Hope

 Isaiah 2:1-5 November  30, 2025

Advent 1 – Hope

 The dictionary defines Hope like this:

“to cherish a desire with anticipation

for example, ‘she hopes to 

be invited to the party”

That’s true and we know 

what they’re talking about,

but hope is more than that isn’t it?

 

To live with hope is to be optimistic,

but it’s more than just optimism.

Martin Luther said, “everything that is done

in the world is done by hope.”

Even when the present seems desperate,

to live with hope in the future is to live with trust,

to live with faith, to live with purpose.

Hope is faith that God will not abandon us

and that the future will be better.

 

The prophet Isaiah had that faith in God and hope for the future.

During Advent, we’ll be reading from the book of Isaiah.

And the traditional theme for first Advent is “hope”.

 

The book of Isaiah is long. 66 chapters.

It’s ascribed to Isaiah the son of Amoz who lived in the 8^th century,

but most scholars believe that it’s written by several people,

and they divide it into three different sections:

First Isiah Second Isaiah and Third Isaiah.

First Isaiah are books 1-39 written around the 700’s BC

before the destruction of Jerusalem and exile of the Israelites.

Second Isaiah, books 40-55 was in the

500’s BC during the exile of the Israelites

and Third Isaiah, books 56-66 were written after

the Israelites return from exile in the 400’s BC.

 

All our readings this Advent are from the first part of Isaiah

The time before the invasion of the Babylonians,

This is a time when Isaiah and other people could feel 

that things were going wrong, were heading in the wrong direction

and were not going according to God’s will and vision,

and Isaiah was giving a warning to the country of Israel.

But the siege of Jerusalem and the exile of the Jews

hadn’t happened yet.

 

Chapter one starts out with this kind of warning:

 Ah, sinful nation, people laden with iniquity,
offspring who do evil, children who deal corruptly,
who have forsaken the Lord,   
who have despised the Holy One of Israel,
who are utterly estranged!

 he goes on:

 ²² Your silver has become impure    your wine is mixed with water.
²³ Your princes are rebels   and companions of thieves.
Everyone loves a bribe   and runs after gifts.
They do not defend the orphan,
and the widow’s cause does not come before them.

 Isaiah sees a country of people

only focused on its own gain.

Leaders using the power they have to

serve themselves and get rich rather

than to lift up and support the most vulnerable.

 

This was not the country that God had established.

Not the city on a hill for others to look to and imitate,

But just another corrupt country that has put

God’s will and those in need

at the bottom of the priority list.

  

Maybe we can appreciate Isaiah’s

observations today in this country.

The hopes for our nation had been high at one time.

Once we saw ourselves as the one to emulate,

once we were an example for others.

But things haven’t been heading in

a good direction for a very long time.

 

Just like Isaiah said,

people are weighed down with inequity,

everyone does seem to love a bribe

criminals and thieves are the honored ones,

 

Everyone is just out for what they can get,

and the widows and the orphans – which are biblical code words

for the most vulnerable in our society – are still not cared for.

And violence has been our fallback since the beginning.

This country is not the one that we once believed it was.

We’re letting ourselves and God down in lots of ways.

 

I think we can feel Isaiah’s sense of foreboding.

This model is not sustainable in the long run.

It feels like we’re on the edge of a precipice,

something that will be very unpleasant for all of us.

 

Isaiah warns that these ways will only lead to destruction

to the dissolution of everything they knew

he uses phrases like: “humanity will be brought low”,

“doom will follow”.

Everyone will feel God’s disappointment.

It might seem, then and now, like all hope is lost.

 

But our call as people of faith is to have hope in

the midst of hopeless situations.

When we give up hope, then we stop trying.

We engage in what’s called “premature capitulation”.

We believe in the power of the bad in the world,

more than the power of the good so we give up too soon.

The forces of evil in this world love that.

The forces of evil love it when good people give up hope,

Hope is not just blind optimism, which can be naive.

Hope is acting, it’s determination. It’s having your ducks in a row

and pushing forward. It’s anticipating God’s actions and help.

Maybe that’s why our biblical stories are so full

of miracles –things that seem impossible.

God wants to get us used to the impossible happening.

So that we will still have hope.

 

I want to remind you about hope that many of us were involved in.

In February of 2022, I had heard that Chimney Cove was

going to be torn down to build luxury apartments.

The developer actually called me, and thought I would be

happy about this, but I was not.

So I talked to a lot of people about it,

and I got a group together to discuss it.

