April 12, 2026  Second Sunday of Easter
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Psalm 14
“Transmogrification Imagination”
Douglas T. King

I have always loved the comic “Calvin and Hobbes” by Bill Watterson.  For those of you unfamiliar with it, it tells the story of a remarkably precocious, spiky-haired six-year-old boy named Calvin and his sidekick, a very large stuffed tiger named Hobbes.  Calvin is consistently engaged in mayhem, some of it real and some of it the product of his prodigious imagination.  

In one series of cartoons Calvin invents a Transmogrifier.  As Calvin and Hobbes stand next to a large box with the word “transmogrifier” scrawled on the side, Calvin announces, “you step into this chamber, set the appropriate dials, and it turns you into whatever you’d like to be.”  Hobbes, responds, “It’s amazing what they do with corrugated cardboard these days.”  “Isn’t it?” Calvin replies.  In another strip, Calvin, noting the categories listed on the side, explains the science of it. “All you do is set the indicator and the machine automatically restructures your chemical configuration.  You can be an eel, a baboon, a giant bug or a dinosaur.”  Hobbes asks “What if you want to be something else?”  Calvin answers, “I left some room.  Just write it on the side.”

Ah the imagination of youth.  But the fantastical proposition of what that cardboard box can do is speaking to an underlying hunger that is endemic to the human condition. We have a fascination with transformation; the idea of one thing changing into another. In the Middle Ages people were fascinated with alchemy, the attempt to turn lead into gold.  Any decent magician will enthrall us with some sleight of hand that appears to turn a deck of cards into a live dove.  And we are even more fascinated by how we may be transformed, from the terrifying type of Dr. Jekyll becoming Mr. Hyde or the amazing type of Clark Kent tearing out of his mild-mannered suit to become Superman.  And a gazillion self-help books have made vast promises of transforming who we are in six easy steps.  

On the shallow end of this equation, we desire to be transformed into someone younger, thinner, more capable of negotiating billion-dollar deals.  But there is a deeper level to all of this as well.  No matter how young and thin and rich we are, no matter how perfect and shiny we may appear on the outside, all of us have this place inside of us that feels not quite complete.  When life is hard that place may shout inside of us about just how screwed up we are. When life is good it may be no more than the subtlest whisper hinting that something is missing; or reminding us of some hurt from our past that never quite heals; or a nagging loneliness; or a persistent questioning of purpose.  The author, John Updike, calls this space within us, that he believes only God can address, as, “a pocket in human nature that nothing else will fill.” (Schiff, p. 50)

If we stop and look deep within ourselves there is some part of us that calls to be completed; some way in which we would like to be transformed.  But transformation is hard. We wish it were as easy as a magical elixir in some bottle, or six steps laid out in a book. But it never is.  

Another thing that is hard, is Easter after Easter Sunday.  On Easter Sunday we whip up great enthusiasm for the resurrection.  We dare to believe that perhaps indeed it all may be true.  Maybe the ultimate transformation is possible. Maybe Jesus did rise from the dead. And maybe that promise is good for us as well.  Maybe God’s love is more powerful than all that has ever or will ever ail us; more powerful than whatever feels missing or bent, or slightly askew within us; more powerful than all of our fears, failures, and frustrations combined.  

With brass and timpani filling the chancel, joining with the choir and the organ to belt out all of those major chords of victory, we can leave behind our doubts for a moment and be Easter people.  We can be Easter people who believe that God’s love is more powerful than death and that love is for all of us.  Easter people are not perfect. They are not without their foibles and missteps and lurking concerns.  But Easter people trust that the promise of resurrection is real and is for them.  And Easter people know that if you put that resurrection promise on one side of a balancing scale and everything that is less than perfect in their lives and in themselves on the other side, the weight of the resurrection promise side would thunk down with such authority that the imperfections on the other side of the scale would be flipped out of the room.    

However, that was a week ago.  The brass has left the sanctuary.  Our liturgical calendar tells us we are still in the season of Easter, week two of seven week’s worth.  But it is a little harder to believe it all today.  We have spent another week of living in the midst of what is imperfect and missing in our lives.  Resurrection reality in our midst is a little harder to spot.

If we are going to make our way back to being Easter people again today we need to be reminded about our God’s fundamental identity, which brings us to our text this morning. Psalm 114 is not one of our high-profile psalms.  It does not get the airtime that the 23rd and 46th Psalms do.  It is quietly tucked into our lectionary as an Easter evening text; after the hoopla has died down and we are left to ponder the resurrection a step removed from that initial burst of euphoria.  

It provides two important and specific portraits of the divine.  The first portrait is of just how close God is to God’s people.  “Judah became God’s sanctuary; Israel God’s dominion.” The divine has chosen to completely commit to a rag tag group of tribes seeking to flee from slavery.  God’s focus, devotion, and love is placed upon a small group of folks who would otherwise go unnoticed.  And then we hear, “Tremble, O Earth, at the presence of the Lord…”  In the second portrait we hear of a God of absolute power over all of existence. What may seem immense and immovable to us is a mere plaything in the hands of the divine.  

The juxtaposition of these two portraits is remarkable.  The one, pictures the divine on bended knee, guiding a mostly forgotten and insignificant group of people to freedom. The second pictures an entity of ultimate power tossing around all of creation like a child playing with blocks.

So what does this mean for us?  Why should these two portraits side by side; one of immense power and one of individual concern, matter for how we live?  The end of this psalm tells us of how God’s power is put to use.  God “turns the rock into a pool of water, the flint into a spring of water.”  God does not use God’s power to primarily destroy or needlessly dominate, or self-glorify, but to transform in ways beyond our imagination; from inert rock to life-giving water in the desert. God transforms what may appear to be useless into what is most essential; what could be used for violence into what gives life.  And that other portrait teaches us where God’s focus is placed, not on some distant and immense entity, but on a rag tag group of ex slaves, and in our case on our relatively small personal dramas.  

God is powerful enough to transform absolutely anything at all.  And God’s focus is upon each one of us.  Whatever part of you feels like it is broken and beyond repair, God is focused intently upon you and powerful enough to heal it.  Whatever is unnamed but missing within you, God is focused intently upon you and powerful enough to provide it. Whatever subtly haunts you from your past or your present or your future, God is focused intently upon you and powerful enough to sweep it away.  

The innate longing we have for transformation will not go unanswered.  In his novel, In the Beauty of the Lilies, John Updike describes this experience like this.  The character Essie has a physical sensation of God.  “God’s love pressed down from heaven and fit her whole body like bathwater in the tub…like blood in your veins that you can sometimes hear when your ear is pressed against the pillow…(Schiff, p. 60) May it be so for each of us, and it will be.

There is a natural denouement on the Sunday after Easter.  After all of the festival hub bub we find ourselves with the same bumps and bruises that accompany ordinary life.  But the season of Easter is not over.  And God’s powerful gift of resurrection is still encircling around and unfolding within each one of us.  And the imagination of that rascally six-year-old Calvin is not too far from the truth.  There is a transmogrifier in each of our lives.  We can and we will be changed one day, not into an eel or a dinosaur, but into people who own the reality they are completely beloved.  

The season of Easter is not all major chords and joy on tap.  We still carry the imperfections of this life.  But as Easter people we are called to remember that the God who can transform a rag tag bunch of slaves into a free nation; the God who can transform stone into water in the desert; the God who can transform death on the cross into resurrection life can and will transform us into everything we need to be.  

Easter people are called to have a little imagination, to see the possibilities of all that is to come.  If precocious, six-year-old Calvin can see it, With God’s help, so can we.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Schiff, James A., “The Pocket Nothing Else Will Fill.” John Updike and Religion. Ed. James Yerkes, Grand Rapids, William B, Eerdmans, 1999. 50-63. Print.  

                      

April 5, 2026  Easter Sunday
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Matthew 28:1-10
“Unafraid of Becoming the Sea”
Douglas T. King

“Spirit is life like a river unafraid of becoming the sea.”  These words are scripted in gold at the top of a thirty foot tall painting of a luminous and numinous, flowing river displayed in the sculpture hall of the Saint Louis Art Museum.    Like many of you I was awed by the Anselm Keifer installation, “Becoming the Sea.” The moment I entered my breath was taken away by the collection of gargantuan paintings rising up around me.  This one painting particularly captured my attention because those words are from the beat poet, Gregory Corso, “Spirit is life like a river unafraid of becoming the sea”  

It is an evocative piece of verse.  But something struck in my ear as a little different.  I am familiar with some of Corso’s writing and had a friend at school who knew Corso.  Corso led a wild and woolly life.  He was abandoned by his parents in New York City.  He learned to write poetry while he was in prison for stealing a suit from a tailor’s shop for a big date.  You have to love a romantic!  

As I was standing there I pulled up the poem on my phone to see what was different.  The entire poem is this,  

“Spirit
is Life
It flows thru
the death of me
endlessly
like a river
unafraid
of becoming
the sea”

It is inscribed on Corso’s tombstone in Rome, at the foot of his hero Percy Shelley’s grave.

For some reason Keifer had removed a portion of the poem, “It flows through the death of me endlessly...”  I cannot speak to Kiefer’s artistic intent and choices but I was not surprised that if a portion of the poem would be removed, death would be that portion.  On this Easter morning, like every Easter morning, this sanctuary will repeatedly fill with glorious, celebratory major chords and alleluias, accompanied by the bright and victorious sounds of brass and timpani.  We are full steam ahead with the empty tomb, the risen Christ, and eternal life.  We are riding Keifer and Corso’s luminous and numinous river into the everlasting love of God’s sea. It would be so easy to glide over the death portion.

Of all the gospel accounts of Christ’s resurrection from the dead, Matthew brings us the most drama.  He makes sure we know the defeat of death is no small task.  We get an earthquake, and an angel like lightning, and guards so paralyzed with fear we are told they are like “dead men.”  

The women at the tomb are also filled with fear.  However, with the angel’s plea and urging, “Do not be afraid” they are not frozen like the guards but speed off with fear and joy to share the good news with the disciples. On the way they meet the risen Christ, and even in the midst of worshipping him, their fear arises once more.  But once again they are told, “Do not be afraid” and on they continue with their journey.  

We hear of two distinct responses to resurrection and the fear of resurrection in this text.  The paralysis of the guards and the movement forward of the women.  Clearly, we do not wish to be those guards who are paralyzed by fear.  We aspire to be those women continually moving beyond fear and able to step into the future.

When we gather on Easter Sunday, we are all a bit like Anselm Keifer.  We want to enjoy the victory and flow with that luminous and numinous river into the everlasting sea.  But the reality is there is no journey to resurrection that does not include death.  What this means for us today, is that if we want to experience the transforming power of God’s resurrection in our lives we have to be willing to die to certain things.  Those women were left with the choice of allowing their fear to paralyze them or dying to that fear and moving forward.  Ironically, the guards, being unable to die to their fear, become like dead men.  And those women, who were able to die to their fear, become fully alive, encounter the risen Christ, and continue to move forward.  

In his famous poem, Sunday Morning, Wallace Stevens wrote,
 
“Death is the mother of beauty;
hence from her, Alone, 
shall come fulfilment to our dreams…”

While it is true that the defeat of death itself and the journey to eternal life in the resurrection is entirely God’s purview, we are called to die to the debilitating things in our lives, and thus participate in God’s Spirit leading us to other iterations of God's eternal love.  
We can share in the resurrection countless times in our lives.  The first step happens this morning.  Today we are seeking to own the belief that there is indeed nothing more powerful than God’s love, freely offered to us.  And in recognizing the power of God’s love we are invited to let go of other lesser things that have power over us.  

We all have elements in our lives that inhibit us from living fully and abundantly as God’s beloved children.  For me it is my numerous neuroses, just ask my colleagues.  For some of us we need to die a confounding cocktail of fear and anxiety.  Our worries for the world and our future, as relevant and real as they may be, play on an obsessive loop in our consciousness and hold us hostage.  When we own the reality of the transforming power of God’s resurrection love, we can die, perhaps not entirely to those worries, but to the ways they own our thoughts and actions every minute of the day.  

For some of us we may need to die to ego and entitlement.  When we own the reality of the transforming power of God’s resurrection love we can die to needless privilege and arrogance and be invited into a thoughtful humility.
 
For some of us we may need to die to our obsession over superficial things, our outward appearance, our career accomplishments, our possessions.  When we own the reality of the transforming power of God’s resurrection love we can die to the importance of surface things and recognize what is truly most valuable.

For some of us it is an addiction which holds us tight.  When we own the power of God’s transforming resurrection love we can begin to die to the illusion that we cannot live without the object of our addiction and thus gain the courage to take the first steps toward treatment and freedom.  

What do you need to begin dying to today that you may welcome the transforming power of God’s resurrection love?  What is it of which you need to let go that you may be in the motion of that luminous and numinous river leading you to the sea of God’s transforming resurrection love?  

Death can be a scary thing, both death with a capital “D” and these smaller deaths to the things to which we needlessly cling to in this world.  But the word from the divine is clear, “Do not be afraid.” We need not be afraid of letting go of what hinders us, for God’s transforming resurrection love is well worth the challenge of the change.  

Humor me, while I offer one more art reference this morning. There is a painting at the Met by Pieter Bruegel, entitled, The Dirty Bride. It shows the most unlikely of pairings on their wedding day.  What is most striking about the painting is the Latin inscription inscribed just below it.  In English it translates as “what may not we lovers hope for?”  It speaks to wide-open possibilities, even the most improbable of ones.  When we are willing to die to those things that limit us, whatever they may be, or however they may serve us in certain limiting ways, we can own the phrase, “what may not we children of God hope for?”  

If God can transform death into life there is no part of ourselves that cannot be transformed. There is nothing in our lives or in our world that cannot be born anew by God’s love.  There are infinite ways we can be welcomed into that endless luminous and numinous river that promises us freedom from all of our burdens.

Do not be afraid.

“Spirit
is Life
It flows thru
the death of me(us)
endlessly
like a river
unafraid
of becoming
the sea”

Indeed.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

March 29, 2026 Palm/Passion Sunday
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Matthew 21:1-11Matthew 26:14-35
“A Story About Us”
Melissa K. Smith

Palm/Passion Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week and the sign that the season of Lent is ending. As we end one season, another begins and in a week’s time we will be in the season of Eastertide – a season of hope, of resurrection, of praise.

Another season began this last week…baseball season! On Thursday both the Cardinals and Dodgers opened their ball parks and are ready for action.

Imagine something with me. Imagine it’s the end of the season and the Cardinals have made it to the playoffs. You are decked out in red, you’ve got your favorite jersey on (of course you can still rep an Ozzy Smith jersey – there is no limit to his greatness), you’re excited and you are all in. You get to Busch Stadium early, you watch warmups, you cheer as the Cardinals run onto the field. At the beginning of the game, the energy is high, the excitement is palpable, and you’re ready. You hope for and expect a win – home field advantage, the fans cheering the team on – how could anything go wrong?

And then the game begins and around the fourth or fifth inning it starts to take a turn that you did not expect. The Cardinals can’t figure out their defense, the pitching is not consistent, and there is no run support. You start to get anxious, it’s getting hard to watch. So you turn away.

At first you start looking at your phone more, then suddenly the long line at the bathrooms or food stands don’t seem so bad. The game continues to not go your way and you find yourself slowly checking out and losing interest.

Or maybe you’re the fan who says “I will never leave – I am loyal no matter what!” But it’s the eighth inning and you’re down by five runs – not even a Grand Slam can solve your run problem. And you find yourself coming up with an excuse to leave – it’s not that you don’t love the Cardinals…you just have an early morning tomorrow or traffic will be awful, right?

Whether it’s the Cardinals or the Dodgers, whether it's baseball or our faith – we’ve all been there. We have cheered, we have drifted, and we have made promises that we are not able to keep.

We see this reality so clearly in the Palm/Passion narrative. Because this reality is not new – it’s the story about us, a story that has been true about us throughout human history.

The Triumphal Entry, Jesus coming into Jerusalem on a donkey with shouts of “Hosana”, is an exciting, thrilling story. It’s always so special to watch the children process in, to wave our palm fronds, and to join in the tradition of shouting Hosana. But then we read the story and we cast our eyes toward the rest of the week to come. How could cheers of praise and shouting “Hosana, God save us” lead to the eventual cries of “crucify, crucify”?

The crowd welcomes Jesus in as a king. The way he was welcomed into the city signifies that the crowd is viewing Jesus as a conquering hero or king. He is the one who came to save. But their expectations of how he would save don’t quite match the ways Jesus actually saves. The crowd was expecting a king who will liberate them from Rome. They have been under the oppressive Roman occupation and are longing for liberation. And Jesus did come to save – but in a different way. He came to save Israel and the world from sin and death by experiencing death.

The crowd is like a character in the Gospel of Matthew. Earlier in his gospel, the crowd admires Jesus. They gather for healing and teaching and are astonished at his authority – but admiration is not the same as commitment to Jesus. Perhaps we are like the crowd – we appreciate Jesus’ words, we agree with parts of his teachings, we go to him when we need something like healing, but we stop short of real change and commitment to him.

And perhaps we are like the crowd after they welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem. When the crowd realized that Jesus was not going to start a revolution, their cries of joy and excitement turned to cries of accusation and sentencing. Perhaps we too are like this when we are enthusiastic about our faith up until it becomes costly or confusing. And maybe we have turned away when reality does not match our expectations.

Five chapters later, we see Judas’ scheme to betray Jesus just before the Passover, Last Supper, is celebrated. Throughout Matthew’s depiction of Judas, we see that Judas is increasingly detached from Jesus. The disciples call Jesus “Lord,” but Judas calls him “Rabbi” and Judas acts like a disciple on the outside, but not inwardly. While the disciples are listening to Jesus and learning, Judas is listening to Jesus and plotting. Judas is motivated by greed and makes a series of choices throughout his discipleship journey that separate him from Christ.

The Gospels invite us to hold up a mirror and ask the question the disciples asked when Jesus said he would be betrayed, “Is it me?” Faith begins with honest examination.

But honest examination does mean the possibility that the person looking back at us in the mirror resembles Judas from time to time. Judas was outwardly close to Jesus but inwardly was distant. It’s possible to be around faith, the church, and community and yet still keep a part of ourselves guarded and not open to Christ. Judas chose self-interest over truth. He asks “what will you give me?” showing that he was willing to bend the truth for personal gain and played the bartering game of “what does this cost me?” We may not betray God in a dramatic way, but we do when we negotiate with our values and choose self-interest over Christ. Perhaps we misunderstand Jesus – Judas wanted a teacher, not a king and he was open to guidance but not Christ’s authority.

