Sermon on Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

There’s a quote attributed to Martin Luther that says, “To sing is to pray twice.”

We just sang “As We Gather at Your Table,” which is a lovely hymn, but if we’re paying attention, we might be alarmed by what we are “praying twice.”

Gathering at God’s table sounds great, and we do that each week. But we sometimes reserved Lutherans might be a little more hesitant to ask God to “turn our worship into witness,” “send us forth,” and “help us summon other guests to share that feast.”

But that’s exactly what Jesus was asking his disciples to do in our Gospel reading this week.

Jesus was getting more attention, and his group of followers was growing. It was time to get the word out faster and empower Jesus’ disciples to carry his message of God’s love themselves.

So, he sent 72 of his disciples out in pairs to go ahead of him into places he intended to visit. He warned them that they would be like lambs in the midst of wolves. They were not to bring anything with them. He gave them instructions for what to when (not if) a town didn’t welcome them. Yikes! Not exactly an assignment I would be eager to sign up for.

But when you look closer, what Jesus was asking them to do was pretty beautiful.After all, he was, as he said in Luke 4, here to “proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” He had come to tell the world about God’s Beloved Community. In our story today, he was giving his disciples hands-on experience in working with God to spread the Beloved Community wherever they went. His instructions show us some things about that Beloved Community:

Jesus sent them in pairs—they weren’t alone.Spreading God’s love involves working together with other people.

They weren’t supposed to bring anything with them. Their possessions would make them more independent—they could buy their own food and pay for lodging. Instead, they would be required to depend on others’ hospitality.There’s nothing like sharing food to make people feel closer to each other.

But the relationship wasn’t completely one-sided: the disciples were to cure anyone who was sick. I’m sure they also shared their stories of Jesus and how their lives had changed because of what he taught them and the miracles they had witnessed.

And whether the town accepted them or not, their visit was to be book-ended by a word of peace and a declaration that the Beloved Community had come near.

The Greek word for “peace” here, as well as “shalom” in Hebrew, doesn’t just mean an absence of conflict or war, just as health isn’t just an absence of illness and success isn’t just an absence of failure. Peace here is a holistic sense of wellbeing and restoration of community.

This holistic sense of peace is a defining characteristic of Beloved Community. Martin Luther King Jr., who made the term Beloved Community widespread, said that “peace is not merely the absence of some negative force—war, tensions, confusion but it is the presence of some positive force—justice, goodwill, the power of the kingdom of God.”

Jesus wasn’t sending his disciples out just to not get in fights, but to bring that expansive, holistic, positive peace wherever they went.

That sounds pretty good.

But it also sounds unattainable in today’s society.

Our country and much of the world are experiencing polarization and division.

Disagreements about issues get turned into name calling and even dehumanization of the other side.

There are terrible wars and conflicts around the world. My heart aches for all the people affected by violence near and far. And even where there isn’t outright war, there is often barely the “absence of a negative force,” let alone peace in a positive or holistic sense.

Even in our own families and neighborhoods, political discussions can quickly turn heated and aggressive. “Agreeing to disagree” often just turns to a tense silence.

I keep returning to the thought that it shouldn’t be like this. There shouldn’t be starvation and bombing and people afraid to leave their homes and governments who won’t listen to their people.

The hospitality and shalom sense of peace in our Gospel reading seem far away and maybe even impossible.

But even though God may not be calling us to set down our wallets, take off our shoes and wander from town to town (we might have a lot of dust to shake off our feet if we tried that), God is calling us to spread the Beloved Community wherever we go. That’s what being a follower of Jesus is about.

And we’re not alone in the effort. Just as Jesus sent his disciples out in pairs, we have the Holy Spirit within us, guiding and encouraging us, and we have each other. We are already part of a community of faith. We gather at God’s table each week to remember Who we belong to and to fortify us for the journey ahead—to be filled with God’s peace as we go about our daily lives. And though we’re not having communion this week because I’m sick, trust that God is present and building Beloved Community within and between us anyway. Enjoy some coffee and conversationafter the service and feel the Spirit moving.

As we go about our week, let’s be more open to the hospitality around us. It’s easier to hand someone something and go on our way instead of really having a conversation. Sometimes the real work of ministry feels the least productive.

In college, there was a group of students that served a hot meal in a park once a week for anyone who needed it. It really only required three or four people to serve the meal, but many more came and just sat down and talked with people. Getting to know people—learning people’s names, what they were passionate about, cracking jokes, and maybe if you built up enough trust, they would share their heartbreak with you, and you would share yours with them. The food was important, but it wasn’t the whole point.

Similarly, at my internship congregation, there was a grief support group of about 8-12 people. They met for an hour once a week, and then they went out to lunch afterwards. The formal setting of the support group was important, but I think at least as much healing happened over the meals afterwards. Friendships formed, the mood lightened, and people felt less alone.

