Primary Scripture: Matthew 25:31–40
Supporting Scriptures: Isaiah 6:1–8; Micah 6:6–8; Luke 10:25–37; 1 Corinthians 13:1–13; 2 Corinthians 5:18–20; 1 John 4:7–12

“Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these… you did it to me.” — Matthew 25:40

Introduction: What If God Is Waiting for Us?

There is an old picture of God many of us inherited.

God sits above the universe.

God possesses unlimited power.

God controls history.

God can intervene whenever God chooses.

God can stop wars.

God can prevent disasters.

God can heal diseases.

God can feed hungry children.

God can overthrow tyrants.

God can prevent every tragedy.

And then we look at the world.

Wars continue.

Children hunger.

People suffer.

Earth groans.

Innocent people die.

Prayers sometimes seem to disappear into silence.

And eventually a terrifying question emerges:

If God can fix everything, why doesn’t God?

Traditional theology has offered many answers.

Human free will.

Divine mystery.

Soul-making.

A fallen creation.

God’s unknowable plan.

Some of these answers contain wisdom.

But sometimes they leave us defending a picture of divine power that looks increasingly difficult to reconcile with the suffering before us.

So today I want to consider a different possibility.

Not:

Why doesn’t God do something?

But:

What if God is calling us to do something?

What if divine power is not primarily coercive?

What if God does not control the world like a cosmic dictator?

What if God calls?

Invites?

Persuades?

Insists?

What if God needs somewhere for love to happen?

And what if that somewhere is—

us?

---

I. Isaiah Hears a Question

Isaiah enters the temple and experiences an overwhelming vision.

He sees the Lord.

The temple shakes.

The seraphim cry:

“Holy, holy, holy.”

Smoke fills the room.

Everything about the scene suggests divine majesty.

And then something surprising happens.

God asks a question:

“Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”

Think about that.

The Almighty asks:

Who will go?

If divine sovereignty meant simply making whatever God wants happen by force, there would be no need for the question.

But Isaiah hears a call.

And Isaiah answers:

“Here am I; send me.”

The biblical drama often turns on precisely this movement.

Call.

Response.

Moses hears:

Go to Pharaoh.

The prophets hear:

Speak.

Mary hears:

Bear this possibility into the world.

The disciples hear:

Follow me.

Again and again, the divine future arrives through human participation.

Perhaps God has always been asking:

Who will go?

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II. The Scandal of Divine Weakness

Christianity proclaims something astonishing.

God appears in Jesus.

And what does this God look like?

Not Caesar.

Not a warrior emperor.

Not someone seated upon an earthly throne.

A baby.

A peasant.

A wandering teacher.

A friend of outsiders.

Someone who washes feet.

Someone who refuses the sword.

Someone eventually crucified by imperial power.

This is strange theology.

If Christianity wanted to invent a religion glorifying conventional power, it chose a remarkably poor symbol.

The cross reveals vulnerability.

John D. Caputo describes this paradox through what he calls the weakness of God.

Weakness here does not mean worthlessness.

It means non-coercion.

God’s call does not arrive with an army.

Justice cannot force us to become just.

Love cannot force us to love.

Mercy cannot force us to forgive.

Hospitality cannot force us to open the door.

God insists.

But does not compel.

The Kingdom comes as invitation.

---

III. “God Does Not Exist; God Insists”

Caputo’s provocative formulation is:

“God does not exist; God insists.”

That sentence can sound atheistic.

In one sense, it deliberately destabilizes conventional theism.

Caputo is not asking us to imagine God as one extremely large being somewhere beyond the clouds.

Instead, the name God carries an event.

A promise.

Something that calls to us from beyond what presently exists.

The world contains injustice.

Justice insists.

The world contains cruelty.

Mercy insists.

The world contains hostility.

Hospitality insists.

The world contains despair.

Hope insists.

The world contains death.

Life insists.

God is the name we give to that impossible possibility calling reality beyond itself.

But insistence is not existence.

The call needs embodiment.

Justice needs people willing to become just.

Mercy needs people willing to become merciful.

Peace needs peacemakers.

Hospitality needs tables.

Love needs bodies.

God insists.

We respond.

---

IV. Derrida and the Future “To Come”

The philosopher Jacques Derrida gives us another helpful idea.

Derrida often spoke of justice and democracy as things “to come.”

This does not simply mean they will automatically arrive someday.

It means genuine justice always exceeds our present systems.

No society can finally say:

“We have achieved perfect justice. Nothing more is required.”

Justice keeps calling us beyond ourselves.

There is always another excluded person.

Another unheard voice.

Another stranger at the gate.

Another injustice we had not noticed.

The Kingdom of God can be understood similarly.

The Kingdom is always to come.

Not because it is merely postponed until another world.

But because love always asks more of us than we have already accomplished.

The Kingdom interrupts the present with the possibility of a different future.

Jesus says:

“The kingdom of God has come near.”

Near.

Present.

And still coming.

Already.

And not yet.

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V. Tillich: God Beyond the Supreme Being

Paul Tillich challenged Christians to move beyond thinking of God merely as the highest being among other beings.

Tillich spoke instead of God as the ground of being and even of the “God above God.”

This matters.

Because if God is simply a supernatural person with greater abilities than ours, then we naturally ask:

Why didn’t that person intervene?

But if God is the depth of reality itself—

the ground from which courage, meaning, love and being arise—

then the question changes.

God is not one actor competing with other actors inside history.

God is encountered in the depth dimension of existence.

When courage rises against despair—

something sacred happens.

When love interrupts hatred—

something sacred happens.

When justice challenges domination—

something sacred happens.

Perhaps we should stop searching the sky for supernatural interruptions long enough to notice the holy erupting beneath our feet.

---

VI. Whitehead: God Persuades Rather Than Controls

Alfred North Whitehead and later process theologians offer another radical alternative to divine omnipotence.

Reality possesses genuine freedom.

God does not determine every event.

Instead, God offers possibilities.

Every moment contains an invitation toward richer relationship, beauty and life.

Divine power becomes persuasive rather than coercive.

This means God cannot simply snap divine fingers and eliminate every tragedy.

That may sound like a smaller God.

But perhaps it gives us a more loving one.

Love does not control the beloved.

Love makes room.

Love invites.

Love risks rejection.

Love suffers with the beloved.

Whitehead famously described God as:

“the fellow-sufferer who understands.”

Not the cosmic puppeteer.

The fellow sufferer.

The one who receives every wound of creation and still calls creation toward another possibility.

---

VII. Francis and Clare: Rebuilding With Our Hands

Centuries before process theology or deconstruction, Francis of Assisi heard a call:

Repair my church.

Francis initially understood this literally.

So he began rebuilding a ruined chapel.

Stone by stone.

Later the meaning widened.

The church itself needed rebuilding.

But notice the pattern.

Francis did not sit beside San Damiano praying:

“God, please rebuild this building.”

He picked up stones.

Prayer became labor.

Contemplation became participation.

Likewise Clare of Assisi embodied another way of being in a world obsessed with status, wealth and hierarchy.

Francis and Clare answered divine insistence with lives.

Simplicity needed bodies.

Peace needed bodies.

Solidarity needed bodies.

The call became Francis.

The call became Clare.

Not perfectly.

No human being embodies love perfectly.

But something happened because they answered.

---

VIII. Matthew 25: God Hiding in Human Need

Now we reach Jesus’ extraordinary teaching in Matthew 25.

Jesus describes the hungry.

The thirsty.

The stranger.

The naked.

The sick.

The prisoner.

And then he says:

“As you did it to one of the least of these… you did it to me.”

This changes everything.

We keep asking:

Where is God?

Jesus answers:

Hungry.

Thirsty.

A stranger.

Sick.

Imprisoned.

God appears not primarily as the solution descending from above.

God appears within the need calling from below.

The hungry person becomes a theological event.

Their hunger says:

Feed me.

The stranger says:

Welcome me.

The prisoner says:

Remember me.

The suffering Earth says:

Protect me.

And perhaps that cry is precisely where God insists.

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IX. The Good Samaritan: Theology After Religion

Jesus tells another troubling story.

A man lies wounded beside the road.

A priest passes.

A Levite passes.

Then a Samaritan stops.

The religious outsider becomes the hero.

Jesus does not ask:

Which traveler possessed the correct theology?

He asks:

“Which of these three… was a neighbor?”

The answer:

“The one who showed him mercy.”

Then Jesus says:

“Go and do likewise.”