We do something similar when we accept only parts of truth that we like and when we resist the parts of Jesus that challenge us.

When we say “we are like Judas” we are not saying that we are the ultimate betrayer. What we are saying is that we, like Judas, might not be open to the transforming witness of the Gospel, we may pervert it for our own gain, and we may hold Christ at a distance as we subtly deny his authority.

After the Passover meal, Jesus said, “You all will fall away because of me this night…” Peter is quick to jump in and say “I will never fall away!” But he does. During Christ’s passion, Peter denies Jesus three times. He does fall away. Throughout the Gospels Peter is portrayed as brash and confident. He is ready to make sweeping statements about his faith, but in practice he shies away and hesitates, ultimately denying Christ and falling away.

We too can make big proclamations about our faith – we can be confident in the faith we have cultivated our whole lives and claim that we would never deny Christ. But then life happens and our large statements are tested. It’s not that Peter was lying. He meant every word he said. But he was not able to live up to the faith he believed he had. We too can be like Peter. We promise more than we can keep – our intentions are real but so are our failures.

We are the crowd.
We are Judas.
We are Peter.

The Palm/Passion narrative is a sobering story about us. We have cheered, we have drifted, and we have made promises that we are not able to keep.

That’s our story – one that we need to take seriously and recognize in our spiritual journeys as we venture toward the cross. But God’s story is bigger than ours. God’s story – which takes place in and through our story – is the story of Jesus staying. The crowds betrayed Jesus, yet he still entered the city. He rode the donkey toward his death – towards his saving death. Judas betrayed Jesus. And yet Jesus still sat at the table with him and broke bread with him. He shared communion with him. Peter denies Jesus. Yet Jesus still willingly offers himself on our behalf and forgives Peter.

Jesus is faithful even when we are not.
Jesus still chooses us.

Palm/Passion is a story about us and a story about a savior who meets us in every part of it. As we enter into Holy Week, may we be deliberate and honest in our self-examinations so that our faith can begin, can continue, and can be sustained through the story of the Triune God who loves us, stays with us, and saves us.
 
This is a story we must know deep in our bones. If we know God’s story, it will breathe life into our own. God’s story invites us into life, into salvation, into hope. Let us enter into this story about us and about God this week as we turn our eyes upon the cross and consider the sacrifice our Lord made for us.

Thanks be to God.
 
Amen.

March 22, 2026  Fifth Sunday in Lent
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Ezekial 37:1-14
“The Zero Breeds New Algebras”
Douglas T. King

Years ago, I saw a play entitled, “When I Come to Die.”  It told the story of a man named Damon on death row who is given what should be a lethal injection but lives.  Far from being elated when he discovers that he has survived, Damon is angry and confused.  He had planned to die.  As awful as it was, that was the plan and he had prepared for that.  He had no plan for being alive.
 
Damon is called to meet with the prison chaplain, who believes that it is a miracle that Damon is alive.  He encourages Damon to find a use and purpose for his newfound time.  Damon, angrily trying to process how he has ended up in this precarious place lashes out about the time he has been given. “What you gonna do with it?  Bang on cell bars?  Do a dance?  Do something?”  Imprisoned as he was in body and in mind, Damon could not begin to fathom how this new time given to him was of any use at all.

Whenever I hear this story from Ezekiel of God putting flesh upon those old bones and bringing that community back to life, I wonder if those folks would have been keen on coming back.  I assume some of them would have been a little like Damon, experiencing a dose of anger and confusion to go along with the wonder of finding themselves alive once more.  There is something quite unnerving about these stories of God creating life where all we see is death.  

One of the ways we get by in this life, is we create some boundaries as to what reality looks like.  We figure out the rules of existence.  Gravity keeps things from floating away, but we pay a price for it when a dish slips through our fingers.  If we stay up really late, we are likely going to have to drag ourselves through the next day of work.  Everything that is born will die.  

We come up with a vision of what the world is and our place in it, we draw parameters around it, and we learn to color mostly within those lines.  We put this picture up on the wall and call it “common sense” or “that’s just the way it is” and we get on with our lives.  There is a comfort to be found in the framed little picture, even when the framed little picture is sometimes not that pretty.  We are a people who crave established expectations.  

The ministry of the prophet Ezekiel occurred during the time of the Babylonian exile. Jerusalem falls, the temple is destroyed and many people, including Ezekiel, are dragged from home and forced to live in captivity in Babylon.  All hope has been taken from them.  Their belief that God was present with them in Jerusalem and in the temple to protect them, has been destroyed.  They are not only exiled from their homeland, they no longer believe they have any access to the divine. In the midst of the hopelessness of exile, Ezekias brings a radical vision of hope.  In the midst of a people who believed that their God lived solely in the temple in Jerusalem now fallen and destroyed, he brings word of a God bigger, wider, deeper, and more powerful than any box we can imagine, even a box as large and as fine as the temple.  Bones rise up and are enfleshed and a community is reborn.  Where there was only death, there is now life.

This stark and arresting vision tells us simply one thing, there are no limits on God’s power.  There are no limits on God’s power.  On one level those words are practically trite, yes we know, God is omnipotent, all powerful.  We have heard it before and nodded our heads to it, and frankly nodded off to sleep to it, we have heard it so many times.  

But if we claimed it, there are no limits on God’s power, the implications would leave us somewhere alongside that re-enfleshed and resurrected community of bones in the desert, enlivened like never before.

Ezekiel, who was both a prophet and a priest, was strictly forbidden to be around human skeletons. As a priest it was considered ritually unclean for him to be in that valley of death.  But God and God’s power have little time for purity laws, for rules of division that stand in the way of God’s purposes.  When the temple in Jerusalem fell, the people felt that they were cut off from God because they had lost what they believed was their only access to God.  God has little concern for such limitations. In our efforts to understand the divine, we inadvertently box in and limit the ways in which we believe God can be actively engaged in our midst. And we box ourselves in about the ways in which we can be faithful.

In a world filled with toxic divisions, war, and chaos, limited expectations make sense.  In a time when mainline denominations are shrinking, limited expectations make sense.  We have plenty of reasons to hunker down and limit our expectations and stare at the little picture on the wall of what the “common sense” realities of this world are. Settle for less.  Make sure our dreams together as a community are kept within reasonable bounds.  Keep our hopes prudent and manageable.  I certainly cannot argue with any of that sound advice being drawn from an astute evaluation of the current conditions of the world.

But Ezekiel will have none of it.  He sat with the exiles in Babylon, a nation and a faith tradition destroyed, laid bare, left for dead.  And he was given a vision.  He saw the death of his community and his faith laid out before him and God asked him if these bones could live.  Ezekiel was too afraid to say, that hope could be born in the midst of hopelessness; that life could be created in the midst of death.  But God ordered him to prophesy, and he did. The winds of God’s Spirit blew over that field of death, and the bones came together, and sinew and flesh and skin covered them and they were alive, a community reborn in the breath of God’s Spirit.  

We are given a preview of the resurrection and of Pentecost all rolled into one.  Ezekiel brings us the message that we can throw out those constricted little pictures of life we have up on our walls.  We can throw out the limitations which constrain us and oddly comfort us.  There are no limits on God’s power.  When we continually lower our expectations and box ourselves in, we are denying the power of God.  When we say we do not have enough, enough time, enough talent, enough resources, to be the church in all its glory serving God and God’s children, we are denying the power of God.  When we doubt that each one of us is being healed and shaped by God for remarkable things, we are denying the power of God.  

Now, I have sat in my share of challenging budget meetings.  I have sought to rally folks to serve and have come out a few less than I had planned.  Sometimes when my phone rings and it is someone with some new and very big vision for what the church could be doing, I just want to pat them on the head and tell them about reasonable expectations.  I want to tell them a little bit about how the real world works and help them paint a smaller picture.  But then along comes Ezekiel, and he will have none of it.  

In a poem entitled “A Hard Death” by Amos Wilder, he writes, “…accept no mitigation, but be instructed at the null point.  The zero breeds new algebras.”  To put it far less eloquently, if we are a people that can find hope in a cross, there is no place and no time in which God’s power cannot intervene to change the world.  Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel writes “Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of the dried bones bears no date because every generation needs to hear in its own time that these bones can live again.”

I started this sermon telling you of Damon on death row and his anger and confusion over being given the gift of life, of more time, when he thought he should be dead.  He was eventually executed successfully, if that is the right term for such a dreadful thing.  But before he died, he was changed by the experience of the gift of new life.  He was not transformed into a choir boy but he found a way to bring comfort to a fellow death row inmate, reconnect with his estranged sister, and find satisfaction in what he could do for others.  

If we claim the reality that there are no limits on God’s power, we too will face some changes.  We will need to leave behind the assumptions that have limited who we are as people and who we are as the church.  If we claim the reality that there are no limits on God’s power, we might need to leave behind the comfort of established expectations and the safety of well-constructed limitations.  We may find ourselves face to face with the mystery of the divine Spirit, free from the boundaries by which we live.  

Now the reality of God’s power does not mean we will not fail in a variety of ways as we continue to be faithful together.  But the reality of God’s power means that we are never beyond God’s reach.  We are never limited in the ways God may transform us as individuals, and as a community of believers.  We are never without hope that new life may pop up in the most unexpected ways; that we can be peacemakers where there is conflict, healers where there is brokenness, providers where there is want.  “The zero breeds new algebras.”  

We are never without the responsibility to dream our dreams and live our lives upon the foundation that there are no limits on the power of God.  

Thanks be to God.  Amen.  


               

March 15, 2026  Fourth Sunday in Lent
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
First Samuel 16:1-13
“The Dance with the Divine”
Douglas T. King

What is a dance, a debate, a tug of war, a collaboration, a conversation, a case of creative differences, a teaching opportunity, and a complicated relationship all rolled into one?  Our text from the book of First Samuel this morning.  It is easy to get distracted in this text and miss what is really going on.  It is easy for our eyes to focus on the young, handsome shepherd anointed to be king and experience this text as a simple feelgood story.  But what it is, is a dance, a debate, a tug of war, a collaboration, a conversation, a case of creative differences, a teaching opportunity and a complicated relationship all rolled into one.

When we join the text this morning there is so much back story.  Following the deaths of Moses and Joshua the nation of Israel was governed by Judges.  But the people of Israel eventually grew frustrated with their leadership and demanded a King.  They believed the answer to all of their problems was to be like all of the other nations who had kings.  God was opposed to this idea and saw Godself as the king of Israel. Knowing human nature, the divine was concerned with concentrating too much power in the hands of one person.   And God saw Israel as distinct and different from all of the other nations.  But the Israelites kept nagging God and eventually God relented and gave them a king, Saul.  It could have all the feel of a parent who is exhausted by a wayward and stubborn child and gives in to their demands for just a moment of peace and quiet.

So, Samuel, one of the last of the judges, is tasked with locating Saul, a giant of a man, to be their king.  By every human metric he was an excellent choice.  But Saul was a man of weak faith and continually demonstrated his lack of trust in God’s commands.  Eventually his greed was the final straw as he kept for himself what was to be sacrificed to God.  Saul, as king, forgets that his whims and wishes were not the final word.  Saul is stripped of his kingship and we hear one of the rare moments when God expresses regret.  At the end of the fifteenth chapter it states “And the Lord was sorry that he had made Saul king over Israel.”

As we just heard, Samuel, still grieving over all that happened with Saul, is sent by God to Jesse’s household in search of a new king.  Saul, immediately believes one of the tall, strapping, kinglike-looking sons (much like Saul) will be the new king.  However, we learn that Saul’s expectations are not God’s expectations.  God chooses the youngest and smallest of the brothers, though handsome, he is the runt of the litter.  And as we know, going forward, David will do the most remarkable feats of faithfulness as king and, just like Saul, he will also engage in selfish acts that are far from whom he is called to be.
   
My, oh, my.  What a dance, a debate, a tug of war, a collaboration, a conversation, a case of creative differences, a teaching opportunity and a complicated relationship all rolled into one is this interaction between God and humanity.  Lest there be any confusion, the Biblical narrative makes it abundantly clear that there was no pristine and golden age of harmony in the relationship between God and mortals.  It has always been a fascinating and muddled mélange of intentions and outcomes.

The one critique I might offer is that the plotline does become rather predictable and repetitive.  We consistently fall short and God always tries again.  As a work of literature, one could argue that is a little disappointing.  As a revelatory text teaching us about the nature of ourselves and our God, it is absolutely brilliant.

In those moments of clarity when I am brought face-to-face with just how deeply flawed I am and the long list of ways that I have failed to be faithful, the Biblical narrative is of deep comfort.  Saul and David, and the king-hungry Israelites are not the only folks seeking to be faithful and falling short.  The Bible presents an endless cast of characters who are flawed.  If the Biblical narrative were nothing but stories of pristine saints, ever true in their faithfulness I do not know what it would have to offer us.  
 
When we do see some of these flawed Biblical folk succeed in their faithfulness it is because God has coaxed, cajoled, and guided them with an unmatched and unmitigated patience and perseverance. God never wanted the Israelites to have a king.  But God relented because their obsession was standing in the way of all else.  God met those people where they were and sought to achieve the divine purposes in the context that was present.  And when King Saul failed, God did not bury the Israelites.  God tried again, this time with a king that more matched divine expectations rather than human expectations.  And King David was a remarkably faithful ruler who led exceedingly well.  But the concentration of power eventually revealed David’s feet of clay. However, God did not cast him aside but tried again, offering David a way forward.

In our human-to-human relationships we often seek for them to be fifty-fifty.  Let’s meet halfway.  Let’s compromise.  I give a little and you give a little.  This is in no way how our relationship with the divine works.  God runs one hundred percent of the way to us, meeting us exactly where we are.  We see this in this tale of kings in the Old Testament and then we see it writ large in Jesus Christ in fully human form.  But God does not come one hundred percent of the way to us, to have us remain where we are.  God, invites, coaxes, cajoles, by any means necessary, offering us grace, to get us to travel one hundred percent of the way to where God resides.  If God needs to use kings, God will use kings. If God needs to use prophets God will use prophets.  If God needs to use God’s very own Son, then God’s very own Son will come.  I believe there is no distance God’s grace will not travel and there is no method God’s grace will not try to invite us forward from our brokenness into wholeness.

When our spiritual journeys feel choppy and disconnected, we are walking in the footsteps of our biblical forebears.  We continue to be imperfect people, striving and failing in a myriad of ways.  And our God continues to be perfect in the divine’s steadfast, enduring love for us, finding us right where we live.  Just as those Israelites did, we will make choices which will displease God.  The divine is a little like the GPS in our cars.  Regardless of the number of wrong turns we may make in our lives, God is continually recalculating our route home.  

There may be times when our relationship with God feels like, a dance, a debate, a tug of war, a collaboration, a conversation, a case of creative differences, a teaching opportunity and a complicated relationship all rolled into one.  And what that means is we are part of countless generations of the faithful, who are not always so faithful, with which God has chosen to stand beside and try and try again.    

Our journey continues, with all its twists and turns, but our destination is sure.

 Thanks be to God.  Amen.

March 8, 2026 Third Sunday in Lent
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
John 4:5-15Exodus 17:1-7
“Ego vs. Theo”
Melissa K. Smith

I grew up in a drought. Rationing water by watering lawns at night only twice a week was normal and I remember being told that it’s good if your lawn resembles “California gold”. Many people opted to change their gardens into “desert gardens” opting for rocks instead of grass and varying forms of cacti and desert plants instead of flowers.

When I moved to Spokane, Washington for college, I was the annoying freshman that ran to every sink in the bathroom and turned off the faucet when people were brushing their teeth. The thought that they just let water run for two whole minutes was ludicrous.

We were taught that if we had to drive through the Mojave Desert we needed to have a gallon of water in the car per person, our cars had to be serviced and the cooling system checked, and if you dared drive through in the summer you had to plan your drive for way early in the morning or after sunset so we could avoid extreme heat.

Heat and no water are a dangerous combination. Most people can survive without water for three to five days, but if you’re in a situation where you don’t have shelter and you’re in intense heat, that timeline is even shorter. With that context it normalizes the Israelite’s frustration… no water is serious business.

It’s easy to criticize the Israelites. They complain…a lot. In just the previous chapter in Exodus the Israelites cry out, “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and ate our fill of bread, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” It would be easy to pass this off as the Israelites being “hangry” – but it’s so much more than that.

They are scared. They are in the wilderness, the desert, taking the long route to the promised land. They have just fled for their lives, run through the red sea, and find themselves in a new context with nothing. Not even food. They cried out to God, they brought their anger, their frustration, their worry, and their fear to God. They lamented.

And they weren’t punished for crying out, they weren’t lambasted for their harsh words. Instead, Moses and God heard them. God responded by being present with them and providing manna and quail. God was intentionally present and generously provided for them. The Israelites never went without food for forty years.

But they are human, and eventually they became very, very thirsty. They said, “Give us water to drink…why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” And again, God listened to their cry. God told Moses to take the staff he struck the Nile river with – a sign of God’s saving presence in the lives of the Israelites – and strike a rock.  Water will flow. And Moses struck the rock, water flowed, but what is recorded in scripture is not the overwhelming joy of God’s provision. What is mentioned is their resounding question: “Is the Lord among us or not?”

Again, it is easy to criticize the Israelites. God has clearly been among them. He saved them from slavery in Egypt, he freed them from the Pharaoh, he split a sea so they could cross it in haste. God provided food – both manna and meat – and now he is providing water. What do you mean, “Is the Lord among us or not?” And beyond what God has provided – God has been incredibly present. God has shown up in pillars of fire by night and air by day. God has been with Moses. God has been and is among them.

But in their fear, in their frustration, in their anger, they turned inwards, focusing on themselves. They were ego-centric “what has God done for me today? Certainly he hasn’t given me anything to drink”. They were not theo-centric. They lost sight of God even though he was right in front of them, beside them, and with them the whole time.

The woman at the well approaches the matter of thirst not from fear but from skepticism. She is getting her water in the middle of the day – and no one gets water in the middle of the day. It’s far too hot. But as she goes, she encounters Jesus. In the midst of their discussion Jesus tells her about living water. And she wants to know where that water can be found because the thought of never being thirsty again, of never having to come to the well in the middle of the day because of societal insecurity…that’s so appealing. Her desire is ego-centric, “Sir, give me this water so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw more water.” She has skipped over Jesus’ words that “if you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

Ego vs. Theo

In both these instances, ego is not arrogance, but is rather the posture of being consumed by our own immediate needs, fears, and interpretations.

