 Sermons from Mission Hills UCC San Diego, California Rev. Dr. David Bahr [email protected] January 11, 2026 “Free Water” Matthew 3: 1-12 – Common English Bible In those days John the Baptist appeared in the desert of Judea announcing, 2 “Change your hearts and lives! Here comes the kingdom of heaven!” 3 He was the one of whom Isaiah the prophet spoke when he said: The voice of one shouting in the wilderness, “Prepare the way for the Lord; make his paths straight.”[a] 4 John wore clothes made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist. He ate locusts and wild honey. 5 People from Jerusalem, throughout Judea, and all around the Jordan River came to him. 6 As they confessed their sins, he baptized them in the Jordan River. 7 Many Pharisees and Sadducees came to be baptized by John. He said to them, “You children of snakes! Who warned you to escape from the angry judgment that is coming soon? 8 Produce fruit that shows you have changed your hearts and lives. 9 And don’t even think about saying to yourselves, Abraham is our father. I tell you that God is able to raise up Abraham’s children from these stones. 10 The ax is already at the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit will be chopped down and tossed into the fire. 11 I baptize with water those of you who have changed your hearts and lives. The one who is coming after me is stronger than I am. I’m not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. 12 The shovel he uses to sift the wheat from the husks is in his hands. He will clean out his threshing area and bring the wheat into his barn. But he will burn the husks with a fire that can’t be put out.” I enjoy going to December Nights in Balboa Park every year, although I don’t stay long. Just long enough to walk over the bridge, walk around for a while, and walk back, a time that is still shorter than most people spend trying to find a parking space. I can walk there and leave just as tens of thousands pour in. I’m not into crowds, but I am very much into the energy. I like walking through the international houses and seeing what foods they are selling. I like the lights and watching the Christmas tree lighting on the organ pavilion. I like wandering around with my camera, looking for something interesting or particularly beautiful. Last year, as I walked back home across the bridge, I saw a man holding a huge sign mounted on top of a tall pole. In my memory it almost glowed, as if it were lit by neon lights, though it probably wasn’t. But it made such an impression that it has grown outsized in my mind. The sign read, “Repent.” There he stood while happy families with strollers pushed past, kids dressed in festive clothes, and adults wearing their ugly sweaters on a night meant to feel joyful and human. And I remember thinking, are you really doing anything but turning people off. It’s possible that one person out of the tens of thousands saw that sign, felt a deep sense of conviction, and changed their life on the spot. But is it far more likely that hundreds more walked past and had their worst suspicions about religion confirmed – that it’s all about judgment, superiority, and shame, wrapped in spiritual language. And it turns out, that’s precisely the crowd John the Baptist confronts in today’s passage. “In those days, John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness.” Not in the city. Not in the temple. He appeared in the desert, the place where people often go when they have run out of options, not a place of spiritual solitude so much as a refuge. People came to him in droves. Some for the spectacle of it. But many more came because they were genuinely drawn by his message that you can “change your hearts and lives.” It’s a true gift. He is telling them they have the power to change their lives in a system in which they have no other power. The word is most often translated as repent, but like that sign in Balboa Park, it’s a word that’s been weaponized and abused, used to shrink people with shame. But repentance in Scripture is not groveling or self-hatred, and it is certainly not begging to an angry God. John is not telling people that they are worthless. He has compassion for people living inside a broken world, encouraging them that they don’t have to be limited by it – or keep cooperating with it. The word is metanoia, and it means a change in direction. You’re free to turn around. Free to stop walking one way and begin walking another. But back in Jerusalem, this had a price tag. Before a pilgrim could enter the court of the faithful at the temple, they underwent a ritual purification, a full immersion in water known as a miqvah. And that miqvah came with a fee, often a hefty one. The problem wasn’t the ritual but who controlled access to it. Religion had developed a paywall. If you were wealthy, you not only could afford it, you could pay for an upgrade. You could pay for a more private miqvah experience in the home of a priest, clean water with fresh towels, quiet and away from the crowds. Holiness as a luxury. Something like an exclusive airport lounge while everyone else sits on hard plastic chairs. If you were poor, you waited in line, and if you were among the poorest of the poor, you didn’t get in at all. No water for you, no purification, not even a hard plastic chair in the court of the faithful. But out in the wilderness, John said, come on in. The water is free. The only price is honesty and the courage to say, “I want to turn.” That’s why people walked a full day from Jerusalem to the Jordan – widows and all who had been priced out. John took a ritual designed to protect the purity of the system and turned it into a declaration that God’s mercy does not belong to the system at all. The religious authorities showed up too – because John was cutting into their profits. That’s why in this passage he calls them out and says, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to run from the coming reckoning? Do not tell me who your ancestors are. Produce fruit that shows you have actually changed.” How do you think that went over?! Then one day, a man whose very birth had already unsettled the powerful quietly appeared. A man whose life as child began as a refugee fleeing a paranoid king. Among that growing crowd, he too stepped into the water. John’s cousin Jesus. It’s his first recorded public appearance since he was 12 years old, in the Temple, when his parents went searching for him. But at this time, no one would have known who this man was or who he would become. John did. He knew and hesitated. Why me? You should baptize me. And it prompts the question: if baptism was only about repentance, why would Jesus be baptized? Is there more to it? Scholar Richard Losch offers an answer that immediately makes sense in the context of this scene. Jesus is baptized in front of this crowd of regular people and religious authorities not because he needs to turn his life around, but because others have been excluded. He hasn’t failed. Religion has failed them. So Jesus steps into the water as an act of solidarity. And therefore, his first public act is not a sermon or a miracle or a confrontation. Before Jesus ever says, “Blessed are the poor,” he stands with them, soaked in the same water, not in some private miqvah. And when Jesus emerged from the water, a voice from heaven declared, “This is my Son, my beloved.” Jesus made a public and unmistakable declaration, the meeting point of repentance and solidarity. To turn your life around meant a change that turns away from pricing people out of it and toward those it left behind. It’s not a call to shame strangers but to examine whether we are still walking the path of our vows, a path that has a direction. Asking, is my life producing fruit that shows up in who I am willing to stand with? And if not, am I willing to change direction? It’s the kind of examination that reaches deep into the stories we tell ourselves, deep into the fears that quietly shape our choices. Hard questions like these: Am I letting fear guide my life, letting fear decide what I will risk, rather than letting faith lead me? What stories am I telling myself that give me excuses for doing nothing about… whatever that “nothing” is? Have I arranged my life so nothing has to change, so that I can care in theory without being changed in practice? That’s why baptism isn’t about trying harder or becoming more loving in some vague, sentimental way. It isn’t a spiritual scorecard for moral self-improvement. Baptism is about alignment. A kind of alignment that asks something of us personally, before it asks anything of the world. But then, underneath all those questions, is the invitation that has been there all along: to change your heart and life. You really can change your heart and life – even here and now. And while baptism is a one-time event, it is never once and done. We return to it because religion keeps trying to put conditions and exclusions on God’s grace and sell it back to us. That’s why we return to our baptismal vows at the beginning of every new year. Not because we have failed. But because the stories we tell ourselves shape the systems we tolerate. And those systems are relentless. They keep pulling us off course. Sometimes violently. As we enter a very nasty 2026, questions about who we stand with will keep coming at us faster than we can keep up. Repentance doesn’t mean pointing fingers at others. It asks about our own participation in systems that crush people.
What happened in Minneapolis is not a misunderstanding or an isolated tragedy. The whole thing is a moral horror that demands repentance. And metanoia looks like choosing a different way. We can
Day by day, year by year, what does the Lord require of us?
Our baptisms keep calling us back to that path. And when we fail, not to see ourselves as failures, but to live with gratitude that we can change our hearts and lives once again. And again. To turn. And to walk toward each other. LITANY: REMEMBERING OUR PROMISES One: Do you promise, by the grace of God, to be a disciple, to follow in the way of Jesus Christ, to resist oppression and hatred, to show love and justice, and to witness to the work and word of Jesus Christ, as best you are able? One: And do you promise, according to the grace given to you, to grow in your faith and to be a faithful member of the church, celebrating Christ’s presence and furthering God’s mission in all the world.