And most people said that nothing could be done.

The deal was too far along too much money was involved.

I remember one friend saying, “You can’t stop that”.

I heard that and I actually believed it in a lot of ways.

 

But when the eviction notices were given out and people

were given just 30 days to leave, we didn’t give in to

the fatality of the whole thing, and we all raised a stink

and we started to go on TV and mobilize.

And that caused lots of other people to raise a stink.

 

We erred on the side of hope and in the end,

our friends in Chimney Cove were able to stay.

Was it a miracle? hmm. You can probably connect the dots and see

how it all happened, but it sure felt like a miracle.

Had we all just given up and stayed quiet, and given into

premature capitulation and not had hope,

the outcome would have been different.

 

In the midst of desperate situations,

Hope is one of our greatest weapons.

And in the midst of whatever seems hopeless now

we have to remember those miracles, and

to use that hope and not give in too quickly.

 

And more than just that one event, I have hope that one day,

the people of Chimney Cove will not have to worry

about being evicted because of redevelopment.

I have hope that they will be saved permanently as workforce housing.

 

In the midst of Isaiah’s visions of destruction,

he provides stories of a new city and a new reality.

He shows that God has not abandoned the people.

There is promise. There is hope.

 

The sadness that the people face

will not be permanent, it won’t last forever.

In their trials and desperation, the people

will understand where they went wrong.

They will discard all the things that were useless,

they will reject the ways that led them astray.

They will go back to capture the vision that they once had.

 

That’s what this first reading for Advent 1 is.

After the warning and destruction in chapter 1,

there is hope in Chapter 2.

In this vision, people are flooding to the house of God

not just the steady faithful, but all people are going

to find wisdom and to learn the ways of God.

This is not just a dream of church growth,

or to make this a Christian nation.

  

This is a vision of something much more encompassing,

much more important.  People are coming

to learn God’s word and God’s ways

because the ways of the world that they have been

following didn’t work. The world is working together

to live out the way and the vision of God.

 

And the sign of this transformation would be this:

“They will turn their swords into ploughshares

and their spears into pruning hooks.”

 

We’ve heard this phrase so often it might be cliché now

it appears in both Isaiah and Micah

but think of how astounding and hopeful

that vision would be:

 

That the whole world would find no need for weapons.

Our grandchildren and great grandchildren

would not need to know anything about

war, or self-defense, or violence, or bombings,

or mass shootings, or school shootings, or accidental shootings,

or active shooter drills, or murders, or stranger danger, 

or nuclear bombs, or wounded veterans, or chemical weapons, or refugees.

 

So much so, that they would look at guns and

missiles and say, “what do we need these useless things for?

Let’s melt them down and turn them

into something we can actually use.”

 

This is an amazing vision, better than our current reality.

This is the hope that Isaiah envisions for all people.

  

And the whole book of Isaiah tells us that that hope

will be heralded through the gift of a child.

The shoot that comes off of Jesse’s tree

Immanuel, God is with us, Wonderful Counselor,

Prince of peace.

The Messiah.

 

This is our hope.

This is what we long for,

this is what we pray for,

The one that will deliver us into a new life.

 

This is we believe has already come in

the life, cross, and resurrection of Jesus Christ,

And is still being formed in us.

The gestation period for this birth is long.

and it is growing in us every day.

Part of me says that’s what the second coming is:

The hope of Christ being born again in us, in our hearts.

 

That is the Word of God that Isaiah saw.

When all will be made new again.

The hope of a world recreated in God’s

image and according to God’s will.

 

The hope of the one that was,

and is, and is still to come.

The hope of the Messiah.

The hope of Christ.

Jesus-Land

 Luke 23: 33-42

November 23, 2025 

Calvary
Octavio Ocampo

Christ the King

Today is Christ the King Sunday,

the day we celebrate and proclaim

that Christ is the true King

not any earthly ruler, politician, religion, or ideology.

 

Did you know that this is the 100th anniversary

of Christ the King. Most people don’t realize that

Christ the King Sunday is relatively new feast day.

Pope Pius the 11th established it in 1925,

right between two world wars,

at a time when authoritarian leaders gaining power,

fascism and nationalism was intensifying,

and many Christians were confusing

political power with God’s power.

 

In other words, the world was dealing

with some of the same issues we still face today.

 

To be honest, I’ve always been pretty uncomfortable

with the language of Christ being “King.”

I don’t think the title of King has much to do

with Jesus, especially with some of the horrible

things that people with that title have done.