There is the Gospel.

Do likewise.

This opens Christianity toward radical religious pluralism.

Whenever a Muslim answers mercy’s call—

something sacred happens.

Whenever a Buddhist answers compassion’s call—

something sacred happens.

Whenever a Jewish neighbor answers justice’s call—

something sacred happens.

Whenever a Hindu answers the call toward sacred unity—

something sacred happens.

Whenever a Pagan protects the living Earth—

something sacred happens.

Whenever an atheist sees suffering and says, “Someone should help,” and then becomes that someone—

perhaps God has happened without the word God ever being spoken.

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X. The Atheist Who Answers God

This gives us one of the most provocative possibilities of post-theistic Christianity.

Perhaps someone can deny God’s existence while answering God’s insistence.

An atheist says:

“I do not believe there is a supernatural being controlling the universe.”

Fair enough.

But then they spend Saturday feeding unhoused people.

They defend a marginalized neighbor.

They visit someone lonely.

They protect an abused child.

They plant trees.

They organize against injustice.

They forgive an enemy.

Meanwhile someone else loudly declares:

“I believe in God!”

But ignores suffering.

Exploits people.

Despises outsiders.

Uses religion to dominate.

Which person is closer to the Kingdom?

Jesus repeatedly suggests the answer may surprise us.

Perhaps belief about God matters less than becoming a place where the event carried by the name of God can happen.

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XI. Žižek: God Hands the World to Us

Slavoj Žižek has offered provocative readings of Christianity in which the cross represents the collapse of the idea of a divine guarantee standing behind history.

Jesus cries:

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

What if Christianity’s deepest moment is precisely the moment when the fantasy of a cosmic rescuer collapses?

Then responsibility falls upon the community.

The Spirit comes.

Not as a replacement dictator.

As a community.

The body of Christ.

Us.

This is terrifying.

Because we can no longer say:

“God will fix it.”

Maybe God is asking:

Will you?

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XII. Love Needs Somewhere to Exist

First John gives us an extraordinary sentence:

“No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us.”

Notice the movement.

You cannot see God.

But love happens.

And somehow God becomes present.

Perhaps this is one of Christianity’s deepest mysteries.

God needs somewhere to happen.

Love needs hands.

Compassion needs feet.

Justice needs voices.

Hospitality needs doors.

Peace needs peacemakers.

Forgiveness needs hearts willing to release vengeance.

The sacred needs embodiment.

This is incarnation continuing.

The Word becomes flesh whenever love becomes material.

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XIII. This Is Not About Saving the World Alone

There is an important warning here.

Saying “God needs us” does not mean any individual person must carry the whole world.

That becomes another form of spiritual violence.

You cannot fix everything.

Neither can I.

Francis could not end poverty.

Clare could not end war.

The prophets did not eliminate injustice.

Jesus himself did not overthrow Rome.

Faithfulness is not omnipotence.

Our calling is not:

Save everything.

Our calling is:

Answer where you are.

One hungry person.

One wounded neighbor.

One unjust system we can challenge.

One tree we can protect.

One lonely person we can sit beside.

One enemy we can refuse to hate.

One stranger we can welcome.

Small acts do not solve everything.

But neither are they nothing.

They create places where another world becomes visible.

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XIV. We Are One

Perhaps this is why the conviction “We are one” matters so deeply.

If we are radically interconnected, then salvation cannot remain private.

Your flourishing and mine are entangled.

Human flourishing and Earth’s flourishing are entangled.

The stranger’s dignity and my humanity are entangled.

Francis understood this intuitively.

Brother Sun.

Sister Moon.

Brother Wind.

Sister Water.

Creation was family.

Modern ecological science tells us something remarkably similar in another language.

Nothing lives alone.

Life is relationship.

Theology should learn from this.

God may not be the great solitary monarch above creation.

Perhaps God is encountered in the depth, call and possibility moving through relationship.

The sacred is between us.

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Conclusion: God Has No Hands But Ours

There is a beautiful spiritual idea often associated with the Christian mystical tradition:

Christ has no body now but ours.

Whether taken literally or poetically, the insight is profound.

If hungry people are going to eat—

someone must cook.

If lonely people are going to be visited—

someone must knock.

If injustice is going to be challenged—

someone must speak.

If refugees are going to be welcomed—

someone must open a door.

If creation is going to be protected—

someone must defend it.

If peace is going to exist—

someone must refuse violence.

We keep asking:

Where is God?

Perhaps God is in the question.

We ask:

Why doesn’t God feed them?

The hungry person looks at us.

We ask:

Why doesn’t God stop hatred?

The hated person looks at us.

We ask:

Why doesn’t God protect the Earth?

The wounded Earth groans beneath us.

We ask:

Why doesn’t God bring peace?

And somewhere an enemy waits for someone to take the first courageous step toward reconciliation.

Maybe heaven is not silent.

Maybe heaven has been speaking all along.

Through the cry.

Through the wound.

Through the stranger.

Through the possibility.

Through the impossible demand that we love.

God insists:

Feed them.

God insists:

Welcome them.

God insists:

Protect them.

God insists:

Forgive.

God insists:

Do justice.

God insists:

Make peace.

But God does not force.

Love refuses the sword.

The future waits.

And once again the ancient question echoes:

“Whom shall I send?”

Perhaps religion has spent too much time waiting for God to answer our prayers.

Perhaps sometimes we are the answer being called forth by the prayer.

So when the world asks:

Where is God?

May we not merely point upward.

May we point toward the table where strangers are eating together.

Toward the protest where dignity is defended.

Toward the hospital room where somebody refuses to leave another person alone.

Toward the garden being planted.

Toward the prisoner being remembered.

Toward enemies learning one another’s names.

Toward the ruined church where someone has picked up the first stone.

There.

There.

There.

Something is happening.

Love is becoming flesh.

Justice is becoming possible.

Mercy is taking form.

The promise has found somewhere to exist.

God insists.

And may our lives answer:

“Here am I; send me.”

May we live simply.

May we love boldly.

May we resist domination.

May we recognize our kinship with every creature.

May we live and help live.

And may we become participants in the unfinished work of a fuller life for everyone.

Amen.

Primary Scripture: John 5:39–40
Supporting Scriptures: 2 Timothy 3:14–17; Luke 24:13–35; Acts 10:9–16, 34–35; 2 Corinthians 3:6; Micah 6:8

“You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf. Yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” — John 5:39–40

Introduction: When the Bible Becomes an Idol

I love the Bible.

Precisely because I love it, I refuse to pretend it is something it is not.

The Bible is not God.

The Bible is not Jesus.

The Bible did not descend from heaven already typeset, indexed, leather-bound, and printed with the words of Jesus conveniently colored red.

It is a library.

A strange, beautiful, troubling, contradictory, holy library.

It contains poetry and propaganda.

Wisdom and warfare.

Lament and law.

Myth and memory.

Gospels and genealogies.

Love songs and apocalypse.

Stories of liberation—and passages that have been used to justify oppression.

Sometimes Scripture whispers:

“Love your neighbor.”

Sometimes it shouts:

“Let justice roll down like waters.”

Sometimes it asks:

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

And sometimes it contains words that should make morally awake readers deeply uncomfortable.

The question is not whether we can make all of these voices sound identical.

We cannot.

The question is whether we can love Scripture enough to wrestle with it.

Perhaps faithfulness to the Bible sometimes requires disagreeing with the Bible.

That sounds scandalous.

But the Bible itself does it.

And Jesus does it too.

I. The Bible Is a Library, Not a Monologue

Many Christians were taught to speak about “what the Bible says” as though Scripture were one person speaking with one voice.

But Scripture developed across centuries.

Its books emerged from different historical circumstances and communities.

Different writers possessed different theological perspectives.

Ecclesiastes does not sound like Proverbs.

Job argues with simplistic ideas about suffering found elsewhere.

Chronicles retells Israel’s history differently from Samuel and Kings.

The four Gospels tell the story of Jesus differently.

Paul and James emphasize faith and works differently.

Revelation sounds nothing like Ruth.

This diversity need not destroy faith.

Perhaps it can deepen it.

The Bible is not a theological instruction manual.

It is more like a centuries-long argument around a sacred table.

People wrestle with God.

With suffering.

With empire.

With justice.

With death.

With hope.

With one another.

And somehow the argument itself becomes Scripture.

II. Jacob Wrestled With God

The biblical tradition begins with wrestling.

