Monthly Archives: October 2025

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God’s Law in Our Hearts

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“God’s Law in Our Hearts”

Jeremiah 31:31-34 (31:33) – October 26, 2025

            Relationships are foundational to life. Positive, negative, distant, close.  Both of my parents are gone now, but I had a relationship with both of them. My sisters and brothers—again, I have relationships with them. Members of my extended family, too, are included in my list of relationships. Also my friends, acquaintances, colleagues, even my enemies. All of these people have relationships with me. Think about yourself. You have relationships with many, many people, too. Most of these people I just mentioned, if not all of them. Positive or negative, distant or close. We all have relationships—or friendships—with many people.

            But what about God? What kind of relationship do you and I have with God? Is that relationship good? Even wonderful? Is it close? Or distant? Bumpy at times?

            Our scripture reading for today talks about this relationship. Here. On this Reformation Sunday, we celebrate our clear relationship with God, the relationship that Martin Luther celebrated! But, the prophet is talking about it from God’s perspective. God’s view of the relationship, or the friendship, if you will.

            God wants to be friends. We’re not talking about a distant God, a God Who wound up the universe like a watch, put it on some shelf, and then walked away and promptly forgot all about it. No!! God wants to be in a relationship.

            If we look at this passage, we see that God had a relationship—a friendship, we could say—with the nation of Israel. God was the one Who started it. See what verse 32 says? God took the nation of Israel by the hand when God led them out of Egypt. God wanted the friendship. Israel did not start the relationship.

            We can compare that friendship to God’s friendship with us. God wants us as friends, too!  Just like the nation of Israel, God goes out of His way to make friends with us. You and me. Each and every one of us. God approaches us.

            But something happened. Something awful! The nation of Israel was not a faithful friend to God. The relationship was disrupted, broken. But God didn’t break it. No! Israel did. Remember the many, many times in the Hebrew Scriptures that Israel ran away from God? Or forgot about God? Or just plain ignored God? Time after time, we can read about how the nation stumbled, resisted, or was unfaithful to their friendship. Their relationship.

            A number of times in the various prophets’ writings, the relationship between God and Israel is pictured as a marriage. God is the husband, and Israel is the wife. God is always faithful, and Israel is not. Israel stumbles, falls, ignores her God, or just plain runs away in disobedience. Here in verse 32, the prophet tells us that Israel is unfaithful.

            What about us? What about you and me, in our on-again, off-again relationship with God? That is what Martin Luther talked about, so often. He had a real and abiding sense of his own sinfulness, his own unfaithfulness to God.

Isn’t it a lot the same with us? Don’t we stumble, or fall? Haven’t we forgotten about God a lot of the time, or even been unfaithful to our Lord? I’m thinking of sin. Putting other things in God’s place. Making other things or other people in our lives more important to us than God. 

            Our relationship with God is broken! Disrupted. Sometimes we grow so used to sinning, to being apart from God, that you and I cannot choose to do anything else.

            What a predicament! Our relationship with God—under the Old Covenant—is gone. Destroyed. We are sunk, there is not a chance for you and for me. But, wait! God does not leave us there! God still wants to be friends with us! With you, and with me.

God loves us so much that God is ready and willing to forgive our sin. Forgive us when we stumble and fall, when we put other things or other people in God’s place. God is ready to forgive absolutely. Unconditionally.

God’s nature is not punishing or arbitrary, but instead loving and forgiving. As Rev. Sharon Blezzard says, “as a Lutheran Christian I am called to re-formation on a continual basis. Even though I do die daily to sin, I also rise to newness of life; therefore, I am indeed always being made new. Thanks to the amazing gift of grace in Christ Jesus, I have options! I have a future, right here and right now.” [1]

            Just like Joseph, ruler of Egypt, freely forgave his brothers at the end of Genesis when they stood before him, God is more than willing to forgive us. Joseph’s brothers did some awful things to Joseph, but Joseph was ready and willing to forgive their treachery because of his love for them and for his father Jacob. How much more then is God able to forgive us for our falling short, for our running away, even for our disobedience! God loves us so much! . . .  God loves us this much! (spreads arms wide)

            This forgiveness is heart language, from God. The foundation of this forgiveness comes from our new knowledge of God, written on our hearts. And what is our response to God’s love? God’s forgiveness? God’s reconciling embrace? You and I have the opportunity to live changed lives, as changed people—from the inside out. God is not willing that anyone should be strangers, but instead that all would have the opportunity to be friends with God. Best friends.

