based on Matthew 28:16-20 and Genesis 1:1-2 for Trinity Sunday, Year A


Before we go anywhere, watch this ridiculous video. It's three minutes, it's St. Patrick, and it's the best little summary of why we should all be nervous when Trinity Sunday rolls around: Lutheran Satire — St. Patrick's Bad Analogies.

Every year at least a few preachers (why, I genuinely do not know) attempt to blaze a brand-new trail and explain something Christians have spent two thousand years failing to explain. Father. Son. Holy Spirit. Three. One. One. Three. At some point, every Trinity sermon becomes a hostage negotiation with mystery. The preacher backs slowly toward the analogy that's going to set everybody free, and the analogy turns out to be a heresy. Foiled again!

So, I don't think explaining is the point of Trinity Sunday. Wondering is. Noticing is. Maybe even just plain ol' protesting, is. So this past week at church, I didn't preach at anyone. I asked the room to wonder and notice with me, and then tossed in the protest idea on top.

Here's what we did: People found a couple of buddies and everyone had a set of questions with about eight minutes to (quickly) move through the questions and share with one another. The invitation was to think about transformation. About the experiences that actually change us. And then to listen to each other for themes, for patterns, for the kinds of places and situations that seem to be generative. The kinds of places that teach us something. These were the questions:

1) Tell a (short) story about a time when you changed your mind
about something important. What happened? What made that change possible?


2) Where have you learned the most important things in your life? What kinds of places seem to teach us things we could not have learned otherwise?


3) When have you encountered something that did not fit your expectations? Something that forced you to rethink what you thought you knew.

If you weren't in the room, sit with those questions yourself for a minute before you keep reading. What did you notice? What showed up over and over? Were there patterns in the kinds of experiences that changed people? Patterns in the kinds of places where that change tended to happen?

Here's what almost always surfaces when we do this:
Very few of us changed because someone handed us a perfectly correct formula. Most of us changed because experience interrupted our certainty. Because reality turned out to be larger than our categories. Because of some encounter (with creation, with another person, with a moment we didn't see coming) and not because we sat down and reasoned our way, ex nihilo, from nothing, into a new self.

And here's what's interesting: I'd argue that is exactly where scripture keeps trying to point us, too. Not toward certainty. Toward noticing that our growth and transformation comes through experiences that showed us our understandings are far more multi-faceted than we initially thought. Nothing in scripture is static. Everything is in a state of becoming, and comes with all kinds of fluctuations. And the becoming doesn't happen inside the safe house of certainty—it happens in the wilderness, in threshold spaces, in the places where co-creation is actually underway, in the encounters where entities are being made and remade together.

Start at the very beginning. Genesis begins with co-creation. It is not God alone, conjuring out of a void. We're told there are already waters, and there is already spirit--ruach—hovering over the face of those waters. Which is kind of wild, when you sit with it. There's no doctrine here. No neat categories. No proof of correctness offered up front. The very first thing this creation story hands us is mystery and movement: God, co-creating with elements—water, and mud, and words, and Spirit. God who, at one point in these stories, is even referred to as they. There is a multiplicity already inherent in the text. (And to be clear, I'm not reading that "they" as a tidy Trinitarian proof tucked into Genesis for us to find later. It's stranger and more interesting than that. It's the plurality that's just there, in the text, before we Christians showed up attempting to tame and colonize.)

And that multiplicity carries forward, too. God met in many experiences, many modalities, mostly in wild and in-between places. In fire (burning bush, anyone?), in wind, etc. The Israelites receive the commandments while wandering. Moses meets God in the wilderness, and then on a mountaintop. Hagar meets God in the face of death in a desert. Elijah meets God in the wilderness. Desert. In-between. Threshold. These spaces keep becoming revelation spaces—and maybe that's precisely because certainty and comfort let us build neat categories, and the neat categories become cages, and the cages let us... relax so much that we stop paying attention.

Then Matthew takes us to one more threshold, one more creation moment. A mountain top. (Nice parallel to Sinai, no?). The risen Christ (yet another form God is showing up) now turning to the disciples and saying, essentially: it's all you, folks!" And listen to the line that comes right before he says it: "they worshiped him; but some doubted." Uncertainty stays in the frame. Nobody graduates into perfect clarity. And yet Jesus (God- three in one, one in three) commissions these doubting, faltering, full of terrible ideas and ill-conceived notion people to go and do the work of co-creating the close-by realm of heaven anyway. With God. Just Aas they are.

So let me ask the real question:

What if Trinity Sunday is less about pinning God down, and more like a little tricky protest weekend that is in actuality asking us to show up with our little protest signs that say "free God." What I mean is, free God of the cages and the assumed constancy and the never-changing-ness and the doctrines we have built around God for centuries. 

Because here is the thing: the cages we build for God become the cages we build for ourselves. Every time we decide in advance who God is and what God will and won't do, we are not only shrinking God, we are shrinking ourselves, and shrinking all of creation. We are shrinking the very possibilities, the potential, the hope for what we might yet come to be in more alignment with the realm of God.

The cages we build for God become the cages we build for ourselves. Let me say that twice, because it's the whole sermon. Trinity, Genesis, wilderness, the Great Commission-- all of them keep telling us the same thing: God exceeds our categories, and God keeps inviting unfinished people into the ongoing work of becoming, with God, in a world that is in an ongoing process of becoming.

So you see, I think maybe Trinity Sunday is not primarily a doctrine to explain, but a protest against every attempt to reduce God to a fixed category. Because God exceeds our categories, human beings and creation remain unfinished, invited into ongoing co-creation and transformation with God.

The disciples leave that mountain unfinished. Still wondering. Still becoming. Still uncertain. The text literally says they were doubting—faltering—and it does not seem to have been a problem for Christ. They don't leave only with their doubt. They leave with a responsibility: to keep walking with Jesus, with God, to keep becoming and to help others come along.