In the desert the Israelites can only see the desert. Their thirst becomes proof to them that God abandoned them and left them to die. In their fear their memory of God’s providence and provision through the plagues, the sea, and the manna is gone. Their only lens for understanding their situation is a lens of suffering.

At the well, the woman is focused on what she can understand. She and Jesus are almost having two different conversations. He is talking about living water and she is very aware of his lack of a bucket, the depth of the well, and is trying to be practical and logical in how to get water.

Ego in this sense is a narrow focus on what we can see and measure empirically. But when this type of ego dominates our perspective, scarcity becomes the plot, fear becomes the narrator, and we lose sight of God altogether.

Ego vs. Theo

In Greek, the root word “theos” means God. So theo in today’s sermon is referring to God-centered vision. The Israelites and the Samaritan Woman were, at least at one point, ego-centric in their vision. They lost sight of God. But we are called to be theo-centric.

In both of these passages, God is already present; even before anyone recognizes it. In Exodus 17 God says to Moses, “I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb.” Before the water comes, God is already there. The people think God is not among them. They think he abandoned them, leaving them to die. God was with them. They were never alone.

At the well, Jesus says to the woman, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is speaking to you…” The living water is already speaking to her – no buckets needed.

Theo-centric vision reminds us that God’s presence is not dependent on our awareness of God. Thank goodness.

Both of these passages, beyond their similarity in being ego-centric, focus on the theme of thirst. Thirst is a reality we all know, and it can take form both physically and spiritually. Physical thirst leads to panic. In dehydration, the body tries to conserve water by shrinking cells and reducing blood pressure, affecting mental alertness and coordination. That is certainly panic inducing.

Spiritual thirst is a soul-level craving for connection with God. It is something that cannot be quenched by worldly pleasures, it can only be quenched by growing in relationship with God. Spiritual thirst feels like doubt. “Is God really among us?” “I can’t feel God’s love in this season, perhaps God has left me.” “Does God care about me anymore?”

What these two passages show us is that God is always with us and he shows up in the midst of our thirst, inviting us to be quenched in body and soul as we say yes to his invitation into relationship.

The Israelites were really thirsty. The woman did have to navigate a deep well. What each of you are going through this Lenten season is valid and real. God’s invitation to take the living water, to see that he is before us even before his provision, does not negate the realities we are navigating. Rather, we are being invited to change our perspective, to shift from ego to theo and see that God has been standing with us the whole time.

We’re human. We complain. We argue. We have an ego-centric vision.

This Lenten season, let us take a step back, expand our viewfinders, and be ready for our perspectives to be changed as we realize that God is already here and perhaps we will see the ways God has provided for us in the midst of our fear, doubt, and skepticism.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

March 1, 2026  Second Sunday in Lent
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Exodus 20:22-23, 24:1-3, 32:1-6
“A Defense of the Golden Calf”
Douglas T. King

This morning, I invite you to join me on a little journey of heresy, in favor of the golden calf.  But before we begin this journey I will acknowledge what we heard read from Exodus, chapter twenty.  “The Lord said to Moses: You shall not make gods of silver alongside me, nor shall you make gods of gold.” So, yes, the actions of Aaron and the Israelites are directly disobedient to the God who liberated them from slavery.  Idolatry is bad.  I repeat, idolatry is bad.

But…forty days alone in the wilderness without God or Moses is a long time and we are not all Jesus, because if we were, we would not need Jesus.  

Jewish scholar, Avivah Zornberg makes the case that the Golden Calf fiasco originates in the people’s idolatry of Moses himself, who is conceived as in himself fraught with divinity.  She writes, “So great is the human desire to adore, that the screen through which the light radiates is worshipped as the source of the light.  In Moses’ absence, this failure of perception leads the people to react with desperation.  Any object or person, however sanctified—the Holy Land, Jerusalem, the temple, the very stone tablets inscribed by God’s finger—is meaningful only in its symbolic expressiveness.  But what happens when your one and only conduit to the divine is no longer present among you and you have yet to receive the sanctified Holy Land, Jerusalem, the temple, or the very stone tablets inscribed by God’s finger?” (Zornberg, p, 41)  I will tell you what happens.  What happens is you do your best to fill it in with something else, like a golden calf.

Religion scholar Karen Armstrong offers a word of challenge to the idea that pre-modern people actually worshipped inanimate idols.  “Being, rather than a being, was revered as the ultimate sacred power…A stone or a rock (frequent symbols of the sacred) expressed the stability and durability of Being.” (for you philosophy folks, in the Heideggerian sense of transcendent, fundamental being).  “None of these symbols was worshipped for and in itself.  People did not bow down and worship a rock tout court; the rock was simply a focus that directed their attention to the mysterious essence of life.” (Armstrong, p. 11)

For all the talk of making a God there is actually some debate about what exactly the golden calf was supposed to be.  But there is a reasonable argument to be made that it was not understood as a god in itself but as a throne upon which god could sit.  

And, here is the thing, while the Israelites are at the bottom of the mountain, worrying and devoid of any sign of God’s tangible presence, God is instructing Moses to fashion the ark of the covenant, a home for God, that has more bells and whistles and intricate, glorious details, than any golden calf.  Is this not an acknowledgment that the people need a dwelling place or throne or some form of embodiment by which to recognize God’s presence in their midst?  Yes, it is clearly different, as one is directed by the divine and one is humanity directing the divine but this demonstrates the need nonetheless.  

Yes, God had done great things for them.  But particularly after years of captivity, uncertainty in the wilderness is a frightening thing.  As liberated people they are in the infant stage without the comfort of the physical presence of their mother. (Moses or God, take your pick).  In the end, this entire generation will not be the ones to enter the Promised Land because they are not prepared.  In fact, God intentionally takes them the long way because of their lack of preparedness.  Immanuel Kant once said, “Out of timber so crooked as that from which man is made, nothing entirely straight can be built.”  So, yes, perhaps seeking out a tangible crutch is not a bridge too far.  One of my favorite quotes from the poet Ezra Pound, “Go in fear of abstractions.”  And a God who lives up on a mountain can feel pretty abstract at times, particularly when the only one allowed to speak with the divine is up on the mountain with them.  

So…everybody should hurry home right now and build their very own idol.  Okay, perhaps not.  But we do need to own the reality that we need some embodied sense of the divine.  We do have the sacraments but they do not occur in every worship service.  Let this story be a cautionary tale, not of cartoon-like idol worship, but of our collective need to embody the relationship between the boundless One and those of us who are limited bodies in every way.  If not, we will find more embodied and less worthy things to worship.
 
One could argue that the divine responded to this human need for embodiment throughout the remainder of scripture.  From the ark of the covenant to the two temples, to Jesus Christ, to the church, the divine goes on an embodiment spree.  Yes, the people royally screwed up.  But in the end, God’s response is a recognition of who we are and what we actually need.  

During the pandemic, the practice of faith became rather disembodied, and, apparently for previously active church-folk across the country, less relevant.  Pre-pandemic isolation, all of us have stories of four year olds speaking of church as “the place where God lives.”  And we are beginning to hear those sentiments expressed again by our littlest ones.  In the past, our reaction has been to immediately quash such notions.  No, God is everywhere.  Yes, God is in the church but no more so than in any other corner of creation.  All incredibly theologically accurate.  But in Matthew we hear, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”  Surely where two or three are repeatedly physically gathered in worship, education, fellowship, and mission the divine is particularly present.  The church as the body of Christ?  From a certain angle it sounds idolatrous.  And yet, we boldly claim this form of divine embodiment.  

In the movie “The American President” there is a debate in the oval office about frustrating opinion polls and public support for an empty suit political rival.  The Michael J. Fox character challenges the president(Michael Douglas) to take the fight to the empty suit and embody leadership.  He says, “They want leadership.  They’re so thirsty for it they’ll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there’s no water, they’ll drink the sand.”  When the church fails to offer people an embodied sense of God’s immanent presence people will find something else to worship.  

This text of the Golden Calf is a clarion call for us collectively as the church and as individuals to create opportunities for an embodied faith with an embodied experience of the living God.  Karen Armstrong writes that prior to the Enlightenment “Religion was a matter of doing not thinking.” (Armstrong, p. 25) Embodied rituals and actions informed understanding.  Today, often the first step of faith is intellectual ascent to some set of principles of the nature of divinity.  Beginning the journey in this direction runs the risk of a faith that is insubstantial in the face of the embodied challenges of life.  

We need a faith that lives beneath and beyond the rational life of the mind.  And we need a church that nurtures and feeds that faith. Otherwise, we will find ourselves idolizing the wrong things.  Such as,  “Oh my Gosh, we cannot move coffee hour from “insert name of room here!”  We have always served coffee there. That is where we served coffee the day my child was baptized!”  Sometimes we idolize random tradition.  A clergy colleague of mine has a thought for a drinking game.  Every time a parishioner begins a sentence with the word, “historically” you have to drink a shot.  My friend, Michael Lindvall tells a story of a congregation whose members would gently genuflect toward a blank wall every Sunday.  No one knew why they did it, but the tradition persisted.  During a renovation it was discovered that beneath the white paint was an iconic image of Mary.  At some point in the church’s history it was decided that such images were not appropriate but the psychic muscle memory persisted for generations.  If we do not embody our faithfulness we may find ourselves worshipping something more closely tied to our bodily being.  Idolatry, so much more elusive, subtle, and dangerous than anything fashioned out of gold.

This Lent I encourage all of us to pursue an embodied presence before the divine.  Perhaps it is walking the labyrinth, or choosing a specific new place to pray like Woods Chapel during the week, or praying in a new posture, on your knees or standing up or engaging in mission, recognizing Jesus in the faces of those we serve.  Or you could join us as we gather on Wednesdays at noon as we break bread together for both lunch and communion and discuss the biblical narratives of “Meeting Jesus at the Table.”

We are, one and all, vulnerable to worshipping that which is not what we should worship.  In this Lenten season let us step into an embodied faith that we may indeed worship the one who took the form of a human body, that we may find our home in God’s loving presence.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Armstrong, Karen, The Case for God, Alfred A. Knopf, New York,
 2009.
Zornberg, Avivah, The Particulars of Rapture, Doubleday, New
 York, 2002.

February 22, 2026 First Sunday in Lent
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Psalm 32Romans 5:12-19
“Gathered by Grace”
Melissa K. Smith

A Native American Proverb says, “Tell me the facts and I’ll learn. Tell me the truth and I’ll believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever.” Stories are powerful. They are a valuable vessel for teaching truths. Stories can be fictional or non-fiction, they can be fantastical or real-world, they can be full of facts that are set in another context so they can be heard new or in a new way.

When I was a child, my parents were getting ready to take my siblings and me to an art museum. They wanted us to enjoy the impressionist paintings, but were trying to figure out how to get five-year-olds interested enough to make it worth it. Sitting us down and telling us about Monet, Renoir, and Degas was not going to work. Telling us about impressionism and teaching us that it is an art movement originating in France that focused on capturing the fleeting, sensory “impression” of a moment, was not going to capture our attention or be an effective teaching tool.

Rather, my parents found a book that told us a story. It was called “Katie Meets the Impressionists”. In this story, Katie magically “jumps into” famous impressionist paintings by Monet, Renoir, and Degas to find flowers to create a bouquet for her grandmother. It was whimsical, it was fun, and it worked. When we got to the art museum, our eyes lit up and we ran from painting to painting – we ended up being the ones teaching my parents about paintings and sharing stories of what they represented because we learned about them through the art of storytelling.

Scripture gives us a master class on the art of storytelling. God is the ultimate storyteller and has given us sixty-six books – a library – of stories that tell us who he is, who we are, and the lives he calls us into.

The first story we see in scripture sets the tone for the whole Bible. Genesis chapters 1-3 tell of God creating the world and speaking it into existence. We see God taking the dust of the ground, adama, and breathing life into it, creating adam, Adam, the first man. In this story we see God giving Adam responsibility to tend to his creation. Adam is a co-ruler of creation. But Adam and Eve did not obey God’s command to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and sin entered the world through what we call “the Fall”.

Author and theologian G.K. Beale views Adam as a priest-king who was commissioned to expand the Garden sanctuary, but through the Fall, this mission Adam was tasked with now needed – it now required – a Redeemer.

From Genesis on, the Hebrew Bible tells us stories of humanity falling short and God, through his love, continuing to save them. From Adam to Moses to the judges to the kings to the prophets…our way was not working. What is clear in each of these stories is that humanity is incapable of redeeming themselves.

In the first story of scripture, Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden because of their sin. Through this story we see that sin disperses, it isolates, and it breaks relationships apart.

In Psalm 32, the passage Landen read for us this morning, we see David’s testimony of the ways sin isolated him and broke him. David says, “When I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.” His sin was isolating, it was exhausting, and it was all consuming.

It was through confession and experiencing God’s forgiveness and grace that David was able to rejoice in the Lord and his heart was once again ready to join community. Sin isolates. Grace gathers.

Paul speaks to the reality of sin and the significance of grace in our passage this morning as he writes to the people of Rome. He says, “Therefore, just as sin came through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because we have sinned – for sin was indeed in the world before the law, but sin is not reckoned when there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who did not sin in the likeness of Adam, who is the pattern of the one to come.”

Paul is evoking this first story and alluding to other stories throughout the Hebrew Bible to show us that the reality of Adam’s sin is ever present and the need for redemption is crucial and urgent.

Paul builds off of the stories of the Hebrew Bible that help us to recognize our brokenness and isolation, and he shows us how through Jesus Christ we are made whole and gathered together once again through the gift of grace. Paul says, “If, because of the one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.”

Paul is showing that Jesus is the second Adam. Adam was meant to co-reign with God but fell short through sin. Jesus, God incarnate, was sent into this world to retell the story of Adam, to properly rule with God, and to offer us the life God originally intended for us that we lost in the garden. In First Corinthians Paul elaborates more on this concept. He writes, “The first man, Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the physical, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man in heaven” (1 Cor 15:45-49).

Jesus came as a second Adam – he came into this world in the flesh, in the dust – but unlike Adam he did not sin, rather, he bore all of our sins on the cross and died that we might live. Jesus rewrote the story. No longer are we bound to a story that ends in sin, shame, and isolation. We are now invited to join the story of life, of grace, and of fellowship.

The story of Jesus Christ tells us the facts and the truth while doing so in a story that finds its home in our hearts. Last Wednesday we became acquainted with what it means to be of dust as we remembered that we are dust and to dust we shall return. We cannot deny that we are human and we are prone to sin. But what we can do is make the conscious decision to turn away from our sin and turn toward the God who loves us. Lent is our opportunity to learn the story of Jesus Christ: a story of love, of redemption, and of new life.

This Lenten season I encourage you to take the bold step of entering into Christ’s story – of learning, of asking questions, and of identifying ways you are perhaps stuck in the patterns of the old story and ready for the reality of the new.

We are on a journey to the cross with Christ. We cannot reach the reality of the resurrection without first enduring the reality of the cross. So let us prepare our hearts and minds. Let us walk towards the cross in humility so that we might be ready to accept the free gift of grace from God.

Let us spend this Lenten season sharing with one another how our stories are part of Christ’s story – a story of fellowship, of grace, and of gathering together.

We are a community gathered by God’s grace through his love, his sacrifice, and his defeat of sin and death. May you learn this story, treasure this story, and share this story.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

February 18, 2026  Ash Wednesday
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Genesis 2:4-7
“An Unlikely Amalgamation”
Douglas T. King

Welcome to Ash Wednesday and Lent, the day and the season in which we are reminded of how deeply flawed and imperfect we truly are and of the depth and perfection of God’s love for us in Jesus Christ.
 
In a few minutes all will be invited forward to receive ashes on our forehead or hand and be told, “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.”  It is a stark reminder of our fragility and mortality, of all the ways, that no matter how much we accomplish, or how well we dress ourselves up, we are vastly limited creatures.  

Our scripture reading from Genesis provides us with the image of being created from dust, from what is lifeless and inconsequential.  But this story teaches us that we are not solely dust; that what animates us, what gives us life, what lets us live and move and have our being, is the very breath of God’s Holy Spirit blown within us.  We are the most unlikely of amalgamations.  We are a sui generis combination of seemingly worthless dust and the transforming power of God’s Spirit.  In the first letter to the church in Corinth, Paul describes us in this way, “do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God and that you are not your own?”

If you turn to our bulletin cover, the poet Jan Richardson says it like this,

All those days
you felt like dust, 
like dirt,
As if all you had to do 
was turn your face
Toward the wind 
and be scattered
To the four corners 
or swept away
By the smallest breath 
as insubstantial-
Did you not know 
what the Holy One 
can do with dust?
This is the day 
we freely say 
we are scorched.
This is the hour 
we are marked
By what has made it 
through the burning.
This is the moment 
we ask for the blessing
That lives within 
the ancient ashes,
That makes its home 
inside the soil of 
This sacred earth.
So let us be marked 
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked 
not for shame.
Let us be marked 
not for false humility
Or for thinking 
we are less 
than we are
But for claiming 
what God can do
Within the dust, 
within the dirt,
Within the stuff 
of which the world 
is made, 
and the stars that blaze
In our bones, 
and the galaxies spiral
Inside the smudge 
we bear.
 
The creation account in Genesis, Paul, and Jan Richardson remind us of the paradox of our existence.  We are created out of near nothingness but we are inhabited by the creator of the universe.  We find ourselves living in the midst of a tremendous juxtaposition.

As we gather together on this Ash Wednesday we are called to be penitent; to honestly acknowledge all the ways we are broken and sinful. But we are not called to be mired in shame and self-loathing.  We are not called to believe our mortal condition leaves us helpless and incapable of change.  We are not called to bow our heads and slink home feeling worthless.  We are called to carry two realities simultaneously. Yes we are imperfect. And yes, we are filled with God’s abiding Holy Spirit.  This means that despite our personal failings, we are capable of remarkable things.  

Master musicians usually own very special instruments, handcrafted works of art with which they produce stunning music.  If you hand that remarkable instrument to someone who is all thumbs they cannot offer any music from it.  But if you hand a master musician an inexpensive assembly line instrument they can coax beautiful music from even a rather pedestrian object.  

And so it with the likes of you and me.  We are far from being works of art in our lives. But the God who inhabits us can coax the most beautiful music, even through our imperfections.  Each and every one of us is an instrument of God.  

In her book, Things Seen and Unseen, the writer, Nora Gallagher shares this about the time she cared for her friend Ben as he was dying.  