The mutuality of these examples points to Jesus’ instructions in our Gospel reading. The Beloved Community isn’t about charity in the “we are giving to you” sense, but about hospitality and relationship. It’s the declaration of dependence that Pastor Jaz talked about last week. We’re dependent on the crucified and risen Christ and on each other.

If we’re only giving, we’re missing out on the relationships built by both giving and receiving. And if we’re only receiving, we’re losing out on agency and the joys of generosity. Ideally there’s both: Jesus’ disciples received hospitality and brought peace and healing—the reverse was true of those who housed them.

So as you go about your week, watch for opportunities for the mutuality of the Beloved Community—opportunities to share and be shared with, not just resources but also stories and conversation. Bring the peace, the shalom, of God with you wherever you go. If an acquaintance doesn’t welcome you, don’t wish fire down upon their heads but just dust yourself off and move on. Maybe that’s a connection for someone else to foster.

And always remember that you are not alone. You have the Holy Spirit with you always and the kinship of this community. Don’t be shy about sharing the love you’ve received with those around you. God knows, our world needs it. Peace be with you.

A Declaration of Dependance

Pr. Jaz Bowen-Waring

June 29, 2025

The 4th of July is this Friday! Time to fire up the grill, rock our red-white-and-blue, and, of course, terrify the neighborhood dogs with fireworks. It’s America! The land of the free, the home of the brave—and the free gift with purchase. USA! USA! USA! This is the time we, as Americans, celebrate our independence from a tyrannical imperialist monarchy. You remember—when we had a king who ruled with unchecked power, enriched the wealthy while taxing the poor, attacked sovereign nations without accountability, deported people without due process, and loved a good ego-driven military parade. I'm so glad those days are behind us... right? On July 4th, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was signed, marking our break from the British Empire. Independence. Freedom. Personal liberty. These ideals have helped form the soul of our nation. They’ve served a great purpose—but they’ve also brought us to a place where our fierce independence often morphs into isolation. We have become, as the Apostle Paul would say, “led by the flesh” instead of the Spirit —caught in a self-centered way of living that confuses freedom with indulgence, and liberty with license. That is why today, I am making a Declaration of Dependence. Not dependence on a king, a country, or a political party—but on the crucified and risen Christ. It is our dependence on Jesus that fuels us to walk in His way. I’m declaring dependence on the One who set His face toward Jerusalem, fully aware that it would end in execution by the State. When the Samaritans rejected Him, and His disciples wanted to rain fire on them from the sky, Jesus rebuked them. He refused to retaliate. He chose mercy over vengeance, laying down His divine power and privilege to show us what real freedom looks like. I’m declaring dependence on the One who had no place to rest His head—while birds have nests and foxes have dens. Jesus is enfleshed in the refugee seeking asylum, in the migrant farmworker laboring before sunrise, risking arrest and deportation while feeding a nation that doesn’t see them. I’m declaring dependence on the One who tells us to put our hands to the plow and not look back—because a plow only works when it's moving forward. When we look back with nostalgia, we risk rewriting history, glossing over pain, and ignoring the voices of the oppressed. We are not going back. We are not going back into closets. We are not going back to legislated inequality. We are not going back to silencing prophets or shrinking the gospel to fit nationalism. The Kingdom of God is not about going back—it’s about pressing forward. It is a realm of diversity, equity, and inclusion—and we are called to bring that kingdom to earth as it is in heaven. Our freedom is not for status. It is for service. As Martin Luther wrote, we are “free in Christ and bound to our neighbor.” Real freedom doesn’t elevate us above others; it compels us to lift others up. Our liberation is tied together. We are not truly free until everyone is free. Our freedom is dependent on each other. So this Fourth of July, let us celebrate not just with fireworks and flags, but with a fire in our hearts for justice, compassion, and humility. Let’s light up more than just the sky— let’s shine the light of Christ in every place where darkness tries to hide. Let us declare with boldness that our highest allegiance is not to a nation, but to the Kingdom of God. A kingdom where peace triumphs over power, where mercy is greater than might, and where love is the law. May our Declaration of Dependence be a daily act—a way of living that says: I will follow Jesus. I will serve my neighbor. I will move forward in faith, never back in fear. Because in Christ, we are truly free. And in Christ, we are never alone. Amen.

Sermon on John 16:12-15

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

Today is Holy Trinity Sunday, and it’s got to be one of the most confusing Sundays of the year.

After all, the Trinity isn’t something our finite human brains can fully wrap themselves around. And when we try to come up with analogies to describe the Trinity, they all fall short and can evenget us into heretical territory.

For instance, a common analogy is that the Trinity is like water: it can be in three different states (liquid, solid, or gas), but it’s the same substance. However, in general, water isn’t in all three states at once, so that’s where the analogy breaks down, because God is always Father, Son, and Holy Spirit or Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer or however we try to express the Trinity in our finite, human language.