And the same is true for us. The future is still open. The kingdom of heaven that is so close at hand is not quite here yet. And God entrusts that unfinished future to this unfinished creation—that Genesis story does, after all say "in the beginning" -- not "in the end"... which means we are somewhere gloriously in the middle, for now.

So here's where I'll leave you, in the in-between, where the becoming is still happening: What might grow among us—if we just freed God, and let the collaboration really take off?

with joy,
Pr. Sam

based on John 9:1-41 for the fourth Sunday in Lent

Earlier last week, with students, we ended up talking about theodicy. That big theological question: Why does God allow bad things to happen? But as the conversation unfolded, we started noticing something underneath the question itself. Because frankly… it’s not a very good question.

The question assumes a few things right from the start.
First, it assumes a kind of cosmic “sky-daddy” God who is actively controlling every single event in the universe. Many of us simply don’t see God that way. Second, it quietly assumes that when bad things happen there must be some explanation that fits a tidy moral system. Maybe someone sinned. Maybe God is punishing someone. Maybe God just doesn’t care.

Do you see how the question itself limits the world we’re allowed to imagine? It narrows how we think about God before the conversation even begins. And that is exactly what happens in the Gospel reading today.

When the besties (aka, the disciples) see a man who was born blind, they ask Jesus, “Who sinned? This man or his parents?” Notice what they’re doing. This isn’t really curiosity. It’s control. Another way of saying the same thing might have been: “Jesus, please confirm our current world view is correct."

But Jesus refuses the premise. Neither the man nor his parents sinned, he says. And then, instead of launching into a theological lecture, Jesus engages in magical creation: he kneels down and makes some mud.

Mud. Messy, sticky mud. Not even with just water, no, this time with spit. Regardless of the element that made the dirt into mud, we've now got mud-- the  very same stuff Genesis tells us God used to create the first human, the Adam.

Soil. Water. Breath. The ingredients of creation. And here they are again, right in front of everyone. No lofty theological debate. No philosophical defense of God. Just this nice little grouping of mud, a couple humans, and a good ol' rinse off in the local pool.

It’s almost as if Jesus said, “Well shucks… looks like the original pair didn’t quite come out right. Would you like me to fashion you a new set? Go on over and rinse them off, and see how these work for you.”

Creation story, happening again. God’s kingdom coming near through earth, water, consent, and action between two people.

Meanwhile… Everyone else is missing the entire show, in favor of intellectual debate and argument. “I was blind, and now I see” simply was not enough for these people. Instead, the neighbors argue about whether this is even the same man. The religious leaders interrogate him. His parents panic.

This man’s body becomes a battleground for everyone else’s ideas about how the world is supposed to work. The whole scene gets embarrassingly close to the logic we still hear today: “Well… what was she wearing?” You know, the kinds of questions we tend to ask when we'd rather assign blame and preserve the status quo, than face reality.

Every authority figure in this story keeps asking questions that reveal their preferred world view and attempts at control:

“How can a sinful man be from God?”
“Is this really your son?”
“Was he really born blind?”

They’re not looking at what is here and now. They’re trying to force this moment back into their tidy set of intellectualized preferences about how the world is supposed to work.

An excellent way to remain in power.

Systems of power stay in power by controlling the narrative, controlling what counts as truth, and controlling what we understand as reality. The less connected to our bodies we are, the easier it becomes to push ourselves into performing all kinds of oppressive and damaging acts.

Meanwhile, the formerly blind man sticks to his lived experience with a simple statement:

“I was blind. Now I see.” ...

Now, we are living in a pretty muddy moment ourselves (full transparency: have we ever not been living in a pretty muddy moment?).

And just to be clear: I’m saying muddy, not blind. Many people in the blind community rightly point out that blindness is not a good metaphor for ignorance or misunderstanding. So let’s not go there.

Mud is messy material. Mud doesn't stay contained really well. Mud spreads around one way or another. Gets under fingernails, ruins the Sunday best, etc.

But-- mud is also the material of creation. It's the stuff of the Kingdom of Heaven come near. Mud is not an intellectual argument about God- mud is the stuff God used to create us in God's image.. and then took on himself, incarnate in the body of Jesus.

And that's an important thing that's easily lost in this story John gives us. The kingdom of heaven doesn’t arrive through perfect theological explanations that check out. It arrives through spit, mud, collaboration between a couple people, and a rinse-off.

And in this whole story, only two people seem to recognize that this is the case-- and those two people also happen to be the only two people who had their hands in the mud: Jesus. And the unnamed formerly blind man.

The world will keep asking the wrong questions. The wrong questions are excellent tools for leading us away from where we need to be. They are perfect for helping to keep the status quo, to preserve those authoritarian and violent images of God that so easily keep us primed to pay that violence forward. 

But here, the author of John, through Jesus, shows us something else. The kingdom of God breaks through in a way that is absurdly accessible. Not through spirals of vast and winding intellectual argument (And do not get me wrong. I identify strongly with process theology, flirt with radical theology, and happily bathe in affect theory writing by folks like Brian Massumi and Erin Manning. I love a good intellectual spiral.). But-- what we see in this story is that the kingdom of God come near manifests through simple, humble participation. By joining Jesus in the mud, along with the rest of creation, getting ourselves dirty in the messy work of healing right here, right now.
Amen.

- Pr. Sam

Folks who were here in person on Sunday had a bit of mud painted on the back of their hand at the start of the sermon. Perhaps you would appreciate an opportunity to play in the mud, and pay attention to how it feels:

Reflection Practice

Place some mud on your hand(s).
Take a moment to notice what it feels like to carry the dust of creation on your skin. Feel it drying and cracking. Also notice how it doesn't stay put very well- it has a way of smearing about.
Consider where Christ might be inviting you to join the work of healing in this very muddy world, and how that might also smear about and bring others into the work.

Wash it off when you're ready. Some of the people at University Lutheran kept it on clear through to snack time after worship!

