Sermons from Saint John’s

Sermon — August 25, 2026
The Rev. Greg Johnston
Lectionary Readings

“Jesus said to them, ‘Who do you say that I am?’” (Matthew 16:16)

Who gave you your name? Do you go by the name your parents gave you at your birth? Is it a nickname that you got along the way? Is your name really your middle name? Has it changed, by marriage or by choice? Did it take time for you to discover what your true name really was? Do different people call you different things? (I can think of a number of people I know who affectionately call their spouses by their full, legal names, and not the nicknames everyone else uses.)

I’m named “Greg” in part because there’s no diminutive to change; there is no parallel in a young Greg’s life to the moment at which “Timmy” becomes “Tim” or “Jimmy” turns to “Jim” or “James.” I’ve always been called “Greg,” and never Gregory; except by cousin Hannah, who we used to babysit when she was six, who called me “Pwincess Gwegowy” for a while. My father, though born “Alastair,” goes by “Bruce”; his middle name, much easier for Americans to pronounce. My newborn nephew, now two weeks old, still didn’t have a name when I finished writing this sermon; his grandparents’ names were chosen by the first grandchild, as family tradition requires.

“Who gets to name you?” is one question. “Who gets a name?” is another. I suppose in practice, all of us have names. But not every name is recorded for posterity. I can’t help but notice, for example, that the Book of Exodus doesn’t bother to name the “man from the house of Levi” who’s Moses’s father, or “the Levite woman” who’s his mother, the “daughter of Pharaoh” who adopts him or even “Pharaoh” himself; “Pharaoh” is a title, not a name. But “Shiphrah” and “Puah,” these heroic women who save the lives of countless children? We hear their names.

We hear Moses’ name, as well, and we hear the story behind the name. It’s an ingenious plan. When his mother floats the basket down the stream, his sister watches by the shore. (Exod. 2:3-4) And then she goes and offers to find a nurse for the child from among the Hebrew women; it just so happens to be mom. The family stays united, at least for his childhood. And “when the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and she took him as her son. She named him Moses, ‘because,’ she said, ‘I drew him out of the water.’” (Exod. 2:10) Grammatically, that’s a bit confusing. Which “she” was it who got to name the child? “She” the sister, “she” the mother, or “she” the daughter of Pharaoh? Well, you might ask, which one was it who drew him from the water? Trick question! It was Pharaoh’s daughter’s maid, wasn’t it?

“She named him ‘Moses,’” the text says, because she “drew him out of the water.” This kind of etymological wordplay is common in Genesis and Exodus. An Egyptologist could tell you that “Moses” is common in Egyptian names, as part of a compound meaning “gave birth.” So the Pharaoh Thutmose is “Thoth gave birth” and the Pharaoh Rameses is “Ra gave birth.” The text here explains it by the Hebrew verb “mashah,” “bring out”; “She named him ‘Moshe,’” Exodus explains, “because she said, ‘I moshe-d him from the water.’” If we blend the two origins together, you might say that she by placing him in the water, his mother gave him new life; she gave him new birth by drawing him forth. The name fits the man. Just as Moses was brought out from the water of the river, Moses would bring his people out from Egypt through the water of the Red Sea, giving them their own new birth—foreshadowing the new birth we receive through the water of Baptism.

We’ve lost the sense that names mean things like this. We don’t think every Thomas is a twin; that Gregs should be “gregarious” in every case. And even in the ancient world, it was true that names could just be names. But names do have power. Their meaning comes from the people whose memories they evoke, even if the original meaning has lost its power.

So “Caesar,” for example, started simply as a salad. Sorry, I mean, the last name of a family in Rome. But Gaius Julius Caesar and his family line became the founders of the Roman Empire, and “Caesar,” “czar,” and “kaiser” all came to mean the “Emperor” in various forms. The last name “Caesar” came to mean so much that Herod’s son Philip chose to name a new town “Caesarea” to curry favor with Rome. In fact, so many people had this good idea in the 1st century that they had to add additional names to tell one Caesarea from another. This small town wasn’t Caesarea Maritima, “Caesarea on the Coast,” but was known as “Caesarea Philippi,” “Philip’s Caesar Town.” (Like “Ruth’s Chris Steak House.”)

And it’s there, at Caesarea Philippi, a small town with a big name, that Simon first names Jesus “Christ,” and Jesus Christ names Simon “Peter.” Jesus asks the disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” and they gave him a list of all these other people’s names. Some say you’re John the Baptist, back from the dead; some say you’re Elijah, come down from heaven. Some say you’re Jeremiah, of all things, or maybe one of the other prophets. But the disciples have been traveling with Jesus for a while. They know that none of these rumors are quite right. Jesus asks them, “Who do you say that I am?” And Simon answers with Jesus’ true identity: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Like Rameses was “the Pharaoh,” he is the “Messiah” (in Hebrew), the “Christ” (same word in Greek). In English, “the Anointed.” Not a first name, not a last name, but a title: the one who had been anointed by God to restore the throne of his ancestor David. And not only are you “the Messiah,” you are “the Son of the Living God.” Somehow, through some combination of sudden divine inspiration and the everyday experience of being with Jesus, Peter has recognized something about who Jesus is and expressed it in a way that no one had before. He’s named Jesus in a new way.

And now Jesus names Peter in a new way. I keep calling him Peter, but that’s not quite right. The disciple who says “You are the Messiah” isn’t named Peter; the name given to him by his parents is Simon bar-Jonah, “Simon Jonahson.” And Jesus says to him, “I tell you, you are Rock, and on this rock I will build my church.” And this was such an obviously cool title that—just as Dwayne Johnson would one day become known as “the Rock,” so Simon Jonahson soon became known simply as “the Rock.” It happens immediately and in multiple languages. Paul sometimes calls him “Cephas,” from the Aramaic “Kefa”; we know him more often as “Peter,” from petros, which is “rock” in Greek.

Peter names Jesus with his proper title; he identifies his essential characteristics and connects them with his destiny, and names him for the first time as Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God. And in return, Jesus names Peter. He takes this man Simon, and identifies his essence, and connects it with his destiny: he is a rock, and on this rock, Jesus will build the church.

We spend a lot of time trying to name God in our prayers, giving oh so many answers to the question, “Who do you say that I am?” We call God “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” and “Almighty God” and “O merciful God,”; “Lord” and “Monarch” and “most merciful Father.” Some of these names are dear to our hearts, others no longer resonate, but there’s always room for more. God is a “God of abundance,” after all; now matter how many names we gave, we would never run out.

We spend less time, perhaps, thinking about how God is naming us. We don’t hear Jesus’ voice renaming us as clearly as Simon Peter did. But in a way, our names for God matter much less than God’s names for us. When Simon says, “You are the Messiah,” it isn’t quite a name; it’s the recognition of a fact. But when Jesus says, “You are Peter,” Peter’s life begins to change.

“Who do you say that I am?” is an interesting question; fair enough. But I wonder, how would you answer the other question: Who does God say that you are? Picture yourself in the place of Peter in this scene. Imagine Jesus saying, “I tell you, you are _______.” What is it that God sees in your inmost self? What is God’s true name for you?

Sermon — August 16, 2026
The Rev. Greg Johnston
Lectionary Readings

Just before I left for vacation, movie theaters around the world began showing the epic action fantasy film The Odyssey. Has anyone seen it? I haven’t. And in fact, I forgot my copy of The Odyssey at home, so I didn’t even read any Homer on the beach. But I did read an adaptation that I hadn’t read before: a novel by Natalie Haynes entitled A Thousand Ships, a re-telling of the stories of the Trojan War from the perspectives of the women involved.

It’s a great book, a powerful reminder of the horrors that lurk behind these stories of war. And it reminded me of one of the ironies of epic tales: the heroes involved are often physically very strong and emotionally very fragile. Most of the first half of the Iliad consists of Achilles pouting over a slight; I don’t want to spoil the ending of The Odyssey for anyone who hasn’t found time to read it in the last 3000 years, but I can’t help but think that it would’ve ended a little differently if Odysseus could gather up the courage to talk to his wife. The ultimate Homeric hero is Achilles, who is almost entirely invulnerable; but the “almost” makes all the difference. He’s almost completely safe from harm, but can be killed by an arrow to the heel; he’s completely unmoved by the victims of his violence, but his world is completely shattered by the death of his best friend. For all his invulnerability, he’s a very vulnerable man.

