Spiritual Gifts, Not Spiritual Hierarchy (Reflections on Pentecost 13, Year A 2026)

 

Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2)

We hear a lot in America today about socialism, communism, and fascism. I’ll bet a lot of folks who sling those words around don’t really know what they mean. Dr. Heather Cox Richardson, a professor of American history at Boston College, summarizes fascism as “the belief that some people are better than others.[i]” I’m not about to call our early Christian ancestors “fascists,” but this hierarchical system was exactly what Saint Paul was dealing with when he wrote his great epistle to the Romans.

In the Second Lesson for Pentecost 13 in the Revised Common Lectionary (Romans 12:1-8) Paul is doing what every good pastor struggles to do: hold together a bunch of people with different backgrounds, different opinions, and different personalities who are all trying to navigate a changing culture in a frightening world.

Here’s a little back story. The Gospel of Jesus Christ had reached the city of Rome well before Paul ever got around to visiting the Christian community there. By 56 or 57 CE., however, Paul had become the rock star of the Christian faith. His reputation was preceding him and, even though he was busy trying to get those crazy Corinthians to behave themselves, the Christians in Rome were just as anxious to see or hear from him as he was to see them. The best Paul could do was write them a long letter which he sent to them courtesy of a lady named Phoebe, a deacon from the nearby port town of Cenchreae. Phoebe, apparently, was pretty flush with cash and could afford to support Paul and travel around the Mediterranean world delivering his mail. Paul wanted to address the Roman Christians’ concerns, let them know he was planning a visit, get them to kick in a few bucks to help out the starving church back in Jerusalem,[ii] and support his further missionary efforts in Spain (a trip he was never able to make)[iii].

Back around 49 CE Emperor Claudius decided he didn’t like Jews, so he kicked them out of Rome. This meant that Jewish Christians also had to leave town. When Claudius died, the Jews moved back, only to find that the church was now run by a new group of primarily Gentile Christians. It’s the old story—a clash between the Old Guard and those young whippersnappers who think they know it all. This is what Paul was facing in the church at Rome.

Paul urged the Romans to look with the eyes of Christ and not to be conformed to the ways of the age. After all, the way of Roman society was always to divide people into social classes. If you lived in that society, you knew there were Patricians and Plebians—the rich folks and the not-so-rich folks—with some minor sub-categories in each group. Paul urged Christians not to model the church on those kinds of worldly distinctions, but to look at one another with the eyes of Christ.

If you read through the Pauline epistles, you’ll see Paul making this same argument again and again. He reminds the Galatians that being Jewish doesn’t make you a better Christian (and you don’t need to be circumcised!)[iv]. He dresses down the Corinthians for humiliating the less affluent members of the church by leaving them out of the Lord’s Supper[v]. His aim is always to turn the nascent Christians away from worldly values and love one another in fraternal community. His request to the mostly Gentile Christians of Rome to send aid to the mostly Jewish Christians of Jerusalem is not just a humanitarian effort but an attempt to reconcile two factions within the Christian movement.

The Gospel Paul preaches is one which humbles the exalted and exalts the humble. If you’re in Christ, there’s no one better than you and no one worse. My work as an ordained pastor does not make me a superior Christian. I don’t deserve to be treated with any more respect than the next person, and the next person should be treated with no less respect than that with which I am treated.

God doesn’t assign us positions of status. What God does assign are spiritual gifts. Each of us has something to offer for the good of the rest of us. Martin Luther taught that every Christian is in some way a priest. That is, each of us has the ability to pray and make intercession for others, and any work we do for the good of society is Godly work. In this passage Paul mentions three gifts which I find of note.

Prophecy is not about predicting the future. Any of us could be a prophet by taking a firm grasp on the obvious and declaring that, should things go on as they are, there will be a predictable end. When your mom warned you to look both ways on a busy street, she was being a prophet. Prophets don’t predict what will happen, they warn us about what may happen.

Paul marries sincerity to generosity. There are right reasons to give, and not-so-right reasons. If you make a huge donation to get your name on some wall, that’s not charity. It’s commerce. If you give out of guilt or obligation, that’s coercion. If, however, you give because you truly believe your gift makes a positive impact, that’s a blessing.

Finally, Paul tells us the gift of compassion is cheerfulness. This sounds a little counterintuitive. After all, when you’re dealing with a serious emotional issue, you don’t want to be around someone who is grinning like they’re a toke over the line and cracking jokes. Neither do you want someone whose pessimism or anger or judgmental nature mirrors your own at that moment. You need someone whose true joy in the Lord is so deep in their heart that they can cry their eyes out with you but not leave you hopeless.

To sum it all up? It’s just about living every day seeking the way of Christ.

My mind can always use some renewing, so please leave me a comment if you wish. Thanks for reading, my friend, and thanks for being part of the Church.

