SSJE Sermons

Br. James Koester

Luke 19:41-44

Our course reading of Luke has been interrupted this week, first by Sunday, and then by the feasts of Hugh, Hilda, and Elizabeth on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. It is no wonder then if you are scratching your heads wondering where on earth are we. We are in fact, right at the beginning of Luke’s account of Holy Week. The verses immediately before today’s gospel describe the first Palm Sunday. The verses following tell of Jesus’ daily teaching in the Temple leading up to his keeping of Passover, with the meal that became for us the Eucharist, Good Friday, the Great Sabbath and finally Easter, the day of the Resurrection. Overlaid with this is the fact that Luke is writing after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70. It is through that lens which Luke hears the words of Jesus as he predicts the fate of Jerusalem: “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace!” (Luke 19:42a).

That for me is an arresting phrase: “the things that make for peace.” It’s fair to ask ourselves, What are these things that make for peace? I’d hazard to say that Luke tells us repeatedly and specifically throughout his gospel what those things are.

These, and many others, are the very things which Luke and Jesus tell us make for peace. The problem is we fail to listen, or if we do, we fail to take them seriously. Oh, he can’t mean that, we say. Or, oh, that’s too difficult. Or, oh, he doesn’t mean that in our case. And we dismiss the very gospel of peace which we are called to proclaim “not only with our lips, but in our lives.”[1]

Advent is approaching, and we should all be trembling as we look with expectation, and not a little dread, for the One who is to come and judge us in time, and at the end of time. As we stand before the just Judge longing to hear the words, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:34), we may first be asked, had we, even we, recognized the things which make for peace.

[1] The Book of Common Prayer, 101.

Br. Jamie Nelson

Luke 17:26-37

Spoiler alert: there’s no prediction about the date or hour of Jesus’ return in this sermon. If you looked up the gospel reading and came to the service today specifically to hear calculations based on this passage, I’m sorry to disappoint you.

However, given a well-publicized practice in some traditions of contemporary Evangelical Christianity to apply a predictive lens to this passage and others like it, to draw connections between particular Bible verses and current events as signs that can be decoded to predict that Jesus’s second coming is drawing near,[1] when we hear Jesus talking about fire and sulfur raining down from heaven and repeating phrases like “one will be taken and the other left” (Luke 17:34b, 35b), listening to today’s gospel likely brings to mind whatever images or associations you carry with you about the End Times.

But instead of wandering down that path, I want to get curious with you about a different part of this text, specifically, verse 33, which reads: “Those who try to make their life secure will lose it, but those who lose their life will keep it.”

What I hear Jesus offering in these words is acknowledgement that life is rife with uncertainty and change, that all our efforts to control the things outside our control are ultimately futile. Jesus’ description of the people in the days of Noah and the days of Lot speaks to me not of people who defiantly reject preparedness for the calamities that await them, but instead of people who bank on the false security that their way of life will remain ever unchanged.

Humans crave certainty. It’s part of the wiring of our psychology. We crave certainty because it provides a mental container that makes us feel safer, soothes our anxiety, and protects the illusion of control.

What does this look like in our daily lives? We have a hunger to know the outcome of a decision before we take the first step – for instance, if starting a new graduate program will lead to fulfillment and a better quality of life, if going on a low-key coffee date with a someone new will lead to marriage, if taking the plunge to enter this monastery as a postulant will affirm a lifelong vocation with SSJE. We desire assurance that relationships won’t fail, that jobs won’t end, and that our loved ones will be ok. Sometimes we exhaustively research something that ultimately is unpredictable so we can try to prepare for all possible outcomes to a situation or ways we might respond in a difficult conversation. But: deep down, we know that certainty is an illusion.

So, here’s your invitation today: to notice and gently sit with the discomfort of uncertainty, perhaps in tiny tastes of little consequence, perhaps in small bites of existential questions. Practice welcoming God into those moments, for you are not alone. You are witnessed by a listening and loving Creator. Pray to God for the peace and courage to help you to release the desire for answers carved in stone, and instead to follow an invitation to deeper relationship.