The Bible has its own fragile heroes of this kind. But its central stories are different; they’re stories in which vulnerability itself is the source of strength. And there’s a paradox there. “Vulnerability” is Latin for “the ability to be wounded.” To be vulnerable means to be in a situation where you can get hurt. And yet, in our readings from Genesis and Matthew today, this very vulnerability—this possibility of being wounded—is itself the source of healing and of growth.

We began with the beautiful scene in which Joseph is reunited with his brothers. The story of Joseph is its own epic tale. His father’s favorite, he was envied by his brothers, who threw him into a pit in the wilderness to be devoured by wild beasts. He was “rescued” only by being captured and enslaved. He spent years in Egypt, where his prophetic powers eventually made him one of Pharaoh’s most important advisers. He foretells a famine, and makes plans to secure Egypt’s supply of food. And then the famine comes. And Joseph’s brothers come to Egypt, along with many other refugees, to ask for help. They don’t know that Joseph’s there. Even when they see him face to face, they don’t recognize that it’s him. It’s been years. He’s grown up. They had left him for dead in the wilderness; the last thing they’re expecting is to see him holding court in Egypt.

And so Joseph has a choice. He can choose to take revenge on the brothers who had wronged him. He has all the power here. He’s already planted evidence on them once, during this long story; he could fabricate any charges and have them thrown in jail. Or he can choose to pretend that they mean nothing to him. He can act fairly, treating them like all those other refugees, who’d come to Egypt from a foreign land. He can act as if he’s simply an Egyptian court official to them, nothing more. Or he can reach out. He can reveal who he is. He can tear open the wounds of the past; he can run the risk that the brothers who rejected him once will reject him once again.

It would be safer and easier to be invulnerable here; to stay behind the armor of his uniform and his title and let his brothers go away hungry. But if he lets his guard down, then he might see his father again. If he reveals who he is, then he can embrace his brother Benjamin once more. And so, he does an extraordinary thing. Picture the scene from his brothers’ perspective. This mighty man, from whom they’ve come to beg for help—this man, who’s already accused them of theft once—sends everyone out of the room. What’s he about to do? How bad will this be if he wants all the witnesses gone?

And then he begins to weep. “I’m Joseph,” he says. “Is my father still alive?” (Genesis 45:3)

Generations later, another stranger comes for help to another mighty man. A Canaanite woman from the district of Tyre and Sidon—a Phoenician woman, in other words, in what’s now Lebanon—comes to Jesus and cries out, “Have mercy on me Lord…my daughter is tormented!” (Matthew 15:22) But Jesus doesn’t answer her at all. His disciples come to him and say, “You know, this woman’s being awfully loud; could you please send her away?” Jesus answers, enigmatically, that he was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel; that is to say, he didn’t come to help the other tribes and nations of the world. But the woman comes to Jesus and she kneels before him. And she simply says, “Lord, help me.” She assumes a posture of vulnerability, of supplication and prayer. She puts her in a position, both physically and emotionally, where she can be hurt.

And she is hurt, in fact. It’s a troubling story. Jesus seems callous to this woman. “It’s not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs,” he says. (Matthew 14:26) At best, he’s testing her to see what she will say, with no malice in his heart but not with much compassion, either. At worst, it’s a nasty insult with ethnic and gender connotations. Maybe we read too much into this across two thousand years of cultural change, or maybe it’s just as painful as it seems. We don’t know how she feels. But we know how she responds. She pushes back against this powerful man. She takes his argument in its own terms and showing him that the conclusion should be reversed: “Yes, Lord,” maybe I am a dog. “Yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” (Matt. 15:27) Maybe she changes Jesus’ mind. Maybe she passes whatever test he had set. But Jesus answers her, “Woman great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And “instantly,” her daughter is healed. (15:28)

The circumstances of human life have changed dramatically over the years. None of us live as heroes in epic tales. You will probably never weep before the brothers who tried to send you to your death, embracing them and welcoming them to the land that will save their lives. You will probably never kneel before a Savior, knowing he’s the only one who can heal your child. I certainly hope that you, unlike the ancient Greeks, can work out your emotional and romantic conundrums without a spear in hand. But while circumstances change, human nature really doesn’t. And it is every bit as true for us that vulnerability is at the heart of human connection, and maybe of human strength.

When I think of Joseph, I think of all the times it would be easier to take revenge on those who’ve wronged, us to cut them out of our lives, rather than to reach out to them with forgiveness and grace. When I think of the Canaanite woman kneeling before the man she identifies as the son of a foreign king, I think of all those protestors who’ve put their bodies on the line, making themselves vulnerable to call powerful people to account; and I think of all of us who kneel in prayer, asking what we need of a God who sometimes seems not to be listening. When I think of Odysseus on his journey home, I don’t think of 3 hours of epic IMAX adventures; I think of a man staring, heartbroken, at the waves, separated from his family for twenty years because the King of Sparta was brave enough to lead a thousand ships to take his wife back from her newfound love, but not brave enough to let her go instead. (But what do I know? I haven’t seen the movie yet.)

It’s not easy to make ourselves vulnerable. It is, by definition, always a risk. And yet vulnerability is essential to growth in our own talents and to connection with other people; it’s at the heart of our ability to repair the ruptures that inevitably happen in an imperfect world. It takes great courage to be vulnerable, but in the end, it is the way that we draw closer to one another, and to a God who—in Jesus—became vulnerable for us.

Sermon — July 19, 2026
The Rev. Greg Johnston
Lectionary Readings

“Then Jacob woke from his sleep, and said,
‘Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!’”

(Genesis 28:16)

So I have to admit: I don’t really like traveling. I might even say I really don’t like traveling, especially by plane. Many of you know I spent a few days this week in Colorado Springs to preach at Michael’s ordination. And I do enjoy being in new places and experiencing new things. It was my first time in Colorado, and it turns out it’s a pretty cool place. Did you know, for example, that the Rocky Mountains are very big? I guess I did, in theory, but to walk out of an airport and board a bus, bleary-eyed and smelling like airplane food, and then to watch the sun set out the window over the Rockies—mind-blowing. Not to mention, Colorado Springs is like the Camberville of the West. I felt right at home.

My problem with travel is not the being-in-a-new-place. It’s the uncertainty and the waiting that drive me nuts. I have a very anxious imagination, and so I spend weeks, sometimes even months, worrying about hypotheticals. What if there’s really bad turbulence on the plane? What if the altitude change in Colorado makes me feel sick? It was 88 degrees on Wednesday, and the church had no air conditioning and no fans—what if I get up to climb into the pulpit, and I faint?

I wait anxiously before a trip, worrying that the worst could happen. And then I spend my time away worrying about the trip home. And then I return home safe and sound. And I wonder: wait, would I have enjoyed this more if I’d known in advance that none of the things I worried about were going to happen? (None of them have ever happened, by the way. Maybe one day, I’ll learn.)

Our Gospel reading today is a parable of waiting. And like most parables, the story itself is simple enough. Wheat is planted in a field, but along with it, there are weeds. They’re planted too close together and they look too similar to one another for the weeds to be safely removed. Trying to weed the field now would destroy much of the wheat. But the farmer has a good idea: let’s just wait until the wheat is fully grown, and can be reaped; and then we’ll separate the wheat from the weeds, gathering what’s good into the barn and getting rid of the rest. (Matthew 13:24-30) Jesus tells a similar story about fish in next week’s gospel; you cast a net that gathers up good fish and bad, and then you sort them out. (Matt. 13:47ff.)

And in one sense this is a parable about the future, about a final judgment coming at the end of time in which God will sort out good from bad. It’s the kind of story that’s led to a great deal of anxiety in religious traditions that encourage people to wonder: When the last day comes, will God think that I’m wheat or a weed? Will I get into that heavenly barn, or will I be burned with the rubbish?