 

And a lot of people have misconstrued Christ the King

to mean that their religion or interpretation of the bible

is King and should have absolute rule and not be questioned.

And we have enough trouble currently

with Christian Nationalism trying to force

a narrow, authoritarian version of Christianity

onto an entire country to confuse the issue with

Christ seen as another King.

 

But Christ the King Sunday doesn’t ask us

to imagine Jesus as just another ruler

sitting on a throne issuing commands.

It invites us to ask a much deeper question:

What would it look like if Jesus truly ruled our lives?

What would it look like if our values, our communities,

our choices what if our politics and policies and behaviors

were shaped by the actual teachings of Jesus?

 

Christ the King is also the last Sunday of the church year,

and the last Sunday of our year reading from Luke.

So before we start Advent and begin again

and start reading from another Gospel,

let’s look back over Luke’s gospel

and ask the question:

 

If Jesus were really our King,

what would THAT “country” look like?

What would it mean to be citizens of Jesus-land?

 

In Luke 4, Jesus begins his ministry with an inaugural address.

He sets out his mission statement in his hometown

synagogue and says: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me…

to bring good news to the poor.”

 

If Jesus were King, that would be good news for the poor.

Not red tape, not suspicion, not judgments about laziness,

or accusations about grifting or bad planning.

No suspended food assistance, or policies that make

life harder for those already on the edge.

In Jesus-land, people who struggle would not be shamed

or taken advantage of, or manipulated for profits,

The poor would be blessed.

They would have what they need to live with dignity,

including fair wages and a chance to thrive.

 

In Luke 5 the Pharisees ask Jesus,

“Why do you eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

Jesus is constantly sharing meals

with the people no one wants to be seen with—

the undeserving, the questionable,

the outsiders, the ones society pushes away.

 

Most other countries celebrate the powerful

and impressive and the rich.

But in Jesus-land, we like honor the people

that others move away from.

 

We celebrate people of different races and cultures.

We celebrate different genders, sexualities, and family structures.

We celebrate the differently-abled

and we protect their rights.

 

In Jesus-land we remember that Jesus’ family

were once refugees fleeing political violence.

And we remember the command in Exodus

to welcome the stranger and immigrant.

In Jesus-land, we do not criminalize

or dehumanize people for any reason.

We do not rip families apart or imprison the desperate.

The citizens of Jesus-land invite the outcast to the table

and are not ashamed to be seen with them.

 

In Luke 6, Jesus tells us to: “love our enemies

and pray for those who hurt us.”

In Jesus-land, we don’t solve our problems with,

hatred, threats, or revenge, or with guns, missiles, or bombs

We solve them with listening, with mercy, with forgiveness,

with understanding, with courage that refuses violence

even when violence feels easier.

In Luke 9, Jesus feeds 5000 people.

In Jesus-land, we feed people because they’re hungry.

We don’t ask if they’re working hard enough,

We don’t ask if they’re worthy,

We don’t make them pass a drug test,

We don’t worry that they’re going to be dependent on the food.

In Jesus-land, hungry people get fed.

 

And in the Gospel of Luke there are 13 times

when Jesus heals someone—

sometimes physically, sometimes spiritually,

and he restores them to community.

 In Jesus-land, healthcare is not a privilege for the wealthy.

We don’t raise premiums or deny care

so that corporations can profit.

We do not withhold help because someone

has the “wrong” insurance.

In Jesus-land, when someone is sick—

in body, mind, or spirit— we heal.

in body, spirit, and mind.

 

Of course, there are a thousand reasons why

Jesus-land can’t exist in our world.

But this vision of Jesus-land should influence

how we live and lead in reality.

And the best we can hope for is to be citizens

of both places, with one foot in this world as it is,

and one foot in Jesus-land as it should be.

 

But the primary reason there is no place

where Jesus is King is because at the beginning

of Luke’s gospel, Jesus was tempted by the devil

with all the glory and authority over all the kingdoms

of the world, and Jesus refused to accept it,

Jesus didn’t give into that temptation like other Kings have.

Jesus knows that God’s reign

does not come through coercion,

intimidation, or mandated obedience.

God’s reign comes through changed hearts—

and through grace, mercy, and love.

 

Jesus knew that we would only become

citizens of Jesus-land through seeing and following his

example of selfless giving and love and forgiveness.

 

And that is what Jesus did.

We never met Jesus on a throne,

We’ve only met Jesus on a cross.