God says it! Our Lord will be our God. We will be God’s people. And that’s a promise. That’s forgiveness. That’s the opportunity that each of us has to be with God, forever.

            Alleluia, amen.

@chaplaineliza

(Suggestion: visit me at my other blogs: matterofprayer: A Year of Everyday Prayers. #PursuePEACE – and  A Year of Being Kind . Thanks!

[1] https://www.stewardshipoflife.org/2015/10/oh-the-options/

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Continue – Persist – Be Faithful!

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“Continue – Persist – Be Faithful”  

2 Timothy 3:14-4:5 (4:1-3) – October 19, 2025

Have you seen the comics lately? I’m sure everyone here is familiar with the comics section of the newspapers–the daily comics in black and white, and the Sunday comics in full color–even if you don’t read them regularly. Can you picture this scene from the comics? A single panel, showing two business men by an office water cooler. One looks like a boss, and he says to the other, “If there’s one thing I hate, it’s a yes-man. Isn’t that right, Baxter?”

We chuckle, because we all are familiar with that kind of attitude. I’m sure we can recognize that tendency in other guises, other forms. In some other places, not only a place of employment but also clubs, associations, even places of worship. Getting some yes-man to tell us what we want to hear . . . not what’s good for us to hear, not what we need to hear, but instead what we want to hear. This kind of black-and-white attitude is going way overboard!  

            As we consider this Bible reading from 2 Timothy chapter 3 today, let us reflect again on these words from the older man Paul to his young friend Timothy: “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15 and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.”

            I suspect that Paul – and his friends, the other disciples, and other, older believers – could easily relate dozens of times that they had experiences in the faith communities they called home. Experiences where “yes-men” (or, “yes-people”) put in their definite opinions, where one group of people held up “tradition” as the gold medal standard, and everything had to bow before “tradition.” This “traditional” group of believers sound as intolerant as the “black-and-white” people I mentioned just before. A pendulum swinging way to one side or the other.

            Our commentator Dr. Dirk Lange says, “We have always done it this way” can mean anything from the worship of the early church to what a congregation has done for just the past twenty years. The writer to this particular church community, and especially to this follower named Timothy calls upon tradition. It is not to be ignored! “Continue in what you have learned” and not just recently but since your childhood.” [1]  You and I need to sit up straight and find out exactly what the older man Paul had to say about tradition! Or, is it about the Word of God, instead?

            The Hebrew Scripture reading for this Sunday comes from Jeremiah 31, and tells us that “The day will come when God’s word will not be on stone tablets or in books, but written into our very hearts.” This reading from 2 Timothy and the reading from Jeremiah are all about the Word of God! Except, how does that square with a concentration on tradition?

            When a pendulum swings, especially if it swings widely, we can watch the wide swing get more and more extreme. This is so similar to observing people with firm, set-in-their-ways opinions and manner of thinking and behavior.    

            Our writer Paul tells Timothy he could be sure of one thing: his firm foundation of the Word of God, taught to him by reliable elders in the faith. Not twisting this way and that, not susceptible to following “tradition” blindly, like so many sheep.

             But, Paul does not stop there. This is a letter to Timothy, after all. Timothy is a church leader, a pastor of a congregation, and Paul uses this letter to not only give advice to his younger friend, but to advise and instruct. “Timothy is instructed to be a faithful student and teacher of the Word.  Under that is the belief that to be a strong, true church a congregation must be made up of people who know their Bible well.” [2]  Not in the sense of bashing others over the head with their superior biblical knowledge, no! No, we are to use the Bible as a standard, as a measuring tape or yard stick to guide others along the road of journeying with Jesus.

            We have the assurance, from our scripture passage today, that Timothy had the opportunity to know God. He had the opportunity to read some of the same texts we have to read today! Timothy was instructed, from the time he was very young, in the way of salvation through Jesus Christ. His mother and grandmother were both women of faith, and Timothy grew up in a believing household, a household that put God first.

            The descriptive words to Timothy that Paul uses here are important: teaching, correcting, training. “The Scripture invites us into a pattern of gospel living. It does not provide “yes” and “no” answers to every situation, every question, every dilemma. Those who have “confessed” the faith in life-threatening situations understand that there are many gray areas, hard to resolve through Scripture alone (take the example of Dietrich Bonhoeffer or Martin Luther King, Jr.).”  [3]

I consider the commands in this passage to be good advice to anyone wanting to follow Christ more nearly, even in gray areas, even through difficult times. We are to proclaim the message. Communicate the Good News! In whatever way we can. How do we put it into practice? How do we live the Christian life? Now what, in other words?