But this parable isn’t primarily about the future. It’s an answer to a question about the present, one of the most fundamental questions in every religion: Why does evil seem to prosper in this world? Why don’t the “good guys” always win? Is it because there is no God, or because God isn’t just? Is it because, as many ancient cultures believed, there are many gods, and they’re backing different sides? The Jewish and Christian traditions have long held that there is a God who is just, who will sort out good and bad, right and wrong—but not until the end of time. And this parable offers a kind of simile to help explain why that is: good and evil are like wheat and weeds; it would be too hard to root out all evil without damaging the good. God can’t turn us into marionettes, who only do the right thing, without destroying everything that’s good about our own free will.

And so we wait, living in a world that’s mixed; living in a field that contains both wheat and weeds.

Paul’s words in Romans today assume that same structure: that the world we see is not the world as it is meant to be, but that God will bring a new and better world into being. That future world is so much better than this one, he writes, “that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.” (Romans 8:18) And just as Jesus talks about the wheat and the weeds, Paul introduces as his guiding metaphor the process of childbirth: “the whole creation,” he says, “has been groaning in labor pains until now.” (Romans 8:23) Some of you have experienced childbirth, first- or second-hand; some of you will very soon. But all of us can understand this image. I don’t think anyone would say that giving birth is a pleasant or a comfortable experience; but I know many people who would say that it’s worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed.

For Paul as for Jesus, we live in a time of uncertainty and of waiting and of pain, of suffering, anxiety, and doubt; and yet we put our hope in a future reality. That better future world can sometimes seem very far away, but that’s the nature of hope—we hope for something that we do not yet see. (Rom. 8:24-25)

So while our reading from Romans today leans toward hope and glory, and our parable in Matthew contains maybe a bit more fear and anxiety—you don’t want to be one of the weeds, in that story—they’re both fundamentally oriented toward the future. Paul seems to discount the sufferings of this present age; they’re not worth comparing, he says. The farmer in Jesus’ parable doesn’t have much to say about the long period of growth that comes between the sowing and the sorting. They offer us an explanation for the imperfection of this world; and they comfort us with the good news of a better world to come. But they don’t have much to say about how to live in the present.

They remind me of exactly how I feel when I’m about to get on a plane, groaning inwardly while I wait for Group 2 to board, trying to remind myself that the sufferings of this airplane seat are not worth comparing with the glory of my own couch waiting at home. And if we lean too hard on this future orientation, we run the same risk I do when I travel of focusing so hard on the better things to come that we miss the glories that are with us in the present.

One phrase from our readings spoke to me this week, as I flew back and forth across the country and thought about this tension between the hoping for the future and enjoying the imperfect present. It was what Jacob said when he woke from sleep: “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!” (Gen. 28:16) In an imperfect world, what an interesting mantra that could be.

I am always tempted by grass-is-greener thinking. Maybe you are too. Once I start this new job, then things will be different. Once we find the right home, things will settle down. Once the baby’s sleeping through the night, being a parent will be easy. Once I can finally retire, then I’ll be happy. We can spend our whole lives waiting for the farmer to come and sort out the wheat from the weeds. But I wonder what it would be like to think, instead: “the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it.”

Whatever the sufferings of the present time, God is in this place with you. However imperfect the present season of your life may be, there is wheat among the weeds. However ready you may be to finish this leg of the journey, there’s a sun setting over the mountains waiting to be seen. However ordinary life may seem, there are angels ascending and descending all around us. Wherever any one of us may be, surely God is in that place—even if we do not know it.

Sermon — July 12, 2026
The Rev. Greg Johnston
Lectionary Readings

In my sermons this Sunday and the next we’ll be leaving the story of Abraham behind and taking a brief break from our reflections on Paul’s letter to the Romans to turn to the parables; we’ll hear two stories on two Sundays about sowing seeds. Anyone who’s ever seen me in a garden knows that I am not at all qualified to speak about seeds, although I’m very good at killing houseplants. But then again, Jesus was a carpenter and his disciples were mostly fishermen. And let’s be honest: it’s another warm summer day, and the Parable of the Sower doesn’t really need much explanation, does it?

It’s a famous parable, one that’s well-known (and tame) enough that it even appears in our Sunday School curricula. And it’s a pretty simple story. A sower goes out to sow seeds. Some fall on the path, where the birds eat them up. Some fall on rocky ground, and spring up quickly, but they don’t last. Some are choked out by the weeds. But some fall on good soil and bring forth grain. (Matthew 13:1-9)

The story is straightforward enough. But as with any parable, the meaning isn’t obvious. And in fact, this is part of the point. You might notice that our reading stops at verse 9 and then picks up at verse 18. In between, in the portion we skipped, the disciples ask Jesus, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” (Matt. 13:10) Jesus tells his disciples that he uses parables to make it hard for people to understand. But he gives his disciples the interpretation that he did not give the crowd. And what Jesus gives his disciples is the familiar, allegorical understanding of the parable. The birds who eat the seeds on the path are the evil one, who snatches away what was sown in the heart. The rocky soil is the people whose faith is like a flash in the pan: who convert to a new religion and immediately become its most devout members, only to burn out in a couple years. The seed sown among thorns are like most of us, for whom the many cares and anxieties of the world crowd out our ability to deepen our own faith. And the good soil is the good Christian, who hears the word and understands, and bears fruit, thirty- or sixty- or a hundred-fold.

So may we all be good soil; may we who hear the word of God today understand it, and learn from it, so that we may bear good fruit in our own lives. Amen. […]

Okay, but it’s not that hot in here today. Is it okay if I go on for another minute or two?

Because here’s the thing: I don’t mean to take issue with Jesus’ interpretation of his own parable. But it doesn’t really leave us with much to work with. It’s better to be good soil than to be rocky or weedy or paved. Fair enough! But Jesus doesn’t really tell us what it means to be good soil. Is that kind of receptivity some innate quality you’re born with? Is it a matter of carefully preparing yourself in some way to receive God’s word? Is good soil what you become when you’ve lived long enough to have to deal with a whole lot of manure?

As soon as we try to apply Jesus’ words to our own lives, these kinds of questions push the parable past its breaking point. We’re used to listening for what Jesus is teaching us about how to be better or calmer or more loving people. But the parable isn’t about how to become better soil. And that makes sense, because soil can’t improve itself. There’s no square foot of earth that can decide whether to be rocky soil or to be good. There is no self-weeding dirt, as far as I know. So if we are the soil in this story, it’s not entirely clear what we should do.

And in fact, I have to admit that if God is the Sower, then the story’s much stranger than it seems at first. If God is the Sower, then God’s gardening abilities really aren’t much better than mine.

Imagine following along with this Sower when he goes to sow. He walks into the field with his bag full of seeds and he scoops up a handful and he throws them, and the seeds are scattered over the earth. Wonderful. He keeps walking along, and he scoops up another big handful and tosses them as well. Wait—that was a road. They’re not going to grow there… He scoops up some more seeds and throws them onto a patch that’s already overrun with weeds. Are you… going to come back and weed that? But no, he’s already moved on. He’s walking over a rocky field, dipping down again and again into the bag without a care in the world. Now, this is New England. We know that you can plant things in rocky soil, but first you have to dig out the rocks and build nice little scenic walls out of them.

But not this Gardener. Who made the path? The farmer did! (or maybe his cows.) Whose job is it to weed? Who was supposed to dig out all those rocks? He was! Even if this Sower is just a hired hand, and it’s not his job to pave the paths or clear the stones or weed the fields, it is his job to sow his seeds where they belong. But here he is, scattering seed over good soil and bad without a care in the world.

Jesus’ words to his disciples decode the allegory: he tells them which things represent what. But that’s not quite the same as telling us what the story means. Jesus told us that the good soil represents the one who hears the word and understands it, and so on; but he didn’t actually conclude, “so be good soil.” That was me.