I certainly can’t tell you the date or hour when Jesus will return but I can offer one prediction: life will continue to remain uncertain and full of change, and our loving Redeemer is present with us in those moments.

[1] The current cultural discourse around eschatological speculation is a relatively modern focus in biblical studies and owes much to late 19th- and early 20th-century Bible interpretations by scholars such as Cyrus Scofield, who published the influential Scofield Reference Bible in 1909.

Br. Jack Crowley

Martin of Tours

Matthew 25:31-46

Tonight we celebrate the life of Saint Martin of Tours. Saint Martin lived in the fourth century and converted to Christianity as a young adult at a time when Christianity had only recently become legal in the Roman Empire. Martin went on to be a Roman soldier, then a hermit, then started the first monastery in what is now France, and finally became a bishop. His life was a series of pendulum swings between solitude and service.

There is one anecdote from his life that I’d like to focus on tonight. The story goes that in the year 371, the bishop of Tours died and the people wanted to elect Martin to take his place. The people knew Martin was too humble to accept the position, so they tricked him to come into the city by telling him there was a sick woman who needed his help. When Martin realized he was being fooled, he ran from the crowd and hid in a barn full of geese. If you’ve ever been around geese, you know that is not a good hiding spot. The geese started to honk, Martin was discovered, and soon became bishop. To this day, it is common in some countries to eat goose on Saint Martin’s day in celebration of this anecdote.

Like Martin in the goose barn, we human beings have been trying to hide from the call of God for a long time. From the very beginning, we’ve never really been good at it. One of the first things Adam did after he ate the forbidden fruit was hide. Adam covered up himself and tried to hide from the call of God among the trees. This first game of hide and go seek did not go in humanity’s favor.

To hide from the call of God is like trying to run away on a treadmill. You may think you are gaining distance, but in the eyes of God, you have not moved. The call of God has a way of catching up to us all.

So what would it look like to stop hiding? What would it look like to answer the call of God? What does it take to make us step out of our own barn full of geese and face the crowds?

One of the many things I love about the lives of saints is that they all had to answer these questions with their lives. So do we. The Christian life is not an escape from anything. The Christian life is a confrontation. We do not hide from the hard questions, the hard conversations, or the hard times we must endure.

We also do not hide from joy. That little bubble of hope that lifts up our hearts and surprises us with a smile when things seem bleak. We have a God who loves us and a Holy Spirit that guides us. It may be tempting to hide from these wonderful truths of life but the good news is they are there no matter what kind of day we are having.

Saint Martin answered the call of God, maybe not in the way he wanted to, but he answered it. Saint Martin, give us the courage to do the same.

Saint Martin, pray for us. Amen.

Br. Curtis Almquist

Willibrord

Psalm 98:1-4

In the calendar of the church we remember today a monk named Willibrord who was born in the mid-seventh century in what is now southern Scotland, northern England. In his early 30s, and with 12 companions, he sailed from the Isles to evangelize Frisia, which is modern-day Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. Frisia was a hinterland, largely untouched by Christianity, practicing fearsome tribal religions, and fraught with political contests and wars.

Willibrord and his fellow monk-missionaries countered the strife and fear with unshakable kindness and care, and with the convincing news of God’s love. They were authentically charismatic, and were welcomed and trusted. They embodied the personality of the psalm we just prayed: “Sing to the Lord a new song.” They baptized multitudes, built monasteries, local churches and schools, completely changing that part of the world, from the inside out. Willibrord would eventually become Archbishop of Utrecht, in the modern-day Netherlands, and was recognized by the church as a saint from shortly after his death in year 739.

One reason the church remembers its saints is as an intervention to despair. When times are appallingly bad, when strife is on every corner and in every page of news, when political power is compromised and corrupt, when the rich become richer and the poor, poorer – times such as now for so many people in our world and in our own land – we recollect the life and inspiration of one such as Willibrord as an example of courage, faithfulness, and hope for how then to live in the face of adversity in our own day.