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 Sermons from Mission Hills UCC San Diego, California Rev. Dr. David Bahr [email protected] January 4, 2026 “Star Words” Matthew 2: 1-12 – Common English Bible After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in the territory of Judea during the rule of King Herod, magi came from the east to Jerusalem. 2 They asked, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We’ve seen his star in the east, and we’ve come to honor him.” 3 When King Herod heard this, he was troubled, and everyone in Jerusalem was troubled with him. 4 He gathered all the chief priests and the legal experts and asked them where the Christ was to be born. 5 They said, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for this is what the prophet wrote: 6 You, Bethlehem, land of Judah, by no means are you least among the rulers of Judah, because from you will come one who governs, who will shepherd my people Israel.”[a] 7 Then Herod secretly called for the magi and found out from them the time when the star had first appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search carefully for the child. When you’ve found him, report to me so that I too may go and honor him.” 9 When they heard the king, they went; and look, the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stood over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were filled with joy. 11 They entered the house and saw the child with Mary his mother. Falling to their knees, they honored him. Then they opened their treasure chests and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 12 Because they were warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they went back to their own country by another way. For my sermon on the first Sunday of Advent, I said that the birth of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke did not begin with “Once upon a time,” but rather, “During the rule of King Herod…” But unless you are familiar with Herod, that line can go over your head as seemingly unimportant. However, whereas Luke begins with a passing allusion, Matthew leans in to make clear what anyone might not know about Herod. And yes, he did some good things. He expanded Jerusalem. He rebuilt the Temple on a grander scale. He poured money into religious life. But mostly, Herod was terrifying. He governed with fear and suspicion. He was a king chosen by Rome, propped up by Rome, but only for as long as he is useful to Rome. That made him especially dangerous To many Jews, he was an illegitimate king, outside the lineage of King David. He knew his power was thin, so he tried to secure legitimacy by marrying into the right family. But when his paranoia got the best of him, he suspected betrayal and had that wife murdered – along with her relatives. He was so paranoid and cruel, he executed sons as easily as enemies. In fact, Caesar reportedly said it was safer to be Herod’s pig than Herod’s son. Herod measured every rumor for threat. And thus, when strangers arrived from the East asking, “Where is the child who has been born king,” Herod shuddered. And Matthew adds, “all Jerusalem with him.” Jerusalem is afraid because everyone knows what Herod is capable of. Herod invites the magi in and pretends reverence. “Go and search diligently. And when you find the child, bring me word so I may honor him.” It sounds like devotion, but it’s surveillance. Scholars and religious experts quote the Prophet Micah and point to Bethlehem. The magi follow the star to a house where they find a child and recognize in him something extraordinary. They offer him gifts fit for royalty. When they were ready to leave, they were warned in a dream to bypass Herod. When their obedience to power would mean becoming part of his violence, they didn’t confront Herod or try to change his mind. They simply refused to cooperate and went home by another way. When Herod discovered his plan was thwarted, he orders the slaughter of all infant boys around Bethlehem. It’s as bad as it sounds and Matthew doesn’t soften it. He reaches back to Jeremiah’s lament and recalls Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be consoled. But first, Joseph had a dream too. “Get up and run. Take the child.” Afraid of the King, they cross the border into Egypt and become refugees. They live there until danger eases, until Herod is dead. But one of his sons then rules Jerusalem. So, they move to Nazareth in Galilee, even though that’s where another one of Herod’s sons’ rules – the one who later cuts off the head of John the Baptist and serves it on a platter as a present for his step-daughter. The point? This is the world into which Jesus was born. In Matthew there are no stories of shepherds and angels. Chapter 1 verse 1 begins with a genealogy from Abraham to Joseph and then straight into Joseph’s dream not to dismiss his pregnant fiancée. There’s no journey in her ninth month of pregnancy. There’s “no room unavailable at the inn” or a babe dressed in swaddling clothes lying in a manger. Just, “after Jesus was born in Bethlehem, during the reign of King Herod…” magi came from the East. A child whose life immediately begins on the run. Jesus is the story of God becoming incarnate not for power or glory, but to enter the most basic human struggle shared in every generation. A family fleeing danger. Crossing a border. Hoping for safety. The holy family dependent on the hospitality of another nation. What does this mean? For the followers of Christ, welcoming those who flee for their lives is not adjacent to the Christian story – an activity or a mission of the church. It is where we stand the most completely inside the story of Jesus himself. The magi are the first people in the gospel who respond faithfully to Jesus. The hymn says “We three kings.” But they are not powerful. They’re astrologers who do not fix their attention on the rulers who claim authority. They notice what others overlook and follow something they do not yet fully comprehend. They check it out for themselves. Do the magi understand the implication of the star when they first see it? Or do they come to understand by following it? Either way, they pay attention. That matters, because in a world ruled by fear, then and now, faith begins with attentiveness. Faith pays attention to signs and wonders, which may instantly make sense, or make no sense at all. What we do know is that one night, the magi took their first step in the dark, shaped by trust rather than certainty. Guided by curiosity and a star. There’s something there that’s very important as we begin the new year. They were attentive. And that’s the idea behind what’s known as star words. Choosing a star word has become a simple practice to transition from Christmas to Epiphany. Many churches have begun to use it to enter a new year. Star words don’t function as goals or answers or resolutions for self-improvement. They offer us the same posture of curiosity and attentiveness that we see in Matthew’s story. It’s not a word we look for and choose. Like a star in the night, we can only receive it and be curious. The word may instantly make sense for what is going on in your life, or make no sense at all – only inviting us to follow to understand. If we’re willing to stick with it, the meaning may unfold through reflection and lived experience. Or maybe not. The whole point is to be curious and pay attention to what God might be revealing in our lives. Last year, I received the word mercy. At first, I thought – eh. But, OK, let’s see what happens. I had no idea that just a few weeks later the use of the word mercy by Bishop Marianne Budde at a prayer service for the inauguration of the new president would ignite a firestorm of anger at her. Contempt for the use of the word mercy, so basic to the Christian vocabulary that it caused me to go, “eh…” and yet it guided my preaching all year long. It illuminated just how central mercy is as a Christian response to power. Mercy is a simple word but it exposes the lies Christianity with authoritarian impulses tell – with a pursuit of power to enforce, dominate, and win. Mercy is nothing like that. Mercy protects the vulnerable, not secure the strong. Authoritarianism doesn’t like mercy because it threatens a transactional way of seeing the world, where suffering is the failure of those suffering, not the product of greed. And it centers the “wrong” people. Biblical mercy flows downward, toward the poor, toward the stranger and outsider – the very people this movement blames and resents. Authoritarian Christianity is oriented upward toward dominance, national greatness, and so-called winners with fear as their tool. The manipulated fear of “others.” Fear of losing cultural dominance. But mercy refuses fear. It is how faith stops helping violence do its work. Like the magi, mercy refuses to cooperate with its logic. Just like the Jesus who will grow up and refuse to cooperate with the power he is offered.
This time last year I saw the word mercy and thought eh… Having contempt for mercy made no sense to me until it became clear that mercy threatens an entire worldview and that we are called to be faithful to Jesus. I didn’t fully realize all that before it picked itself as my word for the year. That makes me even more curious about what’s coming this year. One night, the magi took their first step in the dark, shaped by trust rather than certainty. Curiosity guided by a star. That’s what these words invite us to. When you come forward for communion, you will be invited to receive a star word for the year ahead. If you are watching online, go to the Mission Hills Facebook page and click the link you find there. You can find your own star word too. These are not to answer all your questions, but because they may raise new ones. Questions that help you notice the quiet ways God may be leading you, moments when faithfulness requires attention, curiosity, and the courage to go home by another way. https://wheelofnames.com/s88-akv?fbclid=IwY2xjawPFYW9leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAwyNTYyODEwNDA1NTgAAR6qa7cavY5n8XgLgvRfYKOk1TuoID4jZmUylWxXml00DRn_9B4zzjAlZn-ZGg_aem_tyX-Nn54tWgtHK-xQrkH-A  Sermons from Mission Hills UCC San Diego, California Rev. Dr. David Bahr [email protected] December 21, 2025 “The Only Logical Response to Fear” Matthew 1: 18-25 – Common English Bible This is how the birth of Jesus Christ took place. When Mary his mother was engaged to Joseph, before they were married, she became pregnant by the Holy Spirit. 19 Joseph her husband was a righteous man. Because he didn’t want to humiliate her, he decided to call off their engagement quietly. 20 As he was thinking about this, an angel from the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because the child she carries was conceived by the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you will call him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” 22 Now all of this took place so that what the Lord had spoken through the prophet would be fulfilled: 23 Look! A virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son, And they will call him, Emmanuel. (Emmanuel means “God with us.”) 24 When Joseph woke up, he did just as an angel from God commanded and took Mary as his wife. 25 But he didn’t have marital relations with her until she gave birth to a son. Joseph called him Jesus. Gloria Jean Watkins grew up in the 1950s in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. A Black girl before desegregation, Gloria attended Black schools, taught by Black teachers, shaped by Black expectations. Those schools were not as well-funded, but they were places where teachers knew their students and families. They were classrooms that when Gloria enthusiastically raised her hand, she was seen. When she spoke, she was heard. Then desegregation came. From the outside, it looked like progress. Signs came down. Laws changed. Black children were finally allowed to attend formerly whites-only schools. But inside Black communities, desegregation carried a different cost. Many of those Black schools were closed. Many of those Black teachers and principals lost their jobs and those Black authority figures were replaced by ones who had little relationship with the children sitting in front of them. Excited for her first day in her new school, she raised her hand the way she always had. This time, it was as if she were invisible. When she spoke, teachers sometimes looked startled, as though the voice did not quite belong to the body it came from. No one named the change or called it a problem. But Gloria could feel that something had shifted. So she began to watch carefully. Without being told, she learned to calculate what moved things forward and what was quietly discouraged. Writing became a place where she did not have to rush or disappear. On the page, she could follow a thought all the way through. As she grew older, the pattern repeated itself in new rooms. New institutions. Each one carried the same unspoken instruction: if you want to belong, answer the way we want. Ask the right questions. At the right time. In the right tone. She learned how the system worked. The rewards and quiet consequences. And because she understood it, she learned something else. She was not powerless within it. She could comply. Or not. Joseph lived in another small town, in a very different century. He was a carpenter, shaped by the expectations of his world, until the woman he was engaged to marry was found to be pregnant. Joseph knew the law, the customs. He knew what people would assume, and what he was expected to do. Scripture tells us he was a decent man, righteous. He didn’t want to expose her to cruel public shame. So he chose what seemed like the careful path. No confrontation. He would walk away quietly. And then he had a dream. No thunder or spectacle. Just a voice in the night interrupting the decision he’d already made. “Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife.” The words didn’t remove the risk to his reputation. They invited Joseph into a larger story and left him free to decide whether to bear the cost. God placed the decision in his hands. And so, Joseph chose not to take the exit he’d planned. He bound his future to hers and stepped into a life that wouldn’t protect his standing in the community or offer easy explanations. He didn’t solve a problem. He simply chose not to walk away. Gloria and Joseph lived in vastly different worlds. Different cultures. Different centuries. And yet they shared this in common. Each of them could have stepped back and saved themselves the trouble. Stay quiet. Dismiss quietly. They knew that, in the face of power, silence is rewarded. Those are the kinds of exits people take every day – that often seem reasonable. Even logical. You may know Gloria better as bell hooks. She chose to write her name in lowercase. Why would she do that? To make the point that we are quick to argue about such trivial things and debate presentation while ignoring what is being named. In part because it unsettles us. And what she named was that force she had been living with since childhood. The force that makes silence feel necessary. But not with a complicated academic theory. She simply called it fear. Not fear as panic or weakness. Not fear as a feeling that comes and goes. Fear as a system. A force that convinces decent people to step back quietly. And then she named the only force she believed could interrupt fear’s grip. Love. That is where some who admired her sharp critique began to dismiss her as naïve. As out of touch, out of her lane. As though love were a soft answer to a hard world. But bell hooks was not sentimental about love. She was precise. She defined it clearly:
For her, love was a disciplined practice of choosing what fear tells us to avoid. Fear trains us to accept versions of love that feel safer. But she warned, if you remove any part of what she named, love will collapse into something else.
