I have to confess that I felt considerable resistance to preaching on Job. I didn't want to be immersed in a story about suffering during a time when there is so much suffering around us. But here we are, and what kept me going with this was the memory I have of a dear friend and a parishioner from here.   Who years ago was struggling with a painful and devastating illness, one that she learned would take her life much sooner than she ever imagined. I was privileged to walk with her during that journey and to witness her faith growing as her body failed, and during the last month or so of her life, she chose to read Job.   I was thinking anything, but Job. Do not go there. But she was someone who knew her own mind and I respected that. And she read Job, she read it, not once, but twice in the last month of her life. And it comforted her. It comforted her greatly. And as I continued to see her suffer, as I continued to see her decline, I also continued to witness greater radiancy, greater love.

She didn't get along great with my parents. And there was always tension in that space. And then I always felt like I had to be on my best behavior or else. It always felt that way. And so it just didn't; she was not my favorite person to be around. And then when I was 16 I moved to New Hampshire. I was living with my father in New Hampshire, and most of my family was still back in California. And my grandmother came to visit, and I was like, all right, let's do this. Here we go. Get the room clean, make sure the clothes are ironed. Make sure I'm the right kind of person for however long she's gonna be here. Graciously. She was staying in a hotel so she wasn't staying in our place. Gave us a little bit of breathing room. So she comes and she visits. We're having a fine time. It is what it is. And at one point, you know, we're done with the day's visit and she's gotta go back to her hotel and she's at a walking distance, so she says, Philip, will you walk with me back to my hotel? And I said, sure, grandma. So we walk back to the hotel. And then she's like, well, will you come up with me to my room? And I'm like, yeah, sure grandma. You know, where's this going? So I go upstairs and she's got this little sitting area in her hotel and she says, sit down. And we sit down and she said, I've gotta talk to you. And I think, here we go.  

There was a time when my own body became a battlefield. My skin burned, ached, and itched and rebelled without explanation. At first, it seemed like something that would pass a temporary trial, but it did not pass. And soon my skin and I went to war. My doctors grew tired. Their compassion began to fade. I became an insolvable riddle.   I was untreatable, then mysterious, and then they stopped acknowledging it at all, and I shrank from the world. I stopped talking. I stopped existing for a while. I learned the geography of shadows. I learned to hide my skin. Became both a shield and torment. A constant reminder of what I could not fix. I was raw with pain, ashamed and utterly alone.   But Jesus has a way of reminding us that we are never forgotten at first. The presence is only a flicker. Something I felt when I prayed or I sang gospel songs or read scripture in the middle of the night, my prayers were not elegant. I didn't have the strength. I only had groans in half form sentences, but still I kept at it.

 So we hear in urgent truth, the very act of speaking, of raising one's voice becomes an act of survival, an act of life. And as such, the voices of the marginalized carry a life-giving power. Even when the world tries to silence them. Their words can be keys to hope, healing, and liberation. But who is listening? The life giving potential behind the voice of the powerless is something I believe as rarely considered. In fact, history tells us that societies often go to extraordinary lengths not to hear the words of the marginalized. Their voices are valued even less than their human bodies and what they say and think even less. But I tend to believe that God created each of us with unique voices for the good of creation, the world, and for the good of each other. So much so that our lives, our very lives depend on it. Hearing every single voice, even if it makes us uncomfortable, even if they make us feel ashamed of our privilege, even if they speak of injustice, even if they make us change. Even if they make our lives fuller and even if they speak for God, today's reading features the voice, the words of a marginalized servant. She is the very picture of vulnerability and she also has something to say in this reading. I believe that God is speaking to us and has something to say 

God's intent to bring us all into a unified connection and harmony, to a reconciled reality in which peace and justice prevail, and in which every single human being is honored as being made in the image of God, that vision has not been impaired, has not been delayed, but in fact belongs to us. That hope is real.   Now has anyone here ever heard of the term toxic positivity? Toxic positivity? Toxic positivity is the idea of insisting on having a positive attitude about everything so much that it's actually kind of toxic, that it's actually kind of gross.   The person who's like, you know, we gotta find the silver lining in this, and you're like, can you just let me be miserable for a second? There are times when we are sad, there are times when we grieve. And toxic positivity is that thing that sort of tries to shame us out of experiencing the fullness of our feelings by insisting that we only have a sunny disposition, that we pull our socks up and get moving and not worry about the sorrow and the sadness within.