Jacob encounters the mysterious stranger beside the Jabbok River and wrestles until morning.

Afterward he receives a new name:

Israel.

The name is traditionally associated with striving or wrestling with God.

Think about that.

The people of Scripture are named for wrestling.

Not unquestioning obedience.

Not intellectual certainty.

Wrestling.

Perhaps biblical faith has always contained argument.

Abraham argues.

Moses argues.

Job argues.

The prophets argue.

The psalmists argue.

Jesus argues.

Paul argues.

The Bible does not hide these arguments.

It canonizes them.

Maybe God is less frightened by our questions than religious institutions sometimes are.

III. Jesus Reinterprets Scripture

Jesus himself does not simply quote Scripture and say:

“That settles it.”

In the Sermon on the Mount he repeatedly says:

“You have heard that it was said…”

and then:

“But I say to you…”

Jesus receives tradition and interprets it.

Sometimes radically.

Consider:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer [in kind].”

Or:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies.”

Jesus is not practicing flat literalism.

He is discerning where Scripture is pointing.

Toward greater love.

Toward deeper mercy.

Toward reconciliation.

Toward fuller life.

Perhaps Jesus gives us permission to ask of every biblical interpretation:

Where does this lead?

Does it produce love?

Does it produce justice?

Does it produce mercy?

Does it produce liberation?

Or does it produce cruelty?

IV. Scripture Can Be Used Against God

That may sound impossible.

But consider the temptation story.

The devil quotes Scripture.

That should permanently destroy the argument that quoting a Bible verse automatically settles a moral question.

Jesus and the tempter both know Scripture.

The disagreement concerns how Scripture should be interpreted.

Biblical literacy alone is insufficient.

You can memorize Scripture and still miss its heart.

History proves this.

Christians quoted Scripture to defend slavery.

Christians quoted Scripture to oppose abolition.

Christians quoted Scripture to defend segregation.

Christians quoted Scripture to oppose civil rights.

Christians have quoted Scripture to subordinate women.

Christians have quoted Scripture against LGBTQ people.

Christians have quoted Scripture to justify colonialism.

And other Christians have opened the same Bible and discovered liberation.

The question has never merely been:

“Do you believe the Bible?”

The deeper question is:

“What kind of human being is your reading of the Bible creating?”

V. The Letter and the Spirit

Paul writes:

“The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”

Whatever else Paul meant in his original context, Christians should hear the warning.

Words can become weapons.

A verse detached from context can become a stone.

A doctrine can become a prison.

A religious tradition can become an excuse not to love.

Jesus repeatedly encounters religious interpretations that place rules above people.

When challenged because his disciples pluck grain on the Sabbath, Jesus responds:

“The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath.”

That is an extraordinary hermeneutical principle.

Religious structures exist to serve life.

Life does not exist to serve religious structures.

When interpretation destroys people, something has gone wrong.

VI. Historical-Critical Scholarship Is Not the Enemy

Some Christians fear biblical scholarship because they believe historical criticism destroys faith.

I think the opposite can happen.

Scholarship can liberate Scripture from impossible expectations.

Once we stop demanding that every biblical writer possess identical theology, modern scientific knowledge, perfect historical precision and twenty-first-century moral awareness, the Bible becomes far more interesting.

We can ask:

Who wrote this?

When?

For whom?

What political situation shaped it?

What literary genre is this?

What problem was the writer addressing?

How did later communities reinterpret earlier traditions?

These questions do not dishonor Scripture.

They take Scripture seriously enough to understand it.

Marcus Borg often encouraged Christians to move beyond a literal-factual approach toward historical and metaphorical readings of Scripture.

A story need not be a newspaper report to tell truth.

Poetry tells truth.

Parables tell truth.

Myths tell truth.

Symbols tell truth.

Jesus himself taught constantly through fictional stories.

Nobody asks for the Good Samaritan’s birth certificate.

The truth of the parable does not depend upon whether the Samaritan literally existed.

Its truth happens when somebody becomes a neighbor.

VII. The Word of God Is Not a Book

Christians frequently call the Bible “the Word of God.”

But the New Testament gives that title somewhere else.

John begins:

“In the beginning was the Word.”

And then:

“The Word became flesh.”

Not paper.

Not ink.

Flesh.

For Christianity, the fullest revelation of God is not a book.

It is a life.

Jesus.

And even here we must be careful.

The point is not merely that Jesus possessed perfect information about God.

Jesus embodies a way.

Compassion.

Hospitality.

Forgiveness.

Justice.

Table fellowship.

Solidarity with people at the margins.

Resistance to domination.

If our interpretation of Scripture makes us less like that Jesus, perhaps we have misunderstood Scripture.

VIII. Caputo: The Word as Event

Here John D. Caputo gives us another possibility.

What if the “Word of God” is not primarily information sent down from heaven?

What if it is an event?

A call.

An insistence.

Something trying to happen through words.

When Scripture says:

“Let justice roll down like waters,”

perhaps the divine event is not merely the sentence.

It is justice insisting upon us through the sentence.

When Jesus says:

“Love your enemies,”

the sacred event is not simply preserving the quotation.

Love is calling us beyond retaliation.

When the prophets defend widows, orphans and immigrants, something insists:

Make room.

The words become sacred when the event they carry begins happening.

A Bible sitting unopened on an altar changes nothing.

A Bible quoted without love may change things for the worse.

The Word becomes flesh when justice becomes action.

IX. God Does Not Exist in the Footnotes

Caputo’s provocative claim that “God does not exist; God insists” can illuminate Scripture.

The Bible does not need to function as evidence proving a supernatural object called God.

Instead, the name of God may carry an insistence.

Justice insists.

Mercy insists.

Hospitality insists.

Forgiveness insists.

The impossible possibility of peace insists.

The Bible becomes one historical place where human beings have heard, resisted, distorted, rediscovered and answered that call.

This means Scripture is simultaneously human and sacred.

Human enough to contain prejudice.

Sacred enough to challenge prejudice.

Human enough to reflect ancient cultures.

Sacred enough to call cultures beyond themselves.

Human enough to argue.

Sacred enough to keep the argument open.

X. Peter’s Bible Had to Become Bigger

Acts 10 contains one of Scripture’s greatest stories of theological transformation.

Peter has a vision involving foods forbidden by Torah.

He hears:

“What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”

Then Peter meets Cornelius, a Gentile.

Suddenly Peter realizes that the vision is not merely about food.

His entire religious map is expanding.

He says:

“I truly understand that God shows no partiality.”

Peter does not abandon his tradition.

His understanding of the tradition grows.

Something larger breaks through.

This is revelation as continuing transformation.

Sometimes faithfulness means realizing that yesterday’s interpretation cannot contain tomorrow’s compassion.

XI. The Bible and LGBTQ People

This matters enormously when Christians interpret Scripture concerning LGBTQ people.

A handful of ancient texts have been made to carry enormous weight.

But responsible interpretation asks historical questions.

What did ancient writers understand about sexuality?

Did they possess modern concepts of sexual orientation or gender identity?

What social practices were actually being addressed?

How do these passages relate to the broader biblical trajectory toward justice, covenant, dignity and love?

And perhaps most importantly:

What fruit does our interpretation produce?

Jesus says:

“You will know them by their fruits.”

If an interpretation consistently produces shame, despair, family rejection, spiritual trauma and exclusion, Christians should at least possess enough humility to reconsider whether we have understood correctly.

The Bible should not become a weapon against people Jesus would have invited to dinner.

XII. Religious Pluralism and Scripture

There is another idol we must surrender:

the idea that God has spoken only through our library.

If God is the call toward truth, beauty, compassion, justice and fuller life, why should we imagine that call has sounded only within Christianity?

The Hebrew prophets heard it.

Jesus heard it.

The apostles heard it.

But perhaps the Buddha heard something of compassion’s call.

Perhaps Muslim mystics heard something of divine love.

Perhaps Hindu sages heard something of sacred unity.

Perhaps Indigenous peoples heard something Christians desperately need to relearn about relationship with Earth.

Perhaps atheistic humanists hear justice calling without using the word God at all.

Religious pluralism does not require pretending every tradition teaches the same thing.

They clearly do not.

It means approaching our neighbors with enough humility to say:

Perhaps you have heard something I need to hear.

XIII. Scripture After Certainty

Many people fear that once biblical inerrancy disappears, nothing remains.

But perhaps what disappears is not Scripture.