For her, love was demanding, not dominating. That is why she insisted love must be politicized. Not partisan. Political in the deepest sense. Concerned with how we order our shared life together. With who is protected. With who is dismissed quietly. With who is asked to carry the cost for others to feel safe. She said, “Love is the only force strong enough to interrupt that pattern.” And that is not just her conviction. That is what God does. That’s what stories like these are doing in Advent. God interrupting fear in the middle of it. Not waiting for everything to calm down, but God entering lives shaped by risk and hard choices and helping us refuse fear as the final word. I’m not talking about extraordinary events but ordinary people, like Joseph, deciding what to do when staying present will cost something. Maybe even everything. I’m talking about things that happen to us almost every day. The ways fear is woven into conversations we avoid. The ways fear pulls us back from relationships that protect us from getting hurt, but leave the other person exposed. The situations where keeping your mouth shut would keep things smoother for everyone. Except you. Those are the exits fear has trained us to take. They don’t look dramatic. They’re reasonable. But this is exactly where God enters the world. Not by removing the risk, but ensuring we don’t take that risk alone. And like Joseph, God asks, where am I being invited to exit quietly, and where is love asking me to stay present? Fear gives Joseph a respectable exit. He can be compassionate and still disappear. But Joseph understands Mary is already carrying the risk. Her body carries the danger. Her reputation is on the line. Her safety is uncertain. Joseph’s respectable exit would have protected him. It would have allowed him to remain righteous and untouched by scandal. But it would have left Mary to carry the full cost alone. And love refuses that arrangement. Love, as bell hooks describes it, begins with seeing clearly and ends with staying present. Using her framework:
This is what love looks like. And this is how fear is interrupted. So, our own lives, where does fear keep repeating itself, with whom? And where is love inviting us to break the pattern? This Advent, whatever way we need to hear it, that is the witness Joseph offers us. One of my favorite newer Christmas songs is written from his point of view. I am a carpenter. Not a king. Not a prophet. A man with ordinary plans, living a life that made sense until it didn’t. Again, what did he do? He made himself vulnerable. He tied his future to someone else. That, too, is Emmanuel. God with us. Emmanuel. Not God watching from a distance. Emmanuel. Not God waiting for fear to pass. But Emmanuel. God with us. Just like the carpenter who stayed. Because love does not take the easy way out.  Sermons from Mission Hills UCC San Diego, California Rev. Dr. David Bahr [email protected] December 7, 2025 “Silence Grows Courage” Luke 1: 18-20 – Common English Bible Zechariah said to the angel, “How can I be sure of this? My wife and I are very old.” 19 The angel replied, “I am Gabriel. I stand in God’s presence. I was sent to speak to you and to bring this good news to you. 20 Know this: What I have spoken will come true at the proper time. But because you didn’t believe, you will remain silent, unable to speak until the day when these things happen.” The story of Jesus begins in Luke with the phrase, “During the rule of King Herod in Judea.” Just a reminder that Jesus was not born in a fairy-tale. To be specific, Jesus was born during the reign of a particularly cruel and paranoid king. As I said last week, it was into a terrified world that Luke introduces two ordinary people, Zechariah and Elizabeth, whose youthful prayers have faded in memory. If you remember, one day while serving his duties in the inner Holiest of Holies in the Temple, the angel Gabriel intrudes on his silence. Zechariah is frightened with the kind of fear that shakes you to the core. But Gabriel quickly says: “Don’t be afraid. Your prayer has been heard.” And out of nowhere, suddenly a long-forgotten prayer is revived. His wife would conceive a child. But then, unfortunately, Zechariah opens his mouth and protests the impossibility of it – explaining that he and Elizabeth are really old. Gabriel replied, “Because you didn’t believe, you will remain silent, unable to speak until the day these things happen.” And so, when Zechariah’s prayer is finally answered, he immediately can’t say anything about it – even to Elizabeth. People often jump to the conclusion that Zechariah was obviously being punished. He should have kept his mouth shut! But I wonder. Wasn’t it very fortunate? I mean, isn’t it wonderful that his mouth was shut so all he could do is just watch his world begin to change. What a gift it is to sometimes just keep our mouths shut so we can notice what God is doing. Zechariah was long delayed by his encounter with Gabriel. When he finally emerges from the Temple, people can see in his face that something astonishing has happened to him. But he can’t say a word about it. Whereas Zechariah doubted, when Elizabeth became pregnant, she didn’t doubt at all. She declared, “This is the Lord’s doing.” She added, “God has shown favor by removing my disgrace from among other people.” You know that in that culture, people whispered about women like her. They called barrenness a sign of divine displeasure – which was never true, of course. She realizes this reality and when she conceives, celebrates liberation from a world that had underestimated her. But Elizabeth is not a pawn in someone else’s miracle. You see, she is a full partner – the one who carries the promise day by day. For which she prepared by going off by herself for 5 months. Not withdrawal, but for wisdom making. Zechariah didn’t have a choice about his silence. But Elizabeth chooses to give herself space to breathe and to wonder – and prepare. She chooses sacred silence to prepare herself for something more. It did for Zechariah and it did for Robert Graetz. During the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Rev. Robert Graetz was the one and only white pastor in the entire city who stood publicly with Dr. King and the Black community. Just twenty-eight years old, fresh out of seminary, Robert was a quiet, thoughtful Lutheran pastor serving a Black congregation. When the boycott began, he realized that his silence would only serve the people who wanted the boycott to fail. He asked himself a simple question. What does it mean to be a Christian right here, right now? He once said, “I could not preach the Gospel and look my congregation in the eyes if I stayed quiet.” So he stood with them. And the white establishment hated him for it. His house was bombed. Twice. Once in the middle of the night while his children were sleeping. He and his wife Jean would sit at their kitchen table and talk about whether it was worth it. She told him, “If we leave now, we teach our children the wrong lesson.” So they stayed and drove carpool routes. He spoke at mass meetings and signed his name to public statements. He refused to distance himself or soften his support. But never put himself in the spotlight, which is why most of us have never heard of him. Pastor Graetz said that before he ever spoke publicly, he spent weeks in silence. To listen. To pray and be sure he was acting out of faith and not out of impulse. He said that holy silence gave him courage, preparing him to speak with clarity and love. It prepared him for the work God was doing – shaping a young pastor into someone who could withstand the fire of fear. Courage like that is not only found in history. I think of librarians today in small towns and rural communities around the country standing up against book bans and those who threaten their jobs. They are being harassed, shouted at, even fired. And yet many of them refuse to stay silent because that would protect the wrong people. One librarian said, “You may fire me, but you will not make me hide knowledge from children. I am a steward of truth.” Another told her school board, “If I am silent, I am complicit.” Then she added, “I choose my voice.” These are not people with power. They are not activists with microphones. They are ordinary workers who listened, prayed, and discerned what was right, to find the courage to speak when the moment comes. And that is what holy silence does: It prepares ordinary hearts to confront extraordinary pressure. It prepares you to speak with love and conviction. It prepares you for the moment silence ends and courage meets us at the doorway. Like when Elizabeth’s cousin Mary came to visit bringing unexpected news – impossible news – of her own. But Mary didn’t even have a chance to tell her story. The moment she walks into the house, the child within Elizabeth leaps to life. Filled with the Holy Spirit, she says, “How is it that the mother of my Lord has come to visit me?” How did she know? Do you realize she is the first one to recognize the Messiah? Not a priest in the temple. Not a king in a palace. Not a prophet on a mountaintop. The first preacher of the Gospel is a woman who had been talked about behind her back for years – poor Elizabeth, cursed by God. Mary left just before Elizabeth gave birth. Neighbors and relatives came around to celebrate with her. On the 8th day they took him to be circumcised, which was also the day to name the child. The crowd wanted him to be named Zechariah – after his father. Zechariah couldn’t speak, so Elizabeth said to name him John. The relatives all looked at each other curiously. Why John? There’s no John in your family, so they gestured to Zechariah. He wrote on a tablet: his name is John. And at that exact moment, he could speak again. He began praising God. All the neighbors were filled with awe, asking, “Who will this child grow up to be?!” We’ll come back to that story another day. But my point: Zechariah was not being punished. God was giving him space so that his heart could catch up with what God is doing and learn how to trust a promise that felt impossible. He was being formed for something much more. Can we be silent long enough to listen and then brave enough to speak truth when the moment comes? Silence is sacred. But it can also be something else: Sometimes