            This command may give some people pause. How can I preach the Good News? Another way of thinking about it is . . . telling what God has done in your life. What has God done for you? How has God made a difference in your life? How has God made a difference in mine? What new things have you and I learned from the Lord lately? What an opportunity it is to share these things with others, with our friends, with those who might not know God.

            Thank God we have been given this Good News! I can tell about God’s faithfulness in my busy, hectic life. I can praise God for helping me to walk the Christian walk, one day at a time, and so can you. That’s truly something to celebrate. That’s truly Good News to share. Alleluia, amen.

@chaplaineliza

(Suggestion: visit me at my other blogs: matterofprayer: A Year of Everyday Prayers. #PursuePEACE – and  A Year of Being Kind . Thanks!

[1]  https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-29-3/commentary-on-2-timothy-314-45

[2] https://worshipingwithchildren.blogspot.com/2013/09/year-c-proper-24-29th-sunday-in.html

[3] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-29-3/commentary-on-2-timothy-314-45

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Have Mercy on Us!

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“Have Mercy on Us!”

Luke 17:11-19 (17:13) – October 12, 2025

            Ever been to the dentist, or the doctor, with a health complaint? Of course, you have! You all—we all have, at one time or another. Thank goodness, we live here, in the suburbs of Chicago. It is fairly easy to get good—or even, excellent medical and dental care, as opposed to the rural spaces in the United States, where health care is not as accessible. And, can you imagine outside of this country?

            Imagine living in the first century of the Common Era. In Jesus’ day, doctors were rare even in mid- to large-sized towns. When people had health complaints, there were some homeopathic remedies, true. And local healers, people who were good with herbs, poultices, and ointments. But for continuing problems or chronic diseases? There weren’t many options for any other kind of health care.

            Let us set the scene. Dr. Luke tells us, “Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him.”  We have a situation with some chronically ill people. These people had skin diseases. Commonly referred to as leprosy, these skin afflictions could be anything from severe eczema to Hansen’s disease, what we now know today as leprosy. And any disfiguring skin problem, in between.chronic

            In Jesus’ day, there were priests and Levites stationed all throughout the land of Israel. These official people were not only on duty for the Sabbath day, for religious observance, but they had several other important duties under the law of Moses. Did you know that the priests and Levites could make rulings on whether a person was too disfigured, too blemished to live in close quarters with the rest of the townspeople?  True facts!

            This was an early example of a health code. The priests and Levites were among the first health inspectors! Because some of these skin diseases were contagious, and so the people who had them would contaminate others, the priests and Levites would have to exile them. Kick these former upstanding people out of town. Out of society, and isolated. Marginalized. Exiled. Called ‘unclean.’ Living far away from everyone and everything they once held dear. Ringing bells to warn others not to come near them. That was the situation for these ten lepers we read about in Luke’s Gospel today. What a lonely existence for these poor people.

            The Rabbi Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem with His disciples when he met these ten men, on the border between Galilee and Samaria. This is yet another time that our Gospel writers tell us that “Jesus is again in a border region, again crossing boundaries and wandering where he probably shouldn’t go, and again healing people with whom he has no business interacting.” [1] Commentator Dr. Davis Lose reminds us that Jesus is again doing something out of the ordinary. In fact, extraordinary!  

            Let us consider that this unconventional Rabbi Jesus is not only crossing geographical boundaries and wandering – traveling where “good, rule-keeping Jews” just don’t go. But, Jesus is also interacting with these ten lepers! These men obviously kept at a distance from all other “normal” or “regular” people, except I am certain they had heard of this miracle-working Rabbi! Can’t you just hear the anguish and the hoping-against-hope in their voices as they cry out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy upon us!”  

            Jesus’ response is simple. Straight-forward. “Go, show yourselves to the priests. I can just imagine these ten men, told by Jesus to go and show themselves to the priests in town. Except, Jesus told them to go before He had done the act of visibly healing them from their skin disease. They needed to act, they needed to start to go before they saw what had happened.