Perhaps what disappears is certainty.

And certainty was never the same thing as faith.

Paul Tillich famously argued that doubt belongs within genuine faith rather than simply standing outside it.

Faith does not mean possessing perfect answers.

Faith means entrusting ourselves to what ultimately matters even while uncertainty remains.

You can say:

“I do not know exactly how this text originated.”

And still listen.

“I disagree morally with this passage.”

And still wrestle.

“I don’t know whether this story happened exactly as written.”

And still discover truth within it.

“I don’t know exactly what God means.”

And still answer the call of love.

That may be a more mature faith than pretending certainty we do not possess.

XIV. The Road to Emmaus

Luke tells us about two disciples walking toward Emmaus after Jesus’ death.

They are confused.

Their theology has collapsed.

They thought Jesus would redeem Israel.

Instead he was crucified.

Then a stranger joins them.

They talk.

They reinterpret Scripture.

And eventually they sit at a table.

Luke says:

“He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.”

Then:

“their eyes were opened.”

Notice where recognition happens.

Not during a doctrinal examination.

Not during an argument about biblical inerrancy.

At a table.

In broken bread.

Hospitality becomes revelation.

Perhaps Scripture finally points beyond itself.

Toward the table.

Toward the stranger.

Toward community.

Toward life.

Conclusion: Do Not Worship the Map

Scripture is a map.

A witness.

A library.

A conversation.

A collection of communities remembering encounters with Mystery.

But the map is not the territory.

The menu is not the meal.

The Bible is not God.

And perhaps the Bible itself has been trying to tell us this.

Jesus says:

“You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life… Yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”

There it is.

You can know the verses and miss the life.

You can defend the book and ignore the neighbor.

You can memorize doctrine and overlook the stranger.

You can quote Jesus while refusing to follow him.

So read Scripture.

Study it deeply.

Learn its history.

Question it.

Argue with it.

Love it.

Laugh with it.

Cry with it.

Wrestle with it until morning.

But never turn it into an idol.

Because somewhere beneath the words something is insisting.

Justice.

Mercy.

Hospitality.

Liberation.

Forgiveness.

Compassion.

A fuller life for everyone.

The sacred call does not say:

“Protect every sentence from questions.”

It says:

“Come and follow.”

Feed someone.

Welcome someone.

Liberate someone.

Forgive someone.

Defend someone.

Listen to someone outside your tradition.

Protect the Earth.

Break bread with strangers.

Build communities where people can breathe.

And perhaps then something extraordinary happens.

The Word leaves the page.

The Word becomes flesh.

Not because we finally interpreted every verse correctly.

But because love happened.

Justice happened.

Mercy happened.

Hospitality happened.

God happened.

The event occurred.

The promise found somewhere to land.

And the ancient words became living words again.

Do justice.

Love mercy.

Walk humbly.

Especially that last one.

Walk humbly.

Because none of us possesses God.

None of us possesses truth completely.

None of us has finished interpreting.

We are pilgrims.

Still reading.

Still questioning.

Still becoming.

Still listening for the call beneath the words.

And still discovering that the purpose of Scripture was never merely to give us a book we could defend.

It was to help form a people capable of love.

May we become those people.

Amen.

Primary Scripture: John 11:17–27
Supporting Scriptures: Ezekiel 37:1–14; Luke 15:11–32; Romans 6:4; 1 Corinthians 15:35–44; John 20:11–18; Revelation 21:1–5

“I am the resurrection and the life.” — John 11:25

Introduction: Have We Put Resurrection in the Wrong Place?

Christians talk a great deal about resurrection.

Usually we put it at the end of life.

You live.

You die.

And then—somehow, somewhere—God raises you.

Perhaps that is true.

I certainly hope death does not have the final word.

But I wonder whether we have made resurrection so completely about what happens after death that we fail to recognize resurrection happening before our eyes.

Jesus makes a remarkable statement to Martha.

He does not merely say:

“There will someday be a resurrection.”

He says:

“I am the resurrection and the life.”

Resurrection suddenly becomes more than a future event.

It becomes a way of being.

A presence.

A possibility.

An event breaking into the present.

Perhaps resurrection is not merely something that happens to dead bodies.

Perhaps resurrection happens whenever life emerges from places where life seemed impossible.

And if that is true, then the question is no longer merely:

“Do you believe you will rise after you die?”

The question becomes:

“What in you needs to rise today?”

I. Ezekiel’s Valley of Bones

Centuries before Jesus, the prophet Ezekiel receives one of Scripture’s strangest visions.

He stands in a valley filled with bones.

Not bodies.

Bones.

And the text emphasizes:

“they were very dry.”

These people have not just died.

Hope itself appears dead.

Then God asks Ezekiel:

“Mortal, can these bones live?”

Ezekiel wisely avoids pretending to know.

“O Lord God, you know.”

Then comes the impossible command:

Prophesy to the bones.

Speak hope to what looks hopeless.

Speak life into death.

Speak possibility into impossibility.

The bones begin coming together.

Breath enters them.

They stand.

But the historical context matters.

Ezekiel’s vision originally concerns Israel in exile.

The people themselves explain the metaphor:

“Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost.”

This is not primarily an anatomy lesson about corpses.

It is a political and spiritual vision about a devastated people discovering that their story is not finished.

Resurrection, even here, means:

There can be a future after catastrophe.

II. Jesus and Resurrection Now

Return to Martha.

Her brother Lazarus has died.

Jesus tells her:

“Your brother will rise again.”

Martha gives the orthodox answer:

“I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”

In other words:

“Yes, Jesus. I know the doctrine.”

But Jesus responds:

“I am the resurrection.”

Martha places resurrection in the future.

Jesus brings resurrection into the present.

This pattern occurs throughout the Gospel.

Jesus encounters people socially dead.

Excluded people.

Shamed people.

Sick people.

Poor people.

People considered sinful.

People whom respectable society has discarded.

And wherever Jesus goes, people begin standing again.

Dignity returns.

Community returns.

Hope returns.

Life returns.

That is resurrection.

III. Resurrection Is Not Resuscitation

We should distinguish resurrection from simple resuscitation.

Resuscitation means restoring someone to their previous condition.

Resurrection means something new.

Paul wrestles with this in 1 Corinthians 15.

He uses the metaphor of a seed.

A seed enters the earth.

Something emerges.

There is continuity.

But there is also transformation.

Paul writes:

“What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.”

Resurrection is therefore not merely getting the old thing back.

Sometimes we desperately want God to restore yesterday.

The old relationship.

The old church.

The old identity.

The old certainty.

The old world.

But resurrection may not mean returning.

It may mean becoming.

The seed does not emerge from the soil as a larger seed.

It becomes something it has never been before.

IV. Process Theology: Reality Is Becoming

Here process theology gives Christianity a beautiful vocabulary.

For Alfred North Whitehead, reality is fundamentally dynamic.

Existence is not primarily made of static things.

Reality is event.

Relationship.

Becoming.

Every moment inherits the past but is not absolutely determined by it.

Something new remains possible.

Process theologians therefore speak about God not as the cosmic dictator determining every event, but as the One who continually calls creation toward new possibilities.

God offers.

Creation responds.

The future remains genuinely open.

That means resurrection is woven into the structure of becoming.

The past matters.

Trauma matters.

History matters.

Loss matters.

But none necessarily possesses absolute sovereignty over the next moment.

Grace whispers:

You have been this.

But you may yet become.

V. Caputo: Resurrection as the Insistence of the Impossible

John D. Caputo often speaks about God in terms of the event and the impossible.

The name of God carries a promise that exceeds what presently exists.

Justice where injustice seems permanent.

Forgiveness where reconciliation seems impossible.

Hospitality where hostility dominates.

Life where death appears victorious.

God does not force these things into existence.

God insists.

The promise calls.

But the call needs someone to answer.

This gives us a radically different way of hearing Easter.

Perhaps resurrection is the insistence that:

what is does not exhaust what may be.

Empire says:

Jesus is dead.

The tomb says:

Finished.

Rome says:

Case closed.

Resurrection says:

You do not get the final word.

That is why resurrection is politically dangerous.

Every empire wants its victims to believe that reality cannot change.

Resurrection announces:

History remains open.

VI. The Cross Is Not God’s Demand for Blood

But we must talk about the cross.

Some Christians were taught that God required Jesus to die so that God could forgive humanity.

In its harshest form, this makes the crucifixion sound almost like divine child abuse.