Based on John 4:5-42 - Jesus and the Samaritan Woman at the Well | Third Week of Lent

Last week we were talking about snakes — about having to take a direct look at what’s killing us in order to live. Remember that story from the Hebrew scriptures? The people look at the bronze serpent. Jesus connects that story to himself in conversation with Nicodemus. If we want to live, we have to look honestly at what is killing us and collaborate with God in the work of healing.

But this week we have something that seems almost opposite: an unnamed woman (what is it with the unnamed women in these books?) meeting Jesus in broad daylight. No obtuse questions from her.

So here’s a thought experiment: Take a moment to think about this scene and ask yourself: where do violent, authoritarian images of God show up in it? They might not appear directly in the text. Sometimes they show up in the assumptions we bring with us when we read.

For generations this story has often been preached as if Jesus is exposing a sinful woman. But the text never actually says that. That interpretation has been layered onto the story.

And there… you can already see our interpretive habits at work.

In reality, a woman having had five husbands and now living with someone who is not her husband likely reflects systemic vulnerability in the ancient world. It could point to widowhood and being passed off to brothers or other family members. To divorces entirely out of her control. These are social structures she would not have had much if any say in, in most cases.

There is another possibility as well, this one literary:
After Assyria conquered Samaria, several foreign groups were resettled there. Each group brought its own religious traditions. Jewish writers sometimes described Samaria as having five religious “husbands.”

If that is the case, Jesus may be speaking in the language of religious history rather than personal scandal.
Notice what happens next. The woman immediately begins discussing theology. She is not being shamed. She is a capable, sharp theologian participating in a serious theological conversation with another capable, sharp theologian.

Now, we often hear that Jews and Samaritans did not associate with one another. But that leaves out some very important details.

Samaritans were not strangers to Jews. They shared ancestry. Both communities came from the traditions of Israel. The division emerged when returning Judeans rejected those Jews who had remained in Samaria and intermarried with non-Jews.

Womp-womp-womp. We're just mad over something that looks like issues of purity.

Turns out they are not actually strangers at all. This is less like two unrelated groups avoiding one another and more like a very old family feud — the kind where everyone still knows plenty about everyone else and probably talks more than they would like to admit.

Which helps explain why the woman immediately asks Jesus a theological question:
Which mountain is the right place to worship, Mr. Jewish Jesus Smarty Pants? Mine, which was also probably one of yours (ancestrally speaking) at one point? Or yours, which was also mine (ancestrally speaking) at one point? It is theological hair-splitting. And she probably knows it.

Jesus gives her a straightforward answer: neither. The location does not ultimately matter. Worship is not about geography. And apparently she finds something compelling in that answer, because she runs to tell others about what she has just experienced.

Now here is where something fascinating happens. Did you know that authoritarian, violent images of God literally prime our brains and bodies for violence?

As in, literally. Dr. Andrew Newberg’s research shows that when people encounter authoritarian or violent narratives about God, fMRI scans show brain activity in regions associated with threat and aggression.

In other words, the stories we tell about God shape how our bodies prepare to respond to the world.

Which makes it worth noticing something: Many of the assumptions we bring to this story are not actually written into the text. They have been added through interpretation, tradition, and sometimes translation.

So ask yourself: what kinds of images of God have shaped those interpretations? How often have we inherited stories about God that assume shame, punishment, domination, or exclusion — even when the text itself does not necessarily say those things?

When those interpretations go unexamined, they train our bodies to live in a posture of fear and violent response rather than empathy, care, and love — the very things that make relationship and communion possible.

And that becomes a real problem for us as baptized Christians.

Because if empathy, justice, equity, and love are suppressed in favor of violence, suddenly we are all about the name of Jesus but not the way of Jesus. Those authoritarian stories about God are doing more than distorting the text. They actively block the kingdom of heaven from coming near.

Just think about that for a moment.

Last week we talked about those snakes in the wilderness and the bronze serpent. The people had to look honestly at what was killing them in order to live. Jesus connects that story to the cross. If we want life, we must look honestly at the individual and systemic realities of what put him there.

This week we are invited to look even more closely — at the interpretations and narratives that may be keeping violence alive in our own traditions.

But the story also shows us something beautiful. Two people meet and instead of variations on domination, they choose dialogue, honesty, respect, care and dignity. Maybe even a little humor. And that is exactly the environment where what Jesus calls living water begins to flow.

There is also a subtle literary echo here, too. In Hebrew scripture, wells are often places where relationships begin.

Rebecca meets Isaac’s servant at a well. Rachel meets Jacob at a well. Zipporah meets Moses at a well.
Wells are meeting places where something new starts.

So while this meeting between Jesus and the Samaritan woman is probably not a romantic one, it is still the beginning of a new relationship — one grounded in equality, respect, curiosity, and care, maybe even some good quality teasing and laughter. And from there it spreads quickly from two people outward into an entire community.

Violent images of God spread quickly too.

But they shut down empathy. They make connection and meaningful relationship nearly impossible. They keep people divided in ways that serve oppressive systems rather than the flourishing of human community.
It is actually a remarkably effective strategy for taking over a powerful tradition: infect it with authoritarian and violent imagery and watch everything disintegrate from there.

Which means we have work to do: We need to notice when violent images of God appear and actively dismantle them. We need to remind one another that the stories we tell about God shape the way we live in the world.

And if violent images of God prime us for violence, then truthful images of God must train us for something else entirely.

Empathy. Justice. Equity. Accountability. Peace. Love.
Which is exactly the command Jesus leaves with us: Love one another as I have loved you.

with joy,
Pr. Sam

Copious amounts of this reflection have been informed and inspired by the work of Dr. Andrew Newberg  (most especially his work around violent images of God and what happens in human brains), as well as this particular Rethinking Faith podcast with Dr. Shaleen Kenrick. 

based on John 3:1-17 | Second Sunday of Lent

Anyone remember the Exodus wilderness story?

The people are being bitten by snakes. They are dying. And they go to Moses complaining, talking about how this whole idea to follow Moses and Miriam seemed great. GREAT. Until they were now in the wilderness, hungry, and being bitten by snakes.