In this passage, it does not seem to me that Amos is railing here against food or music or comfort. But here Amos is grieving a people who have grown indifferent, who have numbed themselves to the suffering around them. Luxury becomes dangerous when it shields us from sorrow.   Comfort becomes violent when it is gained at the expense of others' misery, when it severs us from responsibility and when it dead ends the pulse of compassion within us. Here in our text today, Amos Mourns a people who have grown indifferent. He mourns a people who have forgotten the holy work. Of grief for when your life is padded enough to protect you from sorrow.   You refuse to share in the heartbeat of God. And when you refuse to grieve, when you refuse that heartbeat, you refuse to become human. And so Amos cries out not to scold. But like someone who is singing a funeral dirge or reading an obituary in the middle of a party, alas, Amos cries. Your comfort will not last.

They would worship God and make sacrifices, but they would also have a party and not work. And of course, we know that the Sabbath was a time that was instituted by God. This was one of the great commandments. It made it to the top 10 friends. As God was forming the people of Israel in the wilderness after they had left captivity in Egypt, one of the commandments was, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.   Now, I was taught growing up that that meant that you go to church on Sunday, so congratulations, you all have fulfilled the commandment. But that's not actually what God talks about at all when he institutes the command to remember the Sabbath, to keep it holy. When God institutes the commandment about the Sabbath, he tells these people for one whole day not to do anything.   No work. Don't be useful for a whole day. Be useless. It's a commandment from God. Who are you to resist this? Right? And I'm not even kidding, because when you think about it, right, the people of Israel have been in captivity for over 400 years. They've been slaves in Egypt. Their whole identity for the last 400 plus years has been wrapped up in their productivity in what they accomplish for the empire...

Students from our afterschool program here at Redeemer consistently ask things like, why are you doing this? Why do you believe in God? Or, how could you even love crazy kids like us? Or things like this past Thursday in youth group, we were reading words from the Gospel, reminding us of things like love your enemies.   Do good to those who hate you. Give to anyone who asks of you, do to others as you would have them do to you. Be merciful as your father is merciful. Now remember on that very same day this past Thursday, the death of Charlie Kirk and yet another school shooting weighed heavy in the news, the reality of violence and division in our country.   I was sitting in the room with these students and their questions were raw and unfiltered. Asking things like, how do we even love in the middle of so much hate? Those are moments I love most, even though my heart grieves at the circumstances that shape them. Because those questions are unashamed and unafraid.

Today's Gospel is in the middle of that whole chapter of disruption, where Jesus critiques the seating chart and the guest list. Now imagine the scene: appetizers are being passed around the room, and with his cocktail in hand, Jesus watches as people try to find their seats for dinner.   Oh, the choreography of it all. The subtle dance of elbows and eyes as guests angle for the best seats in the house. You know how it works. The closer you sit to the host, the more important you appear, the better the seat, the better your reputation. Everyone knows the rules and everyone knows where they fit.   And then our favorite dinner guest pipes up. "Don't do that, he says, don't scramble for the seat that makes you look good. Don't assume that you belong in the place of honor. Instead, leave room. Make space." You can almost feel the air go still in the room. Forks frozen in mid air, someone coughing into a napkin and the host wishing that he had invited really anyone else.

 Jesus didn't just heal a body that day. He exposed a system that needed healing too. My friends, we live in a world full of systems that are bent out of shape. Religious systems can exclude. Cultural systems ignore suffering. Political systems can demand and expect compliance while disregarding the beauty and importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Hearts would rather be right than be loving, and yet Jesus is still calling people forward. He's still setting people free. And he's still asking us, do you cling to rules or do you open your hands to mercy? Do you see people or do you see problems? Do you look at the unhoused and think addict, or do you see a fellow human in need? Do you look at a coworker and think problem? Do you look at someone who hurt you and think enemy? Mercy looks deeper. Mercy sees a child of God in need of freedom and restoration. 