silence is cowardice. Complicity that allows injustice to grow. Being silent while people with black and brown skin fear going to church or work or court or the hospital or school, that is not the silence God asks of us. Being silent when leaders call Somali immigrants or anyone “human garbage” or when people who claim the name of Jesus call queer kids deviant or perverse, an abomination, that is not the silence God asks of us. Being silent when leaders mock the weak, excuse violence, or reward dishonesty. There is nothing sacred about that. Herod demanded that people stay quiet and ruled by fear. Every empire does. But silence is immoral when we say nothing about cruelty. Silence is dishonest when it doesn’t name lies. Silence is wrong when it shields the powerful and abandons the vulnerable. So, how do we know the difference? Silence is authentic when it clears away the noise so we can hear God again. Silence is faithful when it prepares us to be more courageous. Silence is a blessing when it gets us ready to speak truth. Now, sometimes speaking up has a cost. Sometimes talking is easier than facing the truth – using our words to shield us against vulnerability. That is why silence can feel safer, easier. But if silence only keeps us safe, it is not Advent silence. If silence only protects us, it is not Advent peace. Advent peace is never the quiet of avoidance. Advent invites us into a peace that strengthens us to be honest – not just speaking up for justice, but: Before finally admit, “I need help,” we need sacred silence. Before we finally say, “I’m sorry,” we need sacred silence. Before we tell a friend truth they don’t want to hear, but need to hear, we need sacred silence. You and I need this kind of silence to give room for the small voice inside to rise up and declare – “this is not right.” Even if it is only to yourself. And if someone tries to silence you, let it prepare you instead. Let Advent silence be the kind that grows your courage in the dark. So listen. Let the promise gestate. Let it grow. And when the time is right, your forgotten impossible prayers will rise in ways you could never expect. So, please don’t give up. Stop right now for some time in sacred silence to prepare you for something more.  Sermons from Mission Hills UCC San Diego, California Rev. Dr. David Bahr [email protected] November 30, 2025 “Not the Way We Expect” Luke 1: 5-13 – Common English Bible During the rule of King Herod of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah. His wife Elizabeth was a descendant of Aaron. 6 They were both righteous before God, blameless in their observance of all the Lord’s commandments and regulations. 7 They had no children because Elizabeth was unable to become pregnant and they both were very old. 8 One day Zechariah was serving as a priest before God because his priestly division was on duty. 9 Following the customs of priestly service, he was chosen by lottery to go into the Lord’s sanctuary and burn incense. 10 All the people who gathered to worship were praying outside during this hour of incense offering. 11 An angel from the Lord appeared to him, standing to the right of the altar of incense. 12 When Zechariah saw the angel, he was startled and overcome with fear. 13 The angel said, “Don’t be afraid, Zechariah. Your prayers have been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will give birth to your son and you must name him John. “During the rule of King Herod in Judea.” Luke begins with this simple line to place the birth of Jesus inside a real world. Not a peaceful backdrop, but a time of survival for people living under the repressive Roman empire. Herod was Jewish but was installed by Rome – a reminder that empire sometimes works through insiders who will maintain oppression to secure their own power. And as scholar Obery M. Hendricks writes, “The only way he could continue to rule was by continually currying Roman favor by funneling as much wealth to Rome as possible through the callous economic exploitation and homicidal repression of his own people for his own gain.” This was the world of Jesus’ birth. “During the rule of King Herod in Judea” is not a random historical detail. Luke is telling us to not romanticize the story. It is a deliberate way to describe the nightmare people were living through – and therefore invites us to enter the world of Jesus. A world loud with threats. A world where hope felt fragile. A story that begins with two ordinary people living quiet, faithful lives and a prayer they left behind long ago. Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous, scripture says, which simply means the kind of people who did what was right even when no one was watching. And Luke makes a point of saying they were old. Old enough that the prayers of their youth were distant memories – hopes that had faded not in bitterness, but in quiet acceptance. Old enough to stop expecting God to begin anything new. And then Zechariah hit the lottery. Not a wad of cash but a once in a lifetime experience. Zechariah was a priest, not because he felt a special calling, but because it was the family business. Every son in the line of Levi became a priest. There were thousands of them divided into groups and twice a year each group served at the Temple. But entering the inner holiest of holies to burn incense was something a priest might do only once in a lifetime. They were chosen by lot, like drawing the shortest stick, and that day, finally, Zechariah’s name was called. You can imagine the mix of joy and reverence he felt the moment he entered. He expected to be alone with his thoughts and his prayers. He expected silence. Instead he was met by an intruder. He expected ritual but received an unexpected visit that upended the life he’d settled into – or settled for. He looked up and Gabriel stood beside him. Zechariah wasn’t just startled. He was afraid. And Luke uses a strong word to describe it: Tarassó – the kind of fear that shakes you to the core. The first words Gabriel spoke were “Do not be afraid.” And then added, “Your prayer has been heard.” He had to think. What prayer? What had he been praying for lately? Peace – yes. An end to Herod’s cruelty – absolutely. Someone to overthrow this repressive regime and let the people breathe again? Yes, although he certainly hadn’t prayed that one out loud. But Gabriel named a long-buried prayer left behind. Something he had forgotten he once prayed. “Your wife Elizabeth will bear a son.” He asked politely, “How can I be sure of this.” and explained, “My wife and I are obviously very old.” This is how Luke’s story begins. During the tyrannical rule of the paranoid King Herod, the angel declared, your prayer has been heard. And set in motion all the other prayers he carried. His prayer for peace. His prayer for an end to all oppression. Just not the way anyone would ever expect. Scripture is never just ancient history. People still face Herodian systems that want them silent and afraid. How we respond to those systems in ways they don’t expect makes me think of the story of Prathia Hall. She was born in Philadelphia in 1940. People often imagine the North as more open, more tolerant, more fair. But she grew up knowing that racism was not a Southern problem. It was an American problem. Her family faced restrictions on where they could live. Her schools were technically integrated, but the opportunities were not equal. Better books and safer buildings were found in other neighborhoods. She learned Philadelphia had a southern accent too. Her father was a Baptist preacher and her mother was a schoolteacher. Their example shaped her. They taught her that every person has worth – that she has worth. They taught her that faith must be lived, not just believed. And so, barely 20 years old, she joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and went south to become a field secretary. That meant she went into some of the most dangerous rural counties to help register Black voters. She walked roads where people were threatened and sat at kitchen tables listening to the fears of families. She believed their voices mattered. She was soft-spoken and young in a movement often dominated by assertive men. But she was rooted. She prayed often. She relied on Scripture and understood nonviolence not just as a strategy but as a way of life. In 1962, in Southwest Georgia where she was stationed, a church that hosted voter registration meetings was burned down by white supremacists. The next day gathering by the ruins, people were afraid which, of course, was the point. Fear is what those who burn churches down want. But Prathia did what they didn’t expect. With the ground still covered in smoldering ash under charred rafters, she stepped forward and in her soft voice prayed, “I have a dream.” A year before the famous speech in Washington. Prathia spoke quietly with defiant words. She prayed for the world she believed God wanted. Peace, an end to cruelty, and an end to the repression of Herod wanna-bes. Some say Dr. King carried her prayer and her words with him to the Lincoln Memorial. But what matters most is what she did in that moment. Whatever fear she must have felt, Prathia stepped forward. Her courage helps us see what Advent is really asking of us. Will fear stop us, or will we stand in the ashes and pray for a world on earth as it is in heaven. Luke used the word Tarasso – a deep, life-shattering fear. The kind that shakes a person to the core. But Jesus also speaks of another kind of fear in John’s Gospel when he says, “Let not your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid.” Here he uses the word deiliaó. Deiliaó means a shrinking of the heart, the kind of fear that diminishes courage and keeps us small. For example: • The fear that keeps someone from asking for help because they do not want to be a burden. • The kind of fear that keeps us from trying again because it is safer not to hope at all. Advent hope meets us in both kinds of fear – the kind of fear that tries to shrink us and the kind of fear that shakes us to the core. For example: • The fear that hits when the doctor calls and says, “We need to talk.” This is not abstract.
And so, enter Advent hope. And what is that? In her book Hope: A User’s Manual, MaryAnn McKibben Dana writes that hope is not pretending everything is fine.