The titles we give the parables are all a little arbitrary. But there’s wisdom in the fact that we traditionally call this one the parable of the Sower, and not the parable of the soil. It reminds us that the parables are primarily not about us, but about God. It forces us to ask: Is this parable about how you can become better soil? Or is it about the reckless grace of a God who scatters blessings through the world, on good soil and on bad alike? What does it mean to say that God is like this Sower? What does it mean to say that God sows grace and love among us, whether we’re ready to receive them or not?

Surely, this is what Paul means when he says that “there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ.” (Romans 8:1) (I know I said we weren’t going to talk about Paul. I lied.) Paul’s whole point is that the law can’t make us good. To put it in concrete terms: being told to “be good soil” doesn’t give us the power to bear good fruit. But God, Paul says, has done “what the law…could not do.” (Romans 8:3) The law can command and the law can condemn; but only the grace of God can set us free from condemnation. Only those seeds of love, scattered so abundantly by God, can grow to bear fruit.

I don’t think of myself as being much like dirt. I hope I have a little more power over my own life than that. I’d like to think that there are ways that we can all prepare the soil of our hearts to receive God’s love, and to love one another in turn. Maybe I’m too optimistic about that; maybe people don’t change as much as I’d like to think.

But there’s one thing that we know for sure. When God sees the rocky soil of our lives, God doesn’t condemn us. God doesn’t write us off. God sows the seeds of grace among us anyway. God sends the Spirit of God herself to dwell in us; to strengthen us throughout our lives, to help us to grow and bear fruit, and to raise us up, in the end, to live forever with God.

“I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want,
but I do the very thing I hate.” (Romans 7:15)

An Emerson College poll last year revealed a surprising paradox about news consumption in America: social media is the least-widely-trusted and most-widely-used source for information about the news.[1] More than half of Americans reported that they put “not much trust” or “no trust at all” in the information they received from social media sites; even so, nearly 40% said that social media or YouTube were their main sources of news.

Some would say that this is an example of what economists call “revealed preferences”; the idea there’s a difference between what consumers say they prefer and the preferences that are revealed by their actual purchases. Or you might think that there are two kinds of people: the ones who distrust social media, and the ones who get news from it. But I don’t think either of these is right. Like many people, I’m in both categories. I really would prefer to do what my wife Alice does, and get all my news from long-form journalism and 19th-century novels. And yet “I find it to be a law that when I want to [read The Atlantic online], [Facebook] lies close at hand.” (cf. Romans 7:21) Again and again, fifteen minutes into scrolling through posts that alternately baffle and enrage me, I realize I’m that I’m just like Paul: “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” (Romans 7:15)

This is a trivial example, of course. But it’s a bigger pattern. If you’ve ever found yourself in a heated conversation, and thought, “I’m going to be the bigger person here” and then immediately lost your temper instead, then you’ve experienced what Paul means. This happens to me sometimes. When I lose my temper, it’s not a “revealed preference” for retaliation over forgiveness; it’s simply that “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” (Romans 7:19) If you’ve ever tried to break a bad habit, or if you’ve struggled with an addiction, then you know what this is like over an even longer term; it can sometimes feel as though there is “another law at war with the law of [your] mind.” (7:23)

This is the insight at the heart of Paul’s psychology: that the human will is imperfect. We don’t always choose what’s right, but even when we do, we don’t always manage to do it. There are big moral questions and ethical disputes. There are times we really do disagree about right and wrong. But this isn’t actually the main ethical struggle of everyday life. The problem we face—at least according to Paul—is not so much that we disagree about whether 20% of things are good or bad, and need to work that out. It’s that we all agree about 80% of what it means to do the right thing, and we set out bright and early Monday morning to do it, and by Sunday, here we are again, needing to confess “our sins, known and unknown, things done and left undone,” because, like Paul, we “have found it to be a law that when [we] want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand.”

Every one of us is imperfect. We try our best to do the right thing, and we often do, but not always. We continually bump up against our own limitations, and our own weaknesses, and we wish it weren’t so. “Wretched man that I am,” Paul says. “Who will rescue me from this body of death!?” (Romans 7:24) I love Paul’s emotional range. “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death!? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

It seems like a non sequitur, but it’s the whole point. Who will rescue us? Jesus came to rescue us. Jesus came—not to make us perfect, which very clearly hasn’t happened yet—but to set us free from the burden of our imperfection. God sees our failings and comes to us with mercy, rather than with judgment. Jesus comes to lift a load off our shoulders; he sees us struggling, and says, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matt. 11:28)

We can choose to follow that model of grace. Think about the tone of Paul’s words here. There are a lot of “I” statements: “I do not understand my own actions… I do not do what I want.” And they’re really we statements: not only “I (Paul) do not do what I want,” but “we (human beings) do not do what we want.” But they’re certainly not “you” statements, which are inevitably asymmetric. Paul isn’t saying “you do not do what I want.” He doesn’t point a finger of blame. He recognizes that we are all in this together, that I, Paul, am no better than you.

And we can respond to one another’s failings with curiosity and grace, if we begin from that sense of sameness. If I know that I do not do what I want, then I can admit that the same thing might be true for you. If I know that sometimes I say or do something that I don’t mean, then I can recognize that when someone is unkind to me, they may not have been trying to hurt me, and I can offer them the same grace I sometimes need. If I can accept that I’m imperfect, then I can let go of the need to prove I’m better than anyone else—and all of the anxiety and resentment that comes with it.

What Paul says is true. The recognition of our own limitations is the beginning of the path to growth. The road to spiritual maturity begins with humility. And I think that this is as true for groups of people—for families, for churches, for nations—as it is for individuals.

250 years ago, fifty-six men from Thirteen Colonies gathered to declare, among other things, that “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” Their words and their ideals have inspired generations of Americans to dedicate their lives to the cause of freedom; many have given their lives to defend it. And of those 56 men, nearly 3 in 4 owned other human beings, whom they kept enslaved. Both these things are true, and I can’t help but feel that they represent what Paul said, on a national scale: they did not fully live out their ideals; they “delight[ed] in the law of God in [their] inmost [selves], but [they saw] in [their] members another law at war with the law of [their] mind.” And it would take another war for the sin of slavery to be overthrown, and generations more for that “self-evident truth” of equality to extend fully to all men and women.

This wouldn’t come as a surprise to Paul. He knew that people are not “good” or “evil,” one or the other. He believe that even when we are actively engaged in the struggle for good, evil lies close at hand. To say that there was a great evil in our nation at its founding is not to say that our nation is only evil. To say that these Founders fought for ideals that were good is not to excuse them for the ways in which they failed to live them out.

We can look at our nation’s history in the same way Paul invites us to look at ourselves: to see and name the struggle contained within our history and our lives. We can acknowledge and admit the ways in which our Founders were flawed, imperfect men, and be inspired nevertheless by their vision of liberty and justice for all. We can celebrate our own goodness and admit our imperfections at the very same time. In fact, we might even say that that’s the greatest thing a person or a nation can do; to acknowledge our own failures, and to continue struggling to grow beyond them, knowing that even in the midst of imperfection, we are the beloved children of a God who sees us and says, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”

[1] “2025 National Media Poll.” Emerson Polling. May 2, 2025. https://emersoncollegepolling.com/2025-national-media-poll/.

Sermon — June 28, 2026
The Rev. Greg Johnston
Lectionary Readings

“After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, ‘Abraham!’
And he said, ‘Here I am.’” (Genesis 22:1)

This story of “The Binding of Isaac” is one of the most beautifully written stories in human history, about one of the most horrifying acts any of us could imagine. It raises some challenging questions for those of us who receive it as Holy Scripture. What kind of man would respond to a vision like this so immediately, with so few questions? Who is the God who would test someone in this way?