It is not the peace of silence and not the peace of compromise. Instead, it is a fiery peace, a peace that upends false order, a peace that demands you align your life fully with Jesus. And that will bring division. That will bring division because the world prefers its false peace to God's true one. It is here now that we must slow down and listen because this is where Jesus confronts us directly.   We love peace. We long for it. And there's nothing wrong with longing for peace so long as we are longing for the right kind of peace. And friends, there are two types of peace, and Jesus came to draw a line between them. There is false peace. The peace that Dr. King Dec condemned as negative. Peace, the absence of tension.   It is the peace demanded by oppressors who say, don't stir up trouble. It is the peace demanded by politicians who condemn protests, but not the death dealing and justices that provoke them. It is the peace that we sometimes practice when we say, let's just keep the peace, rather than face hard truths.

 You know the old joke, how do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice. Practice. How do you get to Carnegie Hall practice? It's a good joke. It's a good joke, right? It's based on the idea of one person coming, asking for practical directions, and the other person is giving them some aspirational idea, and that's sort of the foundation of the misunderstanding. It's that same misunderstanding between one person trying to be practical and another person trying to be aspirational. It's that same misunderstanding that so often is at the heart of our disconnect from God and our work that Jesus gives us to do. We. Keep trying to make our lives about some aspiration towards heaven, about being a specific, perfect kind of people. And we turn the Christian life into some ineffable mystery, some intangible thing that we will never be able to do because we seek some sort of perfection, some elusive thing. 'Cause I could practice all day and never get to Carnegie Hall. I just want directions right? But the reality is this is exactly what Jesus is trying to work on.  

We all have our stories, our life experiences that help shape our relationship with wealth, with security, with possessions, and the value we place on them. And it's always easy to point to others' influence, but ultimately, we make our own choices. We make choices every day, every moment. What we value, what calls us, who we are, whose we are, who we love, how we communicate, love, and give love.   We all know that wanting more isn't just about wealth or power. We might want more time with a loved one, particularly one who's struggling. We may want more time for ourselves. Particularly in this time when we feel pulled in so many different directions, we may want what the rich man spoke of to be able to relax, eat, drink, and be merry.   There's certainly nothing wrong with those things

Our understanding of God and so much of our language of God is tied up in God's transcendence, God's magnificence, God's all being, all powerful, all knowing. This sort of unfathomable, ineffable and indescribable being, unreachable in so many ways, invisible. To speak of God as to speak beyond our own capacity for understanding.   Jesus insists on this language, this parental language, this familial language, because throughout Jesus' life and ministry, Jesus is trying to teach people that we are deeply and utterly and inextricably connected to God. That we are totally and utterly belonging to God. That we have the same last name as God and we share the same house, the same blood as God.   This is the level of intimacy with God that Jesus would like us to understand.

In a text where we don't often hear a tone of voice when we read it, it can be hard to understand or interpret text all the same way, and I would suggest we don't often find Jesus in the Gospels whispering. He preaches from boats. He lifts his voice on mountains. He rebukes wind and demons. He calls the dead to rise, but today he does none of that.   Today, I would argue in our Gospel story, he whispers. Today we get to feel the softness of his voice. And his gentle touch on our elbow today, we find him tucked in a kitchen, in a quiet corner of Martha's house, speaking so softly. We might have missed the point altogether. Perhaps you have heard this story before, and perhaps like me, you felt the pressure that often comes with it.  

They worshiped the same God in theory, but had different scriptures, different holy sites, but a history of mutual hatred. Each side viewed the other as defiled, heretical, and other. For a devout you, a Samaritan was the opposite of neighbor. More like a despised outsider. Yet here in Jesus' story, it's a Samaritan who approaches our wounded friend.   He comes near and his heart is filled with compassion. He immediately sets about saving a stranger's life. He cleans them up as best he can. And lifts him up and brings him to safety, sparing no expense. Whatever you need, I will cover it when I return. In other words, whatever it takes, I'm invested in this man's survival.   This is extravagant mercy. It is costly, it's risky, it's messy. And Jesus deliberately makes a hero of a story. A person who, by all accounts, should have been a victory victim, an enemy of the victim. If the wounded man was a Jew, which is implied, then it is his enemy that Samaritan who saved him, whereas his fellow Judeans left him for dead.   You can almost hear the gasp of the crowd. It's hard to overstate how offensive this would've sounded to some of Jesus' listeners. It's as if Jesus told them a story about a devout Christian pastor who walks by someone in dire need, and then a Muslim immigrant or an atheist comes along and is the one who shows the love of Christ.