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[i] I don’t actually have a source for this quote, but if you ask Dr. Richardson, she’ll tell you she said it.

[ii] Jerusalem got hit with a nasty famine around 44-48 CE.

[iii] See Romans 15:22-33.

[iv][iv] See Galatians 2:11-21

[v] See 1 Corinthians 11:17-22

Of Hearts and Pharisees (Reflections on Pentecost 12, Year A 2026)

 

“But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and that is what defiles.” (Matthew 15:18)

Just what’s up with the Pharisees? These uber-religious guys are always the villains in our Gospel story, and Jesus gives them a royal smack-down in the lesson we have in the Revised Common Lectionary for Pentecost 12, A this year (Matthew 15:10-28). Back at the top of chapter 15 of Matthew’s Gospel, the Pharisees are getting their shorts bunched up because Jesus’ disciples have eaten without ritually washing their hands. This has got to make you ask: Don’t these guys have something better to do than complain about other people’s luncheon hygiene? Why are they freaking out about something which isn’t going to matter five minutes from now and will be forgotten by tomorrow? How petty can these dudes get?

I’ve always had something of a soft spot for the Pharisees myself. After all, they are the ancestors of modern rabbinic Judaism, and that should count for something. As annoying as they are to Jesus, we should consider they really were very pious people who were just doing their best to live up to the Law of Moses. Unfortunately, they had their heads stuck so far up into the details of the law that they had lost sight of its purpose. In a way, I feel sorry for them. They had a lot of prestige in their day, but they still weren’t the party in power[i]. They could take pride in being the descendants of Abraham and relish tales of the glory days when King David kicked butts and took names or when King Solomon’s reputation was the envy of the ancient world. In this story, however, they were a minor party in a tiny, defeated, and occupied country where they didn’t control the religious or governmental establishment, and the guys who did were themselves puppets of a foreign dictator in Rome. For all their legalistic piety and knowledge, I’ll bet it had to suck to be a Pharisee.

I think circumstances explain a lot about Jesus’ critics. They’d been told about their glorious past, but their present was far from glorious. When you don’t have much control over the stuff in your life, you become a psycho fanatic about the piddly stuff you can control. That explains why Grandpa goes berserk whenever someone messes with the thermostat. He used to be the guy who brought home the bacon, could fix anything that needed repairing, and gave detailed driving directions to anywhere you needed to go. Now he’s using a walker, wearing Depends, and has been made to surrender his car keys; nevertheless, he will—by God!—control that thermostat. The Pharisees are the same way. They may not control much, but they can still be smugly judgmental about people who are less pious or holy than they are.

Jesus needed to set these guys straight. The dinky rules the Pharisees were so upset about—like what or how you ate—doesn’t matter to God. What always matters is what is in the heart. Jesus even scolds them in front of the crowd for their lack of insight. He reminds his own disciples—and us, too—that contempt for others is a defilement.

All of this seems a little odd when verses 10-20 are juxtaposed with verses 21-28. When the Canaanite lady with a demonically possessed daughter comes to Jesus begging for help, he first ignores her and then calls her a dog. I don’t know about you, but this seems a little contemptuous to me, especially if you consider that, in the world of the text, dogs didn’t enjoy quite the level of favor they have in our modern society.[ii] I’m always a bit puzzled by this. Did this woman’s response to Jesus’ calling her a dog actually change the Lord’s mind, or did Jesus purposely insult her just so he could demonstrate to the disciples that even a foreigner was capable of compassionate insight? I like to thank it was the latter.

As a parish pastor, I often find myself confronted by people begging for mercy and compassion. If a member of my congregation—a sheep of my flock—is in need, there isn’t a whole lot I wouldn’t do if it’s in my power to do it. But, when the local mendicants come knocking at the church door, I turn into a Pharisee, or—like the disciples in the story—I want to send them away because they’re often really annoying. There have been a small number of homeless folks who’ve been buzzing around Faith Lutheran of Philadelphia for the last few years. One I know has a drug problem and others are just emotionally immature folks who either can’t or don’t want to advocate for themselves. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but they bug the crap out of me.

When I get judgmental like this, I have to take a step back and recognize the Pharisee in me. The contempt in my heart is what defiles me. It doesn’t matter if these unfortunate folks are in a situation of their own making. I don’t have any control over that. I do, however, have control over what’s in my heart and how I treat them. I am called to treat them with the same love and regard Jesus showed to the Canaanite woman. My little church does not have the financial resources to get these folks off the street, but I can fill their gas tank, show them how to use the internet to find cheap lodging, let them use the church’s address for the delivery of their SNAP card, or give them a bottle of cold water on a hot day. It may be only a crumb, but it’s something.