Part of the power of the story comes the contrast between the intensity of the emotions and the simplicity of the words. God “tests” Abraham, and he says to him, “Abraham!” and Abraham answers, simply, “Here I am.” There is no narrative context, no vivid dream, no complex symbolism; just the voice of God speaking his name. “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the land of Moriah,” God says—and then, with the same cadence and simplicity, and with no obvious change in tone— “and offer him there as a burnt offering.” (Gen. 22:1-2)

Abraham doesn’t bargain with God, as he did over Sodom and Gomorrah. He doesn’t recoil at the idea of offering his own child as a human sacrifice. He gets up, and gets his donkey ready; and he takes two lads with him; and Isaac, his son. He splits the wood for the sacrifice, and goes to the place that God had told him. When he sees the hill in the distance, Abraham leaves the two lads behind, and, as Isaac bears the wood, he carries the fire, and the knife.

And they walk along together. And Isaac says to his father Abraham, “Father!” and he says, “Here I am, my son.” And Isaac says, “Look, here’s the fire, and the wood—but where is the lamb for the offering?” And Abraham says, “God himself will provide the lamb for the offering, my son.” (Gen. 22:8) And the terrifying ambiguity is present in Hebrew just as it is in English. Does Abraham means “God himself will provide the lamb, O my son”? or is it, “God himself will provide the lamb: (colon) my son.”

Or maybe it’s both. Because when they come to the place that God had shown him, Abraham builds an altar there, and lays out the wood, and he binds his son Isaac and lays him on the altar. And as he stretches out the knife toward his son, he hears again the voice of God, “Abraham! Abraham!” (Gen. 22:11) And Abraham says, as simply as before, “Here I am.” And God points out a ram, caught by its horns, and tells Abraham to offer that instead.

“God tested Abraham,” we are told. And Abraham apparently passed the test.

Was this a test of Abraham’s faith, to see whether he would continue to trust in God’s promise to give him descendants as numerous as the stars above, even as God commanded him to sacrifice his son, his only son, whom he loved? Was it a test of whether Abraham would stop—whether his conscience or his love or his reflexes would be enough to turn him away from the path of destruction? Was it a test of blind obedience, of whether Abraham would hear the voice of God and simply do what God said, as he does? If it’s a test of blind obedience, well then, he certainly passed. But this last idea is perhaps the most disturbing one. Is this how you should respond if you think you hear the voice of God? No! It’s not!

This theme of obedience appears as well in the portion of Paul’s letter to the Romans that we read today. This passage is all about dichotomies: between body and soul, law and grace, sin and God. It’s a good rhetorical technique. Paul exhorts the Romans to transfer their obedience to God. Don’t let sin rule over your bodies, he says, forcing you to obey their passions. (Rom. 6:12) Don’t present your limbs to sin as instruments of wickedness; present them to God as instruments of righteousness. (6:13) You have been set free from the law to live under grace; but that doesn’t mean being set free to do whatever you want. No, you have been “freed from sin and enslaved to God.” (6:22)

For me, that’s an unsatisfying phrase. Is that really what God wants for us? To be enslaved to God? Is this really the outcome of Paul’s gospel of grace? An exhortation to obedience? Throughout his letters, Paul tries again and again to convince us that salvation is not a matter of obedience to divine law, but rather, as he says here, the “free gift of God.” And yet in this passage Paul seems to duplicate the same kind of religious legalism that he spends the rest of his work trying to oppose. In part, he’s trying to fight back against the criticism that his emphasis on the grace and mercy and forgiveness of God, encourages people to be as unethical as they want, because God will forgive them anyway. But in part, I think he’s trying to come to grips with the complex story of Abraham, whose story is both a symbol of the faith that justifies us, independent of our works; and a story of disturbing obedience to God.

How refreshing it is, this morning, to turn to the Gospel and hear Jesus’ own words. “Whoever welcome you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” (Matthew 10:40) Jesus has little to say about obedience or sin. Hospitality, welcome, and care are his demands. And the rewards that we receive are way out of proportion to our good deeds. You don’t have to be a prophet to “receive a prophet’s reward,” only to welcome one. You don’t have to be all that righteous to “receive the reward of the righteous,” only to welcome a righteous person in a righteous person’s name. In fact, the bar is even lower than that: “whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

So, congratulations to all the Coffee Hour hosts of St. John’s! Your salvation is assured.

Jesus offers a very different idea about what it means to listen to God. It’s not about obedience or fear of God or even a moral duty. It’s about the simple joy of human connection and care. It’s about responding, with gratitude, to the love of God that has been poured into our hearts. The prophet may be obedient to the word of God; the righteous may present themselves to God as instruments of righteousness. But Jesus wants the rest of us to know that even if our deeds of love are as small as they can be, we will not lose our reward.

Because Jesus has been obedient enough, and Jesus has been righteous enough, for us. And that brings us back to our first reading. For two thousand years, Christians have read the story of the Binding of Isaac as a foreshadowing of the story of the Cross. In other words, for Christians, this story isn’t about what we should do for God; it’s about what God has done for us.

God, too, has a Son, an only Son, a beloved Son. God knows what it is like to carry on his own back the wood for the sacrifice. God knows what it truly means to say that God himself will provide the lamb: my Son. When we hear Isaac ask, “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb?” we should hear the words of John the Baptist echoing in our eyes, when he points Jesus out to his disciples, and says, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29) The paradigm of obedience in Christian life is not Abraham bringing Isaac to the altar; it’s Jesus carrying his own Cross.

This is why the doctrine of the Trinity is so important, by the way. If Jesus is not truly the Son of God, if Jesus is not truly God, then to say that his death is a sacrifice, to say that Jesus is obedient, is to ascribe the horrifying role of Abraham to God. But if God the Son is God, just as God the Father is God, then the meaning of the story changes; the Cross is still awful, still tragic, but it turns an image of obedience to an arbitrary deity into an image of God’s own self-sacrificing love.

This is why Jesus sets the bar so low. He’s already done it all. This is what Paul means in his usual mode, talking about the “free gift” of the grace of God. We are not here to prove that we are good enough. We are not here to work hard to be loved. We are here to respond in gratitude to the love that God has already poured out into our hearts, and even if we barely lift a finger—even if the only thing we do in our whole lives is to give one cup of water to one little child in his name—we have already been given God’s greatest gift. Because what Abraham says is more true than he could’ve imagined: “God himself will provide the lamb: ‘my Son.’”

Sermon — June 21, 2026
The Rev. Greg Johnston
Lectionary Readings

“For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother…
and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.” (Matthew 10:35-36)

I generally avoid making a big deal out of certain days that are widely celebrated in the world around us but aren’t Christian “holy days.” I don’t give a “Mother’s Day sermon.” There are no special prayers for Father’s Day. And that’s really because, while there are many people celebrating these days, many people find them hard; I’ve known more than a few people who avoid going to church on Mother’s Day or Father’s Day entirely: because they never wanted to be parents, and don’t want a whole morning about how great parents are; or because they do want to be parents, but aren’t; because their own parents were not loving figures in their lives; or because they were, and they wish they were still here. Ordinarily, I’d say a quiet “Happy Father’s Day” to a few of the dads after church, and that would be all.

Unfortunately, our readings today are a little on the nose. So we will be talking about parents and their children. And so I’d like to begin with a greeting that’s appropriate to the spirit of our religious observances today, and wish a Happy Bad Father’s Day to you all.

A part of me hears these readings, from Genesis and from Matthew, and thinks: Wow. What a fascinating opportunity to dig into “theodicy,” which is the technical term for the question of suffering and divine justice. How does God respond to evil in this world? Our readings offer provocative ideas. “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword,” Jesus says to his disciples, seeming to say that he’s there stirring the pot. (Matt. 10:34) God tells Abraham: do whatever Sarah says to you, but don’t worry; I’ve got other plans for Ishmael. (Gen. 21:12) This is real grist for the theological mill.

And another part of me hears these stories and thinks: What on earth? How do we even begin to make sense of these words, when they appear in our sacred text?

(And then a third part thinks that our sense of timing is impeccable. Today, while Jesus is telling his disciples that “whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,” the children of St. John’s are out there making brunch for a special Parents’ Day. Cover your ears, kids!)

I want to look seriously, this morning, at this complicated story in Genesis. I want to think together about how God responds when people do cruel things in this world; and about how we respond, as well.