But historically, Rome crucified Jesus.

Crucifixion was an imperial punishment.

Jesus did not die because God needed violence.

Jesus died because human systems of domination frequently kill those who threaten them.

Jesus proclaimed another Kingdom.

He challenged religious hypocrisy.

He crossed social boundaries.

He stood with marginalized people.

He disrupted expectations.

Eventually empire did what empire does.

It crucified him.

The resurrection therefore does not mean:

God’s violence was successful.

It means:

Human violence failed to silence love.

That is a profoundly different Gospel.

VII. James Cone: Resurrection and the Lynching Tree

The great Black theologian James H. Cone placed the cross alongside the lynching tree.

Cone understood that theology looks different from the underside of history.

The cross was not decorative jewelry in the first century.

It was an instrument of terror.

Like the lynching tree, it communicated:

Know your place.

Do not resist.

Do not challenge power.

This could happen to you.

Resurrection therefore becomes God’s great contradiction of terror.

Empire says:

Your life is disposable.

Resurrection says:

Your life possesses sacred dignity.

Racism says:

Know your place.

Resurrection says:

Rise.

Oppression says:

Nothing will change.

Resurrection says:

The story isn’t over.

VIII. Resurrection and the Wounded Body

There is another remarkable detail in the Easter stories.

The risen Jesus still carries wounds.

In John 20, Thomas encounters the scars.

Think about that.

Resurrection does not erase the wounds.

Jesus does not return pretending crucifixion never happened.

The wounds remain.

But they no longer define the limits of his existence.

That may be one of Scripture’s deepest insights about healing.

Healing does not necessarily mean forgetting.

Healing does not mean pretending something terrible was secretly good.

Healing does not require saying:

“Everything happens for a reason.”

Sometimes terrible things happen because terrible things happen.

Resurrection means:

The wound does not get to write the final chapter.

You may carry scars.

But scars are not the same as open wounds.

They can become evidence that death tried—

and failed—

to have the last word.

IX. Howard Thurman: Something in Us Refuses to Die

Howard Thurman understood spirituality as a resource for people living under oppression.

He wrote about what he called the sound of the genuine within us—the deepest place where our authentic life speaks.

Oppressive systems try to silence that voice.

They tell people:

You are inferior.

You are unwanted.

You are unacceptable.

You are powerless.

You are nothing.

But something within the human spirit keeps whispering:

No.

That no can be resurrection.

The abused person who discovers boundaries.

The rejected person who discovers belonging.

The marginalized person who discovers dignity.

The silenced person who finds their voice.

The despairing person who chooses one more morning.

Rise.

Rise.

Rise.

X. Religious Pluralism and the Resurrection Pattern

Christians do not possess a monopoly on stories of renewal.

Religions throughout the world recognize rhythms of death and rebirth.

Buddhist traditions speak about awakening from illusion.

Hindu traditions explore liberation and transformation.

Jewish tradition carries powerful images of national restoration, return and new creation.

Many Pagan traditions celebrate seasonal cycles of death and renewal.

Indigenous traditions preserve profound understandings of regeneration, land and ancestral continuity.

These traditions are not interchangeable.

We should respect their differences rather than turning them into Christian illustrations.

But perhaps their existence reveals something deeply human.

Human beings repeatedly discover that life moves through endings into beginnings.

Winter does not possess the whole calendar.

Night does not abolish morning.

The seed disappears underground.

And then something rises.

Christianity calls its deepest version of this mystery:

Easter.

XI. Can a Christian Atheist Believe in Resurrection?

Now comes the provocative question.

Can someone who does not believe in a supernatural interventionist God still believe in resurrection?

Perhaps.

It depends what we mean by believe.

If belief means possessing certainty about the molecular mechanics of Jesus’ body on Easter morning, many modern Christians will struggle.

Historical-critical scholarship cannot place a camera inside the tomb.

The New Testament itself gives us diverse resurrection narratives.

Mark’s earliest recoverable ending leaves frightened women fleeing an empty tomb.

Matthew, Luke, John and Paul preserve different appearances and emphases.

Something happened that transformed frightened followers into a movement proclaiming that Jesus remained somehow alive and vindicated.

Exactly what happened?

History reaches its limits.

Faith begins speaking in poetry, testimony, symbol and hope.

But even someone uncertain about metaphysics can live resurrection.

Whenever we refuse to let death have absolute authority—

we practice resurrection.

Whenever we create possibility from despair—

we practice resurrection.

Whenever love survives hatred—

we practice resurrection.

Perhaps resurrection is not merely a proposition to believe.

It is a way to live.

XII. Mary Magdalene: Resurrection Begins With Recognition

John gives us one of Christianity’s most beautiful Easter scenes.

Mary Magdalene stands outside the tomb crying.

She encounters Jesus but does not recognize him.

She assumes he is the gardener.

Then he says:

“Mary.”

Her name.

And suddenly she sees.

There is something profoundly mystical here.

Resurrection begins with being called by name.

Before doctrine.

Before explanation.

Before theology.

Recognition.

The one who thought everything was lost discovers that love is still calling her name.

Perhaps that is resurrection.

The moment you discover that despite everything that has happened—

you are still called toward life.

XIII. Resurrection Must Become Social

But resurrection cannot remain merely personal.

Communities need resurrection.

Churches need resurrection.

Neighborhoods need resurrection.

Democracy needs resurrection.

Our relationship with Earth needs resurrection.

A Christianity obsessed only with individual resurrection after death can ignore collective death happening now.

What good is preaching resurrection while communities collapse?

What good is singing about heaven while people sleep hungry?

What good is proclaiming new life while defending systems that suffocate life?

Easter must eventually leave the sanctuary.

Resurrection becomes political whenever somebody asks:

What would make this community live again?

Affordable housing can be resurrection.

Restorative justice can be resurrection.

Addiction recovery can be resurrection.

Reconciliation can be resurrection.

Ecological restoration can be resurrection.

A meal can be resurrection.

Sometimes resurrection smells less like incense and more like soup.

God has never been terribly concerned with our preference for dramatic special effects.

XIV. Practice Resurrection

Poet and farmer Wendell Berry ends his poem Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front with two famous words:

“Practice resurrection.”

That may be one of the finest Easter sermons ever preached.

Practice resurrection.

Do not merely believe it.

Practice it.

Find something dying and help it live.

Find someone excluded and make room.

Find something broken and begin repairing it.

Find despair and introduce possibility.

Find hatred and refuse to reproduce it.

Find loneliness and sit beside it.

Find injustice and disturb it.

Find beauty and protect it.

Practice resurrection.

Conclusion: Rise Before You Die

One day each of us will die.

What lies beyond that moment remains Mystery.

Christian faith dares to hope that death is not the end.

I share that hope.

But we need not wait until death to encounter resurrection.

There are tombs we can leave now.

The tomb of fear.

The tomb of shame.

The tomb of religious certainty.

The tomb of hatred.

The tomb of prejudice.

The tomb of despair.

The tomb of believing that nothing can ever change.

And outside every one of those tombs something is calling.

Not coercing.

Not dragging us out.

Calling.

The event of God whispers:

Rise.

Justice says:

Rise.

Love says:

Rise.

Mercy says:

Rise.

Your deepest humanity says:

Rise.

The future says:

Rise.

And perhaps this is what resurrection finally means:

The past is real, but the future remains open.

Rome is real.

But Rome is not ultimate.

The cross is real.

But the cross is not ultimate.

The wound is real.

But the wound is not ultimate.

Death is real.

But Christianity dares to say:

Death is not ultimate.

There is always another possibility insisting upon us.

Another morning.

Another beginning.

Another way to love.

Another opportunity to become.

So do not spend your entire life waiting for resurrection.

Practice it.

Help something live.

Help someone stand.

Call somebody by name.

Feed somebody.

Forgive somebody.

Protect somebody.

Plant something.

Repair something.

Resist something that kills.

Create something that gives life.

Because every time life rises where death expected victory,

every time hope appears where despair had settled in,

every time a human being discovers that their story is not finished,

the ancient Easter proclamation becomes present tense:

Christ is risen.

Not merely then.

Here.

Now.

Among us.

The promise insists.

Life calls.

The tomb stands open.

Rise.

Amen.

Primary Scripture: Luke 19:1–10
Supporting Scriptures: Luke 4:16–21; Matthew 25:31–40; Romans 8:18–23; 2 Corinthians 5:17–19; Revelation 21:1–5

“Today salvation has come to this house.” — Luke 19:9

Introduction: Saved From What?