 

And he was hung there because he

brought good news to the poor

because he welcomed the wrong people,

because he healed the sick,

because he challenged the powerful,

fed the hungry, and he refused to uphold

laws and traditions that excluded and harmed.

Jesus showed his true power when he hung

between two thieves and promised them paradise.

And when he forgave those that would harm him.

 

And the cross reveals both who God is

and what humanity so often does with power.

The world mostly uses power to control, punish, and dominate.

To secure wealth at the expense of the vulnerable.

To protect privilege even when others suffer.

But God uses power to lift up, to heal, to free, to forgive.

 

The crucifixion is not an isolated event in this world.

It is what happens here whenever

compassion confronts cruelty,

when truth confronts falsehood,

when love confronts systems built on fear and division.

Whenever Jesus-land confronts our realities.

And God needed us to see him, up on the cross

to save us, and to save this world that he so loves.

 

On the cross in Jesus, God shows us what true power is:

True power is not measured the ability to get whatever you want.

True power is not measured in money or influence.

True power is not measured in our control over people.

True power is the capacity to give yourself

for the sake of others.

To use whatever strength you have not for

self-preservation but for the salvation of others.

 

That’s why the one true King

is only found on a cross.

It's Not the End

 Luke 21:5-19

November 16, 2025

 

The Beginning is Near
Imaginary Foundation

As a kid in the 70’s and 80’s

I used to love watching shows on 

TV about Nostradamus.

They stick out in my mind because

I would watch them with both interest and dread.

 

Remember Nostradamus?

They have some current shows about him,

But he was all the rage in the 70’s and 80’s/

He was a  man who lived in the 16^th century France

He was a healer, who wrote several books of

short poems that were called Prophecies

that some people felt had come true in history.

 

The predictions were vague, like “three fires in the east”,

but some people believed they predicted world events.

The shows said that he predicted

like the rise of Napoleon and Hitler.

And the assassination of JFK.

It was pretty convincing stuff.

 

And then my favorite part of the show

was when they would try and interpret

some of his poetry and apply it to future events.

Does the “Great war with the eagle and bear” mean 

that there will be a war between Russia and the US? Ominous music.

Does “the celestial fire” mean that a meteor

will hit the earth? Picture of a meteor hitting the earth.

Wars, earthquakes, famines, plagues.

 

I would watch these as a child  with a combination of

dread and delight wondering what the future would hold for our world. 

I envisioned the end of everything.

Everything familiar and beloved.

Even if you don’t remember these Nostradamus

shows, you have seen a lot of  preachers try and do this

on television. They talk about the future in

horrifying terms, leaving people with a sense of dread.

 

Of course, we have experienced terrible events

There was AIDS, 9-11, terrible earthquakes,

hurricanes, and tsunamis, the pandemic,

nuclear disasters, ongoing fires, rising tides and floods,

terrorism, Endless wars in Syria, and the Middle East,

the Congo, Yemin, now Ukraine, and the list goes on.

And sometimes it has seemed like the world is ending.

 

And through all these events, the world has changed.

and natural and human disasters

are just one part of those changes.

Technology, attitudes, the way we behave,

sexuality, racial relations, economic situations,

things that Nostradamus didn’t even touch on

have changed the world.

The world is not same place that it was in the 80’s

Some changes are actually good, and some are actually bad.

 

And yet, when you think about it,

there is still so much that has remained the same.

Even though things seem bleak at times,

the Mad Max/post apocalyptic future hat I feared –

the end of everything—

still hasn’t really materialized.

 

Now Jesus seems to be doing a little Nostradamus

in today’s gospel.

He’s talking about the future in frightening terms.

Earthquakes, wars, famine, disease, and persecution.

It’s a hard message to hear from Jesus,

one that has thrown many people into a sleepless frenzy, I know.

 

But I don’t think Jesus is saying these things to make people frightened. 

Believe it or not,  I actually think he’s saying these things to try and comfort people.

 

Jesus is saying: Terrible things will happen,

these things happen all the time. Which history has proven.

We will see plenty of pain and destruction, violence,

and death, maybe even your own death.

But them point is, when you see and hear these things:

don’t be afraid. Don’t lose hope. Because the bad things,

 the trials and tribulations, that is not the end.

In the midst of them, remember:

God has not lost, hope has not lost, love has not lost.

 

Jesus wants us to put things like this in perspective.

Things may seem disastrous, unrecoverable, hopeless.

But don’t believe what you see. It is not the end.

 

This temple that they were sitting by

when Jesus said this was amazing.