“In the midst of it, I learned something about faith, its mucky nature, how it lies down in the mud with pigs and the rabble.  When Ben realized he was dying, he asked me to be his ‘alternate health care agent.’  As I signed that section of his living will, I imagined standing in the hallway of a hospital with perhaps a few doctors in white coats making compassionate and elegant decisions, gracefully.  

I did not imagine what came to pass.  Instead of that antiseptic corridor, I sat in Ben’s living room, jet lagged, shoveling Chinese take-out food into my mouth, my own house strewn with dirty laundry and used cat litter boxes.  I was deciding whether or not to ask a doctor to get a new drug that would help end Ben’s life.  I had not imagined being so tired I wanted Ben to hurry up and die.  In short I imagined a better version of myself.  Instead, I was the same old screwed-up woman.

In that time I learned that everything is God’s: my screwed-up self, my dirty laundry, my harrowing inability to be perfect for Ben.  Everything is God’s: shame, suicide, assisted death, AIDS.  Because God is inside everything, findable in everything, because I am convinced—I would not have made it through Ben’s death without God.  God is not too good to hang out with jet-lagged women with cat litter boxes in their dining rooms or men dying of AIDS or, for that matter, someone nailed in humiliation to a cross.  God is not too good for anything...”

And so even as we gather on Ash Wednesday to be reminded of our imperfection we are also called to know that we are instruments of God’s perfect love.  

Thanks be to God. Thanks be to God, indeed.  Amen.

February 8, 2026  Fifth Sunday after Epiphany
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
First Kings 19:9-15 and First Corinthians 1:18-31
“Know What You Do Not Know”
Douglas T. King

How do we learn?  How do we grow?  How do we mature?  Oftentimes, the first step in learning anything is recognizing everything we actually do not know.  

As people of faith we are called to continue to move forward into becoming the people God has created us to be.  It is a lifelong effort and no small task.  On our spiritual journeys the first step of acknowledging everything we do not know is called via negativa.  Via negative is the way of negation.  It refers to approaching the divine by seeking to remove all of the finite and limiting ways we seek to understand who God is.  It leans into the ineffability of God.

For us, the idea of Jesus Christ dying on the cross is an essential element of our understanding of who God is and how God loves us.  It functions as an assumption of the Christian faith.  But if we take a step back we can view the absurdity of the concept.  How do we reconcile God’s omnipotence with a mortal man dying?  The Jewish people had been waiting for generations for a victorious, warrior savior.  How could the Son of God possibly be hanging lifeless and limp on a cross?  Omnipotence and the deepest of vulnerability present in the same entity?  It is absurdity taken to the greatest of heights.  

In the Zen Buddhist tradition the very notion of God on the cross might be considered a koan; a concept of such deep paradox  that it flushes out all of the preconceptions one might have. The zen koan of “what is the sound of one hand clapping?” has nothing on the idea of an eternal God dying.

If we bring fresh eyes to our God on the cross it should challenge all of our assumptions about who God is.  It should empty us of all of the preconceived notions we have accrued and compiled into our sure theological answers.  

It is good for us to periodically shake the etch-a-sketch portraits we each carry in our mind about God.  In the book of Philippians we hear of Jesus engaging in what is called in the Greek, kenosis, self-emptying himself as he steps into his humanity.  Paul writes, Jesus, “did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself…”  We too are called to a form of kenosis, emptying ourselves of our egos to draw closer to God.  And part of our egos are the assumptions, however well thought out they may be, about who God truly is.  When we cling too tightly to our image of God we run the risk of not worshipping the actual living God who is beyond all human understanding and instead worshipping Gods of our own making.  We run the risk of not seeking to live into our calling as being created in the image of God but creating a God in our own image.  

The mystic Meister Eckhart wrote often about our need to become empty vessels that God’s Spirit can more fully find a home within us. He also wrote, “Only the hand that erases can write the true thing.”  If we wish to grow in our understanding of God we might need to take a step back to take a step forward.  Of course we are not called to abandon what we believe.  But what if we brought fresh eyes to it?  What if we read scripture as if we were reading it for the first time; if we stripped away our assumptions of what we think we know it says?  What if instead of the prayers we offer up daily we sat in silence and just listened for the Spirit’s movement in our minds?

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche describes three stages of spiritual development, the camel, the lion, and the child.  The camel learns all there is to learn of the inherited wisdom offered to us.  The lion roars a loud “no” to all of it and slays the tradition.  And the child arises in all innocence with a cry of sacred “yes” and an openness to discovering the deepest truths, unencumbered by assumptions.  

Now Nietzsche was not a Christian but in the gospel of Mark we do hear Jesus proclaim, “Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of heaven as a little child will never enter it.”  When we come before the divine removed from assumptions we are open to receiving the living God who is beyond all of our preconceived notions.    

During the time when it was thought God would demonstrate the divine presence through mighty acts of nature, Elijah is up on the mountaintop awaiting God’s presence.  A great wind, so strong it is splitting mountains, arises, but God was not in the wind.  An earthquake shakes every foundation, but God was not in the earthquake.  A great fire erupted, but God was not in the fire.  Then a sound of sheer silence settled upon Elijah, and in that, God was present.  Indeed.  When we are deeply faithful to God we allow ourselves to be surprised by who God is and how God may be at work in our lives.  

As people of Christ on the cross, we are a part of a faith tradition that made a radical renunciation of all previous understandings of the Messiah.  And in doing so our eyes have been opened to the remarkable gift of God’s grace.

If we began every time of prayer as if we were meeting God for the first time; if we entered into each worship service as if we were meeting God for the first time; if we read scripture as if we were meeting God for the first time who knows what might be revealed to us?  If I had to proffer a guess it would be that we just might find ourselves face-to-face with the living God who is beyond all of our limited understandings.  

The theologian, Thomas Aquinas wrote, “Then alone do we know God truly, when we believe that God is far beyond all that we can possibly think of God.”

The religious scholar David Bentley Hart wrote, “Wisdom is the recovery of innocence at the far end of experience; it is the ability to see again what most of us have forgotten how to see…” (Hart, p. 200 Wiman, Bone)

Now, if some of this feels a little too far out for us staid Presbyterians, I would remind us that we are a people of the Reformed tradition. The phrase Reformed tradition is a bit of an oxymoron.  One of the tenets of our Reformed tradition is that we continually question our tradition.  We are Reformed and always reforming.  In other words, we believe that God continues to speak to us in new ways in every generation helping us understand who God is and who we are called to be in every new context.  

As we enter into each new day, let us do so as if we are meeting God for the first time.  Let us open your eyes and ears and hearts to the God we have yet to experience.  Let us allow the divine to surprise and refresh us in ways we have yet to imagine.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.    
 
Wiman, Christian, Zero at the Bone, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, New York, 2023.

February 1, 2026  Fourth Sunday after Epiphany
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Micah 6:1-8
“Bowing Down that We May Rise Up”
Douglas T. King

Have you ever wondered why the majority of Presbyterian churches celebrate communion once a month, unlike our Catholic sisters and brothers who celebrate the sacrament every week?  It all started in John Calvin’s Geneva and the birth of our Presbyterian heritage.  The apocryphal story I prefer goes like this.  Calvin emphasized the need for confession before receiving the sacrament.  But the people of Geneva liked to have a good time on Saturday night, a really good time.  And they felt they would not be ready to adequately confess all of their revelry before the sacrament every Sunday morning so they decided once a month was enough.  The real and unfortunately less salacious story is that John Calvin wanted communion every Sunday but the leaders in Geneva were worried it made them seem too Roman Catholic so they compromised with once a month. Personally, I still prefer the notion of Genevans whipping up a party like New Orleans during Mardi Gras every Saturday night making them unprepared to receive the sacrament.

Back in the prophet Micah’s day when a layperson wished to enter the temple for worship or proposed to offer a sacrifice, there was a ritual of inquiry and instruction before they were deemed prepared to do so.  You needed to be vetted to make sure you were worthy enough to engage in the rituals of worshipping God.  Can you imagine that today?  Having our ushers and our greeters evaluate your worthiness for worship before you were given access to the sanctuary on a Sunday morning?  Perhaps I am out on a limb here, but I am not sure that would go over all that well.  

But the question of how we approach the table, and for that matter, worship in general, remains.  Our reading from Micah speaks to this question.  The first portion of the text is God condemning the nation for its lack of faithfulness in the face of all the divine has done for them.  The people respond, questioning how, in the face of all of their failures, they can appropriately approach God in the temple.  They suggest traditional sacrifices in absurd quantities, “thousands of rams” and “ten thousands of rivers of oil.”  They even offer up their very children, their first born.  

God’s answer sweeps away their entreaties with the three things actually required to come into the presence of God; “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.”  The trio of expectations has both a powerful rhetorical flourish and deep implications for whom we are called to be.  I do, however, have one quibble.  I would argue that rearranging the order of the trio is in order.  What is listed as the ending point should be the starting point.

These first two pithy exhortations, “do justice” and “love kindness” roll rather trippingly off the tongue but they are not all that easily lived out.  It is a new challenge every day to live up to these high ideals.  Justice and kindness are easy to believe in as words and theories.  But both offering kindness and engaging in efforts of justice involve seeing beyond ourselves on a continual and regular basis.   And that is easier said than done.  

If we want to be people who live lives exhibiting kindness to others and working for justice for those in need we need to start with the final item of exhortation brought to us in Micah, “walking humbly with our God.”  It is being aware of God’s presence in our lives that enlightens us to the reality that we are not the self-sufficient center of the universe.  And this humbling reality allows us to make the needs of others a priority.  

But this process can be a bit of a catch 22.  To experience God’s presence and discover humility, it might involve discovering some initial humility.  We are far too likely to place ourselves at the center of all things and become gods unto ourselves which does not leave much room for our actual God.

The brilliant author George Saunders recently had an interview in the New York Times. In it he discussed the three delusions we must ditch to step into kindness and save ourselves.  “You’re not permanent, you’re not the most important thing and you’re not separate.”  Sounds like deep humility to me.  

The artist Makoto Fujimura has a story that bears light on this journey to humility.  He writes of Sen no Rikyu’s creation of an elaborate form of the Japanese tea service, which took apprentices a decade to “master all the minute movements…It was…Rikyu’s invention to create a nijiriguchi, a small, square crawl-in entry to the tearoom…a samurai was forced to bow and humble himself to enter the teahouse and, more importantly, had to remove his sword and leave it beside the rock at the entry.  The journey into the teahouse is considered just as important as sitting to have tea.” (Fujimura, pp. 49-50)  

When Rikyu was creating this new ritual of tea service there was much “feudal bloodshed in Japan.” (Fujimura, p. 50)  He wisely realized that without some degree of humility these samurai warlords would never cease in their pointless bloodshed.  Humility is indeed an essential step in peacemaking, in doing justice, in loving kindness.  There is much to be said for laying down what gives us power and prestige in the world, even if momentarily, to allow us to be reminded that we are indeed not the center of all things.  And thus we discover who is the center of all things.  

It is a fair question to ponder, just how much of the strife and violence and warfare in our world finds its seeds in prideful arrogance.  It would be far too simplistic to lay all of conflict at the feet of pride.  But I do believe we cannot truly do justice and love kindness without humility.  

I wonder what it would be like if to enter into our sanctuary on a Sunday morning we had to pass through a nijiriguchi, a small, square crawl-in entry of our own.  What if we had to lay aside all the sundry accoutrement that define our worldly value, our fancy degrees and important titles, our stock portfolios and club memberships, our self-inflated images of ourselves?  What if we entered into worship possessing solely one identity marker, a child of God?  What if that were the single most important way we defined ourselves on each new day?  How much kindness would we bring to bear if in every interaction we solely saw each other as fellow children of God?  How much passion and energy would we bring to bear when confronted with injustice in this world toward fellow children of God?  What would it be like to live in a community where everyone with whom we interacted was present with us in such deep humility?  Imagine, if we, one and all, walked humbly with our God, defined ourselves primarily as children of God, and demonstrated that in our lives?  
 
In the midst of this talk of humility, of walking humbly with our God, it is important to clarify something.  Humility, walking humbly with our God, does not mean we see ourselves as lesser than in any way.  What it does is redefine our understanding of what makes each of us valuable and precious.  Our true value is not to be found in anything any of us will ever accomplish.  Our true value is found in what we have been given; in the way in which we have been claimed as beloved by our God.  When we find our true and ultimate value not in what we have accomplished but what we have been given, and when we recognize that very same value in all those who cross our paths we hold our heads high not in prideful arrogance but in a prideful shared gratitude.

Imagine a world where everyone from the least powerful to the most powerful heeded the wisdom of George Saunders.  “You’re not permanent, you’re not the most important thing and you’re not separate.”  A society built on humility and prideful shared gratitude will surely flourish.  A society built on indulgent arrogance will sooner or later eat itself alive.

As we come to the table this morning we are invited to do so both in great humility and in great prideful shared gratitude, for we are God’s beloved children.  And we are called to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God.  

May it indeed be so.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.      
 
Fujimura, Makoto, Art is a journey into the light, Yale     University Press, New Haven, 2025.

January 18, 2026  Second Sunday after Epiphany
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Romans 5:1-8
“An Unconditional Hope”
Douglas T. King


I have a “use of language” confession this morning.  I must admit that I am immensely wishy-washy in my use of the word “hope.”  I am constantly using it in such an embarrassingly watered-down fashion.  Sometimes I use it in rather mundane matters. “I hope the weather is nice tomorrow.” Or “I hope there are fresh strawberries at the Kirkwood Farmer’s market.” Other times I use it in matters of life and death. “I hope the wars that plague our world, and the violence on our city streets can be replaced with peace.”  I use the word “hope” without any sense of sure confidence.  I use it in place of the phrases, “wouldn’t it be nice if” or “I dearly wish.”  

Well, the apostle Paul is not nearly so sloppy and inconsequential in his use of the word.  When Paul speaks of “hope” he is talking of an expectation which he is certain will occur.  Hope is not some flimsy conditional word of pleasant possibility.  “Hope” is a strong,steadfast substantial stone of a word Paul confidently weighs in his hand.  There is nothing fleeting about Paul’s understanding of hope.  Hope is a recognition of the guarantee we have been given in God’s love.

According to Paul, our faith in Christ has justified and reconciled us to God.  With God’s grace we stand as people forgiven for all of our mistakes.  And as we stand forgiven, God is working in each of us that we may become sanctified, that we may actually participate in the very glory of God.

Paul believes that we as followers of Christ, are on a journey to the Promised Land.  We have been freed from the slavery of our failures and weaknesses by trusting in God.  The rest of our lives are about traveling toward perfect union with the divine.  Although we may be fallible and weak, God’s purposes will never be denied and we will indeed share in God’s glory.  

Of course, the tricky part of it all is that we remember what that journey to the Promised Land was like for God’s liberated people.  Freed or not, the journey was no cake walk.  It was forty years of hardship and wandering, whining, moaning, and doubting before the destination was achieved.  In the Cecille B. Demille version we get the obviously miscast Edward G. Robinson challenging the wisdom of the Israelites’ faith in God and their journey.  He urges them to turn back to Egypt when things get rough.  He spoke in an accent similar to the one common in the neighborhood of Hell’s Kitchen in which my father grew up.  “Yeah see, what has this God of Moses done for us lately?”  The question of what God has done for us lately is always present in the midst of life’s challenges.  

All bad movie imitations aside, it is the juxtaposition of the difficulty of the journey with Paul’s almost blind trust in the result, which can seem simultaneously inspiring and facile.  A line such as “we boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope…” suggests to me some mathematical equation of masochism.  Celebrating suffering is a truly inappropriate way of honoring God’s providence.  

But in actuality that is not what Paul is doing here.  As Paul leads us down this chain of suffering to endurance to character to hope, he has already established that we have hope.  Our faith in God, enfleshed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ, has brought us the promise of sharing in God’s glory which gives us hope.  What he is saying is that when we have hope in God, suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces an even greater hope.  

Without hope to begin with, the suffering itself does not produce much of anything.  There have been times in our Christian tradition, where people believed that we should intentionally seek out suffering.  As if the more we suffer the closer we can become to Christ who suffered.  This is not what Paul is instructing us to do.  Paul is not telling us to lash ourselves or wear a hair-shirt and then go around bragging to everyone about how much we are suffering for Jesus.

Paul is acknowledging that there already is suffering in our lives.  With his steadfast trust in the promise of our destination in the loving glory of God, Paul is telling us that whatever comes in the journey of our lives it can be used to lead us home to the divine.  I always had great trouble with this notion until I had a church member who was going through a tremendous period of suffering.  His wife had recently died and he was dealing with multiple serious medical issues.  He shared with me the scripture text that brought them strength on each new day.  It too comes from Paul in the book of Romans, “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God…”  All things.  His claiming of this text in the midst of his suffering was a powerful testimony for me from which I am still seeking to learn.

It is such a transforming belief, this standing strong in our hope, trusting that whatever befalls us on each new day, is yet another step toward our God.  I wish I could claim these words as deeply and completely as that church member did all those years ago.  I wish I could announce I never have a difficulty in my life that I do not celebrate as an opportunity to grow closer to God.  I wish I could look at the vast and deep brokenness in our world and grounded in a rock-solid hope, step forth with confidence that with God by our side all will be made well.  I wish I could preach with confidence that I see the Prince of Peace rounding the bend about to lead us into setting everything in our very askew world right.  I am far more likely to flounder in frustration and fear with a hope that is often too feeble for the fight.

But on this weekend when we remember the ministry and testimony of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr, I am reminded of one of his quotes. “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.  Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.  I believe when you have hope it enables you to grow beyond the divisions and darkness and hatred which continue to separate us and bring light and love into the world…”  

I seek to grow into the possession of Paul’s form of hope, of MLK’s form of hope.  Paul explains that the journey of suffering to hope works “because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”  Perhaps for Paul the Spirit was poured a little faster into his heart than I am being poured into.  

However, this metaphor of the Spirit working on our hearts as a poured liquid is very helpful.  We know of the vast power of water on the move, even when it moves slowly.  A steady ever-so-gentle rain will over time saturate a field for abundant growth.  As well, a river over time can carve out the wide-open magnificence of the Grand Canyon.  

So let us not give up too quickly on Paul’s hope just because we may not be ready to claim it today.  Let us let God’s love work in our hearts that they may become fertile enough and open enough that even the suffering of this world and in our lives will not produce in us bitterness, but will produce endurance which will produce character which will produce hope.