There is a question Christians ask so often that we rarely stop to examine it:

“Are you saved?”

For many of us, the question came packaged with an entire theology.

You are a sinner.

God is angry.

Hell awaits.

Jesus dies.

Believe the correct things.

Escape punishment.

Go to heaven.

Salvation, in this scheme, becomes essentially a divine evacuation plan.

The world is sinking.

Christianity hands out lifeboat tickets.

But there is a problem.

When we actually read the Gospels, Jesus’ language about salvation is considerably richer.

Jesus encounters Zacchaeus, a tax collector whose wealth is entangled with an exploitative economic system.

Zacchaeus announces that he will give half his possessions to the poor and repay those he has defrauded fourfold.

And Jesus responds:

“Today salvation has come to this house.”

Notice what Jesus does not say.

“Today Zacchaeus learned where he will go after he dies.”

Something has happened now.

A relationship has changed.

An economic practice has changed.

A human being has changed.

People who were exploited will receive restitution.

Money will move toward the poor.

A fractured community begins to heal.

And Jesus calls that:

salvation.

Perhaps Christianity has spent too much time asking what we are saved from.

Today I want to ask another question:

What are we being saved for?

I. Salvation Is Bigger Than an Afterlife

The biblical language translated as salvation does not always mean escaping hell.

The Hebrew Scriptures frequently speak about salvation in concrete historical situations:

deliverance from slavery,

rescue from enemies,

liberation from oppression,

healing,

restoration,

return from exile.

The Exodus is a salvation story.

God hears the cries of enslaved people.

Deliverance occurs.

Bodies become free.

Jesus inherits this Jewish imagination.

In Luke 4 he enters the synagogue and reads Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor… release to the captives… to let the oppressed go free.”

Then Jesus says:

“Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Again:

Today.

Jesus’ salvation has consequences before the funeral.

II. The Problem With Salvation by Threat

Many Christians were introduced to God through fear.

Believe correctly or burn eternally.

Love God—or else.

But consider the contradiction.

Imagine someone saying:

“Love me freely. And if you don’t, I will torture you forever.”

We would not call that love.

We would call it abuse.

Yet Christians have sometimes attributed precisely this behavior to God and then called God infinitely loving.

Something does not add up.

The problem is not merely emotional.

It is theological.

First John says:

“God is love.”

And:

“Perfect love casts out fear.”

If our theology makes God less loving than the best human beings we know, perhaps our theology needs conversion.

III. Jesus and Hell

This does not mean Jesus never used frightening imagery.

He did.

Historical honesty requires acknowledging it.

Jesus speaks about judgment, Gehenna, fire, exclusion and consequences.

But Gehenna was not simply the fully developed medieval picture of an underground torture chamber ruled by demons.

The term referred to the Valley of Hinnom near Jerusalem, a location carrying powerful associations with judgment in Jewish tradition.

Jesus used prophetic, apocalyptic language familiar to his world.

The question is whether we should flatten every one of those images into a literal map of the afterlife.

Biblical interpretation requires more care than that.

Jesus’ warnings should be taken seriously.

Actions have consequences.

Systems destroy people.

Greed destroys communities.

Violence creates more violence.

Hatred consumes those who practice it.

But taking judgment seriously does not require believing that God maintains an eternal torture chamber.

IV. The Gospel Became a Legal Transaction

Over centuries, Western Christianity increasingly interpreted salvation through legal categories.

Humanity is guilty.

God demands satisfaction.

Jesus pays the penalty.

Those accepting the payment escape punishment.

There are important historical reasons this theology developed, and Christians have understood atonement in many different ways.

The New Testament itself contains multiple images:

ransom,

reconciliation,

victory,

sacrifice,

healing,

new creation,

liberation.

No single metaphor exhausts the mystery.

Yet one theory eventually became so dominant in some Christian circles that people began assuming it was Christianity.

The result can make God sound like the obstacle from whom Jesus must rescue us.

But Jesus does not reveal a loving Son protecting humanity from an angry God.

Jesus says:

“Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”

If Jesus reveals the character of God, then look at what Jesus does.

He touches people.

Feeds people.

Forgives people.

Welcomes people.

Restores people.

Liberates people.

That looks considerably more like salvation.

V. Salvation as Healing

The Greek verb sōzō, often translated “save,” can also carry meanings connected with healing and making whole.

That should expand our imagination.

Imagine salvation not merely as acquittal in a courtroom but as healing in a clinic.

The question changes.

Instead of:

“How guilty are you?”

we ask:

“Where are you wounded?”

Where has fear wounded you?

Where has shame wounded you?

Where has racism wounded us?

Where has poverty wounded communities?

Where has patriarchy wounded people?

Where has religious trauma wounded souls?

Where has greed wounded the Earth?

Salvation becomes the work of becoming whole.

Not merely individually.

Collectively.

Ecologically.

Spiritually.

Relationally.

VI. Caputo: Salvation as the Event of the Impossible

John D. Caputo helps us imagine salvation differently.

For Caputo, God is not primarily a supernatural ruler manipulating history from outside.

God is associated with an event—something calling, promising, insisting within the name of God.

Justice insists.

Mercy insists.

Forgiveness insists.

Hospitality insists.

The Kingdom insists.

But God does not impose these things by force.

The call is weak in the sense that it does not coerce.

Salvation therefore might happen whenever we respond to that call.

A relationship considered irreparable discovers forgiveness.

An enemy becomes a neighbor.

A person buried beneath shame discovers dignity.

A community trapped in injustice begins organizing for liberation.

Something previously considered impossible becomes possible.

That is salvation as event.

VII. Process Theology: Salvation Is Becoming

Process theology offers another insight:

Nothing is entirely static.

Reality is becoming.

We are becoming.

The universe itself is unfinished.

Alfred North Whitehead envisioned reality as fundamentally relational and dynamic.

God, in process thought, does not simply determine everything that happens.

God continually offers possibilities toward greater beauty, complexity, relationship and flourishing.

Salvation therefore need not mean returning creation to some imaginary perfect past.

Salvation may mean moving creation toward a more beautiful future.

God calls from possibility.

Creation responds.

Sometimes terribly.

Sometimes beautifully.

But every moment contains another invitation.

You are not imprisoned forever by who you were yesterday.

Communities are not imprisoned forever by their history.

Humanity is not condemned to repeat every violence it has inherited.

There is always a next possibility.

Grace says:

Become.

VIII. Paul: Creation Itself Is Being Saved

Paul’s vision in Romans 8 is enormous.

He writes that:

“the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains.”

Notice:

creation.

Not merely human souls.

Paul imagines salvation cosmically.

Creation itself longs for liberation.

This challenges any Christianity that treats Earth as disposable scenery.

If God’s dream is simply to evacuate souls to heaven, why care about forests?

Oceans?

Animals?

Climate?

Future generations?

But if salvation includes creation itself, ecological care becomes sacred work.

The Earth is not God’s waiting room.

It belongs within the story of redemption.

IX. Liberation Theology: Salvation Must Touch History

Gustavo Gutiérrez and other liberation theologians insisted that salvation cannot be separated from liberation in history.

Tell hungry people that their souls are saved while refusing them bread, and something is wrong.

Tell oppressed people they will receive justice in heaven while defending their oppression on Earth, and something is wrong.

Tell enslaved people to obey their masters because heaven awaits, and the Gospel has become propaganda for Pharaoh.

The Exodus does not say:

“Remain enslaved, but think spiritually.”

It says:

Let my people go.

Any salvation worthy of Jesus must eventually touch bodies.

Housing.

Food.

Healthcare.

Dignity.

Safety.

Community.

Justice.

The Gospel becomes suspicious whenever it promises heaven while demanding that people tolerate hell on Earth.

X. Salvation Beyond Christianity?

And then we encounter one of the great questions of religious pluralism.

Must everyone become Christian to participate in salvation?

John Hick challenged Christianity to take seriously the spiritual and ethical fruits found within the world’s religions.

Hick argued that religious traditions can represent different human responses to transcendent Reality.

We need not pretend all religions are identical.

They are not.

They disagree.

Sometimes profoundly.

But difference does not require domination.

Jesus himself repeatedly discovers faith outside expected religious boundaries.

A Roman centurion.

A Syrophoenician woman.

A Samaritan.

And Matthew 25 contains perhaps the most unsettling judgment scene in Christianity.