We do not live under anything as depraved as Rome, but we do understand the feeling of watching helplessly in the face of leaders who think cruelty is strategy. We understand what it is to carry hope on a thin string. And so, be encouraged that the story of Jesus didn’t begin, “Once upon a time in the quaint village of Nazareth, a mom and a dad who very much loved each other had a baby boy who changed the course of human history.” Advent arrives in the midst of our King Herod sized fears. Zechariah was afraid. His whole life had taught him to expect disappointment, to lower his hopes, to pray smaller prayers. Yet his fear was not a failure. It was the doorway. The beginning of a transformation he did not see coming, for him and Elizabeth, for the world, and for us even now. Because the question is not how we eliminate fear. The question is what God can awaken in us, breaking into the prayers we barely remember praying, the ones we buried in our past, and invites us to name our fear honestly and still leave room for hope that arrives in ways we do not expect. Through prayers spoken in the ashes, with neighbors standing together, with unexpected courage rising in ordinary people, with a whisper in the dark that says: Do not be afraid. I hear your prayer. Now watch your world change.  Sermons from Mission Hills UCC San Diego, California Rev. Dr. David Bahr [email protected] November 23, 2025 “Dream God’s Dream” Luke 24: 28-32 – Common English Bible They came to the edge of the village where they were headed. He acted as if he were going on but they pressed him: “Stay and have supper with us. It’s nearly evening; the day is done.” So he went in with them. And here is what happened: He sat down at the table with them. Taking the bread, he blessed and broke and gave it to them. At that moment, open-eyed, wide-eyed, they recognized him. And then he disappeared. Back and forth they talked. “Didn’t we feel on fire as he conversed with us on the road, as he opened up the Scriptures for us?” On the same day that Jesus was raised from the dead, two of his followers were walking toward the village of Emmaus. They were deep in conversation, going over everything that had happened in the last few days. It was the kind of conversation you have when your world has collapsed and you don’t know what comes next. While they walked, a stranger came up alongside them and asked, “What are you discussing so intently?” They stopped in their tracks and stared at him. “Are you the only person in Jerusalem who’s not heard what happened these last few days?” “What happened?” So they told him about Jesus of Nazareth. “He was a prophet, blessed by God and blessed by the people. We had hoped he was the one who would deliver Israel. But our high priests and leaders handed him over to be sentenced and on Friday Rome crucified him. He was buried in a tomb. But early this morning some of the women in our group went to the tomb and couldn’t find his body. They came back saying angels told them he was alive. Some of our friends ran to see for themselves and found the tomb empty, just as the women had said.” The traveler listened and asked, “So why are you so sad? Why is it so difficult to believe the women?” Then he began opening the scriptures for them, from the Books of Moses and all the way through the Prophets. He showed them everything that pointed to him. “Do you not see that the Messiah had to suffer, and only then enter glory?” As they reached the edge of the village, the traveler started to continue down the road. They urged him, “It’s almost evening. Stay and have supper with us.” So he did – and here’s what happened at the table. He took the bread and blessed it. He broke it and gave it to them. In that instant their eyes were opened wide and they recognized him. It was Jesus! And then he vanished from their sight. They jumped up and raced back to Jerusalem. Breathless, they said to each other with excitement, “Were not our hearts on fire while he talked with us on the road?” The disciples had left Jerusalem full of grief and fear. They were not only mourning Jesus, they were worried they might be next. But isn’t that where God meets people? Not when we feel strong and confident, but when we don’t know what to do next. When we don’t know how we can carry on. It’s then that God comes alongside us on the road we are already walking. Until suddenly we see God present in the grief and fear – sometimes revealed in supernatural ways, and sometimes ways that are quite ordinary. A little boy packed a lunch and walked to a park by himself – at least four blocks beyond where he had ever gone alone before. It was the day after his grandmother died. For this extra-long trip, he packed a larger than usual lunch – four packs of Twinkies and two cans of root beer. He took a seat on a bench where an older woman was already sitting. Together, they watched the pigeons. After a while, he was hungry and took out a pack of Twinkies. As he was eating, he glanced over at the woman and offered her one. She accepted it gratefully and gave him a big smile. He thought she had the most beautiful smile in the world and wanted to see it again, so he offered her a can of root beer. She gave him the most beautiful smile he had ever seen. For a long while, the two of them simply sat together on that park bench eating Twinkies, sipping root beer, and watching the pigeons. Neither said a word. Finally, the boy realized it was getting late and he should be on his way home. He took a few steps and then turned back and gave the woman a big hug. Her smile was bigger and brighter than ever. His mother had started to worry, so she was relieved to see him walk back in the house. She also noticed his mood had changed. “What’d you do today?” she asked. “Oh, I had lunch in the park with God. And you know what? She has the most beautiful smile in the world!” Meanwhile the woman arrived back home – or rather, at her son’s home. Her husband died recently and she had moved in with him and his family. It was the first time in a long time that her son had seen her smile. He asked, “What’d you do today, mom?” “Oh, I ate Twinkies and drank root beer in the park with God. And you know what? God’s a lot younger than I ever imagined.” Like those two new friends on a park bench, the two disciples on a road leaving Jerusalem were grieving – worried what would come next for them. But in fact, that is where God meets people. Right when our hopes have been dashed and we doubt anything will ever be OK again. It’s then that God comes alongside us on the road we are already walking. Edward Hays, in his book Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim, imagines another way the Emmaus story might have unfolded. The disciples fled Jerusalem and at sunset stopped at a small inn on the edge of Emmaus for something to eat. They slipped quietly into a dark corner and kept their heads down. They spoke in low voices about the death of their Teacher and how they had hoped he would liberate their people. A Greek servant woman came to their table and poured wine into their cups. She said, “Why are you so sad? You look like men who’ve lost a dear friend.” Peter answered sharply, “We have. But that is no concern of yours. Do your work.” “Sir, I too know the pain of a broken heart. I know what it’s like to lose someone you love. But death is not the end of love.” Then, she lifted one of the wine cups and, to their surprise, she blessed it. And to their astonishment, she added, “Take and drink…” John jumped up. “Rabbi!” And at once the woman disappeared from their sight and they ran back to Jerusalem to tell the others. Their story was not over but was still being written in that very moment. Their uncertainty about what comes next is where our own story meets theirs. In hopes dashed, in our losses. And today I am thinking how it seems like every day there are more stories magnifying fears that Christianity is crumbling in America – for lots of reasons and seemingly no reason at all. We are indeed living in a time when the landscape of the church is shifting under our feet. The old structures are falling away. The assumptions we once relied upon no longer hold. And in the midst of that, God asks us not to manifest those fears but trust that the Spirit is still being poured out. God asks us to dream with courage, promising as the prophet Joel said: “And after that I will pour out my spirit upon everyone. Your sons and your daughters will prophesy. Your old will dream dreams. Your young will see visions. Even on the male and female servants, I will pour out my spirit in those days.” It is to those dreams and visions that stewardship is how we say yes with our whole lives. God invites us to dream with imagination.
It is courage for a church that is becoming. It is trust that God walks with us through grief and fear and invites us to share astonishment at what is being revealed and what is still to come. We are grateful for our ancestors in faith and carry their legacy forward. But we honor the past by not enshrining it. Our call is to dream God’s future for the church – who simply asks for our hearts, our hope, and our willingness to walk the road together. When you make a pledge to the church it is a spiritual act: • Because instead of despair, you are choosing hope. • Because instead of fear, you are choosing generosity. • Because when so many choose cynicism, you are choosing courage. • And because in a world that is wounded, you are planting seeds of healing. That is a dream worth pursuing because you are helping build a world that looks more like the heart of God. And yes, stewardship pays the bills. • It supports our excellent staff. • It cares for our beautiful sanctuary. • It makes possible inspiring music and worship. • It builds meaningful ministries for children, youth, families, seniors and all generations together. It literally feeds people. But stewardship is more than that: • Your giving makes ministry come alive by surrounding people with love at life’s hardest moments. • Your giving makes ministry come alive by showing everyone who has been hurt by religion that there is a vibrant spiritual home for them. • Your giving makes ministry come to life by keeping faith alive in the next generation so that our young people inherit a church that is brave, bold, and beautiful. For them to keep writing our story. The Emmaus road is not behind us. It is the path we walk now. Dreaming God’s dream together – a story still unwritten.  Sermons from Mission Hills UCC San Diego, California Rev. Dr. David Bahr [email protected] November 16, 2025 “It Becomes Enough” 2nd Kings 4: 42-44 – Common English Bible A man came from Baal-shalishah, bringing the man of God some bread from the early produce—twenty loaves of barley bread and fresh grain from his bag.[a] Elisha said, “Give it to the people so they can eat.” 43 His servant said, “How can I feed one hundred men with this?” Elisha said, “Give it to the people so they can eat! This is what the Lord says: ‘Eat and there will be leftovers.’” 44 So the servant gave the food to them. They ate and had leftovers, in agreement with the Lord’s word. A man brought Elisha twenty loaves of barley bread made from the first harvest. This means he is not giving Elisha some leftovers, as if to say, “here, I made too much.” Religious devotion meant giving the first part of the crop, the best part, to God. But note, he used barley, which doesn’t mean he was gluten-free. It means he was poor, because wheat was for the wealthy. Barley does not rise well, so they’re pretty dense, about the size of a pita – not big bakery-sized loaves. Barley was for those who lived close to the edge – the everyday bread of ordinary people. Twenty of those could feed a large family for a day, not a crowd. But though he brought it to Elisha to feed his group of prophets, Elisha directs his servant to feed not just the prophets but the people. His servant objects and says, “This isn’t enough to feed a hundred men.” Traditionally we read this as doubt, as if he lacked imagination and doubted it could feed that many, but in the very next story this same servant deceives Naaman in order to take silver and riches and hide it all for himself. So his protest may not have been skepticism at all, but “Why are you giving away what was meant for us, meant for me.” It was in the middle of a famine. Families were scraping by on whatever could be found. It may have been the man’s obligation, but this man’s offering was truly holy because bread becomes sacred when it is shared – almost sacramental. And then, what does the story say? Everyone ate, and there were even leftovers. The echoes of Jesus feeding thousands couldn’t be more obvious. In fact, in the Gospel of John, the boy offers five barley loaves and two fish, which means, his family likely needed that food for themselves. But once again, everyone ate, plus leftovers. Elisha shared it with the community. And because God is God, it became enough. It reminds me of a story I learned while travelling in Sri Lanka. In the ancient city of Anuradhapura, there is a great stupa that once stood among the largest structures in the world. A guide told me the story that during a terrible famine almost two thousand years ago, the people continued their sacred practice of feeding the monks before feeding themselves. Even today, Buddhist monks walk through the neighborhoods with their alms bowls, receiving whatever is given, and that becomes their only food for the day. But during that famine, as the people kept feeding the monks, the monks saw families left starving. So they quietly disappeared into the forest and the caves so the people would stop giving food to them and feed their children instead. Hundreds of those monks in hiding starved to death. They are buried around that massive stupa as a witness that they chose the wellbeing of hungry families over