The Irish poet Seamus Heaney once said, “Hope is a condition of the soul, not a response to the circumstance in which you find yourself.”  Graced with such a powerful hope may we be the ones who bring more light and love into this world that the Prince of Peace may indeed reign.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.  
 

January 11, 2026  Baptism of the Lord Sunday
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Genesis 1:1-2 and Psalm 29
“Whatever May Come…”
Douglas T. King

Water.  It is an essential element in our lives.  It is also a powerful and evocative symbol.  We think of water for its gift of slaking our thirst and keeping us hydrated.  We think of water and its ability to cleanse.  But water can be a powerfully destructive force as well.  Hurricanes, tsunamis, and catastrophic rains can create immense damage.  Growing up on an island I was taught trust/fear the power of water.  

In the Bible water is known as a symbol for chaos.  In our brief reading from Genesis we hear of the earth as a formless void, in the original Hebrew it is onomatopoetic, tohu vavohu.  We hear of wind from God, God’s Spirit, sweeping over the waters, over the chaos that existed before God brings order to creation.  

Our creation myth paints a wonderfully ordered laying out of creation as each day the divine puts more pieces in place to create a world full of abundant blessings.  But the Biblical witness does not pretend as if chaos is ever fully eradicated.  Psalm 29, which I just read, is known as a psalm of enthronement.  It extols the power of God over all of creation.  We hear multiple examples of God’s glorious and unmatched strength as the voice of the Lord “breaks the cedars” and “shakes the wilderness.”  We hear of the voice of the Lord “over the waters,” and that “The Lord sits enthroned over the flood…”  But what we do not hear is that those waters and floods of chaos no longer exist.  

This psalm is often called “A Hymn to the God of the Storm.”  It acknowledges God’s power while still acknowledging the reality of storm and chaos in this world.  And for that I am grateful.  Storm and chaos do indeed still exist.  We read about it in the news every day.

Rabbi Sharon Brous writes the following, “Dr. Lucy Hone, a resiliency researcher, posits that an ever-present awareness of loss is the foundation of a strong heart…”  Rabbi Brous then goes on to speak against losing sight of this reality.  “Our cultural bias is toward denial and avoidance, as if ignoring the precariousness of life will safeguard us from the inescapable.  But this is both a dishonest and a dangerous way to live.  The reality is that some cocktail of loss, illness, isolation, rejection, and betrayal will crash into all of our lives at some point.”

Rabbi Brous goes on to write, “Acknowledging this, preparing our hearts for it, is the only way to live honestly.  When babies are born, we don’t bless them with a life free from heartache.  We bless them that they should live a life of purpose, surrounded by love, and that they should use their gifts to make the world more caring and more just.  And we bless them that when the pain comes, they don’t have to withstand it alone. (Brous, p. 101)

The Jewish blessing of a baby is not exactly what our Christian baptism is, but we do share a similar perspective.  When we baptize babies, when we place the sign of the cross upon their foreheads with water, we make no promises that they are being inoculated from the challenges of this life.  What we do promise is that on each and every step of this journey, we are following in the steps of one who was baptized before us, Jesus Christ.  And in following in Christ’s footsteps we are assured that God’s Spirit is by our side wherever life may take us.  We are assured we are beloved children of God.  We are assured of our ultimate destination redeemed, restored, and made whole in the embrace of the divine.  Whatever may come we are baptized and beloved.

There is a reason our new baptismal font will have such a large and visible bowl.  We want the water to be seen, for its symbolic power to quench our spiritual thirst, to cleanse us and to make us new.  But also for the biblical image of the chaos that it represents to be seen.  We are reminded that life can be difficult and unpredictable and filled with more than its share of storms.  

However, all of that water, all of the chaos is surrounded by the bowl, is surrounded by God’s loving embrace.  Whatever can possibly happen in any of our lives, there is not a single circumstance that occurs beyond God’s care.  In the moment of the storm it can be difficult to see anything beyond the storm. But when we remember our baptism; when we remember we are never beyond God’s care; when we remember there is nothing that will deter us from our destination in God’s embrace, we can lay hold to the old turn of phrase “tempest in a teapot.”  The waters of chaos are powerful but not nearly as powerful as our God.  When we remember our baptism we have the opportunity to have a wide-angle lens view of our lives.  Regardless of what we may confront today, we are promised that we continue our journey, in Jesus Christ’s footsteps, home to God. Whatever may come we are baptized and beloved.

Following particularly contentious moments, one of my predecessors at a former church was fond of saying, “A hundred years from now we will all be dead and none of this will matter.”  Consider it dark clergy humor after a rough day when the smallest of issues become immense kerfuffles.  My gosh, churches are good at that.  And, if you are curious, there is no humor darker than dark clergy humor.  In moments of brighter spirits perhaps he might have said, bathed in God’s grace, all else is of little consequence.  Whatever may come, we are baptized and beloved.

We wanted our new baptismal font to be large and prominent enough that whenever we entered the sanctuary our eyes would be drawn to it.  Seeing it, will be reminded of the promise we have received.  Seeing it, we will be reminded of the sign of the cross placed upon our foreheads.  Seeing it, we will be reminded of being claimed as God’s own. Seeing it, we will be reminded there is no storm that can enter our lives that is more powerful than God’s love for us. Whatever may come, we are baptized and beloved.

When my friend Ted was dropping his oldest daughter, Shelby, off at Vassar for her freshman year there was the usual level of anxiety.  How would she do living on her own for the first time?  How would she manage all of life’s ups and downs without Mom and Dad by her side?  

As Ted and his wife were very reluctantly pulling away in their car, Ted took one last longing look in his rearview mirror, hoping to catch just one more glimpse of his baby girl, now a young woman.  He saw Shelby standing there, watching them slowly drive away.  Shelby and Ted locked eyes.  And Shelby reached up with a finger and made the sign of the cross on her forehead.  She was reminding Ted, and perhaps herself, that all would be well. Whatever may come, she was baptized and beloved.

When that baptismal bowl of ours finally gets here, etched in the bottom of it will be words we can read through those waters of chaos, “you are beloved.”  

Whatever may come, you are baptized and beloved.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.
         
Brous, Sharon, the amen effect, Avery, New York, 2024.

January 4, 2026  Epiphany Sunday
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Matthew 2:1-12
“Choose the Journey”
Douglas T. King


A wise person once said that ministry is more about interruptions than anything else. The same can be said for each of our spiritual journeys.  In other words, the Holy Spirit always arrives in guises we do not expect, when we do not expect her.
 
Years ago, at a previous church in early December, I was sitting up in my office laying out preaching notes for upcoming sermons and I was thinking about Epiphany.  The phone rang.  It was Holly, who was a staff person for both the church and our school.  She asked me if I had time to come downstairs to see the baby Jesus.  I was busy but it did not seem like the kind of question to which one could say no.  I hustled my way down the stairs immediately.
 
Holly took me out to the crèche set up in the playground courtyard.  We never placed the baby Jesus in the crèche during advent because it confused the purpose 
of the season which is to wait for Jesus’ arrival.  But obviously someone had grown tired of waiting.  There in the center of the crèche was a tiny doll wrapped in a blanket.  
Someone had snuck in and placed Jesus in our midst, whether we were ready or not.

I returned to my office where my Bible was opened to this morning’s reading of the three magi paying homage to Jesus and I wondered about the need within us to be in the presence of this child king and about how we go about accomplishing just that, other than sneaking a baby doll in the manger that is.  

These Magi/wise ones/astrologers/kings, heck it is not entirely clear who the heck they were, put together the two sides of the puzzle that lead us to the Christ in our midst.  They started off with a sign, a star shining in the sky.  They were perceptive and noticed what others, who are only casual-glancers missed.  Their keen observation of the sky brought them news that a king had been born.  They have the first piece of the puzzle.  And they do not merely sit on this information and drink tea or whatever it is
magi/wise ones/astrologers/kings do in their spare time.

They possess what the poet Godfrey Rust refers to as “the unquenchable desire to know.”  Our wise ones choose to journey in search of this king whose presence they have discovered in the night sky.  And when it says they came from the east they are not exactly talking about east like the distance between here and the Central West End.  
They traveled a great distance and took on countless unknown risks.
 
They come to King Herod in search of further direction.  And Herod, fearing for his own power, quickly calls in his scripture experts for a consultation.  The chief priests and scribes tell him that the scriptures predict that the Messiah is to be born in Bethlehem.  
King Herod shares this with the wise ones and sends them out while he plots his own response to this news.  Now the wise ones have the second piece of the puzzle, the guidance of scripture, and they are ready to find this new king.  

They journey to Bethlehem and find the infant and they kneel before him, paying homage and bringing valuable gifts.  Besides making a lovely image for a Christmas Card,
even if it is a scene of the epiphany, what does this story offer us?  I believe it offers us insight into the importance of two pieces of the puzzle we need to use to find our way to Jesus, the keen perception of movements in the world and the wisdom of scripture.  

One of Karl Barth’s most famous quotes discusses these two pieces of the puzzle. He describes the correct way to do theology, with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.  Tom Long describes it in this fashion, “In terms of contemporary religious experience, the world is full of ‘stars in the East,’ events in nature, personal experience, and history that point toward the mystery of God.  The seemingly permanent Berlin Wall comes swiftly down in a sudden political storm, a daffodil opens in all its spring beauty and glory, a troubled relationship is healed, a child is born, all these experiences and countless others draw our attention to the divine mystery that quietly pervades and pushes through human events.  Without the defining and clarifying word of scripture, however, we could not recognize these holy moments for what they are, and we would not be able to see God’s face clearly in them.  Like the wise men, we would be aware something had happened, but we would not, without the revelation of God in scripture, know where or how to worship.” (Long, p. 19)
 
Epiphany is sort of a poignant holiday.  It is great that the three wise ones showed up to pay the infant Jesus homage, but I wonder, where was everybody else?  I am sure others saw the star.  And the chief priests and the scribes knew the Biblical prophecy but they do not come knocking on the door in Bethlehem with gifts.  Herod’s craven, power-mad, response to all of this will be the murdering of the innocents so it is clear he is not out shopping for baby gifts.  Only the wise ones make the journey.  

As we start this new calendar year perhaps we can renew our efforts to seek out the child king; to make the journey.  Perhaps we can summon our own, “unquenchable desire to know.”  Perhaps we can keep a keen eye on the movements of this world and particularly the movements in our own lives, the interruptions and surprises, for signs of the mystery of God present and at work.  Perhaps we can turn to the scriptures, with fresh and questioning eyes, and learn about how they may inform what we see unfolding in our lives.

In Willa Cather’s novel, Death Comes for the Archbishop, the archbishop offers this wisdom to one of his priests, “The Miracles of the Church seem to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always.” (Cather, p. 50)  In other words, there are always stars in the East if we have eyes to see them.

May 2026 be a year of finer perceptions for us all.  May we cultivate our “unquenchable desire to know.”  May we allow our eyes to focus on the countless stars in the East that are to be seen in our lives.  May we turn to scripture to seek to comprehend how and where God may be at work among us.  May we too journey into the presence of the Messiah and offer the gift of ourselves to the one who offers us everything in return.

Thanks be to God.
  Amen.

Cather, Willa, Death Comes for the Archbishop, Vintage Books, New York, 2023
Long, Thomas, Matthew, WJK Press, Louisville, 1997.       

December 24, 2025  Christmas Eve
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Luke 2:1-20 and John 1:1-5
“Celebrating the Splendor of the Light Eternal”
Douglas T. King

Never has the same story been told in two more distinctly different tellings.  Although both of these texts are immensely familiar, the juxtaposition of them is slightly disorienting.  In our story of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem we hear of light, the glory of the Lord, brilliantly illuminating the night sky as an angel of the Lord and the heavenly host startle the shepherds bringing them news of a savior and praises for the divine.  

But there is no talk of such bright light where the newborn Jesus is being swaddled.  In a stable the lighting is likely a candle or two providing at most a soft glow.  One wonders if those shepherds, still seeing stars from the bright light of the heavenly host, had to blink several times before they could even recognize that babe lying in the manger.  

In the other origin story of Jesus from the gospel of John we hear of light of a totally different nature, primordial light from before time began; the light of all people; the light no darkness can overcome; the splendor of light eternal.  This is the same light we hear of as God begins fashioning creation.  God pronounced, “Let there be light” and what was chaos began to be transformed into an ordered creation full of blessing.    

In these two tellings we hear of Jesus being born some two thousand years ago and then we hear of Jesus being present when time itself began.  One highlights his humanity and one his divinity.  On this night our eyes naturally focus on that soft candlelight in the stable and the cooing baby.  But John’s telling of a light that precedes ordered existence and whose presence knows no bounds, the splendor of light eternal, has a lot to teach us about exactly who that adorable, swaddled-one truly is.

Light is a remarkably powerful metaphor for this babe we are welcoming into our midst on this dark night.  If our eyes wander to the windows of the sanctuary, the darkness seen through them, appears to have a palpable, almost physical presence.  In some contexts it can feel as if the darkness may completely envelope us.  (As children, our parents try to teach us not to be afraid of the dark but I am not sure we ever quite get there.)  

The iconic, Albert Einstein, turned his prodigious intellect toward light and darkness.  He is credited with discovering that light is both a wave and a set of localized particles, photons.  Light as a wave helps us understand how it bends and spreads out into every corner of creation.  What a wonderful metaphor for our child savior, whose presence continues to bend and spread out into every corner of creation finding a home within each one of us.  Light, as particles, photons, helps us understand how it transfers energy.  Photons are tiny packets of energy that excite the electrons in atoms causing a jump in their motions.

In John we hear how all of existence is dependent upon the energy the savior child pours into it, “All things came into being through him and without him not one thing came into being.”  And Jesus Christ’s ministry of teaching and healing and abiding with us transfers energy unto us, into us, sparking hope and joy.

Einstein once said of light and darkness, “There is no darkness in this Universe. There is only the presence of light and the absence of it.”  In John we hear, “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.”  It has also been translated as the light shines in the darkness and “the darkness did not grasp it; did not overtake it, did not overpower it, did not extinguish it.”

Einstein understanding of divinity was not Christian but his description of light and darkness dovetails nicely with the gospel of John.  Darkness and light are not equals.  When Einstein describes darkness as solely the absence of light he is reminding us that darkness has no palpable power once light enters into its presence. That image in our creation myth of God inviting the existence of light into the midst of the chaos of the cosmos and beginning an ordered creation of blessing continues in the birth of Jesus Christ down to this very night as we are gathered.  God’s creative light, God’s light in Jesus Christ, continues to journey forth bringing illumination and energy.

But all this talk of light does not negate the reality we can still find our focus on the darkness and chaos of this world. We experience nyctalopia, night blindness, a difficulty to see when light is indeed present but scarce.  There is no denying there is still chaos and tragedy to be found in our wider world and sometimes in our own lives.  Particularly in this season we can find ourselves in darkness as the expectations of how things “should” be this time of year do not match our experience.  There are empty chairs around the dining room table once filled by those who have gone on to greater glory.  There are fractured and strained relationships that do not match Normal Rockwell expectations.  There is news in our world that hardly befits the splendor of light eternal. Nonetheless what is indeed most palpably powerful is God’s light being born in those first moments of creation, being born in human form in that stable all those years ago, and being born once more this night.

In one of her poems, Emily Dickinson wrote, “We grow accustomed to the darkness, when light is put away.” But when light appears to be put away is when we most need to not grow accustomed to the darkness.  In Jewish midrash there is a story that embellishes the creation myth of Adam and Eve.  It tells the tale of the first time the sun set before the two of them and they experience darkness for the very first time and they are terrified.  Adam and Eve cling to each other all night in fear that it is the end of the world.  And then the sun rose for them in the morning.  

We need to open our eyes wide to the presence of God’s arriving light in Jesus Christ finding a home in the deepest places of where we actually live and love, despair and dream, toil and tire, illuminating God’s devotion to us.   God’s light is continuing to find its way into this world, bending and winding its way like a wave, and will continue to do so until every corner of creation and beyond is filled with divine illuminating light.  And the energy from that light, light in the form of particles, photons is transferring energy into us, enlivening us to the reality, we are God’s beloved.

There is no doubt that chaos and darkness are still present in our world. But tonight we are reminded that the light that created the world and ordered creation; the light that was born in Bethlehem all those years ago and offered us loving redemption; is the same light that is continuing to shine its way into our world this very night in a multitude of miraculous ways.

Einstein wrote, “There are only two ways to live your life.  One is as though nothing is a miracle.  The other is as though everything is a miracle.”  Or one could say, there are only two ways to live, one is that the darkness in our world is powerful, palpable, unstoppable, and the other is ”The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.”

In a few minutes we will pass the light through this sanctuary and be reminded of all that is miraculous, of the splendor of light eternal that no darkness will ever overcome.

Thanks be to God.
Merry Christmas.  Amen.   
         
 

December 7, 2025  Second Sunday in Advent
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Mark 1:1-8
“John was Wrong”
Douglas T. King  

John was wrong.  John was wrong.  John was wrong.  Now, I love John the Baptist.  I respect John the Baptist.  He is fiercer than I am.  He is more faithful than I am.  He is a chosen prophet of God.  If there were some laddered hierarchy of people who have sought to serve the Lord (and thank God there isn’t) I would not even be able to look up high enough to see John gnawing on his lunch of locusts.  But he was wrong.  

God bless him he did get so much right.  In the Gospel of Matthew he was right to call out the religious leaders of his day as hypocrites (in defense of religious leaders of every generation, it is awfully hard not to be).  He was right to announce that one much greater than he was on the way.  He was right to tell us that we would be offered a baptism of the Holy Spirit.

But he was also wrong.  When he proclaimed a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, he was wrong.  The   grammatical intent is a bit fuzzy.  But if he had in his fevered, faithful mind some temporal and causal relationship between repentance and forgiveness, he was wrong.  If you repent, then you will be forgiven.  It sounds good.  It is a generous yet reasonable proposition.  It is certainly what we hope to receive from each other.  If I slept in this morning and did not show up for worship and Melissa had to climb into the pulpit with five minutes notice and fill in for me there would be an uncomfortable conversation at some point.  I would come in with my head hung low and apologize for messing up.  I would hope that in response to my repentance she would offer me forgiveness, and if she did I would be grateful for her graciousness.  

But if John the Baptist is under some illusion that the one who is to come, Jesus the Christ, is coming with some sort of similar offer for us, he is wrong.  We repent not to be forgiven but because we have already been forgiven.