People are welcomed because they fed the hungry, welcomed strangers, clothed people, cared for the sick and visited prisoners.

Some do not even realize they were serving Christ.

They ask:

“Lord, when did we see you?”

They encountered Christ without recognizing the name.

What if salvation is larger than our religious labels?

XI. The Atheist and Salvation

Then comes an even stranger possibility.

Can an atheist participate in salvation?

If salvation means possessing the correct metaphysical theory, perhaps not.

But if salvation means reconciliation, liberation, healing, justice and fuller life, the answer becomes much more interesting.

Imagine an atheist who spends their life feeding hungry people, defending marginalized communities, caring for creation and practicing compassion.

Then imagine a Christian who confesses every creed correctly while exploiting workers, humiliating minorities and ignoring suffering.

Which life looks more saved?

Jesus warned us:

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom.”

Perhaps someone can reject the word God while responding deeply to what insists within that name.

They deny the noun.

But answer the call.

Meanwhile religious people may confess the noun while resisting the call.

XII. Universal Salvation and the Hope of Love

Christian history contains a long and complicated debate over universal salvation.

Some early Christian thinkers, especially Gregory of Nyssa, expressed remarkably expansive hopes concerning the eventual restoration of creation.

Others strongly rejected universalism.

Scripture itself contains texts that pull interpreters in different directions.

We should not pretend the question is simple.

But perhaps Christians are permitted to hope extravagantly.

If God is love—

if divine mercy exceeds ours—

if reconciliation is the heart of the Gospel—

then perhaps we may hope that no creature is finally beyond redemption.

Not because choices do not matter.

They matter enormously.

Not because evil is insignificant.

It destroys real lives.

But because perhaps love’s final word is not:

“I give up on you.”

Perhaps love continues calling.

Insisting.

Inviting.

Even when we cannot imagine how reconciliation could occur.

XIII. Zacchaeus Comes Down From the Tree

Now return to Zacchaeus.

Jesus does not hand him a doctrinal examination.

Jesus says:

“Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.”

Everything begins with hospitality.

A table.

A relationship.

Presence.

And something happens.

Zacchaeus begins imagining life differently.

He says:

Half of what I have goes to the poor.

If I have defrauded anyone, I will repay them fourfold.

Then Jesus announces:

“Today salvation has come to this house.”

Salvation has economic consequences.

Salvation has relational consequences.

Salvation produces restitution.

Salvation changes how wealth is used.

Salvation moves outward.

Zacchaeus is not merely saved from something.

He is saved for something.

Conclusion: Saved for a Fuller Life

So what are we being saved for?

We are saved from hatred—

for love.

From isolation—

for community.

From greed—

for generosity.

From domination—

for service.

From prejudice—

for solidarity.

From revenge—

for reconciliation.

From despair—

for possibility.

From numbness—

for wonder.

From fear—

for courage.

From the illusion that we are separate—

for communion.

Salvation is not merely God’s plan for getting us out of Earth.

Perhaps salvation is the event through which Earth becomes more fully alive.

Every hungry person fed.

Every rejected person welcomed.

Every wound tended.

Every injustice challenged.

Every enemy humanized.

Every forest protected.

Every prisoner remembered.

Every stranger given a place at the table.

Every person discovering that shame does not have the final word.

These are glimpses of salvation.

Not complete.

Not perfect.

Not finished.

But real.

God does not stand above creation shouting:

“Escape!”

The call of God arises within our wounded world whispering:

“Become.”

Become more compassionate.

Become more just.

Become more alive.

Become more human.

Become more loving.

The promise insists.

The future calls.

The Kingdom waits to happen among us.

And perhaps the great question Christianity should ask is no longer merely:

“Have you been saved?”

Perhaps we should ask:

“What is salvation becoming through you?”

Who is more alive because you exist?

Who has discovered dignity because you welcomed them?

What suffering has become lighter because you helped carry it?

What injustice has encountered resistance because you refused silence?

What part of creation is flourishing because you cared?

That is salvation becoming flesh.

Today.

Here.

Among us.

And wherever life becomes fuller,

wherever love becomes possible,

wherever reconciliation breaks through,

wherever justice rises,

wherever the lost discover they belong—

perhaps Jesus still stands among us saying:

“Today salvation has come to this house.”

May salvation come to our houses.

May salvation come to our churches.

May salvation come to our streets.

May salvation come to our wounded Earth.

And may we become participants in the great unfinished work of making all things new.

Amen.

Primary Scripture: Luke 17:20–21
Supporting Scriptures: Mark 1:14–15; Luke 4:16–21; Mark 10:42–45; Matthew 5:1–12; John 18:36

“The kingdom of God is among you.” — Luke 17:21

Introduction: What Did Jesus Actually Preach?

Ask many Christians what Jesus preached, and you may hear something like this:

“Believe in Jesus so you can go to heaven when you die.”

There is just one awkward problem.

That is not how the Gospels summarize Jesus’ message.

Mark gives us something considerably more disruptive:

“The kingdom of God has come near.”

Jesus preached the Kingdom of God.

Again and again.

But the word kingdom can mislead modern ears. We imagine castles, crowns, thrones, rulers, subjects.

Jesus lived in a world where kingdoms were anything but abstract.

Rome had conquered Palestine. Caesar claimed authority. Taxes flowed upward. Soldiers enforced imperial order. Crucifixion stood as Rome’s brutal warning against resistance.

And into that world Jesus announced:

Another kingdom is possible.

Not another empire with Jesus replacing Caesar on the throne.

Something far stranger.

A kingdom that undermines the very logic of domination.

A kingdom without domination.

A kingdom where the poor are blessed.

Where enemies are loved.

Where strangers become neighbors.

Where children become models of greatness.

Where leaders wash feet.

Where the first become last.

Where power becomes service.

Perhaps we might dare call it:

the Kingdom without a king.

I. Jesus Announced an Alternative World

Historical Jesus scholarship has helped Christianity recover something churches sometimes spiritualized away.

Jesus was a first-century Jewish teacher living under Roman occupation.

When he proclaimed God’s Kingdom, his listeners did not hear merely:

“Someday your soul will go somewhere nice after you die.”

They heard a claim about how the world should be ordered.

New Testament scholar John Dominic Crossan has repeatedly emphasized the social and political implications of Jesus’ proclamation of God’s Kingdom.

The contrast was unavoidable.

Rome proclaimed Caesar’s order.

Jesus proclaimed God’s order.

Rome’s peace came through victory.

Jesus said:

“Blessed are the peacemakers.”

Rome honored wealth and status.

Jesus said:

“Blessed are you who are poor.”

Rome ruled through hierarchy.

Jesus told his disciples:

“The rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them… But it shall not be so among you.”

Those words may be among the most politically explosive Jesus ever spoke:

“It shall not be so among you.”

Empire operates one way.

You will operate another.

II. Empire Is More Than Rome

Empire is not simply an ancient government.

Empire is a logic.

Empire says:

There must always be somebody on top.

There must always be somebody underneath.

There must always be insiders.

There must always be outsiders.

There must always be winners.

There must always be losers.

There must always be people considered more valuable than others.

Empire whispers:

Dominate before you are dominated.

Jesus proposes another possibility.

Serve.

Forgive.

Share.

Welcome.

Heal.

Love.

This is why the Kingdom cannot simply mean replacing Caesar with a Christian Caesar.

If Christians seize Caesar’s throne and behave exactly like Caesar, Caesar has won.

We have simply baptized empire.

III. The Temptation Jesus Refused

Remember the temptation story.

The devil shows Jesus:

“all the kingdoms of the world.”

And offers them to him.

Think about the temptation.

Jesus could supposedly possess political power.

He could command.

Control.

Rule.

Perhaps even accomplish good things through domination.

But Jesus refuses.

That refusal matters.

Jesus does not defeat empire by becoming a better emperor.

He creates an alternative community.

Tables replace thrones.

Bread replaces swords.

Servants replace rulers.

Neighbors replace enemies.

And love replaces domination.

IV. The Kingdom Is Among You

Then comes the remarkable saying in Luke:

“The kingdom of God cometh not with observation… behold, the kingdom of God is within you.”

Many contemporary translations render the final phrase:

“The kingdom of God is among you.”

That translation fits the social character of Jesus’ proclamation particularly well.

The Kingdom is not merely an invisible spiritual feeling hiding inside individual hearts.

It happens between people.

The Kingdom happens when relationships are reorganized around compassion rather than domination.