their own survival. And while nowhere near that dramatic, I have witnessed smaller versions of that kind of generosity throughout my ministry. Many of you don’t know that I was once a minor celebrity in Cleveland. To be clear, “minor” is to compare a crumb of hamburger to a filet mignon, but I was on TV, every year for fourteen years, when I was “held hostage” in our church steeple to collect for our annual food drive. We used the publicity to draw attention. I would only come down after the ten long steps of our church were full of food. We asked people to drop off donations to fill our pantry as school was getting out for the summer, a time when many children lose access to school meals. Every year, every news station in town covered the story of my twenty-four hours in an open-air steeple eighty-five feet in the air – sometimes live, including questions on live TV about how I went to the bathroom. It’s also how I first saw my husband. He was one of those reporters and asked me if I was cold up there. Our first year, after the ten o’clock news segment, a man drove up in a van that looked as if it were held together with duct tape. He pulled out case after case of food and told our volunteers that he had been helped by a food pantry and wanted to give back. He gave what he likely still could not spare. We were a small inner-city church surrounded by poverty. Like him, many of the people who brought food or dropped coins in the bucket could have used the very things we collected. But little by little, year after year, it became more than any of us could have imagined – and always lasted through the summer. Because God is God, it became enough. One last detail, over the years we collected more than six tons of food and fifty thousand dollars in cash. In the story of Elisha, there is one last detail that matters. The man who brings this offering of barley bread comes from Baal-shalishah (ba-ALL sha-LEE-shah). Baal was the name of the god of Queen Jezebel. And way back at the beginning of this series, you may remember that Elijah called her prophets to a contest. Whose god could call down fire? After trying all day, the prophets of Baal could only limp with exhaustion, but Elijah’s God burned not only the sacrifice drowned in water, it consumed even the stones and dust around it. Elijah’s successor, Elisha, could not have been more different. He didn’t call fire from heaven through spectacle. He practiced small things that directly met the people’s needs. In his miracles, he healed poisoned water so a town could drink. He provided for a widow so her children wouldn’t be taken as slaves for a debt. He restored a child’s life. He fed hungry people with whatever someone could place in his hands. He was a prophet of ordinary mercy rather than spectacle. From there, we moved through the prophets, all the way from Amos to Zechariah. Every one of them confronted a people who confused religious performance with justice. Their warnings came true as the nation was dragged into exile. This leads to the final books of the Hebrew Scriptures that hold the tension of a people who returned and rebuilt yet still longed for the world God promised. We now step into the Christian Testament, but before we do, we need to be clear. Christians have often spoken as if Jesus replaced the prophets or as if Christianity replaces Judaism. That is called supersessionism. It dangerously minimizes the Jewish faith and has been used to justify terrible violence. But when we speak of Jesus, we are not saying God started something new because something old failed. We are saying Jesus stands inside that story. He does not cancel or replace it. He carried its hope forward. After spending the summer and fall studying the prophets, our series now concludes. I hope the prophets better help us understand Jesus. It’s important to know who and what shaped his life. And as his followers, that matters. Just as the prophets before him, Jesus confronts the misuse of religion in ways that mirror our world today: • The prophets call out the sacrilege of leaders who twist scripture to justify cruelty. • They reveal the profanity of religious performance that protects the privilege of the already powerful and enriches those who are already obscenely rich. • They expose the blasphemy of Christian nationalism that wraps flags and religious language around fear, blesses violence and terror, and of the suffering of the poor who lack health care and food, claims a divine mandate. But if this series has taught us anything, it’s that prophets don’t only name the truth: • They inspire a hope that speaks deep into despair and doesn’t pretend everything is OK. • And even while standing in piles of rubble, they shout that God is still here. • They insist that new life will rise from the ashes. • They persevere through their own genuine despair. • And for all that, they are our moral imagination. Because imagine this: God heals what is broken through the multiplying of small, brave acts by ordinary people. That’s it. God heals what is broken through the multiplying of small, brave acts by ordinary people. Not through spectacle, but as the feeding stories of both Elisha and Jesus show, through the simplest truth: generosity becomes abundance. That is the fuel for our prophetic imagination. And what a gift it is that we get to practice this together because Mission Hills UCC is not just a place we go. We’re called to: • Inspire hope when so many are struggling to hold on to it. Ourselves included. • We get to shout that God loves each person as they are. • And insist that mercy and truth are always the right response. • To persevere together in the long, faithful work of justice
Which raises the question: as we conclude our stewardship season next week, what are the barley loaves in your hands, meaning, what everyday gift that you think is not enough to matter will become enough – the moment you share it? This is how God works. Ordinary people. Open hands. And because God is God, it becomes enough.  Sermons from Mission Hills UCC San Diego, California Rev. Dr. David Bahr [email protected] November 9, 2025 “But First, Celebrate” Habakkuk – selected verses - see below – Common English Bible • God, how long do I have to keep asking for help and it feels like nothing happens? • Why do you make me watch all this pain and destruction? • How many times do I have to scream, “This is violence!” and still nothing stops? • Bullies surround us and justice is warped. • Your ways do not seem to work because justice never lasts. God, how long? How many times throughout history have these questions been asked and these cries been shouted, begging for a real answer? How many times have you asked them yourself? Not just about the world today, but about all the hard things happening inside our own personal lives right now. Finances. Health. Family dynamics that exhaust us. God, how long do I have to keep asking for help and it feels like nothing happens? There may not be a more human prayer. Habakkuk demands action. He tells God, “I am going to climb up on the walls of the fortress and watch to see if you act.” He stands there shaking his fist. “Are you going to respond to my complaint?” And God does respond. God tells Habakkuk there is a vision. But before Habakkuk can ask what it is, God turns the question back on him. That’s the danger of asking God such questions. What are you going to do about it? No. What are you going to do? God said, “There is a vision. Write it out. Make it big enough and plain enough that someone running by can see it and understand.” Habakkuk is a minor prophet, and for most people he is quite obscure, but I’m betting you have heard some of his lines before. “Write the vision” gets used all the time for capital campaigns and stewardship. But beyond that, I’ve actually preached on Habakkuk a number of times. For example, in 2004, my sermon focused on the verses in chapter 3: Though the fig tree does not bloom, and there is no produce on the vine; still, I will rejoice in the Lord. The Lord God is my strength. My message was that when everything in your life feels like it is falling apart, God is still with you. It was Habakkuk as comfort. A gentle hand on the shoulder. If I lose everything else, God will still be with me because God is my strength and that means I will make it through. The next time I preached on Habakkuk it was in 2008, and the economy had just collapsed. Remember the neighborhoods filled with foreclosure signs and families in food bank lines. That year Habakkuk was not just internal comfort, but a moral critique. The fig tree became Wall Street. The empty stalls became shuttered factories. This was a public crisis as well as a private one. I preached from Habakkuk again after I traveled to El Salvador in 2009. I went with a group from my seminary for the 30th anniversary of Archbishop Oscar Romero’s assassination by the right-wing government, an attempt to silence their critics. While there, we were asked to visit a small mountain village whose drinking water and farmland were being threatened by a Canadian gold mining company. For what possible reason could they want seminarians and clergy to go there I didn’t understand, until they explained the simple act of our showing up meant the world was watching. As Americans, we had a power we didn’t want to acknowledge. And that was my Habakkuk chapter 2 moment. Faith is not waiting for God to fix things. Faith is taking whatever power you have and using it toward life. The next occasion was 2018 – just after Charlottesville. One verse from chapter 1 cried out from scripture: “Some people’s desires are truly audacious; they do not do the right thing. But the righteous person will live honestly.” Remember the white supremacists in streets with their tiki torches screaming “You will not replace us.” Into those streets clergy marched singing “This Little Light of Mine.” It was Habakkuk live streamed. Violence. Outrage. The world drowning in fury. Those clergy expressing moral outrage but through singing because they refused to let hatred decide who they would become. They – and all of us – need both outrage and something more than outrage, something deeper, if we are going to keep breathing. But singing This Little Light of Mine in Charlottesville was actually carrying on the tradition of people who sang it through the civil rights movement – people like Fannie Lou Hamer. Fannie attended a mass meeting in 1962 and heard someone say that as a United States citizen she had the right to vote. She said it felt like a religious awakening, like the Holy Spirit had set her bones on fire. So she went to register. But not only was she not allowed. The very same day she tried, the owner of the plantation in Mississippi – where her family had been trapped in the sharecropping system for generations – threw her off the land. Which meant her family was forced out of their home that very night. As she drove away, Fannie was ambushed and shot at. When she kept going anyway, she was arrested and beaten in jail so savagely that she never fully recovered physically. But, although she couldn’t yet vote, the thing they could not take from her was her newfound conviction that she mattered. That her people’s lives mattered. And that God was on the side of the oppressed. So she carried on and wherever she went, that song went with her. “This Little Light of Mine” became a weapon of dignity in the face of white supremacist terror. It echoed in jail cells, on buses, and in the streets – not as comfort, but as survival. As joyful resistance. As a way of teaching herself and her people how to stay human in a world determined to break them. Fannie once said, “To tell the truth today is to run the risk of being killed. But if I fall, I will fall five feet four inches forward in the fight for freedom.” She named the terror. She endured the terror. But refused to surrender her humanity to the terror. Fannie Lou Hamer was Habakkuk’s vision walking around in a cotton dress and a pair of church shoes. Habakkuk began with the cry: “How long must I watch terror and injustice and you do nothing about it?” Was this his sorrowful lament? Was he outraged? Was he confused? Because his complaint was not unbelief. His complaint was disbelief that God would allow injustice to keep winning. Habakkuk’s book is not naïve. He describes two visions, two realities, contending for the same future. There was Babylon’s vision: • power used to dominate • truth bent into propaganda • fear weaponized as strategy • the poor crushed to enrich the powerful That was Babylon. And then there was God’s vision: • power used to restore life • truth that is actually true • fear disarmed by mercy • those at the bottom raised to the front of the line You understand, of course, that Babylon still exists. Not as a country but as a mindset – an “audacious desire.” The kind about which God wants Habakkuk to write a vision so large that even someone running by can see it. So, what goes on the sign? “Tell the truth.” “Protect the vulnerable, not yourself.” Maybe “Love one another” says it all. But does that say enough? We might use “love one another” to avoid conflict. To stay safe, out of the mess. But love that stays safe while the vulnerable are harmed is not love, not the love God is talking about. So when these visions collide and call us to step up, we may be tempted instead to step back, to stay neutral. But neutrality never protects the vulnerable. Avoiding conflict to stay neutral protects the powerful. The good news is we aren’t called to fight with force, fury, or hate. And we cannot win through cruelty or fear. The work is not domination. The work is faithful courage practiced in love. Only with righteous love. But, here is where Habakkuk takes an imaginative turn. He reassures: liberation will come. But do not wait to rejoice until after everything is fixed.