Of course I am being a little facetiously hard on John.  He was called to prepare for the messiah’s arrival.  This is neither a small nor a straightforward task.  John is a prophet, called and inspired by God but he is also a mortal man with limited understanding of things divine.  When he looked around the world about to receive the messiah into its midst I am sure he was saddened and even appalled at what a mess we had made of things.  What else could he do but send up a warning flare?  He started screaming at us.  Hey people, God is on the way and we better shape up!  We cannot let the divine walk around down here and see what a sorry bunch of unrepentant sinners we are!”  

If we are about to receive this amazing, immeasurable gift of God’s saving presence among us we better be ready with a gift of our own.  A life of true repentance would be the best thing we could offer.  

This time of year there is a certain amount of reciprocal gift anxiety.  It is wonderful that in this season we exchange tangible tokens of affection for each other.  But there is always that risk.  I think you know the one I am talking about.  When you casually exchange gifts with that new friend of yours and you give them a five-dollar gift certificate to Kaldi’s and their gift to you comes in a light blue box from Tiffany.

There is an episode of the situation comedy “The Big Bang Theory” in which the nerdy and poorly socially adjusted character, Sheldon Cooper, is in a panic over reciprocal gift anxiety.  In preparation for receiving a gift from his neighbor, Penny, he goes to Bed, Bath, and Beyond, or some such store, and purchases absolutely every size gift basket they carry.  His strategy is that first he will open the gift she gives him and then go to his room to retrieve a reciprocal gift that is an appropriate match to what he has received.  Penny ends up giving him a napkin used by Leonard Nimoy who played Spock on Star Trek.  Upon receiving this priceless nerd gift he nearly has a breakdown.  He runs to his room in a fevered frenzy and keeps dragging out gift basket after gift basket until they are piled up all over the room, in the hopes of somehow providing an equivalent gift.

This Penny and Sheldon interaction reveals an important element in the timing of all of this.  Just as Sheldon has received Penny’s gift before he has given her anything, so we have already received God’s grace.  We do not repent to receive forgiveness, we repent in grateful response to already being forgiven.

Sheldon Cooper and John the Baptist are in a similar fevered place.  They see this amazing gift and are doing their frenzied best to respond in some appropriately reciprocal way.  Of course the stakes are very different.  Sheldon is anxious over some fan memento he has received, while John is worked up over the fate of our collective existence which he believes is yet to be determined.  In Sheldon’s case he does not want to feel like he owes anybody anything.  And John’s concern is not dissimilar.  

For time immemorial, humanity has sought to have our relationship with the divine be transactional.  If we sacrifice these animals to God perhaps we will be blessed with a fertile crop.  If we pray some extra prayers maybe God will bless us with prosperity.  If God is going to show up in human form to reconcile us and offer us eternal life we sure as heck better have some gift wrapped and ready to offer before God arrives.

But here is the reality, there is no amount of repenting we can do to earn this gift brought to us in Jesus Christ.  We can stack up the gift baskets from here to the arch and we will not even make a dent in our attempt to reciprocate.  Jesus Christ is coming to forgive our every shortcoming and mistake; to wipe clean our every regretful action; to heal our every wound and mend every place within us that is torn; to love us unconditionally; to fix all that is broken within us as individuals and as a society; to welcome us into the very arms of God and promise us eternal life.  

We call Advent a season of preparation but how can we prepare for that?  We are deeply blessed that our relationship with God is not one of reciprocity.  In the book of Romans Paul tells us that “God proves God’s love for us in that while we were sinners Christ died for us.”  Paul does not say that Jesus is born and then dies for repentant sinners.  He dies for every last run of the mill sinner, including you and me.  God does not wait to receive some gift basket of repentance before showing up in our midst.  God just shows up and joins us on the journey of our lives.  God walks beside us and loves us in all our imperfection.
 
The scandal of this season is that we don’t deserve any of it.  We have yet to do anything to earn it. We will never do enough to earn it.  You don’t deserve it.  I certainly don’t deserve it.  Although the choir will argue with me about this, even David doesn’t deserve it.  God taking human form, sharing in our suffering, and offering us unconditional love?  There is nothing we can do to deserve that or prepare for it in any quid pro quo sort of way.
 
John, you can yell at us all you like, and Lord knows we need it, to call us out and push us to repent.  But there is nothing we can do to adequately prepare to receive the grace being offered to us.

As I read the news every evening I am heartbroken over the brokenness to be found in our world.  Just like in John’s time, we are so completely unprepared to welcome the Prince of Peace.  And we are so desperately in need of the arrival of the Prince of Peace.  I thank God Christ is on the way.  

So what can we do in this Advent season?  I suggest we take a lesson from the very youngest of our children.  The very littlest ones do not quite yet get this idea that somehow Santa is rewarding them with presents because they are good.  They just find themselves in utter awe, delight, and wide-eyed wonder by what is brought before them.  In this season let us recognize the enormity of the gift given to us, priceless beyond the means of any payment on our part.  Let this joyful revelation find a home within us that we too might be filled with awe, delight, and wide-eyed wonder.  And let us respond with lives of gratitude; lives of joyful repentance; lives of service to others; lives that participate in healing all that divides us.  

We are in the process of once again receiving a gift beyond measure, the Prince of Peace.  Whether we are ready or not, he is coming.  

Thanks be to God for that.  Amen.  

November 30, 2025 First Sunday of Advent
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Luke 1:5-23Luke 1:67-79
“The Harmony of Hymns”
Melissa K. Smith

What is your favorite hymn? I am sure many melodies and lyrics are coming to mind. Growing up, whenever we would sing “Holy, Holy, Holy” or “Praise to the Lord the Almighty” my dad would lean over to me and say, “This is one of my favorites.” I’m biased but I think he has excellent taste. What is your favorite hymn? Maybe it’s a big, glorious Easter hymn, maybe it’s a meditative Advent hymn.

I grew up singing the same ten or fifteen hymns, so my knowledge and breadth of hymns have grown thanks to David and the choir. And it has made me think long and hard about what my favorite hymn is. And even though I love hymns with music that I can’t help but sing all week long, my favorite hymns are not ones we typically sing.

I love the hymns in scripture – hymns sung by Deborah, Hannah, Mary, and Zechariah – hymns that are nestled into the narrative of scripture but take a moment to praise God for who God is and all that God is doing.

I love having the opportunity to harmonize with our foremothers and forefathers of faith and join with them in their praise. And I love thinking about what my hymn might be.

Is it a hymn of praise? Of lament? Of greeting? Is it a hymn of adoration?

Hymns give us the opportunity to bring the song of our heart before God.

If I were to guess what Zechariah’s initial hymn is as he walks into the temple, I would guess it is one of lament. He has struggled to maintain his faith after the devastation of broken dreams: he and his wife cannot conceive a child. He has struggled to maintain his faith as the God he knows can answer prayers has been silent. Yet he chooses to continue to serve God even when he is engulfed by disappointment.

Zechariah’s story begins with surprise, disbelief, and silence. When he walked into the temple, he was doing what so many of us do best: he was going through the motions. But even going through the motions when you’re frustrated with God’s apparent silence can be so difficult. Zechariah did not expect to experience God that day – and I would imagine that many of us in this sanctuary or at home do not come into worship with the expectation that God might break through the doubt in our hearts.

After his doubt and the resulting silence, the next words we hear from Zechariah are a brilliant hymn from his lips that show his repentance – turning from disbelief and doubting God’s power to prophesying and declaring God’s salvific acts.

There’s a beautiful poem by a man named Craig Joseph called “Zechariah.” It helps show that Zechariah’s disbelief isn’t arbitrary. He is genuinely struggling. He and his wife, according to scripture, are upright and live according to the scriptures. They come from good Jewish households and Zechariah serves as a priest. There is nothing they have done wrong, they are not being punished, their unanswered prayer is not a result of any wrongdoing.

Zechariah’s lot was chosen and it was his turn to go into the temple. What Zechariah did not expect was that not only would he encounter God, but God would tell him that the very thing he longed for, prayed for, and desired was happening. His wife, Elizabeth, was going to bear him a son. Infertility is not something to take lightly, it is not something to joke about, and false promises lead to real devastation – this is not what Zechariah was expecting.

In the advent season we sing hymns of joy, of expectation, and of anticipation. Zechariah’s hymn that day was shock, was resounding disappointment, and was fear that his deepest desire would break him again if Elizabeth wasn’t pregnant. His hymn turned to silence when Gabriel declared that God fulfills God’s promises. Hear the words of this poem.

My silence speaks volumes:
Speaks of hollow reverberations in an empty womb,
Of my beloved’s muffled cries, hopeless, late at night,
Of unbroached topics between man and wife,
Isolated in their grief.

Speaks of a mute God
Who would not stoop to answer
The cacophony of impotent noise made by the righteous,
Striving to keep his commandments.
All this – echoes of despair, lost faith, abandonment.

My silence is God’s silence.
The lack of sound then resounds:
With the rustle of angels’ wings,
The gentle roar of a majestic announcement,
The metallic ring of a sword drawn in anger
Upon a fearful gasp
(An inrush of air
That cloaked a more resounding unbelief:
Faith as barren as a womb).

My silence is God’s answer, disbelieved.

But now I, mute and wildly motioning,
Fill the air with your laughter and endless queries,
Hearing what you cannot be aware of –
That to which divinely-imposed silence has bent my ear:
A distant cry from the beginning of time – from Creation –
Declaring that God will make the hearts of his people fertile again.
Yelled through the prophets (though most were deaf to this meaning),
Hollering through my son (hear that, and do not scoff,
Lest you be considered, Like I,
the town clown),
To announce itself shortly in a Bethlehem stable,
Calling to God’s people in stereo-surround sound.

My silence, alas, is God’s provision
That will not be silent for long.

This poem brings together the two pieces of Zechariah’s story we have in scripture: his initial encounter with God where his disbelief turned to silent contemplation for 9 months, and his exuberant praise that God is the promise maker and promise keeper, that his son is the forerunner and Jesus is the fulfiller, that what was true for Abraham and Sarah could be true for Zechariah and Elizabeth.

Could God be making the hearts of his people fertile again?

Zechariah regained his voice after the birth of his son, at his brit milah, the Jewish ceremony marking a baby boy’s entrance into a covenant with God through circumcision. People were asking Elizabeth what her son’s name would be and asked if he would be named after his father.

But Zechariah wrote down, “His name is John.” And with that, his lips opened, breath filled his lungs, and he sang his hymn of blessing.

This hymn, our text for today, is an invitation for us to step into Zechariah’s joy and join him in the harmony of hymns for all God is doing to make the hearts of his people fertile again.

God provides, God keeps his promises, and God fulfils his covenants.

My favorite hymns are hymns we find in the Bible. Each hymn is an invitation for us to join the singer in their joy. It isn’t simply a narrative where we can read about what God has done. It’s a declaration that invites us to harmonize with our own stories of faith, of joy, and of gratitude. It’s an example that when God intercedes in our lives our response isn’t to think of how we are affected, but our response is to glorify God for who God is. It is always all about God.

Zechariah knew that. His hymn is not a praise for what God has done for him. God fulfilled his deepest desire and that is not what he is focused on at all. Because it isn’t about him. It’s about God.

When we read scripture, we are not simply reading a history textbook. Yes, we need to know and teach these stories. Yes, we need to share the Bible and its good news. But we also need to step into the living Word and join in the harmony of hymns.

The stories throughout scripture – including the advent stories of the annunciation, of John leaping in his mother’s womb when he encounters Christ in Mary’s womb – and the stories of Christmas of being born in a stable, of kings coming to pay homage, of shepherds running from their sheep after angels appeared to them…these stories, while each sharing experiences we will not experience, invite us into the universal reality that we should be ready to encounter God, that we should trust that the God of scripture who keeps his promises is our God, and that we should seriously consider how we respond to God.

What does our hymn sound like?

Perhaps this advent season your hymn is in harmony with Zechariah’s first hymn, his hymn of silence. Perhaps you find yourself surrounded by disappointment, you’re struggling with the cacophony of other people’s joys while life seems to be on pause for you, or you’re unsure of where God went and why God seems silent in a season where God should be on full display.

If this is your hymn this season, know that it is not a solo left bare on a stage alone. Rather, it’s in harmony with others, for when one member of the body suffers, we all suffer with it.

Perhaps your hymn is one of adoration and praise. Perhaps your hymn is one of confession and repentance. Perhaps your hymn is one of hope and longing.

This advent season, let us listen for the ways that the hymns on our hearts are in harmony with one another and with our foremothers and forefathers in scripture. And let us enter worship with the expectation that God is here and we have the opportunity to encounter God.

Thanks be to God, all praise be to God.
Amen.  

November 23, 2025  Christ the King/Commitment Sunday
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Psalm 46 and Colossians 1:11-20
“Though the Mountains Tremble…”
Douglas T. King

Okay, I will admit it, it is not as warm, candlelit, and atmospheric as Christmas Eve, nor as brass and timpani enhanced as Easter.  Nonetheless, we will celebrate it.  Happy one-hundredth birthday to the youngest of our liturgical holy days,  Christ the King Sunday.  It was established by Pope Pius the XI in 1925 in response to what he regarded as the destructive forces of the modern world: fascism across the globe, secularism in the west, and the rise of communism in Russia.  Pope Pius sought to oppose the totalitarian claims of these ideologies with the rule of Christ. Pope Pius looked at the world and saw a time of great uncertainty and fear and a people who were looking for somewhere, anywhere, to place their ultimate trust and allegiance.  

Perhaps not so different a time as we find ourselves in today.  I have never seen trust at so low an ebb.  People do not trust the government, the media, the scientific community, just about any institution you can name, including the church, and most glaringly, do not trust each other.  When trust precipitously declines in a variety of contexts it makes us all vulnerable to placing our trust in things that are not worthy of it.  People become vulnerable to radical ideologies and conspiracy theories and all manner of toxic possibilities.  They become desperate for answers which may or may not be helpful or true.  

On Christ the King Sunday we turn to the one to whom we can indeed place our deepest trust; the one whose answers speak the deepest truth.  Our reading from First Colossians is believed to be taken from a Christ hymn praising the cosmic nature of Jesus Christ.  The first thing I am always struck by is the promise of what is being offered to us, endurance and patience and joy.  I will gladly jump to get in line to receive these three things.

But that is not solely what is going on in this text.  The scholar, Syliva Keesmaat refers to this as a “Subversive Creation Hymn.”  They remind us that the city of Colossae was a part of the Roman Empire.  And the message of the empire was that “the power of the empire holds all things together, creating peace and reconciliation through military might and violence…” In our text from Colossians we hear of a different entity in charge, “…all things have been created through him and for him.  He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together…”  And, furthermore, “…in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of the cross.”  

The Roman emperors were considered actual gods and the demonstration of their power was by immense military might.  This hymn in Colossians challenges who is actually divine and the nature of what ultimate power looks like.  The infamous Pax Romana, the peace of the empire, was achieved with the sword.  We get word here of God found in human form, however not that of the emperor, but in Jesus Christ.  And Jesus Christ brings peace not by swinging the sword at others, but by sacrificing himself to reconcile all things.  
The Colossians are being told that they do not ultimately live in Caesar’s empire but in Jesus Christ’s kingdom.  And the values and ways of doing business in Rome are not the values and ways of doing business under God’s reign.  It is in Jesus Christ and his kingdom where we must place our ultimate trust.  And thus place our trust in living into those values to which he calls us peace, reconciliation and self-sacrifice, regardless of what the world may tell us.
 
In this time when certainty and trust have become such scarce and valuable commodities we are in urgent need of the endurance, patience and joy Colossians offers to us.  When uncertainty appears to be the only constant we need to find a ground of certainty that is unshaken.  When mistrust seeps into every aspect of public life we need a North Star, a palpable direction to turn, an entity to whom we can measure all of our choices and allegiances.  

The portrait of Christ that is painted for us here is all-encompassing in scope.  Hear the language once more, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him…”  

This is an image of the cosmic Christ.  Christ is perceived as residing within and reigning over every last corner of creation.  There is no element of matter where Christ does not dwell.  We are blanketed by Christ.  We have Christ dwelling within the very essence of who we are. When we are told in Colossians that we will “share in the inheritance,” we are being told that Christ is so deeply embedded within us that we too are God’s beloved children never to be forsaken.  Our redemption is guaranteed because there is no way to separate God from God, and with Christ within us, we are forever linked to God.
 
This remarkable reality does indeed offer us endurance, and patience, and joy; the kind of endurance, patience, and joy that can live in the deepest marrow of our bones; the kind of endurance, patience, and joy that will allow us to “not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult.”; the kind of endurance, patience, and joy that allows us to live lives of peace, reconciliation, and self-sacrifice.  
 
Our Stewardship campaign this year, “Rooted in God’s Grace,” reminds us that our deepest sustenance comes from God’s promises to us which we find in scriptures like these texts from Colossians and the Psalter.  

But it is not always so easy to hold fast to these promises and values when the world shouts otherwise.  Doubt can easily find a home in our hearts.  There is a story of a parishioner coming to see her pastor.  She admits to her pastor that on some Sundays, as everyone rises to affirm their faith, she finds herself struggling to believe what the affirmation of faith claims.  And then on other Sundays when she rises for the affirmation of faith her trust in the words is deep and complete.  

She wondered if there was something wrong with her faith.  Her pastor quickly reassured her.  No, there is nothing wrong with your faith.  We all struggle to believe at times.  On the Sundays when you are struggling to believe, rest on my deep belief.  And when I am struggling to believe, I will rest on your deep belief.  

The only way to engage in this spiritual journey of ours; the only way to stand strong in endurance and patience and joy through all of life’s twists and turns, is to walk on the path together; to share this message found in scripture together; to carry both our burdens and our joys together.  In Colossians we heard we share in the inheritance together.  We share in the kingdom and its values together.  

As we dedicate our pledges, or continue to consider our pledges for next year, we need to remember that our commitment of time, talent, and treasure to this community represents our commitments to our God and to each other.  

It is Christ that holds together all of creation.  And we are given the gift of embodying that universal interconnectedness right here in our corner of that creation.  May we be connected and thus sustained by one another.  May we stand strong together as fellow citizens of God’s kingdom found in Jesus Christ.  May we generously contribute to the future of whom we are called to be together in this place and throughout our world, a people of peace, reconciliation, and self-sacrifice, strengthened by God’s endurance, patience, and joy.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.              