For context, we’re in the middle of a series of stories of the life of Abraham. Abraham had been visited by God at the age of 75 and told that his offspring would become a great nation. But Abraham and Sarah had no children at the time, and years passed with no offspring in sight. Sarah suggested that Abraham have a son with their enslaved servant Hagar instead; and that produced a son, Ishmael (and the inspiration for Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale). Later, Sarah herself finally gave birth to a son, Isaac. Now Isaac has reached his toddler years, and Abraham and Sarah have a party to celebrate.

Sarah sees her son playing with Ishmael, and she becomes jealous. Ishmael was the spare; Isaac is the heir. Hagar and Ishmael had been useful, for a time, to ensure that Abraham’s line continued. But now they are rivals, not only for Isaac’s inheritance but for Abraham’s love. So Sarah tells Abraham to send them away. And Abraham is sad. Ishmael is his son too. But Abraham, in general, is not a strong person. He avoids conflict at all costs. And God reassures him. “Don’t be distressed.” Do what Sarah says.

And so Abraham, although he loves Ishmael his son, gives Hagar and Ishmael some bread and water, and sends them out into the desert. (Happy Bad Father’s Day.) When their water runs out, Hagar gives in to despair. But God intervenes. God opens her eyes, and she sees a well.

So, one way to understand this story would be to say that God doesn’t plan suffering for us; we inflict it on one another. And although God doesn’t intervene to prevent that suffering from happening, God is there to help those who suffer in the aftermath. This isn’t the only answer to this question of suffering and divine justice, but it is an answer. You might summarize the tale with the famous Fred Rogers quote that when you’re asking “where is God?” amid disaster, you should “look for the helpers.”  (I apologize to those who will now have the song from Daniel Tiger stuck in their heads for the rest of the service.)

So, what’s the point? Should people just keep doing evil, and let God will take care of the victims? “Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?” It’s an ancient question, and we can answer it exactly as Paul does: “By no means!” (Romans 6:1-2) To think so would be to miss the point completely. This story isn’t meant as an excuse for people who act like Sarah and Abraham, for those in power who mistreat others. It’s meant as comfort for people like Hagar and Ishmael, who have suffered unjustly and are crying out to God in their distress.

That’s what life was like for many of the early Christians, in fact. In our Gospel today, Jesus describes a future in which their faith would lead to persecution and conflict. And the history of the early church is full of stories like this: of women who want to dedicate their lives to prayer rather than accepting an arranged marriage to a pagan aristocrat, and who are disowned by their families as a result; of people who refuse to worship the Roman emperors as gods and are accused of atheism and sedition by the state. The “sword” that Jesus brings is not the one that brings violence to the world; it’s the one that cuts families apart, when parents (to take an example both ancient and modern) refuse to accept their children for who they are because of their traditional religious beliefs. This sword is the sword that pierces your heart when “members of your own household” become your worst foes.

Jesus doesn’t come to bring division because division is good. Jesus comes to bring division between there is such a thing as good; and in a world where there is evil, sometimes choosing good means taking a stand. We disciples should, Jesus says, be “like” our teacher. In the face of evil, we should be like the one who followed his convictions all the way to the cross. “Those who find their life will lose it,” Jesus says,” and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” (Matt. 10:39) And that, to be honest, is an overwhelming idea.

But in the face of evil, we are stronger than we look.

Here’s my favorite detail of this story from Genesis: when Abraham sends Hagar and Ishmael out into the wilderness to die, Ishmael is about sixteen years old.

Did you catch that? Maybe not. The story’s told as if he’s a little kid. But if you don’t believe me, you can do the math: in Genesis 16, when Ishmael is born, the narrator tells us that Abraham was 86 years old. (Gen. 16:16) When Isaac is born, Abraham is 100 years old. (Gen. 21:5) Now we’re at a party for Isaac’s weaning, and in the premodern world, we can guess that he’s a year or two old.

Historical scholars will look at this and suggest that the discrepancy occurs because the Book of Genesis is weaving together multiple different sources, with different styles and different timelines, and that’s all good scholarly work. But in its context, in the sacred text as we have it, this story is not about a mother and her infant; it’s about a mother and her adolescent son. We hear from all the adults’ points of view. But what does the story say? Hagar “lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the boy.” (Gen. 21:16-17) We hear the voices of Sarah, and Abraham, and Hagar. But God hears Ishmael.

And that’s a second kind of answer to the question, “Where is God in all of this?” God is not just with Hagar and Ishmael in the wilderness, miraculously showing them a well. God’s been with them for sixteen years, longer in Hagar’s case. God’s stayed with them through the awful things that they’ve endured. God’s given them the strength to persevere. For sixteen years, God’s been with Ishmael, and he has a relationship with God that his parents can’t even imagine, such that, when the crisis comes, God is there to hear his voice. His earthly father throws him out of the house, but his heavenly Father has counted every hair of his head. And though great evil has been done to him, he will continue to grow and to become the person he was meant to be; for after his father Abraham threw him out, “God was with the boy, and he grew up.” (Gen. 21:20) May the God who strengthens every one of us so that we can endure hard things in this world, be with us likewise, as we grow up into the people God intends for us to be.

Sermon — June 14, 2026
The Rev. Greg Johnston
Lectionary Readings

You’ve probably heard the saying, “We make plans, and God laughs.” I don’t always love this phrase. It does a good job of expressing the unpredictability of a world in which our best-laid plans so often go awry. But I think it makes God sound a little too mean-spirited. A few years ago, for example, I was training to run in the Bunker Hill Day road race. I was all ready to prove once and for all that I was the fastest priest in Charlestown. And then, a couple weeks before the race, we went on a trip to New York to visit my in-laws and I cut my shin on a broken toy teapot, so badly that I ended up needing nine stitches. “We make plans, God laughs…” I’m not sure I like that sense of humor.

Other times though, I can see the appeal. Sometimes, God is laughing with us; or at least, laughing because God knows what a beautiful mess is about to happen. To take another example, six years ago, I accepted the call to serve St. John’s as Rector part-time, planning to fill in my other 40% with some of the church-related computer programming I’d been doing. Alice was finishing her master’s degree, and Murray was just about old enough to start school, and I was going to have all this time for both parish ministry and creative work. Until it turned out that school was a disaster for my beloved child, and I’ve ended up spending that 40% of the rest of my time teaching history and math at home, spending a couple days a week in a way I never would’ve planned for but which is more wonderful (and much harder) than I ever could’ve imagined. Sometimes the disintegration of our plans can be the greatest gift. What a relief, after all the family tears involved in Murray’s early school experiences, to spend my days like Sarah instead. “God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me.” We make plans, and God laughs, and sometimes we laugh too.

Of course, in the story of Sarah today, it’s more like “God makes plans, and we laugh,” isn’t it? Sarah certainly does. God appears to Abraham, we are told, by the oaks of Mamre. As he sits by his tent in the heat of the day, he sees three men. (Gen. 18:1ff.) And, in accordance with the customs of hospitality in his day, he rushes out and goes to meet them: “Please, don’t pass by.” Stop and rest a little while. Take a little water and let us wash your feet in the shade. “Let me offer you some bread! Sarah, quick! Make these men some bread! Take three measures of flour, and knead it, and make cakes.” And he goes and gathers the rest of the feast.

When Abraham returns and serves these three strangers their meal, they ask him, “Where’s your wife Sarah?” (18:9) Does this strike Abraham as strange? Does he ask, “How do you know my wife is named Sarah?” Nope. “Oh,” he says, “she’s there in the tent.”