So they tell Moses to go see God and get God to fix it. No more snakes.

And so Moses goes to God. And God does respond. But not as a singular sky-daddy savior swooping in to erase the problem. God collaborates. God tells Moses to make a bronze serpent and put it on a pole. If people want to live, they’re going to have to look at that snake on the pole.

In other words, they have to take a good look at exactly what’s killing them.

God does not remove the snakes. God invites the people into participation in the pathway toward living.
Life abundant requires their involvement, literally looking at what’s killing them.

If they want to move forward, they cannot outsource the issue to God alone. This work must be done together, with God.

Now we fast forward to Nicodemus. He comes to Jesus at night. He asks good questions. He recognizes that God is at work in Jesus. But then he gets obtuse about things. He shifts the conversation into technicalities. Biology. Literalism.

“How DOES one go back into the womb once they’re already born? Hmmm?”

Maybe because at the core of all these effects and signs Jesus is showing, Nicodemus is noticing problems with his understanding of right and wrong and the powers of the world. Maybe it’s because if Nicodemus doesn’t get obtuse, the only other option is to admit how much more he also proverbially sees, and doesn’t really want to see, about his current world.

For example:

• How religion and empire are intertwined, and working together to harm people.
• How “laws” supposedly built to help and protect are only serving people who really don’t need more protection.
• How these orderly systems for serving people in need are also crushing the very life they claim to be there to protect and serve.

And Jesus’ response to Nicodemus is just the same as God’s reply to Moses in the wilderness.

This is a collaborative effort. You are a participant.

Just as Moses lifted up the serpent, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.

And Nicodemus knows the story Jesus is referencing. Nicodemus knows that if he’s going to live the life he’s hoping to live, a life abundant and full of love, he can’t stay obtuse. He’s going to have to go ahead and look, and admit what he knows.

Not at an abstract problem. You can see why he maybe wanted to stay “in the dark” with this one.

But Jesus is telling him he’s going to have to take a look and be honest about the way this world works. About who and what it’s killing. Who and what it’s harming. Who and what it’s claiming to protect. The contradictions, the lies, the inaccuracies. All its complexities and difficulties.


And I suspect this is where we get to be a bit like Nicodemus, from time to time...

Preferring that beautiful blackness and chilling on a back step with Jesus. It feels a little safer there, I suppose. A spot where we might be able to say we don’t quite understand how it can all work together. Where we might be able to claim it’s all far beyond our abilities and thus the only hope is magical intervention from Sky-Daddy God themself.

But the pattern presented for us is consistent. If we want life, we must be willing to look at what is.
Not just as isolated individuals, but also collectively at the systemic stuff we create together too.

We must look at the uncomfortable what-is of our world and where we’re complicit. At systems that preserve themselves at the expense of the vulnerable. At patterns in our own lives that cooperate with that preservation and maintain the status quo.

Anyone who has lived inside something destructive knows this. You are not responsible for the damage done to you, but you learn eventually that damage stops when you are willing to acknowledge what is actually happening and then take next logical steps.

In Luther’s famous terms: we must call the thing a thing.

Those naming moments can feel destabilizing. And I think we sometimes get confused, thinking calling the thing a thing is a condemnation of sorts. But it is not necessarily a condemnation. Or even the end. It’s the start of being able to navigate toward what’s next.

God did not come into the world to condemn the world. God came into the world so that the world might live.

And life requires participation, collaboration, and honesty at what we’re seeing. The serpent lifted up, and looked at. Jesus on a cross, lifted up, and looked at with honesty. All those awful complicities that led to one singularly not-guilty man up there on a cross.

Not so an angry sky-daddy God can take out their wrath upon us. No.

But so that we can see clearly enough to move, together with God, toward dismantling the oppressive systems that bind.

Toward living more closely in the way of Jesus.

Toward helping to bring in the Reign of God.

Toward that kingdom of heaven, already come near.

with joy,
​Pr. Sam

Ash Wednesday | Based on Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Holy Hilarious, Batman

Has anyone else noticed how ridiculous this scene is? I enjoy picturing Jesus talking to people with a sly smirk, eyebrow raised,

“Oh no— now, you, you don’t be like those people”

You know— the ones marching up and down the streets with their brass bands? Just playing a fancy kick each time they are about to do something? You know— those types.

The ones who …publicize, when they are going to make a major donation. OR- you know, the ones who get out there with their megaphones? Shouting about salvation?? Don’t be like those types, either…

AND— the people who make a big production about working soooooo hard on behalf of…people…— rather than, say, just getting the work done? Don’t be like THEM. Either.

And you know— WE are NOT like them. Not at all. We, about to smear ashes all over our foreheads and then go out in public like this……oops. 🙂

It’s not the Same as what Jesus was talking about— right?

I mean— It’s just LENT, right?
That famous season where everyone knows Christians do things like …

Fast! Give up coffee-or sugar— and then bonus points: BLOG about it!
Collect cash for people who need food— and make it into a competition! Announce the results!

DO NOT eat meat on Fridays!
Definitely keep ourselves a bit more serious here in church— it’s a serious season. No alleluias. No hosannas.
Maybe even just avoid any instruments at all- just chant. Only chant. Because it’s lent.

In fact— maybe give up anything that brings you joy- because its lent.

This is one of those places where not a one of us escapes Jesus’ ability to reach through 2000 years and multiple translations of scripture to give us a nice little loving and teasing slap in the face.

And— don’t think that any one of us escapes the critique—I must admit, friends:

There have been years even ritual-loving Pr. Sam over here has watched carefully to see how the person doing the ashing did the ashing— and let me tell you, some of these people out there are putting that stuff on with a trowel and I would have NONE of it on my face.

Thank Goodness, Travis knows what he’s doing. 