Good morning. I was invited to share a Minute for Mission that answers the question “Why do you give to Ladue Chapel?” And as new members, our reasons for giving are twofold— gratitude and hope

We are grateful for how at home here we feel after 3 years of attending. Without family around we would thought building community in STL would be difficult , but week after week we have gained new friends, role models, and babysitters through worship, through the music program, and through simple moments of kindness in the hallway, and we are so thankful for that sense of belonging.

But I also give because I want a stake in the faith formation of our son and the rest of the children of this community. I feel that we’ve been shown what the church can be for children at its very best: a place where little ones learn they are loved, where questions are welcomed, where faith is nurtured with patience and joy. A place where our children see adults living out generosity, compassion, and service not as slogans, but as habits of the heart.

For my family, building that habit means giving when the world might say, “Save, save, save, until you get that raise!” Or, “If you just wait until that house sells, you’ll be able to give more substantially.” We give now in the hope that our children learn that the earlier you practice giving joyfully, habitually, and responsively, the easier it is to share Gods blessings with others for the rest of your life.

So while practically it’s about keeping the lights on and the piano tuned, starting our family here has made me think about tithing as an investment in unseen moments that shape a young person’s life: a word and wonder craft that teaches them the gospel, encouragement from a congregant that inspires them, a Monday music and more lyric that sticks with them through adulthood, and most simply, a community that knows a child’s name. That can be for them a constant and a sanctuary when there is change or drama at home, school, and in their extracurricular life.

Thank you for being the kind of congregation that inspires giving. I hope this stewardship and thanksgiving season is encouraging to you, and that you know that your time, your presence, your gifts, and your love are what help Ladue Chapel remain a place where faith takes root and grows.

November 16, 2025 Twenty Third Sunday after Pentecost
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Psalm 27:7-14      Isaiah 65:17-25
“Eschatological Hope”
Melissa K. Smith

The Greek myth goes like this…Zeus gave Pandora a box and told her to never open it. Just wanted her to hold onto it but never ever to open it. But curiosity got the best of her and she did open it. Out flew all the evils into the world like disease, sorrow, and death. Everything poured out but one thing remained trapped in the box: hope.

My catch phrase of sorts over the last few months has been “The chaos continues”. Between the chaos of church programming in the fall and Christmas hurtling towards us faster than I can fathom…the chaos continues.

Between news headline after news headline that is heartbreaking and life-altering…the chaos continues.

Between injuries and illnesses throughout this congregation…the chaos continues.

I don’t say that phrase to make light of any situation. I more so say it as a way to continue to pivot, to turn to the next most pressing need and respond authentically and fully.

The chaos continues and not only are we invited to step into it together, but God chose to enter into our chaos in Jesus Christ, becoming fully human and dying on the cross to save us, and being raised from the dead to defeat sin and death.

We find ourselves standing on the side of the cross where Jesus has defeated sin and death…but we still sin and we still experience death…the chaos continues.
Our scripture reading this morning is from Isaiah 65 – the very end of Isaiah’s prophetic words. The first 39 chapters of the book of Isaiah were written during the Assyrian threat on the Northern Kingdom, Israel.

The Southern Kingdom, Judah, witnessed as the ten tribes were deported and then whoever remained was forcefully assimilated, losing their identity and their home. Assyria frequently threatened the Southern Kingdom – trying to take over Jerusalem, attacking frequently, and being a constant threat.

Chapters 40-55 are set during the Babylonian exile – the time when the Southern Kingdom fell to Babylon and faced deportation, exile, and the loss of home.

The final chapters, 56-66, are written post-exile, when they returned to a home they hardly recognized and they had to rebuild.

This message of hope, the vision of a new heaven and a new earth, comes at a necessary time but also feels impossible. Isaiah recounts the Lord saying, “For I am about to create a new heavens and a new earth.” The Hebrew that is translated “For I am about to create” is a reflection of the grammar representing an ongoing action. So it could say, “For I am creating a new heavens and a new earth.”

I can imagine the people looking up and shouting, “When, Oh God?” I can imagine them shouting Psalm 27, “Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud; be gracious to me and answer me! “Come,” my heart says, “seek his face!” Your face, Lord, do I seek. Do not hide your face from me.”

It’s easy to imagine them saying this because I find myself and others around me asking the same questions. When will the suffering end? When will the pain end? When will life not be overwhelming? When…when…when…

Can we take all of the chaos, all of the sorrow, all of the evils and shove them back in the box?

The Prophets end the Old Testament and after we hear the prophecy that the Messiah is coming, we turn the page and find ourselves in the New Testament reading about the birth of Jesus Christ, God incarnate, who came to save the world through his life, death, and resurrection. And Jesus did just that – but the new heaven and the new earth still are not here. There is still sin, there is still death. Yes, things have changed – we can go directly to Christ and ask for forgiveness. We know and trust that death is no longer the last word but that the last word is life everlasting. Things DID change – but so much still feels like chaos continuing all around us.

Isaiah 65 says, “For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. ¹⁸ But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating, for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy and its people as a delight. ¹⁹ I will rejoice in Jerusalem and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it or the cry of distress. ²⁰ No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days or an old person who does not live out a lifetime, for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed…

²⁵ The wolf and the lamb shall feed together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, but the serpent—its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.”

This text calls us forward to Revelation 21, where John brings us a vision of a new heaven and a new earth where there will be no more tears, where death will be no more, mourning, crying, and pain will be no more…”

“When, O Lord?” All in God’s time. We don’t get to know the time, we don’t get to understand those pieces. But what we are given is the opportunity to have eschatological hope. “Eschatology” is the study of the “last things” – the end of time, the second coming of Christ. It’s a future time that is shrouded in mystery but is offered to us much like the hope trapped in Pandora’s box.

The hope is with us always – pulsing beneath the surface, whispering to us in the throws of the chaos, calling to us to remember that God has a plan and is actively working on this plan.

Hope is a feeling of expectation and a desire for a certain thing to happen. The hope we are called to have is hope that God will restore the world back to pure shalom – to peace, wholeness, and oneness with God. It is not empty hope. On this side of the cross we know that God follows through on God’s promises – we were promised a Messiah that would come into this world to save this world. A Messiah who loves us, sins and all. A Messiah who would turn the world right side up. And he did. God fulfilled the most important promise.

So we can hope. We can have eschatological hope – hope that when Christ comes again all will be made new and one day the chaos will not continue.

Just as the hope was always in Pandora’s box waiting to be released, so too is real hope waiting for you to grab hold of it. Whether we are going through the best of times or the worst of times, whether we are in the midst of the chaos or are feeling depleted from battle after battle; hope is possible. It’s there. It’s rooted in God’s very own word.

Paul says to the Romans in chapter 8, “¹⁸ I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. ¹⁹ For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God, ²⁰ for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope ²¹ that the creation itself will be set free from its enslavement to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. ²² We know that the whole creation has been groaning together as it suffers together the pains of labor, ²³ and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. ²⁴ For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what one already sees? ²⁵ But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”

Let us hope. Hoping does not belittle our present suffering – the present suffering, the chaos that continues – is real, and it is valid. But let us open the box with hope and not forget to cling to the hope we have in God, given to us by his very Word.

Hope is something we do not do alone. We are the body of Christ – when one part suffers, we all suffer, when one rejoices, we rejoice together. So let us hope together. Let us remind one another of the promises God makes, and let us remind one another that God keeps God’s promises.

Let us never use eschatological hope to belittle one another’s present realities, but let us lament together with hope coursing through the background, allowing hope to give us the strength to take the next faithful step.

Psalm 27 tells us, “Wait for the Lord”. We do not wait alone.
 
Thanks be to God. Amen. 

November 9, 2025  Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Psalm 150 and Psalm 148
“The Music of the Celestial Spheres”
Douglas T. King

Words are remarkable.  They can communicate innumerable ideas. They can share stories.  They can paint pictures in our imagination.  They can challenge.  They can comfort. Christian Wima notes that words can bring us everything “from simple descriptions to blazing revelations.”  They can tell us of so many things.  I get paid to use words, so I am quite fond of them.  

But, Jamie James, a music critic for the London Times, writes this about the comparison of words to music.  “Somehow, Mozart’s symphony, rather than telling us about joy, creates joy.”(James, p. 17)  James is right.  Music has this mysterious and miraculous power to reach inside of us beyond where words reside and touch the very core of our being.  Music speaks directly to our souls.  The poet and mystic William Blake wrote, “music exists and exults in immortal thoughts.”  

We certainly know the deep truth of that here at Ladue Chapel.  We take to heart the summons of the 150th psalm as we passionately praise God with our own form of trumpets, lutes, harps, tambourines, strings, pipe and cymbals in worship every week.  

But our second reading, Psalm 148, brings a different dimension to the music offered up to the divine in praise.  We hear of the celestial bodies, the sun, moon, and stars praising God.  We hear of fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind praising God.  We hear of mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars praising God.  We hear of the movements of creation itself praising God.  It is the very nature of nature to offer praise to God.  Creation inherently offers praise to its creator.    

Psalm 148 transports us to the sixth century B.C. and a figure best known for a geometric formula.  I am referring to Pythagoras.  For most of us, our knowledge of Pythagoras begins and ends with the formula “a” squared plus “b” squared equals “c” squared.  But he was so much more than that.  He was considered not solely a mathematician but also a philosopher, a sage, and a prophet.  

Full disclosure, this next part may just interest the music geeks of the congregation.  The story goes that one day Pythagoras was walking past a blacksmith’s shop.  As he was considering the abstract concepts of musical sounds and numbers and he heard the hammers striking iron.  The different hammers were creating a harmony.  James writes that Pythagoras went inside and discovered “the musical intervals produced by the hammers were exactly equivalent to the ratios between the hammers’ weights.  In other words, the six-pound hammer and the twelve-pound hammer, having a ratio of 1:2, produced a perfect octave.  The eight-pound hammer and the twelve-pound hammer having a ratio of 2:3, produced a major fifth interval; and the nine-pound hammer and the twelve-pounder, with a 3:4 ratio, produced a perfect fourth.”

The discovery of this mathematical perfection creating musical perfection confirmed Pythagoras’ “belief that the cosmos is a sublimely harmonious system guided by a Supreme intelligence…”  He considered “music…a remedy for every manner of sickness.”  He believed that music “could arouse sympathetic vibrations in the human instrument.”
(James, p. 31)

Pythagoras named three kinds of music.  “…musica intrumentalis…” the music with which we are most familiar, “made by plucking the lyre, blowing the pipe, and so forth; musica humana, the continuous but unheard music made by each human organism, especially the harmonious (or inharmonious) resonance between the soul and the body; and musica mundana, the music made by the cosmos itself, which would come to be known as the music of the spheres.” (James, p. 31)

These perfect ratios, the octaves, the fourth and the fifths that delight us so, are a reflection of the harmonies deeply embedded in God’s very creation, and within each one of us, created in the image of God.  

Interestingly enough, “The Greek word for ratio is logos, which also means word, thought, reason.” (p. 36)  And logos-Word is, as we know, one of the names for Jesus Christ in the gospel of John.  It has been suggested that these perfect ratios are a reflection of the perfection found in Jesus Christ as fully human, fully God, bringing divinity and humanity into a perfect harmonious unity.

Pythagoras believed that music touches us deeply because it is a manifestation of the inner perfect ratios and harmonies imbued in creation by the divine.  Music is a manifestation of the interrelatedness of creator and creation.  Music is the aural embodiment of God’s choice to be deeply imbued within our very existence.  In the gospel of John we are told of Jesus that, “All things came into being through him and without him not one thing came into being.”  Music is a manifestation of this scriptural reality.

Our bulletin cover art is of the Divine Monochord, an instrument of a single string representing the entire universe, and God’s hand is tuning it that all of creation may one day be in blessed harmony.  Music is a manifestation of that divine tuning. Music is a manifestation of our responsive offering of the purest form of praise reflecting the divine harmonies.

The German poet, Rainer Marie Rilke has a poem entitled “Oh Tell Us, Poet, What You Do.”  In it he responds to a variety of questions regarding how he survives the challenges of life and what his greater purpose is.  His response to each and every query is, “I praise.”  Rilke, as he often does, is speaking to some of the most elementary existential implications of our existence.  For what he says of poets, is what is true for us all.  When we orient ourselves toward praise, we discover our deepest purpose and our deepest joy.  We are like the sun, moon, and stars, in need of praising God.  We are like fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind in need of praising God.  We are like the mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars in need of praising God.  When we orient ourselves toward praising God we view the world with a sense of gratitude.  And that sense of gratitude teaches us to recognize the blessings of our lives, even and especially when life is difficult.  

As I have said previously, music is a manifestation of our offering of the purest form of praise.  And since we were created to praise, music welcomes us into who we truly are.  One of the things that I love about this congregation, is that we sing hymns with gusto.  That does not mean all of us are exactly nailing the pitch or the tempo with glorious accuracy.  It means we are doing what we are called to do, to make a joyful noise in any way we can.  I have no doubt that God is pleased with every one of our voices raised in joyful praise, regardless of ability.

On the other hand, if I did have any doubt about our pleasing the divine with our music the worshippers behind me certainly have all our backs.  What a glorious blessing it is to have such a remarkable music program for our congregation.  On this day as we celebrate David for his 20 years of faithful and inspired servant leadership at Ladue Chapel, we are grateful for the gifts God has bestowed upon him; grateful for his creativity, care and compassion; grateful for his talent as a performer, a conductor and a teacher; and grateful for God’s gift of music in our midst which shines through him.

David, thank you for all of the ways your ministry of music, has healed us, enlightened us, inspired us, sustained us, and nurtured us.  Thank you for revealing all of those divine ratios, all of those Godly harmonies, over and over again for us.  Thank you for all of the joy you have created and continue to create.  

And thanks be to God for the gift of music in our midst.  Amen.

James, Jamie, The Music of the Spheres, Copernicus, New York, 1993.

In her dark, ironic, and compelling short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” Flannery O’Conner tells of a grandmother who is prideful, superficial, self-important, and judgmental on her best days.  The story tells of her on her very worst day as she is face to face with a murderer known as The Misfit.  With the Misfit about to take her life, the grandmother has a revelation of shocking compassion and love, announcing to this man preparing to take her life, “Why you’re one of my babies…You’re one of my own children.”  The Misfit, who only knows violence, takes her life nonetheless.  And then he surprisingly pronounces something quite profound, “She would have been a good woman…if she’d only had someone shoot her every day of her life.”

It is undoubtedly a disturbing story but O’Conner is slapping us across the face to get our attention about how the limits of our mortal life create an opportunity for us.  The Roman Emperor and stoic philosopher, Marcus Aurelius states it in a much more palatable, and genteel fashion, “Perfection of character is this: to live each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, without apathy, without pretense.” He also wrote, “It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”

Today is All Saints Sunday, the day on our liturgical calendar when we remember and give thanks for all those who have died and entered the church triumphant.  We also give thanks for all the ways God’s grace will eventually restore and transform each of us into the people God has always created us to be.  We are all on the pathway to sainthood. There is a line in our memorial service liturgy, “whose baptism is now complete in death.”  People will ask about it following a service.  Many of us do not naturally link baptism and death.  Nor do we want to as we watch those adorable little ones cooing as the sign of the cross is placed upon their foreheads.  We heard a similar line in our reading from Romans this morning, “baptized into his death.”  

So, what is this about?  Just as Jesus was baptized, so are we. And in that baptism it is as if the Holy Spirit ties an invisibly thin but unbreakable thread around our wrist.  This thread of the Spirit is gently tugging us forward through every day of our lives.  And in each and every day we are God’s beloved as Jesus was and is God’s beloved.  Each and every day that Spirit thread is seeking to lead us into becoming the complete people God has created us to be.  We are following the path that Jesus laid out.  And that Spirit thread continues its gentle tug upon us even when we die.  We follow Jesus into death, past death, into everlasting life and into our sainthood.

The question for us is, how do we, today, begin to live into the fulfilment of who we will be when God’s grace is done perfecting us.  How do we live each day as if it were our last mortal day?  If I had a solid answer to that question, I would be a much better person.  But I can share an experience I had.  At a previous church I served we had a worship service on Wednesday mornings at 7:30.  One Wednesday, after I finished preaching, I sat down and had this remarkable sensation flow over me.  I felt as if I was dead.  But rather than it being a scary feeling, what I felt was a quiet reassuring elation.  All of the anxieties and worries that normally swirl in my neurotic brain had drifted down like silt settling on the floor of the sea. I experienced a great clarity.  I knew who I was and whose I was.

It was not as if there were no more concerns, it was that they were not all that pressing or immediately relevant to my wellbeing.  I felt completely free because, in those moments, I had no doubt of my secure place in all of existence.  I felt what the zen poet Wang Wie once wrote, “freedom from ten thousand matters.” And what the stoic philosopher Seneca wrote, “To practice death is to practice freedom.”

What I had was clearly a mystical experience.  And like the other mystical experiences I have had, the immediacy of it faded over time.  However, the memory of it, and my continuing interpretation of it, continue to shape my life.  I think of it as a minor sneak peek of where this journey of ours is leading us.  It serves as a helpful counterbalance to the cauldron of roiling concerns and emotions which are so easily stirred up by daily living.

When we remember the promise of how our baptism ties us to Jesus Christ and his entire journey; when we remember that invisibly thin yet unbreakable Spirit thread around our wrists leading us forward to what Paul describes as “walking in newness of life…”; we are invited to experience a hint of our future sainthood.  
 
Today is a preview of who we are becoming; the deep peace we are in the process of receiving; the freedom we will be tasting.  Our journey begins by dying.  Not the capital “D” dying but the “dying to sin” Paul speaks of, or what I would call dying to our brokenness; dying to our less than worthy preoccupations. I find “dying to sin” to be a daunting phrase. I do not know about you but try as I might, I know I am not likely to be giving up my career of sinning any time soon.  

But I do think we can try to live into that mystical moment I had of dying.  When we do our best to hold fast to the promises we have received of our ultimate destination in God’s everlasting, ever-loving arms we can begin to lay aside our obsessive anxieties.  It is not that the problems of this life get any smaller.  We just have the opportunity to place them alongside the towering reality of our identity as the beloved children of God.  We can begin to be less self-obsessed.  We can begin to sift through the elements of our lives which are actually important, and those that are far less important.  We can begin to live into the newness of life that is being offered to us.  

As you come forward for communion this morning, and pass the baptismal font, and some of you place names in the baptismal font, remember that in our baptism we have been joined to Christ in his journey.  And that journey will lead us through this life and death and into everlasting life.  Let us allow the inconsequential in our lives to die that we may begin to live into the ways of everlasting life today.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.          