That’s the often-impossible vision written larger than life. The impossible and sometimes dangerous imagination of the prophets. Celebrate our God who liberates, who restores and heals. Rejoice! But not after things are set right and the healing comes.
Right here. Right now. In our moments of crisis. In this country today. That is Habakkuk 2025. TEXT FOR TODAY: In chapter 1, the prophet complains 2 Lord, how long will I call for help and you not listen? I cry out to you, “Violence!” but you don’t deliver us. 3 Why do you show me injustice and look at anguish so that devastation and violence are before me? There is strife, and conflict abounds. 4 The Instruction is ineffective. Justice does not endure because the wicked surround the righteous. Justice becomes warped. In chapter 2, he then declares: 2 I will take my post; I will position myself on the fortress. I will keep watch to see what [you] say to me and how [you] will respond to my complaint. God replied: Write a vision, and make it plain upon a tablet Big enough so that a runner passing by can read it. 3 There is still a vision for the appointed time; it testifies to the end; it does not deceive. If it delays, wait for it; for it is surely coming; it will not be late. 4 Some people’s desires are truly audacious; they don’t do the right thing. But the righteous person will live honestly. In chapter 3, the prophet encourages: 17 Though the fig tree doesn’t bloom, and there’s no produce on the vine; though the olive crop withers, and the fields don’t provide food; though the sheep are cut off from the pen, and there are no cattle in the stalls; 18 I will rejoice in the Lord. I will rejoice in the God of my deliverance. 19 The Lord God is my strength.  Sermons from Mission Hills UCC San Diego, California Rev. Dr. David Bahr [email protected] November 2, 2025 “Love Does Not Run Away” Zechariah 8: 3-8 – Common English Bible The Lord proclaims: I have returned to Zion; I will settle in Jerusalem. Jerusalem will be called the city of truth; the mountain of the Lord of heavenly forces will be the holy mountain. 4 The Lord of heavenly forces proclaims: Old men and old women will again dwell in the plazas of Jerusalem. Each of them will have a staff in their hand because of their great age. 5 The city will be full of boys and girls playing in its plazas. 6 The Lord of heavenly forces proclaims: Even though it may seem to be a miracle for the few remaining among this people in these days, should it seem to be a miracle for me? says the Lord of heavenly forces. 7 The Lord of heavenly forces proclaims: I’m about to deliver my people from the land of the east and the land of the west. 8 I’ll bring them back so they will dwell in Jerusalem. They will be my people, and I will be their God—in truth and in righteousness. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was born in Monrovia, Liberia, a country formed in the 1800s by formerly enslaved people sent from the United States to Africa. Tragically, having survived unthinkable brutality, they built a nation that repeated some of the same patterns of dominance. A small Americo-Liberian elite of the formerly-enslaved came to rule over the Indigenous majority, setting the stage for generations of conflict into which Ellen would step. Her father was the first Liberian of Indigenous descent elected to the national legislature. Her mother was a Methodist pastor who taught her that faith was not a performance but a responsibility. Faith is what we do for people. Her home life was complex, marked by privilege, pain, and possibility. Ellen married at seventeen, but when the marriage became violent, she made the difficult decision to leave to protect herself and her four sons. She went back to school and studied economics and public policy. She learned how nations rise and how they collapse. She learned what corruption does to people and how poverty is manufactured by greed. Armed with that knowledge, she decided to speak out against the military dictatorship of Samuel Doe. She was arrested. When that did not silence her, she was arrested again and threatened with execution. She survived only because of international pressure. She fled into exile, first to Kenya, then to the United States. Life was stable and safe there, but exile could not satisfy a conscience shaped by responsibility. Methodist churches abroad helped her stay rooted in her faith. From a distance she watched Liberia fall into civil war and knew she had to return, leaving comfort behind. After the first civil war, she returned to ruins: 250,000 dead, 1 million displaced, and among the worst atrocities, 20,000 children had been forced into becoming soldiers. Many who fled chose never to go back, but she did. She believed her nation could be repaired and later became the first democratically elected female president in the history of Africa. For her leadership she received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011. Hers is not a story of triumph alone. It is a model of strength and moral courage shaped by faith, because faith had taught her that love does not run away from those who suffer. Her story has echoes of Zechariah. He was born in exile, far from Jerusalem, among a people forced from their land by Babylonian armies that completely destroyed the city. But by the time he was born, exile had become normal. People had built houses and vineyards. Some even found comfort there. So when the chance came to return home, not everyone wanted to go. Zechariah’s family chose differently. They were from a priestly line and believed their calling still belonged in Jerusalem, even if Jerusalem no longer looked like home. What they found when they arrived was the Temple in a heap of broken stones. The economy had collapsed and those who had stayed through famine and fear felt forgotten by those returning from Babylon who carried means and influence. Suspicion grew between them. When things became too hard, many went back to Babylon. But Zechariah stayed because he believed God still had a future for the people. And yet, the future does not build itself. Zechariah gave people a vision they could hold as plainly as day: a time when the elderly would sit safely in the streets and children would play without fear. That is how he defined a healed society. Not by wealth, power, or religious observance. A society not only measured by the safety, but by joy in living. This is where Zechariah’s story meets ours as I hear more and more people asking if they should give up and leave the country – somewhere else to raise our children, a place to enjoy growing old. I sympathize with that feeling. It is heartbreaking to watch people feel the need to harden their hearts in order to survive their breaking hearts. But the story of faith has never been an escape story. God does not call people to abandon the world, but to love it. Empire will always manufacture distractions to hide greed and corruption. And there will always be a place that looks like a greener pasture. But are we called to pursue comfort? Are we called to escape? No. We are called to faithfulness. Faithfulness looks like stubborn love – daily decisions to live by what is right, even when no one notices. For example, earlier this year, a local paper ran a story about two neighbors who had barely spoken since 2020. Carol lived alone in a white farmhouse with a small rainbow flag in the window. Across the road, Ron flew a red “MAGA” flag on his porch. They kept their distance. Then one morning, heavy rain turned their road into a river. As water began to seep into her basement, Carol looked up and saw Ron crossing the road in his work boots, carrying a shovel. He didn’t knock. He just started digging a trench to divert the water from her house, then asked to come inside to help her move boxes to higher ground. When she thanked him, he brushed it off. “You’d have done the same for me,” he said. And something changed that day. The next day, he waved when he drove past. Later, she left a plate of cookies on his porch. As the paper reported, “They still disagree about nearly everything, but they stopped pretending they’re not neighbors.” Actions like these may seem microscopically small in the face of enormous powers, but small matters. Small does not mean meaningless. That’s what the exiles needed to hear when they returned to Jerusalem and began to rebuild the Temple. The foundation they laid looked so small, so plain, so unimpressive that some of the elders who remembered the old sanctuary from childhood wept when they saw it. This was not the future they dreamed of. They mistook small for failure. That same ache of doing good work that feels too small to matter runs through our nation now as we watch the government shutdown drag on. It is painful to see families and children stand in long lines at food banks, while wrecking balls prepare the ground for a gleaming new gold-plated ballroom. While park rangers, air-traffic controllers, and food inspectors labor unpaid to keep others safe, ICE is handing out signing bonuses. The empire never stops funding its fear, rewarding detention centers but not senior centers. You heard Zechariah use the image of elders in the streets and children at play to measure a people’s health. But in our streets today, the old wonder what to do when their Medicaid shrinks, while the young practice active shooter drills that steal their recess time. By that measure, we are failing. But while feeling despair about it is honest, it is a strategy of injustice. When people give up, nothing changes. When people stay silent, cruelty wins by default. So hear me. Small work matters. Showing up matters. Feeding people matters. Every act of stubborn love and whispered prayer, is a declaration of hope. Into that moment the prophet Zechariah gives a direct word from God: “Do not despise the day of small beginnings.” Small things are a sign that God is present. In September, we started our lunch and activity program for seniors every Wednesday. Our first day, we prepared for 40 guests and worried what we would do if we ran out of food. Far fewer than that showed up. We felt discouraged but knew we had work to do to invite more, yet little changed for weeks and I started imagining how to give up gracefully – let it go as a good experiment. Perhaps wondering if it was worth their time, the volunteers remained committed and then I witnesses a shift – the one I had dreamed of. There is a sizeable Chinese community at Green Manor that exists separately from others in our neighborhood. I wanted to bridge the gap of residents at Green Manor, our church, and our neighborhood and I watched it happen organically as participants and volunteers made arts and crafts together, proudly showing off their creations to each other. the next week they came with smiles greeting one another. More community members joined in – and last week we had a total of 24 guests and volunteers. A man was asked if they serve any food at Green Manor. He said, no but with a big smile, “I get to come here every Wednesday!” Small things matter! We are not the first people to wrestle with discouragement. On All Saints Day, we honor those whose faith was not proven by how loudly they believed but by how deeply they loved. Not to be perfect, but to be faithful. Not to run from the world, but to help repair it. Because love does not run away. For example, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was not a saint in the sentimental way people sometimes imagine saints. She was not a perfect leader. Her story included some questionable choices and painful consequences – which is precisely why her life matters so much. She did not return to Liberia for triumph. She returned out of responsibility, shaped by a faith that taught her leadership is service. And now at age 86, she is still serving the world. How did she keep going in the face of such enormous need? Raised in the church, she spoke of prayer and purpose and trust that God does not call people away from struggle, but through it. And so, like Zechariah, she did not leave when hope was slow. And sustained by God’s love, she gave witness that God has never run away from us. No, the love of God entered history and refused to leave it.