You know, As a kid, I hated Lent and its absurd requirements. To me, this whole concept was entirely foisted upon me. Friday nights spent doing absurd stations of the cross, and then caught up in these vegetarian spaghetti dinners (ok, admittedly, my first kiss did happen in the back stairwell at one of those dinners, but STILL)… on the whole, I resented all of it, and to me- it was in fact all a show. Why even be there, if I didn’t have a desire to be there. Why be told I was giving up sugar if I had no reason to be giving up sugar?

This is, I think, one of those fundamental places our Christian tradition easily goes wrong while trying desperately to do right by people. We land in productivity and shame-based actions in place of faith foundation.

There is a significant difference between a Lent foisted upon you, acted out because it is demanded of you, and a life rooted in lent because you find value in simple practices that help you renew your commitment to Jesus’ way of being people of integrity, people of justice, people of love.

And- don’t get me wrong here- bodily practices are not the problem. Jesus was a good Jew, he knew interiority and exteriority are not a binary. Both matter and work together and inform one another.

Our church elders, somewhere along the way, had the wisdom to know that an annual reminder that we are not immortals— that we too will die, and there’s no luggage rack on the hearse— would be a good thing for us to engage. Recalling that our smallness, despite our immense power, can help us re-orient to what matters, and who matters. To get back to that Christian commitment to the way of Jesus is important.

But wow oh wow, how easily we even manipulate these things, with hardly a noticing--or worse yet, trying to obfuscate the manipulation with overt seriousness that is rooted in false sense of ourselves. No?

So, the thing is, you have to choose your own focus for this season. As for me:

My prayer for us, this season, is that we might take ourselves far less seriously. That we might look at ourselves from the outside, and laugh at ourselves far more and enjoy that laughter, and even have some good playtime. That we might, in that joy and amusement, let the Holy Spirit in to do her work, too.

I’m going to pray that we might find and renew the strength of our collective and individual hunger for God and let it drive us right into the heart of our desirous, adventurous, explorative nature to grow and nourish one another and our world.

And- I'm going to pray that we might realize in new ways that lent is not a singular season at all, but an opportunity to check in on the foundation of our Christian life, inspect the cracks and crevices, see what maybe needs some TLC, giggle about our funny construction methods. Appreciate how God comes right on in and holds us together, good, mediocre, or downright poor.

And you know, I imagine, if we can do just that much… if we can sort of reach a little more deeper depth of soul in these kinds of ways?

We might discover yet another pathway that leads us back to that singular empty tomb, and a very full and alive communion composed not of “me” but of “we”— and that is the kind of resurrection treasure worth holding in our hearts, and celebrating come easter Sunday.  Amen?

with joy,
Pr Sam

Based on Matthew 17:1-9 | Transfiguration Sunday
The Choir sang this stellar arrangement of of Brightest and Best for this service, at my request. So, this sermon is in part referencing the lyrics in this arrangement, and the season of Epiphany as a whole.

So! This is it. THIS is the end of Epiphany. Jesus telling his besties not to say anything about what they saw.
Shhhhh. It’s a secret?

It feels a little opposite of epiphanic, doesn’t it? It also feels a little bit like Jesus is in “do as I say, not as I do” mode. Last week he’s telling people not to hide their light under bushel baskets, and this week he’s keeping secrets...

Believe it or not, there’s a sensibility and a throughline to what we’ve been walking through since a couple Sundays after Christmas. (That’s the one where we heard about Jesus being baptized.)

On that Sunday, we talked about repentance as a turning point. We noticed that Jesus himself was at a turning point toward justice. And in that moment, he received a little back pat from God: “This is my Son, with him I am well pleased.” We even remembered our own baptisms that day, getting our hands wet and blessing one another.

Then, for the next two weeks, we heard two different versions of Jesus collecting his besties. One version was “Come and see.” The other was “Follow me.” We talked about the simplicity of those words, and how checking in with one another and actually listening can be an incredible way to walk in the way of Jesus.

THEN we heard the Beatitudes. Not commands. Not corrections. Just recognition of what is. Blessed are you. As you are. Right now.

If you were here in person at University Lutheran, you had an opportunity to listened to one another and even write beatitudes for each other. Another reminder of what walking in the way of Jesus looks and feels like.

And finally, last week, we talked about Salt. And Light. About refusing to be diluted or diffused. About not losing our roots in favor of the comfort of oppressive systems. About living so rooted in who God made you to be that your you-ness becomes a living fulfillment of the law, which is to love one another as Jesus loves us.

That’s the road we’ve been on. You can see how it all works together, centering us, funneling us toward becoming exactly who God made us to be, discovering our collective power within that imago-dei-ness.

And now we reach another turning point: Matthew 17.

Jesus climbs a mountain with three of his besties. He’s been telling them that if he sticks to this path, it’s going to cost him his life. They are not thrilled about this plot development.

And then, suddenly, he is radiant. Dazzling. You’ve never seen a more fabulous queen! This is not a costume change. Not added sparkle. It is Jesus more fully revealed. So rooted in his saltiness and light, so integrated in the joys and sorrows of his humanity, that he is literally glowing.

And it totally freaks out his friends. In the most human ways possible, they say, “This is amazing! Let’s commemorate it. Build tents. Freeze the moment. Institutionalize the glow.”

Can you blame them? When something is that clarifying, that beautiful, that undeniable, don’t we instinctively try to hold on to it? But it also all kinda freaks them out-- and suddenly they are also on the ground, in the dust and the dirt. Hiding their faces. We've got our contradictory cloud: Bright and shadowy at the same time. And the voice: “Listen to him.” Jesus tells them not to be afraid. And then they all head back down the mountain. 

Simple, right?

:) 

Some people say what happened up there is proof of Jesus’ divinity. Others suggest Moses and Elijah were there as a comforting reminder that everything would be okay, kind of like loved ones appearing to us in dreams. At the very least, Moses and Elijah do represent the law and the prophets, the fullness of Israel’s story converging in Jesus.