And all of a sudden, it seems as though these passersby, who have sat down in the shade and let the servants wash their feet and are now enjoying some curds and milk and the calf and the bread—were not just passing by. Because not only do they know Sarah’s name; one of them begins to speak in the voice of God: “I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah will have a son.” (18:10)

And Sarah, who’s standing just on the other side of the flap, begins to laugh. She’s 89 years old, after all. But the Lord says to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh?” (18:13)

Now, if I were Sarah I’d say that this is called “laughing so we don’t cry.” If I were Sarah, I’d be laughing because my husband of seventy years still thinks he needs to give me the recipe for bread—but his dough doesn’t include any salt, or water. (“Take three measures of flour, and knead it!”) If I were Sarah, I’d be laughing because you’re asking him why I laughed, but I don’t let my husband speak for me any more; not since we went down to Egypt years ago, and he was so afraid that they would try to kill him and steal me, that he said I was his sister and he married me off to Pharaoh for a while. (Gen. 12) If I were Sarah, I’d be laughing because twenty-five years ago, you told us, God, that we would have a child; and as the years went by, I began to fear that we’d misunderstood, and so I did something I now regret: I took my servant Hagar, whom we had enslaved in Egypt, and I told him to have a son with her. (Gen. 16) If I were Sarah, I’d be laughing so I didn’t cry.

But she’s afraid, and so she doesn’t say any of that. She says, instead, “I didn’t laugh.”

And God—the God of Abram, God who reigns enthroned above, Ancient of everlasting days and God of love, the Lord, the great I AM—says, “Oh yes, you did laugh.” (Gen. 18:15)

And, cut. That’s the end of the scene. But God doesn’t seem to hold a grudge about the laugh. Rather, as, Genesis says, “the Lord dealt with Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as he had promised.” She gave birth to a son, and Abraham named him Isaac, which means, “He will laugh.”

In this morning’s Gospel, Jesus tells the disciples not to go to the Gentiles or the Samaritans, but to “go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” (Matt. 9:6) In other words, he tells them not to go and spread the good news to all the people of the world—not yet—but to go to their own imperfect people, to their friends and neighbors, and to tell them… what? Not how to pray, or that they should repent, but that “the kingdom of heaven has come near.” (9:7)

In other words, God comes to lost sheep, to imperfect people like us—to people like Abraham and Sarah, whose lives have been messy at best—and simply tells them, “I’ve come near.” Sometimes we don’t believe it. Sometimes we laugh. God cares for us like a shepherd looking for lost sheep. God cares for us although and maybe even because we are lost sheep. “For while we were still weak,” Paul writes, “at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” This is the nature of God’s love for us, for Paul: that “while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:7-8) Paul doesn’t say this in finger-pointing mode. “Us” really means “us.” Paul spent his early career actively persecuting the Christians, and still he found that God’s grace and love were greater than anything he had done. “While we were still sinners,” he says—before we had any idea of what love really meant—God had already proved his love for us.

This is the good news that Paul wants to share: that “since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God.” (Rom. 5:1) That God has transformed our relationship with God from one of judgment to one of grace. That God has seen all the ways we try to justify ourselves; God has considered all our plans to prove we’re good enough, and God has laughed, because we don’t need to prove anything to God. And so we can laugh too. We can laugh, like Sarah does at the absurdity of our lives, at the absurdity of our God. We can take the good news of God’s grace seriously, which sets us free to take ourselves not very seriously at all.

This is Michael’s last Sunday with us here, before he heads off to Colorado. I think he’s heard me give that advice before as one of the most important principles of ministry: take God seriously; don’t take yourself seriously at all. (I actually don’t think he needed to hear it that badly.) But this isn’t just for priests, this is true for all of us. God has given us the gift of laughter. And the more we can let go of things beyond our control—the more that we can laugh with God at our own plans—the easier it becomes to accept the grace of God, and to know that, whatever’s gone awry with our plans to be good enough, our lives are still enough, for “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” (Romans 5:5)

Sermon — June 7, 2026
The Rev. Greg Johnston
Lectionary Readings

“Hoping against hope, he believed.” (Romans 4:18)

In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity, one God. Amen.

There’s a story told by the Irish writer Frank O’Connor that comes from his childhood wandering through the countryside outside Cork in southern Ireland. If you recognize it, it’s probably because it was popularized by President John F. Kennedy, who re-told it in speeches several times. In his autobiography An Only Child, O’Connor writes, “When as kids we came to an orchard wall that seemed too high to climb, we took off our caps and tossed them over the wall, and then we had no choice but to follow them.” It’s an idyllic image of audacity and determination and the spirit of adventure.

That was the spirit in which JFK declared in 1963 that “This Nation has tossed its cap over the wall of space, and we have no choice but to follow it.” And while Kennedy himself wouldn’t live to see the greatest successes of the space program—while, in fact, he would be assassinated the very day after this speech—the nation had indeed tossed its cap over the wall, and before the decade was out, the astronauts of the Apollo program would follow that cap all the way to the Moon.

Frank O’Connor’s original telling of this story wasn’t quite so glorious. He was not living in a modern Camelot. In fact, he had just been fired from his railroad job, but on the same night, he had presented his first literary paper. “It was in Irish,” he writes, “and the subject was Goethe… I didn’t know much about Irish, and I knew practically nothing about Goethe, and that little was wrong… I no longer had a job or a penny in the world, or even a home I could go back to without humiliation… Now I realized whatever it might cost me, there was no turning back… I had tossed my cap over the wall of life, and I knew I must follow it, wherever it had fallen.”

This is not audacity so much as foolish optimism, the impulsive act of a young man who’s totally unprepared for what he’s about to do, but who throws his hat over the wall. It’s the act of a man who, hoping against hope, believes.

Perhaps it’s fitting to start with a story from the Emerald Isle as we begin this green season after Pentecost; the season of gradual growth in the world outside and in our lives; the back half of the year when no major holy days occur, in what the Church calls “Ordinary Time.” Over the course of this summer, we’ll be spending time in the Gospel of Matthew, as Jesus preaches his way around Galilee. We’ll be slowly reading through Paul’s Letter to the Romans all the way until September. And we’ll be following along with the Book of Genesis as it tells the stories of the lives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, the ancestors of the people of God. It’s a beautiful and messy story, full of complicated people living in an uncertain world. And the story begins with today’s story from the life of Abraham—still called “Abram” at this point—at the very moment at which he throws his cap over the wall.

This story is essentially the first thing we ever hear about Abraham. The Book of Genesis tells us that Abram is married to Sarai, but has no children; and that they’ve moved with his father Terah from Ur of the Chaldeans, where he’d grown up, to live in Haran. And that Terah had died. (Gen. 11:30-32)

And then, out of nowhere, “the Lord said to Abram, `Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house.’” (12:1) God offers Abram a three-part promise: Go, and I will 1) make of you a great nation, and I will 2) bless you, and I will 3) make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. (12:2) God will transform this small, wandering clan into a great nation, a family through whom all the families of the earth will be blessed. “To your offspring I will give this land,” God says. (12:7) And Abram believes him, and he goes.

But here’s the thing. Abram is, at this point, 75 years old. His wife Sarai is 65. They have no children. There are no offspring to whom God can give this land. There is no family that God can make into a great nation. And at this point, it seems unlikely that will happen.

But Abram believes God, as crazy as it seems. As Paul says, “he did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old)” (Romans 4:19) and that’s not actually a rude remark about seventy-five year olds, as you might think. No, Paul knows how the rest of the story goes. It will in fact be another 25 years before that promised child Isaac is born. Abraham will be 99 years old before three angels appear to him and tell him that, finally, his wife Sarah (aged 89) will conceive and bear a son.

When God calls Abram, it makes about as much sense to believe that Abram will start a family, as it would to believe that Frank O’Connor would become a great Irish writer on that first night, when he knew very little about either Irish or writing (and most of what he did know was wrong).

But just as Frank throws his cap over the wall, Abram builds an altar to the Lord. This seems like a minor detail of the story. But in a way, it’s the most important part. Because the point is not that Abram believes in God, in some philosophical sense. It’s not even that he accepts, in theory, God’s promise. The point is that Abram actually acts as though he trusts what God has said. He spend the time, and the resources, and the strength required to build an altar in a land he’s never been. He’s only passing through, and it will be years until he returns. Building a shrine there is a waste of time until this crazy dream comes true. But “hoping against hope, he believes” what God has promised. He knows that he must follow it, wherever it may lead. And his faith, Paul writes, is “reckoned to him as righteousness.” (Rom. 4:22) (And there will be more to say about that over the course of the summer.)