So, when the world turns hard, we will stay human. When fear tempts us to flee, we will stay and do the work of love. Because love does not run away.  Sermons from Mission Hills UCC San Diego, California Rev. Dr. David Bahr [email protected] October 26, 2025 “A House of Prayer for All People” Isaiah 56: 1-8 – Common English Bible The Lord says: Act justly and do what is righteous, because my salvation is coming soon, and my righteousness will be revealed. 2 Happy is the one who does this, the person who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath, not making it impure, and avoids doing any evil. 3 Don’t let the immigrant who has joined with the Lord say, “The Lord will exclude me from the people.” And don’t let the eunuch say, “I’m just a dry tree.” 4 The Lord says: To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, choose what I desire, and remain loyal to my covenant. 5 In my temple and courts, I will give them a monument and a name better than sons and daughters. I will give to them an enduring name that won’t be removed. 6 The immigrants who have joined me,[a] serving me and loving my name,[b] becoming my servants,[c] everyone who keeps the Sabbath without making it impure, and those who hold fast to my covenant: 7 I will bring them to my holy mountain, and bring them joy in my house of prayer. I will accept their entirely burned offerings and sacrifices on my altar. My house will be known as a house of prayer for all peoples, 8 says the Lord God, who gathers Israel’s outcasts. I will gather still others to those I have already gathered. About two years ago I was contacted by staff at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility, asking if I would meet with a group of gay and trans inmates looking for a pastor who would not condemn them. That was the beginning of a relationship that has continued to this day. I have a special affection for many of them, so it was heartbreaking when a couple approached me with news since the last time I had seen them that a chaplain refused to baptize them. He said, “I do not agree with your lifestyle.” When they told me this, I wasn’t just heartbroken. I was angry, and I said so with expletives that I will not repeat here. I was angry at the spiritual violence. But this is exactly why I was called into the prison in the first place. I wasn’t called by the chaplain’s office, but by the psychology department. They see the harm religion has done to them and the trauma it leaves behind. These souls do not need saving as much as first they need healing from what was done to them in God’s name. Scripture has seen spiritual violence before. That’s what Isaiah 56 is about. Chapter 56 begins after the exiles return home. Not a return to glory but a pile of rubble and ruins. But while the people rebuilt their lives, their leaders embraced gatekeeping and a religion focused on walls of exclusion. Why? They never wanted to lose everything again, so trauma rewrote their theology. Rules about purity became a way to feel safe – and thus holiness became distancing from people. They called it holy. As Walter Brueggemann notes, faith after the exile often drifted from covenant justice toward boundary-making. And that is how they justified shutting out foreigners, eunuchs, the disabled, and anyone who did not fit their system. But when religion does that, the vulnerable always suffer first because religion based on purity does not protect God. It protects power and inflicts spiritual violence. And you can feel the ache in the text: people who were convinced they did not belong. So God speaks up. Do not let the foreigner say, “The Lord will keep me separate.” Do not let the eunuch say, “I am just a dry tree.” Do not let them believe the lie that they have been forgotten or cursed by me. God says, I will give them a name that will never be cut off. And so Isaiah 56 redefines holiness not as separation but as how we reflect the heart of God, which means: • Holiness looks like gathering, not excluding • Holiness looks like justice, not rule-keeping • Holiness is not purity, it is restoration. Centuries later, Jesus stands in this same prophetic stream and lives it publicly. We see it in the story of the ten lepers standing at a distance outside a village, crying out to be seen. If only he would see them, maybe something would happen. They are not outside the city by choice but by religious command. In the ancient world, people with visible skin conditions were forced out of community life. Many assume this was to prevent disease, but that is a modern assumption, not a biblical one. Scripture calls their condition tzaraat, not modern leprosy, but a ritual category used to declare people unfit for community and worship. This same pattern of exclusion shows up in Isaiah 56. Eunuchs were excluded not because they were impure, but because they broke the illusion that the world is binary, neatly divided into male and female, clean and unclean. Their very existence exposed the lie of purity culture. The same fear that erased eunuchs then is used against trans and nonbinary people today. Foreigners were excluded not because they were unclean, but because fear and nationalism turned difference into danger. God rejected that exclusion in Isaiah 56, yet religion keeps trying to declare it holy. But this is how purity religion operates. It hides social prejudice behind holy language, blesses exclusion, and calls it righteousness. It has nothing to do with God. It is about control, and it always chooses exclusion over mercy. This is why Isaiah 56 is a revolution. It refuses religious gatekeeping and declares God’s welcome for the very people religion pushed out. And that is why the story of Jesus and the lepers is so radical. Isaiah announced the heart of God. Jesus put it into motion. Jewish scholar Jonathan Klawans reminds us that biblical impurity is a ritual and social category, not a medical one. Many things declared impure, like sexual activity or menstruation, were temporary. And let us be clear, calling a woman impure for having a body that functions as God created it is absurd – it is nothing but anti-woman theology hiding behind the word purity. Tzaraat alone carried the power of long-term isolation because only a priest could declare someone clean again. So Jesus is not just healing illness. He is breaking a system. These men were not dangerous. They were not suffering from disease alone. They were suffering from religion. Jesus walks straight across that boundary and does the holiest thing a person can do. He gives them back their place in the human family. The message is unmistakable. Exclusion is never the will of God. So in this story, as throughout his ministry, Jesus does not reinforce the purity system. He overturns it. He tells the men, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” In other words, return to the very system that declared you unclean. Stand before the gatekeepers who shut you out and reclaim your life. And as they go, they are healed. This is not a private miracle. This is a public act of liberation. Jesus is dismantling a religious order that declared some people unworthy of God. Only one man returns in gratitude, and scripture makes sure we know who he is: a Samaritan. The one religion rejected is the one God lifts up. The same truth we saw in Isaiah 56 appears again: God gathers those religion tries to separate. But, like so much of scripture, this is not just ancient history. The labels have changed, but the logic remains the same. The same religious impulse to exclude in God’s name is still alive. We see it in pastors who refuse baptism. In churches that exclude queer people. In pulpits that silence women and then work to write those exclusions into law, quoting scripture to baptize cruelty instead of compassion. That is what Christian nationalism does. It uses the name of Jesus to control rather than liberate, to turn exclusion into holiness. But make no mistake: this is not about God. It is about power disguised as faith. And now, across the country, this narrow religion is being built into law. We are dangerously close to the Supreme Court reconsidering marriage equality for LGBTQ people. This is not theoretical. It is a real threat and a direct assault on the Gospel Jesus preached. Because when you strip away the slogans and the politics and ask the only question that matters – what kind of faith heals, and what kind of faith harms – the truth is not hard to see. What does Jesus say to the man? Does he ask, has your doctrine saved you? No. He says, your faith has made you whole. Whole – not tolerated, not allowed to exist at the edges – whole. That is the work of God: restoring people to community and dignity. Even after being wounded by religion, the inmates at Donovan keep coming. Their resilience amazes me every time I go back. They still come searching for confirmation of their relationship with God. That is why there are regulars at my Bible Study. But there are always individuals who show up for the first time. Some come joyful. In others, you can see the apprehension in their face, the way they sit with their arms and legs crossed. They have never been in a religious space where they were welcomed. Their suspicions and fears are on high alert – for good reason. I have heard every version of the lie, and perhaps you have too: “God does not want people like me.” Pastors said it. Parents said it. Churches said it. So you learned to accept your exile, to keep your distance from God, to stand outside and watch. But after all the rejection, shame, and condemnation endured, we still long for God. Something inside refuses to let cruelty be the last word about faith. Their resilience is holy. Your resilience is holy. And when I see that longing, I know what my job is: to tell the truth. “They lied to you. And I am sorry that they used God to do it. That is not faith. That is abuse. And you deserved better than that.” Some believe me. Some cannot. The rejection is too deeply planted to uproot with one hopeful voice. So I repeat: do not let anyone tell you that you do not belong to God – just as you are. All of them. As Bryan Stevenson says, “We are all more than the worst thing we’ve ever done” – a truth not confined to prison walls. As I look around this sanctuary, I know there are people who understand what it feels like to be kept at a distance – maybe not because you are queer, but because somewhere, at some time, someone decided you do not belong. Someone here knows what exile feels like – because of divorce, or doubt, or mental illness, or a pregnancy you ended. Or perhaps because you couldn’t say the words of a creed. At Susan Shurin’s memorial service a few weeks ago, mourners heard what she wrote in her own words: “One of the reasons I am comfortable in UCC churches is that no one has ever cared whether or not I buy the dogma.” She liked the hymns – mostly for the music, but, she wrote, “The words usually refer to theological concepts I can’t swallow.” “I do not believe in the Trinity. I think the immaculate conception is a complete crock. I am dubious at best about the divinity of Jesus, who seems like a very cool dude (her words), and I am offended by any literal interpretation of communion, or cannibal Sunday as my friend Marian calls it.” But, she knew here, she was accepted. And that’s our mission as Mission Hills United Church of Christ. Not a museum to faith for the comfortable but the restoration of God’s people to a faith that welcomes us all in and calls us all out to serve. We are not here to protect a religion but to repair we who have been broken. Here to say to every weary soul, dismissed by society, every person who has fallen and is trying to stand again, every prisoner and everyone else who wonders if they are still loved, you belong here. Your life matters here. Your healing matters to us. The same God who spoke to foreigners and eunuchs through Isaiah is speaking still. The same Christ who restored the leper is restoring still. The same Spirit who gathered the exiles is gathering still. And as long as God refuses to give up on people, neither will we. And so back to the prison. When the chaplain said no, Chris replied, “but what about the Ethiopian eunuch? As the eunuch asked Philip, what is to prevent me from being baptized?” Philip immediately stopped the chariot and found water to baptize him. I hope hearing scripture quoted back to him caused the chaplain to wrestle with his faith. What it did for this couple was deepen their hunger for God and strengthen their trust in what we are building together. At one of our upcoming Bible studies, our group will hold a baptism – because no one gets to take away what God has already given. I pray that those who have had to protect themselves for so long will dare to uncross their arms, take their place, and pull up a chair at the feast of God. Because this is the Gospel: no outsiders. No gatekeepers. No distance from God. Because every church is meant to be a house of prayer for all people – no exceptions. |
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