When hungry people eat—

the Kingdom happens.

When enemies reconcile—

the Kingdom happens.

When rejected people find a table—

the Kingdom happens.

When debts are forgiven—

the Kingdom happens.

When someone considered worthless discovers their dignity—

the Kingdom happens.

The Kingdom is not merely somewhere we go.

It is something that happens among us.

V. Caputo: The Kingdom as Event

Here the radical theology of John D. Caputo becomes especially helpful.

Caputo describes God not primarily as a supernatural sovereign controlling history, but in terms of event, call, promise, and insistence.

God insists.

But God does not coerce.

The Kingdom therefore does not arrive like an invading army.

It arrives as a call.

Justice calls.

Mercy calls.

Hospitality calls.

Peace calls.

The stranger calls.

The hungry person calls.

The Earth itself calls.

But the call possesses no army.

Love cannot force itself upon us without ceasing to be love.

So the Kingdom waits for bodies willing to embody it.

God insists.

We exist.

The call becomes flesh through human response.

VI. The Weakness of God

This is what Caputo provocatively calls the weakness of God.

Traditional theology often imagines divine power according to Caesar’s definition of power:

the ability to make things happen by force.

But look at Jesus.

Born among animals.

Living among peasants.

Eating with outcasts.

Touching untouchables.

Entering Jerusalem on a donkey.

Washing feet.

Dying upon an imperial cross.

Where exactly is omnipotence supposed to be hiding?

Perhaps Christianity has spent centuries trying to make Jesus look like Caesar when the Gospel was trying to make Caesar look ridiculous.

The power revealed in Jesus is different.

Not coercion.

Invitation.

Not domination.

Solidarity.

Not control.

Love.

VII. Whitehead and Persuasive Power

Process theology reaches a similar conclusion.

Philosopher Alfred North Whitehead rejected the idea that God’s relationship with creation should be understood primarily through coercive control.

God works persuasively.

Creation possesses genuine freedom.

God calls each moment toward richer possibilities of beauty, relationship and life.

This means divine action may look less like supernatural interruption and more like possibility continually offered.

Perhaps grace is the universe’s persistent invitation:

There is another way.

Violence happened yesterday.

There is still another way today.

You failed yesterday.

There is still another way today.

Humanity has hated for centuries.

There is still another way.

Empire says:

Nothing will ever change.

God whispers:

Something else remains possible.

That whisper is the Kingdom.

VIII. Howard Thurman and the Religion of Jesus

The great Black theologian and mystic Howard Thurman understood Jesus from the underside of history.

In Jesus and the Disinherited, Thurman emphasized that Jesus belonged to an oppressed people living under imperial domination.

Jesus’ teachings therefore sound different when heard from the margins.

“Love your enemies” is not sentimental niceness.

It is resistance to allowing the oppressor to determine who you become.

Empire can imprison your body.

It must not colonize your soul.

Hatred allows the enemy to reproduce themselves inside you.

Jesus offers another freedom:

refuse to become what wounded you.

That is not passive submission.

It is spiritual rebellion.

IX. Liberation Theology: God Has a Location

Liberation theologians pushed Christianity even further.

Gustavo Gutiérrez helped articulate what became known as the preferential option for the poor.

This does not mean God dislikes wealthy people.

It means that when society is organized unjustly, neutrality favors those already possessing power.

If a house is burning, firefighters do not divide the water equally among every house on the street.

They direct attention toward the one on fire.

Likewise, biblical justice repeatedly directs attention toward widows, orphans, immigrants, debtors, prisoners and poor people.

Why?

Because these are precisely the people empire teaches us not to see.

The Kingdom begins by seeing them.

X. Religious Pluralism and the Kingdom

But if the Kingdom is an event of justice, mercy, compassion and liberation, then Christians must face another beautiful possibility:

The Kingdom may be happening outside Christianity.

Jesus himself hints at this.

The hero of one of his most famous stories is a Samaritan—a religious outsider.

The Samaritan possesses the wrong religious identity according to Jesus’ audience.

Yet he does the right thing.

He shows mercy.

Jesus does not ask:

“Did the Samaritan believe the correct doctrine?”

He asks:

“Which of these three was a neighbor?”

The answer is the one who showed mercy.

That should humble every religion.

Whenever a Muslim feeds hungry people—

the Kingdom may be happening.

Whenever a Buddhist practices radical compassion—

the Kingdom may be happening.

Whenever a Jew pursues justice—

the Kingdom may be happening.

Whenever a Hindu recognizes sacred dignity in another—

the Kingdom may be happening.

Whenever a Pagan protects the Earth—

the Kingdom may be happening.

Whenever an atheist defends human dignity—

the Kingdom may be happening.

The Kingdom is larger than Christianity.

Perhaps Christianity exists to serve the Kingdom, not own it.

XI. Christianity Must Choose Between Jesus and Empire

This brings us to an uncomfortable truth.

Christianity has frequently betrayed Jesus by choosing empire.

Christians have blessed armies.

Defended slavery.

Participated in colonialism.

Persecuted religious minorities.

Marginalized LGBTQ people.

Accumulated extraordinary wealth.

Protected institutions instead of victims.

Christian symbols have sometimes stood beside systems Jesus would have confronted.

We cannot erase that history.

Nor should we pretend every Christian participated equally in it; Christian history also contains abolitionists, peacemakers, mystics, reformers, caregivers and martyrs who resisted domination.

But repentance requires truth.

Christianity does not become faithful by pretending it has never failed.

Christianity becomes faithful by hearing Jesus again:

“It shall not be so among you.”

XII. What Does the Kingdom Look Like Today?

Perhaps the Kingdom looks surprisingly ordinary.

A community refrigerator filled with food.

Someone visiting a prisoner.

A church welcoming the person other churches rejected.

A family opening its home.

A protest against injustice.

A caregiver sitting beside someone who cannot remember their name.

A garden planted on abandoned land.

Someone choosing reconciliation instead of revenge.

People protecting a threatened neighbor.

A meal where everyone has enough.

None of these looks like Caesar.

There are no trumpets.

No armies.

No throne.

Just people helping other people live.

And perhaps that is precisely the point.

XIII. A Fuller Life for Everyone

Jesus says in John:

“I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

That gives us a beautiful test for theology.

Does our theology produce fuller life?

Does it increase compassion?

Does it deepen justice?

Does it enlarge hospitality?

Does it protect vulnerable people?

Does it heal relationships?

Does it help creation flourish?

If our religion continually produces fear, domination, exclusion and misery, perhaps something has gone terribly wrong.

The Kingdom moves toward life.

Not merely life after death.

Life before death.

Bread.

Dignity.

Belonging.

Freedom.

Beauty.

Relationship.

Meaning.

A fuller life for everyone.

Conclusion: Stop Waiting for the Kingdom

Perhaps we have misunderstood Jesus.

We keep waiting for God to establish the Kingdom.

Maybe the Kingdom is waiting for us.

Not because human beings replace God.

But because divine possibility seeks human participation.

God does not build the Kingdom through domination.

God calls.

God insists.

God promises.

And we respond.

So when someone is hungry—

the Kingdom calls.

When someone is rejected—

the Kingdom calls.

When racism dehumanizes—

the Kingdom calls.

When war destroys—

the Kingdom calls.

When the Earth groans—

the Kingdom calls.

When religion excludes—

the Kingdom calls.

When loneliness overwhelms—

the Kingdom calls.

And whenever somebody answers,

“Here I am,”

the future breaks into the present.

A table appears where there was a wall.

Bread appears where there was hunger.

Welcome appears where there was rejection.

Forgiveness appears where there was hatred.

Hope appears where there was despair.

And suddenly Jesus’ strange words make sense:

“The kingdom of God is among you.”

Not above us waiting to descend.

Not merely beyond death waiting to receive us.

Among us.

Fragile.

Unfinished.

Insistent.

Waiting to become flesh.

So perhaps Christianity’s task is not to conquer the world for God.

God needs no empire.

Our task is far more beautiful:

Make room for what love is trying to become.

Live simply.

Love boldly.

Resist domination.

Welcome the stranger.

Feed people.

Protect the vulnerable.

Forgive courageously.

Build longer tables.

And wherever empire says,

“There is no alternative,”

answer with the Gospel:

“The Kingdom of God has come near.”

Another world remains possible.

Another way of being human remains possible.

A fuller life for everyone remains possible.

God insists.

May we answer.

Amen.