Many of the stones that were used to build it weighed 28 tons.

Some were bigger than that.

The outer court was like a city almost, it could hold up to

four hundred thousand people at Passover time,

it was a marvel of architecture and ingenuity

It was beautiful and impressive,

It still would be today if it were still standing.

  

So when Jesus to talked about the destruction of this place

The disciples’ imagination must have been racing:

what kind of force would make that happen?

What kind of violence and destruction would our people see?

And this was God’s house, where God’s people came to worship.

If the temple was destroyed, would all our people be destroyed?

And what would become of God?

Would the world lose trust in God

if God’s house and God’s people were gone?

 

And at the same time, even though it was God’s temple

and where the people of God worshipped,

the disciples and other Jewish people knew how

King Herod had built it:

He levied brutal taxes on the people.

He worked in collusion with the Romans

who oppressed Jewish citizens.

He built it abusing thousands of slaves and low paid workers.

 

And they also knew why King Herod built it to be

so big and so impressive.

He built it so he could out-do the pagan temples

built by pagan rulers.

It was a statement by Herod to show off his choice of gods

and to show his own power and glory off before others.

 

In a world of many gods, the ruler with the biggest temple wins.

and Herod believed he won.

And Herod’s glory was solidified in those 28 ton stones.

Herod’s faith in God rested on his achievement,

it rested on the grandeur of the building,

it’s strength, it’s ability to stand, it’s beauty.

To many people the temple itself had become an idol.

  

And Jesus said it would come down.

So the end of the temple would also

mean the end of Jewish dominance in the area.

It would be the end of the Jewish place and rule in Jerusalem.

It would be an end to the life they knew.

 

Jesus says, you will see many frightening things,

but don’t lose hope– it won’t be the end.

The end of the temple is not the end of God.

It is not the end of Christ, it’s not the end of

God’s relationship with God’s people.

 

Of course we know now,

the temple would be destroyed less than 50

years after Jesus lived.

The people who read or heard the gospel of Luke for the first time

would have remembered it first-hand.

Many people died, many things were destroyed

and life would never be exactly the same for any of them.

 

But like we have seen happen in so many other places,

the remnants stood up in the midst of the devastation

and doctored their wounds and helped one another and

bravely went on to the next day

adjusting their lives around the calamities,

with renewed faith and stronger dependence on God

because of what they’ve been through.

 

There will be wars and rumors of wars,

Nation will rise against nation kingdom against kingdom,

there will be earthquakes, plagues,

and dreadful signs everywhere.

But do not lose hope.

  

God does not stand or fall with buildings or

governments, or economies, or stock markets,

or cities, or churches, or leaders.

God does not depend on things being the same.

And God’s relationship with God’s people does not depend

on the outward signs of peace or prosperity or beauty

so we shouldn’t look to them for our security.

 

This world is flawed and fragile and volatile

there is pain and suffering in it.

But our trust is not in the world or what it holds.

Jesus is telling his friends and us:

Don’t anchor your faith in the strength of a temple,

Or in success, or comfort, or in beauty,

or in your good fortune.

 

Rest your faith in God and God alone.

Then you will be able to see strength

and beauty and joy in spite of and

in the midst of turmoil.

Every painful end is the gateway to a new beginning.

Every struggle is a opportunity

to feel the presence of God.

Whose Wife Would She Be?

Luke 20:27-38

November 9, 2025

 So Jesus is doing something 

that he doesn’t usually do.

He’s arguing with the Sadducees.

I mean in Luke, Jesus argues all the time,

He’s been doing it since he was 10 or so

and went off by himself to 

the synagogue in Jerusalem.

But he usually he does it with the Pharisees.

But this is the first time he’s arguing with Sadducees,

they are just defined here by what they don’t believe in,

and that is the resurrection or life after death.

 

The Sadducees were the elite class of Judaism.

They only believed in the Torah.

The first five books of the bible

while others accepted the psalms and the prophets.

The Sadducees just believe that God kept covenants

in the here and now, just in this earthly realm,

only in the boundaries of this world.

 

Jesus has been talking about resurrection and

new life God quite a lot lately.

He’s telling them about the forgiveness of God

and the wonder and grace of God’s kingdom.

This is going against the Sadducees understanding

and they’d like to prove Jesus wrong,

so they’re trying to trick Jesus and show him  

how silly and unworkable the idea is.

 

The hypothetical situation they use is actually a law in Leviticus.