The reality that Jesus tells his apostles is you're going to go out, you're going to do this work, you're going to spread this love. You're going to tell the message. And if they get it, great, and if they don't find a way, when you leave the town to acknowledge that the kingdom of God has drawn near. And this is such an important thing that we skip right over. I think that the kingdom of God has drawn near. Jesus does not say the kingdom of God will draw near soon, or, Hey, the kingdom of God was gonna show up at this town, but you guys really screwed it up.   Jesus says, The Kingdom of God has drawn near. When you all go to that place, the Kingdom of God is there, my friends. You embody the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is not just about the place you go when you die, because my friends, we pray thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

 There comes a moment in every life when something shifts. Sometimes it's a whisper in the night. Sometimes it's a headline that stops your breath. Sometimes it's quieter than that. Just a flicker at the edge of your spirit. A longing, a holy ache. You cannot shake a recognition that the way things currently are is not the way that they are meant to be. And if you are paying attention, you know that this is a summons to you. A call to leave what's known and step into something that feels wild. That feels holy and feels deeply uncertain, and in today's gospel, Jesus answers that call when the days drew near our texts, say for him to be taken up. Jesus sets his face to go to Jerusalem. Now, that's the kind of line that honestly just slips past you if you're not looking for it. But if you stop for a moment, I invite you to let the weight of it settle in. This is the moment when the light shifts. This is the moment when the shadows start to lengthen towards Jerusalem. Jesus has just come down from the Mount of Transfiguration in the Gospel of Luke, where his face was still shimmering with glory where Moses and Elijah appeared, and where Luke, the author is tying him unmistakably to the lineage of prophets who bring freedom and the prophets who bring liberation.  

So, I don't like horror movies. Okay? I don't. They scare me and I'm not good at being scared. I don't like things that scare me. I'm one of those people. I don't see horror movies very often. I don't like things that are gross. I kind of try to stay away from those things. But in  2003, my brother and I decided to go to the movies and see a terrifying horror movie.   Now, I'm gonna tell you the name of this movie, but I want you to remember a few things. It was a long time ago, and I wasn't always a priest. I also want to note before I tell you about this movie, I am not recommending this movie to you. So don't leave church and be like, my priest said I should watch this movie.   No, I didn't.  Okay. But in 2003, my brother and I walked into the movie theater and saw a movie called House of a Thousand Corpses. It was horrifying. It was disgusting. It was terrible. I was overwhelmed. I was grabbing onto my brother's hands. I was closing my eyes. I was shrieking and screaming.   At one point, I was so overwhelmed I even had to laugh, not 'cause it was funny, but I didn't know what else to do with my body. I looked over at my brother at one point and said, I have to go to the bathroom. And he said, why are you telling me? And I said, because I don't want to go alone. I was a grown, I was in my twenties, y'all.   I was not 10 years old. And he goes, neither do I. And we got up together and went to the bathroom, and then we went back.

Friends, the Trinity is not a riddle or a secret to be solved or unveiled, but the Trinity is a mystery, and it's an invitation to be accepted and entered into. It is a relationship of mutual glorification where each person of the Trinity points not to self, but to each other, one another. You see, the relational pattern of the divine Trinity is not solely reserved for God and the heavens.   No. It is given as a blueprint for the church and human life. A vision for how we live with one another, particularly across differences. On this Trinity Sunday, it seems fitting that we are called to ponder the mysteries of the Trinity and how it speaks to the struggles and hopes of our divided world.   You see, the Trinitarian truth of which Jesus speaks is not a truth merely of doctrinal correctness. This truth is not about having the correct beliefs in our heads. No, this Spirit's truth is deeply moral, deeply relational and deeply historical. It is the truth that rips off the band-aid and uncovers hidden wounds.   It is the truth that names Injustice, and it is the truth that, if heard, brings liberation. We have seen this spirit at work through movement for racial reconciliation and justice. We have seen truths long buried come to life. We have learned and have lived with the truth of stolen lands, broken treaties, red line neighborhoods, segregated schools, and generational trauma.