That’s why Abraham, imperfect as he is, is an example for our faith. From the very beginning, we followers of Jesus have been throwing our caps over the wall. That’s what the tax collector Matthew does, when he leaves everything behind to follow Jesus where he leads, renouncing the safety and the prosperity of collaborating with Rome to embrace an uncertain life among those who scorn him as a traitor for collecting Roman tolls. That’s what this leader of the synagogue does, when he comes to Jesus, hoping against hope, believing that even though his daughter has died, Jesus can restore her to life. That’s what we do when we find ourselves in Frank O’Connor’s shoes, trying to decide whether to take a chance on a new opportunity that comes with great risks: whether to move to a new city, or begin a new relationship; to take a new job, or to take a stand for what we believe.

And in a sense, trying to follow Jesus always involves throwing your cap over the wall. It always involves building an altar in a land we don’t yet inhabit. Because many of the things that Jesus says are counter-cultural, even counter-intuitive. Jesus tells us that the first will be last, and the last will be first. He gives us a commandment to love not only our neighbors or our friends, but our enemies. He tells us that death is not the end of life, but a kind of sleep from which we will one day awake. He invites us to live the rest of our lives as though we will one day be reunited with all those who have loved and cared for us; and with all those who have wronged us; and with all those we have wronged. In the context of our lives in this world, these things don’t make much sense. They ask us to put our hope and trust in the promise of something that we cannot see, and to live as if those promises were true.

Sometimes it feels foolish to live that way. Abram knew that all too well. But hoping against hope, we believe that, as Paul says, these words “were written not for [Abram’s] sake alone, but for ours also.” (Rom. 4:23-24) Hoping against hope, we build our altars in the land of heaven. We know “practically nothing about” what God is doing in our lives “and that little [is] wrong.” And yet, like Abram we throw our caps over the wall, and then we try to follow, wherever they have fallen.

Sermon — May 31, 2026 (Trinity Sunday)
The Rev. Greg Johnston
Lectionary Readings

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God,
and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.” Amen. (2 Cor. 13:13)

This time of year is a season of goodbyes. At colleges around the country, graduating students are saying goodbye to their campuses and professors, to roommates and friends, and maybe even to education itself—although hopefully not to learning. In local schools, teachers are getting ready to say goodbye to this year’s class of students, and students are saying goodbye to friends as they scatter to camps and vacations for the summer.

In our own church community, we say goodbye to our dear friend Maureen Lavely, who passed away unexpectedly this week. Some of you know that Maureen had just celebrated her 91st birthday a few weeks ago. I know that many of you spent time with her over the last few weeks, at church or over lunch. What an incredible gift it was for her to be surrounded by so much love, and to be able to live so well in what would turn out to be the last weeks of her life. So I give thanks for Maureen today, and I’ll be praying—and I know you’ll be praying, too—for her family and for all those who loved her, as we all say goodbye.

Our readings this morning are also full of goodbyes, as Paul says goodbye to the Corinthians at the end of his second letter to them, and as Jesus says goodbye to his disciples at the end of his time with them after the Resurrection, in the very last words of the Gospel of Matthew.

These concluding words introduce one of the great paradoxes of Christian life: We practice a religion built on the idea that God has said goodbye to this world.

That’s a somewhat startling idea. To say that “God has said goodbye” sounds like a kind of Deism, a theology in which God is nothing but a “divine clockmaker,” who may have created the universe, long ago, and set it in motion, but then lets it tick along on its own. To say that God has said goodbye sounds quite grim. On the one hand, it calls into question everything we’re doing here—as if our prayers are a one-sided conversation when the person on the end has already hung up the phone.

But it’s even more disturbing when we leave this room. If God has said goodbye, then are we left here by ourselves, without God’s comfort and help and strength, to face the struggles and the grief of life alone?

Part of the problem is the word “goodbye,” I think. It sounds so final, it puts such an abrupt end on things. It would be nice if we had a way to say farewell that was more like adios, which means “to God,” originally an abbreviation of the phrase a Dios te encomiendo, “I commend you to God.” It’s the same derivation as the French goodbye adieu. In Farsi, you say Khoda hafez, which means, “May God be your Guardian.” Beautiful. Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a word like that in English?

Well, we do. That word is “goodbye.” We’ve just forgotten what it means. “Goodbye” was once godbwye, which is nothing but a contraction for “God be with you.” “God be with you.” That’s what we’re saying when we say “goodbye.” And I like that more than any of the rest. Because it doesn’t just remind you that God is, in some sense, your protector. And it doesn’t just commend you a Dios, who’s up there en el cielo, in heaven. It offers a prayer for the here and now: “God be with you” today.

And that’s exactly what I mean when I say that it’s a paradox that we live in a world to which God has said, “Goodbye.” Think about what Jesus says to his disciples. Just as his ministry began with the Sermon on the Mount, here it ends on another mountainside. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,” he says—and here you can see why the powers that be appoint this reading for Trinity Sunday—“baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 28:18-19) And then he concludes, “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” And that’s the last thing we ever hear from Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew, before he ascends into heaven to sit at the right hand of God.

What a pile of paradoxes. All authority has been given to me; so here’s some work for you to do. I am going away now, and you’ll never hear my voice again; and remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age. How can it be that Jesus is going away and that Jesus will be with them always? I suspect it has to do with the fact that Jesus is the only person in the world who can say “goodbye” without really saying “goodbye.” Jesus is the only person in the world for whom “God be with you” and “I will be with you” are the same.

And in a way, the whole doctrine of the Trinity is about trying to make sense of the disciples’ overwhelming sense that what Jesus said was true. Because while Jesus really did go away, they continued to encounter him among them still. Even in his absence, Jesus seemed to be present. And just as Jesus had brought them into the presence of God in a way they had never experienced before, the Holy Spirit seemed to make the risen Jesus present to them once more, in a way they couldn’t quite explain. Jesus had gone away and was nowhere to be found, and yet they found him everywhere.

Where Jesus was, God the Father had been. Where the Holy Spirit, they found Jesus, too. And this had always been the case. You can see it in those words from the very first verses of the Book of Genesis: “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.” (Gen. 1:1-3) At the very beginning of all things, we find God, Elohim, whom Christians came to call God the Father, the First Person of the Trinity. And we find the ruach Elohim, which you could translate “a wind from God” or you could translate “the Spirit of God”—there’s no difference in Hebrew between the two. And we find that when the first act of creation occurs—“Let there be light”—it comes through the Word of God. And as St. John would later say, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:1, 1:14) In the life of Jesus, that Word of God becomes tangible: a real person, who people can see and hear and feel as clearly as they can see anyone else. And when he says goodbye, he becomes less visible to any one person anywhere—but through the Holy Spirit he is more accessible to everyone, everywhere.

But we’re not Jesus. When we say goodbye, we’re more like Paul. We entrust the people we care about to God. Sometimes that involves a level of foolish optimism about what they’ll do in our absence, as when teachers give some helpful advice on how to keep your math skills up over the summer; or as when Paul writes, “Put things in order. Listen to my appeal. Agree with one another. Live in peace.” (2 Cor. 13:11) If only it were so simple to get along with one another, Paul, you wouldn’t have to write so many letters.

But Paul’s goodbye also comes with something much better than optimism, which is hope: the sure and certain faith that “the God of love and peace will be with you.” That doesn’t mean life will be perfect. God knows that the Holy Spirit hasn’t manage to put things in order in the Church to date, let along to get us to agree with one another and live in peace. But it does mean exactly what it says: that among our struggles and sorrows, and amid our joys and celebrations, God will be with us. Andover some two thousand years, millions of people all around the world have found that—however mysterious the workings of the Trinity may be—this turns out to be true; that through “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit,” they have grown ever closer to the people they were meant to be: that while Paul has said goodbye, and their mentors have said goodbye, and their beloved family members and friends have said goodbye, God has been with them always, until the end of the age.