But what I see is this: A Jesus who has been living with integrity and courage comes to another turning point. Parallel to his baptism. He chooses, again, to commit to love above all else, no matter the cost. And he gets another back pat, similar to the baptismal back pat: “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.”

Have you ever been around someone so clear about who they are and what they’re called to do that they glow? Maybe not constantly, but in moments for sure.

Maybe you’ve experienced that yourself. A moment of clarity. A moment of being unencumbered and fully yourself. A moment when God felt unmistakably near and you were both entirely present and somehow transcending yourself and the moment?

Those experiences orient us like stars. They help us keep moving. They also help us appreciate the beauty of blackness, of the dark, of mystery itself. A star, light of any kind, does not eliminate the shadows. If anything, it makes the surrounding mystery more noticeable.

Jesus’ glow-up does the same. It reveals that being our most real, salty, light-bearing selves involves accepting joy and sorrow together. Love and loss. Radiance and grief.

Another way to put it: Jesus’ glow-up, that miraculous turn and dedication to love 
and only love no matter what the cost is God showing us--in a visceral way-- that there is nothing we’re going to do to fully prepare ourselves or even stand in the way of joy or sorrow,

AND it is within that very acceptance and vulnerability of reality that we find our greatest power, right alongside Jesus.

Betrayal. Suffering. Confusion. Grief. Sadness. Joy. Laughter. Peace. All of it stays. Even God Incarnate, Jesus the Christ says yes to all of it.

And the glow? The glimmer? The epiphanic illumination? That's not about escape or exception. It's a sign of confirmation.

• Confirmation that we are being who God called us to be.
• Confirmation that we are not losing our roots.
• Confirmation that we are choosing the way of Jesus as best we can.

It is also a warning.

• Don’t build monuments to the mountaintop.
• Don’t get stuck trying to preserve the glory days.
• Don’t let fear or the desire to control lead the way.

The radiance is not the destination, though it is a nice experience along the way.

So, here we are, headed into Lent.

Ash Wednesday is at hand, Lent is basically here. Smudged foreheads. Honest reckonings. Practices that strip us down to what is real are all coming for us. And, though it might seem counterintuitive... We might say that those three they’re the brightest, and best— 

Three little stars of the mourning. Not m-o-r-n-i-n-g... but m-o-u-r-n-i-n-g. Headed down, into a new season with Jesus, figuring out how to accept what Jesus has already come to accept: the highs and the lows. 

There’s secrecy, because these three don’t yet understand that the glory and the power and the radiance (Jesus’ or theirs) isn’t in the mountaintop— it’s in the cross.

Brightest and best are the stars in their mourning,
Dances in the darkness, and strengthening might
Star in the east, a horizon adorning...
Hearts finding guidance to cross, and their call...


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Join Us as We Enter Lent
Sunday Worship During Lent: 10 am (email me for the Zoom link if you can't join in person)
Holy Week Services (Palm Sunday through Easter)

University Lutheran Church
Palo Alto | Near Stanford University
A welcoming, LGBTQ-affirming Christian community

Based on Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7 | First Sunday of Lent
Guest Preacher Max Del Bosque visiting University Lutheran Palo Alto this weekend.




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"The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge."
Proverbs 18:15
 
We are going to mark the first Sunday of Lent with essentially chopping down the tree of understanding we think we have about this passage from Genesis. If you're particularly attached to what you think you know, or what you've been told to believe this story is about, I'm sorry to say that I'm here to make you uncomfortable.                                                                               
 
What do we understand about the story of Eve and the tree of knowledge in the garden?  What do we think we know about this story?
 
Maybe you grew up hearing this story was about men being tempted into sin by women, that Eve was a temptress, and that the "punishment" for women was the pain of childbirth ever after-
or
 
that our fall from grace in God's eyes was because we, mediated through a sinful woman, defied God's rules to not eat from or touch the tree.
 
Now I've poured over the text and the scholarly contributions about this passage from Genesis and
 
I'm sorry to say, but there was no apple.
 
Apples originated from a wild variety, malus sieversii, that came from a region in what is now present day Kazakstan. Apples simply didn't exist during the time of the ancient Israelites. And if we're to believe that Adam and Eve preceded the Israelites, then apples were definitely not around yet.
 
The first thing we have to confront is that what we think we know, we must question that knowing.
 
There are some scholars who believe that early church fathers (emphasis on the fathers part) assumed connection with the latin word for evil—malum and the name of the wild variety malus, and ta-da! We have an apple. Even this is brought into question because the genus name malus sieversii came about in the 1830s by a German botanist who had named the apple after another German botanist, Sievers, who is the first known European to have discovered and documented the original Kazakstan wild variety in 1793. This was long after those early Christian theologians.
 
Again, I'm here to shake this apple and Genesis assumption free from each other,
because do you know anything about early varieties of apples that originated in Central Asia? Sweet they were not. We did not have red sweet apples until the late 1800s. So again, I poke at what we think we know about this passage from Genesis.
 
Jewish Hebrew scholars believe that the fruit now in question, was most likely, a grape. And grapes do not grow on trees. I'm sorry, my friends, but this makes it very clear, there was no apple.
 
And possibly, no tree.
 
Where does that leave us?
 
We can look to early theologians like Tertullian and Augustine who wrote about this passage to align it with the idea that the serpent, was not a symbol of knowledge and immortality, but was Satan.
 
Yet, in Hebrew, the descriptor for the serpent is arum, or clever. We see this in Proverbs. And Not clever as in trickery. To be clever was highly valued, as it afforded resilience and flexibility of mind.
 
And what about Eve? Eve's actions in our reading from today, have been used to promote virginity, purity, and suffering for this sin of being female. Suffering through labor and endless births. This idea of the apple as red, juicy, luscious, even—played well into these earlier church men's ideas. This sets up patriarchy and men's power over women and women's bodies well.
 