In my moments of despair, when I feel so small in the face of what seems so big and so bad, when my faith feels like I’m hanging from a windowsill, I find someone such as Willibrord galvanizing. And for you, I suggest you recollect some people you know in your personal life history who to you are heralds of courage, kindness, selflessness, and faithfulness in the midst of the egregious needs of their own day. How did they do it? Claim from them a template for how then to live your life with zeal as a missionary to those within your reach. And call on these souls whom you remember for their own intercession.

Blessed Willibrord, whom we remember today.

Br. Lain Wilson

All Souls: All the Faithful Departed

Wisdom 3:1-9

A week and a half ago, I ran the Marine Corps Marathon, in Washington, DC. I anticipated the physical exhaustion, but didn’t expect the emotional exhaustion. No small part of that came at mile 12, the “wear blue mile.” Every few strides, a pair of sandwich boards featured a fallen serviceman or -woman. Every few strides, on and on: faces, names, ages – a litany of the dead.

As I ran that mile, I tried to say their names to myself, to make my running through this gauntlet, in some measure, my prayer for them. I couldn’t help but think ahead to a similar litany we’ll experience this evening, as we recite the names of our own departed.

Today is the feast of All Souls, when we remember all those whom we love but see no longer – parents and children, friends and mentors, those long departed and those recently lost. We remember them with the faith, the hope, the expectation that, though gone from our sight, they are not lost in the eyes of God. “The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God” (Wisdom of Solomon 3:1).

Our first reading, from the Wisdom of Solomon, includes an evocative phrase that always catches my attention: “In the time of their visitation they will shine forth, and will run like sparks through the stubble” (3:7). The image here is common in Jewish apocalyptic, referring to the brilliance of the righteous when they will judge the nations.

If this image points to a truth of God’s future, it also reveals a reality of our own present –  a real way that those whom we love and see no longer are present to us now. The first-century-CE Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria extends this image, in a discussion of the edifying effect of virtue: “the smallest spark of virtue, when it beams up, being wakened into life by good hopes, gives light to what has previously been dim-sighted and blind, and causes what has been withered to shoot up again, and whatever is barren and unproductive it transforms and brings to abundance of prolific power.”[1]

Our departed, who will shine forth like stars in God’s future, in our present run like sparks through our lives. Their faithful example – their ways of loving us, their commitment and courage, their achievements and, yes, their failures – all these enlighten us, build us up, kindle our own spark so that our own lives and witnesses might shine in the world.

I experienced my own version of this during the race. As I hit a wall at mile 22, I found myself remembering those names and faces from earlier, replaying them in my mind, feeling myself surrounded and pushed forward by the strength of their example, those who gave all for a cause they felt to be true and right. I didn’t know any of those faces or recognize any of their names, but I still felt myself kindled by their example – kindled, empowered, propelled.

On this feast of All Souls, what empowerment do you need today, at this stage of your own earthly race? How might your own spark be kindled by the example of your own beloved departed? How might your life shine forth now?

Amen.

[1] Philo of Alexandria, On the Migration of Abraham, 123, available online at P. Kirby, “Early Jewish Writings,” https://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/text/philo/book16.html (accessed November 4, 2025).

Br. Curtis Almquist

Preached at the Eucharist of the Resurrection in thanksgiving for the life and witness of Mary “Polly” Chatfield (1929–2025).

Isaiah 25:6-8

All of what we have heard read from the scriptures Polly chose for her funeral. Polly also chose the hymns and the poetry. She planned this! Polly was always so forward thinking, moving into the future. And so we heard the prophet Isaiah speak of the end of time, when all will be well, where people will feast on a new and abundant life, “where death is swallowed up forever, and God will wipe away tears from all faces.” We need only look at a few stories in the news to be reminded of the endless multitudes of people who are now suffering in our own country and around the world: suffering from drought and famine and flood; from war and captivity; from invidious abuse and discrimination and injustice; from homelessness and hopelessness and grief.

