where deliverance is found and we will experience the tender compassion of the Good Shepherd.

Conclusion

Jesus in his resurrection has created a new family. As we show forth in our lives what we profess by our faith, we may experience some amount of persecution, or exclusion because Christians will be those who welcome other sojourners and invite them to follow Jesus too. Be encouraged if you don’t feel “at home” right now. We are those who feel like foreigners in our homeland and at home in foreign lands. We invite people to come as they are and to be changed by the power of Jesus. May those who long to be comfortable, gain power, garner influence, and be at-home in this world, find the church to be a community where they are disquieted and made to know that this world is our place of pilgrimage to discover Jesus. May the church become that place where those afflicted because of following Jesus find life and comfort from their new family in the outpost of the kingdom of God.

Let us pray:

Almighty and everlasting God, who in the Paschal mystery established the new covenant of reconciliation: Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ’s Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

[1] Scot McKnight, 1 Peter (The NIV Application Commentary; Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1996), 23.

[2] Epistle of Diognetus, 5.4-5.

[3] Ibid., 5.6-7.

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