If a woman’s husband dies and they didn’t have any children,

then she is supposed to marry the man’s brother,

in another effort to have offspring in the original husband’s lineage.

 

So they present this hypothetical woman who couldn’t have

children and she gets passed on to the next brother

and he dies and then the next and the next seven times.

Really a terrible situation for the woman if you think of it.

The grief the sadness the failure to produce an heir.

It seems like all the men in that family are the infertile ones,

but she’s bearing the blame and the consequences.

 

And the Sadducees question to Jesus was,

“If this resurrection was real, then whose wife would she be?

All the husbands would be there.”

To put it crassly, they’re asking “Who would she belong to?

Who will she keep house for? Whose floor would she sweep?

She can’t keep the house of seven men.”

Because in the resurrection, to them, obviously,

all the rules here still apply. They’re trying to say to Jesus,

“See how silly resurrection and eternal life is?

Eternal life would be an eternal mess.”

 

But Jesus doesn’t get trapped in their petty arguments.

When Jesus talks about the resurrection, Jesus is not talking

about spending eternity in a place

where all our laws and constraints

and prejudices and shortcomings and status are still in place.

Where one person still keeps house for another.

Jesus is talking about something completely new.

Jesus is talking about new life.

Jesus is talking about heaven.

 

In my Reformation sermon, I said I think that we do

need to spend more time focusing on God’s Kingdom on Earth 

rather than heaven only focusing on or God’s eternal Kingdom.

And I do think it would do us a lot of good in many ways,

But this week gives us a warning that we could 

end up like the Sadducees. We still believe in eternal life, and

Jesus believed in eternal life,

and he told other people about it.

But even though we believe in it,

and Jesus talked about it,

there’s not a robust vision of what it actually looks like,

or when it starts, or what’s involved.

There’s mostly metaphors and vague images

and feelings about it.

 

We hear about a kingdom where fears and doubts and pain

and sadness will be a no more.

A place where God’s will is always done.

Where we experience the constant love and presence of God.

There’s other images of trees by rivers,

and streets paved in gold.

But other than that, it’s not really clear.

And the theology is not fully cleared up with this debate.

 

But here’s the thing that Jesus words today do clear up:

Heaven is not just a duplicate of this world.

The rules and the traditions and the constraints

that people live by in this world don’t automatically

transfer over to eternal life.

No one is sweeping the floor for anyone else!

 

Could you imagine that with this woman,

like the Sadducees were thinking?

She had a miserable life being shuffled from brother

to brother due to some rules based on her duty to

provide offspring. A widow seven times without security,

without harmony and happiness, with repeated

disappointment, and then she would

have to relive that life in the hereafter?

That wouldn’t be a gift, but an eternal curse.

 

And we’ve come a long way since then,

but still, women are still often valued by some people

only for their spouses, and only for our ability to bear children.

In the US, we’re only about 50 years away from women being

allowed to have their own credit cards

without husbands or parents signing on for them.

Jesus is saying here that these rules and standards

and judgements aren’t duplicated in God’s kingdom.

 

Our rules and standards and judgements exist for our reasons.

They reflect our problems, solutions and our fears.

 

But God is doing something completely

new and different up there, out there

over there, in there, wherever God’s kingdom is.

For everyone, all genders, all people.

 

The problem with the Sadducees

is that they were thinking too small.

God was too small for them.

They underestimated God.

Jesus is talking about heaven, eternal life, paradise,

and they are worried about which man’s floor

this poor woman would be sweeping every day.

Jesus tells them, don’t be small -don’t think so small.

 

In God’s kingdom, this woman is not

given in marriage again and again,

Jesus actually says there is no marriage.

Which may make some of us happily

married people uncomfortable.

 

But whatever God has in store for us is

even better than we can even fathom right now.

Where people are free from the constraints

we make for ourselves and we hold other people to.

Constraints that we might not even know are constraints.

 

In Jesus understanding of God’s kingdom

This woman is no longer stigmatized by her barrenness,

she is no longer defined by her ability

or lack of ability to have children,

she is no longer identified by her series of

fruitless weddings, she is no longer second class to others.

 

In God’s kingdom, this hypothetical woman does

what no one, except maybe Jesus, expects her to do:

She steps out into eternal life, on her own,

a full and complete child of God.

 

And this is vision of God’s kingdom is what should

drive us to act in our life here and now.

 

Our desire is to make the kingdom on earth

to be the like the one in heaven.

 

Where people are not constrained by the notions of this world,

but where everyone can exist and know that

they are a full and complete child of God.