For those of us who have agency, we have been given a mission in life to help create on earth this heavenly picture that the prophet Isaiah gives us about the end of times. In a few moments we will be invited to pray the prayer that Jesus taught us – what we call the Lord’s Prayer – where we express, “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it will be in heaven.” We are the answer to that prayer, to help bring to earth what shall be in heaven.

Polly was such a beautiful witness to this, our calling in life, to live our lives with loving kindness and in dedicated service, both to people and to the planet, and with a capacious generosity. Our friend Polly gave such a powerful witness to this. Polly always opted for life, moving forward, and with such great inspiration to also help others to move forward. She was tenacious and unafraid to challenge the norms that held people back because of their poverty, their race, their religion, or their lack of education.

Many decades ago, our Brothers here in the monastery came to know Polly’s first husband, Michael St. Anthony Post, before we knew Polly. While an undergraduate at Harvard College, Michael served as an acolyte right here in this chapel, at this altar. In not many years hence, now married to Polly, he tragically had a heart attack from which he never recovered. Michael’s widow, Polly, was now the sole parent of five young children. She was in crisis. Here at the monastery, our own Father Alfred Pedersen assured Polly that we Brothers would help in every way possible. Michael’s funeral was here in this chapel in September of 1963.

Polly would marry Charles Wolcott Chatfield, another teacher, and now with their “blended” family, she was the mother of seven children between the ages of five and thirteen. Seven young children! And yet, even more children appeared. Polly literally reached out to so many, many other children whom she taught in school and whom she met along the way. She helped with 4-H clubs in rural Maine; she helped found an organization in Maine which almost-magically connected needy teenagers with needy elders; she helped in the sponsorship of orphans in a school in Tanzania; she advocated for a school in Boston and for monks on Memorial Drive, and for so much more . . .

On the cover of the leaflet you received for today’s service is a reproduction of an icon that hung in Polly’s apartment above her bed. This Greek icon which comes from Constantinople is traditionally called, “The Mother of God of the Life-giving Spring.” The name “Mother of God” refers to Mary, the mother of Jesus, pictured here as an infant in Mary’s arms. This is Jesus, whom the church remembers as God incarnate, that is, God, who was born a child so as to meet us, God’s children that we all are: a divine human-being to save lost children.

The icon remembers an event in the fifth century when a soldier, walking on a rural pathway, discovered a blind man dying of thirst. The soldier heard an ethereal voice, surely it was God’s voice, telling the soldier that a spring of water was in the nearby grove of trees. And there was something more. The mud that lined the spring the soldier was to use to anoint the blind man’s eyes. This provision was right at hand, both to quench the man’s thirst and to heal his blind eyes. The rest is history. The setting for this became Constantinople. The spring of water and the miraculous mud became a place of pilgrimage for quenching thirst and healing bodies down through the centuries. So the icon is named: “The Mother of God of the Life-giving Spring.” Our beloved Polly was this living icon. Polly was “The Mother for God,” and to children of every age. We are all children of God, and Polly was a matriarch.

Her daughter, Barbara, tells of how Polly would read to her children before bedtime. One favorite book was Winnie the Pooh.[1] There’s a wonderful game named “Poohsticks.” You may remember the story. Poohsticks can be played on any bridge over running water; each child dropping a stick on the upstream side of a bridge and the one whose stick first appears on the downstream side is the winner. Barbara says that she and her siblings would play Poohsticks when they were out for a walk with Polly, especially in the woods when they came across a stream with some kind of bridge. I’m just picturing Polly, with her radiant smile, cheering as the sticks floated out from under the bridge, each child a winner. I am certain that Polly even now has not stopped her cheering and advocacy.

Momentarily, we will hear from the altar words of assurance that in death, “life is changed, not ended.” In Polly’s own words, “This life and the next life are on speaking terms with each other.” We don’t know much about this eternal life ahead of us at our death. We do know that Jesus said, “I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:3). I am certain that Polly, with her radiant smile, will be at Jesus’ side to help welcome us into the next life.