It’s especially tricky because the Bible isn’t explicit on giving us direction about the doctrine of the Trinity. Jesus didn’t sit his disciples down one day and say, “Listen up: this is exactly how I’m related to God the Father and God the Holy Spirit.”

So, the early Church had to wrestle with what it means that Jesus was God in the flesh, and that he sent an Advocate after him, and that the Bible equates Jesus with Wisdom as described in our reading from Proverbs which says Wisdom was there at creation, and that Jesus said in the Gospel of John that he and the Father are one, and all the thorny theological questions like that.

It might sound a little nitpicky to need to pin all this down exactly, and in general, I agree. But the implications for the nature of God and God’s relationship with humanity and creation were so important that people kicked each other out of the Church over it. If you want to hear more about that, come to my study on creeds later this year – details to come.

But long story short, Christians have enacted violence and fought wars over doctrinal issues like this.

And unfortunately, violence is still carried out today by Christians in the name of God.

Our Social Justice Discussion Group is reading Seeds of Racism in the Soul of America by Paul R. Griffin, and it’s making the argument that the well-educated Puritan clergy of New England laid the theological foundations for justifying enslavement in the US.For instance, they wrote horrible things about God having created humanity with a hierarchy—no surprise who was on top and who was on the bottom, instead of God creating all humanity equally in God’s image. White Christians in the North had a huge hand in reinforcing the concept of white supremacy that still has violent effects today.

One example we remember every year occurred ten years ago this week. After sitting through the entirety of a Bible study on June 17, 2015 at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, a twenty-one-year-old white man shot and killed nine Black people and injured another. He said he hoped to start a “race war.”

Our denomination remembers this event every year, because the shooter grew up in an ELCA church, and two of the people he killed, both pastors, went to an ELCA seminary.

Our denomination is implicated in numerous instances of violence justified in the name of God throughout our history.

Martin Luther, who wrote and preached beautifully about God’s grace and love and freedom, also wrote really terrible things about Jewish people. The Nazi movement used Luther’s writings to justify the Holocaust. We have to grapple with what we embrace from Luther’s work and what we denounce.

One of Luther’s more helpful teachings is that we are all simultaneously saints and sinners. We all have great capacity for loving action and great capacity for violent action.

That also affects how we view scripture. When we search the Bible, we can find individual verses and passages for pretty much whatever we’re looking for: justification for silencing women, for excluding LGBTQ people,for hating people of another racial background, for beating ourselves up for not being perfect, even for genocide.

But we can also find a beautiful love story between God and humanity that begins with God creating this beautiful universe and calling it good. We read about God over and over again calling God’s people to a more abundant and free life. We find that God met us in the flesh to expand our view of who matters and belongs to God. We see God’s Spirit continually surprising the early Church with how God is at work loving this world.

When we look beyond individual verses to the Bible’s themes of love, peace, and liberation, we can see the nature of God in the Trinity. We see that our God is relational and loving—within Godself and with allCreation.Even just in our readings today, we see beautiful aspects of God’s character.

Our reading from Proverbs shows Wisdom, associated with the second Person of the Trinity, working and playing alongside the Creator from the beginning of time and delighting in humanity.

In Romans, we read that “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”The Holy Spirit fills us with God’s love.

In our reading from the Gospel of John, Jesus promises that the Holy Spirit will bring truth to his disciples and alludes to a reciprocity and generosity within Godself when he says,“All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

The Trinity is confusing, but we can glean understanding of God’s nature and character when we stop worrying about the exact mechanics of it (unless that really floats your boat, in which case, maybe come talk to me about going to seminary).

It’s good to grapple with challenging questions of faith and to dwell in the mysteries of God, but sometimes we can get caught up in the frustrations of not fully understanding and miss the beautiful truths God is offering us: we may not fully understand the Trinity, but we can marvel at our God who is relational, generous, and loving.

We can find whatever we’re looking for in the Bible, so let’s make sure we’re asking the Holy Spirit to guide us, looking for big themes in the Bible and not just individual verses, and keeping our values in mind. This congregation values service, compassion, and inclusion. This is how we feel God calling us to relate to our neighbors and with each other.

We can find these values throughout the Bible—in the Creator’s service in bringing abundant life, in Jesus’ continuous compassion throughout his ministry and beyond, and in the ways the Holy Spirit draws the circle of belonging ever bigger—beyond our wildest dreams.

Let’s hold onto these values in our life togetheras the congregation that feeds people body and soul.

Let’s remember the Emanuel Nine this week and commit to resisting the power of white supremacy wherever we find it.

Let’s celebrate Pride Month and give thanks for the many LGBTQ ancestors and current voices advocating for inclusion and belonging.

On this Father’s Day, let’s honor the positive father figures in our lives and strive to find whatever healing looks like around those who should have been positive father figures in our lives. If God the Father is a helpful image for you, may you feel safe and loved in the arms of God the Father.

And secure in the love of God the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, may we each be fierce in our service, compassion, and inclusion.