            Have you ever needed to go on faith, and start an action, go on a trip, take a step without knowing for sure that God is right there with you? And, the whole idea of a borderland, an in-between place that is neither one place or the other. Doesn’t God meet us right there, before healing is completely complete?  [2]

That’s all Jesus says to them. The verb in Greek means ‘show, or point out something to someone.’ Remember, I said the priests were the health inspectors of that day? Can you understand these ten guys, isolated, banished, marginalized. And Jesus says, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.”

            Lo and behold, “as they went”—that is, in the going—“they were cleansed.” Do you understand? These poor, lonely people believed Jesus, had faith, and were healed as a result. We are not told exactly how they discovered it, but it probably didn’t take too long.

            One ex-leper, out of the original ten—one ex-leper comes back to thank Jesus. Glorifies God! Comes to Jesus and prostrates himself at His feet. Once the Samaritan realized he’d been healed, he couldn’t help but turn back and share his joy and thanksgiving with Jesus.

            Thanksgiving is like that. When it’s genuine, it’s spontaneous—you recognize you’ve been blessed and can’t help but share your joy through thanksgiving.

“Have you ever noticed just how powerful it is not only to receive blessing but also to name it and give thanks for it? Maybe you’re at dinner with family or friends, then you lean over to another, or maybe raise your glass in a toast, and say, “This is great. This time, this meal, you all. Thank you.” And in seeing and giving thanks, the original blessing is somehow multiplied. You’ve been blessed a second time.” [3]

The Samaritan knows he’s been given a gift and can’t help turning around to say something. In doing so, he’s given a second gift: He leaves his encounter with Jesus not only healed but also blessed in his own recognition of healing, blessed at being drawn into deeper relationship with the one he thanks, blessed at hearing himself commended for having great faith.

Imagine the huge difference that must have made in his life. That’s the way thanksgiving works—in giving thanks for gifts given to us, we are blessed again. We can all say alleluia, Thanks be to God!

@chaplaineliza

(Suggestion: visit me at my other blogs: matterofprayer: A Year of Everyday Prayers. #PursuePEACE – and  A Year of Being Kind . Thanks!

[1] https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/second-blessing

[2] https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/worship-planning/choosing-faith/eighteenth-sunday-after-pentecost-year-c-lectionary-planning-notes/eighteenth-sunday-after-pentecost-year-c-small-groups

[3] https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/second-blessing

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In These Last Days

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“In These Last Days”

Hebrews 1:1-4 (1:2) – October 5, 2025

            Can you think of an excellent host or hostess you know? Perhaps one or your friends or family? Celebrating or hosting is a big part of coming together as friends, as family, for all kinds of festive occasions. Some people are especially blessed with the skills, gifts and graces that are part and parcel of being a wonderful host or hostess. Today is World Communion Sunday, and our Lord Jesus is our heavenly Host today at this service.

But first, we need to take a closer look at our Scripture reading for today. The letter to the scattered Hebrews (Jews who believe in Jesus as their Messiah) was a circulating letter, traveling from place to place, copied and sent from one small group of believers, one congregation to the next. In order to understand this letter more deeply, we need to look at it as directed to people with a Jewish understanding, and a Jewish viewpoint.

“God spoke to our ancestors in many times/ways through the prophets, but now God speaks through the Son” – in the same way, we can view the older Hebrew Scriptures as God speaking through the prophets (and writers of narrative and poetry), but now (as in the New Testament), God speaks through the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ – especially in the Gospels.

Jesus – before He came to the earth and emptied Himself of all God-hood to become a little baby born in Bethlehem – created the universe at the beginning of time, and Jesus is the one who will possess all things at the end of time. So, before the beginning and after the end – there was the Son long before His incarnation, the second person of the Trinity. Before the universe, before the Big Bang and all things were created, there was the pre-incarnate Son.

 Plus – Jesus sustains/continues/upholds the universe with His powerful Word. The Word that had the creative force in the beginning of time!

Let’s think about that creative force for a moment. In chapters 8 and 9 in The Magician’s Nephew, one of the Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis has the Great Lion Aslan walking around on a brand new world. The Lion is singing, and the sheer creative force is magnificent, as shown by the reaction of all creation, land, water and sky to the sounds and the notes of Aslan’s powerful, creative voice. [1]

Yet, that is not all! We can see the writer of the letter to the Hebrews goes on to tell us more about what Jesus did. After Jesus finished His work on earth and achieved forgiveness for all sins for all human beings (for all time), the resurrected, ascended Jesus SAT DOWN in heaven. This goes along with what Paul says in the first chapter of the letter to the Ephesians, 1:20-22, which sounds quite a lot like Hebrews 1:3 from our reading today.