Blessed Polly St. Anthony Post Chatfield, whom we remember with such great thanksgiving.

[1] The story is first mentioned in The House of Pooh Corner a Winnie-the-Pooh book by A. A. Milne, first published in 1928.

Br. Jack Crowley

Luke 14:1-6

I once had a therapist tell me that there will never be a perfect time to heal. That quote has always stuck with me. There will never be a perfect time to heal.

On one hand, it’s kind of a sad quote. It implies that if we keep waiting for the circumstances of our life to be perfect in order to heal, then we will spend the rest of our lives waiting.

On the other hand, the quote also implies a certain sense of freedom. If there will never be a perfect time to heal, then why wait? This day is just as good any other.

One of the many things that fascinates me about Jesus’ healings is how often Jesus was judged for healing people. People especially judged the timing of his healings. You would think that healing, of all actions, would be noncontroversial. You would think that healing, at any time, would be supported by all. Yet this is not the case.

I must confess I’m guilty of this in my own prayer life. Sometimes I guard my own wounds from healing as if they were treasures I am trying to protect. I cover myself up from God’s healing grace and say, “not now, this isn’t the right time.” I tell myself that at some future date when the time is right, I will truly open myself up to God and be healed, but not right now.

The problem is that we can spend the rest of our lives saying to God, “not right now, come back later.” We can spend the rest of our lives keeping God at a distance. The good news is we also have the freedom, at any given moment, to accept God’s unconditional love and open up our wounds to God’s healing grace.

As Jesus said in our Gospel today, if we had a loved one fall down a well, wouldn’t we immediately pull them out? We wouldn’t hesitate. Jesus feels that same loving urgency to heal us. So why not reach up your hand and take his?

The only thing we have to lose is our pride. That unfortunate habit of being more concerned about how we look versus how we feel. Why not choose the path of healing instead?

Br. Jamie Nelson

Luke 13:31-35

Foxes and hens are prone to have very different agendas when they cross paths. While the fox’s agenda prioritizes capturing and eating a delicious chicken dinner, the hen’s agenda is quite the opposite: for her and her chicks to avoid becoming that dinner.

In today’s gospel passage from Luke, Jesus references a fox and hen who, true to form, have very different agendas. When we enter the scene, Jesus and his followers have been traveling throughout the towns and villages of Galilee, healing wounded bodies and spirits and proclaiming the good news of God’s kingdom.

Then some religious leaders arrive to warn Jesus that Herod wants to kill him. Jesus responds in no uncertain terms. He calls Herod a fox, an animal with a reputation for devious and violent behavior. Herod has earned that reputation: he no doubt sees Jesus as a threat to the stability of his precarious political power under Roman rule and plans to ruthlessly eliminate Jesus just as he has already done by killing a similar threat, John the Baptist.[1]

Yet Jesus is unbowed by the news that Herod is scheming on his life. Jesus indicates here a sense that it’s not yet his time, that his journey will ultimately take him to Jerusalem, to suffering and death. As he says, “it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem” (Luke 13:33b).

Then Jesus compares himself to a mother hen who desires to protect her chicks by offering them shelter under her wings. Imagine that – all of us here, cozy and safe, tucked up together under Jesus’s outstretched feathers.

Here Jesus is using an image of divine protection that would have been familiar to his Jewish audience, for the Hebrew scriptures are rich with the image of sheltering under God’s wings for protection. Each night at Compline, we chant the words of Psalm 91:

“He shall cover you with his pinions,

The hen represents a mother figure who embodies protection through her love and self-sacrifice, rather than using violence or abusing authority. We don’t have to expand our imaginations too far for the image of Jesus as a mother hen to shift into Jesus on the cross, arms outstretched in self-sacrificial love.

While we live in a different time, Herod’s style of politics still shows up today. We see its echoes when leaders seek to protect their status rather than serving the common good, to sow division rather than connection through our shared humanity.