November 2, 2025 - All Saints Sunday
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Romans 6:3-11
“Life and Death or Death and Life”
Douglas T. King

October 26, 2025 Reformation Sunday
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Psalm 46      Second Timothy 3:14-17
“Sola Scriptura”
Melissa K. Smith

Around this time four years ago I was deemed “ordination ready”. That meant that I had completed my exams, completed necessary internships and hospital chaplaincy requirements, and I was examined by the Presbytery and deemed ready to search for a call. My search, as you can expect, brought me to the land of St. Louis – a place I had never been, a place where I knew no one, and a place that seemed incredibly foreign to me.

That winter I made the decision to go for it. I scheduled my candidating sermon and was, preemptively, looking at apartments. I was, if the way was clear, getting ready for life in St. Louis, Missouri. At one point a person who is very dear to me, who does not believe in God, but cares deeply for me, came to me concerned. He said, “Mel, are you really going to move to a place where you will be all alone just for a book?” Of course, he was referencing the Bible – the book I have dedicated my life to, that I love, and that is the way that I know who my Lord and Savior is. I was honestly taken aback by the question because the Bible has never been just a book to me.

I looked at him and said, “I am absolutely dedicating my life to this book…even if it takes me to St. Louis.”

The Bible is not just some book. It is the Word of God for the people of God. It is a library of 66 books that contain the story of God’s love for us. It tells us of God’s creation, of our fall into sin and away from God – and that is only the first three chapters! Then for the rest of scripture we see God constantly calling us back to God’s self, urging us to repent, and through Jesus Christ, provides a way for us to enter into relationship with God once more in a way we were not able to before. And the Bible keeps going – telling us of how we can and should continue to repent, continue to lean into the teachings of Christ, and continue to learn of the promises God made to the Israelites and promises that God still keeps with his people. And the Bible continues to the restoration of the world when he will create a new heaven and a new earth and all shall be well once more.

The Bible is not just a book. It is the living Word of God that calls us to love God and love our neighbors as our selves with all of who we are.

Martin Luther understood this to his core. You all know the story – he was a German priest who dedicated his life to the church. At the time, the church was promoting the selling of indulgences to help get yourself or your loved ones out of purgatory. When you visit St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, thank your 15th and 16th century brothers and sisters in Christ who paid for it.

Luther never intended to spark the Reformation – all he wanted to do was call the church back to the essentials: the Word of God, the importance of faith, and the significance of unearned grace.

I am a bit of a Reformation nerd – I love hearing the story of how one man sparked significant change in the life of the Church and in the Kingdom of God. But I do not like hearing a story of division, of schism, or of disagreements that lead to vast chasms of misunderstanding. While the Reformation is an exciting story that leads to learning about John Calvin and John Knox and the creation of our Presbyterian heritage, it is also a harrowing reminder of the cost of forgetting what matters most and forgetting that what we know about God, forgetting what we know about ourselves,  and forgetting what we know about who we are called to be comes from Scripture alone.

Our Scripture reading today emphasizes the significance and importance of the Word of God. Paul is writing to his dear friend Timothy and encouraging him to continue in the work of the Gospel and not in the way of heretics. Paul says, “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you’ve learned it, and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.”

Timothy knows what he has learned and believed. He knows the Word of God, he knows the Gospel, and he firmly believes it and is working in the church to share it. Who does he know it from? From Paul and his mother and his grandmother. He was raised in the faith to know Jesus Christ.

This program year Lindsay Sonnenberg and I have been working to reinvigorate the children’s curriculum so that they learn the Bible in a way that is tangible, accessible, and applicable. When our children leave these steps each Sunday, they are off to learn the Bible, taught by many of you, so that they can grow up like Timothy and know what they have learned and firmly believe.

Paul continues, “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.” To say that scripture is inspired by God is to say that it is “God breathed”. This wording harkens back to Old Testament imagery of God breathing life into Adam. God has breathed his life into the Word of God for us to have, to hold, to know, to love, and to share.

This understanding of the significance and importance of Scripture is emphasized in the Book of Hebrews, saying in chapter 4:12, “Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts of and intentions of the heart.”

God’s word is living and it is at work. The reference to a sword is not to be understood as though the Bible is a weapon to be wielded. A double-edged sword is one that stabs, in other words, the Word of God will cut through our own human resistance rather than being a weapon of power wielded against others. The text names that our soul and spirit, our joints and marrow will be split. The Word of God is living and is at work in us as we learn it, know it, and share it.

Martin Luther deeply knew of the ways the Word of God was at work piercing his innermost self. He was deeply convicted of the ways he sinned – and he was a priest in a monastery so his level of sin has nothing on ours with unfettered access to goodness knows what. Luther channeled the continuing reformation of his own heart each time he read Scripture to shape how he approached the world and the church.

When Martin Luther taught that we should understand “sola scriptura” he was combatting the balance of Church tradition with scripture. He was asking for the living Word of God to poke and prod at the innermost self of the Church so that the church would be reformed and become who they are called to be by the Word of God.

Yes, I moved to St. Louis without knowing anyone here…but not because of some book: because of the Word of God – the living, breathing, at-work Word that is constantly at work in my heart, my ministry, and my life.

In the Spirit of Reformation Sunday, let us turn back to the Word. In a world where we are hearing all sorts of messages about our faith, about what it means to be Christian, and about who is really a Christian, let us turn to the living, breathing Word and let it pierce our hearts with conviction and love. Let us read the Word. Let us know the Word. Let us share the Word.

God has given us an incredible gift: through the Word of God, and Jesus Christ – the Word made flesh – God is knowable. So let us strive to dedicate our lives to knowing God through the Word of God.

Thanks be to God.
Amen.  

October 19, 2025  Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Psalm 1:1-3
“Rooted in God’s Grace”
Douglas T. King

In the American version of the sitcom The Office there is a scene when Michael and Dwight are driving somewhere and they are using GPS to guide them.  At one point, with Michael behind the wheel, the GPS announces a turn to the right.  Dwight, seeing a lake to their immediate right, begs Michael not to make the turn.  Nevertheless, Michael does make the turn.  As they are heading straight into the lake, against Dwight’s protestations, Michael shouts out “The machine knows what it is doing, the machine knows!” And then they proceed to drive into the water and begin sinking.

We all have voices, authorities and perspectives in our heads, some we are consciously aware of and some not. They govern the decisions we make and the paths we take.  Some of them are helpful and lead us toward lives that are fulfilling and shaped by integrity.  And some of them are less helpful and lead us in directions that do not feed us in good ways.  

Today is the kickoff to our stewardship effort, “Rooted in God’s Grace” with its tagline, “They are like trees planted by streams of water.” This year’s theme is reminding us of our essential need to be fed by God’s law.  The psalmist tells us that we will be “happy” if “(our) delight is in the law of the Lord, and on God’s law (we) meditate day and night.”

This is all true. But I have some issues with the translation from the original Hebrew.  First of all, I find the word “happy” a rather limp and one-dimensional word.  It feels a little too flimsy for me.  The quest to be perpetually happy sounds like something from a knock-off self-help book on a rack at the supermarket checkout.  A superior translation would be “Blessed are…”  It is a deeper and richer understanding of the Hebrew and for what we can actually strive.  

But my bigger translation issue is with the use of the word, “law.”  In the Hebrew it is Torah, which is a far more complex concept than our English word law.  When we hear the word “law” we think of a set of rules that restrict our behavior.  The “thou shalt nots” run through our head.  And certainly the Torah includes strong ethical guidelines we are exhorted to follow.  But the Torah is made up of two distinct elements known as Halakah and Haggadah.  Halakah is the sum of legal restrictions found in Jewish scripture.  But Haggadah is the narrative, the story that plays itself out between God and God’s people.  And that story is considered just as important an element of the Torah, the law, as the list of rules it possesses.  That story is our story.  

Our story tells us of God forming chaos into a world of abundant creation.  Our story tells us of God fashioning us in the divine image and breathing the very breath of life into us.  Our story tells us God ever honoring God’s promises and blessing Abraham and Sarah and every subsequent generation.  Our story tells of God hearing the cries of the oppressed and freeing them from bondage. Our story tells of God sending the prophets to open our eyes when we have lost our way.  Our story, as Christians, goes on to tell us of God taking human form in Jesus Christ to teach us, heal us, and die for us, inviting us home to God’s everlasting ever-loving embrace.  Our story tells us of God’s Holy Spirit breathing passion and energy into those first believers that the church may be born and reborn in every generation.
 
When we find our place in this story, when we recognize that this story continues in us, we can experience ourselves as blessed.  We can be “like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not whither in all that they do, they prosper.”  We can celebrate each new day as a gift given to us knowing that God is the one who created us, this day, and all that is.  We can withstand the challenges of this life, knowing that the promises of God’s love for us are unbreakable.  We can face our failures and mistakes knowing that God’s forgiveness is always awaiting us.

As you heard several minutes ago, when I baptize a baby I always preach their first sermon to them.  “For you God created the world.  For you Jesus was born a babe in Bethlehem.  For you he told the story of God’s love. For you he died. For you he rose to new life.  All of this he did for you.  Although you know none of this, we promise to continue to tell you this story as you grow so that one day you may know it and make it your own.”  It is a message that needs to be continually whispered into the ear of every child and heard continually in our ears as well.  

When we recognize that each of our own individual stories is an essential element of the grand story of the ongoing relationship between God and humanity we are empowered to face every twist and turn life may present to us.  We are sustained and fed by participating in this story, which is our story.

At this point you may be wondering when the stewardship pitch is coming.  Well, here it is.  The story of God’s relationship with humanity is indeed about each of us individually and personally.  Everything God has done, God has done for Emma, and for each and every one of us.  But we are called to live out our stories with God together.  When the Holy Spirit descended into Jerusalem it was to create the church, a community of faith.  An essential element of each of our stories with God is that we share in the story together.  

The Christian faith is an inherently communal endeavor.  In that baptism sermon I say, “We promise to continue to tell you this story as you grow so that one day you may know it and make it your own.”  Well, here is the thing.  I did not share the entire journey with little Emma.  We never lose the need to be told the story, no matter how much we grow and learn.  The way we continue to participate and live in the story is by gathering together, worshiping together, serving together, learning together.  

If we wish to have this story truly sustain us we need to continue to participate in the story of our life together as the church.  And we must continue to tell the story to each other.  Without hearing the story from each other, with all we can continue to learn from each other, the story becomes flat and one-dimensional in our minds and our hearts.  The modernist poet Ezra Pound once thundered, “Go in fear of abstractions.”  And an abstract faith is rather thin gruel to feed us through life’s adventures.  

Rabbi Sharon Brous notes that in the entire first five books of the Bible, filled with all manner of difficulty and tragedy, there are only two times when something is proclaimed as not good.  In the creation myth, when Adam is the only human in the garden, God proclaims, “It is not good for a person to be alone.”  And then, when Moses is struggling in the wilderness under the weight of leading all by himself, his father-in-law counsels him on his solo leadership style, “It is not good what you are doing.” (Brous, p. 35)  

If we want God’s story, our story to sustain us, to lead us through our days, good and bad and everything in between, we need to share in it together as a church.  And if we are going to be the church together we need resources to do just that. When we make a pledge to the church we are making a pledge to God and to each other.  We are pledging to our God that we want to continue to share in the story of the Holy Spirit that set the church in motion all those years ago and continues to do so today.  And we are pledging to each other that we are doing everything we can to ensure that those around us in these pews have the opportunity to continue sharing in the story today and for generations to come.  

In the next few days you will be receiving a letter from our stewardship committee inviting you to prayerfully consider raising your pledge so we can continue to keep pace with rising costs.  As you pray about this decision, I ask that you remember how this story we share together sustains us throughout our lives and leads us forward in the most important of ways.

Or, I suppose you could let a computer GPS be the voice that guides your life. But the waters of this life can get pretty deep, pretty quickly and that did not work out all that well for Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Brous, Sharon, the amen effect, Avery, New York, 2024.

October 12, 2025  Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Second Kings 5:1-14
“Humility and Healing”
Douglas T. King

Once upon a time in a village there was a longstanding rumor of the existence of the most enchanted garden in all the world.  There were endless stories of its grandeur.  Purportedly, the flowers bloomed in every color of the rainbow.  Every fruit imaginable hung from its trees and was always in season.  The water in its stream was the sweetest you had ever tasted and quenched your deepest thirsts.  The birds tweeted the melodies of Mozart.  It was said to be found deep in the forest behind a set of immense doors covered in gold and encrusted with jewels.  

Two VIPS of the village decided that they would seek out this enchanted garden.  They brought along a servant boy to carry water for them.  The trio searched far and wide into the furthest depths of the forest.  They went out beyond where anyone had ever gone before.  But they found nothing.  In the end, exhausted, they trudged on back toward the village.  

They were about to step out of the forest when the servant boy noticed two plain, wooden doors.  How had they missed these doors so close to the village?  Most likely because they were not all that fancy or imposing.  The two VIP’s shrugged.  There cannot be anything important behind them.  They were about to continue their journey home. But the servant encouraged them to knock anyway.  They walked up purposely to the doors and rapped on them with thunderous power.  A voice from the other side called out, “How may I help you?”  The first VIP answered, “I am the mayor of this village and I am enquiring as to whether the enchanted garden lies behind these doors.”  “It does indeed,” came the response.  “As mayor of this village I have great power and can grant you whatever you wish.”  There was nothing but silence from behind the door.  The second VIP nudged the mayor aside and said “let me handle this”.  He called out “I am the wealthiest person in the village.  I can provide you with great riches.” Once again there was no response.  

The two VIPS looked at each other in stunned and outraged silence.  They had never been refused anything in their lives.  And now, they are not being granted entrance beyond these pedestrian wooden doors?  They turned on their heels and began to march away in disgust.  But the servant boy did not follow them.  He walked up to the doors and timidly called out, “May we please enter your enchanted garden?”  The doors immediately swung open, revealing a paradise beyond what words can describe.  The doorkeeper smiled and said, “I could not figure out what all this talk of power and riches was about.  Why did you not just ask to enter?”

Our story from the book of Kings tells us of another VIP who is in search of something valuable.  Naaman is a man of immense power, influence, and wealth.  He has much of what the world has to offer at his fingertips.  But for everything he possesses, he does not possess the ability to heal himself.  He has a skin disease that affects his physical health and comes with significant social stigma.  It does not state it in the story but Naaman had surely tried every possible cure he could obtain, all to no avail.  We wonder if he had any hope at all of being healed.  

But then a young girl from Israel, that he had captured and taken as a slave, offers a possibility.  Naaman is so desperate for a cure that he decides to listen to this powerless nobody and travel into the land of his adversary in search of relief.  So, off he travels with the tools that have always served him well in the past, the traditional forms of power, political influence and money.  And he presents himself to the most powerful person in Israel, the King.  The king, seeing this in terms of traditional forms of power, panics because he has no answer for Naaman. However, Elisha the prophet does have an answer and invites Naaman to come to him and receive healing.  So Naaman arrives in all his glory, complete with a parade of horses and chariots, and weighty expectations of a royal welcome and a full-blown Broadway show.  But there is no red carpet.  There is no grand hocus pocus.  In fact, the prophet does not even bother to make an appearance.  A mere messenger informs Naaman that to be healed all he need do is bathe in the nearby less-than-impressive Jordan River seven times.  The offended Naaman, promptly and proudly turns on his heal and storms off.  But his servants seek to slow him down and cool him off.  They convince him to momentarily set aside his prejudices and preconceived notions about how healing can occur.  And to lay his ego aside as well.  Naaman relents and does indeed bathe in the Jordan seven times, and yes, he is healed.

This ancient story has much to teach us about the pathway to healing.  I will leave the discussion of healing of physical ailments to the physicians in the room, but I can speak to the healing of our psyches and our souls.  One of the first things that strikes me about this story is the division between those who understand the pathway to healing and those who do not.  Naaman, the high and mighty commander and the King of Israel have no clue as to how healing can occur.  They assume the means of healing come through power and privilege because that is what has served them in their lives.  The slave girl and the servant are the ones who direct the action toward healing.  Without power and privilege they see the world through a different lens, a lens that allows them to see how healing can indeed be achieved.

Now the storyline is not as simple as those with power and privilege are bad and those without power and privilege are good.  If that were the case, just about everyone in this room would be in trouble.  What is revealed is that power and privilege can be an impediment to finding the pathway to being healed by our God.  Those with power and privilege have often reached that place by being confident and assertive in their belief that they have the answers and ability to solve all problems.  And with the power and privilege they have, they often acquire a sense of entitlement about how they should be recognized in the world.  

Naaman showed up at Elisha’s doorstep ready to be recognized for the important person that he is and pay for his healing, and perhaps like any paying customer, expect to be thanked for his business.  He was looking for a transaction that would continue his understanding of himself as someone in control and always in charge of his life.  The servants, who see the pathway to healing, understand what it is to not always be in charge of one’s life.  

Some forms of healing only come on the pathway of humility.  This is the case for the deepest hurts in our lives.  We are not talking of skin conditions or physical ailments of any kind.  We are talking about the aches and pains we find in our hearts when we wake up at three AM and cannot get back to sleep; the regrets we carry; the fears that haunt us; the hurts that are years old but are still very real for us; the deep loneliness that may find a home within us at times. For all the things we have accomplished in this world, for all the things we have rightly earned, there are some things that only God’s grace can heal.  The only way is by being enveloped in the divine’s loving arms, receiving ultimate acceptance, and experiencing the revelation of just how precious and valuable we are as God’s children.  

The pathway to grace is not through our accomplishments.  Grace is not earned.  Grace is set right before us each day, in fact it is so intimately close to us it is easily overlooked as we seek solutions that are farther afield.  All we need do is ask for it.  When we turn toward God and acknowledge our need to be made whole; to be forgiven; to learn our true value in God’s eyes; all manner of healing is offered to us.  And our opportunity to do this is as simple and common as our weekly prayer of confession.  It can be the most life-changing couple of minutes of our week.  When we are honestly present before our God in all our vulnerabilities and limitations we open a space within ourselves for God’s Spirit to enter and renew us, refresh us, and heal us.  

We live with a consistent choice in our lives.  We can stand on our pride and remain beholden to all the ways we are wounded by the world and ourselves.  Or we can present ourselves in all humility before the God right before us and allow grace to free us.  For those village VIP’s it was learning the power of the word please.  For Naaman it was risking looking silly, bathing in a local river.  For us it is honest and heartfelt prayer before our God.

My advice?  Come on in, the water’s fine.
 
Thanks be to God.  Amen.