We have been led to believe this is a story about sex and desire, yet, that is not present in the original Hebrew text. In Genesis 2 we learn that humans were created in God's likeness. How we humans were made and why, was already established earlier. The issue in our reading today is about how and what happens when humans acquire wisdom.
If the original covenant between God and humans was for us to live in a forever child-like relationship with God and each other in the garden, what we know about our human experience is that we begin in that developmental state of innocence, and become adults, And this transition happens by experiencing the complexities and sorrows that are life itself.
 
This reminds me of a time when my oldest son was quite small. As a busy parent and grad student, I was always coming up with ways to occupy him, to work a bit more on my thesis, to get a meal on the table. I introduced him to crayons when he was quite young, giving him a lot of latitude to create, while teaching him to draw on paper. not on the table, not on the walls. to my dismay, I found him drawing on the front of his dresser one afternoon! It was the first time I had to tell him no, and gave him the consequence of helping to clean off the marks he'd made. My son was not pleased. And I in the adjoining room, overheard him grubbling, and mutter angrily, "fucking baba!" as he scrubbed. I was simultaneously horrified—when and how did my sweet child pick up the f word? Also wanted to laugh out loud, because the fact of his expressing his frustration via cussing me out for his consequence was also amusing. But, it was a significant moment for each of us. I had to hold that my child was no longer a baby and going to test me and need consequences, as well as hold that he could have all sorts of feelings about how I parent him. He, in turn, learned that sometimes his parent held boundaries he didn't like.
We each grew up some that day.
 
The Genesis story is similar--
God wanted us to remain forever connected to him and each other through love. Wanted to shield us from the complexities of life—pain, fear, grief, betrayal. These are all human experiences that God knows of, and wanted us to be spared from.
 
Instead, we became fully human. And in this, we lost some of that original connectedness through which we first began. Just like my son had to accept that I was going to set boundaries when needed, and with that, I did not remain the parent who only and always delights--we as humans are in a complicated and very real relationship with God and each other. Considering this passage from Genesis in this way, we can examine the aftermath of Eve and Adam gaining knowledge—the eyes of both were opened it says in verse six--this, is about education—and education as our first human act of disobedience.
 
This text indicates how wisdom, not women, is the cause of suffering in ancient Israel.  Forcing us to consider the changing landscape of knowledge, the sense of belonging and power that goes along with knowledge was shifting among ancient Israelites. Remember that later in Genesis we learn what life will be like for humans—that we will work hard, have offspring to work the land as well, and ultimately die after all this hard work. This isn't far off from what the Israelites knew life to be. What's surprising is the knowledge that what God had in store for humans was to not live this way, but instead, live a long life in mutual relationship to one another in creation.
So are we to believe that acquisition of knowledge is not part of God's plan for us? Are we to be doubtful of education and the power of the mind?  Is education, in and of itself, bad?
 
The story invites us to question what knowledge and its acquisition is seated in, where it comes from. It invites us to consider the importance of discernment, and how power determines who gets to steer the course of knowledge, as well as qualify what knowledge is. This Genesis passage reflects shifts in understanding about wisdom in monarchal Israel. If collective memory was sustained via oral tradition, we start to see a shift in story not centered in mutual experience, but coming increasingly from elites who'd left the villages, those who were learning new literary traditions coming from non-biblical sources. Ancient Israel's leaders were starting to rely on the telling of story that came from written texts—royal stories about kings and men in charge. The stories that were unique to each village, with their village storyteller who knew the nuances and intimate experiences of their people, were slowly being replaced. The story of Adam and Eve here in Genesis is about gaining knowledge, but its also a warning—about where knowledge comes from. We only have to look to our apple and our serpent—to see what happens when knowledge concentrated in the hands of a powerful few, a few who do not have collective interrelationship as their guiding force, to see what happens next.
 
Here's where our Genesis passage meets our readings from Romans and Matthew. We see sin now playing out as a divide between us and our relationship with God as well as our interdependent relationship with each other, through God.
 
If Genesis laid the groundwork of what was to become of us humans when we acquire knowledge, then our readings from Romans and Matthew, reinforce this.
 
In the Romans passage from today, we'll note that Eve has been disappeared entirely—an example of the way patriarchy has played out. Eve and Adam have been portrayed as a binary—male and female, husband and wife, sinner and temptress. In Romans that binary is continued Adam as sinful, and Christ, not. Yet, we're also reminded that our salvation is interconnected—our individual grace is bound up in our collective connection to and with each other through Christ.
 
In Matthew we are presented with Jesus meeting the adversary—what are we pulled toward in the world, we can have so many things, so many material wants can be met, but
Jesus quotes Deuteronomy, remiding us our relationships to God and each other are not all or nothing ones. Bringing us back to our covenantal relationship with God. This relationship that Jesus speaks of in Matthew is not an individual one, but a communal one—linking us to that tree of knowledge again, how do we learn to be in community through God as the very human people that we are? How do we use our wisdom, our access to all that the world offers us, to choose over and over, to deepen into interdependent relationship with each other?
 
We "die to sin" when we separate knowledge, from how to live interdependently with each other through God. Our readings today remind us that our Lenten journey begins with examining what we think we know. And to do so with the intention of considering wisdom as that which brings us into community with each other. Eve has been understood as a transgressor, breaking divine law. Let us consider what it means to transgress today—when our world makes it easy to turn away from each other, there are so many things we can numb and distract and entertain ourselves with—instead let us transgress from these isolating norms. In our current times, let us transgress, and lean into the knowing that we are all God's beloved.

On Matthew 5:13-20 | from Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026

Let's start in a spot that's a bit strange-- With a woman whose name we aren’t even given, from a story that isn’t even part of this past Sunday's lectionary excerpts.

You know the story in Genesis, the one where Lot’s wife is turned into a pillar of salt?

She’s fleeing a city that is being destroyed. But she looks back. And she becomes salt.

For generations, this story has most often been told as a cautionary tale. When God tells you to go, don’t hesitate- get up and go. Follow the directions. Don’t look back, lest you too become a pillar of salt!