Jesus desires to gather us together and offer us shelter and refuge, but accepting the offer is not always easy. It requires openness, hope, and trust that there is a different way, that the ways of Herod and his imitators are not the only options in our lives. Jesus offers us glimpses of the ways of the Kingdom of Heaven, and we will spend our lifetimes learning what that means.

The fox and hen in this story demonstrate different agendas, divergent ways of being. Herod, a corrupt and violent man whose political authority depended on Rome’s favor, chooses the way of domination and fear. Jesus rejects that way of being and chooses instead to follow the path of love that leads towards resurrection and new life. Let us follow him there, proclaiming, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Luke 13:35b).

[1] Luke 9:9

Br. Lain Wilson

The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 24C)

Luke 18:1-8

I remember being told when I was younger that I was my own worst advocate. I could find it difficult to acknowledge what I was good at and argue for myself. I’d like to think that this was an early expression of humility, but it wasn’t, really. It wasn’t, because I didn’t also acknowledge what I was bad at and where I needed help. I was a bad self-advocate, both in terms of trumpeting my accomplishments and owning up to where I needed to grow.

Now, all of this is to say that I really admire the widow in today’s parable. She’s a great self-advocate. I can’t help but imagine that the judge, who “neither feared God nor had respect for people” (Luke 18:2), was successfully hiding that. The widow must know, as one of the lowest of the socially low, that in going to him she is up against an implacable and hostile opponent. She must know that this is an uphill battle. What I admire in her is what I can only imagine is her clarity of purpose and resolve, her bone-deep commitment that her cause was right, and her assurance that her own self-advocacy can effect change.

Clarity, commitment, and assurance – we might simply say “faith.” Her faith, burning in her heart, gives her the courage to persist in her own advocacy, and eventually to overcome her opponent.

But what effect does her faith have on the judge? “For a while he refused” (Luke 18:4), we hear. We don’t hear how long – days, weeks, months, years. We don’t hear how long, but we do hear that he eventually gives in “so that she may not wear me out by continually coming” (Luke 18:5). An alternative sense of the verb translated as “wear out” is “shame”; thus: “so that her coming does not utterly shame me.”[1] We get a sense of the social world evoked here – the judge may have contempt for God and his fellows, but he cannot bear being shamed by the persistence of this widow.

In either case, being worn out or shamed, the judge does not experience a conversion of heart. The parable is not about the unjust judge becoming a better person. Instead, the parable sets up a comparison between humans and God. We read something similar earlier in Luke, in another teaching on prayer: “Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:11-13). If even the unjust judge, who “neither feared God nor had respect for people,” grants justice to the widow in response to her persistence, how much more will God grant justice to those who persist in prayer!

In these two episodes from Luke, we have an image of a God from whom we can expect so much. A God who is faithful and generous, not parsimonious and vindictive. A God who is “long-suffering” and patient. A God who is a “righteous judge,” in Paul’s words to Timothy (2 Timothy 4:8), and in contrast to the unjust judge of the parable. A God who is faithful.

This is the faithful God revealed in our reading from Jeremiah. Jerusalem has fallen, the temple has been burned.[2] The worst has come to pass. Into this darkness, God speaks a word of faithfulness: “The days are surely coming . . . when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah” (Jeremiah 31:31). Into the darkness of this time of destruction and exile, God speaks a word of hope: “they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest . . . for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more” (Jeremiah 31:34). In the reality of this dark moment, God reveals, in the words of biblical scholar William Holladay, that “God’s ultimate word is hope, comfort, restoration.”[3]

The parable of the unrighteous judge is Jesus’ own word of hope to his followers. It concludes his response to the Pharisees’ question of when the kingdom of God was coming. As his followers may come to expect ridicule, rejection, and persecution, when can they expect the Son of Man come to vindicate them, to render justice to them?