We all have a little of the Pharisee in us, and we’re all called to keep a watch on our hearts.

Thank you for visiting me again this week. Don’t be shy about leaving a comment. I always like to know what you think. God bless!

  

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[i] That would be the Sadducees. They were the “money class” and had lots of influence in the Temple.

[ii] I am personally quite fond of dogs. In fact, if my wife’s 9-year-old female shih tzu were magically transformed into a human child, I couldn’t love her any more or spoil her any less than I do now.

"Courage!" (Reflections on Pentecost 11, Year A 2026)

But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” (Matthew 9: 27)

Imagine this: You and the family take a summer vacation in Wildwood. It’s really hot, so you go down to the beach, spread your blanket, and cool off from the sticky humidity by wading into the cool Atlantic swell. The water is blue like the sky. It feels fresh and invigorating against your skin. You wade out a little further until you’re up to your armpits. You’re having a lovely time splashing around and listening to the seagulls when—suddenly—the gentle whitecaps start to turn a dirty brown and a force like a giant vacuum cleaner sucks you right off your feet and begins to pull you away from the shore. You flail around and try to dogpaddle your way back to land, but the current keeps pulling you further away. You’re getting knocked around like a rubber duck and a big wave deposits a salty gulp of water right down your throat. You cough and choke. Your strength starts to give out. You’re in a rip current. What do you do?

One thing’s for sure. If you panic, you’ll die.

In Israel’s scriptures, the sea was often a symbol of chaos. Even an inland water like the Sea of Galilee could be unpredictable, changing in minutes from a glassy calm to a violent, destructive monster causing panic even for experienced sailors.

The community to whom Matthew wrote our Gospel lesson for Pentecost 11, Year A (Matthew 14:22-33) knew its share of chaos. This nascent family of believers must’ve been considered radically dangerous. They’d turned their backs on a hierarchical social structure that ordered the society in which they lived. They ignored purity laws for the sake of inclusion. They refused to submit to an empire’s idolatry. Their reward for this was persecution and abandonment. They lived with constant uncertainty, and uncertainty is scary. After all, don’t we all fear the unknown?

We’re living with a heavy dose of the unknown at the moment, aren’t we? Just look at the nightly TV news. Floods destroy neighborhoods or entire towns. Tornados and hurricanes ravage communities. Wildfires burn out of control and destroy thousands of acres. In a single evening’s weather report, we experience all the frightening chaos Elijah experienced on Mt. Horeb (1 Kings 19:9-18). We might even experience the horrible silence the prophet experienced at the mouth of the cave—the soul-crushing experience of failure and solitude.

At such chaotic moments, we call out for God. Like Peter, we cry, “Lord, save me!”

How does Jesus respond? He says to us, “Take heart. It is I. Do not be afraid.” The words “take heart” are, in Greek, one word: tharseite. It’s the imperative form of the noun tharseo, which translates as “Courage!” Then Jesus says, “It is I.” The Greek here is ego eimi, literally “I am,” the divine name for God. Courage, he says. God is.

As you thrash around in the tormenting clutches of the rip current, you might see the still-blue sky above you and remember God is. God who made the sky and the awful, unpredictable sea has also made you. In the midst of the swirling confusion, you stop struggling against the current. You swim to the side. You relax your frenzied limbs and wave to the lifeguard who is coming to your rescue. “Courage,” he calls to you. “Don’t be afraid.” You float for a while and follow his directions when he comes near. Now you feel safe.

From Matthew’s day to our own the Church has always lived with uncertainty. This is not a problem because rarely do any of us gain wisdom from circumstances which aren’t chaotic, uncertain, or in some way a crisis.

I recently heard a podcast about the decline of mainline Protestant denominations in the U.S. The podcaster opined that the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has been steadily losing members while the conservative Lutheran Church Missouri Synod has remained stable because the ELCA has embraced progressive cultural ideas while the LCMS has remained steadfast and traditional in its doctrines. When the ELCA takes down the barriers which have estranged liberally minded people from the organized church, such people do not suddenly stampede into our pews. Conservatives leave the church, but progressive don’t join. Perhaps the cultural liberals feel they can respect the LGBTQ+ community, support gender equality, and champion reproductive freedom without having to get up on a Sunday morning.

I respect those folks for their social conscience, but I think they’re missing out on what we have. We have the words of life which inspire us every week. We have a community which becomes a family. We have the traditions of the faith with which we mark the seasons of the year, which give us a sense of belonging, and which bring us comfort and order in the face of a rapidly changing world. Most of all, we have Jesus. He is our rescuer, our guide to Godly life, our model of sacrificial love, our constant reminder that we are loved and valued, and—most important of all—our never-failing hope of resurrection.

“Courage,” he says. “I am here. Do not be afraid.” May his presence be with you to give you courage this week and always.