But that interpretation doesn’t sit very comfortably with what Jesus later says about salt, or about fulfilling the law. And I think we actually need to think about Lot’s wife in order to hear what Jesus has to say, today, clearly.

Because here’s the thing: Lot’s wife didn’t refuse to leave. She left the city. God said it was time to go, and she went, right along with her husband and other folk.

What she refused to do was make a clean break, as if the people she was leaving behind were disposable. She went ahead and looked back toward where her life had been. Toward the people who shaped her. Toward the neighbors, the children, the relationships, the losses. Toward the destruction. Toward the truth of what had happened.

And in that act of looking back while still moving forward, she became something valuable-- salt. A monument to a woman stubbornly clinging to exactly who she was created to be: Rooted in both her past and her present, holding the two together, difficult as that may be.

She refuses the lie of the clean break. She refuses to act as though the city and people she’s leaving behind are simply expendable. And in some ways, that refusal costs her-- everyone else leaves her there. (I guess Lot didn’t fully appreciate the potentialities of a literally salty wife.)

So--A woman so rooted in who she is that she refuses to let even God’s command to flee and not look back shake her loose from herself. So rooted, that she becomes salt itself. Hang on to that image and those values, and now let's turn back to Jesus, according to Matthew 5:13-20.

Jesus, speaking to people gathered around him on a mountain, says, “You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.”

Not you should be. Not try harder to become. Just… you are.

The thing about salt and light is that neither has to decide to do its job.
Salt doesn’t work up the courage to be salty. It simply is. Light doesn’t psych itself up to shine. It shines. That’s its nature.

Now, what I'm about to say next may feel a little heretical to our Lutheran sensibilities, and it may go against our Protestant work ethic, but try to stay with me:

What if being salt of the earth and light of the world is not about serving others, directly.
What if being salt of the earth and light of the world is something closer to what Lot’s wife has shown us?

Being salt of the earth may be about refusing to be anything other than who you are. Refusing to forget who you’ve been. Refusing to be diluted, flattened, or hidden in favor of what’s easier or more socially acceptable.

Now, we don’t want to become monuments like Lot’s wife. She’s already got that role covered.
And yet, we are salt of the earth and light of the world.

Which means we are called to be so grounded in the image of God stamped into us that the upside-down kingdom of God comes closer simply because we are being so fully, so exactly who we were made to be.

Take that in for a moment. Because it carries some weight.

Lot’s wife looked back. She insisted on remembering. And she became something incredibly valuable: pure salt. And then everyone else walked away.

Being rooted in our salt-of-the-earth-ness, our light-of-the-world-ness, doesn’t always play nicely with maintaining the status quo.

Systems that oppress, exploit, and uphold illusions of goodness are not especially afraid of kindness, per se. Kindness is pretty easy to overcome.

But those systems, they are afraid of integrity. Of character. Of grit. They fear people who know who they are. People who remember where they come from. People who insist on carrying their complex histories instead of erasing them for convenience (hello, lies of race, lies of whiteness, lies of white supremacy-- all of which ask us to break from our ancestral bodies of self in favor stories that make us far easier to control and manipulate to the detriment of many and gain of an elite few).

Oppressive systems and the people who perpetuate those systems are terrified of people who refuse to become flavorless or hide their God-given light in order to survive.

To live from the roots of who God created you to be will draw attention. It will provoke criticism. It may stir anger in those who benefit from things staying exactly as they are.

After all, have you heard what they did to Jesus of Nazareth? To John the Baptist?

And yet-- and yet

Living this way also brings sanctuary. Joy. Freedom. Energy that doesn’t burn out but keeps replenishing itself. This kind of life draws from divine energy itself, magnifying and refracting wherever it goes, especially when others are walking this path alongside you.

And that line about salt losing its flavor? That’s a joke, you realize, right? I often picture Jesus in this scene with a knowing nod and smirk, twinkle in his eye while he watches folk in the room realize the absurdity of what he's saying and the obvious parallel:

Salt doesn’t lose its flavor.  Sodium chloride is sodium chloride. It doesn't go stale. And neither do you. The only thing that can happen is that salt can be diluted, mixed into or compromised or replaced by things that resemble salt. But at the end of the day, you are being told that you are salt- and if you are salt you simply cannot be anything other than what you are: salt. Therefore, you cannot lose your salt. And if you are being told that you are light, then you cannot be anything other than what you are, light. You cannot lose your light.

You are salt. You are light. Made in the image of God. Valuable. Powerful. Grounding. Guiding.

Over the last few weeks, those of us who gather in person at University Lutheran have been doing some small simple practices.

We’ve been checking in with one another. Naming feelings. Listening carefully to one another and to our bodies. Writing beatitudes for one another, reflecting back. 

Yes, these practices are connective and relational. But they’re not just social.

They’re practice, too. Practice in following Jesus. Practice in becoming a little more fully our salty, lit selves together, here.

When we tell the truth about how we’re actually doing and invite the same from others, we are being who we are: salt of the earth. And when we receive someone as they are, without fixing or correcting, and reflect back their brilliance and inherent goodness, we are being who we are: light of the world.

And when we do this together, the effects multiply. This is how the kingdom of God comes near. This is how we build collective strength. This is how justice, peace, and equity begin to take on flesh.

These small, honest connections grow over time into bold interruptions that redistribute power and reshape futures. One salt-of-the-earth, light-of-the-world human being at a time. One conversation at a time.

This is how the law is fulfilled. The law Jesus insists will not be discarded but fulfilled down to the smallest detail is ultimately about loving one another well.

As Lot’s wife loved enough to refuse erasure, to refuse to completely throw away any part of herself. As Jesus commanded of us, to love one another as he loved us.

We are salt of the earth and light of the world. Jesus is telling us it's in our DNA to love, and to love well. One connective, elemental act at a time. So refuse any dilution. Refuse attempts at dimming. Remain rooted, remembering, living firmly exactly as who God has created us to be.

with joy,
Rev. Sam