Jesus’ answer to them is simple, but not easy. What they have to do – what we have to do – is display the perseverance of the widow. To be clear in our desire for justice, to be committed in our purpose in prayer, and to be assured in our hope. In short, to have faith in God’s abiding faithfulness.

We have as a companion in this faith the crucified and risen Lord. We have as a partner in our perseverance the God who took on humanity, who took on all that is most broken and downtrodden and oppressed in our world – took all that on, and meets the broken, the downtrodden, and the oppressed. God’s word of hope spoken to us, the Word-made-flesh in Jesus, is the hope of a world that cries out for justice.

And there is so much that cries out. There are so many that cry out. Those stuck in grinding poverty. Those working multiple jobs and barely staying afloat. Those suffering isolation, loneliness, friendlessness. Those targeted for their political beliefs, nationality, sexuality, or gender identity. The whole of creation groaning under the weight of human imposition and exploitation. There is so much that cries out for justice. How long, O Lord, how long? How long must we wait?

Jesus calls us to perseverance and, in that perseverance, to be advocates, for ourselves and for others. As advocates, he urges us to be clear in recognizing how this world cries out for justice. He urges us to be committed to justice in both our prayer and our work. And he urges us to be assured that God’s justice will not fail us, and will come in God’s time. This word of hope to us urges us to have faith that the crucified and risen Christ waits with us and gives us both the “courage to be,”[4] to persevere and to act in this world, and the vision of what is to come, our promised future: in the words of theologian Jürgen Moltmann, the “kingdom of the triune God which sets all things free and fills them with meaning.”[5]

“When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Luke 18:8). Will we persevere in faith? Will we have the courage to be for justice in this world?

Amen.

[1] J. Nolland, Luke 9:21-18:34, World Biblical Commentary 35B (Dallas, 1993), 865 (trans.) and 868 (commentary).

[2] William Holladay argues that the context of this passage is two months after the fall of Jerusalem: W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah 2: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, Chapters 26—52 (Minneapolis, 1989), 165.

[3] Ibid., 201.

[4] This wording is from J. Moltmann, The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology, trans. R. A. Wilson and J. Bowden (New York, 1974), 335.

[5] Ibid., 338.

Br. Curtis Almquist

Psalm 130

One word appears in the psalm appointed for today – Psalm 130 – and this word is repeated again and again, a counter-cultural word. The word is “wait.” Wait. Some of us may get antsy or angry when we have to wait; however, whether we are fifteen, or fifty, or whatever age, we have to wait all the time. We never outgrow waiting, and oftentimes waiting is not easy. Like when we are waiting for an appointment, or waiting for a grade, or waiting for our turn, or waiting for a diagnosis, or waiting for a person to arrive . . . or to leave, we are waiting all the time. Of course, sometimes we should not wait. When there’s an urgent need, we cannot wait. We must act now! But otherwise in life we must wait on so much and wait on so many.

Two things help with waiting. For one, it’s the way God has created life. Life requires times of gestation; life takes time to grow. Some of our waiting is about our being ready or being readied. So we must wait. The clue to remember is that now is more important than next. Don’t try to cut in line in life. There is a reason why today is not tomorrow. Be present, which is where God is: in the present. God’s real presence is in the present. In the fullness of time, we will be prepared for what is next. So God is also waiting, waiting on us until we are ready or readied.

Secondly, sometimes we may feel we are waiting in the dark. We have no sense or no control over what will happen. We are in the dark; however, God is not in the dark. We read in the psalms how, to God, “the day and night are both alike” (Psalm 139:12). God is not in the dark. When we are in the dark, we are being kept in the dark, what the psalmist calls “hidden under the shadow of God’s wings.”[1] The darkness, for us, is a kindness.

“Waiting” is a very promising word to add to your vocabulary. Waiting. Waiting fits so many occasions in life, and most every day. A very helpful and hopeful word for navigating life: “waiting.” What are you doing? You say, “I am waiting.”

[1] Psalm 17:8; 36:7; 57:1; 61:4; 91:4.