In the worship in the Temple before the first century CE, even at the time that the Rabbi Jesus was walking around Palestine for three years before His death, resurrection and ascension into heaven, Jewish priests continually stood up when they did their work in the Temple. That was the way of it. That was how priests went about their priestly duties, continually standing before the Lord, continuing to offer sacrifices for sins, making atonement for the sins of everyone who came to them.

Except – our Lord Jesus was not like the earthly priests. The apostle Paul said Jesus sat down in heaven, and no longer had to continually stand and continue to offer sacrifices to the Lord. Here in our reading today, the writer of the letter to the scattered Hebrews (or, Jews) tells them that Jesus “sat down in heaven at the right side/hand of God, the Supreme Power.”

As our commentator Carolyn Brown retells these three verses from Hebrews chapter 1, she says “Jesus was one with God at the beginning of everything and will be one with God after everything ends. Jesus worked with God on creating the whole world and keeps taking care of it. In Jesus of Nazareth God lived among us as a person and allowed himself to be crucified. Jesus is God in human skin.  Everything we know about Jesus tells us what God is like.  Jesus Christ forgives us.” [2]

Do you understand how powerful that declaration is? As one of what I consider one of the most meaningful gospel songs says, “Jesus paid it all! All to Him I owe, Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.” This is one of the reasons we celebrate Communion, or the Lord’s Supper, because we are so grateful to Jesus for being the Lamb of God, who as our reading today tells us, “achieved the forgiveness of sins for all human beings.”

The first Sunday of October is World Communion Sunday in most congregations.  Not only set apart for children and young people, but for everyone. “That means raising awareness that Christians all around the world are one big family.  We may have skin of different colors, wear different clothes, speak different languages, and do all sorts of different things, but we are all baptized and we all share communion.” [3] 

Do you hear? All believers, worldwide, are all one big family. That means that we all come together around the communion table, from north and south, from east and west, from every tribe and people-group and nationality. Across national borders, regardless of languages spoken, paying no attention to differences of politics, or of allegiances, of national dress, or of regional separations.

All of these earthly differences do not matter to eternity. Jesus tells us so. All are welcome at the Lord’s table. And, it is His table. As I have said many times before, on many Communion Sundays in the past 11 and a half years, this is not St. Luke’s table. It is not the United Church of Christ’s table. It is not the Protestant Church’s table. Instead, this is the Lord’s table, and our Lord Jesus says all are welcome.

We can see how great God’s love is for humanity through the incarnation. Yes, God sent God’s son to earth to become human, live among us, and die for us. And, on this World Communion Sunday, we remember how our Lord Jesus provided communion for us, as a sacrament, a means of grace, and to remember Him.

Through the centuries, all believing Christians have celebrated this meal, this Lord’s Supper, in remembrance of Him. “Today, through World Communion, we also celebrate that though each church does things differently, we each and all of us need God and God’s grace. By participating together around the world in Holy Communion, we celebrate our common need for God, and together we celebrate receiving His love and grace.” [4]

This weekend is a jam-packed weekend, indeed. Not only is today World Communion Sunday, but yesterday was the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi. Many faith traditions celebrate with a Blessing of the Animals this weekend. St. Francis is not only a patron saint of animals, he is also the patron of all creation, or the natural world.

As we reflect on our Lord Jesus, God’s Son before the beginning of time and after the end of time, I want to end our sermon today with a benediction; the final verse from the hymn that is attributed to Francis, “All Creatures of Our God and King.”

Let all things their Creator bless, and worship Him in humbleness,
O praise Him! Alleluia! Praise, praise the Father, praise the Son, and praise the Spirit, Three in One! O, let us praise God, indeed! Alleluia, amen.

@chaplaineliza

(Suggestion: visit me at my other blogs: matterofprayer: A Year of Everyday Prayers. #PursuePEACE – and  A Year of Being Kind . Thanks!

[1] Lewis, C.S., The Magician’s Nephew (Macmillan Publishing Co., New York NY, Collier Books edition: 1970), 101, 104-07.

[2] https://worshipingwithchildren.blogspot.com/2012/09/year-b-proper-22-27th-sunday-in.html

[3] Ibid.

[4] https://onthechancelsteps.wordpress.com/2013/09/22/same/